A Druid of Her Own: An Immortal Highlander (Druid Series Book 4) (4 page)

Kennard liked knowing his woman didn’t just go around kissing strangers.

My woman?

He tensed and glanced over his shoulder at his cousins. He lowered his sunglasses and Cillian shook his head quickly, pointing to his own eyes to warn Kennard his were not human yet.

Shit.

Maria continued to curse in Spanish, and even Kennard was surprised at just how foul-mouthed the woman could be. Liam’s laughter grounded him and he got his bearings and cleared his throat. He pulled a twenty out and went to the counter, setting it next to the mug of tea Maggie had made him.

“Thank you for the tea,” he said, his voice deeper than normal because of the near shift. He wasted no time and didn’t dare look back as he rushed for the door, his cousins hot on his heels. He felt Maggie’s confusion reaching out to him, her hurt, and knew he was the cause.

Why had he done that?

How had he lost control so fast?

And why the fuck was his cock still hard as a rock?

“Shit,” he spat as he made it out and into the street.

Cillian jogged up alongside him. “What was that back there?”

“Kennard mystically wrote his name on the redhead. Might as well have written ‘my toy’ as big as possible on the lass,” said Liam, shaking his head. “And to think you two are always worried about what stunt I’ll pull in public. Ha. I’ve never done that.”

Cillian caught Kennard’s arm and tugged him to a stop. “What happened?”

“I do nae know,” he admitted softly, shaking his head. He finally gained the courage to look back at the coffee shop, and the first thing he spotted was Maggie at the door, looking out at him, bewilderment coating her face. The second was a skinny, pale human male, glaring at him from the patio area. The man should not have been paying them any mind. The fact that he was was troubling, but Kennard was in no condition mentally to think harder upon the matter.

“We should get food in him,” said Cillian to Liam. “He probably just needs food and rest. We pushed hard. Rest will do us all guid.”

He didn’t need rest and they all knew it, but none voiced it. Kennard knew his control was shaky around the female, and staying close to her until he figured it out could expose magik to humans and, more so, could leave them seeing him shift into a wolf.

Big no-no in the supernatural world.

“
W
hat was that
?” asked Maria as Maggie pulled herself from the door to her shop. She glanced nervously around, expecting to be greeted by judgmental gazes of the patrons.

No one was paying any attention to her or what had just happened in front of them all. Confused, she looked at her friend. “You saw him kiss me, right? I didn’t finally really lose my mind, did I?”

Maria put a hand on her hip. “Oh, I saw him kiss you all right. You’re lucky you didn’t see me stick my size nine right up his Scottish ass.”

Maggie touched her throat, nervous and excited all at once. A small laugh bubbled up from her and she met her best friend’s hard gaze. “Holy crap, I got swept off my feet by a guy worthy of a romance novel hero.”

Maria’s hard expression softened until she laughed too. “I half thought he might actually pick you up for a second there. I think he considered it too.”

Maggie took a deep breath. “I’d have let him.”

“I know. Why do you think I broke apart the kiss?” asked Maria.

Maggie glanced downwards. “Things like that don’t ever happen to me. You, yes. But not me. I always feel like your ugly best friend.”

With a sympathetic look, Maria shook her head. “Girl, that hunk didn’t even know I was alive. He only had eyes for you. And men notice you all the time, Maggie. It’s you who don’t see them looking. This one was smart enough to make sure you didn’t miss
his
interest in you.”

Glancing at the door, Maggie wasn’t so sure her friend was right. Maybe she was a prank to him. Something the twins who had followed him in and clearly knew him had put him up to. “He just walked out like it didn’t happen.”

Maria sighed and wrapped her arm around Maggie. “No, honey, he stormed out as if he was worried he might lose his cool and screw you in the middle of the shop.”

Gulping, Maggie spun and took the tea she’d made for the man and swallowed it down, her throat suddenly very dry. An uneasy feeling settled over her and she turned to catch Rodney outside on the patio, glaring at something or someone out of her line of sight now.

“What do you say I help you for the rest of the afternoon and then we close up and have girl’s night?” asked Maria. “So far we’ve run into nothing but dead ends on our hunt for whatever is causing the uptick in violence around here lately. How about we take a night off of hunting bad guys and just be girls? We’ll grab some ice cream and totally pig out while we watch old movies. Fun!”

