Avenge Her

imagination.

Chapter 1

Why can’t I be like everybody else?

Izzy Alexander stared at the fish swimming, in their virtual aquarium, across her computer screen. While she sat at her desk in Malcolm Campbell’s castle, the soothing scene didn’t calm her as it sometimes did. No, the poor creatures were forever stuck in purgatory, they’d never get anywhere, never accomplish anything. Kind of like her, and her infatuation with Malcolm.

God, how had she fallen head over heels with a man who was in love with someone else, and who couldn’t stand what she was?

Why can’t I go through life with blinders on, not knowing what people feel, what they think by touching them? Why does my life have to be so strange?

Well, let’s see. Maybe because I’m a witch and an empath who fell in lust with a thirteenth century Highland warrior who’d been cursed with immortality by Lailoken, a Druid High Priest, and who also happens to be my current employer as well the owner of this castle in which I now sit. Yup, that about summed it up and equaled weird as hell.

I can’t do this anymore, she said and peeked behind her. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she met Malcolm’s stare. Damn, he was gorgeous in a rugged masculine way, but he was never going to be hers.

He leaned against the mantel of a huge stone fireplace in the great hall wearing black dress pants and a green designer sweater, a glass of whiskey in the same hand that had sent desire coursing through her body two years ago at his slightest touch.

But that’s all it had ever been, one night in Scotland, one kiss, the promise of passion.

Can’t do what, lass? He pushed himself away from the mantel, his long strides eating up the distance in the hardwood floor as he headed in her direction.

She held up her hand to stop him before he reached her, and her neurons shorted out. She needed her wits if she was going to get through this.

Malcolm paused on the thick Persian rug between two oversized leather couches and tilted his head, studying her. She pushed her office chair away from the desk, and stood. Her arm swung out to her side, and she struggled for balance as the rolling chair tangled with her legs. The stainless steel pencil cup she’d spent the last hour organizing and reorganizing flew off the desk. Crap.

He was on it in a second flat, bending over not two inches from her legs, picking up the scattered pens and pencils. The broad expanse of his back, and the muscles straining against his thin sweater, beckoned. She tried to resist the urge to run her fingers through his short black hair, and her hand actually hummed with need. The current raced through her body, overheating her blood, and she forced her tingling hand to her throat.

He plopped the metal cup on the desk where it had sat since she’d started working for him a year and a half ago. Can’t do what?

His rich baritone voice, liquid warmth, pooled in all the right places, and she backed away from him knowing she was going to chicken out.

Work anymore tonight, she said instead of the, I can’t work for you anymore, speech she’d been planning. She fingered the collar of her blue, cable knit sweater and pretended to be fascinated with her computer fish.

It didn’t help she knew he wanted her. He never acted on the heat between them. No, he just stared at her until she needed a cold shower.

He frowned, and cocked his head. Are you feeling all right?

No, she wasn’t all right. She couldn’t take seeing him every day anymore. I’m fine, just tired.

Leaning a shoulder against the stone wall, Malcolm crossed his legs at the ankles, and took a swig of his drink. With closed eyes, his dark lashes fanned his cheeks. The stubble covering his square jaw looked sexy as hell, and she wondered if it would tickle or sting against her face, her neck…her thighs. Her cheeks heated, and she swiped her sweaty palms on her jeans.

He opened his eyes and caught her staring. Her heart thudded in her chest, and she quickly turned away. Goddess, give her strength. She took three cleansing breaths. Rubbing the tight muscles in the back of her neck, she glanced around the great hall avoiding what she needed to do.

She looked everywhere, but at the man consuming her thoughts. This castle was a replica of Tarbert Castle in Scotland, complete with stone walls, turrets, and a tower keep. The original castle lay in ruins, while this one, in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, stood proud. A fucking effigy to Malcolm’s wife.

Why don’t you go on home, then? Work will wait until tomorrow.

