Lightning In Sea (CELTIC ELEMENTALS Book 3) Read online

  “Manx is good enough for you.”

  “The island is my life,” he said simply, aware she had no idea how literally he meant that.

  “And you don’t get lonely?”

  He glanced at her as he pulled into the empty lot. There was something pointed in her tone, something that made his chest tighten, even as he forced a laugh. “I’ve company enough when I need it.”

  She scowled, obviously not caring for his answer, though damned if he could see why.

  She was out of the cab before he could open the door for her, which made him scowl. Mac caught up to her quickly, which was somewhat of a relief and a disappointment. Those snug, low-rise jeans she favored were a wicked invention, hugging her pert little ass and long legs in a way that made him think things he’d no business thinking.

  She didn’t acknowledge his presence, her eyes intent on the hillside falling away before them.

  Cashtal yn Ard was one of the loveliest and saddest monuments on Manx. Only a scattering of stone walls were left of what once had been a great cairn, but the ‘Castle of the Heights’ still commanded an impressive view. The sea was spread out like a skein of blue silk to the east while behind them the hills darkened with gathering clouds, the light dramatic in that thrilling juxtaposition Mac thought of as stormshine. He knew Sloane felt at peace in this spot, and he knew why, even if she did not.

  He glanced to his left, knowing exactly where her grandmother Eunys was buried, even after all these years. To his surprise, Sloane didn’t slow as she usually did, passing rows of stones without a glance, heading to where the hillside dropped abruptly in its descent to the water far below.

  “Hold up, lass!” he snapped, throwing out an arm to halt her reckless pace. They were still a good quarter mile from the water, but he hadn’t been joking earlier about the danger of wandering the heights alone or in the dark. Even now, in the distorting shadows of the approaching storm, it’d be far too easy to have a nasty fall.

  “What is that?” Sloane frowned, pushing against his restraining arm, her eyes wide and intent on something behind him. “Mac, look.”

  “What?” He followed her gaze and for an instant he didn’t understand. Then he looked again. No. She couldn’t mean . . .

  “That rune stone there?” Her voice was dazed, wondering. “Bigger than the others. I’ve never seen it before.” His arm fell to his side as she walked forward to put her hand on the rock—the rock that no mortal should be able to see, let alone touch. It towered above the others on the hill, dark and foreboding. Mac’s jaw clenched as he focused on her hand on the stone. Damme, it wasn’t possible.

  Her slender fingers started shaking. “Wait. I have seen this before. In a dream. I . . .” She pulled her hand away, staring up at the monolith with something between fascination and horror. “It was weeping blood,” she whispered.

  Mac made a sound, low and deep in his throat, and beneath them the waves growled in response.

  “What’s wrong?” Her voice was still unsteady, but she glanced at him while pulling her phone out, lifting it with the obvious intention of snapping a couple of pictures. With deliberate care, he stepped in front of her, blocking her view.

  Her pictures would show no stone, nothing but the normal site she’d seen a hundred times before, and that would cause nothing but questions. Questions he was not prepared to answer. Not now.

  Not ever.

  “A storm is coming, a bad one,” he said. “Can ye no’ feel it? We need to get back.”

  “Storm?” She raised an eyebrow. “It can wait, Mac. I just need one sec—” Sloane gasped as a sudden gust of wind knocked her off her feet, slamming her into him. Her phone fell to the grass, forgotten, as he steadied her. One hand at the small of her back, his fingers nearly spanning her slender waist. He gripped her arm with the other, keeping her from smashing face-first into his chest again. The wind whipped around them, but Mac couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

  The air had turned electric, like the storm was centered between them. In a way, it was. He was losing control.

  She’d seen the stone. His stone, the physical manifestation of the bond between himself and this land. What did it mean?

  Sloane raised her head, looking at him from under the tendrils of dark gold that had been pulled from her braid by the wind, her eyes wide at the expression on his face. She pressed closer, soft and warm, her fingers tightening in his shirt. “What’s wrong, Mac? Are you okay?”