Maggie nodded, her gaze remaining on Rodney. Deep down she knew he was about to become even more trouble than he already was.

M
aria’s
soft snores kept Maggie from drifting off to sleep on the sofa opposite her friend. Maggie at one end, Maria at the other. The two had met up after closing and had gone for dinner and ice cream, deciding to have a movie marathon and a girl’s night. They hadn’t gone to Maria’s apartment because of her noisy neighbors who Maggie was pretty sure Maria was on the verge of throttling. They called the guy who lived there Piston because he was able to pound a woman so hard and so long every night that they had to wonder if he was a machine.

Maggie’s tiny trailer wasn’t much and had seen far better days. It was hers, bought and paid for, and was outside of town just enough that they had privacy when called for. They couldn’t exactly drag a bad guy supernatural back to Maria’s place to interrogate him. There was an old shed out behind Maggie’s place that worked perfectly when need be. The shed was in better shape than the trailer.

Maggie was pouring her money into her savings, hoping to one day be able to buy the building her shop was in and then renovate the upstairs, making it her home. She didn’t require much and wasn’t one of those women who needed the finest money could buy.

As she tried and failed to get comfortable on the sofa. Her other option was to get up and go to bed, but that seemed far away at the moment. Too far from Maria, who made her feel safe while she rested. She could just roll onto the floor, but she’d end up on the old brown shag carpet that was a testament to the trailer’s age. She began to reconsider the finer things in life. New carpet would be nice. It would have to wait.

She exhaled, enjoying the small bit of respite they’d been provided. The evil that had plagued Sandsville had been quiet for the last few nights. While both women hoped it meant the troubles were over, they knew better. They also were wise enough to accept the break when offered to them. They needed a night of normal.

“Normal,” Maggie breathed softly, almost laughing at the idea of it all. Neither was normal, nor would they ever be.

They’d become instant friends when they’d met in junior high and quickly learned why. They were both different. More than human.

Maria had become family to Maggie, snores and all.

Marilyn Monroe’s breathy voice glided from the television to Maggie. The girls had decided a movie marathon was in order, along with two pints of ice cream which they’d proudly packed away without blinking before moving on to popcorn. It had seemed like the perfect solution to a long day and all the tension that had been happening in their lives.

As indigestion struck, the idea lost its merit. Maggie’s stomach wasn’t as thrilled with the plan as when she’d started eating earlier in the evening. She shifted uneasily on the sofa, scared to nod off for fear the nightmares would return.

She touched her stomach, positive she’d be sick at any moment. The price of a girl’s night was high. She should have known better and stopped herself somewhere around the bag of chips, but certainly before the chicken wings.

Unable to help herself, she closed her eyes, but only for a split second. Worry about the demon she’d been dreaming of coming to her in her sleep again had her jerking awake, trying to stay up. She couldn’t go through another of the nightmares. Not the new ones.

For so long the bad dreams had been the same, but in the last few weeks they’d changed. Somehow they’d managed to become even more horrific, more traumatizing to her senses. The demon in them had stalked her nightmares, always there, looming in the distance. It had been that way since she was little.

Her fear had been something her foster families couldn’t deal with. Maggie knew little about her birth parents. From what she’d been able to gather over the years, her mother had died during childbirth and her father was unlisted. She’d not been one of the lucky babies who were adopted right away at birth. No. She’d been passed from one home to another until finding a temporary place in state-run youth facility until she aged out of the system. It was for the best. They didn’t bat an eye when she woke screaming. She wasn’t the only girl there with issues.

They tossed pills into her as if they were coming out of a gumball machine and that was that. The state didn’t care about her mental well-being. They just wanted to get her through the system and then out the door.

And they did.

No one had been able to stop the nightmares. Maria and her family had tried. Two of Maria’s aunts were full-fledged witches and had given Maggie pouches to put under her pillow to ward off the evil. They’d worked for a bit, but the dreams returned tenfold. There had been lulls in her adult life when the nightmares had stayed away for months on end, only to return without warning. The last few months they’d gotten worse. Much worse.

