Claire breathed hard, the horse snorting now. Damn it. A terrible draft had chilled the glade just before the warriors had invaded, the same kind of cold that had filled the apartment.
Claire had spent her entire life avoiding overthinking the dark side of the city. She’d worked her ass off to make a small, secure and successful world for herself. When bad things happened to friends, neighbors and coworkers, she began supporting challenging political candidates. Crime was out of control and society was breaking down, so she worked harder. Work was a refuge. She wished she was working now.
But that world felt as if it had just gone up in smoke. And damn it, life seemed equally dark and chaotic in medieval Scotland. She didn’t know what to think, and she certainly didn’t know what to do.
Ye be my Innocent now.
She shivered. What did that mean?
Malcolm’s tone had been filled with possession back in her apartment when he had first made that statement, and it had been as possessive when he had told Royce that he didn’t share. She felt her cheeks warm. He had pointedly told Royce that he’d “taken” her. That was the point. He had taken and used her body, just like that, in one stunning instant, when she had been recovering from the torture of time travel. There hadn’t been warm words, promises, declarations of affection. Love had not been involved. It had been pure, raw, carnal sex.
She was never going to believe that she had welcomed his attentions the way that she had. She still couldn’t believe she’d actually wanted—desperately—his invasion. Traveling back in time must have altered her senses or her sensibilities, or both. Maybe it had changed her physically, too. She’d always been hard to please and finding a release had usually been a chore, but it had been shockingly easy with Malcolm.
She was old-fashioned and proud of it. She was not going to deny how attractive he was, but so what? She met attractive men in New York all the time, and even if they weren’t as macho as Malcolm, there were some real power players out there. Power had always turned her on more than dumb good looks, but she had easily dismissed the men who had briefly tried to pursue her. Most of the men she met were highly dysfunctional. She had been celibate for three years because she insisted on affection, if not love, before intimacy. Power players weren’t into affection or love, they were into conquests.
It sounded awfully familiar.
Claire did not want to continue to think about that brief, combustible act of penetration and climax. If she did, her dry mouth would get drier and her speeding heart would race even more wildly. However, she had better think about it and prepare herself for his advances. He still wanted her. It was more than obvious. She felt it every time he looked at her. His sexuality and desire emanated from him in hot, tangible waves. And he was possessive. He had been warning Royce away. She wasn’t going to compromise her morals or her standards—or her dreams—just because she was lost in medieval times with the hunk of all ages. She had never had casual or meaningless sex. Ever. She’d had two relationships. She had been in love as a sophomore at Barnard, but her other affair had been more tepid. She’d wanted it to be love, but it had been hard to pretend, and in the end, she had given up.
And maybe that was half of the problem. He’d noticed right away that she’d been starving her body sexually. Crude and rude as he was, he’d commented openly. What had he said? He’d called her “hungry.” Apparently, he’d hit the nail on the head.
The next time they spoke, she had to set some boundaries and make some rules. She was very alone and this was his world. If he was chieftain of his clan, he was used to doing what he wanted, when he wanted, all of the time. Claire knew enough about the structure and culture of the Highland clans to know that a laird was God and king, judge and jury, policeman and warlord. His word was law and it was final.
Her heart had picked up an alarmed beat. She didn’t have to be rational to recall striking him and cursing him. She no longer knew herself, but she did know this. He might have deserved it, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t know him, never mind that he wanted to protect her. He was lord here, absolutely, and she had better appease him if she could. Otherwise, and maybe anyway, she was in deep shit.
Suddenly, Malcolm appeared at her side. Claire was so immersed in her thoughts that his appearance was as startling as that of a ghost. She flinched, her horse prancing. But he smiled, reaching out for her reins, steadying the charger. “I didna mean t’ scare ye. Ye be all right, lass?”
Claire tried to ignore his powerful presence, his masculinity and what might happen later if she didn’t find a way to keep him at bay. “We need to talk.” That was the understatement of her life, she thought.
“Aye.” He gestured ahead. “Carrick.”
Claire followed his gaze and her eyes widened. The pale castle was perched high above them on equally pale cliffs. Her heart beat wildly, but not with fear.
The last time she had been in Scotland, she had almost taken the turn at the sign pointing to Carrick Castle. Her guidebook had said the scenery was breathtaking, and a tour of the grounds and castle was not to be missed. But in the end she had driven by, intent upon arriving at Iona by nightfall.
Maybe being thrust back in the past wasn’t all that bad, Claire thought, excitement sweeping over her as she stared up at the imposing pale stone walls, the towers and the keep. If Malcolm kept his distance and she avoided any more battles, if she kept her head on straight and her courage up, this might just be an incredible and amazing, once-in-alifetime educational experience. She could probably even write about it, not that anyone would believe her. She was about to enter a fifteenth-century stronghold. She was about to see things that no historian had ever reported. And while she remained afraid, she wanted to go inside that castle.
If she could get back home in one piece, sooner rather than later, she might be able to manage this amazing twist of fate. She turned to look at him. “How long will it take to get there?”
“Less than an hour,” he said. “And we’ll discuss yer matters when we arrive.”
THEY RODE UP the steep hill in double file, but had to go one at a time through the very narrow entrance of the walled barbican. Carrick was set on the top of a hill, overlooking steep cliffs on all sides, and the site had clearly been chosen because the hill was divided from the road by a steep, impassable ravine. Without the drawbridge, ladders or siege engines, no one was entering or leaving.
Claire shivered as she rode across the drawbridge, Malcolm still beside her. An outer bailey filled with huts and livestock was behind them, and she glanced down into the ravine. Hundreds of feet below, it was filled with sharp, jagged rocks. Attackers who were thwarted on the drawbridge or trying to scale the curtain walls would fall to their deaths on the ground below.
As if reading her mind, Malcolm said, “No one has besieged Carrick.”
Claire managed a sickly smile. A castle built solely to withstand assault and attack was, in a way, as unnerving as the battle they’d just survived. The sun was rising above the towers and the ramparts, and the sky was a pale gray, stained with fingers of crimson and pink. The sight would have been breathtaking, just as her brochure had promised, if she didn’t know that each and every jagged rock had been put in that ravine by human hands, meant to inflict pain and death.
They now rode single file through the narrow, dark passageway of the gatehouse and its four towers. Claire looked up. There were “murder holes” above her from which attackers would be doused with hot oil and arrows if they ever got this far. She looked down. Her horse was crossing a wooden plank set in the stone
