“Hi,” Jessi said tentatively. “I’m Jessi St. James.”
“We know. Dageus told us,” Gwen said. “We can’t wait to hear your story. You can start now if you’d like,” she said brightly. “We’ve been waiting all day.”
Dageus walked in then, toting the mirror, holding it by the sides.
She’d half expected to hear furious bellows heralding his approach, and was somewhat surprised that the glass was silent.
He crossed the room and propped the mirror up against the bookcase, near the conversation area where she and the MacKeltars had gathered.
She peered at it. It was flat silver and there was no sign of Cian.
Jessi hurried over to the looking glass, reaching instinctively for it.
At the same moment, Cian’s hand rose within the silver as he stepped forward, making himself visible.
She heard feminine gasps behind her.
“So there he is,” one of the women exclaimed. “Not only did he refuse to answer any of our questions, he wouldn’t even show himself until you got here.”
The world receded around her and narrowed down to nothing but Cian. The expression in his whisky gaze was stark.
“Och, Jessica,” he said, his butter-rum voice rough and low. He was silent a moment, drinking her in. “I’m not much of a man when I can’t even protect my woman. The bloody glass reclaimed me and I couldn’t get to you!”
My woman, he’d called her. She could see in his eyes and hear in his voice that the day of worrying had been hell on him too. She was sorry it had been; and she was glad. Glad it hadn’t been just her going crazy. Glad because it meant his feelings matched hers. “Yes, you are,” she told him fiercely. “You’re more man than any I’ve ever known. You’re more man than any other man could ever hope to be. You’ve saved my life twice! I’d be dead if it weren’t for you. Besides, you couldn’t possibly anticipate that your stupid descendant would steal you. Who could have seen that coming?”
Behind her, someone cleared his throat. She thought it might be Drustan, but he and Dageus were so alike that it was hard to be sure. Then she knew it was Dageus because, with a note of wry amusement in his voice, he said, “His stupid descendant wishes to know how you release him, lass.”
She pressed her other palm to the glass. Cian aligned his to hers. They stared hungrily at each other. After being afraid she’d lost him, she needed to touch him, ached to feel his body against hers, to taste his kisses. To feels his hands claiming her. His woman, he’d called her, and she was pretty sure those weren’t words a ninth-century Highlander ever used lightly.
“Is it okay if I tell him?” she asked Cian.
He shrugged. “Aye, I suppose so.”
She said over her shoulder, “There’s a summoning spell—Lialth bree che bree, Cian MacKeltar, drachme se-sidh—but it won’t work right now because—”
Even as she was about to explain that not enough time had elapsed since that morning when he’d last been out, the runes carved into the ornate frame began to blaze with a brilliant inner light and the parameters of the library felt suddenly skewed. Her jaw dropped.
Cian looked just as startled as she. Then his dark eyes blazed with exultation. “Mayhap because the last two times were so short, lass,” he exclaimed hoarsely. “Who cares the why of it?”
He pushed forward, reaching for her. One moment Jessi had her palms pressed to cool glass, the next it was full black and icy, and then the warm strength of his hands was closing around hers. He separated from the mirror, peeling away from the silvery rippling pool, walking her backwards, his gilt-whisky eyes glittering with passion and lust not-to-be-denied.
She shivered with anticipation.
Distantly, she heard Chloe and Gwen’s startled exclamations, then heard nothing more when he ducked his head and slanted his mouth hungrily over hers. She melted into him, against the hot steel of his big body, threading her fingers into his braids, parting her lips, yielding utterly to him.
Abruptly, he dragged his mouth from hers. “Is this castle warded, kinsmen?” he grated over her shoulder.
One of the twins answered, “Well, aye—”
“Think you two puny Druids can hold this keep for a single night?” Cian cut him off.
“We two puny Druids,” one of the twins spat, “could hold—”
“—this keep for a blethering eternity if we so wished,” the other twin finished.
“Good. Go do it. Get the bloody hell out of here.”