Maggie’s eyelids grew heavy from lack of sleep and she kicked a leg, trying to stay awake. More and more the television screen blurred. Before Maggie knew it she’d drifted off. Tired to the bone, she couldn’t fight it. As she slipped deeper into the grips of dreamland, she tried but failed to awaken.

She knew what was going to happen next. The snake-headed demon would come. He’d bring with him fire, death and empty promises. He’d also bring the urge to follow him. That was what had started with the new dreams. She’d been able to resist his pull before, but things were changing. The strange, burning desire to be near him kept creeping into her nightmares. And in truth, she wanted nothing to do with the monster.

Her feet felt heavy, like lead. Running was impossible. Not that she had anywhere to go. She never could escape him. The monster always seemed to find her in her sleep. As expected, she felt his dark presence seep over the area.

“Margaret,” he said, his voice even sounding somewhat snake-like. No one ever called her Margaret. No one but the demon in her dreams.

She twisted in place, the darkness swarming in around her. It cut off the air to her lungs. Each breath she took was filled with emptiness, despair and evil. She shook her head, unwilling to give in. Deep down she knew if she dared submit to the lure he offered she’d never be the same. She’d be tainted by his evil, and it was a taint she’d never get off her. It was the type of thing that would devour her very soul.

Surrender wasn’t in her nature. It didn’t matter how many times this creature invaded her dreams. Perhaps it was because redheads were said to be stubborn. She didn’t know. All she knew was she wasn’t going down without a fight.

The snake-like man approached, his arms remaining outstretched, his gaze going from normal to fire red, bringing a small scream from her. “Come with me. Join me.”

She shook her head, trying and failing to back up. “Move, Maggie,” she said to herself. “Move!”

Nothing happened.

“Wake up,” she said, turning in a circle, hoping to jar herself from the throes of sleep. No luck. As always, she was on her own to face the demon. The worst part of it all was that here, in this dream state, she was weak and powerless. In reality, she could have probably thrust him away with a hefty dose of whatever the hell it was that came out of her in high stress situations, or once when she just sneezed.

Fear crept up her spine slowly, like a spider inching its way over her. The snake man moved closer, reaching out, nearly making contact—something he’d never done before. She didn’t want to be touched. Being touched by him would be very bad. She didn’t need that spelled out. Any fool could sense as much. Fright nearly rendered her speechless, but she managed the smallest of squeaks. “Help me.”

There was a blur, and when it slowed she blinked several times. A man, whose face she could not see, was there dressed only in a kilt and boots, standing before her, his body between her and the snake guy. The man was covered in various tattoos and symbols, each one only adding to his sex appeal. His back rippled with muscles that told her he was a well-oiled fighting machine.

Well, that and the sword he was holding in one hand, his back still to her, his long dark hair hanging just below his shoulders. His very arrival lightened the heavy, oppressive feel of the air around her. He brought with him something she’d never felt in the nightmares before.

Hope.

Never before in her dreams had she included a warrior in a kilt. She’d have remembered that. His kilt hung low on his hips, dangerously close to showing all the things she wanted to see. Like more of those tattoos that littered his skin, running along each dip and valley of hardness. As the man turned slightly, she caught his profile and gasped.

The biker guy who had come into her shop, ordered tea and then kissed her before rushing off.

She blinked several times. “Ohmygod, I dreamed the hunk into my nightmare.”

The snake-like man hissed. He slashed out with one hand, venom seeping from his mouth. “Kennard? How is it you are here?”

Kennard? She’d not caught the man’s name earlier.

“The how isnae important. The fact I’m here says the Fates deemed it so,
Athol
,” the sexy man in the kilt said.

Maggie simply watched the events unfold, too stunned to move, let alone make a peep. She’d never before had anyone else in her dreams of the demon. It was always her on her own facing the deepest, darkest thing she could imagine.

Athol.

That was what Kennard, the man in the kilt, had called the demon. Strange. Maggie had never put a name to the monster before. Athol seemed right. Like it fit the thing that haunted her sleep and wanted her soul.

Kennard swung his sword at the snake-like man, striking air. The snake man had vanished into nothingness, no trace of him left, his laughter echoing all around them.

“I’ll nae fall for that again,” said Kennard.

