Page 8 of Her Scot of Bygones
“I suppose,” she murmured, eyeing me warily again, as if I might shift into my dragon here and now and somehow prove it. “I would hope that doesn’t include…” She cleared her throat. “Anything else…along those lines.”
Not catching her meaning, I tilted my head in curiosity. “Anything else?”
“You know,” she prompted, putting more space between us, again, however limited it may be. “Anything or perhapsanyoneyour dragon might not like.”
“Och, I’m not a cannibal, lass,” I muttered, surprised by how deeply her dragon actuallywasrepressed because it should surely know better. “I dinnae eat humans or dragons and ye’d be hard pressed to find a shifter in these parts that does save mayhap the bloody Sutherlands.” I shrugged. “Who knows what they are capable of these days?”
I probably should not have said it, but truth be told, the more frightened of that lot she was, the better, so she’d stay away no matter what. Unfortunately, my words of warning only made matters worse.
“Then dragon shiftersarecapable of eating their own,” she exclaimed as if it made perfect sense, before she stopped, scowled at me, and said the last thing I wanted to hear.
CHAPTER FIVE
–Hazel–
“FORGET TAKING ME to MacLeod Castle,” I told Lucas after he made the mistake of telling me the Sutherlands were capable of eating fellow shifters. Whether it was true or not, and I suspected it wasn’t, it was a direct route home. “Take me back to the twenty-first century so I can warn Willow and Ellie.”
“’Tis unnecessary.”
He shook his head and looked at me with reassurance, yet I saw a flicker of worry in his blue eyes, which, although it caught me off guard because I knew it was for me, I still did my best to ignore it. His feeling that strongly about my welfare was way too much to comprehend, given that we had only just met.
“I disagree.” Although I wasn’t generally confrontational, we were talking about my sisters, so I planted my fists on my hips and kept scowling at him. Had you told me hours ago I’d stand up to a towering, well-armed, muscular, imposing dragon warrior like him, while alone in an underground tunnel, six hundred years in my past, I probably would have laughed.
Yet there was something about Lucas that made me feel like I could. I should be terrified of him, but I wasn’t. Not like I was waking up in his bed. Whether I would admit it or not, I was growing more and more comfortable with him, and I wasn’t sure what to make of that other than it both alarmed and intrigued me.
Could he be right about us? Did we somehow forget knowing each other? I was told that could happen to time travelers and fated mates, but it was still so hard to wrap my head around.
“You just told me the Sutherlands were cannibals, so that means my sisters are in danger, and the only way to make things right between us is for you to take me home.” I gave him a pointed look. “And promise me you’ll stay away from my sisters.”
“I saidmayhapthe bloody Sutherlands were capable of it,” he corrected.
“Right.” I arched an eyebrow, surprised I noticed how the torch he carried made the cobalt in his eyes seem so mesmerizing. “What you said was who knows what they’re capable of these days.”
He nodded once as if I made sense, even though I suspected it wasn’t true, but only a means to keep me away from the Sutherlands.
“And ‘tis for that verra reason,” he countered, “’tis best you stay right here with me.”
“Yet you’re all right with my sisters being subjected to that?” I cocked my head. “What would Aspen think? Better still, her mate, your cousin and chieftain, Broderick?”
“I think she would be glad I was protecting at least one of her sisters.” He shrugged a shoulder. “And I suspect Broderick would agree.”
“Even though neither of them has any idea I’m here because you took me without permission,” I reminded him, seeing yet another opportunity, so I paused and narrowed my eyes. “Now that I think about it, they don’t need to know if you just take me home.” I shrugged. “In fact, if you take me back home, I’ll pretend you showed up to protect me and my sisters at the colonial, and any trouble you might be in with Broderick and Aspen won’t exist anymore.”
He considered me for a moment. “You would do that for me?”
“Of course,” I assured him. “Take me back, and all of this will be water under the bridge.”
His brow lowered. “What bridge?”
“It’s a saying,” I clarified, relieved I was finally getting my way because even though I wanted to see Aspen, going back to the future was the safer option not only for me but for my sisters. After all, I’d be there to assure them that everything we’d been told about time travel and the likelihood of meeting our fated mates was real. All of it. And to watch out for medieval highlanders who thought it was okay to steal a woman in the middle of the night from her bed, or couch, and take her anywhere he damn well pleased. “It means everything between us is in the past and no longer important or worth arguing about.” I waved it away and said the word that had been ingrained in me since childhood. “Bygones.”
“Bygones,” he murmured, his eyes flaring the same fiery catlike way I swore they had when I woke up in his lair. This time, they startled me so much I didn’t realize I had moved further away from him until my back hit the cold rock wall behind me.
“Yes, bygones,” I managed to say, dismayed to find my voice wobbling with a variety of emotions I didn’t understand. Everything from fear at seeing his inner beast lingering right there beneath the surface, to a strange sense of being imprisoned, mixed with an undeniable longing that made no sense. It felt like I was trapped somewhere, and I couldn’t escape, yet I desperately wanted to reach out towhoor what was on the other side. It was as if I were blind, and despite how much I wanted to, I could no longer see what was right in front of me.
“Why do I know that word?” he said softly, his dragon eyes simmering down as if he, or better yet,it, sensed how scared I was.
Unsure what to say because he shouldn’t know that word, I swallowed back my emotions, shook my head, and tried to think logically. More specifically, I tried to find a way to calm him when I sensed his unease, so I put his feelings before my own, like I always did for others. Yet even as I wanted to calm him, I realized he attempted to do the same for me by leaning against the opposite wall, when I knew he longed to step closer.
