Karen Marie Moning - 05 The Dark Highlander(1), WSZYSTKO

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The Dark Highlander
Karen Marie Moning
CONTENTS
First Prologue
Second Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Time is the coin of your life.
It is the only coin you have,
and only you can determine how it will be spent,
Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
—CARL SANDBURG
First Prologue
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In a place difficult for humans to find, a man, of sorts—it amused him to go by the name of Adam
Black among mortals—approached a silk-canopied dais and knelt before his queen.
"My queen, The Compact is broken."
Aoibheal, queen of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, was silent for a long time. When finally she turned to her
consort, her voice dripped ice. "Summon the council."
Second Prologue
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Thousands of years before the birth of Christ, there settled in Ireland a race called the Tuatha Dé
Danaan who, over time, became known as the True Race, or the Fairy.
An advanced civilization from a faraway world, the Tuatha Dé Danaan educated some of the more
promising humans they encountered in Druid ways. For a time, man and fairy shared the earth in
peace, but sadly, bitter dissension arose between them, and the Tuatha Dé Danaan decided to move
on. Legend claims they were driven "under the hills" into "fairy mounds." The truth is they never left
our world, but hold their fantastic court in places difficult for humans to find.
After the Tuatha Dé Danaan left, the human Druids warred among themselves, splintering into
factions. Thirteen of them turned to dark ways and—thanks to what the Tuatha Dé Danaan had taught
them—nearly destroyed the earth.
The Tuatha Dé Danaan emerged from their hidden places and stopped the dark Druids moments
before they succeeded in damaging the earth beyond repair. They stripped the Druids of their power,
scattering them to the far corners of the earth. They punished the thirteen who'd turned dark by casting
them into a place between dimensions, locking their immortal souls in an eternal prison.
The Tuatha Dé Danaan then selected a noble bloodline, the Keltar, to use the sacred knowledge to
rebuild and nurture the land. Together, they negotiated The Compact: the treaty governing
cohabitation of their races. The Keltar swore many oaths to the Tuatha Dé Danaan, first and foremost
that they would never use the power of the standing stones—which give the man who knows the
sacred formulas the ability to move through space and time—for personal gain or political ends. The
Tuatha Dé Danaan pledged many things in return, first and foremost that they would never spill the
lifeblood of a mortal. Both races have long abided by the pledges made that day.
Over the ensuing millennia, the MacKeltar journeyed to Scotland and settled in the Highlands above
what is now called Inverness. Although most of their ancient history from the time of their
involvement with the Tuatha Dé Danaan has melted into the mists of their distant past and been
forgotten, and although there is no record of a Keltar encountering a Tuatha Dé Danaan since then,
they have never strayed from their sworn purpose.
Pledged to serve the greater good of the world, no MacKeltar has ever broken his sacred oath. On the
few occasions they have opened a gate to other times within the circle of stones, it has been for the
noblest of reasons: to protect the earth from great peril. An ancient legend holds that if a MacKeltar
breaks his oath and uses the stones to travel through time for personal purposes, the myriad souls of
the darkest Druids trapped in the in-between will claim him and make him the most evil, terrifyingly
powerful Druid humankind has ever known.
In the late-fifteenth century, twin brothers Drustan and Dageus MacKeltar are born. As their ancestors
before them, they protect the ancient lore, nurture the land, and guard the coveted secret of the
standing stones.
Honorable men, without corruption, Dageus and Drustan serve faithfully.
Until one fateful night, in a moment of blinding grief, Dageus MacKeltar violates the sacred Compact.
When his brother Drustan is killed, Dageus enters the circle of stones and goes back in time to prevent
Drustan's death. He succeeds, but between dimensions is taken by the souls of the evil Druids, who
have not tasted or touched or smelled, not made love or danced or vied for power for nearly four
thousand years.
Now Dageus MacKeltar is a man with one good conscience—and thirteen bad ones. Although he can
hold his own for a while, his time is growing short.
The darkest Druid currently resides in the East 70s in Manhattan, and that is where our story begins.
PRESENT DAY
Chapter 1
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Dageus MacKeltar walked like a man and talked like a man, but in bed he was pure animal.
Criminal attorney Katherine O'Malley called a spade a spade, and the man was raw Sex with a capital
S. Now that she'd slept with him, she was ruined for other men.
It wasn't just what he looked like, with his sculpted body, skin poured like gold velvet over steel,
chiseled features, and silky black hair. Or that lazy, utterly arrogant smile that promised a woman
paradise. And delivered. One hundred percent satisfaction guaranteed.
It wasn't even the exotic golden eyes fringed by thick black lashes beneath slanted brows.
It was what he did to her.
He was sex like she'd never had in her life, and Katherine had been having sex for seventeen years.
She thought she'd seen it all. But when Dageus MacKeltar touched her, she came apart at the seams.
Aloof, his every movement smoothly controlled, when he stripped off his clothing he stripped off
every ounce of that rigid discipline and turned into an untamed barbarian. He fucked with the single-
minded intensity of a man on death row, execution at dawn.
Just thinking about him made places low in her belly clench. Made her skin feel stretched too tight
across her bones. Made her breath come short and sharp.
Now, standing in the anteroom outside the enameled French doors of his exquisite Manhattan
penthouse overlooking Central Park that fit him like a second skin—starkly elegant, black, white,
chrome, and hard—she felt intensely alive, every nerve wired. Drawing a deep breath, she turned the
handle and pushed open the door.
