Chapter 22
His surprised “What?” was drowned out as they kissed until he couldn’t breathe. Finally, Anna leaned back, panting for breath, and started to unbuckle his belt. “What are you doing?”
“What I’ve wanted to do since the dungeon,” she said.
Well, hell. He pulled his shirt off while she fiddled with his zipper. “Careful, I almost re-circumcised myself this morning.” But she was better with zippers than he was. He removed her shirt, and she pushed his borrowed trousers and underwear down. He stopped to kick off his boots while she removed the rest of her clothing.
“You’re perfect,” he said, when she was naked.
“So are you.” Her eyes were burning a trail from his chest to his thighs. She ran her fingertips over his battle marks, and he felt a tingle all the way through to his back. This wasn’t just desire. It was something beyond. Her fingers moved down his stomach, and his muscles twitched in response, right along with another part which was standing at attention. She let one finger move down the line of hair that led to his groin. His eyes followed the movement. Don’t stop.
She stopped. He looked down at her, ready to beg, but she was focused on the neediest part of him. She dropped to her knees. Bollocks.
When he could think clearly, he gently moved her away. “I’m not going to be any good to you if you keep that up.” He lifted her and stepped closer, putting one leg between hers, running his hands over her arse. What an arse it was. He nuzzled her neck and urged her toward the bed. “Lie down. It’s my turn,” he said, and proceeded to give her as much pleasure as she’d given him. Before she opened passion-clouded eyes, he had moved up her body and nudged the crest of her legs. “Are you ready for me now?” He didn’t want to go the last step without her permission.
She grabbed his arse and threw her legs around his thighs in one move. “Now.”
“All right,” he grunted, and slid into her, trying to go slow.
She bit his shoulder. “Come on.”
His body was burning and tingling all over as he drove into her, again and again. They moved in unison until he couldn’t hold back anymore. He let go, and every muscle, every bone, every hair on his body felt like it came apart. When it was over, they lay close together, trying to catch their breath.
Anna buried her face in his shoulder. “I think I’ve made a mistake.”
Tavis’s heart gave a dull thud. “What?”
“About sex. After what happened to my mother, I’ve looked at sex as a weapon.”
“Only for the depraved.” Like that fat guard. “It’s supposed to be like this. A thing of beauty.”
“It was that and more,” she said, running her fingers over his stomach.
Tavis’s heart felt nigh to bursting. He held her closer, stroking her hip. “I remember where it is.”
She smiled. “I know you know where it is.”
“Not that. The book. I think I know where Angus hid it. I saw him near the bookcase.”
“We’ve got to get back in there,” Anna said.
“Aye.”
“We’ll do it while they’re asleep.” Anna looked at her watch. “It’s eleven. We’ll wait two hours.”
And maybe they could repeat what they’d just done. But they didn’t need two hours. It was apparent when the couple was sleeping. They both snored loud enough to wake the dead.
“Works out for us,” Anna said. “We could break down the door, and they would never hear us.”
“There’s a ledge outside. I think we can climb in their window. It was open a bit when we were in there.”
“I didn’t notice,” Anna said. “Someone might see us. Our window faces the street.”
“It’s dark.” He pulled back the curtain. “I’ll climb out and go through and get the book.”
“We’ll climb out and go through and get the book.”
“You’re stubborn.”
Anna shrugged. “I don’t plan on changing. Let’s get this book.”
Nothing ever goes exactly as planned. They didn’t count on Mrs. Edwards being outside when they climbed onto the ledge.
“What’s she doing at this bloody hour?” Tavis whispered, pressing his back to the wall.
“Looks like she’s replacing a bulb in that light fixture,” Anna said.
They crept along the wall slowly. They had reached the window when the light came on below. Mrs. Edwards looked at the fixture, her expression pleased. At the worse possible moment, one of the occupants let out a loud snore. Mrs. Edwards looked up, and Tavis was certain they would be spotted. As he was thinking of possible excuses as to why they were standing on the ledge, a big owl swooped past Mrs. Edwards’s head. She let out a screech, and the owl flew away as Mrs. Edwards ran inside.
“I don’t believe it,” Anna said. “Saved by an owl.”
“That was strange.” But he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. They moved along the ledge to the next window. It was open slightly, which made the snoring all the louder.
“How do they sleep through that?” Anna whispered.
“Be thankful, or else we’d have to knock them out and take the book.”
Timing their actions to the snores, they raised the window and crept inside. Anna pulled out her phone, tapped it, and a light sprang forth.
Blimey. She kept it low as Tavis searched the bookshelf. He’d seen Angus on the side near the wall. He quietly pulled books out, stopping when the man and woman ceased snoring, resuming when they did. He spotted the satchel hidden behind several books and gently removed it.
“Is that it?” Anna asked.
Tavis eased the satchel open and looked inside. The Book of Battles was there.
* * *
“This is it?”Sean asked as everyone leaned closer, trying to get a look. Anna had peeked inside, but she and Tavis had both been hesitant to touch it.
“Aye. It’s the one I found in the castle,” Tavis said.
“How do we know which one is real?” Duncan asked. “What if this one is the fake?”
“We’ll protect both,” Sean said. “But I’ll study the books and see if I can figure it out. But the fact remains, the book is safe. The Book of Battles has been returned to us.”
