“No! You can’t do this! Don’t do this, Niall! Catriona would be horrified. We grew up as cousins. She’d be horrified.”
But her pleas fell on deaf ears. Without a word of response, Niall forced her around and pressed her back to the wall. She kicked out, catching him in the shin, but he only grunted and yanked her arms high above her head. Together, he and Angus lifted her, forcing the hook between her wrists, then lowered her to where she could stand on her tiptoes. Yet never escape.
“Niall, no! You bastard. You murderer. Don’t leave me here!”
Any empathy she’d felt for him in the castle was gone now. She hated him. She hated them all!
“Are you really going to hang Isobel like this? Do you want to know how she’s going to feel when you hang her up to die?” She was beginning to hyperventilate, the air rasping in and out of her lungs.
“She’s going to be terrified, Niall. She’ll beg you to save her. She’s going to hate you, just as I do.” Her toes were beginning to cramp, but if she shifted her weight off them, all the weight would be on her arms, the ropes shredding her wrists.
“I hope you see that betrayal in your daughter’s eyes every time you look at her for the next twelve years, Niall. I hope you suffer as she’s going to! I hope you suffer a thousand times more.”
“The blood of twenty men,” Niall murmured, turning his back on her and taking the chalice from one of his kinsmen.
One by one, the men cut their thumbs and squeezed a few drops of blood into the goblet. One by one, the men fled the cave as if terrified of the creature they meant to summon. The creature she alone would be left to face.
Finally, only Niall and Angus remained. Though they’d already added their blood, they did not follow the others. Niall set the chalice on a flat rock to her right that resembled a raised pedestal. Then he took a reed and lit the end from one of the torches. As he murmured in what she suspected was Gaelic, he passed the burning reed over the chalice, back and forth, again and again.
Suddenly, a flame rose up from the chalice, an unearthly greenish glow. As the flame rose, the torches extinguished themselves as if by a witch’s wand.
Julia’s heart stuttered.
The men exchanged glances, then Niall turned and met her gaze, his face pinched in the horrible green light. “God be with you, Julia Brodie.” Then together, the two men fled.
She thought of Catriona in this spot all those years ago, of how she must have felt when her brother stole into the cave, defying everyone to cut her down and help her escape.
She thought of Talon coming for her when she’d been kidnapped.
The memory of that day suddenly snapped into place. How the one man had commented on her Brodie eyes. They hadn’t taken her to rape her, she realized, though they might have done that, too. No, they’d been looking for a girl with the Brodie eyes. They’d intended to bring her here. For this.
But Talon had stopped them. He’d saved her. As he never would again.
Talon was gone.
And soon, she would be, too.
Talon tipped his head back against the bars of the cage, hopelessness a seething, rancid poison swirling through his mind.
Julia.
She would die because Hegarty had betrayed him. The dwarf had promised to set him free to save her. Instead the wee bugger had left him caged like a brigand, unable to do anything but wait until the Brodie men found him and tossed him back into that pit.
Damn the dwarf! But Hegarty’s words wouldn’t quiet from his head. ’Tis time ye relied on the gifts God gave ye.
Bile rose with the fury. He had no gifts. None. The only thing he’d ever had was the ring. And now it was gone.
Julia.
Her face swam in his mind as she watched him the night she’d told him she loved him. As she’d watched him with sadness in her eyes. Her voice added to Hegarty’s. Deep down, you’re a good man, Talon MacClure. A strong, brave, good man. You don’t need the ring. You’d be a better man without it.
If only he could be the man she thought he was. Strong, brave, good.
Bollocks. He leaned forward, his hands pressing at his temple. Bollocks. From the time he was fifteen, he’d held the ring like a talisman against all the ills that had ever befallen him, terrified, deep down, that if he ever lost it, he’d go right back to being what he’d been before.
But he’d grown since then, hadn’t he? Losing the ring hadn’t turned him back into that scrawny, weak-muscled fifteen-year-old. The boy had grown up. And the ring had had naught to do with it.
Slowly he forced himself to his feet.
The ring had eased his existence. It had provided for him and given him a means to earn coin. But it was not all he was. It had never been all he was.
The thought was a revelation.
And just what was he, then?
He shook his head. He didn’t know.
But it was high time he found out just what he had inside him. Or Julia’s existence was ended.
With a desperate surge of determination, he turned his mind away from the loss of his ring and focused on the problem at hand. How to get out of the damned cage and escape the castle. Then find the cave and rescue Julia before they killed her. Aye, the problem was simple. It was the solution that was the challenge.
What would the Wizard do?
The knowledge that the Wizard was dead to him twisted like a knife in his belly. He clenched his jaw and pushed the pain aside.
The Wizard would call to the ring for a diversion.
Nay, not a diversion. A feint.
His mind leaped, searching for ideas until one came flying at him. He grabbed the rope and climbed back into the pit, descending only a few feet below the lip where his voice would echo properly, then yelled at the top of his lungs.
