Lightning In Sea (CELTIC ELEMENTALS Book 3) Page 2

  The few locals she did recognize were limited to a couple of aging fishermen broodily sipping their evening stout at a battered table and one man leaning near the hearth who stared right back at her, returning her perusal with a familiar intensity. Even from this distance his eyes were piercing, their hue a stormy-sea green.

  Turning away from that disconcerting gaze with a small smile, Sloane took a long drink of her beer. Keith hovered, an expectant look on his craggy face. Lord, islanders were such gossips. Giving in, she set the mug down, jerking her chin at the man by the fire.

  “Didn’t expect to see Mac here tonight. Shouldn’t he be out ferrying around some of these tourists?”

  Keith opened his mouth, then shut it again. The barkeep hastened down the bar just as Sloane noted a shadow falling over her shoulder, right before a deep voice rumbled so close to her ear she would’ve jumped if she hadn’t been expecting it.

  “Turns out our visitors doona like my island so well when the weather turns rough. Did ye no’ warn them of our wee sharp winds in yer stories then?”

  Her lip curled at the delicate sneer that voice put on the word ‘stories.’ Asshole. There was more affection in the thought than irritation, though, and her smile widened.

  But when she turned, mug in hand once again, Sloane made sure her face was carefully blank.

  “Still claiming ownership of the whole of the isle, I see,” she said coolly. “Does your ego know no bounds, Mac?”

  He ignored this, as he always ignored her sarcasm. “What are ye doing here?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Nice to see you, too.”

  His eyes narrowed dangerously. “Where’s yer folks?”

  “Morocco, I think,” she said carelessly. Enjoying the fruits of my labor. At first, it hadn’t bothered her when her parents had been so eager to help her spend her money. After all, they had given her everything in life; she was only too happy to share. But lately, the ‘loans’ weren’t getting paid back and the only time she seemed to see or hear from them was when funds ran short. With a sigh, she glanced back up at Mac. “I really have no idea. Haven’t seen them in months.”

  Mac swore quietly.

  The words weren’t English, but though she was hardly fluent in Gaelic, especially the complex Manx version, she knew a curse when she heard one. She studied him, trying to hide the tendril of excitement unfurling inside her. It had taken her a long time to figure out why Mac had become increasingly touchy around her the last few years, but now that she had worked it out—or thought she had—it was almost amusing.

  Sloane sipped her beer, watching him and ordering her thoughts. She’d known Mac Alloid since she was in the second grade, when she’d first taken a trip to the isle with her parents.

  She’d found an old Manx book of fairy tales in her room one day—the battered leather-bound volume out of place among the shiny books on her bookshelf. Her parents had been puzzled by its appearance, though amused at her instant and endless fascination. After a summer of pleas, they had indulged her, as they often had back then, by booking a trip to Ramsey and reserving one of Mac’s rentals. The man seemed to own half the island, with the other half reporting to him. He also ran his own stable and a small boating company and did contracting on the side. There was nothing that went on in Manx that he didn’t know about.

  Except, apparently, that she’d planned this impromptu visit sans either of her parents for the first time.

  Or that the express purpose of said trip was to seduce him.

  Sloane smiled again and looked into those changeable eyes that fairly roiled with temper. He was such a control freak. But damn if she didn’t love that about him. She loved everything about him. That familiar flutter under her ribs started up again.

  She’d had a crush on Mac for half her life. One that had persisted despite how they’d butted heads the last time she’d visited here.

  That had been almost two years ago, the summer she’d turned nineteen—the year the first of her books had come out. Amid all the praise that rained down on her, Mac had stood out like a dark, glowering exclamation point. The one person that she wanted more than all others to be excited for her, to be proud.

  Instead, Mac had not only been less than congratulatory, he’d been downright dismissive. It had pissed her off more than a little and hurt her deeply, leading to one hell of a row. She hadn’t been back to the island since.