She walked back to the desk, pulled the pencil cup to the edge, and arranged its contents. Pens on one side, pencils on the other, highlighters in the middle. She sighed, and forced her hands away.

Go home, lass.

Enough stalling. She sucked in a breath and some courage, and glanced over her shoulder at Malcolm’s chiseled face.

Iseabail?

The Gaelic pronunciation of her name came out sounding like I-sha-bal, and sent shivers over her skin despite the fact she hated it when he called her that. She’d asked him a million times not to call her by the name she shared with his deceased wife, because she knew when he spoke it he wasn’t thinking of her.

Malcolm pushed away from the wall, and set his drink on the desk. Iseabail?

Izzy, my name is Izzy.

He frowned, and crossed his arms over his chest. Izzy.

Malcolm, I quit. This isn’t what I wanted to do with my life, and it’s time I got on with my plans. After she got her business degree from Berkeley, she’d planned on moving to Venice Beach, California, not far from where she’d grown up, and opening an Occult shop where people would appreciate her abilities. Maybe give tarot readings while enjoying the Pacific Ocean. How the hell had she ended up three thousand miles from her dream?

She’d met Malcolm Campbell.

He didn’t move, didn’t say a word. He just stared at her with those wicked sexy, brown eyes. She’d hoped he’d be a little sad he wouldn’t see her anymore, but his relief was evident in the relaxed position of his massive shoulders, and his hand absentmindedly stroking the scar that ran from his hairline through his right eyebrow.

He obviously didn’t care. Something hard and sharp sat under her breastbone, and almost knocked the wind out of her. She bent and grabbed her purse, pushing air from her lungs on a sigh.

Oh my God… How had she ever thought something was going to happen between them? He just wasn’t into her. It’d been staring her in the face for months, but she hadn’t wanted to believe it had only been one sided.

Iseabail, are you sure? His hand continued to stroke his scar.

Had his voice always been that deep?

Iseabail?

She gripped her purse strap so tightly her knuckles were probably white. God, she’d hoped he’d try to talk her into staying. Instead, he’d called her by his dead wife’s name. Again.

It was as though she’d never existed, never been more than a warm body he could pretend was his wife, but never touch.

Yes, she was definitely sure. She’d had enough of playing sloppy seconds to a woman who no longer breathed. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. Where did he get off calling her Iseabail?

Her fists clenched, and she marched up to him. My fucking name is Izzy!

His head popped back a fraction of an inch. She knew he hated it when she cursed, but right now she didn’t care. Hell, maybe that’s why it had flown out of her mouth. Well, screw him. If she wanted to cuss, she was damn well going to do it.

"Must you speak that way…Izzy?"

With her back straight and shoulders back, only a few inches separated their bodies as she glared at him. His lids narrowed, and his gaze shot to her mouth. Butterflies swarmed her stomach. She couldn’t move, frozen within the electric field sizzling between them. Her mouth dried, and her pulse galloped.

She licked her lips.

He groaned, and raked his scalp.

Seconds passed as he stared at her mouth, and she tingled all over. Desire etched his hard features, and she reached toward his chest. His gaze darted to her hand, then the tapestry on the wall behind her.

And she damn well knew what was lovingly woven within its fibers—his wife’s name.

Her hand froze between them. He may as well have run her through with one of the daggers from his collection on the wall. The fantasy she’d been building came crashing back into reality. It wasn’t her he wanted.

Before she could stop herself, she slapped his cheek. Hard.

Chapter 2

Izzy cracked her lids open, and sunlight pierced her eyes like a laser beam. Her head throbbed to the beat of some unknown tune, and her mouth was so dry she couldn’t swallow. She rubbed her forehead, and squinted as she looked around the family room of her farmhouse in Poultney, Vermont, and tried to figure out why she lay on the couch in the clothes she’d worn yesterday. Her gaze landed on the empty bottle of wine sitting half on a magazine, and half on the coffee table.

