Chapter 10
10
Lachlan
I wake up to the sound of screaming.
I blink at the morning sun that streams down, feeling a faint twinge in my shoulder when I instinctively raise a hand to shield my eyes. For a moment everything seems fuzzy, like waking up from a dream you can’t quite remember, but when another feral screech sounds from nearby, and paired with the rumpled, irate redhead staring down at me with wild eyes—it doesn’t take long for everything to come rushing back.
The sound of his roaring. The crash of water. The weight of his body slamming into mine.
“Fuck,” I mutter, trying to sit up. “Can you just—” I press the heel of my hand to my forehead, trying to will the throbbing there away. “Can you stop screaming?”
One glance at Keyanna MacKay tells me this was the wrong thing to say.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” She throws up her hands just to let them plop to her sides, still gaping at me with wide eyes and an open mouth. “ You’re the Loch Ness Monster?”
I could have just let her be eaten , I think distantly. But no.
I squint in her direction, her flaming hair seeming to burn brighter while backlit by the sun. “What makes you say that?”
“What makes me…Seriously?” She paces back and forth restlessly, gesturing at me with a wave of her hand. “I passed out last night next to a literal dinosaur, and I woke up and it’s you , and you’re naked .”
My eyes flick down, and it occurs to me that she’s right. “Huh.” I bring my knees up and rest my elbows on them, trying to hide the more sensitive parts of my body. She’s already blushing enough as it is. “I like to night-swim every now and again.”
“You like to night-swim,” she echoes blandly.
I stretch my arms above my head and groan at the tightness in my shoulders. “That’s right.”
“That’s what you’re going with,” she deadpans. “Really?”
“Doesn’t that seem like a more probable explanation than you falling asleep next to—what did you say it was again?”
“You’re seriously trying to gaslight me right now?”
“Me? I would never.”
“You’re doing it right now.”
“I think maybe you hit your head, lass.”
This only makes her angrier, her cheeks growing even pinker, impossibly. “Are you actually trying to pull an Edward Cullen on me?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“I did not hit my fucking head! I know what I saw.”
I shift to pull myself up to standing, and her eyes immediately avert so she isn’t looking at my naked form, but not before a flush creeps down her neck.
“I saw you floating in the water last night,” I tell her, keeping my tone even. “I warned you about the rocks, but it seems you didn’t listen. I hear a bump on the head can cause all sorts of trouble with your memory. There’s a doctor in town…I could drive you there, if you want?”
“So the story you’re sticking with is that you saved my dumb ass from drowning after I fell off a rock,” she says.
I shrug. “Not a story if it’s true.”
“And you’re naked because…?”
“Didn’t want to get my clothes wet, now did I? I must have passed out from the effort. Saving people is hard work.”
She peeks back at me, her eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“Really, really,” I answer earnestly, trying not to smile at her angry expression.
I can tell how hard she’s trying not to look at all of me, and I can’t help the way I widen my stance slightly, spreading my legs to plant both feet firmly in the sand as I cross my arms over my chest. It does what I intend; her cheeks flame and her eyes train pointedly on my face, but it only takes a second for them to stray, and when they do, a sly, pleased smile crosses her face.
“If you like the look of me that much,” I tease, “you’re welcome to take a gander as long as you like.”
“You wish,” she scoffs. But then she takes a step closer, one delicate brow lifting as her expression turns smug. “So you saved me.”
“Aye, I did,” I tell her, watching her advance cautiously.
She nods, pressing her lips together as if considering. “And I just imagined the Loch Ness Monster.”
“It’s not the first time it’s happened,” I say. “No need to be embarrassed.”
“Huh.” Her jaw works, and the quirk of her lips spells trouble, but it doesn’t hit me how much until she says, “Then what’s this?”
Her fingers skirt along my shoulder, her touch eliciting a prickling sensation followed by a rush of warmth that I don’t have the time to analyze, because seconds after, a dull ache echoes there.
“Fuck,” I hiss.
She pokes at the pinker skin that looks new, like it’s just stitched itself back together, but even though it’s not nearly as raw as it should be, there is still a clear pattern of a bite, now shrunk to match my smaller frame. I frown at it, both confused by the state of it and irritated that it gives Key more reason to fight me on this, and when I glance back at her, there is triumph in her eyes.
“I know what I saw,” she says firmly.
I run through a number of excuses, trying to grasp any other solution to offer her that doesn’t involve me spilling a secret that spans back centuries—but as little as I know this woman, I still think that this is not something she is just going to let go. It seems I have very few choices here.
I take a deep breath, expelling it slowly.
