CHAPTER TWELVE
ROYCE SIMPLY STOOD, his arms folded almost defensively across his chest.
So Allie sat on the steps he’d vacated. “What do you want to know?”
His gaze was intense. “Everything.”
Allie realized he wanted every single detail of their time together—even the time in bed. Her heart lurched, and her body became terribly hollow. “Where do you want me to start?” she asked slowly.
“How did I find ye?”
Allie wet her lips, his gaze unwavering upon her.
“It was as if you knew I was there, at Carrick. I was waiting for you in the hall with a glass of wine. I didn’t know you were from the future—I was expecting my golden warrior from this time, the same man who had appeared to help me fight the demons in South Hampton the night before.
You drove into the courtyard in a black Ferrari and the moment you got out of the car, you looked into the window at me—as if you could see me, which you couldn’t possibly. ”
His nostrils flared. “I’d ken ye were there. I’d sense yer white power—yer purity, yer beauty…yer heat.”
She inhaled, desire pooling. “You knew I was there, all right. You came into the hall like a man coming home to his bride.”
Royce stared, his gaze now silver. “I dinna think I’d forget the date.”
Allie was bewildered.
“I left ye in my home on September 6, 2007. I wouldn’t forget such a day, ever.”
She stood and hugged herself now, terribly serious—and acutely aware of the tension throbbing between them. It was so easy to feel his pounding pulse. “Now I understand, because when you came in, you greeted me without a pause.”
“And ye were pleased to see me?”
She nodded, smiling briefly. “I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t wait to see you, to make sure you were real and to be in your arms—and in your bed,” she said softly.
His eyes blazed. “Ye dinna ken I was my future self?”
“I was confused—but your aura was the same. Still, you had such short hair—you looked older—but I knew it was you.”
“And?” he demanded when she paused.
“You asked me if I wanted supper. I said no. You dismissed the housekeeper. I asked you if you had a brother and you said no. And then I asked if you had rescued me the night before.”
He stood so still he might have been a marble statue, but he was hardly made of stone. His aura blazed with red desire, and his leine billowed, exposing that desire.
She whispered, “You said you rescued me, but not the night before. You said you’d helped me over five hundred years ago.”
Royce didn’t move.
She felt moisture dripping between her thighs. “You took my glass of wine away and told me I talk too much.” Allie trembled. “And you told me you’d waited five hundred and seventy-seven years for me.”
He made a harsh sound. “And?” he demanded.
“You took me in your arms—you kissed me with your tongue in my throat—and then I was against the wall, and you lifted my thigh and your trousers ripped,” she managed.
He stared and she stared back. “How much pleasure,” he finally said, “did I give ye?”
“So much,” she whispered. “More than any man ever. We had sex in the hall, there against the wall, and then you took me to your bed, and we made love all night.” Her heart raced madly now. “I must have come a dozen times. So did you.”
He breathed hard.
“And in the middle of the night,” she said, “you held me and smiled and we talked about the Masters and the Brotherhood.”
His eyes went wide. “I talked to ye while we were in bed?”
She nodded. “For quite some time.”
He turned away from her, as if shaken.
Allie tried to find some composure. It wasn’t easy when she was now so acutely tuned in to his lust, which seemed to match hers completely. “You were very talkative—compared to now. And you weren’t afraid to smile, either.”
He faced her, eyes wide and searching. “T’is the truth!” he exclaimed.
She nodded. “Surely I’m not the first woman you’ve had a conversation with during sex?”
“The bed is for sleep or sex, nay for speeches.”
Allie felt bug-eyed. “You’ve never cuddled and chatted with a woman in bed before?”
“Never,” he snapped. Then, cheeks flushed, he asked, “Did I tell ye I love ye, too?”
Allie went still.
And he knew. His color diminished. “I dinna say the words.”
It was hard to confirm the terrible truth. “No, you didn’t, not even while dying. But you didn’t have to. Because I saw the love in your eyes.”
He shook his head fiercely. “I couldna become such a fool in old age!”
Allie didn’t like this. “For God’s sake, Royce, falling in love is wonderful, not foolish.”
“Aye—for an ordinary man.”
It took Allie a moment to respond. “Malcolm has Claire.”
“And I pray every day she willna suffer for it. Every day, I pray Malcolm willna regret his choice.”
In that moment, she felt his thoughts go to a featureless woman with titian hair. “This is about Brigdhe!”
