The Highlander's Dark Seduction (Secrets of the Darroch Clan) by Joanne Rock

preternatural journey. That meant, if Elizabeth could find Alexander, she could at least ask him for help. Filled with new purpose, Elizabeth reached for her cloak in a drafty old Highlands keep, her senses tingling with just the smallest spark of new hope.
    * * *
    Magnus rode until dusk.
    Never before had he gone to his night of wandering through time with such haste or eagerness. But he needed to put time and space and realms between him and Elizabeth or else he feared he would race back to her and declare his love in spite of everything. If for no other reason than that she deserved to hear it. She’d been hurt by others in the past. She deserved so much better than this—what he could give her. And yet, what he couldn’t give her seemed even crueler still.
    Was Elizabeth right that his enemy merely wanted his family to experience the hurt of being denied a loved one? If so, he’d been denied two. First his sister. Now Elizabeth.
    There’d been his first love as a teen, of course. The girl who’d fled from him in horror after seeing what the curse had done to him—making him disappear from her arms every third night when he had to take his turn roaming the realms for Shannon. But while he’d resented that loss for years, he now understood he hadn’t loved her. Not in the way that he loved Elizabeth. It seemed impossible to feel for her as he did after they’d known each other such a small space of time.
    Then again, maybe when people were truly meant to be together they recognized it right away.
    “Brother.” Alexander’s voice was in his ears before Magnus saw him. Sometimes they crossed realms without quite seeing one another, but as twins they shared a connection that transcended physical space.
    Magnus wouldn’t mind blaming that bit of eeriness on the
sidhe
curse as well, but it had been like that even when they were children. They weren’t alike,he and Alexander,but they understood each other perfectly. Anticipated each other’s thoughts. Actions.
    “I am here,” Magnus assured him. “Go find your rest.”
    “Enjoy your last night on the job,” came the puzzling reply.
    Magnus halted his horse, not crossing the brook that would lead him into
sidhe
realms to begin his journey through time. There was a brief period at dusk when the brothers could inhabit the same space, before one was pulled away.
    “Where are you?” He turned the mare around. “What do you mean?”
    “I spent the day helping Iain safeguard Invergale and I heard an interesting tale from Lily.”
    Magnus’s teeth ground together. “What do you mean my last night on the job?”
    Darkness fell thicker. Deeper. His time in this realm would not last much longer.
    “I met Elizabeth.”
    The words felt damning, somehow, even as her name tore at Magnus’s heart.
    “How did you find her?” Fear made his blood pump faster. “What have you done?”
    “She found me. She shed tears in the enchanted wood while I lingered nearby. After Lily’s tales, I recognized Elizabeth immediately.”
    What did it mean? And why did Alex sound so sure of himself? Magnus envisioned Elizabeth wandering the forest alone and his fists clenched with the need to return to Invergale. Safeguard her.
    “Speak plainly, brother,” Magnus warned.
    “I saw her safely back to Invergale, of course,” Alexander assured him with the same false innocence he’d used when they were twelve and he blamed the lack of chocolate pudding on his twin. Alex had warned him about two seconds before the cook cuffed Magnus across the head.
    “You know what I mean. Why do you say this is my last night?” Magnus pressed
    “You cannot deny yourself happiness for my sake. I would never allow that.”
    He did not question how Alexander knew so much. Or so well. That bond they shared, no doubt.
    “You have no choice. It is done.” Magnus’s mare started across the brook, her feet as tied to the curse as his own and it was that time of day for his watch.
    For an instant,