Page 72 of Dark Lover

He shrugged. “Ye should go to an E.R. and get that shoulder set.”

“You really do care. I’m touched.” Their gazes met. When he didn’t speak, Sam slid her fingers into the neckline of his shirt and tightened her grasp. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back for me.”

“I had to think about it.”

Sam didn’t know whether to believe him or not.

He grasped her shoulders. “I’m everything ye think I am…an arrogant, selfish bastard…a complete user. But I want ye. Come back with me to my place. I want to use ye tonight.”

He was hiding behind the bad-boy facade again. “I’ll think about that.”

“Really?” And Ian snapped her shoulder back into the joint.

Sam gasped, reeling from the pain, but it was already gone. “Thanks for the warning,” she said.

He had stood up and he just stared down at her. She slowly stood up, too. Everything seemed to be in working order. She took a moment to breathe deeply. Then she looked at him. It was time to get down to business. “The monk knows you, Ian.”

He shrugged, but his long lashes had drifted down, hiding his eyes. “What did he want?”

Was there a tremor in his tone? “He didn’t really say. He said you know what he wants.”

Ian turned abruptly and strode away from her.

His shoulders were absolutely rigid. She followed, recalling the horrible innuendoes in the monk’s taunting words. “He’s probably in cahoots with Hemmer, although I can’t imagine how that partnership would work. The monk threatened me, by the way.” Ian was at the vault’s door. He paused to stare at her. “And Hemmer threatened you. I just remembered—the monk gave me a message for you.” Sam hesitated. She didn’t know what the monk’s message meant, but she sensed it would distress Ian greatly.

Ian glanced sharply at her. “What did he say?”

“He said something about a maze—one he has just for you.”

Ian paled.

He was afraid. “We’re being double teamed. The monk has too much power and Hemmer’s no small fry. It’s time to come clean. Who is he?” Sam demanded. “What does that mean? Why 1527?”

He breathed hard. When he shoved his hands into the pockets of the blazer he wore, Sam saw that they were trembling. “I belong in 1527,” he said grimly. “You heard Nick mention that I’m out of my time.”

“Yeah,” Sam said slowly, wanting the truth, “I heard.”

“I was released in 1502—twenty-five years ago.”

“So Nick was right,” Sam said slowly. “You’re not modern, not at all. Never mind the jeans, the art, the cars, the fine homes. You should be living in medieval times.”

“Like hell,” he snarled at her.

His days in the modern world were numbered. No one could defy the gods and Fate. He was not supposed to be living in New York City. She was dismayed. She had no right to that feeling, either.

When this was over, they’d go their separate ways. More than ideals and morals would separate them—centuries would separate them.

“Let’s go,” Ian said suddenly, striding out of the vault.

Sam rushed after him, aware that he did not want to be locked up again. Neither did she, but there was more to discuss. “You know who the monk is, don’t you?”

He never paused. “Yeah, I do.”

“Why won’t you tell me what we’re up against? Why do you fear him?”

“Fine,” he erupted, facing her. “He was my captor those last ten years! Are ye happy now?”

Sam studied him. “How dangerous is he?”