His eyes blazed. “I took vows. I follow the Code. There’s no room in my life for foolish sentiment.”
Allie shook her head. “Earlier I realized you’re afraid for me because of what happened to her. But I am not her! I am stronger! And if this is why you are trying to avoid a relationship—”
He cut her off. “Yer nay my wife—or my love—and ye’ll never be either,” he said savagely.
Allie recoiled, hurt to the quick. He had loved his wife. And even though Allie felt terrible for what Brigdhe had been through, and even though that had been eight centuries ago, she couldn’t stand how much he had loved her—and that he refused to open his heart to her now.
“Ye’ll never have my heart,” he said.
She covered her aching chest with her hand. Did he know how cruel he was being?
Then he said harshly, “Yer a Healer, Ailios, an’ ye belong to the world, not to any one man.”
She trembled. Even she knew that was her Fate.
With that, he whirled, leaving her alone in the dawn.
IONA SPARKLED in the midmorning sun, its gleaming beaches as pale as pearls.
Allie stepped from the galley without help, trembling with excitement.
She’d spent the few hours since dawn torn between despair over Royce’s determination to avoid her, and her own determination to break through the walls he’d erected around his heart.
She had despaired over the apparent depth of his love for his dead wife, too.
Apparently Brigdhe was a rival after all, even as a ghost.
But then they had taken their leave of Claire and Malcolm, boarding a single-masted galley, and they had been rowed the few miles to the small island. Royce was not on her mind, as she took in the rolling green hills behind the beaches. Even the ocean sparkled like sapphires that day.
Allie stared toward a walled compound, within which were several medieval buildings, including a church.
She knew from her previous tours to the island that a medieval abbey had once stood there, as had a Benedictine monastery.
In fact, the chapel bells began ringing as she focused on the compound to determine which it was.
She felt the soft, serene, giving presence of women, and realized she faced the abbey.
She slowly turned. Up the pale dirt road was another fortified compound, this one far larger.
So much power came from behind those solid walls that she became breathless.
Testosterone and strength wafted from the fortress, so strong that she paused, aware of a new tension, gathering within her, tightening her, calling to her womanhood.
Masters were there, and she was acutely aware of it.
The Ancients were nearby, too.
She felt their power and their majesty most of all.
“Ailios? Come.”
Royce stood on the pier, waiting for her.
She smiled at him, another rush of excitement consuming her.
“I have been drawn to this island many times! I’ve felt so much holiness here—and I always thought I could feel people, power.
I’d hear voices and then I’d laugh at that and tell myself the island was haunted. ”
Royce met her gaze. “Ye sensed us in other times.”
“Damn right I did,” Allie cried. Happy, she seized his hand. “Let’s go. And smile—it doesn’t hurt.”
He pulled his hand from hers, his mouth remaining in a rigid line.
Allie felt some of her joy vanish, her excitement fade.
He’d been deadly serious since boarding the galley.
His tension was huge, none of it sexual.
His aura roiled, as if with distress that bordered on anguish.
She wished she could read his mind so she could understand what was tormenting him now.
She was fairly certain it had something to do with their conversation about the future. As they started up the road, the men leaving the galley at anchor by the pier, she said, “It’s a beautiful day. What’s wrong?”
He glanced at her, his strides swift enough that she had to break into a trot to keep up with him. “There’s nothin’ wrong. I have affairs to attend with MacNeil. I dinna ken what he wishes of me now.”
“You seem sad.”
He gave her a dark look. “I dinna have time to be sad. We’ll stay an hour or two, then we’ll return to Carrick.” And he outdistanced her.
Allie followed, aware that on some level he was hurting. She hesitated, then gave in to her urge. She showered him with her healing white light.
He whirled, his aura sucking up the white light like a sponge. “What do ye think to do?” he demanded.
“Let me try to ease the pain, Royce,” she said quietly, coming up to him. She reached for him.
He swatted her hand away. “Ye can ease my pain with yer body, not with yer power,” he said furiously. “My pain is between my legs—nowhere else!”
“Of course,” she said, not meaning it. “I want to heal you and you turn the discussion to sex.”
He leaned close. “I dinna need healing,” he said, hard.
“An’ when ye change yer mind about love, ye can ease my pain anytime.
” He walked away from her, jerking open the heavy, studded door set in the monastery’s thick walls.
It wasn’t locked or bolted, but of course, no demon would ever set foot on the island. It was too holy.