Dark Lover by Brenda Joyce

much relief. It had been his wildest dream coming true. There had even been joy. But the joy had been so brief.
    Because Moray had returned him to Scotland in 1502. The moment he’d stepped outside of Elgin’s tower, he’d been in the medieval world. It should have been familiar to him, but instead, it had been strange and confusing, upsetting. He could barely remember his earlier childhood years there. Instead, he began to wonder why his fatherhadn’t come to his rescue sooner. He kept looking over his shoulder, expecting Moray or one of his captors to be there, waiting to hurt him. And he couldn’t sleep. When he slept, he dreamed.
    And he had still been nine years old.
    His grandfather had deprived him of every aspect of a normal childhood by putting a spell on him, one which had kept him nine years old for the duration of his captivity—emotionally as well as physically. But upon being released, he’d rapidly aged, becoming an adult man within months. Biologically he was one hundred years old, but he’d only been an adult for twenty-five years. None of it mattered. He felt a thousand years old.
    Ian drained the rest of his scotch whiskey. No one knew better than Ian how sadistic, cruel and evil the son of a bitch had been. Even though he was vanquished, Ian still feared him. He could think of nothing worse than dreaming of his grandfather—other than actually coming face-to-face with him again.
    Moray had once told him that he was Satan.
    Ian believed it.
    Moray had said, laughing, “Haven’t you grasped the truth yet? I am Satan.”
    His heart had exploded with fear and disbelief. He choked, hugging the bars of the cage he’d been put in — his current punishment. “Ye canna be Satan. Satan is the father of all evil.”
    Moray had reached for the door, smiling cruelly. “But I have so many faces, my son. Now will you do as I command?”
    Ian reached for his drink and realized it was empty. He cursed. Satan had imbued Moray’s very existence and all that he had done. Satan surely had a thousand faces. Moray had been one.
    How else would Moray have survived for over athousand years? The Brotherhood and other great men had hunted him across time. They’d all failed, until Aidan and Brie had destroyed him.
    And now his father, who had left him alone with evil for so long, had gone down in history as a great Master. Ian laughed. He knew the sound was bitter. He didn’t care. Hooray for the great Wolf of Awe, he thought caustically.
    He had almost all the powers his father had, and a few he didn’t have. But Ian knew they’d never ask him to join the Brotherhood. The gods knew the truth about the years of captivity. They knew how defiled he was, how deficient, how insane. Not that he cared. If they were ever crazy enough to ask him to join, he’d refuse, because he was too different to ever be one of them. How could he ever be trusted to protect Innocence?
    Hanging in the cage, the Innocent sobbed in fear.
    â€œDo it.”
    He held the knife, starting to cry.
    â€œDo it, Ian, or suffer as they will suffer.”
    He knew what he had to do. But he couldn’t do it, not to the little girl and not to her mother. He looked up at the monk, who stood beside him with his grandfather.
    â€œPunish him,” Moray snarled .
    Suddenly Ian grunted in pain. He realized that he had been holding his glass so tightly he had broken it. His hand was bleeding now. He cursed and let the cracked glass fall.
    Sometimes he hated everyone—the gods, his father, the world.
    At the end, when they knew he’d never try to escape—when he knew he’d never be freed—Moray had tried to turn him. It was another ploy meant to destroy his father. But in spite of his fear of them, and his fear of what the punishment for refusal would be, he hadn’t ever been able to hurt anyone innocent. The boy had been heroic, but theman flirted with