CHAPTER FIFTEEN #3
“The more, the safer,” Brie said. She was sober now. “Masters have died facing off against the monk. We need to know what we’re going up against. I’d like to know which powers he has, exactly.”
“No one is going to die,” Sam said firmly, looking at Tabby. She didn’t seem worried about Guy. “We can do this. A bit of vision, a bit of slaying and lots of magic…it’s a shoo-in.” Just then, it felt like it would be that easy, with them all together again.
Suddenly they all clasped hands. “Like old times,” Brie whispered.
“Yeah,” Sam said, smiling. “Like old times.”
A MAID WHO DID NOT speak English showed Sam to Ian’s chamber, but when she got there, the room was vacant.
A small fire burned in the stone hearth.
The bed hadn’t been slept in. But a bottle of wine and two cups had been left on the table, which was beneath a window with glass panes.
Outside, the night was blue-black and brilliant with stars.
Sam went back downstairs. As she approached the great room where she’d spent the past hours with her sister and Brie, she heard a man speaking. For one moment, she thought it Ian, but quickly realized it was his father.
She was about to walk in when she saw that Ian was there. Sensing the tension between them, she faltered on the threshold.
Aidan was holding out a glass of wine to his son, his expression so somber he might have been at someone’s deathbed. Ian looked ready to explode in anger. He shook his head abruptly. “No thanks. I’d rather drink alone.” He walked away from his father to stand before the hearth.
Sam saw Brie, sitting on the bench at the end of the table, looking distressed and unhappy. She got up and went over to Aidan, touching him, the gesture meant to be consoling.
Aidan was visibly trembling. He put the glass down and walked over to his son. “I dinna see ye fer twenty-five years. Can ye sit down with me, at least?”
“Why?” Ian snapped. “What do we have to talk about? My memories of the years I spent in captivity?”
Aidan inhaled. “If ye want to speak about the past, then that is what I will do.”
“I have nothing to talk about,” Ian snarled.
“Ye came back to Awe, not once but twice,” Aidan tried.
“I came here to ask ye to help me rescue Sam,” he said harshly. “Not because I needed a favor, but because ye owe me more than ye can ever repay.”
Sam inhaled, shaken by his cruelty.
“I owe ye an entire childhood, many times over,” Aidan whispered, his eyes tearing. “An’ we both ken there be no way fer me to ever give it back to ye. So ye’ll punish me instead, until I die.”
Ian shrugged indifferently.
“He grieved for you for sixty-six years,” Brie cried shrilly. “Ian, he loves you so much! He hated himself for sixty-six years for failing you! He still hates himself sometimes, for that failure!”
“Good, then that makes two of us,” Ian said sharply. He turned, saw Sam and stiffened. “Are ye ready fer bed?”
Sam nodded, overcome with pity for him.
Brie put her arm around Aidan, who never took his moist gaze from his son. “We love you, Ian,” Brie whispered.
Ian stormed out. Sam quickly followed. When they were on the third floor, in the chamber she meant to share with him, she debated whether to butt into his life or not. She knew any comment she might make about his relationship with his father would not be welcome.
He slammed the door closed and threw the bolt. “Don’t start.”
“Someone needs to start in on you.”
He glared at her.
She hesitated. “Ian, he’s your father and he loves you.”
“I have no father.” He tore off his T-shirt and flung it across the room.
“I get why you’re so angry. He never came to rescue you. That sucks. But he thought you were dead. Moray made sure he believed that, Ian. Have you ever tried to lay the blame on Moray, instead of Aidan?”
He stared at her, all attention now. “I hate them both.”
Sam shook her head. “Aidan is a good man, Ian. And he’s your father. You can’t mean it.”
“I was just a little boy! An’ did he save me?” he raged. Sam knew he didn’t expect an answer and she didn’t try to speak. “I waited, I wept, I begged, I prayed, I hoped! An’ then one day, the hope was gone. One day, I knew I’d live there like that forever!”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I don’t care! Do ye know that the gods have charged him with the duty of protecting children? He spends his days saving innocent children, when he couldn’t save his own son!”
“It sucks,” she said. “It really does. But life is goddamned unfair.”
“Unfair?” he choked, incredulous. “I was the sacrifice, so he could learn a great lesson and take on his damned destiny!”
“Thank God, you survived.”
He gave her a look which said he was sorry he hadn’t died.
She trembled. “Ian, you survived. You lived. And now you need to move on, because you have a lot to live for.”
