The door shut, and I was alone.

  CHAPTER 27: THE TRUE SELF REVEALED

  ~

  My skin was still crawling from Colin’s reference to Angus’ thick blood.

  Something was going on, but I couldn’t pin it down.

  I tapped my fingers against my lips. Should I wake Angus up with my demands or just wait until he got up himself?

  The other option was to bolt. But if I left, what about Magda? I didn’t know which Jumbo Video they had gone to, and I had no way to contact her. She’d be so pissed I’d dumped her a second time, she might call the wrath of Mr. Spiritoe down onto my head.

  Besides, it was time for that talk Angus had promised. This was my chance to be alone with him and to ask him about what I’d read in my ancestor’s diary.

  My anxious thinking was cut short by a low groan.

  I craned my neck to look down the dark hallway.

  “Hello?”

  My voice trembled on the word.

  A groan, low and sad, compelled me to move cautiously across the living room floor.

  A creaky floor board squealed under my weight, a warning of my advance. I froze in my tracks at the sound.

  “I’m coming down, now.”

  A clock on the wall ticked away the seconds. No one answered. Nothing moved. Cracking out my neck, I pushed my shoulders back and walked the last few steps to the first doorway.

  The room was dark inside. I searched for a light switch on the outside wall. There wasn’t one. My heart in my throat, I stepped in through the doorframe.

  On the other side of the room, a few splinters of sun squeezed between long, thick curtains covering a window. In the centre of the room, someone was lying under a white sheet on the bed.

  “Angus?” I whispered.

  The sound of a furnace turning on somewhere in the house was followed by the low rush of hot air pushing through the vents.

  I didn’t take my eyes from the bed as I slid my hand along the wall beside me, searching for a light switch.

  “Highlander,” my voice rasped.

  I gave up scratching at the empty wall and accepted I had to cross to the window. Scanning the gloom at the corners of the room, I hurried to the window and clasped the curtain. That familiar feeling of foreboding attacked my stomach, and I cursed the horror movies that had put it there. I yanked the curtain to the side.

  Piercing shards of sunlight drove like sand pellets into my eyes. My pupils were slow to adjust to the light and filled with water. The sunlight infused the room. It should have chased the tingles of fear away.

  I turned to the bed. Before me was a morgue scene. The sheet covered the sleeper from head to toe, hiding the body’s identity.

  The body under the sheet was tall, as long as the bed. As long as Angus.

  I didn’t want to believe it.

  I took a step closer trying to see through the crisp white material, but the dips and peaks of the form beneath the cloth revealed nothing.

  Near where the head should be, my eyes caught a movement. The sheet puffed up. Whoever was under there was breathing.

  Relief tingled down my arms. I wiped my forehead and released a nervous sigh.

  My returning courage carried me to the side of the bed, where I slowly dragged the sheet down to reveal the sleeper’s face.

  Wavy, brandy-wine coloured hair was the first give-away. Just to be sure, I gently pulled the sheet all the way down to his waist. He was naked, his muscles full and round under a swath of curly, chest hairs. The lower half of his face was covered with a ginger shadow of whiskers, giving his jaw and chin a manly strength. His eyes were closed, the thick dark lashes laying against his skin like shadowy feathers. As I memorized his face, he moaned again, shattering the illusion of serenity.

  Now, I noticed the frown lines between his eyes, the sweat curling the hair at his temples.

  I thought he was having a nightmare, so I lay my hand on his shoulder intending to shake him. At the touch of his skin, I felt the heat. The man was sweltering with fever.

  I pressed my palm to the side of his face, then his forehead.

  “Omigod, Angus,” I blurted.

  I rushed down the hall to find the bathroom and wet a cloth. When I got back, Angus’ face and neck were covered in a sheen of sweat. With a fever that hot, the washcloth should have shocked him awake, but he only stirred and mumbled a few broken sentences as I wiped his brow. Then I drew the cloth along his arm, which was incredibly heavy, the muscles twisting under my wet fingers.

  The evaporation of the water on his body normally would have cooled his skin, but he was just as hot to my touch.

