Darkest Highlander

by Donna Grant

  Broc gritted his teeth as Sonya stepped to the markings and placed her hands on them. He could feel her magic swell around her, engulfing him, calling to him. Tempting him.

  His body reacted instantly. He had to touch her, any part of her. His hand closed around the end of her braid and held tightly.

  Desire and hunger pounded through him, demanding he take Sonya amid the ancient magic, pleading with him to slake the longing which consumed him.

  As if she knew what her magic did to him, she turned her amber gaze to him. Time slowed to nothing as the invisible ties that had always bound them wound tighter, pulling him closer to her, closer to the serenity she offered him.

  “Broc,” she whispered.

  He moved to her, unable to stay away from her beguiling eyes and tempting body. His other hand rose to slide around her neck and cup the back of her head.

  Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and it was his undoing. Broc’s head lowered as hers rose to his. Their lips met in an explosion of hunger and yearning.

  For all the urgency that surged through him, he took his time kissing her. Even with the fierce need to claim her, Broc knew what was happening to them was extraordinary and special.

  Her lips were soft beneath his. Supple. Sweet. Enthralling.

  A spark of something bright and sharp permeated his body with their kiss. Broc lifted his head and saw the surprise in Sonya’s eyes as well. He didn’t know what had occurred, couldn’t possibly understand.

  But something had definitely happened. That something had to do with magic.

  “Open the door,” Sonya bade him.

  Broc reluctantly released her. He gripped the thick boulder and pulled. His muscles strained as he grunted. It was as if magic held the door, refusing to release it. He knew all too well what it felt like to have magic bind something not even his Warrior strength could budge.

  A burst of magic flew from Sonya into the markings. The etchings began to glow blue the more magic Sonya used. Broc was about to tug her away, about to leave it all.

  “Pull!” Sonya yelled.

  He ground his teeth and gave a vicious yank. There was a loud pop as the stone gave way. Broc couldn’t believe his eyes. He stopped pulling, but the stone continued to open on its own.

  “What did you do?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  He knew what using that kind of magic could do to her body. Yet, as he looked at her, she didn’t appear to be weak. She looked … radiant.

  “I know,” she said, as if reading his mind. “I feel wonderful. It’s almost as if the magic of the tomb gave me strength instead of taking it.”

  Broc had seen the destructive and healing power of magic, but he had never experienced anything like what had just happened. He couldn’t even begin to put into words what had occurred.

  “I wish I had a torch,” Sonya said when they stood in the doorway.

  Broc took her hand. “I will be your eyes.”

  But as soon as they stepped over the threshold, torches flared to life around the circular tomb one at a time until all were lit.

  “God’s blood,” Broc whispered.

  Sonya looked around the burial mound in awe. She shouldn’t have been surprised after having her magic strengthened by the magic guarding the tomb, but she was.

  In the middle of the crypt, upon a great slab of stone, were the remains of the man. Although the flesh was gone from his bones, he still wore a faded red cloak about his shoulders.

  “This is amazing,” she said and began to walk around the chamber.

  Broc walked the opposite way, his gaze taking in everything. “This burial mound is easily three times the size of the others we’ve seen.”

  “There are so many weapons and shields on the walls.”

  “As well as baskets filled with who knows what.”

  Sonya and Broc came together at the far end of the tomb and stopped. Before them was a portion of stones that had been smoothed and more of the Gaelic language etched into them.

  “What does it say?” Sonya asked.

  Broc rubbed his jaw and shook his head. “It speaks about a tablet called Orn.”

  “What is it?”

  “I think it’s the artifact. It says the tablet is on the Isle of Eigg, hidden and guarded in a stone circle.”

  Sonya shifted from one foot to the other. “Does it say anything else?”

  “This Tablet of Orn will give us the location to yet another artifact.”

  Sonya met Broc’s gaze. The importance of their find was tremendous. “Deirdre cannot be allowed to know of this.”

  “She willna,” Broc said and used his claws to scratch away the markings.

