CHAPTER THREE #3
Claire closed her eyes, wanting to vomit again, but she had nothing in her system to heave. They weren’t in her store. She recalled being hurled by a huge force through walls, past stars, almost like being thrown from an airplane without a parachute. There had been so much pain.
She struggled for air, panting hard now.
He was the real deal. There were a dozen bodies in the clearing to prove it. Oh, God.
His arm went around her. “I ken ye never been in battle afore. ’Twill pass. Ye need t’ breathe deep.”
’Twill pass.
He’d said that before. He’d said that in the exact same way, as if to reassure her—but he hadn’t reassured her. Instead, there had been so much desire, and the next thing she knew, she was on her back and he was inside her, impossibly hard, impossibly deep, and she was coming.
Claire was in disbelief.
Something terrible was happening.
He was speaking in French now, over his shoulder, to his friend. Claire was fluent, but she didn’t hear what he said. She did not want to be there and she didn’t want to believe that they had had sex. She turned and struck him as hard as she could.
Her blow landed on his cheek and echoed. He didn’t move, but his eyes went wide.
Claire backed as far from him as she could get. She hit a boulder. “Don’t come near me,” she warned. “I want nothing—nothing—to do with you!” She hadn’t asked for any of this, damn him!
His face was expressionless, but she saw his chest rise and fall more swiftly now, a sign of some agitation. Well, let him be pissed, she thought wildly. She was pissed!
“Lass, tell me yer name.”
“Go to hell,” she cried. “Where am I?”
His nostrils flared, his jaw flexed. A terrible moment passed before he answered, making Claire wish she hadn’t cursed him. “Alba. Scotland,” he amended. “Morvern.” He tried a smile on her, but it was cool. He was angry with her. “Not far from me home.”
The irony made her laugh shrilly. She would have been at Dunroch by Sunday, and now she was just a few miles away!
“We’ll be goin’ to Carrick Castle fer the night. Come, lass, ye be tired, I ken.” His tone was cautious now.
She shook her head, shivering, even though the night was pleasant once more. Her teeth chattered as she spoke. “We’re in your time.” She had no doubts.
His expression remained deadpan. “Aye.”
She swallowed. “What time is that?” When he did not respond instantly, she yelled, “What year is this, damn it?”
He stiffened. “1427.”
Claire nodded. “I see.” She turned her back to him, hugging herself, aware that her entire body was shaking as if with convulsions.
She had always wanted to believe in time travel.
There were scientists who said it was possible, and they had put forth theories of quantum physics and black holes to explain it.
Claire hadn’t even tried to understand, as science was not an easy subject for her.
But she understood the basics: if one traveled faster than the speed of light, one would go into the past.
None of the theories or what she had thought or even currently believed mattered.
She knew with every fiber of her being that Malcolm was the medieval laird of Dunroch.
No Hollywood set would ever be able to replicate the battle she had just seen—and had been a part of.
Her knees went weak all over again. She was sick and she was exhausted.
She wanted to get as far from this man as she could. And she was also afraid.
The last place she wished to be was medieval Scotland.
She wanted to be home in her safe apartment, with its state-of-the-art security system.
In fact, right now, she’d give just about anything to be in her kitchen, sipping a glass of wine and watching the reruns of I Love Lucy or That ’70s Show.
She slowly turned and their gazes clashed.
“We need to go,” he said flatly, with no compassion in his eyes. “There be evil in the night, lass. We need to be behind solid walls.”
Claire started. Unfortunately, she could not agree more. She told herself not to think about her mother now, but it was impossible. On the other hand, she did not want to go anywhere with him. What she wanted was to go home.
“I didna give ye a choice. Ye come with me.” His eyes were hard now.
“Send me home,” she said harshly.
“I canna.”
She stared and he stared back. “You can’t—or you won’t?” she finally said.
“’Tis nay safe,” he said flatly.
Claire began to laugh hysterically. “Like fighting a bunch of medieval knights armed with swords and axes is safe?”
His expression became thunderous. “I ha’ tried to ken, lass,” he said grimly. “I ha’ nay more patience left.”
Claire thought about the way he had looked at her and used his powerful legs to spread hers, without even an if you please. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. It didn’t matter if this was the fifteenth century, she was a modern woman. She wanted to curse him again. She knew better than to dare.
