Page 27 of Dark Victory

Her pulse escalated wildly. He was pure male.

His hard expression eased fractionally. Tabby had the unhappy notion that he was aware of her interest—except, she wasn’t interested, not that way. But how could she not notice that face and that body? His attire was skimpy! The tunic clung to his huge frame, and the two belts he wore helped delineate his anatomy. The plaid pinned to one shoulder highlighted his broad shoulders and equally broad and muscular chest. The short sleeves of his tunic and his current posture revealed his huge, bulging biceps, but of course he was built—he wielded heavy, huge swords on a daily basis. The belts made it clear that he had a six-pack—no, a twelve-pack. Worse, she was pretty certain a huge amount of muscle was beneath that oddly drifting short skirt.

She decided not to look at his legs. She didn’t have to. They’d been impossible to miss, bare between the top of his boots and the skirt and entirely corded with muscle. That man wasn’t the product of the Zone Diet and steroids; he ran hills and rode horses.

What was she doing? Why couldn’t she breathe? Why was he angry? She backed up. Putting more distance between them seemed to be a really good idea.

“Do ye fear me now?” He almost seemed amused. “Ye should fear me. I dinna take orders, not from anyone.”

She thought of Angel. “Got it. No more orders!” Then she choked. This was not the time to be incoherent. “I wasn’t summoning you. I thought you were hurt. I wanted to find you to help you.”

His face changed. His eyes blazed, but with interest, not anger. He strode rapidly forward. Tabby cried out, backed up and hit the couch. “What are you doing?” she gasped.

“I willna drag ye off by yer hair,” he said. When he halted, he had her trapped against the sofa.

He was telepathic. Great!

“I can’t breathe,” she said somehow. “Not with you standing over me like this.”

He suddenly tilted up her chin.

Tabby went still. Her heart thundered. Pulse points she’d never known she had began firing off all over her body, one by one, and a very definite throbbing began as desire suddenly reared up in her body.

For one moment, his blue gaze changed, searching hers, and Tabby had the definite feeling that he knew and was pleased. Then he said tersely, “Ye’ve haunted me fer a century. Why? Did my enemies send ye?”

Tabby gasped. “Now what are you talking about?”

“Ye heard. I first saw ye when I was a boy. Ye wanted to help me. Then ye bothered me in my dreams. Sometimes ye even bothered me after battle. An’ I saw ye yesterday, on the beach where I buried my family.”

Tabby began to tremble. As unnerving as his touch was, this was stunning information. “Please don’t touch me,” she said.

His eyes widened. He dropped his hand.

Tabby had no choice. To get away from him, she had to slip past his big body and the sofa. It would be absurd to climb on the couch to avoid his body, even if that was what she wanted to do. So she brushed past him, escaping into the rest of the living area. As she did so, something she didn’t want to think about bumped her.

He was aroused. She felt her cheeks flame, felt that surprising throbbing again. Before facing him, she hugged herself. How was she going to handle that? But her mind had just shut down.

“Tell me why ye continued to haunt me.”

Slowly she pulled herself together and turned to face him, aware that she was still blushing. “I don’t know anything about a haunting. First of all, I thought one had to be a ghost to haunt someone. Clearly, I am not dead.”

He made a harsh sound but he was very still now, listening intently to her.

Tabby hugged herself harder. She decided not think about the two of them being alone in her loft, not now. “Are you sure it was me?”

He laughed without mirth. Even his laughter was frightening—no, disturbing. “Woman, t’was ye.”

He was certain. He believed he’d seen her over the years, from the time he was a small boy. She’d felt that he was familiar the moment she’d seen him at the Met—and when she’d envisioned him as a boy, reading that plaque, she had felt that she’d known him, too. “I can’t explain this. But I saw you yesterday, at a museum. There was an exhibit there, related to Melvaig, Scotland. And when I saw you, you seemed familiar and I wanted to help you.”

His eyes were wide but hard. “Melvaig is the stronghold of my enemies.”

“I know.” Tabby knew better than to elaborate. This man hadn’t been in a fire, which meant that An Tùir-Tara was in his future. She didn’t need a Wisdom from the Book of Roses to tell her not to reveal his future to him. That was strictly forbidden. “At the museum, they mention a massacre in 1201. Only a fourteen-year-old boy survived. Was that you?”

His face became so hard she was frightened and alarmed. His expression seemed ready to crack—or explode? It was a moment before he spoke. “Aye. They have written about my family in yer time? About me?”

Tabby nodded. That boy had been devastated by the loss of his family. She almost wanted to go up to him and touch his hand, which was absurd. He wasn’t that grieving boy now. Oh, no. He was the antithesis of that boy—he was the antithesis of just about everything good and proper with the world!

He cursed and suddenly her couch-side lamps shattered, a bowl and the vase of roses sliding off the coffee table.