To Love a Highland Dragon (10 page)

His mouth on hers was warm, imbued with the life she’d just come so close to losing, but she pushed him away. “I need answers more than kisses,” she sputtered, reluctant to let go of him. “Who’s Rhukon, and why is he after you? While you’re at it, what do dragons have to do with all this?”

Lachlan opened his mouth, but Maggie shook her head and laid a finger over his lips. “I’m not thinking. We need to get a couple more things from my apartment. Then we need to leave. There’s been a bit of an emergency. We can talk on the way to the hospital.”

He followed her up the stairs and through the door of her apartment. The heat of him behind her was like a living thing, full of passion and promise. She wanted to turn around and pull him against her, but there wasn’t time. Her gaze fell on the bags of clothing she’d bought for him the night before. “Quick.” She thrust them into his arms. “Change into these. You’ll be driving into Inverness with me, and it’s better if you look normal.”

A wicked grin lit his face, melting her heart. God, but he was beautiful with those emerald eyes twinkling. “Aye, lassie. Ye just want to see me buck naked.”

“That, too. But this time, I’m not looking. I’m due at the hospital as soon as I can get there.”

Lachlan gritted his teeth. Far from his absence keeping the lass safe, it had actually left her vulnerable to attack. Who would have guessed Rhukon would move so quickly? His conversation with the Celtic gods had come to an abrupt halt when Gwydion bolted to his feet, face like a thundercloud, screeching, “That bastard.” Lachlan didn’t waste time asking questions. He’d pulled magic as fast and hard as he could—gratified his power was recovering—and hastened to Maggie’s side.

Intensely relieved he’d appeared soon enough to thwart his adversary, Lachlan pulled garments from flimsy bags made of some slick, alien substance. “What is this?” He pinched a bag disdainfully before tossing in on the floor.

“Plastic. A relatively new invention. Come on, Lachlan, I really do need you to hurry.”

He ran his hands over breeks made of a stiff, blue fabric, a softer shirt and another, thicker shirt, and then held up what had to be smallclothes. “Aye, I think I understand just what goes where.” Never taking his gaze from her, he laid the new clothes over the arm of a puffy chair and unbuckled his sword belt. Next he unwound his plaid from his upper body and removed his shirt.

By the time his chest was bare, spots of color bloomed on Maggie’s cheeks, and he could smell the heat of her arousal from ten paces. She gave a muffled squawk and turned away from him.

“Am I so unattractive ye canna bear to gaze upon me?” The folds of the plaid fell from his body. He folded it carefully, laid it aside, and unbuckled his thigh sheath before working his way into the far less comfortable attire.

“You know damn well that’s not it. It’s taking every shred of self-discipline I have to stay on this side of the room.” Breath rattled against her teeth as she exhaled. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but one of my patients tried to kill himself last night. The nursing staff is upset. They need me. I won’t stay at the hospital for very long, but I have to stop in, check on my patient, and sign orders for his care. It doesn’t look good when suicides happen on my watch. People aren’t lawsuit-happy here like they are in the States, but that’s no excuse not to provide the best care I can.”

“I doona quite catch some of your meaning.” Lachlan slid into the shorts and T-shirt. He pulled a top out of some soft material that wasn’t wool, but felt like it, over his torso and stared at the breeks. They looked as if they’d be uncomfortable as all get-out. He shoved a leg into one side, then the other, and pulled them into place. Because his cock was erect, it didn’t want to be stuffed into the confining space behind a row of metal buttons.

“Are you dressed?”

“Mostly. Ye’re fairly safe if ye turn about. This fellow ye’re caring for, he must be old and sick, eh? When people decide they have had enough of life, ’tis their choice to go far from their loved ones and meet the goddess. I doona understand why ye feel the need to prolong his life beyond—”

She turned slowly, gaze sweeping over him from head to toe. “Customs have changed dramatically since you were here last.” She waved a hand dismissively. “How society views suicide isn’t important right now. Ready?”

He grinned sheepishly. “Not quite. I canna get the breeks buttoned.”

