A Warrior's Taking Read online

  Margo Maguire

  A WARRIOR’S TAKING

  This book is dedicated to my husband, Mike, the man

  who brought magic to my life. And keeps it there.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Ana took hold of her cousin’s powerful arm. “Wait, Brogan!…

  Chapter 2

  The Scot did not frighten Sarah, not as the callous…

  Chapter 3

  Sarah doubted she’d be able to sleep. Not when her…

  Chapter 4

  Brogan spent the rest of the day in the caves,…

  Chapter 5

  Sarah loved the forest. In the late afternoon sunlight, the…

  Chapter 6

  Brogan took four sheets of paper and put them together…

  Chapter 7

  The evening had nearly been a disaster, in every possible…

  Chapter 8

  Brogan could not credit that Sarah would waste her aspirations…

  Chapter 9

  Holding Sarah felt much too good.

  Chapter 10

  Mr. Ridley was nearly as tall as Brendan Locke, and his…

  Chapter 11

  Brogan glanced across the high castle wall at the fluttering…

  Chapter 12

  Before going back to the clues and the ridiculous puzzles,…

  Chapter 13

  Two of Ridley’s business associates, Edmund Harris and Joshua Howard,…

  Chapter 14

  Brogan rolled to his side and pulled Sarah with him.

  Chapter 15

  Margaret placed the Luck on the thick branch of the…

  Chapter 16

  Even Brogan was shocked, though he did not know the…

  About the Author

  Other Romances

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  The Western Sea off the Isle of Coruain, 981

  Ana took hold of her cousin’s powerful arm. “Wait, Brogan! You are too brash by half!”

  A muscle in his jaw tightened. “As I understand it, we’ve no time to waste, lass.” He secured the strap of his satchel to his back and stepped up to the edge of the chieftain’s magnificent ship, ignoring the chill of the air on his bare skin as they sailed toward the portal that would propel him through time. “While my brother placates the elders with tales of blood stones, I will begin my quest.”

  “But Brogan, you must take more time to confer with Merrick! There is so much for him to teach you about—”

  “My brother has told me all that is necessary. I am to use no magic, but find the stone. By tomorrow, I will have the prize and return to Coruain House.”

  “Brogan, it will no’ be so simple! You must listen to what Merrick can tell—”

  He did not wait to hear the rest. He’d listened until he was sick of his brother’s voice, and burning to take action. To avenge the death of his father, Kieran, high chieftain of all the Druzai. They had never anticipated that the evil sorceress, Eilinora, would escape her bonds and come to Coruain.

  Never dreamed Kieran would be vulnerable to attack.

  “Brogan, wait!”

  “Eilinora took my father’s scepter of power,” he said. “She could return to our isles at any time.”

  Tears welled in Ana’s eyes. Brogan knew she grieved deeply for her uncle, the most powerful and beloved of all the Druzai chieftains. But Kieran’s brutal murder compelled him to action now.

  “If you and Merrick are correct,” he said, “our only chance against the witch is with the brìgha-stones. And you say they were hidden in time.”

  Ana nodded as Brogan climbed to the prow of the ship. “Brogan, I couldna see what force released Eilinora from her bonds. She is not our only worry!”

  “Do you think she is aided by some mighty sorcerer who wishes to disrupt Coruain?”

  Ana touched her cousin’s arm. “I doona know, Brogan. Mayhap ’tis not Druzai…it might have powers beyond our own. You must take special care—”

  “Wish me Godspeed, cousin,” he said, anxious to act. “If I survive the Astar Columns, I promise to return the blood stone to Coruain on the morrow. A few days at most.”

  Brogan made his dive into the depths of the sea, calling forth the charms that would protect him until he reached the Astar Columns. Once he was through them, his survival would depend on his physical strength and endurance.

  And his ability to function nearly nine hundred years in the future, without alerting Eilinora and the Odhar to his presence.