“Let’s hope another one doesn’t turn up,” Brodie said.
“God forbid,” Ronan said.
“Do we tell the Council we found it?” Tavis asked. “Can we trust them?”
“I think we’ll keep it quiet for now,” Sean said. “Only those in this room will know. We need to do some more investigating.” He looked at Tavis. “And I believe I owe you a debt of gratitude.”
Tavis touched his chest. “Me?”
“Faelan told me about Ian’s letter, about your son. If not for you, Duncan and I, and several others, wouldn’t even exist.”
“You have a son—had a son?” Anna asked, stunned.
“I just found out,” Tavis said.
He’d had a son and didn’t know it? Not only had he lost his family—father, mother, brothers, sister—but he’d lost a wife and child. “I didn’t know you were married.”
“I wasn’t.” Tavis shifted uncomfortably. “His mother was a lass I knew. A nice lass,” he said defensively. “She loved me. I didn’t know she was with child.” He cleared his throat. “When she died, Ian and his wife raised him.”
Anna’s head was spinning with the revelation that a woman had given Tavis a son.
“As I said, I owe you my thanks,” Sean said to Tavis. “Duncan and I wouldn’t be here if not for you.”
“Can I call you grandfather?” Duncan asked, smiling.
“No, you bloody can’t,” Tavis said, but he looked pleased.
Sean handed the satchel back to Tavis. “I didn’t touch your journal.”
“My journal?” Tavis frowned.
“There’s a journal inside. I didn’t open it. I thought it belonged to you.”
Tavis reached inside and took out a thin notebook. “Angus had this with him. He must have put it here.”
“I saw him with a notebook when he was at the bed-and-breakfast,” Bree said.
“That’s Angus’s notebook.” Anna’s throat tightened. “I’ve been looking for it.”
“Anna should have it,” Sean said.
Tavis handed it over and Anna opened the book. Angus’s scrawled handwriting was easy to recognize. Oh, Angus.
“Does he say anything about what happened here?” Bree asked.
Anna knew Bree still felt bad that she hadn’t warned Angus when she encountered him in the bed-and-breakfast. She had sensed danger around him, but thought he was a demon, not realizing he was a warrior working undercover.
Anna flipped through the notebook, looking for recent entries that might shed some light on his death. Angus had lived for mysteries when he was alive, and now his death had left the biggest one of all. His writing wasn’t always easy to follow. He wrote as he thought. Scattered when he was distracted, and when he was hot on the trail of something he could ramble on and on. Reading his notebook was almost like talking to him. She could feel his excitement in the words. She skimmed the pages, recounting relevant entries, such as when he’d found Nigel Ellwood’s letter—it made her sad that he hadn’t told her that—right after he’d found Ian’s notes about a possible traitor in the clan.
She read aloud how Angus had thought he’d found Faelan. Ian had left clues to where the time vault key had been hidden, buried in Aiden Connor’s grave, and when it didn’t open the time vault in the crypt, Angus decided it must be a decoy to protect Faelan. He’d found the second time vault in the chapel cellar and freed the warrior inside, not realizing he’d freed Faelan’s brother instead. Angus’s handwriting grew scratchier as he wrote. He was frantic with his discovery, and terrified that Jared, the archaeologist, would find Faelan. Angus had suspected that Jared wasn’t what he pretended to be. He’d followed Jared and discovered that he was involved in the gathering of demons. He suspected it had to do with Druan’s virus.
I’m going to confront Jared and make him talk.That was his last entry. The room was silent.
“I guess he found out Jared was Druan in disguise,” Brodie said quietly. “That’s probably how he got some of his injuries.”
“And Druan sent his demons to finish him off,” Ronan said. He’d tracked them down and killed them, but they wouldn’t say who’d sent them.
If only Anna had replaced her phone, he might still be alive. He wouldn’t have told anyone else about his discoveries until he was certain what he’d found. But he’d tried to call her. If she had known, she could have come to help him before it was too late.
“Poor Angus,” Sean said.
Anna quietly slipped away as the others began talking about traitors and demons. She went to her room and sat on her bed, holding the notebook to her chest. There were other scrawled entries that made no sense. I need to tell Anna, but I don’t want to trouble her. And later, I must tell Anna. No matter how difficult it is. She hadn’t read those aloud. They were too personal. “Tell me what? What was so important, Angus?” Was he referring to his feelings for her?
How had she not known how he felt? No wonder he was so angry when he found Ronan in her bed. Sex might not be the big evil she’d thought, but it caused a lot of trouble.
What was she going to do about this thing between her and Tavis? She’d never felt anything like this. It was like an obsession. She thought about him constantly… wanted to touch him all the time. She needed space to think and remember who she was. A warrior. Always a warrior. No matter how good sex with Tavis was, or how much she wanted to be with him.
She started to lay the book aside when she noticed a piece of paper stuck between two pages. It wasn’t Angus’s handwriting. The paper was stained and yellow with age. It was Ian’s notes. The page she and Angus had found in the treasure room in Scotland. This should be given to Tavis. His brother had sacrificed and suffered to make sure Tavis was here to save Faelan. It might be one of the few things left to remind him of Ian.