Page 90 of Dark Seduction

Aidan’s brows lifted. “Ye want something, Lady Claire?”

An image of him in far too much male glory flashed through her mind. “Ah,” she began.

He smiled as if he knew.

She swallowed, banishing the image from her mind and her memory. “I am sorry about intruding.” She felt annoyed. The door hadn’t even been closed.

He shrugged. “I dinna care. Ye wish fer a weapon?”

He had a sly tone and an impudent smile. Claire smiled tightly back. If he thought for one second that she wished to share his bed, he was wrong. She thought about Malcolm and her heart ached. “Yes. I broke my dagger last night in your lock. You have been a gracious and generous host, and I have tremendous audacity asking you for another favor. But I have no real means to defend myself.” And the one man who had promised to teach her to fight was gone.

Aidan’s near leer vanished. He unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Ye need a weapon,” he agreed.

Claire gasped. The small round chamber was filled with swords, shields, daggers and—holy shit—guns. She turned her shocked gaze to his. “You have weapons from the future.”

“Aye, I do. I like the future an’ I couldna help myself.”

Claire had identified mid-to late-eighteenth century pistols. She also saw a revolver that she was pretty certain belonged in the nineteenth century. There were no modern revolvers, rifles or machine guns, which was too damn bad. “Isn’t this forbidden?”

His grin flashed. “I dinna like rules, Claire, except when I be breakin’ them.” He walked to rows of neatly hanging daggers and chose a knife that was about twelve inches long with an exquisite ivory handle.

Claire bit her lip. “You have no guns from my time.”

“I was in yer time fer that single day, an’ I was lookin’ fer the page.”

“Aidan, in my time, there are guns that fire rapidly, a hundred times before a man can blink his eyes even once. Would a gun like that kill a demon?”

“It would depend on the Deamhan, Claire. Great evil, like Moray, becomes even greater if he has taken power from another afore a battle. And even if he dinna enhance his power first, if life was near, Moray would take it an’ survive even if a hundred pellets struck him. But the lesser Deamhanain would quickly die,” he added.

Claire thought about trapping Moray in such a way that he could not tap into anyone’s life. But how would that be possible?

“It’s nay possible, Claire. If ye be attackin’ him with one o’ yer weapons, he’ll take ye. He might take ye afore ye can even attack the first time.” He held out the dagger. “How does this feel?”

Claire wanted a nineteenth-century revolver, but she grasped the dagger. The hilt was comfortable in her hand.

Aidan took the dagger from her and replaced it with another. The second hilt was smaller and felt perfect in her grip. He smiled. “’Twill do.”

“Is there any way Moray can be lured onto holy ground?”

Aidan laughed. “He can sense God the way we can sense evil. Nay.”

Claire slowly lifted her gaze to Aidan’s. “He’s the devil, isn’t he? Not the devil’s own, but the devil. He is one of the faces of Satan.”

Aidan hesitated.

Claire turned away. “Oh, God,” she whispered, and it was a supplication. But the devil would not choose this land as his stomping ground, would he? “Why Scotland?”

“Why not? There be great Deamhanain everywhere, in every time—in yer time, too,” Aidan said.

Aidan laid his hand on her shoulder. Claire tensed. “Ye ken, lass, ’tis an ancient belief that the devil chose Alba thousands o’ years ago, for he be Lug’s first an’ eldest son. He wanted the power over all the gods that belonged to his father and that quest led him to evil.”

“The fallen angel,” Claire murmured, shifting so he no longer clasped her shoulder.

“They say in the land called Greece that the devil be the son o’ their greatest god, too.”

“Great,” Claire whispered. “There are gods everywhere—and more than one devil.”

He smiled somberly. “Aye. I’ll teach ye how to defend yerself wi’ the blade,” he said quietly. “An’ ye can have the gun ye covet.”