CHAPTER ONE

Goddess preserve me. Colin O’Kelly hated doing the sales calls; they were Patrick’s job. Unfortunately, Patrick was off with his new mate, traveling and relaxing after their ordeal with Mallaidh. So, it was up to him. He arrived at SSB Technology about an hour ago and had yet to see what he was actually there to deal with. No, he sat in this stuffy office listening to this dowdy woman drone on and on. Stale perfume permeated the air as the air-conditioner whooshed on once again. How do you deal with this, Paddy?

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

Colin jerked. “Aye, that would be grand.” Anything, just get this over with, already. Polite…I must be polite. She wanted a late afternoon appointment to boot. Well, if she does not hurry up, I am going to just disappear. Now, that would make things interesting.

The woman’s secretary sauntered into the room on four-inch spiked heels balancing an overloaded tray. When she bent over to place the tray on the desk, her skirt rode up showing a lacy garter.  

Turning her head and looking over her shoulder, she smiled. “Sugar and cream, honey?”

“A bit of cream, please.”

She reached further over and Colin almost choked. She wore only that lacy garter, leaving nothing to his imagination. Then she straightened, turned, and handed him his coffee and a small plate of biscuits. “Enjoy.” She gave him one of those looks that would make a lesser man moan.

“Thanks, Love.”

His gaze followed the movement of her hips as she sashayed out of the room, shutting the door behind her with a slight click.

When he turned back, the woman seemed oblivious to what had occurred. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes. We will not allow any of our equipment to leave the premises. We have too many highly sensitive files…”

Tuning her out, Colin took a bite of the biscuit and washed it down a large gulp of the coffee, which smelled slightly stale and had a bitter taste.  

 He was only about half-finished with the coffee when dizziness assaulted him. He looked up to see the woman’s mouth quirk as she raised an eyebrow.

He telepathically screamed, “Shite. Seamus, they have drugged me. I am transporting out.”

He knew he had not made it home as he unwontedly materialized. His mind felt like sludge. Where he was, he did not know. He seemed to be in a small meadow, surrounded by trees casting eerie shadows from the late hour. His knees gave out and he hit the ground with a thud. Once again, he reached out for Seamus. Only this time he felt emptiness, his vision blurred, and he fell forward as blackness overtook him.

The wolves howled, alerting Kate to something amiss. She had felt a vibration, moments earlier, as something bumped into the magical barrier she had constructed around her home. She thought it had been an animal running full bore away from a predator, ignoring all her warning systems. “Well, I guess I was wrong and now the boys are letting me know.”

Transporting to the edge of the property, she peered through the darkness at a large lump sprawled out on the ground surrounded by four wolves. The wolves danced in agitation, growling and snarling at whatever it was.

“What is it, boys?”

One wolf raised his head and whined. He pawed at the ground backed up and whined again.

Kate edged out of the shadows toward the object. A putrid odor assaulted her. “What in the world?” With a thought, she flipped the mass over. Her breath caught. “My Goddess, what happened to him?”

The man before her looked as if he had been dipped in wax and then left to dry.

Kneeling next him, Kate extended her hands to hover a few inches above his body. His breathing was shallow, but he was alive. She sensed a foreign substance flowing through his veins. “Where in the Goddess’s name did you come from and what am I going to do with you?”

“Take care of him. Keep him hidden.”

Kate’s gaze flew around the area. “Who’s there?”

“Keep him safe from the darkness, my child. Nurse him back to health.”

“How am I supposed to do that, when I don’t even know what is wrong with him?” But Kate stood, held her hand out, and the strangers body lifted from the ground, as if a board lay under him. Kate stalked back toward her home with her uninvited guest in tow.

She transferred him to the bed and once again placed her hands a few inches above his body. Closing her eyes, she concentrated. “Yes, someone has definitely drugged you with a type of petrifying solution, yet it is not potent enough to kill you. Who would have that kind of alchemical skill?”

She hooked him to an IV to keep him hydrated. Then calling upon every healing skill she possessed, and began the tedious process of trying to developing a concoction to counteract the drugs in his body. 

It was near dawn when she added the solution to his IV. “I can only hope this works.”

Yawning, she materialized a comfortable chair, flopped into it, and within seconds was asleep.