Page 61 of Dark Rival

He whirled. “I dinna need yer help, Ailios,” he warned. “Leave me to my affairs.”

She tensed. “You can read my mind, can’t you?”

“Aye.” He stared without remorse at her.

She’d analyze that later. “If you can read my mind, you know what I want to know. Who is she?” she asked, sure he would explode.

His face was grim. “My wife.”

Allie tensed, even though she had expected the answer. “Where is she, Royce?”

“She’s dead,” he said without emotion. “Dead an’ buried, as she should be, these past eight centuries.”

Allie somehow nodded, shaken to the core. He was consumed with his dead wife—after eight centuries. How could she compete with that? What had Royce done—or what did he think he’d done?

And when his aura roiled and started to split, as the blue rose up, the color ruled by Uranus, the planet of change and transformation, the planet of Fate, everything became so clear. She loved the medieval man as much as the modern one and she could never turn her back on either one. He was breaking apart before her very eyes. She had to try to save him.

Trembling, she walked bravely to him and laid her hands on his chest. “How did she die, Royce? What happened?”

He seized her hands, hard. “So ye think to seduce me tonight? Ye wish to heal my bleeding soul with yer hot little body? Aye, fine, let’s go up to bed.”

Very softly, she said, “Be a jerk. You’re forgiven. You’re forgiven for everything you said today and for all of your despicable behavior. I understand what you’re doing—but you can’t change the subject.”

He started and dropped her hands. “Ye mean it. Ye forgive me for being a bastard. Ye don’t hate me. Ye would never hate anyone.”

“No, I can’t hate anyone—and I can’t hate you. And, Royce? You could pay me ten billion dollars—enough wealth to buy all of Alba in my time—and I wouldn’t sleep with you.”

He flushed.

She smiled sweetly. “The next time I sleep with you it will be because you tell me that you love me—and you mean it.”

His high color vanished. Their gazes locked.

He smiled slowly at her. “Ye challenge me?”

“No,” she said quickly, “I do not.”

“So ye retract yer words.”

She wet her lips. Her heart pounded wildly. This was so important, because one day, she wanted those words! “No, I do not.”

He nodded. Softly he said, “Then we won’t be sharing pleasure, will we? Not unless ye back down.”

“Maybe you’ll be the one to see the light.”

His expression became taut. “I will never say such words. Ye have my word on that.” He was so furious his aura spit fire.

“We are not rivals,” Allie insisted, meaning it.

He shook his head. “Then ye shouldn’t have challenged me.” And with those harsh words, he vanished.

Allie cried out. She had not a doubt that Royce had just leapt into the future—or the past.

She sank to the floor, terribly worried now. Royce was in the throes of unleashed torment and she was afraid he was vulnerable to his enemies in such a state, wherever he was. God, she hadn’t meant to confront the wounded beast in his den. It felt like a miracle that she had survived the encounter.

She hugged her knees to her chest. One thing had become crystal clear. This man needed her as no other ever had. And that meant she wasn’t going anywhere.

CHAPTER NINE