Fire's Ice (2 page)

“Do you want me, Ari?”

Oh, yes. I want you, but not like this.
“Yes.”

“Do you need me?”

Like my next breath
. “Yes.”

“Do you love me, Arianne Farrell?”

I do not know
. “Does it matter?”

“It matters to me.” Good, that made two of them. All or nothing, Devin.

She couldn’t resist sliding her fingers along the evidence of his desire through his black jeans. Shuddering, Arianne realized just how compelling he really was. If Devin offered, she would let him take her, out here in the open, and neither of them wanted to be ruled by lust. “It would seem not all of you is in agreement. Do you love me, Devin McLoch? For all your wicked selfish ways, has your wild heart fallen for me over the years of looking into the glass?” In her most secret heart of hearts, she hoped he would say he did.

“No. I don’t.”

And for that reason alone, she could never surrender her powers to him.

“I’m not sure I even like you, but I want you, which I suppose leaves something lacking in my character.” He kissed her again. Her hand stayed trapped between them. “Give it up. Turn away from the dark, Ari, and I’ll give you everything you’ll ever need.”

Everything but his love. “Are you mad? There’s nothing you can give me that I can’t conjure with my sorcery.”

Devin spun her toward the nearest large standing stone until her back pressed against the pulsing rock. Feeling the scratchy stone against her bare shoulders, she wondered if he might hurt her. No. Devin was truly a laird at heart, a warrior, both kind and fierce but always protective of the weak.

“I can give you children.”

Bastard. She couldn’t help the tiny jerk of emotion even if it meant Devin finding her weakness. Oh, how she wanted a child of her own. A child with a man she loved. His mouth trailed from hers, lighting fires with small kisses down her jaw and throat. Arianne shuddered underneath his touch and leaned into him.

“You are the most maddening woman I’ve ever met.”

“Why, thank you.”

“Come with me and turn away from the dark. I’ll give you a future, Arianne.”

If only I could.
“No. I will never give up my power.”

“Your choice.” Devin flashed out of the circle, stealing his heat away from her, leaving her aching with unspoken needs.
Come back
. She wanted to cry out for him, but pride wouldn’t allow it. There were other ways to get what she wanted. Dreams.

* * * *

Scotland–five days later

Power swirling around him, Devin flashed away from Rhiannon’s grief to a place in the forest just outside the boundaries of McLoch land. Glancing up at the gray sky, he materialized a long black overcoat to ward off the cold and snow, and walked toward the place where he’d almost died a thousand years before.

Devin approached a ring of earth where nothing grew. Rich black soil lay still in the wind. No snow fell on the perfect circle he had scorched into the ground so many years ago. He could see through the barrier now. Not Glen McLoch, just the open clearing where his father bled and died in fear. If only he’d allowed him to use his magic in the beginning, the battle might have had a different outcome.

Lifting both hands high into the air, palms turned upward as if in praise, he pulled on his magic, found the fire within. “I am Daemon’s Fire, wizard, witch, and thief, warrior and teacher. I claim that which is mine by blood and right. I am Laird Devin McLoch, son of faerie and man. In blood and fire I sealed this circle.”

Taking a knife from the pocket of the black dress pants he’d worn to the funeral for Rhiannon’s father he opened the blade and sliced his palm with a hiss of pain, still amazed at the blood welling from the cut. For so long he had lived in an extended existence until Daemon’s spell had unraveled with Skye and Rhiannon’s wedding. Now he was an ordinary man, a thousand years out of his time. Well, not exactly ordinary.

Vanishing the knife, he conjured a ball of fire in his uninjured hand. “In blood and fire, I seek entry to all which has been protected from me. As I will, so mote it be.”

Tossing the fireball high above his head, Devin caught it in his bloodied hand, and then threw it at the black soil. Rolling flames stretched as far as he could see in both directions. Everywhere the flames touched, flowers sprouted and snow drifted down to rest on their petals. When the last spark fizzled and died, Devin healed the gash on his hand. Taking a deep breath, he stepped over the flowers and across the barrier toward home.

No resistance. Just a hint of magic. Finally, home. He fell to his knees inside his circle, hands finally touching his land after so long. Memories of the last battle assaulted him.

“Brother!” Alan’s cry snared his attention. Feeling Alan’s soul slipping away, he fought his way to his brother’s side.

“Die, dirty cur!” His blow pierced the chest of the MacGavin warrior closest to him. Spinning, he let the weight of his sword sever the head from the man leaning over his brother’s lifeless body. His brother was only two and twenty. He shouldn’t be dead. Not yet. He wanted to close Alan’s eyes. But in battle there was no time for respect, for grief, only time to kill or be killed. He thought of Mayrie, Alan’s young bride, only just rounding with child. God. Why! Why were they so unprepared? Because he’d failed to heed Daemon’s warning. He’d tossed aside a chance to save his family, and chosen pride. Cometh the fall. Behind him he heard screaming behind the castle walls. Mother!

The words tore from his heart. “No! Father! Alan is dead.” Turning, he cut down the man at his back and watched as Laird MacGavin severed his father’s head. “Father!”

MacGavin and a hundred of his kinsmen had launched an attack on McLoch
land at daybreak. Caught by surprise, there had been no time to secure the castle. More than half of their clansmen lay strewn across the battlefield. Alan and now his father. Daemon’s prediction had come true.

He’d been an arrogant fool to ignore the warning. Damned pride. His own fault.

His body cried out in agony, bloody, bruised, and broken with so few left of his clansmen, defeat sought to claim him. “I will not die! I will kill every last one of you! I will protect those in my charge!” He sliced through each man who came close to his blade with the ferocity of the desperate, and determined to avenge the deaths of his kin.

