Midnight's Temptation

He hadn’t expected her to run. Women didn’t run from him.

But Aisley did.

That was part of why she intrigued him, but it went beyond that. She was different. That one kiss they shared had rocked him to his very core. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Or wanting her.

His mobile phone vibrated on the bedside table. Phelan pondered not answering it, but he knew they would only call again.

“What?” he demanded as he answered the call.

“What the hell is your problem?” Charon’s voice asked with a note of irritation.

Phelan rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He hoped the call would cool his ardor, but if it didn’t, another cold shower to start the day would. “It doesna matter. What’s the reason for the call?”

The pause on the other end of the line had Phelan glancing over at the clock. The bright green lights staring back at him told him it was 2:33 in the morning.

“Charon,” Phelan urged as the silence grew.

“We’re getting desperate,” Charon said tightly. “There’s been no sign of Jason.”

Jason Wallace. The very reason Phelan had to take extra time away from tracking Aisley. Jason was a drough, a Druid who gave part of his soul to the Devil in order to use black magic.

Phelan untangled his legs from the sheets and sat up. “I’ve seen nothing of him. Maybe Jason is dead as we’ve suspected all along.”

“I need to know for certain.”

Phelan drew in a deep breath, hating the weariness and worry he heard in his friend’s voice. “Laura is safe. She’s with you.”

“Are any of us ever really safe with a drough about?” Charon asked. “My wife asks me to forget about Wallace, but I hear Laura on the phone with the other Druids talking about ways to use their magic to look for him.”

Phelan scrubbed a hand down his face. How many times had the mies used the magic nature gave them to look for Wallace? The mies were the good Druids and luckily on their side.

Despite the Druids’ magic and the powers within Warriors like Phelan, they had found nothing of Jason Wallace. The Druids had potent magic, but as a Highlander with a primeval god inside him, Phelan should have found Jason by now.

He had been alone for so long, and he thought it would always be that way. Then he found Charon. An unlikely friendship had begun between them that brought them as close as brothers.

After one monster of a betrayal, Phelan found it difficult to trust. Charon had changed all of that. Phelan would do anything for the man he considered a brother.

However, it wasn’t just for Charon that he searched for Wallace. It was for himself. He wanted to put the past behind him. He wanted to think of a future that included peace—or as much peace as a Warrior could ever achieve.

“I’m no’ giving up,” Phelan stated. “I’m tired of fighting droughs. First Deirdre, then Declan, and now Jason. It has to end sometime.”

“Laura keeps reminding me there can no’ be good without evil. There’s a balance.”

“Aye. This last time evil nearly won.”

Phelan hated to think how close they had been to losing the last battle. Fortunately, Charon had made some powerful friends at Dreagan Distillery. Those “friends” ended up being dragon shifters.

The Dragon Kings had been around since the beginning of time. It was on their land the battle had been fought with the dragons in the skies and Warriors on the ground.

“It was too damn close,” Charon agreed softly.

“Any word from Rhys or the others at Dreagan?”

Charon grunted. “Nothing. They have their hands full right now, but they’re keeping an eye out for us.”

“What of the selmyr?”

Just thinking of the hideous beasts made Phelan bite back a growl. The selmyr were ancient creatures that fed off magical entities. The Druids and Warriors were perfect meals. The only thing the selmyr feared were the Dragon Kings.

“Nothing,” Charon said with a sigh. “The waiting is wearing on Laura.”

“All will be well, my friend,” Phelan vowed. “I can stop my search and help you keep watch over Laura.”

Phelan would do it in a heartbeat after everything Charon had done for him, but he prayed he wouldn’t have to give up searching for Aisley. He had to find her, to taste her sweet lips once more and know if the kiss had been a one-time thing, or if there was something between them.

“Nay. You and Malcolm are the only ones out looking for Wallace.”

The first ghost of a grin pulled at Phelan’s lips. “Ah, so the infamous MacLeod Druids couldna talk their men into allowing them out to look, aye?”

“Nay,” Charon said, a smile in his voice. “Neither could the Warriors persuade the women to let them go.”

“Oh, I can imagine the bickering going on at the castle now.”

“Which is one reason we are no’ there,” Charon said. “Where are you anyway?”

Phelan rose from the bed and walked to the window to look out over the city. “Glasgow. I’ll head west at dawn.”

“Keep in touch.”

“Same to you.”

Phelan ended the call and tossed the mobile phone on the bed. He put his palms against the window and dropped his head. Without even trying to, Phelan could feel Aisley’s magic.

It had always been so between Warriors and Druids. It began centuries ago when Rome invaded their land. The Celts stood against Rome, but that couldn’t last forever.

That’s where the Druids came in. The mies had no answer for the Celts, but the droughs did. They brought up gods long buried in Hell to inhabit the bodies of the strongest warriors from each family.

Those men became the first Warriors and soon defeated Rome. But the droughs hadn’t been able to remove the gods from the men. It took the combined magic of droughs and mies to bind the gods.

The gods then moved through the bloodline to the strongest warrior of each generation. Until a power-hungry drough named Deirdre found the scroll detailing how to unbind the gods and which clan to start with—MacLeod.

It was the three MacLeod brothers who were matched in every way that were the first Warriors to have their god unbound. After that, it didn’t take Deirdre long to find others.

Four hundred years ago the MacLeods, and the group of Warriors and Druids who sought sanctuary at their castle, nearly ended Deidre.

Unbeknownst to them, a drough in the twenty-first century had his sights on Deirdre. Declan used his magic to bring Deirdre forward in time.

While the Druids of MacLeod Castle combined their magic to send Warriors into the future to find Deirdre, Charon and Phelan had lived in the quiet glory of four centuries without droughs trying to take over the world.

It had been wonderful, and Phelan craved that same calm again.

But nothing could last forever. Deirdre and Declan had combined forces, but luck had been on the Warriors’ side. It had been one of the greatest moments of Phelan’s life watching Deirdre die.

It hadn’t taken them long to kill Declan either. It should have ended there, but it didn’t.

A year later a new evil took Declan’s place—his cousin, Jason Wallace.

Phelan turned away from the window and walked into the bathroom to turn on the shower.

The Druids could overpower a Warrior. Phelan had not only seen it done, but had it done to him. Their only saving grace was the fact a Warrior could detect magic. A mies magic felt soothing and …