  And my touch, on his skin, tried to drag my mind from caring to lusting.

  Wiping the cloth over his wide chest made the curly hairs spring up behind my hand like an army coming to attention.

  The shadows under the sheet around his hips called to me.

  I slid the cloth down over each mound of stomach muscle hidden beneath a warm layer of flesh. Angus wasn’t just cut. He was prime, marbled and muscled to survive.

  His genes had thrived under furs, carried his ancestors over mountains, released arrows, swung iron, and clubbed with rocks.

  The cloth slipped past his navel. Just beyond, a lush edge of dark hair begged to be touched. I stilled my hand, closed my eyes, and swallowed my temptation.

  A flush of shame warmed my cheeks, reminding me he was unwell. On the next swipe of the cloth across his stomach, I was surprised to feel his skin beneath my hand. The cloth was gone. Then forgotten, as I explored his rib cage, pressing my fingers gently into the dips between his ribs. An intimate visual of his corpuscles smoked my senses, and I gasped.

  Angus moved for the first time, tossing his head from left to right and then settling again. It interrupted the bizarre images in my mind, but only for a second before I was drawn back to his solid working muscle. It seduced my thoughts with sinewy bits.

  The odd lusting wove in and out of my perception. It was a push and pull between my concern for Angus, and my alternate personality’s preoccupation with flesh. These bizarre desires belonged to her, not me, and I was positive it was Angus’ vulnerability that was triggering them.

  I understood what she was now, my ‘alter’. She was a huntress. That much I had worked out, after leaping through the ravine during the night. I hadn’t been following Lennox. I’d been hunting him. I had chased him, overtaken him, and ultimately, She had brought him down like the antelope he was to her.

  According to Casbus, my mind had created her to protect me from men, I guess. But with men like Angus, I didn’t need protecting. I wanted to be with him, as an equal, as a lover. Just me. So, I needed Angus to be too healthy and capable to tempt a huntress. My ‘alter’ wasn’t going to steal my time with the Scotsman. This one was mine.

  “I want you to wake up, Angus.”

  Despite my stern tone, his eyes remained closed.

  My ‘alter’ thrilled when his nostrils flared with another deep breath. I bit down on my molars until I thought my fillings would shatter.

  Squeezing his shoulder, I gave him a little shake, fighting the urge to press my fingers into the cords of his muscles.

  He didn’t respond.

  I shook Angus again, hard enough to make his head move from side to side.

  “You must wake up!”

  His eyes remained closed, and alarm skittered within me. I leaned over his face, my hair swinging down to brush his cheek. He looked so defenceless, lying with his hair falling back from his forehead. His lips were still and soft and unaware, his oblivion, tantalizing. A desire to rouse him slowly from within, warmed me. I wanted to set his skin tingling before he knew I was there, then I wanted to savour his startled response when he woke, trapped beneath my lips.

  The silky strands of his hair slid softly between my fingers. My heart began a parade of steady, hard rhythm at the realization I could do anything to him, and he would not know.

  He shifted, his mouth turning down, which revealed a little indent in his chin beneath his whiskers. Pressing my finger against this dimple in his flesh, I pulled down. His bottom lip pulled away from the top, opening his mouth ever so slightly.

  A sultry “oh” escaped me as I sighed, heady with the prospects of what I could do.

  I leaned in to taste him.

  His lips were thick velvet, supple beneath my mouth. He was completely unaware of me, for there was no change in his position, no resistance to, or acceptance of my kiss.

  My excitement rose at his lack of response, and I kissed him in earnest, turning my head to the side and molding my lips to his.

  A slight brush of movement tingled against my mouth. I stilled, languishing in his blind seeking.

  The air moved slightly as the vein in his neck pulsed with an increase in blood pressure.

  Angus released a moan, but unlike the tortured sounds of his fever, this one was a provocative expression of need. His wide hand clutched the back of my head, holding me to his mouth, as he pressed back.

  I slipped my hand to the centre of his chest, my fingers spread possessively over his heart.