  Looking at him now reminded Sloane sharply of all that awkwardness, but also of everything else Mac made her feel. He’d been her hero for years. Her poor suit-and-tie father hadn’t had a chance. Mac was all mixed up with Manx in her head. Her imagination had always turned him into a Celtic warrior of old, slaying Vikings and Valkyries in defense of the island she loved. Her lips curved again. Not that Mac had done anything to discourage her imagination, not back then.

  He’d caught her and Jenny playing such games in the old fort more times than she could count. Sometimes he would stay around long enough to curl their hair with legends that were so bloody and realistic she’d have nightmares for weeks after.

  She sighed and blew at the foam on her beer. Yes, Mac could be an ass, but he was also smart as a whip and generous to a fault. Not to mention hands down the sexiest man she’d ever seen. Considering she had grown up in California, that was saying something. She looked up at him now through her eyelashes, ignoring the perma-glower on his face.

  There was no way Mac was as young as he looked, which was mid-thirties, tops. Sloane hadn’t a clue how old he really was and she didn’t care. He hadn’t changed a whit in twenty years. There were a few threads of silver at his temples, yes, but the rest of his hair was a rich, dark auburn, wild, rough and just long enough to tease the back of his tanned neck. His beard was a fiery rust-red with a glint of gold, his eyes an indeterminate color that constantly shifted between grey and blue and green.

  He was a huge man, towering over her own slender five-eight frame, but he didn’t have an ounce of fat anywhere. Broad-shouldered and deep-chested, Mac radiated a power that went far beyond the physical. Not for the first time, Sloane wondered how it would feel to have all that power at her fingertips, focused on her alone.

  She shivered. Mac was the stuff fantasies were made of. Sloane had always suffered from a veritable excess of imagination.

  Her eyes fell from Mac’s face to the bar, where his hands were clenched on the polished wood lip. His hands had always distracted her. They were a workingman’s hands, dark and tanned, but well-made, with long, blunt fingers she’d imagined moving over her body more than once. She bit her lip, hoping she had guessed right about his tension but terrified she was wrong. It wasn’t as if she were experienced in these matters . . .

  Screw it. She straightened and took another, longer swallow of her stout.

  With the recent distance between herself and her parents, Sloane had keenly felt her lack of connection with the rest of the world. Sure, she had Jenny, and she had Manx, but there was no one else. Oh, there’d been a few high school boyfriends, kisses in the backs of cars, but nothing more. Nothing she’d allowed to progress into anything more.

  All because what she really wanted was five thousand miles away. Here.

  Him.

  Once she’d realized just how deeply her feelings for Mac had run, she’d come back. It was time.

  Sloane took another drink to wet her suddenly dry throat, her hands shaking.

  Her plan would never work if she didn’t get a grip on her nerves. She’d calculated her odds—which would probably make any bookie worth his salt weep—but she was going to give it one hell of a try.

  It had always been her nature to go after what she wanted, however unattainable the goal might seem. She wanted Mac. And she rather thought he wanted her. Or she hoped.

  One way or another, before this trip was over, she’d know for certain . . .

  With a grimace made up of equal parts regret, embarrassment and anger, Sloane shook off the past and stepped through the familiar
outflung doors with their pair of carved violins. Keith stood at the bar, just like in her memory, but Mac was nowhere in sight.

  At least something was going her way tonight.

  3

  He heard her long before he walked through the pub doors. The sound of that voice sent a shockwave of awareness down the back of Mac’s neck and all along his spine. He’d known Sloane was on Manx the second her pretty little feet had stepped onto the tarmac of Douglas Airport, but the sound of her voice almost brought him to his knees.

  Damn it all to hell.

  He eased through the throng, slipping around to the back like a ghost despite his size. Not that there was any need for secrecy. If Manannán mac Lir didn’t intend to be seen, no eye in any realm could find him.

  Over at the bar, that golden head came up, and for a moment Sloane’s gaze seemed to rest on his shadow. Mac tensed. Those fucking eyes. Silver-green, bewitching as any siren’s call. They’d haunted him for years.

