Dark Highland Fire

"No." Best to get it all out at once, she decided, and told him everything on a rush of breath. "Bastian is back in our own realm, and Lucien knows. He's got the dragons hunting for him, and Lucien has promised he'll kill him if I don't marry him."

Gabriel went silent and still. Regret flooded her as his eyes darkened with anger, all the pleasure evaporating in an instant. So easy, she thought, to say the words. Why hadn't she just told him? But she couldn't go back in time, so she would have to deal with what came. She didn't think he would leave her, no. Trusting her, however, was another issue entirely.

"Your brother is being hunted, and you were going to ..." Understanding dawned, and it wasn't pretty. His jaw hardened as he finally understood what had been going on in the chamber of the Stone that night. "So that was why you were going to let him take you, wasn't it? You would have married him, bound yourself to him forever, rather than just asking me or my family for help. Just sacrificed yourself to that bastard when you didn't have to."

He was angry, all right, Rowan thought with a sinking feeling. "I didn't want to involve you. There was no reason."

His eyes flashed along with his temper. And though it was on a longer fuse, she knew it was just as dangerous as her own. "No reason. Except that your brother left you with us because he knew what we were, and that we could help you. You knew by then, too. So that doesn't leave much of a reason but your own pride, from where I'm standing."

"There was plenty of reason," she snapped, feeling her own anger beginning to burn. "I had already been responsible for the deaths of my own family. I didn't really feel like repeating the experience with yours."

Gabriel sat back and glared at her. "You didn't kill your family, Rowan! The dragons did!"

"I could have saved them if I had just submitted and gone with Lucien."

"Let me ask you something, Rowan," Gabriel said flatly. "Was there a single member of your family, your tribe or whatever, who thought your marrying Lucien Andrakkar was a good idea?"

"It doesn't matter. I should have known what would happen ...," she began, but Gabriel rolled right over her.

"Why, because you're psychic on top of being able to throw fireballs? That's news." He moved closer again, taking her by the shoulders. Rowan had the distinct feeling that he wanted to shake her, but fortunately for them both, he refrained. "Rowan, I know what went on that night, okay?"

Rowan blinked, startled. "But... from my memories?"

"No, that was more like snapshots. Nothing that coherent, you know?" When she nodded, because it had been like that for her, too, more like watching a moving photo album than anything, he continued. "It sounds crazy ... hell, no, I suppose it doesn't at this point... but I had a dream the night you tried to take off. Except it didn't feel quite like a dream. And I saw ..."

"Everything," she murmured, recalling it with perfect clarity. Remembering how Gabriel, instead of Bastian, had been there to save her in the end. The intimacy of sharing such a private thing as dreams shocked her. And yet it confirmed the depth of their connection. Something about it was comforting, that the Gabriel in such a terrible dream had truly been him. And it was a relief that she would never have to retell the story to him. Because in a way, he'd been there.

His eyes were dark and serious. "I didn't want to say anything, because you haven't been in much of a mood to talk to me, and I know that's a touchy subject. But there was no way your mother wanted you to go with them. Not her, not anyone else. Your family loved you to pieces," he said, his voice softening a little as he felt her tremble. "You had no reason to expect what happened. And sacrificing yourself would probably just have prolonged the inevitable. I mean, you come from a tribe of outrageously gorgeous women. They'd only just rediscovered you. What would happen the next time a dragon decided he needed one of your Dyadd for a wife?"

She shook her head, eyes welling with hot tears she refused to shed. She had stopped crying for them, thinking she had no tears left. She should have known there would always be more. "It might not have been that way," she said weakly, even knowing he was probably right. The dragons had few females of their own. Once Mordred had turned his eye back to the forests, no matter what, it was only going to be a matter of time. They had been doomed. And none of them, not she, not even Elara, were ever going to be able to stop it. Not every time, once the dragons lay siege.

A few tears escaped, leaving their warm tracks on her cheeks. But that was all she would allow. "I just wish so badly that it had been different," she whispered hoarsely, baring her emotions in a way that she had been unable to do, even with Bastian. "I miss them so much ... I wish I could go back, that I could change it so that I would at least know they were all still there. And now I'm going to lose Bastian. I'm going to lose you."

