Anita Clenney - Heart Of A Highland Warrior

She sucked in a hard breath, and he proceeded to give her as much pleasure as she’d given him. But he was stronger, or he wanted to believe he was, so when she pulled at his hair and whispered that he needed to move now, he didn’t. She twisted and moaned, and before she had opened her eyes, he moved up her body and nudged the crest of her legs. “Are you ready for me now?” He didn’t want to go the last step without her permission.

She grabbed his arse and threw her legs around his thighs in one move. “Now!”

“All right,” he grunted, and slid into her, trying to go slow.

She bit his shoulder. “Come on.”

“Bollocks.” He was burning and tingling all over. He drove into her, again and again, until he couldn’t hold back anymore. He let go, and every muscle, every bone, every hair on his body felt like it came apart. When it was over, they lay close together, trying to catch their breath.

Anna buried her face in his shoulder. “I think I’ve made a mistake.”

Tavis’s heart gave a dull thud. “What?”

“About sex. After what happened to my mother, I’ve looked at sex as a weapon.”

“Only for the depraved.” Like that fat guard. “It’s supposed to be like this. A thing of beauty.”

“It was that,” she said, running her fingers over his stomach. “And more.”

Tavis’s heart felt nigh to bursting. He held her closer, stroking her hip. “I remember where it is.”

She smiled. “I know you know where it is.”

“Not that. The book. I think I know where Angus hid it. I saw him near the bookcase.”

“We’ve got to get back in there,” Anna said.

“Aye.”

“We’ll do it while they’re asleep.” Anna looked at her watch. “It’s eleven. We’ll wait two hours.” And maybe they could repeat what they’d just done.

They didn’t need two hours. It was apparent when that the couple was sleeping. They both snored. “This is in our favor,” Anna said. “We could break down the door, and they would never hear us.”

“We don’t need to do that. There’s a ledge outside our window that leads to theirs. The glass was opened a few inches when we were there.”

“I didn’t notice,” Anna said. “Someone might see us. Our window faces the street.”

“It’s dark.” He pulled back the curtain. “I’ll climb out and go through and get the book.”

“We’ll climb out and go through and get the book.”

“You’re stubborn.”

Anna shrugged. “I’m not planning on changing.”

“Let’s get this book,” he said.

They climbed onto the ledge. Nothing ever goes exactly as planned. They didn’t count on Mrs. Edwards being outside. “What’s she doing at this bloody hour?” Tavis whispered, pressing his back to the wall. Anna was right beside him.

“She’s doing something to that light fixture. Good grief,” Anna said. “She’s replacing a bulb. Hurry.”

They crept along the wall slowly. They had reached the window when the light came on. Mrs. Edwards looked at it, her expression pleased. Just then the man let out a snore that rattled the window. Mrs. Edwards looked up, and Tavis was certain they would be spotted. He started thinking of possible excuses why they were standing on the ledge outside another guest’s window when an owl swooped past Mrs. Edwards’s head. She let out a screech, and the owl flew away. Mrs. Edwards ran inside.

“I don’t believe it,” Anna said. “Saved by an owl.”

“That was strange.” But he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. They moved along the ledge to the next window. It was still open a crack, and the man was still snoring.

“How do they sleep through that?” Anna asked.

“Be thankful they snore. Or else we’d have to knock them out and take the book.”

They lifted the window and crept inside. There was enough light from the newly replaced lightbulb outside that they didn’t need a flashlight—a good thing since he didn’t have one. Then Anna pulled out her phone, tapped it, and a light sprang forth.

She kept it low as he searched the bookshelf. He’d seen Angus on the side near the wall. He quietly pulled books out, stopping when the man and woman ceased snoring, and resuming when they did. He found the satchel hidden behind several books and gently removed it.

“Is that it?” Anna asked.

Tavis eased the satchel open and looked inside. The Book of Battles was there.

* * *

“This is it?” Sean asked as everyone leaned closer, trying to get a look. Anna had peeked inside, but she and Tavis had both been hesitant to touch it.

“Aye. It’s the one I found in the castle,” Tavis said.

“How do we know which one is real?” Duncan asked. “What if this one is the fake?”

“We’ll protect both,” Sean said. “But I’ll study the books and see if I can figure it out. But the fact remains, the book is safe. The Book of Battles has been returned to us.”

“Let’s hope another one doesn’t turn up,” Brodie said.

“God forbid,” Ronan said.

“Do we tell the Council we found it?” Tavis asked. “I hadn’t intended to mention it.” He glanced at Anna. “I shouldn’t have until we know for sure if the Council is trustworthy.”

“I think we’ll keep it quiet for now,” Sean said. “Only those in this room will know.” He looked at each of them—Anna, Tavis, Duncan, Brodie, Faelan, Bree, Cody, Shay, Ronan, Declan, Niall, and Shane. “We need to do some more investigating. And I believe I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

Tavis touched his chest. “Me?”

“Faelan told me about Ian’s letter, about your son. If not for you, Duncan and I, and several others, wouldn’t even exist.”

“You have a son? Had a son?” Anna asked.

“I just found out,” Tavis said.

“You had a son and didn’t know it?” Not only had he lost his family—father, mother, brothers, sister—but he’d lost a wife and child. “I didn’t know you were married.”

“I wasn’t.” Tavis shifted uncomfortably. “His mother was a lass I knew. A nice lass,” he said defensively. He cleared his throat. “She loved me. I didn’t know she was with child. When she died, Ian and his wife raised him.”

Anna’s head was spinning with the revelation. Tavis with a son. A lover.

