Page 32 of Dark Seduction

Was he going to try to mount her now, when she was finally sated, as she had never, not even once in her life, been sated by anyone?

She bit her lip, shocked when a surge of desire formed at the thought of his moving onto her, into her. But he was motionless. His cheek rested intimately on her thigh and she was now acutely aware of the huge tension in his stiff, rigid body.

“Malcolm.” She did not recognize her own voice.

She finally realized he was in the midst of some kind of internal battle.

He breathed hard, harshly. His hand moved over her sex, just once, a sweeping caress.

He left the bed, throwing the fur over her, and their gazes met.

Instantly she sat up, alarmed. His eyes blazed with lust. The hunger she saw there was frankly frightening. His face was hard and his huge erection stood up against the linen, making her mouth dry, her heart race all over again. Claire tore her gaze from his blazing eyes, beginning to tremble.

She died taking her pleasure from me.

Maybe that woman had died because he was so sexual and so strong.

It was a horrifying thought.

He turned and left.

Claire gasped, wide-eyed. Her every instinct was to run after him, but to do what? He did not need comfort—did he? He needed sex, but he had given, not asking for a thing in return. She leaned back into the pillows, stunned. Maybe it was time to rethink her opinion of him.

HE STOOD ABSOLUTELY STILLon the ramparts between the two towers, the whisper of an early-morning breeze flattening his leine against his bare thighs, his hand grasping the hilt of his sword. Tension vibrated within. A glacial chill had cloaked Urquhart the moment he had passed through the gatehouse. Moray was waiting for him.

His stomach twisted into knots. There had been many warnings and he had ignored them all. He glanced up the allure and down it, but no one else was present. He looked below, first into the bailey at the peasants there, and then into the wide silver blue belly of Loch Ness.

A breeze shifted past him, whispering his name. “Calum.”

And the voice was not the wind, but Moray. The lord of darkness—his mortal enemy.

He trembled with his rage and hatred, and pushed open the wood door of the stone tower.

Darkness wafted onto the ramparts like an oncoming storm, dulling the light of the rising sun, and for one moment, he could not see.

Moray smiled at him.

His teeth were shockingly white. His skin was bronzed from centuries of sun, but he seemed all of thirty and five, if that. He was dressed in the English-court manner, his hose scarlet, the black wool doublet trimmed in ermine, a red-and-black brat pinned over one shoulder by a ruby-and-gold brooch. Moray was Defender of the Realm and King James’s favored counsel.

“I have been waiting for you, Malcolm,” Moray purred, speaking English. He was laughing as he spoke.

“Tha mi air mo sharachadh.” I am tired of this.

Moray seemed delighted, his smile widening. “Then what has taken you so long?” He lifted his sword and it rang as it slipped from its sheath.

Thought vanished. Sanity was gone. He drew his sword and thrust. “A Bhrogain!”

Moray easily met the blow, and when the two huge blades locked, he knew he faced the kind of strength and power he had never before imagined. He had never lost a battle, but in that single moment, he doubted his ability to defeat Moray.

Moray deflected every blow as if he were a child in napkins.

The battle became absurd. Moray played him while he had no strength left to wield his sword. He should have listened, he should have waited. His powers were too new, too unformed. And suddenly Moray thrust past his defenses and his blade sank deep into muscle and flesh, into bone.

He gasped as a terrible comprehension began, accompanying the blazing pain and heat.

Moray smiled, pushing the blade more completely into his body, through tendon and muscle, and he was completely skewered to the wall.

Moray withdrew, the blade dripping his blood.