CHAPTER EIGHT
TABBY MET HIS gaze, alarmed.
He removed his hand and leaned over her. “Evil is close by, an’ tryin’ to get inside.”
His breath feathered her. She sat up, shocked. “Here?” It was impossible. The loft was fortified with her grandmother’s powerful spells. Evil had never gotten inside. Slowly, with growing dread, she looked past him and into the living room.
He’d left the lights on. Tabby stared into the living area, only able to partially glimpse her kitchen. If she’d been developing a sixth sense for evil, she did not have it now, because her loft looked exactly as it should have. Nothing felt awry.
She glanced at him. “Are you sure?”
He was crouched by the bed, one hand on the mattress by her hip. He nodded. Their arms touched, bare skin against bare skin. Her body began to vibrate in response to his. Just as she was about to ask him how he could tell that evil was close by, someone rapped on the living-room window.
The loft was on the eleventh floor, but the fire escape was outside.
A new tension began. Tabby looked at him and he nodded. She understood him completely. She slipped from the bed and went to the threshold of the bedroom, Macleod behind her, his hand on her waist.
Outside, the city night was bright and illuminated. The rapping continued on the same window she’d opened earlier to let him in. There was no one standing on the fire escape.
The rapping ceased.
Tabby looked at him, a sick feeling beginning. “What is that?”
He kept his focus on the window. “A ghost, I think.”
“Ghosts can be seen—even if only partially. They haunt us in their human form,” Tabby said. The words weren’t even out of her mouth when whatever was out there began rapping on the other living-room window, this time more insistently.
A chill went down her spine as the knocking intensified, as if the thing was angry. She saw the windowpane shudder.
Tabby tensed. Macleod was right. An entity of some kind was trying to get into her loft. But surely it would not be able to get past her grandmother’s spells.
Glass shattered, exploding into the room.
Tabby cried out, Macleod shoving her behind him.
The other window exploded, as well, and Macleod flung a blast of energy at whatever was out there.
Power sizzled from his hand, but it was a weak blast, nothing like what she’d seen at school.
The glass seemed to hang in the air. He blasted the perimeter of the room again.
This time, silver danced along his fingertips, but nothing else happened and the suspended shards of glass finally fell.
Macleod cursed. He spoke in Gaelic, and Tabby did not have to know the words to comprehend them. “What happened to your power?” she cried as the last window began rattling so vibrantly it was almost visibly moving.
“The gods,” he said flatly. He blasted the window again. This time, not even silver shone from his fingertips.
For some reason, he was without his power. A veil of calm slipped over her as a furious knocking on the remaining glass window began. Tabby closed her eyes and concentrated with all of her power on the evil being trying to get into her loft.
“Evil get out, evil be gone. Grandma’s spells grow stronger, evil is here no longer.”
Sweat poured down her body. She tried to feel the “thing.” But Macleod was standing in front of her, his power like a shield, interfering with her senses.
She felt Grandma Sara’s concern and presence so strongly that she smelled her rosewater scent.
But she was a distraction, too. Tabby focused as hard as she could—harder than she ever had.
The evil was vicious in its hatred, she thought.
Its malice began to entrap her, as if an invisible web was twisting around her and drawing her in.
It became frightening in its intensity. She strained for the entity, for its evil lust. Tabby began to feel lost in a cycle of hatred, and feel that she was spinning in it, but she repeated the spell again and again. She did not dare stop.
Suddenly there was only her and the evil’s vicious desire to destroy her.
And Tabby was shocked out of her trance by the extent of its hatred.
As her eyes opened, she saw the third and last window shatter. Macleod turned to embrace her, pushing her down to the floor and shielding her from the flying projectiles of glass with his huge body.
She could not lose her focus now. She tried to slip back into the evil. She felt the web of sticky clawing tentacles grasping at her. She felt the terrible, hellish pull. There was only her and “it” now. And “it” wanted to destroy her—or them.
“Evil get out, evil be gone,” she chanted, as the evil pushed at her, battering her.
And suddenly she was blown back against the wall by a huge wind, in spite of Macleod’s grasp as he cradled her.
“Evil get out, evil be gone. Grandma’s spells grow stronger, evil no longer. The Rose will triumph here!”