  Five years since he’d seen her last. A drop of time in the ocean of his years, but he’d felt every day, every hour, every heartbeat that she’d been away. He hadn’t been able to breathe properly with her gone, but he had no one to blame but himself . . .

  5 years ago

  Sloane entered the pub at a near run, shaking that honey-blond hair free of the red baklava and breathing in the scent of peat fire as if it were pure oxygen.

  Mac gritted his teeth as she strode across the stone floor, her long, slim legs in those dark jeans scissoring gracefully and catching the eye of most of the men in the room. Sloane didn’t seem to notice. Finding out last night that she was back, and alone, had irritated him beyond reason, but he’d never been entirely reasonable where the woman he considered his charge was concerned.

  For over a millennium he’d kept his promise to Aidan O’Neill, watching over the vampire’s daughter in her first life—then waiting patiently for her second when Mac had realized the extent of his sister’s fucked-up plans to entrap the man she thought she loved by reincarnating his daughter.

  Mac snorted. Bav was mad. He’d intended to keep her far, far away from Sloane for as long as possible. But then the damn girl had to go and write a bestseller.

  About Celtic gods.

  He shook his head, still feeling betrayed by that whole mess. And now she was traveling alone. Traveling here. It would almost be amusing if her damn life weren’t at stake. Not that Sloane had a clue about her true lineage.

  He frowned at that. Well, bits and pieces, maybe. The kinds of things dreams were made of. Ones she had no idea the real meaning of but that had come out in those cursed books of hers, drawing far too much attention her way, in this realm and others.

  Hiding her from Bav was getting harder ever year. Soon it would be damn near impossible. What happened then was anyone’s guess, only that he wouldn’t allow Sloane to be used again, or hurt in any way.

  Not even by himself.

  He glanced up, his hands tightening into fists as he regarded her easy conversation with Keith, the flash of her smile, the toss of that honey-colored hair.

  That hair was his personal Achilles’ heel. The thick, dark gold waves fell to her waist, coming to a stop just above the curve of her ass. He almost wished she’d cut it so he could stop fantasizing about the stuff.

  Mac muttered a low curse into his tea. Sloane’s head swung round at the sound, her eyes sparkling when they found him. It did things to him when she lit up like that.

  Very bad things.

  Sloane grew lovelier every year. It just wasn’t sporting. Why couldn’t Aidan have had a daughter with a hunchback, bad breath and a nasty disposition?

  “Morning, Mac,” she called out.

  “Sloane.” He lifted his head as she waited long enough for Keith to pour her a coffee before heading his way.

  “Just the man I wanted to see.” There was a glint in her eyes that he didn’t like as she took her seat, reaching out to touch his fisted hand, her fingers soft as rose petals as they slid over his knuckles. “Could you take me to Cashtal yn Ard today? Please?”

  A stray sunbeam caught her hair, turning the edges into spun gold. He knew exactly how it would feel in his fist, silky and cool. The perfect length to wrap around his knuckles and pull . . .

  His hand jerked under hers, making her raise her eyebrows before he pulled away. Ten thousand years of mastering magic, and one innocent caress from a mortal had him reeling.

  “Mac?”

  He blinked. “Eh?”

  The damn chit was looking at him as if he were daft. “The tombs? I need a ride.”

  “What do ye want out there?” he hedged. As if he didn’t know.

  She fiddled with her cup. “Research.”

  He knew exactly why the site drew her so, but he let his frown deepen. “Fer them stories, is it?”

  “Yes, for my books.” Her suddenly flat tone, plus that direct stare, has his jaw tightening. They’d had this conversation during her last visit. Okay, argument. He knew he’d been rough on her, but dammit, it was like the lass was trying to make his job harder.

  Turning her mug this way and that on the table in the heavy silence, Sloane finally raised her eyes to his. “Why do you hate them so much?”

  That vulnerable look hit him square in the gut. “Don’t be daft,” he snapped. “As if I could hate anything tha’ came from ye.” Her eyes widened, then softened in a way that made his breath catch. Mac cleared his throat, irritated at his lapse. “They’re silly, fanciful tales is all. No’ the sort of thing we need bandied about, drawing crowds tha’ expect fairies and leprechauns behind every rock and bush.”