  Sonya twisted her skirts in her hands. “I hope you remember everything.”

  “I will.” He stepped back to look at it. “No one will ever be able to learn what was etched here. We now have what Deirdre sought. We need to leave.”

  He took her hand and pulled her to the door. They were nearly there when they heard the shriek of a wyrran. Broc slid to a halt.

  Sonya’s heart leapt into her throat as she stopped beside him. “We can make it to the opening and you can fly us away.”

  “Nay.” Broc turned to her and took her face in his hands. “I will fight the wyrran.”

  “And Deirdre? Will you fight her as well?”

  “Aye.”

  Sonya didn’t like his plan. “And I suppose you want me to run away?”

  “I want you to stay here.”

  “In this tomb?” she said louder than intended. “You must be jesting.”

  “It’s the only way that I know you will be safe. Deirdre willna be able to get to you.”

  “Nay, I’ll be dead.”

  Broc smiled gently and pulled her into his arms. He kissed the top of her head. “Do you have such little faith in me?”

  “I have a tremendous amount of faith in you.”

  “I vowed I would always keep you safe, even if it meant keeping you safe from me.”

  She sighed and let the warmth of his bare skin against her cheek fill her. “You have a plan?”

  “I have a plan.”

  “Care to share it with me?”

  His chest rumbled. “And leave you nothing with which to occupy your mind?”

  “Broc, please,” she said as she leaned back to look at him. “I’d rather both of us leave.”

  “That’s no’ possible now. Trust me.”

  The way his dark eyes held hers, as if he needed to hear her words, made her throat burn with emotion. “I do trust you.”

  He gave her a quick kiss before he was gone.

  Sonya barely had time to blink before he closed the door. Locking her in the tomb.

  * * *

  Broc stared at the stone door for one heartbeat, two. Inside was the woman who meant everything to him. Outside was the woman who had taken everything from him once.

  He wouldn’t allow her to do it a second time.

  Broc had known the moment he heard the wyrran that time had run out for them. Under no circumstances could Deirdre know about Sonya.

  As much as Broc hated leaving Sonya in the tomb, it was the safest place for her.

  And if you cannot get away from Deirdre? You’ve condemned her to die a horrible death.

  He would get away.

  There were no thoughts of any other outcome.

  Deirdre couldn’t gain access to the tomb. Neither could her wyrran. They would feel magic, but it would be the magic of the tomb, not Sonya.

  Broc closed his eyes and called forth an image of Sonya in his mind. Her look of complete trust, of utter faith, had rocked him.

  Sonya.

  She was his heart, his soul. His very breath.

  Broc summoned his god and unleashed his fury. Wings sprang from his back, fangs filled his mouth, and claws shot from his fingers.

  He tilted his head back and closed his eyes as he thought of every atrocity, every slaughter Deirdre had ever committed or ordered do
ne to the innocents of the land. He thought of the screams of the Druids she had killed, the bellows of pain from the men she had turned into Warriors.

  And he thought of his family.

  Poraxus growled inside him, eager for a taste of Deirdre’s blood, anxious to rip her heart from her chest. He wanted to crush her head beneath his foot, to take her essence and bury it so deep in Hell no one would ever find her.

  Broc didn’t look at the door of the tomb to his back. He wiped Sonya from his mind, tucking her into a corner of his brain where he had always kept her, a place Deirdre could never touch.

  Then he ducked under the archway to clear his wings and locked eyes with Deirdre.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “I knew you would find it,” Deirdre said. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her white hair a startling contrast to her black gown.

  Broc counted twenty wyrran. He could kill them easily enough. But then again, he’d never battled them with Deirdre near. It could prove interesting.

  Above all, he could never take his attention off her.

  Deirdre’s white brow lifted high on her forehead. “Nothing to say, my dark Warrior?”

  “There are many burial mounds in this valley.”

  Deirdre’s smile was malicious and cruel. “Oh, dear Broc, I know you too well. This is the tomb.”

