ashes.
He mutters an oath and snaps his bond to the past. In silent fury, his body rushes into life, driven by the energy of the hunt. Across the hill he can hear a leaf fall and feel the weight of moonlight on his bare hands.
Alive.
More than alive—with such power as no mortal man can know.
His jacket drops. His clothes fall to the soft earth.
The abbey is as much of a home as he has ever known, and Calan MacKay feels the power of its welcome as he stands in the night, face to the north. The wind from the woods brings the rich scent of prey and the taste of rain before dawn. He runs, a shadow in the trees. A shadow with keenest sight and unthinkable strength. His muscles gather and stretch. Senses burning.
Then he is gone, swallowed by the darkness.
A bird cries. Moon rising.
Strange footprints dot the mud above the abbey’s moat.
HE SMELLS HER across the hill.
A touch of softness. A hint of warmth.
Woman.
Her perfume holds soft ginger. Orange. A hint of cinnamon.
Without looking, he knows her location. Her scent marks every step. Hidden by a mound of lavender, he waits.
She thinks she is alone. Every step she makes is quick, wary. She is small. Fast. Careful. This is what he sees in the space of a breath. The other details come slowly. Yet they are mostly about what she is not.
Not beautiful.
Not frightened.
Not sure of where she is going.
And because he is an intruder here himself, Calan MacKay does not interfere. He marks her progress, sensing the force of emotion that drives her over the damp grass to a gray boulder above the great sweep of the abbey’s west meadow. From here every detail of motion along the driveway is visible.
But at three in the morning, there is no movement. The grand house is empty. He has already checked to be sure. He is alone.
The woman in the black sweater stops suddenly. One hand to the gray rock, she closes her eyes and sinks down. Tears shimmer. Her head touches her open hands.
He smells the salt of her tears then. The scent is physical, painfully intimate, as if he had shared her body in the most primal form of sex. Her tears smell like youth…and sadness.
Ginger and sunshine.
He is stunned at his sudden awareness of a stranger’s body. It has been years since he has felt such sharp curiosity about a woman.
Curiosity turns to something darker.
If things were different, he would make it his goal to taste her passion and her body. He would drive her slowly, making her burn as he suddenly burns. He would hunt and then possess her until his curiosity was slaked.
Something tells him that could take a lifetime.
But he has no lifetime to give. Because Calan MacKay cannot be gentle or trusting, he crushes his desire. She has stirred up emotions he can never afford.
He curses, summoning anger instead. It will be an easy thing to frighten her away. Slow, he moves through the arched rose bower, a shadow amid shadows, making no sound. Almost at her side.
She gives no sign, perched on the rock, eyes intent. Suddenly she sways and pushes to her feet. Her fingers dig furiously at one pocket.
He tenses, no longer a simple observer. She is an intruder on Draycott soil and he plans his direction of attack, the timing of his approach to overpower her.
But the choked sound of her pain is not what he expects. What she pulls from her pocket is not a weapon. Only a folded piece of paper.
Small and fragile, it covers her palm.
He can smell the age caught in its fibers. Salt is locked within faint layers of human sweat, as if the sheet has been carried for years in trembling hands.
Her jaw tightens. She does not have to read the words on the fragile sheet to know their secret. Sliding to her knees, she searches the dark earth. Her eyes are hard with anger as she grips a small stone and hurls it toward the distant house. “Damn you,” she rasps. “Damn all of you.”
She throws another stone, and now he sees the tears spilling down her pale cheeks. He smells the salt of her skin and his body tightens in harsh response. He wants to know her name, her breathless laugh, the heat of her thighs.
He wants to know her body and everything about her.
Reckless wishes. He will never know her.
The tall Scotsman doesn’t move, though every nerve shouts for him to cross the darkness between them. Who is this stranger to hold him, tempt him?
She stands awkwardly, her shoulders tense. No more tears now. Only anger.
She lifts one hand in a fist. “Leave us alone,” she orders hoarsely. “Let it end.”
His curiosity is caught hard now, so he follows when she climbs the hill, hidden when she kneels beneath an ancient oak. She digs with bare fingers and a simple kitchen knife, raking the earth in long lines. He can barely hold himself back when she leans down to the wet earth.
To find what?
She twists suddenly, and her pale face is caught in the moonlight, something from his deepest dreams. Dark eyes glint with tears and fury as she tosses the knife.
It spins high—and lands at his feet.
An accident, or has she sensed his presence after all?
“Gone.” Her harsh whisper drifts on the wind. “Taken like everything else…” She stands, unsteady, one hand white against the ancient tree. With a sigh, she pulls her jacket closed, staring around uncertainly.
And then she turns.
Away from the house. She crosses the dark grass, her shoulders stooped with weariness. Questions storm into his mind as she passes, close enough to touch.
He holds his distance as she crosses the meadow, climbs a small stone fence. From there she winds through the copse that borders the road.
Somewhere in the darkness a car engine coughs.
He draws back. She is still walking when two men emerge from behind a tangle of weeds. They block her scream. Her hands claw and scrape in her struggles.
Anger explodes through him. With their scent like a beacon, he opens to the hunt. But not fast enough.
She fights well, but the men are stonger and they take her just the same. The car motor whines.
Silent and deadly, the Scotsman hunts.
CHAPTER
