CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE MONK WAS STILL STANDING over her. Sam looked up and saw Ian in the doorway.
He looked like hell. But as ravaged as he seemed, he was furious.
His hand trembled as he lifted it. Sam wondered what had happened to him and if he had the strength to save the day.
But he sent a blazing streak of white energy into the vault.
As it raced toward the demon like a tidal wave, the monk vanished. Sam covered her head with her arms as his power struck the wall behind her. Plaster cracked. Paintings fell. A chunk of the ceiling crashed by her. When the vault quieted, she took a deep breath.
Ian knelt beside her. “How badly are ye hurt?” he demanded.
Sam looked up. She’d dislocated her right shoulder, she was certain, but it was the acute throbbing in her collarbone which worried her. The pain was blinding. She was determined not to pass out. “I’ll be fine,” she said. She started to sit up and instantly became faint.
He knelt and put his arm around her waist. “Can ye admit to being hurt?”
“Okay, damn it. I’m hurt. It hurts.” She gritted, fighting waves of dizziness. Was he worried? “Who was that?”
His gray gaze was averted and he seemed to hesitate. “I didn’t see his face.” She heard him breathe harshly. “He had his back to me.”
Something was wrong, Sam thought. The waves of gray became waves of black. “He came from 1527,” she managed hoarsely. “He knows you—he’s from your past.”
Ian’s expression tightened as their gazes met. “Lie back down,” he told her.
“Are you sure you didn’t recognize him?” But she sank down and found herself in his arms, and the dizzy feeling instantly receded. His arms were strong and so damned familiar. He was almost reassuring.
Disconcerted, she started to sit up, pushing away from him. “We have to get out of here. Hemmer might come back. The monk might come back. No, amend that—he will come back. I can get medical attention on Five.”
He ignored her, his face hard and set. “Stop wiggling,” he said, clasping her shoulder.
Sam choked, refusing to cry out as he touched her. She gritted, “What are you doing? Trying to kill me?”
“Shut up,” he snapped.
Sam twisted to look up at him. He refused to meet her gaze, his face set in lines of fierce concentration. She collapsed against him, aware of the breadth and hardness of his chest. It was hard to think. Shit. She was going to pass out…
Suddenly Sam felt soothing warmth creeping through her shoulder and collarbone. The warmth eased the coursing pain. The moment she did, she realized what he was doing. “You can heal?” she gasped. And she saw the white rain coming from his hands.
His mouth tightened. Clearly he would not answer.
Aidan had healed Brie once, even before his redemption. Sam leaned against him, closing her eyes, gasping in relief, his healing power flowing into her. As the pain in her collarbone receded, the haze in her mind eased, too. Maclean could heal.
She looked up, lying against his hard thighs now, and studied his determined face. He hated doing this, she thought. Did he hate being a good guy?
“Why did you come back for me?”
He finally looked at her, with annoyance. “So we can go back to my bed.”
“Liar,” she said. Didn’t this make him a good guy? She wasn’t supposed to care, but she felt an odd elation—damn it. “I think you care just a little,” she said. “About the war on evil, not me. The indifference, it’s a part of the phony facade.”
“Can ye be quiet?” His tone was harsh.
She looked at him closely. “I’m starting to get you, Maclean. Why does that bother you?”
“Really?” He dropped his hands. “Think what ye want. That’s the best I can do.”
She sat up. They were almost eye to eye because Maclean still knelt. “Thanks for the healing.”
He shrugged. “Ye should go to an E.R. and get that shoulder set.”
“You really do care. I’m touched.” Their gazes met. When he didn’t speak, Sam slid her fingers into the neckline of his shirt and tightened her grasp. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back for me.”
“I had to think about it.”
Sam didn’t know whether to believe him or not.
He grasped her shoulders. “I’m everything ye think I am…an arrogant, selfish bastard…a complete user. But I want ye. Come back with me to my place. I want to use ye tonight.”
He was hiding behind the bad-boy facade again. “I’ll think about that.”
“Really?” And Ian snapped her shoulder back into the joint.
Sam gasped, reeling from the pain, but it was already gone. “Thanks for the warning,” she said.
He had stood up and he just stared down at her. She slowly stood up, too. Everything seemed to be in working order. She took a moment to breathe deeply. Then she looked at him. It was time to get down to business. “The monk knows you, Ian.”
He shrugged, but his long lashes had drifted down, hiding his eyes. “What did he want?”