  “Maybe. Good luck getting inside. The spells are ancient, the magic extremely powerful. You willna be able to get near the tomb.”

  “That’s why I have you,” she said as she dropped her arms to her side. “We can do this the easy way.”

  “Or the difficult way?” he asked with a laugh. “You’ve already taken everything from me. There’s nothing left you can threaten me with.”

  Her smile hardened. “There’s Ramsey.”

  Broc’s lips lifted in a true smile as he thought of his friend. “You can try. You can threaten every Warrior at MacLeod Castle, but each of us has escaped your clutches. You cannot hurt us.”

  “I can hurt the Druids within.”

  “Maybe. You’ve attacked the castle several times already. You’ve lost each time.”

  Deirdre’s white eyes narrowed as she stepped closer to Broc. Her hair began to twitch at the ends, indicating her anger. “I will no longer be sending my wyrran or any Warriors alone. I will be with them.”

  “You?” Broc repeated. He wasn’t sure what Deirdre was planning, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

  “Aye, me. The next time MacLeod Castle is attacked, I will be leading my wyrran. You think because you defeated some wyrran, mortals, and a few Warriors that you can defeat me?”

  “We did. In your mountain.”

  Deirdre’s face lost any semblance of a smile. “I haven’t forgotten all who played a part in that. I wasn’t jesting when I said there would be retribution, Broc. You all will suffer mightily at my hands.”

  “We shall see.”

  Broc’s gut tightened when Deirdre’s gaze lowered to the ground. When she lifted her gaze, there was a knowing smile upon her lips, a smile that told Broc she knew he wasn’t alone.

  “Who is your companion?”

  Broc flexed his fingers, his claws eager to sink into wyrran skin. “I am alone.”

  “Now. What did you do with the woman? I can tell by the tracks left beside yours that it was a female. Tell me where she is.”

  “I’m alone. Do you want to stand around all day or fight?”

  She motioned to the wyrran on her right and they attacked.

  Broc knew he chanced being incapacitated again with drough blood each time the wyrran cut him, but it was a chance he couldn’t avoid. The wyrran were quick and their claws sharp.

  He gripped a wyrran by its head and gave a jerk. The sound of a neck breaking was drowned out by the shrieks of the others. Broc snarled as a wyrran jumped on his back and sank its claws in his neck.

  Broc reached behind him and took the creature’s skinny arms in his hands and pulled out the claws. He continued to pull on the wyrran’s arms until they were yanked out of their sockets, then from its body and they dangled from Broc’s hands.

  The wyrran fell from his back, only to be replaced by another. It became a blur of blood and yellow skin as Broc killed wyrran after wyrran.

  Their screeches echoed in his head as his own blood ran down his body to blend with the ground at his feet. He never stopped, never gave up. Poraxus’ fury was too great. And Broc had made a vow.

  Suddenly something long and white snaked out and wrapped around his throat. Broc hastily cut the strands with is claws. He hated that Deirdre always went for the throat.

  Broc ducked more of her hair and spun away. He used his wings to knock three wyrran away from him, and just as he was about to launch himself in the air, something snagged his wrist.

  He glanced down to find Deirdre’s hair. More of her lethal hair wrapped around his other wrist and his throat.

  “Enough!” Deirdre yelled. Her white eyes blazed with anger as she glanced around at the dead wyrran.

  Broc began to laugh. “Did you really think the wyrran stood a chance against a Warrior? They never do.”

  “They took you down before.”

  “Only because of the drough blood.”

  “Stop killing my wyrran,” she said between clenched teeth.

  Broc bared his fangs at her. “Stop sending them to attack me and I’ll consider it. Then again, I may kill them just because of how ugly they are.”

  Deirdre screamed and the hair around his neck tightened so he could barely breathe. He tried to get his hands up to cut away her hair again, but the strands were as magical as she was.

  “You can cease your fighting. You will not get away from me now,” Deirdre said.

  Broc’s mind raced with possibilities of getting away. He could try to fly. Deirdre wasn’t controlling his wings, but she could snap his neck.