She was hung-over.

Standing up, she swayed, and plopped back down on the brown, velour couch. A chill went through her, and she reached for the afghan her grandmother had made that rested on the back of the couch. Pulling it over her shoulders, she glanced down at the blue checked pattern, and groaned.

The Campbell tartan she’d bought in Scotland, not her grandmother’s afghan was wrapped around her, warming her as Malcolm never would. She pulled the tartan tighter, wishing it were the man instead of the plaid.

Pitiful.

She’d become one of those women like her college roommate who cried and wallowed in self-pity when their man no longer wanted them. The self-destructive behavior had to stop.

She rubbed her forehead, picked up the bottle and wine glass, then wobbled to the kitchen. After placing the remains of her shame in the oversized, white, ceramic sink, she looked out the window into the winter wonderland the backyard had become overnight.

The small courtyard defined by rhododendron shrubs lay shrouded in at least six inches of snow. Pine boughs hung low from the weight of it, giving a clear line of sight into the thick forest surrounding the house. The Christmas card scene, that otherwise would have filled her with joy, made her think of Malcolm and the time he’d taught her how to drive in the snow.

He’d been so patient with her, so gentle. When she’d moved to Vermont, she’d been sure they were heading toward love and a relationship, but at some point his feelings had changed. An ache stabbed deep into her heart, and pressed her shoulders until they sagged like the damn pine trees.

Wallow, wallow, wallow.

After setting the coffee pot to brew, she plucked a bottle of high octane soda from the fridge and chugged the cold drink, wetting the Saharan Desert dryness of her mouth.

The phone shrilled, making her jump. She rushed through the family room with the tartan and soda clutched to her chest, narrowly missing one of the pair of brown, velvet, club chairs flanking the fireplace. Stopping in the living room at the antique secretary, she glanced at the caller ID, and closed her eyes as her heart broke just a little bit more. It wasn’t Malcolm.

The incessant ringing pierced her brain like an ice pick, and she yanked the phone from the receiver. The soda slipped and barely missed her toe as it thunked onto the hardwood, spewing the clear bubbly liquid. Awesome.

She pushed the talk button while sopping up the mess with her sock-covered foot.

This had better be good, Goldie, for you to be calling this early.

It’s almost eleven o’clock, why are you so foul this morning?

Don’t ask. She tried for a more pleasant tone, albeit sarcastic as hell. Sorry. Good morning, Goldie, how are you this fine day? Beautiful weather we’re having, don’t ya think? Better?

Her sister chuckled on the other end of the line, which pissed her off more. She held the phone between her shoulder and ear as she bent over and righted the half empty soda bottle.

I’m making sure we’re still on for tonight. Can you watch Cat?

Crap. She’d forgotten she’d agreed to watch her niece so Goldie and her husband, Kris, could have a date-night. Sure, I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.

Or couch. She adjusted the tartan, peeled her wet socks off, and mopped up the rest of the soda.

Thanks a bunch. We’ll bring her over later.

Izzy tried to sound cheerful for the rest of their conversation, but her heart wasn’t in it. After finishing the call, a searing pain shot down her arms, and it took three times before she could get the phone to sit properly in the base.

The sting had begun about a month ago. First just a mild, almost itchy feeling down both forearms, that had progressed into periodic slicing lines of fire, as if someone had held her down and ran a hot poker over the inside of her arms from elbow to wrist.

She knew she should go see a doctor—it could be some kind of nerve problem—but she had no desire to have someone poking and prodding her body. Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

She wanted Malcolm touching every part of her.

God, he’d looked at her like she’d lost her mind when she’d slapped him, and she’d had to run like hell out of the castle to keep from doing it again. Maybe she was losing it.

Embarrassment warmed her cheeks as she made her way back to the large, farm-style kitchen, and tossed what was left of her soda and wet socks into the sink. She poured a cup of coffee, popped four Ibuprofen into her mouth, and chased them with a huge gulp of the steaming liquid, burning the back of her throat in the process. God, could anything else go wrong today?