Maggie’s cheeks turned crimson; her intense blue gaze zeroed in on his groin. “That’s because your, er, uh… Oh, for Christ’s sake, I’m an M.D., not a bumbling schoolgirl. Your erection is in the way,” she finished. “Push it to the side, and the buttons should go. I’d help,” she quirked a brow, “but I won’t make the problem any better.”

He half-turned from her and fumbled with his crotch. The buttons finally slipped into their fasteners, but his cock was wretchedly uncomfortable, trapped between his stomach and the rough fabric. Without the smallclothes providing a bit of shielding, the sensation would have been unbearable. “I doona see why a man would choose something like this over a plaid.”

If Maggie had an answer for him, she didn’t offer it. She handed him the other, thicker shirt and gathered food items from her table. “Let’s go.”

“Just a minute.” Lachlan picked up his thigh sheath and started to fasten it around his upper leg.”

Maggie shook her head. “You won’t need that, and it defeats the whole purpose of having you in modern garb.”

He eyed his sword. “I suppose next ye’re going to tell me to leave that behind as well.” She nodded. He chafed against leaving his weapons, but in truth, magic trumped steel every time. Lachlan gathered sword and dagger, placed them against a wall, and turned to face Maggie.

“Here.” He took a large bottle of amber liquid from her, hoping it was mead, and held the door open. She locked it behind them and vaulted down the stairs. By the time he got to her car, she had the back part open. He put the shirt and bottle inside and got into the car.

She settled behind the wheel, made a few adjustments, and the metal monster on wheels rolled toward the street. “I was thinking, while you dressed. The first thing I need to know is who Rhukon is.”

“Did he reveal himself to you, then?”

Her lips pursed. “Of course he did. How else would I know about him? He showed up in my dream. See this bruise?” She held her braid back and pointed. “He slapped me, and it left a mark. That’s how I knew it wasn’t a dream. My grandmother is on her way here to help, but we can talk about that later. Who’s Rhukon?”

“The black wyvern.”

Maggie blew out a tense-sounding breath. “Okay. So he’s a black dragonesque creature. That tells me less than nothing. Why is he after you—and now me?”

“’Tis a long story, lass.”

“Give me the short version. I don’t have to understand everything, just the essentials.”

“Out of all the dragon clans, only the black and red were evil and barred from Fire Mountain—”

“How many dragon clans are there?” she cut in. “And what is Fire Mountain?”

“If ye interrupt every other word, I willna be able to tell you aught.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sorry, bad habit. I’m used to asking questions. Lots of them. I’ll shut up and listen. Promise.”

He inhaled, considering how to attack reams of information and distill it into something the lass could understand. “Fire Mountain is the dragons’ eternal home. ’Tis where their life was forged and ’tis where they return to die. It exists on the other side of time. Many dragons chose to live out their years there when things became difficult for them here.” He caught her gaze and held it. “’Tis why ye’ve probably never seen dragons in your lifetime.”

“No probably about it. I haven’t.”

Lachlan nodded. “Aye, ’tis as I thought. The dragon clans—not the blacks or reds, but the others—were promised immortality if they chose to bond with a human mage. Dragons are extremely picky, though, and long-lived enough even without Dana’s boon, so they only bonded with the strongest magicians.”

“That’s why you turned into a dragon in my dream.” Maggie’s jaws clamped shut with an audible clack. “Sorry. I really will try to keep my mouth shut.”

Lachlan snorted. Maggie being quiet was starting to seem like an oxymoron. He loved her forthright nature, though. “I studied for hundreds of years to strengthen my magic enough to attract a dragon. Nearly as soon as I’d bonded with Kheladin, the black wyvern laid siege to my person and my lands. It never occurred to me he was doing aught but making mischief. The black and red dragons have misbehaved, and rather badly, ever since they were excluded from Fire Mountain.”

A muscle twitched beneath one of his eyes. It was hard to admit serious miscalculation. By all the gods, he was a warrior. He did not want the woman sitting a hand span away to see him as weak. His stomach muscles tightened. “There were many things I dinna know back then—”

“Like what?”

