Spell of the Highlander

Page 42

“Lass, we need only evade Lucan for a number of days. Twenty more, to be exact. Scarce any time at all. I assure you, I will keep you safe and well until then.”
“‘Twenty days’? Why only twenty?” That didn’t sound so bad. She hadn’t known there was a time limit to how long her life was going to be screwed up, and it was a relatively short one. Surely she could get her life back on track after only twenty out-of-control days, if things really would be resolved by then. She was grateful that she’d had the foresight not to call in sick. Her odds for survival and a return to normalcy were suddenly looking considerably brighter. One whopper of a good story might take care of things. It might not even have to be half as inventive as some of those her students tried to feed her.
“Because the Compact that holds me bound to the Dark Glass requires that a tithe of purest gold be passed through the mirror every century to reaffirm the Unseelie indenture. The next tithe is due this Hallows’ Eve, on the thirty-first day of October, at midnight.”
Crimeny. Tithes, Compacts, indentures: Anytime she began thinking about resuming a normal life, she was reminded that she was currently up to her eyebrows in a fairy-tale world of spells and curses.
And the scary part was that it was all beginning to sound somewhat reasonable to her. The longer she interacted with a man who lived inside a mirror, the more inured she became to the strangeness of subsequent oddities. His existence was so inexplicable in and of itself that it seemed pointless to squabble over further inexplicabilities. Though she never would have believed it, magic existed. There was proof of it right in front of her eyes. Arguments over, case closed.
Shaking her head wonderingly, she pushed off the bed—she’d slept fully clothed but for shoes and socks—and went to stand in front of the mirror. She studied the fabulous frame with its odd symbols, stroking the cool gold of it, trailing her hand down over the silvery glass.
Inside the mirror, Cian raised his hand, too, and traced the path of her passage, making it appear as though their fingertips met. She felt only cold glass.
When the tips of her fingers passed over the black stain at the edge, she snatched them hastily away. It had felt icy, just like that strange E-mail, and it had seemed to almost . . . well, kind of . . . stick to her skin like a psychic leech as she’d pulled away, as if reluctant to release her. She made a mental note to tell him about the Myrddin-guy and his goose-bumpy E-mail. But first, more questions.
“‘Tis because it is an Unseelie Hallow, lass,” he said softly.
“What?”
“The chill. Dark power is cold. Light power is warm. A Seelie artifact exudes a gentle heat. Mere rubbings of a page from the Unseelie Dark Book suck the heat from a man’s body. ’Tis said handling the Dark Book itself turns a man into something no longer human, day by day, robbing him of all remnants of inner warmth and light.”
Jessi absorbed the information but refused to get sidetracked from the issue at hand. She needed to regain a measure of control that could only be achieved via a thorough understanding of her immediate situation, and as far as she could see, this Dark Book, whatever it was, had nothing to do with her problems.
“So, all we have to do is keep you away from this Lucan person until after the tithe is due, and the spell will be broken? We just need to hide for three weeks? That’s all?”
“Aye.”
“Then what—once the spell is broken and you’re free?” Could he get rid of this man who wanted her dead? Assure her return to a nice, normal life?
He inhaled deeply, his whisky gaze gleaming with sudden, chilling brutality. When he spoke, his voice was hard. “Then you’ll never have to worry about Lucan Trevayne again. No one will. This I swear.”
Jessi stepped back, in spite of herself. With those words, he’d transformed from sexy man to savage beast, lips drawn back in a silent snarl, nostrils flared, eyes narrowed and not quite sane. Madness born of a thousand-plus years of captivity flickered in those whisky depths, shadowy and cold as the inky stain on the perimeter of the Dark Glass.
She swallowed. “You sound pretty sure of your ability to defeat him, considering that he’s the one that stuck you in the mirror,” she felt obligated to point out.
A wicked, feral smile curved his lips. “Ah, Jessica, I’ll win this time. Of that you may be certain,” he said with soft menace.
His words chilled her to the bone. There was such implacable surety in his voice, such savagery in his eyes, that she no longer entertained the slightest doubt whatsoever about Cian MacKeltar’s ability to keep her alive.