Centuries we’ve kept this secret, and in an instant, it’s undone by one wild, irritating woman. A MacKay woman, the last person in the world I’d want to share with and who, if my father is to be believed—could be my ruin.
Fuck.
“Wait up!”
I continue to stomp farther down the shoreline in search of my discarded clothes with as much dignity as I can muster in the brisk morning air—Keyanna’s crunching footsteps close behind. I reach up to let my fingers press into the tender skin of my shoulder, trying to reason how it possibly could have healed so quickly. Being what I am does mean a certain level of resilience, but a wound of this nature should have taken days to heal. There’s no reasonable explanation for it already being so much better.
Keyanna’s hurried footsteps interrupt my musings. I peek at her over my shoulder, scowling. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“You mean somewhere other than the cove where the magic loch monster saved me and then turned back into an asshole farmhand?” She scoffs. “No, I don’t have anywhere better to be.”
I smirk down at her when she catches up, falling in step beside me. “Admit it,” I taunt. “You just like the view.”
“Hardly,” she answers with a roll of her eyes, but I notice her cheeks are still pink. “I don’t need to stare at your ass. You make an ass out of yourself every time I talk to you.”
“Cute,” I murmur.
The anger in her eyes has dimmed now, and in its place is a terrifying sort of curiosity, one that tells me she is absolutely not going to just keep quiet about this and leave me the fuck alone.
“So have you always been…” She waves her hand in a circle as if searching for the word. “A monster?”
“No,” I answer dryly. “A witch gave me a magic apple after I pissed in her roses.”
Key’s eyes widen comically. “Really?”
“No,” I say with a smirk.
Key scowls. “See? Total ass.”
“So you keep saying.”
I spot my clothes a few meters ahead, trying my best to ignore the woman beside me when I manage to scoop them up a minute later to dress. Key, to her credit, stands demurely to the side, her gaze fixed pointedly in the other direction.
“Not like you haven’t seen it all,” I tease.
Her mouth does this twisting thing, like she’s bitten into something sour. “I didn’t see anything.”
“Sure you didn’t.”
“So what did happen to you?”
“Nothing happened to me.”
“You just woke up one morning as the Loch Ness Monster?”
“I hate that term,” I huff.
She chuffs out a laugh. “What exactly do you prefer?”
“I prefer not to be called anything at all.”
I shove my feet into my boots with more aggression than is necessary, cursing my own damned luck for being in this situation. Of all the people who I could have spotted in the loch, of all the people who could have landed themselves in that situation…Why did it have to be her ? Is it some sort of cosmic joke? One last laugh of the MacKay clan at the expense of the Greers?
I pause in dressing, my father’s whispered warning flitting through my thoughts.
For the end only comes—
I shake that thought away. I’m not about to be swept up in panic by superstition and conjecture. With that in mind, I start dressing again, but faster. I need to get the fuck out of here and regroup.
“Wait,” she says suddenly, her voice a sharp outburst in the still air surrounding us. “Nessie is a girl!”
“It would appear that is not the case,” I remark.
“But Nessie has always been a girl!”
“I did try to hint at the falsity of that, you remember,” I remind her. “Outside of Loch Land.”
“Yeah, but I just thought you were being a dick.”
“No, I was trying to tell you that Nessie has a dick.”
She instantly flushes red, and I have to admit that some part of me, however small, really loves riling her. She really is very pretty when she blushes.
Stop thinking about how pretty she is, you arse.
“So then who is the other monster?”
I go still in the process of putting on my jacket, my jaw clenching as my mouth presses into a firm line. I turn my head to gaze at the water, letting it skim the now-smooth surface fruitlessly. I know that during the day he’ll have gone to deeper waters, as if some part of him still remembers the necessity of doing so.
Even if that’s all he remembers.
“Never you mind,” I tell her.
I keep walking with every intention of finding my car, my mind still racing on how best to handle this situation. If Key starts blabbing about what she saw to everyone in town…What will happen? If Rhona knew that it was more than just stories and legends passed down in her clan…Would history repeat itself? She is still a MacKay after all. No matter how welcoming she’s been. It’s in their nature.
“You have to give me something ,” she practically whines.
I spin on my heel, stepping closer to her so quickly that she takes a step back to put distance between us. “I don’t have to tell you anything ,” I practically growl. “This isn’t a fun party trick, it’s my life . Do you understand? Can you imagine what would happen to me if people knew? Can you imagine the consequences? Because I can. I’ve thought of nothing else for years. So no, I don’t have to give anyone anything. ” I eye her shocked expression, and I don’t know what possesses me to poke her further, but I feel a sudden anger that isn’t even meant for her, I think, only her kin. “Least of all you,” I grind out. “Least of all a MacKay. ”
I leave her there to stomp in the other direction, my temple throbbing and my chest hot with anger at the entire situation. I know that it’s not really aimed at Keyanna—it’s not her fault specifically, after all, but she’s the only one here now. The only receptacle for my rage.
