“You’re doing this to get even with me because I was the one who stopped everything last time, aren’t you?”
“This has nothing to do with last time. I stopped because yer no willing to give the commitment I seek. You want only a physical coupling with me. Sex, and nothing more.”
That wasn’t it at all. She wanted commitment as much as the next person, but not if it meant spending the rest of her life in the fourteenth freaking century. And not if it meant risking the world as she knew it.
“So?” she demanded. “What’s wrong with just sex? I can’t agree to the kind of commitment you’re asking. Why’s that so difficult for you to understand? You’re not willing to commit to the things I see as important.”
“It’s no at all difficult for me to see what you intend. My intent is something else entirely. Good night, Wife.”
He climbed up into the bed, pulling the draperies firmly shut behind him, and in what seemed like a matter of moments, soft snores emanated from the bed where he lay.
Abby, meanwhile, curled on the rug, cocooned in her blanket, thinking dark, spiteful thoughts about life in general and Colin MacAlister in particular.
Fine. He could sleep in his stupid little coffin box of a bed all by himself. There wasn’t enough money on the face of the planet to get her back into that dark hole. She had enough crap in her life at this moment without adding another round of suffocating claustrophobia into the mix just to try to appease him.
Who else but she could be unlucky enough to find maybe the one man in the entire world who seemed to fill all the empty holes inside her, only to discover that he was also possibly the only man in the whole world who insisted on commitment before sex?
Worse yet? In spite of all her big talk to the contrary, she was pretty damn sure she’d been stupid enough to let herself fall in love with the guy.
That she’d had to travel seven hundred years into the past to find all this out only added insult to the injury.
Thirty-one
Colin awoke in a foul, gray mood, more than ready to growl at anyone who crossed his path. He shoved back the heavy, dust-laden draperies with much more force than was necessary to greet a morning that was equally as foul and gray as he felt.
The shutters on the high windows had blown fully open during the night and rain sprayed in, soaking the entire room in a fine wet mist.
It would seem the dry spell had ended.
He rounded the bed to check on Abby and found her still asleep, curled up in a tight little ball with only the thin blanket he’d pulled from the bed last night to provide her protection.
And precious little protection it had been. A fine mist beaded on her hair, and as he approached, he could see that her body shivered with each breath.
Little wonder, since the fire had long ago burned itself out.
Some fine protector he was turning out to be.
He had made the fire his first priority, building it back to flaming warmth before he pulled another blanket from their bed to drape over her body, tucking it close. He’d briefly considered carrying her to the bed and slipping in beside her.
But that would have awakened her, and she needed all the rest she could get.
One last tug to cover her properly and then he slipped into his clothing and quietly out the door, pausing in the hallway to gather his thoughts, doing his best to beat back the guilt that washed over him in waves.
If he managed to get her through this journey and back to Dun Ard in one piece, it would truly be a miracle beyond even the power of the Fae.
Or maybe in spite of the Fae.
Halting his steps, he closed his eyes and dropped his guards, reaching out. He pushed away the cries battering his aura from within the castle, stretching out, far out into the countryside, until he found the one soul he sought.
Black, ragged, stained with evil, it pulsed, taunting him with its nearness.
Flynn. The Nuadian was here.
He’d debated whether to tell Abby that it had been no hallucination she’d suffered in the forest, deciding at last it would only give her one more thing to fear in this world. Instead, he’d spent the rest of that night, sword at his side, daring the Fae to step into the light of his campfire.
Somehow, someway, the bastard had managed to follow them here. And now Colin had no doubt that he hunted Abby.
Too bad for the Nuadian that he didn’t understand Abby belonged to Colin. She was indeed his Soulmate and as such, no one would ever lay hand on her without going through him.