  The rugged North Cumbria coast, late summer, 1813

  Lost in thought, Sarah Granger followed Margaret and Jane Barstow across the beach, picking up all the cockles they could find, placing them in heavy canvas sacks, then carrying the sacks to their rickety pony cart. So preoccupied was she with the news she’d received from Captain Barstow’s solicitor in nearby Craggleton, she scarcely noticed the children or their gamboling cat, Brownie.

  She’d had a strong premonition of changes to come, but never this.

  “Miss Granger, look!” cried Jane, a year younger than her sister at age six. She pointed to a bit of indigo color caught in the surf near the rocks ahead.

  “’Tis naught but a clump of rags, Jane,” Sarah replied absently, but the child scampered ahead, roused by the possibility of treasure to be found.

  “Look at her,” Margaret added, “with her torn stockings and her tangled hair.”

  It was true; no matter how clean and well-dressed the child was at breakfast, she managed to look like a homeless urchin by noon. But Margaret was the picture of good breeding, with her tidy clothes and neat braids. If not for their similar features and pale blond hair, no one would guess they were sisters.

  Sarah rarely took Jane into Craggleton, for she did not wish to subject the child to the same kind of ridicule Sarah had felt after the death of her own father. Her peers had been cruel, mocking her for her father’s descent into drunkenness, his failure to earn a decent living, and the charity on which Sarah had been dependent after his death. She’d moved from household to household in the parish after his death, working for her keep, lamenting the futility of all her dreams.

  She hadn’t ever belonged anywhere, not until Captain Barstow had brought her to Ravenfield.

  How she loved the place.

  “What does Jane think?” Margaret scoffed. “That she’ll find something of value on this empty beach?” The child’s sober view of life was anything but childlike and had only gotten worse since they’d received news of Captain Barstow’s death in battle.

  “Ah, but we know Jane, don’t we?” Sarah said fondly as she caressed Margaret’s head. “She probably hopes a ship was wrecked out at sea and there will be—”

  “She dreams such rot,” Margaret interjected, cynical beyond her years. She needed much more loving attention than her sister, and Sarah was happy to provide it. Sarah and their housekeeper, Maud, were the only family the girls had.

  Except for Charles Ridley, the distant cousin Sarah had just learned of.

  Jane screamed suddenly, her cries loud above the crash of the surf on the rocks. “Miss Granger! Margaret! Come quickly!”

  Sarah dropped her sack of cockles, shouting as she ran. “Don’t go into the water, Jane!” But the girl ignored her, stepping into the waves.

  When Sarah saw what it was, she, too, wasted no time, and dashed into the sea to get to him. It was a man, waterlogged and unconscious, perhaps even dead.

  “Go back to the shore!” Sarah ordered Jane, taking hold of the man’s arms.

  Jane scampered out of the water while Sarah struggled to drag the man out of the sea. She hardly noticed that he was naked, or nearly so, with only a shimmering viole
t cloth covering his buttocks.

  They could drag him no farther than the sand, and when he started to cough and choke, his wide shoulders flexing and contracting as he struggled for breath, Sarah sank to her knees beside him and pressed her hands soundly against his back.

  “That’s it,” she said under her breath. “Breathe.”

  “Is he a Persian pasha?” asked Jane, pointing to the wide copper torque that encircled the thick muscle of his upper arm.

  “Don’t be stupid, Jane,” said Margaret. She turned to Sarah. “Is he?”

  Sarah had never before seen a man with long, raven-black hair, or cloth such as the indigo scrap that covered his private parts. She could not imagine who he was or how he happened to wash up on their shore.

  “Girls, go back to the pony cart and wait for me there.”

