Page 5 of Her Scot of Bygones (MacLeod Dragons #2)

–Hazel–

“FORGET TAKING ME to MacLeod Castle,”

I told Lucas after he made the mistake of telling me the Sutherlands were capable of eating fellow shifters. Whether it was true or not, and I suspected it wasn’t, it was a direct route home.

“Take me back to the twenty-first century so I can warn Willow and Ellie.”

“’Tis unnecessary.”

He shook his head and looked at me with reassurance, yet I saw a flicker of worry in his blue eyes, which, although it caught me off guard because I knew it was for me, I still did my best to ignore it. His feeling that strongly about my welfare was way too much to comprehend, given that we had only just met.

“I disagree.”

Although I wasn’t generally confrontational, we were talking about my sisters, so I planted my fists on my hips and kept scowling at him. Had you told me hours ago I’d stand up to a towering, well-armed, muscular, imposing dragon warrior like him, while alone in an underground tunnel, six hundred years in my past, I probably would have laughed.

Yet there was something about Lucas that made me feel like I could. I should be terrified of him, but I wasn’t. Not like I was waking up in his bed. Whether I would admit it or not, I was growing more and more comfortable with him, and I wasn’t sure what to make of that other than it both alarmed and intrigued me.

Could he be right about us? Did we somehow forget knowing each other? I was told that could happen to time travelers and fated mates, but it was still so hard to wrap my head around.

“You just told me the Sutherlands were cannibals, so that means my sisters are in danger, and the only way to make things right between us is for you to take me home.”

I gave him a pointed look.

“And promise me you’ll stay away from my sisters.”

“I said mayhap the bloody Sutherlands were capable of it,”

he corrected.

“Right.”

I arched an eyebrow, surprised I noticed how the torch he carried made the cobalt in his eyes seem so mesmerizing.

“What you said was who knows what they’re capable of these days.”

He nodded once as if I made sense, even though I suspected it wasn’t true, but only a means to keep me away from the Sutherlands.

“And ‘tis for that verra reason,”

he countered.

“’tis best you stay right here with me.”

“Yet you’re all right with my sisters being subjected to that?”

I cocked my head.

“What would Aspen think? Better still, her mate, your cousin and chieftain, Broderick?”

“I think she would be glad I was protecting at least one of her sisters.”

He shrugged a shoulder.

“And I suspect Broderick would agree.”

“Even though neither of them has any idea I’m here because you took me without permission,”

I reminded him, seeing yet another opportunity, so I paused and narrowed my eyes.

“Now that I think about it, they don’t need to know if you just take me home.”

I shrugged.

“In fact, if you take me back home, I’ll pretend you showed up to protect me and my sisters at the colonial, and any trouble you might be in with Broderick and Aspen won’t exist anymore.”

He considered me for a moment.

“You would do that for me?”

“Of course,”

I assured him.

“Take me back, and all of this will be water under the bridge.”

His brow lowered.

“What bridge?”

“It’s a saying,”

I clarified, relieved I was finally getting my way because even though I wanted to see Aspen, going back to the future was the safer option not only for me but for my sisters. After all, I’d be there to assure them that everything we’d been told about time travel and the likelihood of meeting our fated mates was real. All of it. And to watch out for medieval highlanders who thought it was okay to steal a woman in the middle of the night from her bed, or couch, and take her anywhere he damn well pleased.

“It means everything between us is in the past and no longer important or worth arguing about.”

I waved it away and said the word that had been ingrained in me since childhood. “Bygones.”

“Bygones,”

he murmured, his eyes flaring the same fiery catlike way I swore they had when I woke up in his lair. This time, they startled me so much I didn’t realize I had moved further away from him until my back hit the cold rock wall behind me.

“Yes, bygones,”

I managed to say, dismayed to find my voice wobbling with a variety of emotions I didn’t understand. Everything from fear at seeing his inner beast lingering right there beneath the surface, to a strange sense of being imprisoned, mixed with an undeniable longing that made no sense. It felt like I was trapped somewhere, and I couldn’t escape, yet I desperately wanted to reach out to who or what was on the other side. It was as if I were blind, and despite how much I wanted to, I could no longer see what was right in front of me.

“Why do I know that word?”

he said softly, his dragon eyes simmering down as if he, or better yet, it, sensed how scared I was.

Unsure what to say because he shouldn’t know that word, I swallowed back my emotions, shook my head, and tried to think logically. More specifically, I tried to find a way to calm him when I sensed his unease, so I put his feelings before my own, like I always did for others. Yet even as I wanted to calm him, I realized he attempted to do the same for me by leaning against the opposite wall, when I knew he longed to step closer.

“That word has meaning to ye as well, does it not?”

