Courting Carolina (12 page)

That grin set off a warning alarm in Alec’s gut. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t dump her on the resort’s doorstep tomorrow and let her be Mac’s problem.”

“Because if you do, you’ll be condemning her to a loveless marriage.” Sam blew out a heavy sigh. “Titus hasn’t been all that worried about Carolina’s safety because she wears an ankle bracelet that gives her some sort of magical protection and, I suspect, also keeps track of her whereabouts. But he’s had enough of her little rebellion, and he’s getting serious about— What?” Sam asked when Alec stiffened.

“Jane told me the third kidnapper cut off her ankle bracelet when he hacked off some of her hair to send with the ransom demand. At the time she mentioned it, I assumed it was just a piece of jewelry her father would recognize.”

“Holy shit, they were able to cut it off? But Olivia told me no one but Mac could take off the one she wears, because it’s supposed to be made of some special metal.”

Alec shrugged to disguise the really loud alarm going off inside him. “Apparently the Oceanuses have some magical competition.” So okay then; if Jane was no longer wearing the bracelet, that meant she shouldn’t have any problem staying missing not only from Titus, but also from whomever had had the balls to kidnap her. “I can buy you one, maybe two weeks by keeping Jane with me while you fabricate a new identity for her. But once you do, she’s back to being your problem.”

Sam shook his head. “I doubt we have that long. Titus had already reached the end of his patience, but once he realizes Carolina’s no longer wearing that bracelet he’s going to turn the entire planet upside down looking for her. Hell, I heard he’d already gotten serious about searching for a husband he hopes will make her happy.” He snorted, shaking his head again. “I’m pretty sure that’s why Mac’s planning a fancy ball for Nova Mare’s official grand opening next month. And from what Olivia told me, the men are lining up from all over the world from
every century
trying to get an invitation, hoping to become Titus’s son-in-law.”

“How in hell can a father do that to his own daughter?”

Sam sighed, rubbing his throat again. “He’s doing it because he loves her too damn much. How do you think Carolina reached the age of twenty-eight without his marrying her off before she finally found the nerve to run away? But her being on her own these last two years nearly killed him. Even Rana’s been so worried that now she’s actually agreeing with him that the girl needs to settle down. And if they find out she was kidnapped by someone with the power to…Did you really get the bastards?”

“Not all of them. There’s still one other man, only now I don’t even know what century he’s from.”

Sam paled again. “When Titus realizes someone not only had the balls but the means to get that bracelet off, there’ll be casualties scattered from here to eternity with the war he’s going to wage. Carolina told me what he did to his grandson’s uncles when they tried to kill Mac in order to keep control of Henry.” Sam stepped closer. “You can’t turn your back on her, Alec. Do you have any idea what it must be like for Carolina to see her brother given the kind of power he has just because he’s male, where she’s being treated like a child just for being a woman? It’s archaic and oppressive and a ridiculous waste of intelligence, but for Carolina it’s a fact of life.”

“Titus certainly doesn’t treat his wife like a child,” Alec pointed out. “I’ve seen His Royal Highness pale to the roots of his regal white hair when Rana says his name in a certain tone. She defers to him only when it suits
her
purpose.”

“Theirs was a love match from the beginning,” Sam snapped. “They met long before Titus built Atlantis and sank it into the sea. But what do you think the chances are of his finding a husband for Carolina who’ll love her for herself rather than for the power he’ll gain the day she gives him a son?”

“Why do you care about her so much?”

“I may have failed to keep Olivia from marrying a bastard the first time around,” Sam said thickly, his eyes turning haunted, “but that doesn’t mean I have to stand back and watch Carolina get bullied into a loveless marriage.”

Alec dropped his head in defeat. “She’s got this pie-in-the-sky dream of falling in love with an ordinary man who’s never even heard of the magic, and living in a house overlooking the ocean that they’re going to fill with babies.”

“Vasectomies are reversible,” Sam said softly.

Alec shot him another warning glare and finally stepped outside, slipping into the shadows as silently as he’d arrived just as headlights crested Inglenook’s last knoll.