Malcolm.

She had to let him go. The man was not going to change. He hated anything to do with the supernatural, and she couldn’t blame him after what Lailoken’s powers had done to him. Taken from him.

But she was different than the Druid. Not evil. She couldn’t nor would she ever curse someone with immortality or anything. She didn’t have that kind of power. It wasn’t fair Malcolm treated her like her gifts were something she could turn off. Because she couldn’t, God knew she’d tried enough times since she’d met him.

Did she really want someone in her life who couldn’t accept her for who she was?

No.

Did she want to spend the rest of her life wondering if he was thinking about her or his wife?

Definitely not.

She sucked in a breath and rolled her neck until a much-needed pop sounded.

With that decided, she felt better. Her head still throbbed, and she was hung-over as shit, but at least she had a direction to steer away from the self-pity hell.

She pulled the tartan from her shoulders, and dropped it in a heap on the back of the couch. Even though it went against her need for everything to be in order, she forced herself not to move a muscle, not save the plaid, as it slipped off and fell to the floor, landing between the couch and the wall, and out of sight.

That’s progress, she thought and went to take a shower, and hopefully cleanse Malcolm from her mind.

After steam filled the bathroom, she undressed, and stepped into the shower. She stared through the warm water at the white tile surrounding her, letting the tension in her shoulders ease. Taking a deep breath, she blew out the unfairness of life, and repeated the breaths two more times. She reached for the bar of soap to complete the cleansing ritual, and her foot slipped. Her forehead cracked against the ceramic tile. Shit!

Dizziness swarmed her head. She slapped her palms on the wall, eased to the bottom of the tub, and crossed her legs. Water pelted the back of her head, and pushed her hair over her face, straightening her crazy, black, curls. She closed her eyes, and pressed her hand to what was sure to become a knot on her forehead. Great, let’s add concussion to her glorious start to this day. Her middle name should have been Klutz.

Heat and steam surrounded her, and made it difficult to take a deep breath. She drew her knees up to her chest, and rested her aching head on them. Burning pain raced down her arms. Vertigo hit and with it, came a vision.

She froze.

The water turned cold, but she didn’t want to move, afraid to stop the first vision she’d seen in over a year. She knew from experience any movement on her part would stop the movie in her mind as quickly as if a switch had been flipped.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she concentrated on the image as the mist-like quality of the vision began to clear.

Her niece sat in a black crib wearing what looked like a Christening gown. With a toothy grin, Cat’s baby face looked to the left, and a man walked into view. Tall and lithe with shoulder-length dark hair, his profile remained obscured by the swirling fog. He leaned over the crib, and held a bottle out to Cat. She clapped her hands before grasping what looked like milk. The man smoothed Cat’s blonde curls off her forehead, straightened, and stood next to the crib as Cat drank.

Cat’s head whipped in Izzy’s direction, the bottle popped from her mouth. Cat’s gaze bore into her, like she knew Izzy watched. A black substance floated across Cat’s bright blue irises as if ink had spilled across her unblinking eyes. Izzy yelped. The man stiffened his posture, cursed in Gaelic, and turned his head toward Izzy.

Before she could see his face, the shower tile’s bright white color flashed.

Cat and the man were gone.

Chapter 3

"Gus am bris an la agus an teich na sgailean," Malcolm said as he stared at the tapestry hanging on the other side of the great hall while the glowing embers of a fire warmed his back.

Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, he whispered the epitaph he’d spoken to his wife’s broken body.

Would the shadows ever flee?

Malcolm, are ye all right? Gregor asked. His cousin pegged him with raised eyebrows as he walked into the room.

No. He wasn’t all right, and probably never would be. Aye.

Malcolm shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, and tried to look like he wasn’t on the verge of throwing something. From the expression on Gregor’s face, he wasn’t buying it.