It was never locked. As if he feared nothing forty-three floors above the flash and razor edges of the
city. As if he'd seen the worst the Big Apple had to offer and found it all mildly amusing. As if the
city might be big and bad, but he was bigger and badder.
She stepped inside, inhaling the rich scent of sandal-wood and roses. Classical music spilled through
the luxurious rooms—Mozart's
Requiem
—but she knew that later he might play Nine Inch Nails and
stretch her naked body against the wall of windows that overlooked the Conservatory Water, driving
into her until she screamed her release to the bright city lights below.
Sixty feet of coveted Fifth Avenue frontage in the East 70s—and she had no idea what he did for a
living. Most of the time she wasn't certain she wanted to know.
She pushed the doors shut behind her and allowed the buttery-soft folds of her leather coat to spill to
the floor, revealing black lace-topped thigh-highs, matching panties, and a sheer push-up bra that
presented her full breasts to perfection. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the darkened
windows and smiled. At thirty-three, Katherine O'Malley looked good. She should look good, she
thought, arching a brow, as much exercise as she'd been getting in his bed. Or on the floor. Sprawled
across the leather sofa. In his black marble Jacuzzi…
A wave of lust made her dizzy, and she breathed deeply to slow her pounding heart. She felt insatiable
around him. A time or two she'd briefly entertained the outrageous thought that he might not be
human. That maybe he was some mythical sex god, perhaps Priapus beckoned by the needy
inhabitants of the city that never slept. Or some creature of long-forgotten lore, a
Sidhe
that had the
ability to heighten pleasure to extremes mortals weren't meant to taste.
"Katie-lass." His voice floated down from the top floor of the fifteen-room duplex, dark and rich, his
Scottish accent making her think of peat smoke, ancient stones, and aged whisky.
Only Dageus MacKeltar could get away with calling Katherine O'Malley "Katie-lass."
As he descended the curving staircase and entered the thirty-foot living room with its vaulted ceilings,
marble fireplace, and panoramic view of the park, she remained motionless, drinking him in. He wore
black linen trousers, and she knew there would be nothing beneath them but the most perfect male
body she'd ever seen. Her gaze drifted over his wide shoulders, down his hard chest and his rippling
abs, lingering on the twin ropes of muscle that cut his lower stomach and disappeared into his pants,
beckoning the eye to follow.
"Good enough to eat?" His golden eyes glittered as they raked her body. "Come." He extended his
hand. "Lass, you take my breath away. Your wish is my command this eve. You have only to tell me."
 His long midnight hair, so black it seemed as blue black as his shadow beard in the amber glow of
recessed lights, spilled over one muscled shoulder, falling to his waist, and she sucked in a quick
breath. She knew the feel of it sweeping her bare breasts, abrading her nipples, falling lower, across
her thighs as he brought her to peak after shuddering peak.
"As if I need to say anything. You know what I want before I know myself." She heard the edge in her
voice, knew he heard it too. It unnerved her how well he understood her. Before she knew what she
wanted, he was giving it to her.
It made him dangerously addictive.
He smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. She wasn't certain she'd ever seen it reach his eyes. They
never changed, merely observed and waited. Like a tiger's golden eyes, his were watchful yet aloof,
amused yet detached. Hungry eyes. Predator eyes. More than once she'd wanted to ask what those
tiger-eyes saw. What judgment they passed, what the hell he seemed to be waiting for, but in the bliss
of his hard body against hers she forgot time and again, until she was back at work and it was too late
to ask.
She'd been sleeping with him for two months, and knew no more about him now than the day she'd
met him in Starbucks, across the street from O'Leary Banks and O'Malley, where she was a partner,
thanks partly to her father, the senior O'Malley, and partly to her own ruthlessness. One look at the six
foot four, darkly seductive man over the rim of her cafe au lait and she'd known she had to have him.
It might have had something to do with the way he'd locked eyes with her as he'd lazily licked
whipped cream off his mocha, making her imagine that sexy tongue doing far more intimate things. It
might have had something to do with the pure sexual heat he gave off. She knew it had a great deal to
do with the danger that rolled off him. Some days she wondered if she'd be defending him as one of
her controversial high-profile clients in the months or years to come.
That same day they'd met, they'd rolled across his white Berber carpet, from fireplace to windows,
wrestling silently for the supreme position, until she'd no longer cared how he'd taken her, so long as
he had.
With a reputation for a razor-sharp tongue and the mind to back it up, she'd never once turned it on
him. She had no idea how he maintained his lavish lifestyle, how he afforded his obscenely expensive
collections of art and ancient weapons. She didn't know where he'd been born, or even when his
birthday was.
At work, she'd mentally prepare her interrogatory, but inevitably the probing questions stalled on her
tongue the moment she saw him. She, the merciless interrogator in a courtroom, tongue-tied in his
bedroom. On occasion, tied in infinitely more pleasurable ways. The man was a true master of the
erotic.
"Woolgatherin', lass? Or merely deciding how you want me?" he purred.
Katherine wet her lips. How
she wanted him
?
She
wanted
him out of her system. Kept hoping the next time she slept with him, the sex might not be
so mind-blowing. The man was far too dangerous to get involved with emotionally. Just yesterday
she'd lingered at Mass, praying that she would get over her addiction to him—
please, God, soon
. Yes,
he heated her blood, but there was something about him that chilled her soul.
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