“As I said, I owe you my thanks, and my existence,” Sean said. “Duncan and I wouldn’t be here if not for you.”

“Can I call you grandfather?” Duncan asked, smiling. Something he didn’t do often enough.

Tavis just smiled and shook his head.

Sean handed the satchel back to Tavis. “I didn’t touch your journal.”

“My journal?” Tavis frowned.

“There’s a journal or a ledger inside. I didn’t open it. I thought it belonged to you.”

Tavis reached inside and took out a thin notebook. “Angus had this with him. He must have put it here.”

“I saw him with a notebook when he was at the bed-and-breakfast,” Bree said.

“Angus’s notebook.” Anna’s throat tightened. “I’ve been looking for it.”

“Anna should have it,” Sean said.

Anna took the book and opened it. Angus’s scrawled handwriting was easy to recognize. Oh, Angus.

“Does he say anything about what happened here?” Bree asked.

Angus had lived for mysteries when he was alive, and now his death had left the biggest one of all. Anna knew Bree still felt bad that she hadn’t warned Angus. She had sensed danger around him but thought he was a demon, not realizing he was a warrior working undercover.

Anna flipped through the notebook, looking for recent entries that might shed some light on his death. Angus’s writing wasn’t always easy to follow. He wrote as he thought. Scattered when he was distracted, and when he was hot on the trail of something he could go on and on. Reading his notebook was almost like talking to him. She could feel his excitement in the words. She skimmed the pages, recounting relevant entries, such as when he’d found Nigel Ellwood’s letter—it made her sad that he hadn’t told her that—right after he’d found Ian’s notes about a possible traitor in the clan.

She read aloud how Angus had thought he’d found Faelan. Ian had left clues to where the time vault key had been hidden, buried in Aiden Connor’s grave, and when it didn’t open the time vault in the crypt, Angus decided it must be a decoy. He’d found the second time vault in the chapel cellar and freed the warrior inside, not realizing he’d freed Faelan’s brother instead. Angus’s handwriting grew scratchier as he wrote. He was frantic with his discovery, and terrified that Jared, the archaeologist, would find him. Angus had suspected that Jared wasn’t what he pretended to be. He’d followed Jared and discovered that he was involved in the gathering of demons. He suspected it had to do with Druan’s virus.

I’m going to confront Jared and make him talk. That was his last entry. The room was silent.

“I guess he found out Jared was Druan in disguise,” Brodie said quietly. “That’s probably how he got some of his injuries.”

“And Druan sent his demons to finish him off,” Ronan said.

He’d tracked them down and killed them, but they wouldn’t say who’d sent them. If only she’d replaced her phone, he might still be alive. He wouldn’t have told anyone else about his discoveries until he was certain what he’d found. But he had tried to call her. If she’d known, she could have come to help him before it was too late.

“Poor Angus,” Sean said.

Anna quietly slipped away as the others began talking about traitors and demons. She went to her room and sat on her bed, holding the notebook to her chest. There were other scrawled entries that made no sense. I need to tell Anna, but I don’t want to trouble her. And later, I must tell Anna. No matter how difficult it is. She hadn’t read those aloud. They were too personal. “Tell me what? What was so important, Angus?” Was he referring to his feelings for her?

How could she have not known how he felt? No wonder he was so angry when he found Ronan in her bed. Sex might not be the big evil she’d thought, but it caused a lot of trouble.

What was she going to do about this thing between her and Tavis? She’d never felt anything like this. It was like an obsession. She thought about him constantly. She wanted to touch him all the time. She needed space to think and remember who she was. A warrior. Always a warrior. No matter how good sex with Tavis was. And how much she wanted to touch him and hold him.

She started to lay the book aside when she noticed a piece of paper stuck between two pages. It wasn’t Angus’s handwriting. The paper was stained and yellow with age. It was Ian’s notes. The page she and Angus had found in the treasure room in Scotland. This should be given to Tavis. His brother had sacrificed and suffered to make sure Tavis was here to save Faelan. It might be one of the few things left to remind him of Ian.

ANNA WALKED TOWARD Tavis’s door and raised her hand to knock, but stopped.

What are you doing? You can’t go to his room. Not after what happened at the bed-and-breakfast. You can give him Ian’s letter later. She returned to her door, stopped, chewed her lip for a moment, and then walked back. She was still waiting for the courage to knock when the door opened. Tavis had on the boxer briefs she’d bought him. That sent a thrill up her spine—not just the sight of Tavis in his underwear, but Tavis wearing something she’d chosen for him. It was so intimate.

But she didn’t want intimate. No intimacy.

“Anna?”

“You open the door in your underwear? Geez.” What if she had been another woman? Sorcha for instance.

He frowned. “I knew it was you. I heard you muttering. Are you all right? You look bothered.”

“I found something in Angus’s notebook. It was written by Ian.”

“Ian?” A pained look crossed his face. “Come in.”

She looked at his body. “You’re not dressed.”

“Sorry.” He left the door opened and grabbed a pair of jeans. Jeans she’d bought him. “I think I’m getting better at this,” he said, pulling them on. He grabbed a shirt, again, one she’d bought. She was definitely feeling bothered now. There was something so intimate about seeing a man she’d had sex with wearing clothes she’d bought him.

“Are you coming in?”

Even though he was dressed, she hesitated. It didn’t seem to matter what he did or didn’t wear, he just affected her in the strangest way. But she didn’t want him to be alone when he read it. Or maybe he would rather be alone. “I thought you might want to read it in private.”