No Other Woman (No Other Series) (48 page)

She had a child. A beautiful boy.

And she had...

A husband.

Oh, God, David. He could be arrogant and aggravating, he could infuriate her to the greatest passion...

Trying to keep her alive.

She couldn't die. She couldn't die. She couldn't allow them to kill her!

And she would not do so.

She strained frantically against the ties that bound her, and she began to scream....

* * *

James McGregor had led a group of men into the mines; Hawk and Sloan had gone through the water to the lair David had discovered.

David chose the cliff tops himself, Alistair MacGinnis at his side, Edwina right behind him, while others followed closely in his wake.

"It's got to be something of an accessible entrance!" David called. "They entered so quickly."

"Sweet Jesu, I work at the wretched mines near every day of my life. The corridors, tunnels, crannies—are endless."

"It doesn't matter; we must find the entrance."

"We'll never find it!" Alistair claimed.

"We will find it! Be still!" Edwina commanded.

It couldn't be! David determined, God, it couldn't be! He knew where they had taken her, he was convinced he even knew who was involved in taking her—and he wasn't going to be able to find her.

He crawled desperately over rock, hesitated.

"Shawna!" he shouted.

Hopelessness filled him, pain, agony. He fought it. He had to find her. He'd search and search and search until he found her.

And pray that he did not find her too late.

He saw a crack in the stone and hurried toward it. It was a crack, and nothing more. In fury and frustration he stood tall upon the rock, shouting her name again. "Shawna! Shawna! Shawna, for the love of mercy..."

His cry ricocheted and echoed off the rock. It rose into the night like the howl of a wolf beneath the full moon.

And amazingly, it was answered. Answered by the shriek that came to him faintly...

From the rock directly beneath him.

"Here!" he shouted suddenly. "She's right here! Goddamn, somewhere right here!"

"There, David, there's a shelf, an overlay!"

Edwina was right. There was an entrance right by them. It was there, the opening, behind an overlay of sheer rock. His sword in his hand, he tore through the opening.

* * *

Shawna twisted, shrieked, screamed, writhed, managing to break one of the ties that bound her ankles.

The creatures fell around her. Desperately, she kicked and struggled. Grunts, groans, and swearing sounded as she made contact with a number of jaws.

Her feet were held down.

Hands fell upon her naked shoulders.

She looked up.

Lowell stood there. Chanting. Chanting... faster, faster... faster.

The cloaked figures were dancing. Kissing the genitalia of their Goat-God.

Lowell's voice rose to a terrible pitch. His arm jerked in an upward motion.

His dagger gleamed.

She shrieked and twisted wildly. The blade was falling.

Yet, just then, a body came dropping out of the darkness of the night, landing hard upon the cavern floor, then pitching atop hers, covering it, completely.

David. He lay atop her, guarding her flesh from the knife if it should fall.

With his own.

But he didn't intend to die. He had swiftly come upon her reaching out. His hands gripped Lowell's arm before it could descend to the stone with the blade.

The two men were locked in combat.

David went rolling from her, drawing Lowell down with him to fall on the other side of the altar.

Shawna screamed in panic once again. Another face appeared atop hers.

Alistair.

His eyes stared into hers.

Hers into his.

Alistair, another of her kin.

Oh, God.

He had a knife.

She started to scream again.

"Hold still, Shawna, I've got to free you!"

She froze. He was working at her bonds.

"Still!" Alistair urged.

She held still. His blade slit the ropes that had held her. She was numb as he drew her body from the table, but he urged her to move, to hurry.

"Alistair—"

"Shawna, there's a lot of people here, move!"

She did so. He urged her back against a wall and she saw that David had risen from the floor. His arm was soaked in blood, whose, she did not know. He backed away from the cloaked figures, motioning her and Alistair to keep behind him.

"Rush him!" someone cried.

And two brave souls did so, but David drew his sword and swung, and both of the cloaked figures were taken down in the one movement.

"Bloody bastards, can no one do anything right?" one of the figures shouted. Casting off his cloak, he came forward.

It was Fergus Anderson.

With a roar, he went flying toward David, his knife raised.

David sidestepped him.

Shawna turned away as David's sword plunged into the man's back.

The mood within the cavern suddenly changed.

"Escape!" a voice whispered, and madness ensued, all of the figures trying to reach a narrow entryway.

Then suddenly backing into the cavern once again.

Hawk Douglas and Sloan Trelawny had come. A figure moved against Sloan.

"Sloan!" Hawk warned.

Sloan drew a pistol with terrifying speed. One bullet was fired. The figure dropped.

No one moved.

Then one of the figures started to weep.

It was Gena Anderson, Shawna realized.

"We'll leave the rest of them to the law," David said quietly. "Come on, let's get out of here," he said.

He wrapped his black velvet jacket around Shawna. She tried to walk and stumbled. He picked her up and carried her from the cavern. She closed her eyes as they walked. She never wanted to see the Goat-God, or her fallen uncle, again.

They came out into the chill of night. Clinging to David, Shawna looked up to the sky.

The moon was full and shimmering.

Naturally. It was the Night of the Moon Maiden. But it didn't matter.

Nothing mattered.

She was in David's arms. And she was his wife.

And the way that he was looking at her now...

She knew that he loved her.

That was all that she really knew, but it was enough. The huge orb of the moon began to fade. Darkness encroached, but she wasn't afraid.

She was in his arms.

She was safe.

And she was
loved.