  She drew back, folding her arms over her chest, her chin coming up in that stubborn way that reminded him sharply of her da. Her real one.

  “What do you care what outsiders think as long as they bring you their money?” Her tone was cool, the warmth of minutes before entirely snuffed out.

  He shrugged, unable to share the real reason her tales disturbed him and so saying nothing.

  In truth, Mac was impressed by her gift for storytelling. She’d had a silver tongue even as a wee thing, enthralling Jenny and the other children for hours at a time. He knew her parents had been perplexed by their vivacious but dreamy daughter. They were decent enough folks, he supposed, just a bit shallow and vain, with no imagination whatsoever. Sloane was beyond them. Something apart. Not quite of this world, but not meant for his . . .

  Or so he kept telling himself.

  Mac frowned as her shadow fell over the table. She’d gotten to her feet without him noticing, that sweet tumble of hair hiding her face. “Never mind,” she said. “I’ll get Jenny to take me after her shift.”

  “The hell you will.” His temper, so quick around her these days, rose again. “It’ll be dark by then.”

  “It’s really none of your concern, Mac.” She was already walking away, her spine stiff. He got to his feet and quickly moved around her, cutting off any retreat. She glared up at him, opening her mouth, but he put up a hand.

  “It’ll be my concern if one of ye girls ends up falling to yer death in the sea! Nae, I’ll no’ have it.” His sigh was a long-suffering one. “Come along now.”

  “What, this minute?”

  He took the barely touched coffee from her with one hand and set it on the bar, sweeping his other at the door. “Aye, before I change me mind.”

  Five minutes later they were bouncing along in his Rover, Sloane staring at the road ahead. Her expression was unreadable. The scent of wildflowers and rain filled the cab as she braided her hair absently. He watched her slim, quick fingers pluck at the heavy strands, his own hands tightening on the steering wheel. It was going to be the longest half hour of his life.

  After another five minutes, he couldn’t take it anymore.

  “How’s the university going?” He bit out. “Berkeley, wasn’t it?”

  She blinked at him in surprise. She’d be far more surprised if she ever realized how carefully he
catalogued every detail of her life. “I’ve dropped out.”

  “Dropped out?” His voice rose despite himself. “Yer parents allowed tha’ nonsense?”

  She gave him a sidelong look touched with amusement. “In case you haven’t noticed, I am an adult, Mac.” Noticed? If he did any more ‘noticing,’ he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. When he said nothing, Sloane glanced back at the roadway, her lips twisting with some fleeting emotion he couldn’t put his finger on. She wrapped a tie around the end of the thick plait she’d made before tossing it over one shoulder. “And it’s not as if I need them to support me. I’ve already made enough money to last three lifetimes.” There was a hollowness in her tone that made him frown.

  “Don’t ye want to finish yer education? To get yer degree?”

  “Not right now.” She shrugged, staring out at the flashing scenery. “Writing makes me happy. I’d write even if my books never made a dime, but thankfully they make me a lot of dimes. I don’t need a degree.” She smiled. “Berkeley was fun, but too busy, too . . . frantic.” She lifted her slim shoulders again, her tone turning reflective. “I like simple. I like quiet. I always have. I think that’s why the island means so much to me. One of the reasons anyway.” This last was spoken in a whisper, but Mac barely noticed.

  “Manx is too isolated for a young girl, too lonely,” he said shortly. “You must have a lad or two that you miss.” His already aching hands tightened on the wheel again until he heard an ominous crack.

  Sloane raised an eyebrow. “For heaven’s sake, I’m almost twenty-two. I’m not a girl anymore, Mac.” Her eyes sparkled in the overcast day as she caught his frown. “And there’s no one. There never has been.”

  Mac kept his eyes on the road, ignoring the ignoble twist of relief in his gut. “There should be. Ye should be out in the world, not running off to this bit of it at every chance.” Never mind that each time she left Manx he felt the loss like a missing limb.