A tiny scream tore free from Maggie and the man from the motorcycle spun around, his expression wild as if he was expecting her to be a snake person as well. Confusion knit his brow. “Lass?”

Wow. An honest-to-God Scottish romance book hero had invaded her nightmares.

“Don’t wake up now. Don’t wake up now,” she chanted, sure this was the time she’d actually wake from the stupid dreams, now that she didn’t quite want to. The demon was nowhere to be seen and all that remained was Kennard. What girl in their right mind would want to wake up now?

His brows met. “Maggie, lass, how are you here?”

She gulped as the feeling of hope that arrived with the man dwindled quickly. It was as if someone opened a door and let all the good rush right out of the room. The dream took on an even more oppressive feel than any other had in the past, and that was saying something. Darkness and sadness swept around her, filling the very air she breathed. She hadn’t been aware that was possible. Whatever was happening was bad. Very bad. And ogling a hot guy in a kilt with an accent to die for wasn’t going to wake her up anytime soon.

“Back to my first vote. Wake up, Maggie,” she chanted.

It didn’t work.

Suddenly, she found her legs able to move once more. The heat continued to grow to epic proportions and she could still feel evil lingering, as if lying in wait for the perfect moment to strike. She glanced around. Where was Athol? Where had the creepy guy gone? “Where is he?”

Kennard visually scanned the area, his gaze settling back upon her. He tossed his hand in the air and just like that, the dark power that had been almost suffocating her dissipated. “Why are
you
here on the same plane as him?”

Tipping her head, she eyed him. “What do you mean, same plane? Like plane of existence, kind of plane?”

He nodded, his long hair moving as he did. It was then she noticed the tiny braids in it. Wow didn’t even cover it. The guy was wet-panty material and she’d been smart enough to dream him up.

“Aye, ‘tis what I mean. Explain yerself, woman.”

She put her hands on her hips and squared her shoulders. “
You
explain yourself, hunk. You came into my shop and kissed me. Then you took off. I’ll have you know that I’m no man’s prank or joke. The next time your buddies put you up to a stunt like that, I’m going to hunt you all down in the middle of the night and stake you.”

He tilted his head, seeming confused. “Och, lass, was nae a joke. Yer lucky my cousins pulled me away from you or I’d have ravished you like a ruttin’ beast.”

She opened her mouth but found herself at a loss for words. It took Maggie a bit to realize her mouth was still hanging open before she snapped it shut.

“I should have dreamed you naked. That kilt is a great touch. I must have added that because you’re Scottish, but really, naked would be better. Take it off,” she commanded.

“Dreamed? ‘Tis nae a dream, lass. Are you daft?” he asked. “You want me to rut you here and now? We’ve a dark mage near us and you want sex? Lass, I admire yer spirit and fire, but I do nae think it wise we get to the act right this minute. I want to know how it is yer here on his plane.”

“Huh?”

He pressed his lips together and gave her a look that said her response to his “Are you daft?” question was explanation enough. He then grunted and continued to glance around at their surroundings, his posture suggesting he was expecting a battle.

Taking offense, she huffed. “I’m here because
I’m
dreaming. I dreamed him up and I dreamed
you
here. I’m rethinking the kilt. Leave it on and do me hard.” She wanted to run her hands over the man and feel if he was as awesome as he looked. Sure, he had a few rough edges—namely his personality—but he would more than do.

Kennard’s brows shot up and he bit at his lower lip, his gaze raking over her very slowly. Her body heated more with each lingering look. “You truly want me?”

Duh!

She swallowed hard and nodded. Even in her dreams she wasn’t about to be as free spirited with men as Maria was. “You’re
okay
. I mean, you’ll do.”

“Okay?” he mimicked, his brogue thick.

“For a romance book hero and all.”

He licked his lower lip and she nearly melted before him. “Romance book hero?”

“Oh yeah. The kilt really sealed the deal.”

“Growin’ on you that much then, huh?” He laughed harder, the kind of laugh that started deep within a man and then burst free, running over her, making her shiver with need. She had to wonder if the man’s laugh would make her orgasm. Was that even possible? The ache between her thighs said it was more than possible. “Aye, yer a bonnie lass yerself.”