  He stared silently, completely nonplussed. I doona know and that’s the fucking truth.

  “Sloane . . .” he finally managed, his voice rough as her fingers trailed higher, brushing his nape. He shifted his weight. The featherlight touch had his chest tightening, his already half-hard cock thickening. Her lips parted, soft, pink and utterly tempting.

  Sloane tilted her chin, the sweet scent of her breath teasing him before the wind snatched it away. “Do you want to kiss me, Mac?”

  “Nae,” he said automatically, the knee-jerk reaction of years of denying himself. But he didn’t pull away and his gaze stayed locked on her mouth, which curved in triumph.

  “I think you’re lying. I see you, Mac. I see you, seeing me. I thought I was nuts at first, imagining things because I’ve dreamed them so hard for so long, but I don’t think so anymore.” Her words were barely audible as the storm grew around them, but Mac heard every word. She’s dreamed of me.

  He’d suspected such things, of course, he wasn’t blind, but hearing it from her own lips tore at the threads of his rapidly eroding control.

  Her fingers tightened in his hair, the small pressure constricting his breath. “You feel it, too, Mac. Tell me you do.”

  “Aye,” he whispered, but trying to equivocate, to escape this madness. “I’ve always cared for ye, true enough. And I always will. But . . .”

  “No buts.” She went to her tiptoes, pulling his head down as she swayed closer. “It’s more than that. You want me, Mac. Just as much as I want you.” He was acutely aware of the brush of her thighs against his. “Don’t you?” Her lips touched his and Mac’s heart slammed against his ribs.

  Lightning blazed on the hilltop behind them. The sound was deafening as the impact shook the ground beneath them, but in his arms, Sloane didn’t so much as flinch. In that flash, he understood. This whole ride to Cashtal yn Ard had been nothing but a thin ruse to seduce him. He’d been so busy fighting his own desires he hadn’t noticed the snare she was attempting to lay.

  Danu.

  It was up to him to end this.

  Then her mouth opened under his, a soft sweetness that stole his will and ending it was the farthest thing from his mind. He was a god—commander of all the waters of earth and heaven, one of the most feared creatures that had ever lived—and he was helpless against his need for her.

  His fingers plunged into her hair. Mac growled as he freed the heavy silky weight of it from her braid, his mouth never leaving hers. He’d dreamed of this hair, dreamed of fisting his hands in the glossy strands just like this, demanding more. When Sloane pressed up against him in response, he groaned, then he yanked her closer yet, because it wasn’t enough. It’d never be enough. He wanted to devour her, to draw every bit of what she was in and make it his.

  Ruthlessly, he explored every hidden secret of her mouth with hot, possessive flicks of his tongue. Her sexy little whimpers only fueled his need.

  Mac slid a hand over her ass, cursing at the warm, ripe weight of it as he lifted her up, bracing her back against the stone. She wrapped those long legs around him without being told, drawning him against her inner heat until Mac was half mad. He shoved her jacket aside roughly, tearing at the thin material of her sweater until his fingertips found skin, silken and hot. She was trembling as he reached for the button of those cursed jeans.

  He’d take her, here and now. Up against the stone, like a sacrifice of old. Then Sloane would be his, his forever.

  He deepened their kiss, swallowing her soft cries. She tasted so
sweet and soft, like rain on the sea. Fresh and clean and new . . .

  Innocent.

  Mac went still, the hard edges of that metal button digging into his fingertips as he considered what he was being offered. Fierce triumph warred with something deeper, something he didn’t want to acknowledge, because acknowledging it meant he’d have to stop. For a long while he teetered on a precipice, jaw tight, cock throbbing, eyes closed.

  With a bitter curse, he ripped himself away from the tantalizing promise wrapped around him. This was wrong. Wrong.

  “Mac?” she whispered as he set her down abruptly, yanking her away from the stone.

  “This canna happen. Ye and me. No’ ever.” He pushed her away with both hands, his touch hard, unyielding. Dismissive.

  Sloane stumbled, the look on her face slicing him right down to the bone. Her lips were swollen, her hair whipping over cheeks bright and flushed. It was an effort to form words, but he forced them out over the rising wind.