He searched my eyes, his brogue thickening with what almost seemed heightened emotion.

“’Tis of importance?”

I tried to respond, but the words were lodged in my throat, yet traitorously, I nodded when something deep inside moved me of its own volition. As though it gave me no choice but to confirm that word was of importance, and I feared more by the moment, it had everything to do with him.

That my captor was also my childhood hero of bygones.

I pressed my lips together and prayed that wasn’t true because Lucas was the opposite of my childhood fairytale hero. He wasn’t dependable and steadfast, but unreliable and unpredictable. As for him being someone capable of reminding me that forgiveness felt better than bitterness and anger, and to let things go and leave them in the past, I couldn’t say. Nor could I say he was everything my father had not been because right now, he seemed a lot like him.

“I will take ye home and leave ye be,”

he said so softly I barely caught it, surprising me with what he said next.

“But ye will have to agree to the route back so I might prove ye wrong.”

“Prove me wrong?”

I managed, my voice more breathy and hoarse than wobbly this time because of how he said that, and from the intense look of determination in his eyes.

“Aye.”

His features tightened, and his gaze grew especially serious.

“I can be dependable and steadfast if you but give me half a chance.”

I swallowed hard because his words implied he had caught my thoughts.

“Don’t do that.”

Well aware dragons were capable of telepathy and reading thoughts, the closer they got to other dragons, I shook my head.

“You have no right to be inside my head.”

I was surprised by the wounded look that flashed across his face. How the hurt showed in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, lass, but there’s no helping it if ‘tis the will of our inner beasts and ‘twas your dragon who first spoke to mine.”

I frowned. “When?”

“When you telepathically told me you were a cook.”

I was about to deny that, yet as our eyes held, I realized I never said that out loud.

“You must have done something to me.”

I shook my head.

“ Cast a spell on me or something.”

“There was a spell,”

he conceded, shaking his head too.

“Which makes it more telling that you were not only able to speak to me whilst cast under my spell but also able to break free from it. Considering your inner beast is so repressed, it would have been impossible had our dragons not taken to each other so swiftly.”

“Even so,”

I replied, unsure what else to say other than to keep trying to warn him away.

“I would rather you not do that.”

“I will try,”

he vowed, clearly unsettled by my request.

“As long as you agree to this route, so I might prove I can be trusted to protect you and your sisters.”

He didn’t give up, did he.

“Which I would imagine you could do just as easily in the twenty-first century.”

Lucas replied, but I suddenly couldn’t hear him as the forest, awash in purple twilight, rose all around me, and Lucas, along with the torchlit tunnel, vanished. Trying not to panic, I turned slowly and took in my surroundings, but all I saw were trees, and only felt sadness like I had before, as if I’d lost something or someone.

“Where are you?”

I called out, desperate to find whoever it was because I had forgotten them, and it anguished me. But who had I forgotten? I couldn’t seem to remember, and I needed to. It was crucial.

So crucial, I bolted into the forest when I thought I caught a glimpse of something through the trees. Or at least I tried to before someone grabbed me around the waist, and the forest snapped away, only to be replaced once more with the tunnel. It took me several moments to realize I was back in the cave and Lucas had pulled me into his arms.

“Let me go,”

I tried to say, but couldn’t seem to find the words as he gathered me close and held on tight as if afraid that if he let me go, I might vanish.

“Because ‘tis possible ye might.”

His voice was rough with emotion, and his heart slammed in his chest.

“I dinnae ken what that was.”

“What?”

I managed, my voice nothing more than a strained whisper. Partly because of the strange feeling of being thrust from location to location like that, and partially because of how I felt being held against him. How overwhelmingly safe I felt wrapped up in his arms, while simultaneously vulnerable because of how strongly I responded to him.

I had been overly aware of him when he carried me before, but now? Now I wasn’t cast under his spell, yet my response was undeniably sensual from the ache between my thighs to the struggle to catch my breath. His uniquely masculine scent, like cedar, pine, and spices all rolled into one, made me dizzy with desire. And that terrified me for reasons I couldn’t quite explain, other than it was way too much and most certainly out of my control.

“Let me go,”

I gasped, sounding panicked even to my own ears when I squirmed out of his grasp, relieved when he let me go.

“’Tis alright, lass,”

he assured me, his brow knit with worry, and his eyes not just troubled but alarmed when he must have seen my fear.

“I willnae hurt you. Ye’ve my word.”

He retrieved the torch he’d been carrying from the ground and finally said what I needed to hear.

“The last thing I meant to do was frighten you like this, so I will take you back to the twenty-first century straight away.”

Able to catch my breath, I managed a nod and joined him when we started down a different tunnel he assured me would lead us where we wanted to go.

At least he tried before the last thing either of us expected happened.