Page 41 of Dark Victory

“I will stay until I vanquish the evil behind the boys.”

“Shit!” Tabby cried. He wasn’t going to budge. She didn’t even know if she could send him away. If he refused to go, she had a terrible suspicion that he might be able to resist any spell she might cast. “You haven’t taken vows, but now, suddenly, you’re a protector?”

“Ye’re the woman sharin’ my bed.”

She inhaled so sharply it hurt her ribs. She saw his strained face as he loomed over her, his hand in her hair, holding her still, so he could kiss her the way she’d never been kissed before.

He intended to continue this.

What was she going to do?

Image after image came, brutally and erotically now. His huge body, driving up into hers. Her back against the door, on the hard floor. And the incredible ecstasy…

Her blood was so hot she thought her skin might start smoking. She swallowed. “We’re from different worlds,” she said slowly. “Your world is violent and savage—too violent and savage for me. Being together makes no sense. Surely you can see that?”

“I live by my word…an’ my sword, Tabitha. If I dinna destroy my enemies, they will destroy me.” His gaze was hard, but it was also searching.

“I know. And that’s the bottom line—our worlds are too different.” She turned abruptly, her back to him, and reached for her bedroom door, tears finally forming. They burned her eyes. She didn’t know why she was upset. She didn’t know why she wanted to curl up and cry. She prayed he wouldn’t come after her. If he did, she was really afraid of what would happen next.

“Our worlds are nay as different as ye’d like to believe.”

His tone was bedroom soft. Tabby rushed into her bedroom and slammed the door closed, shaking. He was wrong; she was right! Then she covered her face with her hands, giving into utter despair and utter exhaustion, her head feeling explosive.

They did not share any Destiny. It was a mistake, or one big fat celestial joke; it had to be.

The sooner he went back to 1298, the better.

They had nothing in common except for the war on evil.

But what about the desire that raged between them?

Maybe, just maybe, it had been a shocking abnormality—one single instance in her life that would never be repeated, an event that had come out of the terrible trauma of that day.

Tabby felt her tears start to fall. She wanted to be that wildly passionate woman—just not with a medieval man who callously beheaded his enemies at whim! She stumbled over to her bed and collapsed on top of the comforter there. She was so tired she couldn’t move, not even to get under the covers. But she knew she’d never sleep.

Because now, instead of seeing him roughing Randall up or beheading Angel, she saw him in the bathroom, stripping down, naked, absolutely immodest and too physically perfect for words.

Tabby wanted to moan. Her attraction to him hadn’t changed, and she didn’t know what to do about it. She suddenly wondered if she simply thought about him and what he could do to her, she might find that rapture again. She blushed.

Her bedroom door opened abruptly.

He’d been listening to her. Tabby lay very still, her body suddenly inflamed. He was going to come onto her—and she was probably going to let him.

But he knelt beside her bed, and his large, strong hand covered her mouth.

Tabby tensed, alarmed.

“Dinna move,” Macleod whispered. “Evil,” he said.

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.