  “We need to go. Now,” he growled. He guided her none too gently toward the parking lot, his head pounding.

  “Why did you stop? Mac, don’t worry. I want this. I want you.” Her pleading words slashed at him like little knives. Behind her, the clouds blackened and boiled. She caught his wrist and looked up at him, utterly confused. “I thought you wanted me, too.” Her fingers trembled against his skin.

  He flicked them away. “Ye’re wrong. Seeing things that are no’ there.” Mac swallowed the bitterness of the lie, hating the taste of it on his tongue.

  “But that kiss . . . you . . .” Her voice broke, along with something inside of him.

  “Made a mistake.” He bit the words off, one by one. “I am a man after all—but nae one who will deceive ye so.” He knew the wetness on her cheeks was not rain, the rain was still seconds away from falling, but he pretended it was so he could do what needed to be done. “If it were just about fucking, tha’ would be one thing. But I know it’s no’. Nae for ye.”

  She fell back at his callous words, one pale hand fluttering out to reach for him again. He glared at it before stepping back, his jaw set as he forced himself to ignore the devastation in Sloane’s eyes. Her hand fell away. Slowly he watched her force herself to straighten, that silvery-green gaze boring into his.

  “You’re right, Mac,” she said clearly. “It is more. I love you.”

  Her words slammed into his gut, harder than any blow he’d ever weathered. Danu, she was brave. Her honesty nearly brought him to his knees.

  His face, though, could have been carved from bedrock. “Ye’ve no’ idea wha’ ye’re saying. Get back in the fucking truck.” Mac hesitated and then decided if he was doing this thing, he would damn well do it properly. “Go home, Sloane, back to America and fucking stay there. If ye were coming to Manx for me, ’tis best ye never come back at all.”

  With one stricken look, she obeyed, running from the ruins without a backward glance, that blond hair flying as the sky unleashed at last. The deluge pelted Mac’s back with icy sleet as he plucked her phone from the ground and followed, welcoming the sting of it against his skin, the real storm raging inside him, threatening to tear him apart . . .

  Mac leaned against the wall of the pub, hiding in the shadows as Sloane took a long pull from her pint. The sight of those sweet lips pressed against the glass made his own tighten. He could’ve taken her that day on the heights, consumed all that she’d so willingly offered. Her virginity, her love and more, binding her soul to him in body, mind and spirit for the rest of her life.

  It would have been easy. She was only a mortal, far too young and thinking herself in love with a creature whose true nature she had no inkling of. He could have forced her worship of him for as long as she lived. Part of him had craved exactly that, wanted with every fiber of his being to use his power to ensure she’d never know another man’s touch, never experience anything except what he gave her.

  But, unlike his sister, Mac knew what love was. And he knew what it was not.

  So he’d pushed her away to prove which his was, and she’d gone.

  Sloane had sat next to him in that truck, soaked to the bone on the ride back, shivering uncontrollably even though he’d turned the heat to damn near boiling to ease the chill between them, his hands aching with the need to hold her, to ease those tremors away. But he hadn’t reached out, and she hadn’t spoken. As soon as he’d stopped at Jenny’s, Sloane had opened the door and fled. She had been at the airport less than two hours later. Mac hadn’t needed to be told she was gone; he’d felt the exact minute the plane carrying her had left the runway.

  And he’d prayed to the mother of all gods every morning and night since that she’d return.

  Now his prayers had been answered.

  Mac smiled a hard, satisfied smile as Sloane took another drink. She’d come back to the island . . . and by proxy, to him.

  All bets were fucking off.

  As the two women got up to leave the bar, he watched them go with the knowledge he’d never push her away again. Quite the opposite.

  Sloane was truly a woman now. While they weren’t on level ground, and never would be, she was no longer an untried foal just learning to walk. She had an idea of her own power. She’d gained strength and experience enough to know her own mind. This was as fair as it was going to get, and by Danu, he was going to take it.