He started to laugh at her. “Ah, yes, my fine homes, my fancy cars, the money, the art, the sex…”
“You might like your life a whole lot more if you had a family in it.”
“Well, I don’t and I never will.” Sweat beaded on his temples.
“I hate to argue with you, but guess what? Brie’s your stepmother, Aidan’s your father, and any kids they have will be your brothers and sisters.” He started. “So you do have a family, one dying to be given permission to care about you.”
Ian stalked to the chamber’s window, pushed open the glass pane, and stared at the starry sky outside.
Sam breathed in the scent of the Highland night. She could smell the loch and pine. She went over to him. “I didn’t come up here to fight.”
He kept staring outside. A shadow crossed the moon. When he didn’t speak, Sam took a moment to look at his perfect profile. Then she looked at his broad and bare shoulders, his chest. She was acutely aware of his heat.
He slowly said, “I shouldn’t have come here, not even to ask fer their help.”
“That is what family is for,” Sam said, laying her hand on his shoulder. His skin was warm and smooth. Her skin was turning hot, everywhere.
He glanced at her, his eyes beginning to lose some of their anger, taking on the light of sexual interest instead. “That’s what yer family is for.”
Sam didn’t quite smile. It had been an insane day, but they’d survived.
The night was only just beginning now.
“Did ye enjoy seeing yer sister and Brianna?” he asked softly.
Sam slid her hand down his bulging bicep, his muscular forearm. The muscles tightened beneath her caress. “Yeah. It was great. So you were worried about me, huh?”
His gaze was unwavering. “Ye can take care of yerself.”
“That’s why you leapt through time to save me. Brie said you were beside yourself,” she prompted, teasing now. But she was breathless.
He gave her an incredulous look. “Brie imagined it…an’ ye escaped.”
“With a little out of the ordinary help.” She couldn’t look away. “I saw you. When they had me in that surgical chamber, I saw you.”
His eyes hardened. “Did they touch ye at all?”
“No.” She almost smiled. “You do have great timing, Ian.”
His mouth curved. “An’ ye want to test it again.”
“I sure do. Maybe my memory doesn’t serve me correctly. Maybe your timing isn’t what I think it is.”
The curve of his lips increased. So did the gleam in his eyes. “Ye know ye recall correctly.”
“And then there’s that debt I owe you. The one you have yet to collect,” she whispered, smiling. Her heart was thundering.
Why even try to resist? Sam laid a finger on the waistband just above his fly, pressing down. “Come and get it, Maclean,” she whispered.
His smile vanished. He leaned toward her, his eyes blazing.
It crossed her mind that they still hadn’t kissed, not since that first time at Hemmer’s party, in spite of all the sex.
He looked at her mouth.
Sam almost forgot about the throbbing heat beneath the pad of her finger. She stared at his mouth.
It shifted, curved. Then he slid his hand into her short hair, on the back of her head. Their eyes met. His smile faded.
It felt like an eternity was passing, as she stood there, her heart slamming, waiting for the feeling of his mouth.
He leaned closer and touched his mouth to hers. Sam’s heart erupted as their lips finally made contact. It was a bare, tentative, virginal brushing.
He froze, their lips still touching, as if surprised or uncertain.
Oddly, she was as uncertain, as surprised. “It’s okay,” she whispered, curling her hands around his shoulders.
He trembled. His other arm went around her. Then his mouth brushed hers, this time more firmly.
Sam opened.
And Ian finally kissed her. Hot and hard, with shocking hunger, a kiss worth waiting for. Sam kissed him back, stunned by the turbulence in her chest. There was so much joy and so much excitement…
His tongue went deep. She hit the wall, their lips locked. No one had ever kissed her this way before.
She’d never wanted to kiss anyone back this way, either.
She threaded her fingers through his hair.
He grunted, turning her to the bed. Somehow she went down on it, on her back.
He pushed between her spread thighs, the scrap of miniskirt lifting out of the way.
Their lips still locked—she didn’t think she ever wanted to break the kiss—she reached for his zipper. He tore at her mouth, now frenzied.
Their tongues twisted, tasted, entwined.
His teeth grated.
Sam thought she tasted blood.
He tore his mouth from hers, panting hard. Their gazes clashed, locked. Staring at her, his eyes blinding, he reached down between them. She heard the zipper as he jerked it down.
“Can ye wait?” he demanded.