Gabriel sighed, moving to sit beside her on the sprung old couch and gathering her back into his arms. "For once I can't stay mad at you. I wish you'd told me, but I can't change that. I know now, so we'll go from here. You're not going to lose me, Rowan. Or Bastian. You don't have to worry about that, okay?"

She looked up at him, trying to take some of the heat that always seemed to radiate from his body into herself. Her worst fears given voice, she simply felt hollow, and cold.

"I need to do this on my own, Gabriel," she said, seeing the reluctance on his face as soon as the words were out of her mouth. "No. They killed my mother, and I'm sure they killed others. I need to find whoever is left, and then we're going to have the revenge we deserve. You would demand no less for yourself."

"I'll fight for you, Rowan. My Pack will fight for you if you let us," he sighed, though his tone indicated he knew that her answer would stay the same.

"I know," she said, taking his hand to stroke it. "And I cherish it. But this is my battle. The Dyadd's battle. We have no need to hide behind anyone, no matter how strong or well intentioned. But we would be honored if any arukhin would face the dragons at our side."

"I won't let you get hurt, Rowan," he replied, his expression guarded. "I'd give my life to protect yours."

"I want your word that you'll step back," Rowan said. "I'm not just a woman, Gabriel. I'm descended from the Goddess Morgaine herself, mother of the Drakkyn, consort of the great Drak. I can do a lot more than throw fireballs at you when you make me angry."

Gabriel's response was to press her back onto the cushions and settle himself between her legs, gently pinning her arms above her head when she tried to hold him off. Rowan swallowed hard as she began to throb and ache at the very center of herself. She wanted to deal with this, to hear that he had faith in her. To know that his love, though so much sweeter than Lucien's, would not just be another kind of cage. But Gabriel seemed to have given all that he could for now. And she needed him. Oh, how she needed him.

"Tomorrow," Gabriel murmured, sliding a hand up to cup one of her breasts. She arched into his hand, unable to temper her body's need for him with any kind of reason. "We'll talk about it tomorrow. For tonight, just let me love you, Rowan. Let me show you how I love you."

The words fell sweetly upon her ears, resonating deep within her forever and forever and forever. She slid her hands into his hair, the dense silk of it, and pulled him down to her in temporary surrender.

Tomorrow, then. For tonight she would content herself with the fact that they belonged solely to each other. But there were still things she wanted of him ... things she knew he could give her right now.

Rowan slid against him, flicking her tongue against his ear and feeling him shiver as the heat between them built. Her voice rough with desire, she whispered, "Give me your Wolf, Gabriel. When we make love, I want all of you. Call your Wolf."

He claimed her lips in a series of quick, hot kisses, edging up her dress. "I don't think ... I'm not sure that's a good idea." His voice was rough with desire, but Rowan didn't miss the apprehension beneath it. It was as she had supposed; Gabriel had never shared that part of himself, the elemental force of the arukhin, with any woman. Even the night they had bonded, he had held back some of that wildness to let her have the control she'd needed. It had been a gift to her, and she would never forget it. But tonight she wanted the beast as well as the man.

She wanted it all.

So she reached within herself, to the flame that always burned within, and called what was Morgaine's. She called the divine, so that she might give it freely. It was more instinct than actual knowledge, but it seemed there was a part of her that had always understood, had always needed to do this to complete herself.

Power flared, shimmering just beneath the surface of her skin as she gave over to the magic that was hers, and hers alone. She let Gabriel slide the dress down to her waist, enjoying the way he hissed in his breath at the sight of her bare skin, her breasts. He skimmed his hands down her torso, a look of wonder on his face. His hair hung in his eyes, giving him a boyish, disheveled look that tugged sweetly at her heart.

"You're so beautiful," he said, his voice ragged. She loved the way he looked at her, as though he had just seen the Goddess herself.

Rowan smiled as her beautiful new shoes were carelessly discarded on the floor, as her dress soon followed in a crumpled pile, leaving her in nothing but an intriguing scrap of fabric she had chosen while imagining the look on Gabriel's face should he ever see it.

The reality was even better.

"Red," he growled with a wicked grin, his eyes flaring with intense green light.

"Of course," she replied as Gabriel finally tugged his own shirt over his head and threw it, exposing a rippling expanse of dusky skin that radiated with a heat as intense as her own. He didn't look like an Earth man as he knelt before her, she thought, purring with pleasure as she ran her hands greedily over his chest. He looked like a warrior.