A man rode forward. “Maybe I can be o’ help. Black Royce o’ Carrick, at yer service, Lady.”
Claire looked up at him and a frisson of shock went through her.
“Black” Royce was actually dark blond, with the hard but nearly perfect features of a Viking.
He was in his early thirties, and he was as tall as Malcolm, with broad shoulders and bulging arms. He was clad like the knights who had attacked them.
He wore a shirt of mail that reached his upper thighs, with gauntlet, elbow cups, chausses, knee cups and a helmet, the visor up.
He carried a lethal-looking lance under one arm, wore two swords, long and short, and over the mail shirt, he wore a brat.
It was impossible not to wonder if, like Malcolm, he went bare beneath the leine he surely wore under the chain-mail tunic.
He smiled slowly at her, as if he was aware of her admiration and her suspicions. His eyes flickered as he spoke. “Yer name, Lady?”
She knew Malcolm was watching her. She glanced at him. He was furious—which was fine by her, as he damn well deserved it. She didn’t know what had set him off. “Claire. Claire Camden,” she said. She forced her witless mind to work. “I need to get back to my time,” she said. “Can you help?”
He did not seem taken aback by her question. “I would dearly love to take ye home, but that duty is nay mine.”
“He has abducted me,” Claire cried. But she flushed as she spoke, because she was beginning to recall a few pertinent facts—like being whacked over the head by Sibylla and that warrior Aidan’s intrusion, as well.
Malcolm stepped to her side, his expression purely black.
“Ken as ye will,” he said darkly. Then he stared coldly at Royce.
He spoke in French. Claire wasn’t surprised, as she recalled that most of the nobles in England and Scotland spoke the language of the European court.
“She is my Innocent. She is under my protection and it stays that way until I decide otherwise.”
Claire pretended not to understand.
“I understand,” Royce returned softly in the same language. “She has been through a shock. She is very upset. If you wish, I’ll escort her back to Carrick. I am sure by then she will have calmed.” His smile was dry.
Malcolm spoke. “I have already taken her, Royce, and I will not share.”
Claire flushed, turning away so neither man could guess that she could understand them.
She was enraged. How dare he tell the other man what he had done!
But he hadn’t been bragging like a boy in a locker room.
Were they fighting over her like two dogs over a bone?
She was stunned, but what did she expect from a pair of macho medieval warriors?
Royce shrugged and turned to Claire. “Malcolm wishes to protect ye, Lady Claire. He be strong an’ powerful an’ the chief o’ Clan Gillean. Ye be in good hands.”
A sarcastic quip formed. She held it back.
She was shocked, angry and frightened, but she wasn’t foolish enough to think that she could survive for very long in fifteenth-century Scotland without someone to look out for her.
She slowly faced Malcolm as Royce rode ahead, his men forming in two lines behind him. “When can I go home?”
“I dinna ken.”
“Great,” she retorted, trembling.
He gestured. Claire preceded him to where a man was holding two of the steeds taken from the dead. He paused, taking the reins of the gray horse. “Can ye ride?”
“I grew up on a farm,” Claire said tersely. She hadn’t been on a horse in years and the horses she had ridden back then had been plow horses, not warhorses. But after the events of that evening, getting up on the huge, blowing animal seemed like a piece of cake.
How had her life come to this? And what was she going to do? Despair consumed her. What if she couldn’t get back?
A big, callused hand settled on her shoulder.
Claire slowly turned, a familiar tension vibrating within her. He was powerful and sexual and she did not want to be aware of him as a man. But she was, especially after the brief interlude they had so unfortunately shared.
How could she have done such a thing?
His hand left her and he unpinned his brat, deftly draping it around her.
His every accidental touch made it harder to breathe.
He pinned the plaid closed just below the hollow of her throat, where her pulse was pounding like mad, belying her intentions to be indifferent to him and pretend she didn’t want him.
His hands stilled there and he raised his gaze to hers.
Claire’s heart lurched at the sight of so much heat. Very, very vividly, she recalled his breadth, his length, his hardness and power. Desire made her feel faint.
His hands dropped away and his smile began, smug and satisfied. He nodded at the horse.
Claire mounted, his brat shielding her thighs from view.