  “But Miss Granger,” Jane whined, “I’m the one who—”

  “No arguments, love. Go.” She spoke the words without taking her eyes from the young man who lay so still and pale, so beautiful with his hair slicked back from his face. He lay prone with his head turned to the side, so all Sarah could see of his face was his strong profile, his dark brows and the thick black lashes that curved over his cheek. He was definitely a stranger to the parish, and Sarah wondered if there had been a shipwreck overnight. Maud had mentioned seeing some strange lights the night before…

  She quickly discounted that thought, for there would be much more debris on the beach, and Maud’s eyesight was failing. The man must have fallen overboard, or been caught unaware by the tide. Gingerly, she placed the backs of her fingers on his cheek, and found his skin icy cold.

  Ignoring her sodden clothes and ruined shoes, Sarah ran her hands down his tapering torso, then back up, vigorously rubbing his bronzed skin, warming him as much as she was able. “Wake up! You must awaken, sir!”

  “Look, Miss Granger!” cried Jane with excitement. In true form, the child had strayed from the cart and was clambering among the rocks nearby while Margaret stood dutifully beside the pony cart. “A satchel! It matches his…his…drawers.”

  Caught in the rocks was a pack constructed of the same violet material that was draped about his hips. “Put it in the cart,” Sarah said, without letting up her efforts to revive the man. “Then run home and get Maud, both of you.”

  The girls quickly turned to do her bidding.

  “And bring blankets!” Sarah called after them.

  The young man coughed again, sputtering enough sea water to drown two men. Coming to awareness, he pushed himself onto his hands and shook his head, tossing droplets of water from his hair, just as a wild animal might do. The bulging muscles in his arms gave Sarah pause, and her heart fluttered a bit faster in her chest. The air seemed to shimmer around him, and she was certain she’d seen no English farmer who possessed such raw masculine beauty. And she’d certainly never seen so much exposed male flesh.

  Maybe he was some foreign potentate.

  He turned and fell onto his back, then raised one arm to cover his eyes, unaware of Sarah’s presence. Sarah was astonished and fascinated by the whorls of dark hair that covered his chest and arrowed down the rippled plain of his belly to disappear beneath the cloth that covered him.

  His groans startled Sarah’s attention back to his face.

  “Hello?” she said. It was only right to alert him to her presence.

  He dropped his arm and looked sharply at her, his eyes the same startling color as the cloth that covered him.

  “You, uh…” She gestured toward the water, feeling unsettled by his gaze. “You seem to have washed ashore, sir. What happened to you?”

  Hardly acknowledging her presence, the man turned to glance at the sea while Sarah averted her eyes from the virile expanse of his body. Even his legs were densely muscled, and she wondered at the physical power that must be leashed within him. While she knelt shivering in the sand from the cold of the water, he did not even recoil when the surf washed up to drench him again.

  “Wha’ place is this?” he demanded, his voice deep and raspy, his accent distinctly different from any she’d ever heard before.

  He seemed barely civilized, the absolute opposite of Squire John Crowell, the handsome gentleman who’d owned Sarah’s heart ever since she’d first seen him in Craggleton, a youth not much older than herself. On the few occasions when they’d crossed paths, he’d given her a polite nod and gone on his way, never making her feel like the misfit she was.

  Sarah had entertained any number of foolish fantasies about the squire since then, but knew he’d never really noticed her, a destitute orphan who was compelled to work in Craggleton’s better homes for her survival. Besides, there were any number of beautiful, dowered young ladies in Craggleton who were far above Sarah’s station.

  Sarah turned her attention to the stranger. Now was not the time to dwell on her impractical dreams of the unattainable Squire Crowell. If nothing else, Sarah had learned to be a practical woman. “Are you a Scot, sir?”

  He shuddered and pushed himself onto his elbows, ignoring her question. “I am weaker than I anticipated. Move aside, lass.”

  Scot or not, he was arrogant, if not outright rude. He would soon learn she was no one’s lass. She was twenty-two years old and held a position of some responsibility as nurse and governess to the daughters of the late Captain Barstow. She had managed the house and estate without help in the months since they’d learned of his death.