His body declared mutiny. His sword slipped from his grasp, slicing a gash across his palm. Laird but a moment and he would die on his own land. Die with his kin while those dogs defiled his mother and sisters. MacGavin stood above him, his own sword held high and sure, ready to take his life.

“You die this day, Laird McLoch
.
All you have will be mine
.
Those of my blood will claim your land and holdings, kill your kinsmen, and rape your women. Now you must die knowing it was you who failed to stand in my way.”

The vision had spun in his mind, two women, his cousin Daemon, powerful magic. Three elements trapped and spinning together. He was the fourth–Fire.

Glowing like thousands of candles lit all at once, Devin called forth the fire within his cupped hands, creating a ring of flame around all he sought to save. Yet to him the flames were as cool as a mountain spring. This was his gift, his element. He wasn’t without defenses yet. How could he have forgotten this? “The Devil won’t have me, MacGavin
.
Ring of fire, strong and sure, I entrust you to endure. From that which seeks to do harm in deed, shield all that has been charged to me. By my blood and fire I seal this circle. As I will, so mote it be
.
”

He had saved them–his mother, sisters, Mayrie and her babe–and lost them with the same breath.

Devin got to his feet, dusted snow off his knees, and pulled his coat tight around him. Shaking off the images his mind would never let go, he ran across the empty battlefield toward ruins of the high stone walls of Glen McLoch.

Chapter 2

Scotland–Glen McLoch, three years later

Devin slipped his keys into the pocket of work-worn blue jeans. Three years. Three long years it had taken to build the new McLoch keep on the grounds of the original castle. Magic would have shortened the time frame some, but he’d wanted to have a hand in building his home. His hands, nimble with long fingers, a thief’s hands, both clever and quick, were covered in tiny scars and calluses. He’d watched every stone, every brick set into place, nursed blisters and bruises.

He stood in the front hall, a little disoriented at first. Devin had designed the home to mirror the one he’d lost so many years ago, but now looking around at the finished result, a new heartache reached out and snared him. Finally home, but it was like a ghost surrounding him. His father and mother, sisters, even the servants lost to the battlefield and time. Maybe he should have died in battle alongside his father.

No. Not true, just a melancholy thought. He would never have met his dear friend Serena–another lost soul–or Jack, never have found Liv and the others. Funny, he hadn’t minded being alone before, craved it sometimes. Now the silence drove him mad.

Empty. Alone. “Well, not completely alone. I still have you, Tessa.” Bending down, he picked up the fat, spoiled black cat meowing at his feet and scratched behind her ears. “Dinner time for you, is it?”

Tessa batted his shoulder twice, meowing her impatience loudly in his ear.

“Salmon it is, then.” Walking into the kitchen, Devin took a piece of fresh salmon out of the fridge for the feline and laid it in her food dish. “Enjoy, kitty. Last one you get this week. It’s diet kibble for you.”

The cat stuck out her tongue, gave him her back and began to wash her feet. Typical, but he loved the little diva. Tessa had found him on the same snowy day he’d returned to the ruins of his keep. The scrawny little kitten roaming around the rubble couldn’t have been weaned from her mother more than a couple of weeks. Figuring she’d either been abandoned or wandered away, he’d planned to find her a home. Perhaps with Allie, but then she’d climbed up his shirt with tiny claws, snuggled into the groove of his neck and purred her way into his heart.

Leaving her to her dinner, Devin waved a hand as he walked down the hall, setting all the lights blazing, allowing their warmth to fill the empty spaces. He passed the door to the kitchen and made his way into the great hall, up the stone staircase leading to the second floor. The original castle steps didn’t have handrails, just an open fall to the slate below. Remembering the littlest members of his new clan, Devin began to conjure a rail of iron twisted into the shape of draping ivy as he climbed the stairs, keeping the bars only a couple of inches apart. Couldn’t have one of the kids or the kitty taking a fall.

Turning left off the second floor landing into his bedroom, he sat down on the bed, slid off his work boots, and left them on the floor beside the nightstand. He’d done as he pleased here too, adding modern conveniences to mix with the old style of the home. Dark blue drapes covered energy efficient windows and blocked out the night sky. The dresser and wardrobe were ornately carved works of art, even a little feminine, but mixed with the bold chocolates, reds and navy colors of the bedding and rugs they worked and suited him perfectly.

Moving into the en suite, Devin loosened the buttons of his shirt and walked across the heated tile floor to turn on the shower. He stripped off his filthy work clothes, thankful he could finally retire them, stepped under the hot stream of water and closed the frosted glass doors. Turning another knob, he let the hot water pound his aching muscles from every direction, glad he’d listened to the contractor’s suggestion of adding multi jets to the shower. He hadn’t been concerned with the added expense, or the knowing wink the burly man gave him when Devin originally incorporated the couple-sized shower into the plans in addition to a huge soaking tub and double sinks. It was a room meant to accommodate lovers.

He’d had his fill of lovers. He wanted a wife. He wanted Arianne, but unless he intended to live in the mists of the stone dance, he couldn’t have her.

Damn her sexy self straight to hell. He wished she were here. Never had he been so tortured over a woman. She was doing her best to convince him to change his mind and give up his power and way of life. Which was why he’d avoided the dance for the past year. Oh, he checked in on his family, had been there for the births of Meara and Aaron and all the birthdays and holidays since. If the Corrigans needed him, he could be there in a heartbeat. But they were managing just fine on their own.

Ari was another matter. Stubborn witch. She wouldn’t give in to his demands and neither could he toss them aside. They were at a stalemate.
On my terms, Ari
.