Highlander - Donna Lettow [113]
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As if in a dream, he heard his name. Carefully, he opened his eyes, tested his body. Arms, Legs, Head. All seemed to move in the ways they were originally designed to. He rolled to his side beneath the bushes. The effort exhausted him, but he noted the pain was nearly gone. He looked down at himself. Covered in blood, clothing in tatters, but the cuts and rends and punctures that had peppered his body were finally beginning to heal. Then he heard his name again, realized it wasn’t a dream.
From his sanctuary, he could see Maral not fifty feet away, moaning her grief to the heavens. His heart was torn—he knew he should wait and disappear into the night, leave Paris, leave this life, let them all think he’d died in the blast. It would be simpler for everyone. But as he watched Maral, saw the despair in every inch of her body, heard the devastation in her voice, something in his heart told him no. He couldn’t leave her like that. Once again alone, once again not knowing, waiting for the phone call that in this case would never come.
MacLeod rolled out from under the stand of bushes. “Maral,” he called out, first making sure there was no one else in earshot. All the rescue activity seemed focused nearer the front of the building where he could see the tremendous hole. “Maral,” he called a little louder.
Somehow, through her anguish, she heard him. She turned, startled, and from the look on her face he could almost see her soul come back to life as she saw him, stumbled to her feet, ran to him. “Duncan!”
Maral dropped to her knees beside him and MacLeod sat up to meet her. She threw her arms around him in great relief, and although he tried not to, he winced a bit at her touch on some still open wounds. Pulling back from him, she took in the blood, his tattered clothing. Cautiously, she reached out to touch a jagged, bloody gash dangerously close to his right eye. “You’re hurt. I’ll get help.” She moved to stand.
“No!” MacLeod barked, grabbing her arm to stop her. Then, more gently, “Maral, no.” It was hard for him to know what to say to her, how to tell her, so he settled for, “Wait.”
“But—” she began to protest, but the beseeching look in his eyes made her hesitate. He took her hand and placed it where it had been, near the angry slash by his eye.
“Wait.”
And then she realized that the cut was not nearly as bad or as deep as she’d first believed. A trick of the light in her excitement. But even as she thought that, she noticed that the wound had narrowed, the swelling receding. “Duncan … ?” she said, fear battling with curiosity in her voice.
MacLeod took her hand from his face and held it between both of his. “Maral, I can explain,” he started, meeting her eyes gravely. “There are things I need to tell you.”
She pulled her hand away and touched his temple again, gently stroking where the wound had been, feeling for herself the soft perfect skin concealing where his face had been ravaged moments before. “My grandfather would say you’re one of the Djinn,” she said, awestruck. “Or a guardian angel sent from Allah.”
MacLeod shook his head. “Assad was your guardian angel, Maral. I’m just a man. But I’m …” It was always so hard to on up and confess the truth, to live through that longest moment in the world as she took in his words, worked through the anger, worked through the revulsion, and came either to accept or despise him. For good or ill, their relationship would never be the same. It might have been kinder to both of them if he had just disappeared. He took a deep breath. “Maral, I am…”
She kissed him hard on the lips to silence him. “Don’t explain,” she said as she released him. “Whatever it is, I don’t need to know. I just need to know you’re safe.”
“Maral, are you