“The bottle pit is filling with silver! I’ll drown if ye dinna save me! Silver! I am drowning in silver!” Why the guard would believe him he didn’t know, but he was willing to wager he’d come to investigate. Which was all Talon needed him to do.
Talon scrambled from the pit, pulled up the rope, and untied the length from the bar that held it. Rope in hand, he pressed back into the corner where none would see him without entering the cage.
He didn’t have long to wait. One guard opened the gate, his expression at once wary and excited. But as he edged close enough to the pit to look over, Talon flew out of the corner and hooked the rope around his neck. As the guard’s hands flew to the rope, Talon pulled his knife and knocked him unconscious with a quick blow to the back of the head. He relieved the guard of several weapons, then left the cage and ran, praying he wasn’t already too late to save the only one who had ever mattered.
Julia.
TWENTY-ONE
The air in the cave changed suddenly. One moment it was damp and normal and the next it blew with a hot, arid breath. As if the gates of Hell had opened.
Julia trembled with a terror beyond anything she’d ever believed possible. Her feet ached, her arms were nearly numb, but the physical pain paled against the sheer terror raking through her, ripping her open with sharp, deadly claws.
She wanted the devil to come, to kill her and get it over with, because the death she was imagining couldn’t be any worse than the truth.
The green flame flickered and suddenly she wasn’t alone. A small man stood in the middle of the cave, a wizened, black-haired dwarf.
Julia looked at him askance. He looked harmless. “You’re Veskin?”
He stared at her in horror. “You’re old!”
“Excuse me. Thirty is not old.” Her mind balked as it tried to wrap itself around the fact that this funny little dwarf was the monster that had an entire clan quaking in fear.
“Thirteen.” Veskin stomped one foot then the other, his face turning red. “Thirteen, I told them. Full grown and enough to fill my belly for weeks, but tender and sweet. You’ll be tough as mutton. The only thing worth eating will be your innards and I’ll be hungry again in a day.”
Julia felt the blood drain from her face. He was going to eat her? Eat her?
And suddenly there was nothing funny about her situation at all. All too well, she remembered the vision. The foot.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
His eyes gleamed with malevolence as he pulled out a small, viciously pointed knife. A knife that would rip open her stomach and literally spill her guts. Which he would eat.
Terror pounded in her head until she could barely see, could barely hear. Everyone had to die eventually, she knew that. But not like this. Not like this.
He closed the distance between them until he was standing close enough for her to see the red dots flickering in his eyes and the small, sharp points of his teeth.
Julia’s sight clouded with terror, her mind going numb with dread as her body began to quake.
Veskin lunged.
Julia screamed, then clamped her mouth shut as Veskin’s knife stopped abruptly three inches in front of her as if he’d plunged it into an invisible wall.
The dwarf snarled. “Nay.” He stabbed again and again, but his knife would not penetrate the air around her. In a fit of fury, he threw the knife against the cave wall. As it clattered to the ground, he began to jump from one foot to the other, his hands pulling at his hair, spittle flying from his lips.
As she stared at him, a tentative hope blossomed in her chest. “I don’t understand. Why can’t you stab me?”
He whirled toward her, his eyes glowing a bright, burning red. “Ye wear a jewel of Kindonan. A talisman.”
Julia blinked. “The purple garnet?”
“Aye.” His lip curled. “Ye’ll pay for this outrage, lassie. I may not be able to eat ye, but I’ll kill ye all the same. Mind me well. There are other ways to make ye pay.”
“Ye’ll not stop this, Wizard!” Niall Brodie cried, his voice low and furious. “My clan will die.”
“A pox on your clan!” Talon parried the Brodie chieftain’s thrusts, the clang of swords ringing over the loch. At his feet, Angus writhed in pain. He’d come upon the pair standing guard over the cave and they’d stopped him.
From the mouth of the cave flickered an eerie green glow. There was no time to waste. Julia needed him!
Talon fought with desperation, feeling Niall’s own desperation nearly as strong. Each fought to save the ones they loved.
And he loved Julia Brodie. With all he was and all he would ever be, he loved her.
With a speed and might he’d long attributed to his ring’s power, he carved a bloody gash across the back of Niall Brodie’s hand, loosening the other man’s sword and sending it flying into the brush. A fast jab through Niall’s calf and the chieftain of the Brodies crashed to the ground as Angus had before him.
Talon whirled and ran for the cave, swiping at the blood dripping into his eye. The cut to his brow mattered not. Nothing mattered but reaching Julia before the devil hurt her.
The green light grew as he neared the cave’s mouth, flickering wildly. He turned the corner and raced inside, then came to an abrupt halt, his heart lodging in his throat.
Julia hung from a hook on the wall, her hands pulled taut above her, her toes barely touching the ground. She watched the man in front of her—a wee man the size of Hegarty—with an odd expression, a mix of fear and wary surprise. But she didn’t appear hurt.
Thank the Virgin, he’d reached her in time.
Veskin’s hair was black, not red, but like Hegarty’s, that wild mane stuck up from the top of his head in a dozen directions as he shifted his weight from foot to foot.
It was a moment before Talon realized the green glow came from whatever the dwarf held in his hand. The chalice.
