A drop of rain plopped on Jenna Cameron’s face, rousing her from a sleep so deep she felt muddled. She saw trees, sky, clouds. Huge trees. Dark sky. Gloomy clouds. As she regarded her surroundings shivers sprinted over her wet, chilled skin. Nothing looked familiar, and yet she felt a tremendous relief pouring through her. She had done something. She had reached something. Her thoughts felt remarkably peaceful, as if she hadn’t a care in the world now.
She never wanted to move again.
Wind came rushing through the trees, fluttering the leaves and creaking the branches. Pine and rain scented the damp air moving over her face. Everything around her felt soaked, from the wide, hard rough thing pressing against her back to the mound of things under her cheek.
Not things, leaves.
She felt her heartbeat speeding up as she tried to understand what was happening to her. All she knew was her name: Jenna Cameron. She didn’t know where she was, how she got here, or who had done this to her. She took in a quick breath and tried to recall anything else, but her mind felt wrong. A sharp, tight cord of pain began to twang slowly between her temples. Had she taken a blow to the head? She couldn’t remember.
All she knew about herself was her name. How was that even possible?
“’Twill be well, lass.”
Those four words drew her gaze to the mountain of a man standing over her. Jenna wasn’t afraid of him. It simply confused her to discover him there. From his expression, as he crouched down in front of her, he seemed just as bewildered.
Jenna liked his eyes. A beautiful shade of green, they tilted up at the corners, giving him a slightly feline look. Gold tipped his dark lashes, and caught the sunlight as it sifted through his long brown hair. He had very striking features, broad and bold and intensely masculine. Under his dark cloak he wore a rough, oddly-made shirt, wool trousers, and fur-topped boots.
“Domnall mag Raith,” he said, his deep voice colored by a heavy accent she didn’t recognize.
It took her a moment to understand that he was telling her his name. “I’m Jenna Cameron. Where am I?”
“Scotland.”
That wasn’t very specific, but at least it put a name to his accent. She eyed his heavy belt and the sheath that hung from it. He had his left hand curled loosely around the hilt of what had to be a sword. When he saw her staring, he let it go.
“I’ll no’ harm you,” Domnall said, as he took off his cloak and covered her with it.
Until he did that Jenna hadn’t realized she was naked. The warmth of his cloak felt so good she wanted to burrow under it and never come out.
They went on looking at each other, in a cautious, startled way that made her think of two accident victims who had just climbed out of their wrecked cars. Was this his fault, or hers? Jenna had no idea.
At last he asked, “How came you here?”
“I don’t know.”
Worry invaded her comfort and started issuing demands for information. How long had she been out here in the woods? Had Domnall brought her? Hit her over the head? Was that why she couldn’t remember anything? Why was she in Scotland, of all places?
The wet, cold ground felt as uncomfortable as all those questions she couldn’t answer. She needed to get to her feet.
Domnall saw what she meant to do and took gentle hold of her arms, helping her up. As they both stood Jenna saw just how much he towered over her. Her head barely reached the middle of his chest. She glanced down at her feet as he wrapped his cloak more securely around her. She wasn’t that short. He was simply huge: broad shoulders, big arms, long legs, and bulging muscles everywhere. His hands covered most of her upper arms. If he wanted to hurt her, she was a goner. Right now, she should get busy with screaming, crying or shouting for help.
Why aren’t I afraid of him?
“Jenna Cameron.” He said her name slowly, as if it belonged to a language he was trying out for the first time. “’Tis a Scottish name, but your voice.”
“American.” She said it without thinking, and then smiled. “I’m from America.” There was something else, too, something important hovering just behind that. It made her head hurt to reach for it, but finally she dragged it out of her dark memory. “I’m an architect.”
Phantom sensations came over her as the fact brought with it fragments of memory. Water lapping over the toes of dirty boots. A groaning, cracking rumble roaring overhead. Then terror, bright and piercing, running and falling, being struck over and over by huge, heavy blows. Agony, despair, and then in that terrible darkness, light from above. Cold, glaring white light, and snowflakes falling on her face…
Jenna pressed one hand to her head, gasping as her headache swelled. Just as suddenly it vanished, and the terrifying memory bits went with it.
“I’m in trouble,” she told Domnall. “I think someone tried to hurt me. Maybe kill me.” She clutched his cloak, trying to draw it tighter around her shivering body. “They must have left me here.”
Jenna glanced around them, and that was when she saw the marks on the huge tree trunk just behind her. She turned around slowly, her stomach clenching as she took in the long row of marks that had been burned into the tree’s bark. She couldn’t read the primitive glyphs but they looked very familiar. They also made every muscle she owned tense, as if readying her for a fight.
“Do you ken what they mean?” Domnall asked.
“I’ve seen them before, but no.”
She reached out to touch the marks, and at the last minute snatched back her fingers. That made his cloak slip from her shoulders and drop to the ground.
“Be still, lass,” he said when she bent to retrieve it.
Jenna felt his hand on her back, and then her eyes closed as pleasure spread from the stroke of his fingers along her spine. “What are you doing?”
“You’ve skinwork here from your neck to your waist.” He traced the pattern for another few seconds before he picked up the cloak and wrapped her up again. “By the Gods. ’Tis the same.”
“As the tree?” she asked as she turned around, but the big man shook his head.
He hesitated before he pulled up his left sleeve, revealing his hard-muscled arm. A long tattoo of the glyphs in black ink ran from under the fabric to his elbow.
“’Tis the same as my own.”
