His breath caught. How could he be constantly caught off guard by her beauty? His hands skimmed up and down her arms, driven by a compulsive need to touch her.
“I don’t doubt you can take care of yourself, Callie, but we all need someone to watch our backs,” he said in a husky voice.
“Even macho cops?”
“Especially macho cops.”
Silence. The sort filled with potent fascination, licks of treacherous heat, and a mutual wariness of the bonds forming between them.
This hadn’t been in the cards.
For either of them.
“Come on,” Fane intruded, his heightened temper heating the air as he glared at Duncan. “We have to hurry.”
“What’s the rush?” Duncan snarled, promising himself that as soon as he was certain Callie was safe he was whisking her far away from her guard dog. Intrusive, pushy bastard.
He didn’t care if he had to chain the warrior to the wall and throw away the keys.
As if sensing his dark promise, Fane sent him a last searing glare before leading them through one of the arches.
“Boggs refuses to speak once the sun rises.”
Falling into step, Duncan grimaced. “He’s not a vampire, is he?”
Fane shrugged. “You’ll see.”
Duncan glanced toward the silent Callie. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“As the Mave said ... he’s eccentric.”
He shook his head. There was no use speculating what might be waiting for him.
They walked through the narrow hallways of the abbey, the occasional flicker of candlelight the only thing to hold back the thick gloom.
Although for him it was seven or eight in the evening (he never wore a watch), the abbey was shrouded in sleep with only an occasional glimpse of robed figures who were unfortunate enough to have the night shift.
They passed through an empty workroom filled with wooden tables piled high with rolls of parchment and bottles filled with a dark liquid he assumed was ink. There were even feathered quills piled on a far bench.
Scribes? In this day and age?
That seemed ... redundant.
Fane kept his pace brisk as they left the abbey and crossed a paved courtyard to stand next to a large building that looked like it had once been the stables. Within minutes a black SUV with tinted windows appeared from around the corner of the building and Fane pulled open the back door to help Callie into the backseat.
Duncan was quick to slide in after her, sinking into the buttery leather seat so that the Sentinel was forced to climb into the front seat with the hooded monk.
Childish?
Hell, yeah.
But it was common knowledge that most men stopped maturing about the age of five.
Closing the door, he’d barely managed to click his seat belt in place when the monk shoved his foot down on the accelerator and they were hurtling away from the abbey at a speed that had to be illegal.
Silence filled the interior of the expensive vehicle as Callie retreated inside her thoughts. Fane appeared to be in some Zen-like zone. The monk presumably had made some sort of vow of silence, or maybe he was just enjoying his pretense they were racing the Grand Prix.
And Duncan ... well, his jaws were clenched too tight to utter more than a squeak.
Duncan caught a glimpse of a wide river that he assumed was the Rhine following the narrow road that wound through a dense forest. They raced through a tiny village so fast he barely made out the quaint shops with their wooden signs and polished front windows that were filled with hand-carved cuckoo clocks, squishy teddy bears, and the inevitable beer steins.
His ma would be enchanted, he acknowledged, making a mental note to have his siblings chip in to send his parents on a well-deserved vacation. His da would insist on visiting Ireland, but would make sure his ma had a say in the plans.
They’d been traveling less than a quarter of an hour when the SUV made a sharp turn onto an overgrown path. He instinctively reached to tuck Callie against him as they jolted over the uneven path, wondering who taught the damned monk how to drive.
Thankfully the bone-jarring journey at last came to an end at the top of a hill, and with a low groan, Duncan shoved open the door and climbed out of the vehicle. He turned to help Callie out, not surprised that she’d barely stepped onto the path when Fane was smoothly taking his place at her side.
Duncan clenched his teeth and concentrated on his surroundings. Now wasn’t the time to play caveman. The only thing that mattered was getting the answers they needed without putting Callie at risk.
It took a moment of peering through the gloom to realize that the mound that was rising from the trees wasn’t another hill, but a stone structure that was being slowly consumed by the forest.
“He lives in a castle?” he muttered in surprise.
“I doubt he has an actual home,” Fane said, pulling a clear crystal that was hung on a leather strap from his pocket. “He’s more of a squatter.”
Duncan grimaced, taking in the crumbling curtain wall that had once surrounded the grounds. “He couldn’t have squatted at the Ritz?”
Fane spoke a soft word and the crystal began to glow. “Be on guard, cop,” he warned, urging Callie toward the bridge that crossed the long-forgotten moat.
Bringing up the rear, Duncan pulled his gun and searched the shadows for something to shoot. “You expect trouble?”
Fane passed beneath the barbican and entered what must have been the lower bailey. Now it was just a rough patch of weeds and bramble. “Don’t you?” he growled.
“Yeah.” Duncan felt a chill trickle over his skin, as if he was being watched by unseen eyes.
They crossed the open ground, Fane neatly leading them past the gaping hole where there’d once been a drinking well and around the nearly hidden cannon.
Before them the inner keep loomed three stories high with empty windows and the appearance of a hollow shell. No doubt it was a treasure trove for the local historians, but it was making Duncan twitch.
He was a cop who’d mastered the urban landscape.
He could spot a suspicious perp in the middle of a crowd. He could tail a car for days without being noticed. He could enter a room and instantly tell you the number of exits, the placement of obstructions if he needed to move in a hurry, and if anyone in the room was carrying a concealed weapon.
But suddenly surrounded by the untamed wildness of nature, he felt like a fish out of water.
It wasn’t the thick foliage that was a constant threat to trip him, or the clinging shadows that could hide anything. Or even the silence that made it impossible to sneak up without giving away his position.