Dammit to hell, he didn’t care how beautiful and passionately alive Jane was; he was
not
a schmuck—even if her smiles did make him want to forget the promise he’d made himself nine years ago.

Alec took his time returning to Jane as he thought about what he knew and still didn’t know as a couple more pieces of the puzzle fell into place, and wondered if there wasn’t some way he might actually be able to use the magic to his advantage.

Titus Oceanus was from the time of mythological gods—himself likely a god or demigod—and had chosen to champion mankind when his fellow gods had been fighting over who got to control all the poor dumb mortals. So he’d built Atlantis on which to cultivate his Trees of Life—which supposedly held mankind’s conscience as well as all knowledge—and had hand-chosen a small group of mortals he trained as drùidhs to protect them. But when the gods had realized what he was doing and for once had joined together to destroy him, Titus had been forced to scatter his Trees and small army of drùidhs to all four corners of the world and sink Atlantis into the sea.

Alec snorted. Hell, his own cousin, Winter, was a drùidh. She was married to Matt Gregor—also known as Cùram de Gairn—an eleventh-century highland warrior who was supposedly one of the most powerful drùidhs of all time, and together they were protecting a new Tree of Life species growing right here in Maine. Alec also knew about the magic from his own father, Morgan, who was a twelfth-century highland warrior brought to this time—along with nine other highlanders and their warhorses—over forty years ago by a bumbling and now powerless old drùidh named Pendaär.

As for the Oceanuses, Rana had given Titus two children, Maximilian and Carolina. But being born of a time when a woman’s main role was that of producing heirs, Carolina had been raised—without question, quite lovingly—to be a wife and mother, whereas Mac had been raised to eventually
take his father’s place as king of the drùidhs and protector of man’s free will.

Alec finally reached the fiord and saw Jane curled up in the bottom of the boat hugging Kit, both of them bathed in moonlight and sound asleep. He crouched on his heels and scrubbed his face in his hands. Sam was right; denying a woman anything based on gender alone was a terrible waste of intelligence, and he’d bet his hunting rifle that Jane dreamed of more than just marrying an ordinary man and having babies. She’d been so excited about the flying bridge, and so determined to know why he’d spent so much energy placing it where he had, that he’d caught a glimpse of a mind that was interested in far more than producing heirs.

That is, until Jane had remembered she was merely a woman who shouldn’t be questioning a man’s decision to spend three days shoveling dirt. The bridge, the logistics of laying out a wilderness trail, escaping and then eluding armed kidnappers—oh yeah, there was a keen intelligence lurking behind those sharp green eyes.

And for a while at least, that beautiful body and mind were all his.

He hadn’t been bluffing earlier when he’d threatened Jane about acting clueless or embarrassed, and before he was forced to give her up he intended to make sure the woman knew her sexiest asset sat on top of her shoulders. Because he really couldn’t in good conscience let her loose on the world believing one lone condom was all it would take to destroy her value.

Alec stood up and started toward the boat, making enough noise to alert Kit so the wolf wouldn’t go for his throat.

Only the minute Kit raised his head, Jane did, too. “Alec, is that you?”

“It’s me,” he said, stepping into the boat and walking past her to the motor as he pulled the spark plug from his pocket. “You can go back to sleep if ye want. It’s a forty-five minute ride to the end of the fiord in this old tub, and then we still have a bit of a hike to camp.” He turned with the motor
cover in his hand to look at her. “Unless you feel like sleeping on a soft, sandy beach tucked in a pretty little grotto instead.”

She stopped rubbing her eyes to blink at him. “But we don’t have any blankets.” She pursed her saint-tempting lips and blew into the air. “And it’s already cold enough that I can see my breath, so how will we stay warm?”

He turned to hide his grin and screwed the spark plug back in the cylinder. “I guess we’d have to snuggle.” He replaced the cover to absolute silence then turned to her again. “Ye should be warm enough sandwiched between two wolves.”

That got him the smile he was looking for. “I think Kitty should be in the middle.”

“It’s your fanny to freeze,” he said, starting the motor. He backed them into the fiord and pointed the bow north. “So, did ye sleep the whole time I was gone?” he asked when she settled against the seat facing him. “Or did ye spend it thinking about my offer to help you get your father off your back for good?”