  Like a drowning man, Angus sucked air in through his nostrils as he consumed me, and I was the one left moaning.

  My ‘alter’ retreated, leaving me with a man, not merely a bundle of bone and blood for her fixation.

  The intensity of his kiss turned soft, and the pressure of his hand lightened, allowing me to pull back and consider his eyes. They were hard and cold like cut gems, emeralds glittering from within as if fueled by ice.

  I was confused. I had expected soft, sleepy desire.

  His hand slipped down over my shoulder, tracing the outside of my breast on its way to my side.

  “Take off yer clothes.” He held me with his forceful gaze. “I want tae see ye.”

  I straightened until his hand slipped away. Standing by the bed, I frowned at him.

  He pressed his mouth into a hard line, and his green eyes swept my upper body.

  “Now.”

  I winced at his scrutiny, which no longer felt sexy.

  “Off!” he ordered.

  A familiar numbness slowly slipped over me, slackening my mouth, and making my lungs feel shallow. The beauty of the moment dulled into dark shades of disappointment, grey shades of submission.

  I grasped the red heel of my pump and pulled it from my foot. The shoe hit the floor with a sharp clatter.

  Angus pushed himself up the bed until he was half sitting in a lean against the headboard. The position bunched his stomach muscles into hard mounds under his pecs, testimony to his brute strength, and below… He might not be sweet talking me, but he wanted me. That much was obvious.

  “Faster, lass.” His tone was stern, and a willingness to please quickened within me at the order.

  I grasped the other heel, triggering a memory of Lennox from the night before.

  I tossed the memory with the shoe.

  Placing my hand over my tight stomach below my tube top, I felt a tremor shivering beneath my skin. It wasn’t quite the hollow echo I was used to. It was more like the expectant quaking of a nervous dog waiting for praise.

  I hooked my finger in the elastic material of my top and slowly pulled it down. My breasts strained like white globes at the top of the material and then popped free. His eyes, gleamed like glass as they watched.

  The tube top pressed up under my breasts like a whore’s corset, and I left it there for it was a perfect complement for my whore’s heart.

  Angus licked his lips and reached out his hand.

  “Come tae me, Rachel.”

  My blood was sluggish, my thoughts foggy and listless, a perfect state to experience the heightened sensations of what he would do to me. Yet, still, I resisted. This wasn’t how I wanted it to be. Not with him.

  I delayed obeying by twisting the metal button of my jeans, and pressing it out through the button hole.

  Angus laid his arm down along his torso, his hand resting on the white sheet above his crotch. His fingers moved as he watched me.

  Each tooth of my jean’s zipper released with a distinct click, sounding like the countdown of a timer. I peeled off my tight jeans. My skin was indented by the seams. A flesh railroad track leading down into my patch of blonde curls.

  Angus’ cheeks flushed a deep red. He growled with impatience. “Come!”

  My shoulders dropped. I lifted my knee to the mattress.

  He clutched me with his left hand, and yanked the sheet to the side with his right. From under the trailing material, the perfect form of his leg was revealed.

  It called to her, my ‘alter’, inviting her to join us.

  Gluteus, femoris, sartorius… the poetry of the human thigh. She invaded my mind with her thoughts.

  I had wanted to make love with him, but his dominating behaviour had taken my natural sense of desire and turned it into remnants of my traumatic history. Now, with her here, I wanted to knead his thigh until my fingers slipped between the sinewy bands. I wanted to explore the density of bone below.

  “Saphenous.” The Southern accent slithered out.

  I bit my lip, to stop her, but I was weak. I was in a state that succumbed to the will of the strong. I was the perfect vessel into which she spilled.

  “Gracilis.” The word was silky, spinning my submission into a web of meaty menace.

  I climbed onto him like a cat, holding myself just above his hips. Angus kept his eyes on my face, his hand tentatively cupping the curve of my breast where it met my chest.

  Excitement, mixed with nausea, broke upon me like a cutting wave. The numbness receded from my system, and I became the glittering light I had seen in Angus’ green eyes. My soft willingness turned hard and lethal.