Lamps crashed to the floor, chairs were blown over, pots flew from the stove, dishes from the sink, and papers whirled everywhere from her and Sam’s desks.
She kept chanting the spell, the hatred of the thing filling her, trapping her.
And then the hatred began to fade and suddenly the web that felt like a prison was gone.
An absolute stillness filled the room.
Tabby felt her body give way and she collapsed in exhaustion in Macleod’s arms. Instantly she was acutely aware of being in his powerful and protective embrace.
She recalled how he’d held her and tried to shield her during the attack.
She began to tremble, fully lucid now. He had refused to take his vows, but this was the second time he had protected her fiercely, giving no thought to himself.
And they were on the floor. His body was huge, inherently and blatantly male.
Her pulse was already high; it soared. She couldn’t move away—she didn’t want to move away.
Now, no matter what had already happened between them, his body had become an incredibly safe harbor.
Stunningly, his embrace felt powerful and right.
Slowly she raised her face. The danger gone, his blue eyes were glittering with heat.
She tried to ignore the way that look affected her.
It sent a fist through her belly, causing an aching need.
She looked over his shoulder at the devastated loft.
Had a hurricane swept through, it could not have been worse.
His large hand closed around her arm. “’Tis gone, Tabitha.”
She shivered, aware now of the frigid cold blasting through the loft. The cold went right through her. She met Macleod’s steady and reassuring eyes.
She wasn’t going to even try to deny that she was really glad he’d been with her just then. He had enough courage for an entire army, she thought.
Tabby rose to her feet, still shaken. Macleod let her go and he stood, too. She looked at him grimly. “What just happened?”
He didn’t answer, but she hadn’t expected him to. She left Macleod and walked over to her laptop, which lay on the floor, at least ten feet from the coffee table where she’d left it. She picked it up and held it tightly to her chest. Macleod touched her shoulder.
She hadn’t heard him come up behind her. “Is it broken?”
“I don’t know.” What had tried to get into her loft?
She shivered. “If it’s broken, I have a desktop over there.
” She pointed at the desk at the other end of the loft, where her Mac was, and stiffened.
The computer lay on its side, and the monitor that had been on her desk was on the floor.
“I can buy a new laptop first thing tomorrow, if I have to. All my files are backed up.”
“Ye’re brave.”
She went still. In that instant, she knew how important courage was to him and she had the inkling that he did not toss praise about lightly.
She smiled grimly. She wasn’t brave, not really, but she wasn’t about to reveal how scared she’d been.
She was a Rose, and she’d done what she’d had to do.
She thought of how unflappable he’d just been—even without his powers.
She couldn’t help but respect and admire his courage, too.
But clearly Macleod would never panic, especially not in battle.
She put the laptop on the coffee table. She powered it on, and then went to the kitchen for a garbage bag.
“My sister is a warrior—she likes nothing more than to slay demons. She’s the really brave one.
You’ll probably meet her in the morning.
” She was not going to think about the rest of the night, she decided.
He took the garbage bag from her and their hands brushed.
Fire felt as if it sparked between them.
Tabby dared to meet his gaze. A long night lay ahead.
Evil had tried to get into her loft, and she was glad he’d been with her.
So where did that leave them? “Ye need servants to clean this up,” he said.
A very safe topic, she thought in relief. “Our cleaning lady comes once a week. She would die if she saw the loft like this—and she’d quit.”
“I’ll see that she cleans the loft.”
Tabby started. “She’s not a servant, Macleod, or a serf.
I pay her with coin for her services and she can leave my employ at any time.
” Tabby realized she was blabbering and her composure was starting to crumble.
An attack on her loft, after that interlude in her bathroom, was more than she wanted to think about. Abruptly she sat down on the sofa.
What had that thing been?
When had she ever faced such hatred?
Did it hate her?
“Ye’re tired. Ye used up too much power chasing the ghost away. Can ye rest?”
“I was tired before that ghost appeared,” she said carefully. He wasn’t really concerned about her, was he? He was a ruthless barbarian who used women, right? He had one interest when it came to her—getting her back into his bed.
Except, he kept saving her life. Or trying to do so.