Page 36 of Duncan

He put her on her feet by a wall, and pinned her there by placing his hands on either side of her. “Who compelled you do thus with that facking monster? The laird, or his lady?”

“No one. I volunteered.” She smiled brightly. “I wasn’t able to help, but when the creature died, it separated back into a shark and a female shifter. Apparently the enchantment that creates these hybrids only works while they’re alive–”

“Enough.” Duncan cradled her face with his hands. “You shall never do such again.”

“I was given this healing power,” Nicole reminded him. “And, since the ring saved my life, I’m obligated to help your clan. Shaw, Fletcher and the laird were there, so I was never in any real–”

He kissed her, so hard he bruised her lips and knocked the wind out of her. All she could do was hold onto his shoulders and surrender to his angry, hungry mouth as he took hers, demanding everything from her. Nicole instantly forgot everything she had planned for the next few years; she wanted to spend them like this. The charities could consult with another heiress, her father could delegate the corporate decisions to one of his advisors. Even Brittany would make a new best friend.

She just wanted to stay in Duncan’s arms, being kissed and kissing him back.

When he ended the embrace as abruptly as he’d begun, her lips throbbed and her breasts heaved against his chest with every breath she took. Was this what he experienced when he wanted her? Had he transferred it by touching her? She’d never known such longing. Worse, the anger in him also poured into her, making her temper spike even higher than it had with the seneschal.

“Shall you drive me mad, then?” he muttered, looking all over her face.

He was going crazy? She was ready to be committed. “You don’t want to do this with me right now.”

“You dinnae only suffer the wounds of others, you thoughtless wench,” he told her through his gritted teeth. “You take them upon your own flesh. ’Tis the same as being wounded yourself, aye?”

“Yes, of course, but I always heal after an hour…or so.” What he was trying to tell her finally sank in. “I wouldn’t be torn in half, Duncan.”

“’Twas what we reckoned merging two living things into one, and yet ’twas done.” He pulled her against him, his hands spreading over her back to hold her there. “Attempting heal an enchanted creature would likely cause the magic backlash on you. Finfolk power, ’tis no’ of our realm, and combined with your boon, ’tis likely anything might overtake you. Recoil from a broken spell might tear you apart.”

He was trying to scare her, Nicole suspected, but that didn’t make him wrong.

“Even though I couldn’t heal the hybrid, we learned something new about them,” she said carefully. “What makes them into a merged creature is an ongoing process. We need to break the enchantment holding them together, and they’ll separate back into people and sharks.” She pulled back from him. “Is there anything you have collected in that black cabinet of yours that could help us do that?”

Duncan shook his head. “A Fae object, ’tis too dangerous.” He tucked a tendril of her hair behind her ear. “Look at me.”

When she did Nicole was startled by the change that had come over him; he no longer looked like he wanted to throttle her. Instead he had the intense, smoldering look of a man determined to do something else—something her body wanted him to do quite badly, she realized.

He was just reacting to her the way all men did; she couldn’t take it personally.

“I’m very tired,” she said, shifting around him, ignoring his warmth and the delicious smell of him. “I think I should go to my room and rest now. Please ask one of the maids to bring my dinner on a tray, please.”

She almost made it to the door when he caught her with his arm and pulled her back against his hard, taut body.

“’Tisnae what you wish, leaving me.” He bent his head and rubbed his cheek against hers. “Stay.”

Chapter Nine

Merrick emerged from the bay and trudged up onto the white and gold shores of the small islet where the eldest Selseus came to end themselves. Clearing the sea water from his lungs and breathing in the sun-warmed air did not dispel his dour mood, but in this place, nothing could. As he passed some of the old stakes, to which he and his sire had tied those judged as deserving death over the centuries, he imagined himself lashed to the ground. He had more tolerance for walking on land than most of his kind, but within a day his body would slowly shrivel in the sun until he gasped his last.

Who may execute a king? One that seizes his throne and rule from him.

Few of his people cared to step foot on the pretty sands here, as too many of their older kin had chosen to meet their deaths in this sacred spot. Over time Merrick had grown darkly fond of it, however. He’d buried the bones of every elder he’d respected that had died here, and sometimes came to talk to them, as if they yet lingered to listen to his worries. None of them offered advice, of course, but he always still left with a sense of being unburdened. He also met his garrison commander in the small woods where they might talk and no one from the settlement would overhear them. This time Jamaran had been the one to ask to meet, which meant a matter so grave he would not risk anyone finding out about it before his king.

Mayhap he discovered where Duxor hides.

With every step Merrick took through the ferns, shrubs and small trees he grew wearier, but at least he finally understood what truly drove a Selseus to come to this place. The burdens of a long life became impossibly heavy, especially when one was obliged to rule instead of live simply and love as one wished. Had his sire grown exhausted of his rule toward the end? Merrick had lost his màthair some years before, and his sire had never truly recovered from his melancholy over being parted from her. Was that why he had allowed the rebels to take his life rather than fight for it with all his formidable will, because he had not wished to go on living without his mate?

Like me now.

Again Meg’s image appeared in his thoughts, her pretty eyes and fetching smile and fiery red hair glowing in the sunlight. She had never gazed upon him with such happiness, but once or twice he’d beheld her gifting such a look to Lady Joana. The laird’s first wife had been like a mother to the lass, and had spent much time gentling her wild, unruly nature. He had watched them when they’d ventured outside the MacMar stronghold countless times, always concealing himself as he spied on his lady and the woman she had adored.

“I hate my hair, my lady,” Meg had complained once, pushing her fiery locks away from her eyes as she filled a cup with stream water for Joana. “Do you ken the Finfolk believe wenches with red hair, we’re bad luck?”

“You’re a lady, no’ a wench,” the laird’s wife corrected. A dark beauty with gentle eyes, she’d looked after the lass since her arrival on Caladh. “Our friends in the bay possess their own customs and beliefs. What reckon you they’d think of the way you lock yourself in your room on the night of a full moon?”