At sixty, Gregor was a striking man. Salt and pepper hair, worn short. Campbell family brown eyes, deep set below thick, dark eyebrows. Five-foot-nine, solid and as loyal as a brother.

Gregor’s eyes widened at the scrutiny, but he shrugged, and walked toward the dining room. He removed the Campbell tartan newsboy cap he always wore, and glanced behind him before passing through the archway. Are ye coming?

In a minute.

The desk and empty chair in the corner pulled Malcolm’s attention. He squared his shoulders, and crossed the room. Rolling the chair out, he sat and leaned back, taking a deep breath, savoring the earthy scent of patchouli Izzy always wore. Her perfume wafted from the blue cloth as he caressed the arm of the chair. The scent fit her personality perfectly, down-to-earth, a free spirit.

He wished he’d never met her.

In over seven hundred years, no woman had tested his vow of celibacy. That changed two years ago when Izzy’s hand had touched his shoulder in the airport, and it’d been a constant struggle ever since to do what he’d sworn to do. And he was tired of the battle within his body.

He stared at the fire across the room. The warmth did nothing to ease the cold seeping into his bones. The last seven centuries had been like the pond just outside the walls of the castle in subzero weather. Freezing from the edges, the ice moved inward until the only thing left unfrozen inside his body was the marrow deep in the center of his bones. Lately, even that warm center had taken on the chill of winter.

Izzy was combustible. He craved her warmth, but feared it.

Like the wood popping from the flame’s intense heat, she was a ray of sun threatening to melt his carefully crafted, numbing freeze. He needed to stay away from her, if she burned away the frigid igloo he’d insulated himself with, there’d be nothing left.

With a last inhale of her perfume, he rose, and headed into the dining room. He would have the staff take the office furniture to the local charity, and purge every aspect of Izzy Alexander from his life.

He sat with a mug of coffee at one end of an oversized, chestnut dining table. Though he had no appetite, his sparring partner was coming by later, so he picked up one of the large hoagies from the platter, and forced himself to take a bite of roast beef.

He’d become soft over the years. He worked out daily, but it wasn’t the same as the rigorous training he’d done with other clansmen in earlier centuries. The world had changed so much since then, and it often left him confused, as if he were acting in a play, the changing stage and characters foreign and strange.

His bare feet now caressed smooth hardwood floors within a well-heated castle, and his legs and arse were covered with jeans. It was such a long way from living with only the heat of a fire, and having nothing but a kilt to warm him.

Yes, the years had made him soft in his mind and body. He needed to change, become the hardened warrior he had once been. Back then, he’d never lost a battle, and staying away from Izzy was definitely going to be a battle.

One he intended to win.

Gregor poured himself some coffee from a carafe on the Chippendale sideboard before joining him. His cousin had aged since they’d first met at a pub in Scotland twenty years ago, while Malcolm still looked twenty-eight.

He’d met many Campbell’s over the years, but most of the bloodline had become so diluted, they hadn’t looked at all like his clan. Gregor, however, was the spitting image of Malcolm’s younger brother, Iain. They’d hit it off immediately, and after a few more pints, he’d ascertained Gregor was a direct descendant of his family line. His clan. He’d offered him a job, and they’d been in each other’s company ever since.

Are you sure all’s well? Gregor’s gaze darted to the empty seat Izzy usually occupied before landing back on him.

Malcolm ignored the question.

Gregor stirred his coffee, concentrating on the task. I stopped by Izzy’s this morning, and plowed her driveway. She didn’t seem to be up yet. The porch light was still on, but there weren’t any footprints in the snow. Odd for her wouldn’t you say?

Malcolm frowned. Izzy always got up at the crack of dawn after a storm, making designs in the virgin snow with her footprints. For a woman of twenty-five, her childlike excitement and wonder with nature had always made him smile. Knowing she hadn’t been outside playing