  “I told you, you would be mine. There is nothing you can do now to escape. By the time I’m done exacting my vengeance, you will do anything I want. You will be mine to control.”

  Broc didn’t bother to argue with her. He’d said it all while chained in her mountain. However, he wasn’t about to be taken without a fight. Somehow, someway he would keep himself—and most especially Sonya—from Deirdre.

  Sonya has only a few hours in the tomb before she runs out of air.

  It would be weeks or months before Deirdre was done with him. Sonya would be long dead by then.

  “I can get the artifact,” he said.

  Deirdre tilted her head to the side and grinned. “What do you plan, Broc?”

  “I’ll retrieve the artifact from the tomb. For you.”

  “And why would you do that so willingly?”

  Broc knew he had to say something believable. As much as he wanted to keep Sonya away from Deirdre, she might be the only way he could get free long enough to retrieve Fallon and the others.

  “Well?” Deirdre said, growing impatient. “I’m curious to hear why you would offer to get the artifact. What could be so important that you would do something like this? For me?”

  Broc swallowed. He tried several times to get the words out, but they were stuck in his throat. Telling Deirdre about Sonya went against everything he had done over the past years.

  Deirdre’s hair squeezed his neck and wrists. “Let me guess. The woman with you?”

  “I kidnapped her,” Broc lied. He couldn’t tell Deirdre the truth. He would find another way to help Sonya.

  That piqued Deirdre’s interest. “Why would you do that?”

  When he didn’t answer fast enough she squeezed his neck tighter.

  “The tomb,” he forced out of lips which could barely move.

  As soon as the words left his mouth, the strands eased upon his neck. Broc drew in great gulps of air as he glared at Deirdre.

  “Where is this woman?” Deirdre demanded.

  “In the tomb.”

  Deirdre’s gaze slid to the burial mound. “In the tomb?�
��

  “I was going in with her when I heard the wyrran. I came out here to fight you.”

  “This woman is a Druid, then.” Deirdre chuckled. “How did you find a Druid, Broc?”

  “She’s no’ a Druid. She’s from Glencoe. She led me to the tomb.”

  Deirdre motioned the remaining wyrran to back away from Broc. “Why don’t you take me to this … female?”

  Broc gave a jerk of his head and her hair released him. He wanted to reach up and rub his neck, but he didn’t. She would enjoy it too much.

  “Keep your wyrran back,” Broc said as he turned to enter the tomb.

  “They go where I go.”

  Broc glanced at her over his shoulder. “I doona thi…”

  His words trailed off as wyrran began to shriek and fight what looked like six or seven Warriors. Broc halted. All he could do was stare. He had no idea where the Warriors had come from. Or who they were.

  Deirdre screamed and rushed out to fight alongside her wyrran. She used her hair along with her magic as she jumped into the fray.

  As curious as Broc was to know who these Warriors were, he couldn’t waste another moment. He hurried from the tomb and leapt into the air.

  He looked down at the first beat of his wings and saw a golden-skinned Warrior standing atop the mountain. And in a blink, the Warrior was gone.

  Broc forgot the Warrior and rose into the sky so the clouds would conceal him. He had to fly fast, had to hurry to MacLeod Castle before it was too late for Sonya.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Sonya stared at the door, her arms wrapped around herself. Thankfully the torches hadn’t gone out when Broc shut her inside the burial mound.

  A shiver raced over her skin, a reminder of just where she was. She turned and looked at the occupant. Sonya wondered who he was. Had it been his idea to hide the clue about the Tablet of Orn in his tomb? Or had it been decided after his death?

  Sonya jumped when she heard the wyrran again. There were many of them by the sounds. They would be attacking Broc again. If he didn’t get away from Deirdre, Sonya would die in here. She supposed it was better than dying by Deirdre’s hand. At least this way Deirdre would never get her magic.

  But she couldn’t help but worry how Broc would feel about it. He would blame it on his supposed curse, when in fact the blame lay solely with Deirdre.