Was there a tremor in his tone? “He didn’t really say. He said you know what he wants.”
Ian turned abruptly and strode away from her.
His shoulders were absolutely rigid. She followed, recalling the horrible innuendoes in the monk’s taunting words.
“He’s probably in cahoots with Hemmer, although I can’t imagine how that partnership would work.
The monk threatened me, by the way.” Ian was at the vault’s door.
He paused to stare at her. “And Hemmer threatened you. I just remembered—the monk gave me a message for you.” Sam hesitated.
She didn’t know what the monk’s message meant, but she sensed it would distress Ian greatly.
Ian glanced sharply at her. “What did he say?”
“He said something about a maze—one he has just for you.”
Ian paled.
He was afraid. “We’re being double teamed. The monk has too much power and Hemmer’s no small fry. It’s time to come clean. Who is he?” Sam demanded. “What does that mean? Why 1527?”
He breathed hard. When he shoved his hands into the pockets of the blazer he wore, Sam saw that they were trembling. “I belong in 1527,” he said grimly. “You heard Nick mention that I’m out of my time.”
“Yeah,” Sam said slowly, wanting the truth, “I heard.”
“I was released in 1502—twenty-five years ago.”
“So Nick was right,” Sam said slowly. “You’re not modern, not at all. Never mind the jeans, the art, the cars, the fine homes. You should be living in medieval times.”
“Like hell,” he snarled at her.
His days in the modern world were numbered. No one could defy the gods and Fate. He was not supposed to be living in New York City. She was dismayed. She had no right to that feeling, either.
When this was over, they’d go their separate ways. More than ideals and morals would separate them—centuries would separate them.
“Let’s go,” Ian said suddenly, striding out of the vault.
Sam rushed after him, aware that he did not want to be locked up again. Neither did she, but there was more to discuss. “You know who the monk is, don’t you?”
He never paused. “Yeah, I do.”
“Why won’t you tell me what we’re up against? Why do you fear him?”
“Fine,” he erupted, facing her. “He was my captor those last ten years! Are ye happy now?”
Sam studied him. “How dangerous is he?”
He started forward. “He’s evil—a deamhan.”
“If he was your captor for a decade, you must know him well.”
He didn’t answer. Revulsion was etched onto his face.
She hurried to keep up. “Maclean, I’m sorry for what you went through,” she began.
“Like hell!” he turned and shouted at her. “Ye know nothing of my past! You know nothing of me!”
She wanted to touch him but she kept her hands to herself. “I know evil. I’ve fought evil for most of my life, in its every form and shape. And I’ll fight this evil with you, Ian.”
“Why? Because ye pity me?”
She shook her head. “Because I never run and I like payback. He did just challenge me.”
But he saw through her. “Fearless Sam, as brave as always.” He was mocking.
“You make it sound like a bad thing.”
He shook his head, the tension still etched in every tight line of his face and body. “No. I admire yer courage. I always have.”
She was shocked. “Did you just say something nice to me?”
For one moment, his gaze held hers. There was so much reluctance in his eyes. Then he shrugged. “It’s the truth. But ye have the death wish now. Sometimes it’s better to be a coward and run. You should run from the monk.”
“Is that what you plan on doing?”
He started forward. “I didn’t say that.”
“Good, then it’s a plan. We take on the sonuvabitch together.”
He laughed at her, slowing. “That might be yer plan, Sam, but it’s not mine. My only plan is to enjoy your body tonight and proceed with my auction on Friday.”
“You know what? I’m not buying the coldhearted sex-is-everything act. You’re shaken up, and frankly, so am I. So we need to start working together.”
His gaze was sharp. “Are ye being serious? Yer never shaken.”
“You weren’t there in that vault a moment ago. He took my power and used it against me. I almost lost my head, courtesy of my own weapons. He has more power than I’ve ever seen, except of course for your buddies, the Masters. But you know what? Even the mighty fall.”
Sam couldn’t decipher the look he gave her. What was he thinking? How upset was he? “Have you ever come face-to-face with one of your captors before?” She thought of what he’d done to John.
His mouth curled. “No.”
She decided not to make a quip about there being a first time for everything. “I owe you, Maclean. No doubt about it.”
“Ye owe me nothing.” He leaned close and said tersely, “I have the page of illusion. I am still planning to sell it and walk away with the millions. To hell with the monk and Hemmer. I am not a Slayer.” He strode past the media room.