CHAPTER NINE
HE WOULD BE at An Tùir-Tara—in another two-hundred-and-fifty years. Bringing him to the exhibit and showing him a slice of his future was a dangerous idea. It was even more dangerous than the chance of their running into the cops. She didn’t dare do anything that might affect his future.
She had no idea what to do or say next.
She clutched the sheets to her chest, trying to sound composed.
“Macleod, it’s a terrible idea to go to the exhibit.
Seeing as you keep invading the privacy of my thoughts, you know I think you were there—or rather, that you will be there.
” Why was he staring? Had her sheet slipped?
“But no one should ever glimpse a part of their future. It might change your Fate.”
“I will go. Ye can show me the way or I’ll find it myself,” he said flatly.
Tabby inhaled. She was butting heads with a medieval brick wall—again.
But this time, after last night, she was dismayed.
“I won’t let you go alone.” As she spoke, she heard Sam knock on her door.
If he intended to go, she wouldn’t be able to stop him.
But she could try to keep him safe from the cops—and himself.
He nodded, clearly having expected her answer. “Good. We’ll go together.”
Sam said tersely, “I take it you’re all right—and not alone?”
“We’ll be out in a minute,” Tabby said. She thought her voice sounded hoarse—probably from her screaming. “I’m fine.”
Trying to be nonchalant when she was very modest, even after all they’d done to each other, Tabby put on her velour pants and a T-shirt as quickly as she could. She was pretty certain that Macleod watched. She faced him and said, “Could you not go out of the bedroom dressed like that?”
His lashes lowered. “Can ye kindly bring me my leine?”
Tabby nodded and hurried from the bedroom, closing the door, as if she didn’t want her sister seeing Macleod more naked than not.
That, of course, was absurd. Sam was in the kitchen—amazingly, making coffee.
Sam never made coffee, not even when it was instant.
“I guess I missed the party,” she said, turning. Her face was serious.
“It was an extraordinary night,” Tabby said, rushing into the bathroom where he’d left his tunic. She returned to the bedroom and handed it to him through a crack in the door.
He took it, shrugging it on. “Yer sister doesna want ye with me.”
Tabby barred Sam’s view with her body, wondering if she had lost her mind. “Sam just doesn’t understand what happened, because she knows I don’t sleep with strangers.”
He simply looked at her.
Tabby realized she was barring his way, too. She left the door and turned to face her sister, who was staring at them both. She tried to smile at her but Sam scowled back.
Tabby shivered, approaching, as Macleod strolled out of the bedroom, nodding rather dismissively at Sam.
Sam seemed to bristle. Tabby didn’t get it.
It was as if they disliked each other, but they didn’t even know one another.
It was freezing in the rest of the loft.
Last night, Macleod had taped garbage bags across the windows, but they didn’t seem to be helping.
Sam began taking mugs down from a high cabinet.
Damn it, Tabby thought. Sam probably thought her a victim of seduction, and that was not the case. “I’ll do that,” Tabby said, joining her in the kitchen and smiling at her.
Sam didn’t smile back and she ignored Macleod. She was probably the only woman in the city who could resist looking at him. “So what happened? I mean, what got in here last night?” Sam still refused to look at Macleod, but she cast a worried look at Tabby now.
Tabby flushed, feeling guilty. Sam had every right to demand what was up, because they were sisters, but clearly she was avoiding the subject. “There was an intruder—an evil force. Macleod helped me banish it. I’m fine,” she said grimly. “I decided to live life, for once.”
“Really? Because you don’t look very happy. You look upset and worried. No, you look scared.”
Tabby felt her smile slip away. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
Sam made a sound. She turned and finally looked at Macleod—scathingly. Tabby saw him tense, as if preparing for battle. She was alarmed as Sam said, “I know who’s gotten into you. You’re frigging head over heels in love.”
Tabby was so surprise she stuttered. “Th-that is not the case!”
“You don’t sleep around, Tabby,” Sam said. “So if you are not in love, you will be soon. And that, my dear, must be Destiny.” She jerked the coffeepot from the coffee machine, but it was still brewing and coffee went all over the counter.
“I’ll do that,” Tabby said, shocked that Sam was so upset. “I’m not hurt,” she whispered. “I’m fine. I…had a good time.” She felt herself blush.
“Well, that proves my point.”
Tabby turned to Macleod. “Can I speak to my sister alone for a moment?”
“She doesna like me and she doesna want ye to like me.” He walked over to one of the patched-up windows, taking a piece of it down to stare outside at the bright morning.