  Mac had always known Sloane was tangled up in his destiny. He’d felt it in the reverberation of her soul all those years ago, when her name had been Isleen and her laughter and joy had been the only thing to calm his troubled mind.

  It had taken him a long time to understand. Eons. Since that day on the heights, he’d had time to ponder why Sloane had seen the rune stone, coming to one conclusion. She was his. She’d always been his.

  Proving it to her wasn’t going to be easy, especially after what he’d done, but he’d damn well accepted it now and Sloane would, too.

  They wouldn’t, but Mac didn’t give a damn about them. Nothing and no one was going to keep him from taking what was his.

  His lips pressed together as Sloane got to her feet, her eyes narrowing as she cast a suspicious glance at his corner again.

  Danu help anyone who tried.

  Even Sloane herself.

  4

  “Have you seen Mac yet?” Jenny gave her a sidelong look as they stumbled out of The Fiddler’s Head.

  “No. And don’t you start.” Fuck, why did Guinness always seem stronger on the island? Maybe Keith had a special brew or . . .

  “Start what?” Her tone was innocent but Jenny’s blue eyes were bright and sharp.

  Sloane shook her head. “For god’s sake, Jenny. I’ve been over that stupid crush for years. I’ve been married, divorced. Hell, I’m over men entirely, at least for the next year or so.” Damn straight. She needed the breather after Josh, whose neediness had made her claustrophobic where relationships were concerned.

  As usual, Jenny was like a dog with a bone, never knowing when to let go. “Come on, Slo, you loved him for years.” Jenny would know better than anyone, she’d been Sloane’s confident, listening to every whispered fantasy, sharing every hope and tear. “Before Josh, before all this divorce bullshit. I know Mac was mean to you, but—”

  “Mean?” Sloane stopped to stare at her friend, her vision blurry with remembered pain and alcohol. “He ripped my innocent little heart to bits and, and stomped it into bloody bits of blood and bone and spit on the pieces.”

  “That’s colorful but a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

  “Goddamn it, Guinevere Joyce Creer, they were my bits, I’ll call it how I see it!”

  Jenny snorted but wrapped a warm arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Slo,” she said softly. “I’m not saying he didn’t hurt you something awful.”

  Sloane cleared her throat, trying to hide the sudden thickness there. A virgin trying to seduce her lifelong crush only to have her declaration of love ruthlessly turned aside? Yeah, awful didn’t
quite cut it.

  Mac’s rejection had sent her headlong into the dating world. Taking any and every offer, trying to wipe out the memory of that wind-swept day her heart had been broken. Then just when she thought she might be healing, might be able to move on, there had been Josh’s proposal and her disastrous marriage and the whole thing with her parents and . . .

  She shook her head, irritated with the sudden bitter direction of her thoughts. Mac wasn’t responsible for her choices. Nor did he have anything to do with her decision to move to Manx. In fact, his presence had been a large black tick in the cons side, but . . . She loved this place. She always had. With or without Mac, it had always made her happy. Right now, she really, really needed happy.

  So she’d told herself she would find a way to deal with the inevitableness that was Mac Alloid. Manx was worth it. “It doesn’t matter,” she said tonelessly. “I don’t give a fuck about Mac anymore, so—”

  “He asks about you. All. The. Time.”

  “He does not.” Sloane pulled away to stare at Jenny in shock, one hand flying out against the alley wall to steady herself, her woozy head trying to make sense of the ludicrous words. Mac asks about me?

  She’d spent the last five years sure that Mac had put her and that day on the hill right out of his head . . . and wishing she could do the same. That she could stop seeing his face when he’d pulled back from her, the anger, the disgust—she winced—and something darker. Something she’d never been quite able to define. “What does he ask?”

  Jenny smiled. “Thought you didn’t give a fuck.”

  “Jenny.”

  With a tipsy laugh, Jenny tripped her way down the block, Sloane trailing in her wake, neither woman noticing the figure in the shadows under the abandoned bookshop.

  The vampire who emerged from the darkness wore a smile on his thin, pale lips as he watched two women move off down the street.