Karen Marie Moning - Spell of the Highlander

TABLE OF CONTENTS

This ones for my husband, Neil Sequoyah Dover.
Were not there youId be not too.
I love you.

Synchronicity:1. The simultaneous occurrence of two or more meaningfully but not causally connected events; 2. The coinciding or alignment of forces in the universe to create an event or circumstance; 3. A collision of possibles so incalculably improbable that it would appear to imply divine intervention.

Dear Reader

When I am uncertain how to pronounce certain words in a book, it makes my brain stutter each time they occur in the text, jarring me from the immediacy of the moment. Toward that end, I have attached this brief key of significant names:

Cian:Key-on, with a hard C.

Dageus:Day-gis, with a hard G.

Drustan:Drus-tin, U like drum.

The Draghar: Druh-gar, U like drum, hard G.

Tuatha D Danaan:Tua day dhanna

Aoibheal: Ah-veel

FIRST PROLOGUE

Aoibheal, queen of the Fae stood in the catacombs beneath The Belthew Building, concealed by countless layers of illusion, a formless projection of herself, beyond any Sidhe-seers vision, beyond even her own races perception.

In the dimly lit labyrinthine tombs, Adam Black was pacing furiously, holding his ears and cursing a wailing Chloe Zanders.

But it was not Adams plight that concerned her now.

It was her own.

Tonight shed wielded the formidable magic of the Queen of the Tuatha D Danaan to destroy the Druid sect of the Draghar.

But it was not for that purpose alone shed done it. As ever, she had motives within motives. Her use of the full power of the High Queen of the Seelie Court of the Light had caused a blackout of all mortal magic throughout Britain, part of Scotland and a fair portion of Wales.

It had shattered wards humans believed unbreakable, voided protections spells, and temporarily leeched all sacred mortal relics of any power they possessed.

Closing her eyes, Aoibheal turned her far-vision outward, analyzing the weft and weck of the fabric of her world. Shed pulled a thread here, tugged a thread there, and the infinitesimal changes she sought had begun.

Somewhere in Tibet an ancient sorcerer was seeking the unholiest of Dark Hallows.

Somewhere in London a thief was casing a wealthy residence reputed to contain unimaginable treasures within.

Somewhere a Keltar was biding his time, waiting for a vengeance long overdue.

Ah, yes, it had begun....

SECOND PROLOGUE

Some men are born under a lucky star.

Showered with female attention from the moment of his highly anticipated birth into a family of seven lovely wee Keltar lasses, but, alas, no sonshis da dead to a hunting accident a fortnight earlierCian MacKeltar came into the world, at ten pounds three ounces, already laird of the castle. Heady stuff for such a wee bairn.

As he matured into a man, he inherited the typical Keltar looks: wide-shouldered and powerful, all rippling muscle, topped by the dark, savagely beautiful face of an avenging angel. His noble Celt bloodline, true to its aggressive warrioraristocracy heritage, also bequeathed him a lions share of sexuality; a simmering, scarce-contained eroticism that shaped his very walk, underscored his every move.

At a score and ten, Cian MacKeltar was The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars.

And he knew it.

He was a Druid, to boot.

And unlike the vast majority of his broody, overly serious ancestors (not to mention the veritable plethora of broody ones yet to be born), he liked being a Druid.

Liked everything about it.

He liked the power that hummed so potently in his veins. He liked cozying up with a flask of whisky among the collection of ancient lore and artifacts in the underground chamber library of Castle Keltar, studying the arcane knowledge, combining a chancy spell with a risky potion, growing stronger and more powerful.

He liked walking the heathery hills after a storm, saying the ancient words to heal the land and the wee beasties. He liked performing the rites of the seasons, chanting beneath a fat, orange harvest moon, with a fierce Highland wind tangling his long dark hair, and fanning his sacred fires into pillars of flame, knowing that the all-powerful Tuatha D Danaan depended upon him.

He liked bedding the lasses, taking their sweet lushness beneath his hard body, using his Druid arts to give them such wild, mindless pleasure asit was whisperedonly an exotic Fae lover could bestow.

He even liked the brush of fear with which much of his world regarded him, as a Keltar Druid and heir to the ancient, terrifying magic of the Old Ones.

The laird responsible for the continuation of the sacred Keltar legacy in the late ninth century was devilishly charming, darkly seductive, and the most powerful Keltar Druid ever to live.

None nay-sayed, none challenged, none ever bested Cian MacKeltar. Verily, the possibility that someone or something one day might, never even occurred to him.

Until that cursed Samhain of his thirtieth year.

Some men are born under a lucky star.

Cian MacKeltar was not one of them.

Shortly thereafter, the underground chamber library was sealed off, never to be mentioned again, and all record of Cian MacKeltar was stricken from the Keltar written annals.

It is highly debated among surviving Keltar progeny whether or not this controversial ancestor ever even existed.

And none know that nowsome eleven hundred years laterCian MacKeltar still lives.

Sort of... in a hellish manner of speaking.

PART 1

CHICAGO

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6TH

The call that changed the entire course of Jessi St. Jamess life came on an utterly unremarkable, dateless Friday night that differed in no particularly significant way from any other unremarkable, dateless Friday night in her all-too-predictable life, whichshe was in no hurry to discusswere a lot of Friday nights.

She was sitting in the dark on the fire escape outside the kitchen window of her third-floor apartment at 222 Elizabeth Street, enjoying an unseasonably warm autumn evening. She was being a shameless voyeur, peeping around the corner of the brownstone to watch a crowd of people that, unlike her, had time to have a life, and were talking and laughing out on the sidewalk in front of the nightclub across the street.

For the past few minutes shed been riveted by a leggy redhead and her boyfrienda dark-haired, sun-bronzed, muscled hottie in jeans and a white T-shirt. He kept backing his girlfriend up against the wall, stretching her hands above her head, and kissing her like there was no tomorrow, getting into it with his whole gorgeous, rippling body. (And would you just look at that hip action? The way he was grinding against herthey might as well be doing it right there in the street!)

Jessi sucked in a sharp breath.

God, had she ever been kissed like that? Like the man couldnt wait to get inside her? Like he wanted to devour her, maybe crawl right inside her skin?

The redheads hands slipped free, down to the hotties ass, fingers curving into his muscled butt, and Jessis hands curled into fists.

When the hotties hands skimmed up the redheads breasts, his thumbs grazing her nipples, Jessis own went hard as little pearls. She could almost imagine she was the one he was kissing, that she was the one he was about to have hot, animalistic