“We are gathered here today in the company of family, friends, and well-wishers to unite this man and woman in the holy, unbreakable bonds….”
Jillian blew furiously at her veil. Although it puffed a bit, it didn’t clear her view. The preacher was slightly blue, Quinn was slightly blue. Irritably she plucked at the veil. No rose-colored hues for her on her wedding day, and why should there be? Outside the tall windows, sleet fell in vaguely blue sheets.
She stole a glance at Quinn, who stood at her side. She was eye level with his chest. Despite her despair, she conceded he was a magnificent man. Regally clad in ceremonial tartan, he’d pulled his long hair back from his chiseled face. Most women would be thrilled to be standing beside him, saying the vows of a lifetime, accompanying him to be mistress of his estate, to give him bonny blond bairns and live in splendor for the rest of their days.
But he was the wrong man. He’ll come for me, he’ll come for me, I know he will, Jillian repeated silently as if it were a magic spell she could weave from the fibers of sheer redundancy.
Grimm plucked another bann from the wall of a church as he sped by. He crumpled it and crammed it in a satchel that was overflowing with balled-up parchment. He’d been in the tiny highland village of Tummas when he’d seen the first bann, nailed to the side of a ramshackle bothy. Twenty paces beyond it he’d found the second, then the third and the fourth.
Jillian St. Clair was marrying Quinn de Moncreiffe. He’d cursed furiously. How long had she waited? Two days? He hadn’t slept that night, consumed by a rage so violent that it had threatened to release the Berserker without any bloodshed to bring it on.
The rage had only intensified, goading him to Occam’s back, sending him in circles around the Highlands. He’d ridden to the edge of Caithness, turned around, and come back, ripping down banns all the way, ranging like a maddened beast from Lowland to Highland. Then he turned around again, compelled to Caithness by a force beyond his understanding, a force that reached into the very marrow of his bones. Grimm tossed his braids out of his face and growled. In the forest nearby, a wolf responded with a mournful howl.
He’d had the dream again last night. The one in which Jillian watched him turn Berserk. The one in which she laid her palm against his chest and looked into his eyes and they connected—Jillian and the beast. In his dream, Grimm had realized the beast loved Jillian as deeply as the man, and was just as incapable of ever harming her. In the light of day, he no longer feared that he might hurt Jillian, not even with the threat of his da’s madness. He knew himself well enough to know that not even in the wildest throes of Berserkergang could he harm her.
But in his dream, as Jillian had searched his blazing, unholy eyes, fear and revulsion had marked her lovely features. She’d extended a hand palm out to stay him, begging him to go far away as quickly as Occam could carry him.
The Berserker had made a pathetic sound while the man’s heart slowly iced over, cooler than the ice-blue eyes that had witnessed so much loss. In his dream, he’d fled for the cover of darkness to hide from her horrified gaze.
Once Quinn had asked him what could kill a Berserker, and now he knew.
A thing so slight as the look on Jillian’s face.
He’d woken from the dream filled with despair. Today was Jillian’s wedding, and if dreams were portents, she would never forgive him for what he was about to do should she ever uncover his true nature.
But need she ever know?
He would hide the Berserker inside him forever if necessary. He would never again save anyone, never fight, never view blood; he would never reveal himself. He would live as a mere man. They would stop at Dalkeith, where the Hawk stored a considerable fortune for Grimm, and, with enough gold to buy her a castle in any country, they would flee far from the treacherous McKane and those who knew his secret.
If she would still have him.
He knew what he was about to do was not the honorable thing, but truth be told, he no longer cared. God forgive him—he was a Berserker who likely suffered his da’s madness somewhere in his veins, but he could not stand by and permit Jillian St. Clair to wed another man while he still lived and breathed.
Now he understood what she’d known instinctively, years ago, the day he’d stepped out of the woods and stood looking down at her.
Jillian St. Clair was his.
The hour was approaching noon and he was no more than three miles from Caithness when he was ambushed.
CHAPTER 24
YE GODS! JILLIAN DRIFTED BACK FROM HER WANDERING thoughts, alarmed. The pudgy priest was almost to the “I do” part. Jillian craned her neck, searching frantically for her father, with no success. The Greathall was crammed to overflowing; guests angled up the staircase, hung over the balustrade, and were stuffed into every nook and cranny.