  Scent infused my nostrils, the smell of Angus’ skin and hair further arousing my attention. I could smell the dust under the bed, the thirty-year-old varnish on the hardwood floor, even the sparking iron scent of the sunlight streaming through the window.

  “Femoris,” She forced the word out, languishing it on my tongue in her drawling manner.

  His hand dropped. The air cooled the spot where he had touched.

  My shoulders and spine straightened as my chest expanded with her presence. Blood coursed my body, infusing it with adrenaline. The skin beneath my arms dampened as my eyes devoured his body.

  “McNab,” she said the word like a victory speech.

  Angus groaned and fell back, covering his eyes with his forearm.

  Beneath me, the end of the sheet still clung to his hips like a Grecian cloth. His arousal pushed against the material with the impudence of a land-claiming flag. Seconds ticked by.

  “Get on with it.”

  Angus had what I needed, so he could hide beneath his arm if he wanted.

  Leaning forward I bit the fine veins showing through the inside of his pale wrist. His body tensed, but he didn’t pull away or push me from him.

  I released his wrist, satisfied to see the marks I left on his skin.

  A compulsion to speak rose in my throat like a belch, and I opened my mouth to release her words.

  “Now you will realize, Rachel, you have loved something that does not even exist.”

  Angus dropped his arm to stare at me, a grimace distorting his good looks.

  A cold wash of shock chilled the base of my skull, for never in my entire life, had my ‘alter’ addressed me through my own mouth.

  A loud crash from the front of the house was followed by the sound of boots running.

  I cried out, and leapt from Angus to the floor. Facing the open doorway of the bedroom, I crossed my arms over my body.

  CHAPTER 28: CAIN LIVES WITHIN US ALL

  ~

  “RACHEL!” WITH SHOCK I HEARD Lennox calling my name, his boots pounding through the house. “Rachel!”

  “Bloudy hell!” Angus roared from behind.

  I shrieked in surprise as his arms wrapped my waist, and he lifted me backwards onto the bed. Climbing over me, he tossed the sheet over my hips, before vaulting from the mattress.

  He staggered when his feet hit the floor, but his voice boomed with outrage as he yelled, “Lennox McNab, by all the Saints!”

  Lennox burst into the room, sliding to a stop when he saw me in Angus’ bed. He ignored Angus who was standing, like a naked, demi-god guardian between us, crouched, with his arms out and his hands gripping the air. His thighs and buttocks strained with brute strength.

  Lennox locked eyes with me over Angus’ shoulder. “Rachel, is it ye lass, or t’other?”

  I opened my mouth, gaping like a fish, but I couldn’t speak.

  Lennox’s face was scratched, his lips swollen and his bottom lip shone with fresh blood. His neck was covered in bruises in the shape of human bite marks. Like my bra from the night before, his t-shirt was stained a dark rust colour around the collar.

  “Get the hell out!” Angus took a threatening step toward him, and I pulled the sheet up higher.

  That seemed to answer Lennox’s question.

  “Rachel, dorn’t dae it. Dorn’t lit heem release ‘er!”

  His accent was so thick; I couldn’t understand what he was saying.

  And then Angus took a wild swing with his fist, striking Lennox in the face. The dull thud of flesh on flesh was followed by a sharp crack of bone.

  The sound made my stomach sour. I squeezed my eyes shut, but my ‘alter’ opened them to watch with delight as Angus beat Lennox down, strike after strike, until I couldn’t stand it anymore and screamed at him to stop.

  I needn’t have screamed for Lennox was no longer fighting back. Angus staggered up from his knees where he’d been straddling Lennox, his cousin’s blood dripping from his knuckles.

  I started to cry, my chest heaving in horror at the sight of Lennox’s still form splayed out on the floor.

  Angus stumbled to the side. His erection was flaccid.

  “Is he…” I didn’t dare speak the word out loud.

  Then, I became afraid for my own safety, for Angus turned his savage face my way. He looked at me with a madman’s determination. There was no regret in his eyes, no sorrow. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

 

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