“Goddesses’ tits, lass, but ye’re persistent.” He pressed his tongue against his teeth, thinking. “I dinna know Rhukon had cast strong magics to make both himself and his dragon immortal. Afore that, the blacks and reds were denied such blessings.”

“So there’s a red dragon mixed up in this, too?”

“’Tis prescient ye are.” He shot her a wry smile. “Aye, there is now but not at the time Kheladin and I barricaded ourselves into his cave.” Lachlan waited for Maggie to break in with another question, but she remained silent, so he continued. “Before I returned to your home, I met with Gwydion and Arawn—”

“Not the Celtic gods, Gwydion and Arawn.” She gasped. The car swerved, narrowly missing another. A hellacious blatting filled the air. “Surely you must be talking about men like yourself. Others who were trapped in the same time warp that snared you. You couldn’t mean the warrior magician and god of the dead.”

“What in the hell was that?” Lachlan stared out the car’s windows.

“Just the other guy’s horn. I pissed him off, and he honked at us. It’s nothing. Go on.”

“Yes, I did mean the Celtic gods, but Gwydion is better known as a master enchanter. In any event, though they dinna know aught at the time—no one did—Rhukon had joined forces with the Morrigan and the leader of the red dragon clan. The Morrigan feeds off energy from the dead and dying. She wanted more battles. Bloodier ones. Rhukon and the red wyvern simply wished to rule the world. To do that, they had to make things so unpleasant for the other dragons that they fled to Fire Mountain, the place of their making.”

She swallowed, the muscles beneath her jaw working. “You said it’s somewhere outside of time, so I guess it’s not on Earth.”

“Nay, lass, ’tisn’t.”

Lachlan kept his gaze on Maggie. The lass looked battle-shocked. “Was aught I said unclear?” he asked softly.

She shook her head. “I feel like I fell asleep and woke up in a fairy tale—and not a very nice one. We’re nearly at the hospital. Maybe you should come in with me. You could wait in the lounge. We have a security team in house.”

“I will be better off out of doors, lass. I can make myself invisible.”

“You can?” Her voice cracked. “Sorry. That shouldn’t surprise me. Not really” She maneuvered the car beneath a sign that said
Physician’s Parking
. “I won’t be long.”

Lachlan wrapped a hand around her wrist. He reached across her body with his other hand and turned her head so she had to look at him. “I know ’tis not easy, but doona be afraid, lass. There hasna been a chance to speak of this, but we, ye and I, hold a power betwixt us strong enough to unravel Rhukon’s plans.”

Her beautiful, blue eyes narrowed. “I had more-or-less figured that out on my own. Something cut me off from my dreams from the time I came to Scotland—”

“Why
did
ye come here, lass?”

“I—” She captured her lower lip between her teeth and shut her eyes. When she opened them, she met his gaze evenly. “I don’t have a good answer for you. Something—God only knows what—compelled me to apply for a rural psychiatry fellowship I saw advertised at the hospital here. Even at the time, I knew it was a bad career move. I was done with residency and had gotten several attractive job offers, offers that probably wouldn’t still be there a year later, once I was done with the fellowship.”

“Yet ye came anyway.”

Maggie nodded. “It was what I had to do. I tried to explain what I was feeling to my grandmother. She started to tell me something but never did.”

“Aye. Ye came here to find me. Somehow your grandmother must have realized that.” Two white-coated physicians waltzed past. Both stared frankly into the car. Lachlan glared back. “I could show them a thing or two about manners. Young pups without even so much as a ribbon to denote their clan.”

“Please don’t.” She pulled away from him. “Look, I really do have to check on my patient. Don’t do anything foolish. I need you to be here when I get back.”

“Doona worry, lass. I will not leave your side again. Ever.”

Maggie got out of the car. Rather than his spoken words, the ones she’d heard him say in her dream rang in her mind.
I was born loving you, and I will die loving you.
Before she shut the door, she bent her head and said, “I don’t know what this thing between us is, but I want to live long enough to find out.”