The Immortal Highlander

Page 71

“ ‘The Draghar’?” Gabby echoed, frowning.
“For a time,” Chloe explained, “Dageus was possessed by the souls of thirteen ancient, evil Druids who’d been banished by the Tuatha Dé to an immortal prison four thousand years ago. They were called the Draghar.”
“Oh. I see.” Gabby sounded quite unconvinced of her own words.
Chloe laughed softly. “I’ll explain it all later, Gabby. I promise.”
“Bloody hell, yes!” Adam exploded, stalking to Gabrielle’s side. Closing a hand on her arm, he said urgently, “Ask him if he still retains the Draghar’s memories, Gabrielle.” During the time the thirteen dark Druids had possessed Dageus, their knowledge had been his, and they’d once been privy to virtually all Tuatha Dé lore. Adam had assumed that when Aoibheal had destroyed the Draghar, she’d stripped those memories from the Highlander’s mind.
But what if she hadn’t? If Dageus knew the ancient countercurse in the Tuatha Dé’s tongue, he could terminate Adam’s enchantment! No mere mortal could do it, nor could he himself, but a full-blooded MacKeltar Druid who knew the ancient words certainly could.
He’d be able to speak for himself, be seen again, be solid again, be able to make it unmistakably clear that Gabrielle was his.
“Okay, but they can’t see me again, Adam. Stop touching me.”
Stop touching me. Being invisible was making him feel impotent enough around the Keltar, and impotent was not a feeling Adam was capable of dealing with on any level, and her words provoked something fast and furious and primal in him. He was consumed with the sudden imperative to make her remember that not so long ago she’d been begging him to kiss her deeper, that he’d had his hand down her pants. Damn near inside her, and would have been there—with something far more intimate and personal than a hand—if they’d not been interrupted. That they had some serious unfinished business to attend to.
In one smooth motion, he tugged her up into his arms and crushed her mouth with a hot, savage kiss, plunging deep, claiming, saying with it: I am your man, and don’t forget it.
Had she not yielded instantly, gone soft against him, accepting his kiss completely, he wasn’t sure what he might have done. He was merely grateful that he didn’t have to find out. In the library, invisible, with little to no foreplay was not how he wanted her first time to be. He wanted her first time to be an overwhelming, mind-numbing, perfect seduction that would brand her to the very core of her glowing golden soul.
Fortunately, she not only yielded, her knees did that little, utterly feminine buckling thing that made him feel like a veritable god among men, and he was able to make himself let her go.
When he did, she sank limply back into her seat, lips parted, eyes unfocused. She flushed, looking dazed, then shook her head abruptly.
He was pleased to see that Dageus and Drustan eyed her intently, then exchanged a thoughtful glance. Good, he’d finally marked his territory, at least a little.
“He wants to know if you retain the memories of the Draghar,” Gabby said with another shake of her head, as if she were still trying to clear it.
Dageus nodded. “ ’tis why I brought it up.”
“You do?” Drustan said, looking startled.
“Aye, though they’ve gone, their memories remain. Their knowledge is mine.”
“Christ, you told me naught of that,” Drustan growled. “All of their knowledge?”
“Aye. Masses of the stuff littering my mind. I spoke naught of it as ’twas of no relevance. With the Draghar no longer inside me, I have no temptation to use any of it. And the answer is aye again, I believe I can remove his curse. I, for one, would prefer to be able to see him. I doona care for this invisibility of his at all. ’tis making me uneasy.”
“Yes,” Adam said, punching the air, elated. “Do it. Right now. Hurry the hell up.” If he’d had the slightest suspicion that Dageus still possessed the memories of the thirteen, he’d have come here first, the instant the queen had abandoned him in London.
But he’d never imagined that Aoibheal might permit those memories to endure; so much of the Draghar’s knowledge was innately dangerous, intrinsically corruptive. He snorted. His queen was slipping. When he was immortal again, they were going to have a long talk. Perhaps it was time he took a seat on her infernal High Council himself and got into the thick of things.
“He says, ‘Would you please try?’ “ Gabby translated, tossing him a wordless little rebuke. He shrugged. Couldn’t she understand his impatience?