Tabby started. She knew her sister, and she wasn’t that way. In fact, she’d be happy for her, if Tabby was happy, too. She lowered her voice, then realized how ludicrous that was—he was telepathic. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” Sam said. Then she said, “He’s not good enough for you!”
“It was one night,” Tabby cried. Sam gave her a look indicating that was simply impossible.
“I am not in love,” she tried. “I mean, he is medieval, Sam. I’ve seen him in action.
He is very violent and you know I can’t handle that!
But I owe him and I let him stay the night. And I slept with him. So what?”
“So you paid him back with your body?” Sam was disbelieving.
“I would never do such a thing!”
“Yeah, no kidding!”
“Why are you upset? It was out of character and I can’t explain it, not really, but I needed last night…I’m sort of confused.”
“You’re in love with Macleod. It’s the only way you could possibly go to bed with him and enjoy it.”
Why was Sam insisting that she was in love, when it was not even on her mind? She became adamant. “He is a million times worse than Randall.” When Sam didn’t speak, appearing doubtful, she cried, “I watched him behead a boy—but you already know that!” She stopped. “How do you know his name?”
“I work at HCU, remember?” Sam said, turning away.
Tabby knew her sister was lying to her. They never lied to each other and she was shocked. She said carefully, “He’s not a threat, Sam, not to us.”
Sam snorted.
Her sister was more than a Slayer. She had the instincts of both the hunter and the pursued, and she was usually right.
“He’s not a threat,” Tabby insisted. She suddenly turned.
Macleod watched them, not bothering to pretend not to hear.
She faced Sam. “What aren’t you telling me?
Why do you dislike him? He saved my life.
” Could Macleod represent some kind of danger to them? No, Tabby refused to believe it.
“I know you better than anyone. You’re incredibly romantic. You’ll probably follow him back to medieval times, the way Allie did Royce and Brie did Aidan.”
Tabby was horrified. “That’s a joke, right?
I am a modern woman. I couldn’t possibly live in the Middle Ages—not for a New York minute—and not with a man who beheads his enemies without even blinking his eyes!
” Sam was afraid she would leave her and go back in time with Macleod.
“We’re all that’s left of the Rose women.
I’d never leave you here to fight evil alone. ”
Sam smiled grimly. “Of course you wouldn’t.”
She didn’t believe her. “Sam.” Tabby hugged her briefly, hard. “I am not going back to 1298. Trust me.”
Sam sighed. “I can’t fight Fate, Tabby. What’s meant to be is meant to be. So what happened here last night?”
Tabby glanced at the destroyed loft. “The same evil that I felt at the Met tried to get in here last night. But we couldn’t see it. It was an energy filled with hatred and malice, like a malevolent ghost. It had enough power to break the windows.”
Sam was silent. “Do you remember the Rampage last week, the one that Kit hasn’t been able to stop thinking about? A demonic spirit was there. It was caught on the video and Nick identified it.”
“What do you mean, a demonic spirit?”
“I mean a demon that was vanquished but did not go to hell,” Sam said sharply.
A chill swept Tabby, from head to toe. “Macleod called it a demonic ghost, too. But demons don’t have ghosts.”
Sam was grim. “According to Forrester, once in a while they do.”
MACLEOD DID NOT LOOK like a modern man—not one single bit.
Tabby had run to the closest shop and bought him Lucky Brand jeans, a black long-sleeve T-shirt and a bomber-style, faux fur-lined leather jacket.
Even dressed in contemporary clothes, he looked frightening and dangerous—as if he was a pissed-off, badly damaged returning Special Ops vet or, worse, a ruthless mercenary.
The clothes could not hide the savage quality of his nature.
But he looked really good, otherwise.
In fact, every woman they’d passed that morning on their way uptown, from prepubescent girls to blue-haired grandmothers, had looked at him at least twice. Women Tabby’s age had smiled and tried to flirt. To his credit, he’d been oblivious to them all.
They stood three or four people away from the security guard and the metal detector at the Met.
Tabby wrung her hands. Being with him was no easy task, not after last night.
She was acutely aware of his virility and power, and her own body.
She simply could not reconcile the woman she’d turned into with the woman she’d been her entire life.
What did last night mean? Had it been a shameful and amazing one-night stand? She was not capable of a meaningless affair, was she? But, until Macleod, she hadn’t been capable of raw, animal sex, either.
Worse, she had sex on the brain now, like a sixteen-year-old after her first time.