Prologue
“What the hell did ye find wrong with that one? She’s a well-bred lass with a tempting dowry, and ye’re a blind man if ye missed those breasts.”
Faolan ignored the advisor, staring down at the sea where it white-capped against the blackened walls of the keep. Damn, the man’s voice scraped his nerves raw. He’d give his best dagger if the old fool would cease this endless prattle.
“Ye must marry, Faolan. Ye know as laird, ’tis your duty to your clan. Do ye no’ wish to leave an heir to protect us when ye’ve gone?”
“Shut up, Fergus! I weary of your banter. ’Tis all ye’ve blathered about since Father died and I’ve heard all I intend to hear.” Scraping his fists atop the roughened stone battlement, Faolan glowered at the gray-haired man. “If ye’re a wise man who values his hide, ye’ll haul yer nagging arse down off this roof and find someone else to nettle.”
Fergus widened the stance of his knobby, bowed legs and puffed out his chest as he stood his ground. A stubborn glint flashed in his watery blue eyes as he jutted his grizzled chin a bit higher. He hooked his thumbs into the top of his kilt. “I’ll no’ leave here until ye tell me why ye refused Lady McGonagall. Colum, Ranald, and I struggled with that alliance for months. Ye’ve no’ exactly made this easy, ye understand?”
“Who the hell is the laird here and who is the damned advisor?” Faolan clenched his teeth as a distant streak of lightning flickered across the horizon. Frustration pounded against his senses, lengthening into icy claws of dread.
He lifted his face to the rising wind, narrowing his eyes to the roiling storm clouds gathering to the north. One deep breath of the electrified wind told him he neared disaster. He’d managed a bit of control over his emotions. He would be damned if he lost his temper over this sorry business and unleashed a raging tempest.
Glancing to the sky, the old advisor retreated a step, coughed, and took a fortifying breath before stepping forward again. “Ye know I mean ye no dishonor, Faolan. But ’tis time ye chose a wife. I understand why ye find it so difficult. But ’tis not like we’ve offered unsavory prospects.”
Faolan thought back over all the women Fergus and the other advisors had selected. No, he couldn’t say they hadn’t been comely maids. Hell’s fire. He wanted nothing to do with a wife. Uneasiness chugged in his gut as the agitated gaze of the spindly legged old man bored right through his center. Fergus meant well, as did all the MacKay advisors. Faolan snorted as bitterness lashed through his thoughts. The advisors had their sights on increasing the strength and wealth of the clan. They sought security and advantageous alliances. They wouldn’t give up until he was shackled to a plump, healthy dowry.
As another flash of lightning lit the clouds off to the east, Faolan smiled. He knew the path clear as day. Every muscle in his body relaxed with his newfound plan.
He exhaled a relieved breath and leaned back against the wall. It all seemed so simple. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Let them accomplish their obsession to saddle him with a wife. He knew the perfect choice. “Fergus, never mind about Lady McGonagall. I’d prefer not to go into details as to why she wasna the one. But there is a lass I would like for ye to approach. In fact, their lands adjoin ours.”
“Their lands adjoin ours?” Fergus frowned, scrubbing a gnarled, shaking hand across the gray stubble peppering his chin. “Ye canna mean…” Fergus’s jaw dropped and he stared at Faolan with an unblinking stare.
“Aye.” Faolan nodded. “Speak with her father immediately. I hear Gordon Sinclair has searched for a husband for Dierdra for years and her bride price is famed to be quite promising.”
“But she is—” Fergus stammered.
“Yes,” Faolan interrupted. “She is exactly the one I need.”
ChapterOne
Ciara leaned against the doorpost in front of the preoccupied man, shifting her awareness as easily as a sigh. She ensured she didn’t cast the slightest shadow across the pristine office floor. She held her breath to suppress a giggle. The fool hadn’t the slightest inkling of her presence. With a lazy blink, she kept herself invisible to her prey hunched behind the gleaming desk.
Repositioning against the door facing, Ciara allowed herself a languid stretch. The man ignored her, intent on his computer screens. After all these years, the sheer ease of it almost filled her with boredom. Bending particles came as simple as drawing breath. Blinding mortals to her presence was second nature. Shesoenjoyed stalking her victims before moving in for the kill. Once she punished her chosen sinners, the thrill of the hunt disappeared.
And there he sat in his cold, stark office, her latest offender, totally oblivious to the silent blast of his personal judgment horn. Ciara had struggled with indecision before settling on this particular man. There had been so many from which to choose. The twenty-first century was rife with black-hearted mortals consumed by insatiable greed and cruelty. She’d grown so weary of all the horrors she’d seen. Their continued creativity at torturing each other sickened her beyond reason.
This one had infuriated her for hours. She’d fumed and shifted between the dimensions while he’d thoroughly enjoyed watching the people he’d fired make their final trip out the door. She’d nearly revealed herself when he laughed aloud as they stumbled with their pitiful cardboard boxes holding their personal belongings. He had snickered and clinked his coffee cup against the glass of the window in a toast as the cabs had passed them by.
Yes. He was the one. She would punish this mortal tonight. Her rage had seethed into vindictive surety when she’d overheard his latest phone conversation. He’d cinched a deal with another corrupt soul to store barrels of hazardous chemicals in an adjoining state’s closed landfill. He’d save the company millions by disposing of chemicals illegally in an abandoned dump. Transporting the chemicals wasn’t a problem either. He had the transportation cabinet of his home state splitting the kickback with the transportation cabinet on the receiving end.
Ciara decided this mortal deserved a most painful death. She would terrorize him first, build the suspense, and then end it with a slow and agonizing finale. She hadn’t decided how she would finish him off. She’d just play that one by ear. She would wait until the last office worker had left for the day and then playtime would begin.
Keeping her essence suspended between the dimensions, Ciara hovered through the halls until the only sound heard through the sterile building was the clicking echo of a single computer keyboard. Thetick tick tickcame from the lush corner office at the farthest end of the hall. The hour had grown late and her excitement had built as all the worker bees from the rows of identical gray cubes slogged their way through the elevator doors.
Now Ciara studied her prey as he leaned back in the squeaking depths of his plush leather chair. His eyes narrowed and the light of the monitors lit up his face as he scanned the reports flashing across the three computer screens lined across the gleaming black desk. With a cynical curl of his lip and a click of the mouse, he smiled and leaned closer to the screen on the right. From the gleam in his eye, Ciara knew the greedy bastard had found another set of victims.
“Let’s see what you’re up to now, my fool,” Ciara purred as she entered his mind.
In the annals of his thoughts, she read his plan to drain his employees’ retirement accounts. Ciara’s rage boiled through her veins when she saw his plot of funneling the income into an overseas resource where the shareholders would be none the wiser. Then he would shut down another division and pocket more millions by laying off hundreds of workers.
Ciara recoiled from the CEO’s mind as though she’d just touched a piece of rotted flesh. This mortal sickened her. He was just as evil as a serial killer. He had made his execution even easier. It was time she made her presence known.
She materialized in the doorway, still leaning against the frame, drumming her fingertips atop her folded arms. “The levels of greed to which you humans rise never cease to amaze me.”
Startled, the man jerked, his eyes squeezing closed as though she had struck him. Choking on the mouthful of coffee he’d just gulped; he spewed a shower of the amber liquid as he threw the cup across the room. “Who the hell are you?” he sputtered and coughed. “How did you get in here?”
