Page 44 of Dark Seduction

Claire swallowed the urge to retch. No. Malcolm was human and good and he had not committed a crime of pleasure. That woman had died from too much hot sex. According to Malcolm, it was subhuman demons with superpowers who sucked the life from their victims.

“Lass.”

She looked up slowly, aware that she was at her emotional limit. “The shutter opened,” she whispered.

“It be the wind. There’s nay evil here. The walls were anointed with holy water before we supped.” He had wrapped the brat around his waist like a towel, but it bulged.

Claire trembled.

“The Deamhanain do not enter holy places, lass,” he added softly, but he didn’t slide his arm around her. She wanted to be in his big, strong and very safe embrace.

She hugged herself. “How can you be excited at a time like this?” she whispered.

“Ye’ll always excite me,” he murmured. “Come here.” And he pulled her into his arms.

Claire found her face pressed against the strong crook of his warm neck and shoulder, her hands flat on his broad chest, over his strong, pounding heart. She ignored the powerful organ that throbbed between them. “I don’t believe it,” she insisted desperately. “Not any of it. But what I do know is that you are good.”

His grip tightened and he stroked her hair as it flowed down her back. “Yer chamber be safe, Claire. But I ken ye dinna like t’ sleep alone. Ye can have the bed. I’ll watch over ye t’ night.”

Claire laughed hysterically. This from a medieval macho man? “Thank you.”

“Why do ye nay sleep now?” He smiled. “I’ll sit by the fire.”

“I can’t sleep!” she cried, looking up at him. And she hated the look in his eyes of concern blended with pity. She banged her fist on the slab of his pectoral muscle. “Moray is not the son of Satan. He can’t be.”

His arms tightened and he pulled her close. Claire thought she felt his mouth on her hair. “We’ll discuss such matters t’morrow.”

“There can’t be demons, Malcolm,” she whispered against his chest, meaning it. “There is evil…but it is human.”

He stroked her hair again, remaining silent.

Claire started to really cry then. She had worked so hard to rationalize the frightening epidemic of pleasure crimes—as had every intelligent person she knew. Everyone knew that city life was dangerous, but it was explicable. Crime was the result of poverty, broken homes, drugs and a culture of violence, and while some lunatics ran loose, causing murder and mayhem, relishing every violent sexual act, it was on a random basis. As bad as society was, as decadent, as chaotic, the loonies were a small minority, and they were human. There was always hope.

Claire didn’t know what to think now.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE FOLLOWING SUNRISE, Claire waited to mount her mare, shivering. A dozen men were preparing to mount up, as well, and the gatehouse doors had been opened, the portcullis raised. Through it, she could see the shadow of the drawbridge as it was lowered. She turned her gaze and instantly found Malcolm.

He had yet to mount and was speaking with Seamus by the castle’s interior entrance. Claire’s heart turned over, hard.

She had had one of the worst nights of her life. She’d barely slept, tossing and turning, her mind racing, but every time she’d opened her eyes, she’d seen Malcolm seated by the fire, awake and watchful. He’d watched over her the entire night.

Before Malcolm’s terrible declaration last night, she had been eager to go to Iona where she would see the shrine and hopefully the Cathach, as well. But how could she be excited now when her world was unraveling at the speed of light?

Moray be the lord o’ the darkness.

His spawn be the Deamhanain.

Claire had spent the entire night convincing herself that evil was human. She had prayed that demons and the devil did not exist. But it had been impossible to convince herself that she was right and Malcolm wrong.

What if everything Malcolm believed was actually true?

Claire did not want to go down that road, not today, not ever. But that’s what scholars did—they asked, what if? She stared at Malcolm. He looked exactly the way a man dedicated to vanquishing evil should. He had the charisma of a leader, the power of a warrior, and he was so damn gorgeous. He looked as if he was the one descended from the gods.

Malcolm turned. His gaze was as concerned as it had been last night, but she did not want his kindness or his concern. She was very ashamed of her hysterical and cowardly behavior. It wasn’t going to happen again, no matter what. Panic and fear weren’t going to solve anything. And she already knew that bad things went bump in the night.

Claire thought about Amy, who had to be worried sick about her by now. How many times had Amy stressed how evil criminals today were? God, did she know something? How could she not, when her husband was in the Bureau, even if he was in counterterrorism? He had to have inside information; all cops talked, including feds.