* * *

She'd been drugged more heavily than she had realized when lying in terror upon the stone altar in the cavern.

Hours later, she awoke in bed.

Her bed, in the master's chambers. She woke in a bit of a panic, trying to assure herself that she was no longer painted in blood.

She was not. She lay cleanly—and primly—in a white, high-necked, laced, and detailed nightgown.

And she was not alone.

David was by her side. David, Laird Douglas, still kilted, but cleaned, the blood gone from his arm and a white bandage around it. His eyes were very green and dark and grave as they surveyed her, his hair fell just a bit mussed and rakish over his forehead. His features were at ease, very handsome, his mouth not at all pursed, his smile a full and sensual one as she opened her eyes and looked at him.

"Laird Douglas!" she said softly.

"Lady Douglas," he returned, and brushed her lips with a kiss.

Not a cold kiss.

Nor a mockingly passionate kiss.

A warm kiss. Tender. A leisurely kiss. Gentle. Given with lips that trembled ever so slightly.

Oh, God, it was so... provocative.

"David..." she murmured.

"Aye?"

Then she suddenly remembered that there remained things she didn't understand.

"David," she said anxiously, "truly, Alistair was no part of it—"

"Shawna, Aidan wasn't even a part of it. Sometime, long ago, your great-uncle's frustration at his place in the inheritance line sent him upon a very strange path. I'm not sure he was so much a Satanist himself as he was a man determined to seize some kind of power." David shrugged, then looked at her.

"My own great-uncle!" she breathed.

"But it's over, m'lady." He was silent a minute. "Shawna, I wanted revenge against the MacGinnises so badly, yet I hope you can believe that I'm truly sorry. I've spent some time with Aidan tonight—he is truly a wreck. Gawain is as astonished as anyone can be. The Andersons were in on Lowell's cult—as was your maid, Mary Jane. She—" He hesitated. "She's dead."

Shawna shivered. "She kept insisting that the Druid Stone needed a sacrifice. He wanted to kill me more slowly. He must have decided that if she wanted the stone to have a sacrifice, he'd let it happen."

"Maybe."

"What of Lowell?"

"I had to kill him, Shawna."

She sat up, throwing her arms around him tightly. "David, he meant to kill me, my own kin—"

"Shawna, Shawna, you can't think of it that way. He was sick, Shawna. Twisted. Your kin do love you. Gawain, Aidan, Alaric... Alistair."

She lay against his chest, shivering. It had all been so horrible, so far-reaching, and in the end, so completely terrifying.

Lowell had planned and plotted it all for truly evil designs.

Lowell was dead.

But David was alive.

"David...?"

"Aye?"

"Are we really married?"

He drew back from her, offering her a strange half smile. "You do know the Reverend Massey?"

"Aye."

"And are we in the Douglas master's chambers, my love?"

"We are."

He hesitated just a second. She drew back. His green • eyes were sparkling. His lashes lowered; he appeared to be having just a bit of trouble speaking.

"Do you wish to be married?"

She should tell him that in no way did she wish to be at the whim of such a tyrant for the rest of her life.

But she could not.

She knew that his anger and fear had been for them both. He had suffered very deeply. Trust had been difficult to come by. But he had believed in her, even if he hadn't always realized it. He had married her, and no matter what the circumstances, he would not have done so had he not wanted to do so.

She smiled.

"It's taken you that long to decide?"

"Umm..."

"Do you—forgive me?" he queried.

"For?"

"Well, for not being quite as open and honest as I might have been about my plans."

"I shall have to think about it. You kept a great deal from me."

"I did cover hill and vale to save your life."

"Indeed."

"So—do you forgive me?"

She smiled, trembling, leaning against the strong expanse of his chest once again.

"I am Lady Douglas?"

"You are. So do you forgive me?"

"Aye. Do you forgive me for seducing you that night five years ago?"

"You're admitting to seducing me."

"Perhaps."

"Then..."

"Aye. I admit to it."

He shrugged, leaning against her, his hands upon the delicate lace of her exceedingly prim gown.

"David?"

"Can you still say that you love me, Shawna?" he queried strangely.

Once again, she drew back, stilling his hand. "Aye. I love you, David Douglas. Man, beast, selkie, ghost—laird of all he surveys. I've loved you so long, David!"

"Aye, my love, through time, through death, we've sought one another so desperately. And now..."

"Now?"

"Now, we've a child. And one another. And life." He swept her into his arms, and his kiss was both slow and deep, filled with warmth, with passion. Tender, exciting.

"Aye, life..." he whispered against her lips.

Tears nearly flooded into her eyes. Yet then he whispered, "It remains our wedding night, m'lady. I will assuredly forgive you for luring me from domain and seducing me into sweet oblivion if only..."

"Aye?"

"If only you do so again. Well, my lady?"

Demurely, she cast her arms around him, replying with a gravity belied by the shimmer in her eyes. "Indeed, Laird Douglas. It seems only fair."

She kissed him...

And kissed him...

Yet suddenly, he drew back. "This is lovely, but... I did make a promise to you."

"You did?"

"I said I was going to ask a promise of you in exchange for... wait just one moment."

He left her. Shawna stared after him in disbelief as he opened the door and left the room. But a second later he returned to the room, Danny in his arms.

She let out a glad cry and leapt up to rush to her husband and her son.

And high over the castle, the full moon began to pale and the golden glow of a new day fell upon Craig Rock. A new day... A new beginning.

The End