Her chin lifted. “I spent the time trying to decide where you’d gone. Certainly not to get anything, as you came back empty-handed.”

“I went to see a friend.” He arched a brow at her scowl. “What, you don’t think I might actually have friends?”

“A female friend, who likes you for
all the right reasons
?”

“Careful, sweetheart; I do believe you’re turning as green as your eyes.”

Her chin rose higher. “I have nothing to be jealous about, because I am
not
your sweetheart.”

“So I’m just one more in a long line of potential lovers you’ve been auditioning?”

Her gaze dropped and her cheeks darkened—nicely confirming his suspicion.

Alec brought the boat to an idle and patted the seat beside him. “Come here, Jane.” But when she merely folded her arms under her breasts and continued staring at the floor, he reached out and pulled her onto the seat beside him,
wrapping an arm around her stiff shoulders. “The friend I went to see was male, and I swear you’re the first lass I’ve been able to persuade to kiss me in nearly a year.”

She leaned away to gape at him. “What? Are all the women in Maine blind? You’re handsome and strong and…and…” The heat in her cheeks kicked up several notches and her gaze dropped. “And smart,” she ended in a whisper.

Alec ran a hand down his puffed-out chest. “Ye think I’m handsome?”

A smile tugged at her mouth. “You might be, in a Grizzly Adams sort of way.”

“Do you even know who Grizzly Adams is?”

Both corners of her mouth lifted, along with her gaze. “I assume he’s a man named Adam who is as big and hairy as a grizzly bear.”

Alec gave her a bear of a hug, then tucked her against his side and started speeding up the fiord again. “Ye mentioned that the man who cut your hair also cut off your ankle bracelet,” he said as she snuggled into his shoulder. “Did ye see him do it?”

“No, I was always kept blindfolded.” She frowned. “And now that I think about it, he never spoke to me directly; in fact, I hadn’t even realized there were three of them until he came in and hacked off my hair and ankle bracelet. And even though I was blindfolded, I could tell he wasn’t either of the men who’d kidnapped me because he didn’t reek of sweat and stale beer.”

Alec decided Jane must be still half asleep if she wasn’t alarmed that he was asking about her
magical
bracelet. “So how did ye actually escape?”

“On the second night after their leader left the ship where I was being held, the two men went to the next room to have dinner. I know,” she muttered, “because I could smell food. I also realized they were drinking, as their laughter grew louder as the evening wore on. I finally shouted that I needed to use the bathroom, and the man who tied me up again was so drunk that he didn’t notice I was fisting my hands to make the rope loose. When it grew quiet and I guessed they were
asleep, I made my way up on deck, climbed over the side, and swam across the harbor.” She tilted her head to smile up at him. “To fool them, as I knew they would assume I would swim directly to shore.”

Alec nudged her upright. “You slipped into Boston ocean water in the dark and swam
away
from shore? How far?”

She gave him a haughty princess glare and snuggled back against his shoulder. “I’m a very strong swimmer.” She politely covered her yawn. “And the cold water felt good on my bruises.”

Alec wiped a trembling hand over his face. Christ, she was tough. Not that Atlanteans could drown, he didn’t think, but just picturing her swimming in a cold, dark harbor made him break into a sweat.

Wait; did
Jane
have a strong command of the magic?

Hell, if Kit could transform from an orca into a wolf, maybe Jane had changed into a dolphin or seal or…a mermaid and had swum all the way to Spellbound Falls, and that’s why he hadn’t found a boat. It certainly was possible, since the subterranean river Mac had created two and a half years ago flowed inland from the Gulf of Maine. The wizard had made it surface in five lakes before reaching Bottomless, specifically so sea mammals—such as dolphins and whales and
orcas
and
mermaids
—could breathe.

But if that was how Jane had gotten here, then how had the men followed her?

Unless the bastards really did also have command of the magic. Could that be why they’d been wearing those medallions? Did the symbol have something to do with black magic, maybe?

Alec wiped a hand over his face again at the realization that besides helping Jane escape her father’s rule, he also needed to protect her from an unknown and equally magical enemy who didn’t seem all that worried about incurring the wrath of Titus Oceanus.