  The man glanced around. “My satchel. Did ye see it?”

  “The children took it when they left to get help,” she replied. “Who are you, sir?”

  Without answering the question, he levered himself up from the sand and came to his feet. “I need no further help,” he said in a condescending manner, his unsteadiness belying his words.

  “I think you do, sir. Wait. Let me—”

  He started to fall. Sarah moved to support him, but their arms tangled and they both fell to the ground.

  Brogan twisted his body to take the brunt of the fall, landing with the heavily-dressed Tuath woman atop him. Breathing heavily, she lay perfectly still against him, her face mere inches from his, her mossy green eyes stunned.

  They lay still in their intimate position, both of them hardly breathing, but he could feel the rapid beat of her heart against his chest. She was soft and feminine, her scent foreign and enticing. Primitive.

  In one swift maneuver, he changed their positions, shifting the lass to the sand beneath him. Her lips were full and pink, and he could think of naught but tasting them. Feeling raw and fundamentally male, he slipped one of his thighs between her legs and pressed upward until he heard her take a sharp breath.

  He was no longer a powerful Druzai warrior, but just a man, inexorably drawn to that mouth in spite of her being Tuath. He lowered his head until he was a breath away from tasting her. Her lashes fluttered closed, and he knew ’twould take but one slick move to dispense with her skirts and slide into her—

  “No!” He jerked away abruptly, moving off her, wondering what sorcery she’d used to beguile him. He had heard no tales of Tuath magic, yet this lass had nearly bewitched him.

  Even as the odd intensity of their physical encounter burned through his veins, Brogan resolved to interact no more than absolutely necessary with anyone in this time and place. Finding the brìgha-stone was his only reason for coming to this inferior world. With the information Ana had given him, he was certain ’twould be a simple task to find the stone and return to Coruain. He had only to find the site called Ravenfield and collect the stone.

  He shook his head to clear it of the staggering disorientation resulting from his passage through the Astar Columns, as well as the fierce arousal the lass had managed to kindle. If he weren’t so weak, he would use his hunting skills to determine whether she’d actually used magic. But as it was, he could not even stand unaided.

  He frowned when he noted her scampering away from him as though he had fangs and was covered by black scales. He
was no pesky sìthean.

  And she was but a Tuath.

  Still, she was an uncommon beauty with dark russet hair falling in loose tangles ’round her narrow shoulders, and a light dusting of freckles across her nose and high cheekbones. When her cheeks blushed pink and she avoided meeting his eyes, Brogan recalled something of Merrick’s warnings about Tuath etiquette. The woman was undoubtedly embarrassed by their intimate contact.

  Which suited him just as well. He intended to leave no lasting impression on her or anyone else when he went through the Astar Columns again to return home.

  Despite his persistent dizziness, Brogan sat up in the sand and rubbed his face. He could still smell the woman’s intriguing scent, and he felt impossibly drawn by the warmth of her body against his skin.

  ’Twas ridiculous to be so enthralled. He was sure there was no magic on earth that could seep so insidiously inside him.

  She got to her feet and stood over him. “Wh-what happened to you, sir? How did you…” A small crease appeared between her delicately arched brows, and she gave a slight shake of her head. The sun caught the red of her hair, and it shone like the copper of the Mac Lochlainn torque on his arm.

  He growled with disgust at such a nonsensical thought and turned away from her pleasingly disheveled form, and the spark of intelligence in her sea-green eyes. He had to get his bearings and start his search, not waste time ogling a common Tuath wench.

  “’Tis not often that strange men wash up on our beach,” she said pointedly. “In fact, never.”

  “I’m no’ strange, lass,” he said irritably as a burst of pain shot through his skull and down his back.

  He glanced ’round the desolate beach with its high cliffs and scattered rocks, then back at the woman. She’d soaked her gown pulling him from the water, and it hugged her so well that it left very few details of her figure to his imagination.