And yet she doesn’t seem to be deterred in the slightest.
“But you work for my grandmother,” she points out, jogging to catch up with me. “If you don’t like my family, why are you living on her land?”
I purse my lips, cursing myself. I definitely set myself up for that question. I rattle off a distracted excuse. “Your line is as auld as mine. I’m just hoping there’s something in your family records that might shed some light on my curse.”
“Aha!” She stops walking, pointing a finger at me with a grin. “So it’s a curse!”
“Fuck’s sake,” I mumble. “Can’t you just let this go?”
She looks excited , damn her. Why does she look so bloody excited? Can’t she be properly terrified of me? I’m a monster, for fuck’s sake. Not a fucking puppy.
“But this is incredible,” she exclaims. “My father was right! Was it you that he saw? I mean, you said you were only six when he left…How would that even be possible?”
“It wasn’t me,” I say. “It was…” I inhale deeply just to let it out. “It was someone else.”
“Wow.” She stares at her feet as we walk. “So all this time there have been more of you. That’s wild. I mean, my dad was always so convincing when he told the story, but some part of me always wondered.”
“Well,” I sigh. “You got what you came for. You proved him right. Can you leave now?”
“What?” Her head snaps up, her eyes finding mine. “I can’t leave now. I have so many questions!”
I stop walking again, my car close now, but my fear at what this slight woman could do to me is much closer. “And what will you do with this information?”
“What?” She looks confused now. “What do you mean?”
“Are you going to tell the world? Tell everyone what you saw?”
“I…” Her head cocks, her mouth opening and closing just to open again. “No? I’m sensing that would be…bad for you. Right?”
I narrow my eyes. “And why would you care about me?”
“I don’t care about you,” she splutters, averting her gaze. “But you did save my life. I owe you one…Right?”
I study her, trying to find traces of a lie but finding none in her guileless face. In fact, Keyanna seems to have the affliction of wearing every thought and emotion as a mask for people to read freely. She should work on that, I think.
“Aye,” I agree cautiously. “I did. But how do I know I can trust you?”
“I guess you don’t?” She reaches to rub at her neck, and a breeze passes between us, stirring her wild curls so that they whip around her face, framing her lovely features that I shouldn’t even be noticing. “But I…Look. My grandmother hates me. She basically said so last night. I was actually planning on leaving after I…finished here.”
“So? You still could.”
“But…” She bites her lip. “You’re real . Don’t you get it? My dad told me stories about you—well, not you , obviously—but creatures like you, and I—” She heaves a sigh. “If this is really a curse, I think he would want me to help you.”
I raise a brow, cocking my head. “You want to help me.”
Well, that is definitely not what I expected from her.
“I…” Her mouth twists again in that sour-lemon motion, her nose wrinkling. It makes her freckles more prominent. “Yes. I think I do.”
I don’t know what to make of that. The thought of a MacKay wanting to help me is laughable, given everything I know, but Key’s expression is earnest. Her emerald eyes practically shine with excitement, and I can see it written all over her face, how desperate she is to know more.
For the end only comes—
I shake my head to clear the thought, but it’s a good reminder that I can’t trust her, and it would be stupid of me to even consider doing so.
I’m already turning away from her when I say, “I don’t need your help.”
“But it can’t hurt!” she calls after me.
“Go home, Key,” I toss over my shoulder, reaching my Rover and wrenching the door open. “Forget all of it and go home.”
“Don’t be stubborn, Lachlan,” she shouts, still standing where I left her.
I give her one last long look while standing in the open door of my car, a strange, wriggling feeling in my gut as I regard the pure want in her eyes for me to give her something, anything .
But I just can’t.
“Go home.”
She does that thing that I’m starting to think she reserves just for me, stomping her foot in anger as she crosses her arms tightly over her chest.
“Pretty sure I saved your life too, you know!”
Her voice is muffled since I’m enclosed in the car, but still it makes me flinch.
She’s right. I know that. She really did save me—but how, I can’t quite figure out. I don’t even think she knows. I hesitate with my fingers clutching the steering wheel, squeezing it tightly as my teeth grind together.
Pretty sure I saved your life too, you know!
I shake my head, cranking the ignition and throwing the car into reverse.
Yeah , I think. But someone just like you ruined it once.
And I can’t let myself forget it.