“Ye’ll pay, lassie,” the dwarf snarled in a voice that was not Hegarty-like at all, but dark and sinister. “The flame will burn ye slowly, cookin’ ye through. I may not be able to eat ye, but ye’ll not be leavin’ this cave alive.”
Talon had heard enough.
As the creature advanced on her, Talon pulled his knife and threw it hard. Not until the blade had left his fingers did he remember he no longer had his ring to ensure his aim. Fear bolted through him at the thought that the knife might go wild and hurt Julia instead. But even without his ring, his aim was true.
The knife buried itself to the hilt in the dwarf’s back, right through his heart. The dwarf didn’t fall as any mortal man would have, but whirled, his eyes glowing red, his face a terrible mask of rage.
Talon advanced into the cave, his sword at the ready, wary and uncertain of the nature of the creature before him.
“Talon.” Julia’s soft cry slid like a balm across his heart, her love strengthening him. But he didn’t look at her again, for he dared not take his eyes off his enemy.
The devil tossed the chalice aside. It landed right-side up, the green flame not dimming even a small bit.
“Ye’ll pay for this outrage, Brodie,” Veskin growled. “I’ll eat your heart instead.”
Talon grinned at him, the Wizard’s grin, but why not?
“Come and get me, ye wee bugger. But I’m no Brodie. And ’twill not be my heart leaving my chest this eve, but your own.” Yet even as he said the words, he wondered how in the hell he was going to hurt the devil when a blade through his heart had not slowed him at all. “How do you die, fiend?”
“Ye canna kill me, laddie,” the creature sneered. “’ Tis your death this night.” Out of nowhere, twin swords appeared in Veskin’s small hands. He rushed forward, moving with a skill and a grace uncanny for one with such short limbs.
Talon pulled his own sword and the clash of metal rang through the cave. Though Talon was by far the bigger and stronger of the two, he felt the slice of steel time after time across his flesh. Blood and fire bloomed on his forearm, along his side, and down his thigh. As the blade tore through leg muscle, Talon nearly went down, staying on his feet by sheer will.
For a few mistaken moments, battling such a small opponent had seemed comical to him. A simple matter. For a few mistaken moments, he’d forgotten the dwarf was not human, but a devil possessed of strong magic. No matter where Talon’s blade struck, he drew no blood.
A frisson of true fear melded with the pain burning a hole inside him.
How could he beat a creature he could not injure? And he must win. He must.
Or Julia would die.
“Talon!” Julia’s voice rose over the sound of battle. “My necklace. You must take it!”
He dodged the flying blades by a hairsbreadth.
“It’s the reason he didn’t hurt me,” Julia called. “The stone acts as a talisman.”
“Then it protects you.”
“You protect me.”
For a single, pulsing instant, their gazes met and locked. In the depths of her eyes he saw a trust as deep as the Loch Ness and a belief in him that went all the way to her soul.
A belief in him he’d never shared. Until, perhaps, tonight.
Veskin took advantage of his moment’s lapse in attention to stab his forearm.
Talon’s mind went white with pain. Indecision ripped him in two. If he took Julia’s necklace and failed to stop Veskin, she was dead. But if he didn’t take the help she offered, he could very well die.
You protect me. She believed in him wholly.
God in heaven, could he do any less than believe in himself? He would not fail her.
Avoiding another lunge by the dwarf, he whirled to Julia. “Aye,” he whispered low.
Sweet emotion glittered in her eyes amid an endless well of trust. “It’s yours. Take it.”
Talon did, pulling it off her head and over his own with a single, swift move, then whirled to protect them both as Veskin attacked.
To Talon’s surprise the necklace did nothing to protect him from Veskin’s blade, but his own blade was no longer useless. It was enough.
Talon fought like a man possessed, driving the inhuman fiend back, slicing through his arm, his chest. He cut off his hand, relieving him of one of hi
s swords, but the hand grew back in an instant, with the sword still in place.
Jesu, he couldn’t win.
He must!
He must end this before it was too late, but how? How?
“Take his head, lad. He’ll not grow another.” Hegarty’s voice sounded in his ear, though the red-haired dwarf was nowhere to be seen.
Talon didn’t hesitate. He lunged, swinging his blade in a wide arc that left him open to attack. As Veskin’s sword sliced a ribbon of blood across Talon’s stomach, he cut off Veskin’s head.
The green fire went out, blanketing them in total darkness.
Talon fell to his knees, dizzy from the pain and the loss of blood. The only sound that met his ears was the dull thud of the rolling head.
“Talon?” Julia asked softly.
“Aye.”
“Is it over?”
“I dinna ken.”
“Aye, ’tis over, lass.” Hegarty’s voice spoke from the cave’s mouth. In a sudden flash, light flooded the cave as the torches hanging on the walls lit as one.
“Talon!” Julia’s cry of anguish told him he looked every bit as bad as he felt.
Hegarty rushed across the cave, moving without Veskin’s grace, his wizened, worried face most welcome.
“He had to die, Hegarty.” The words came out breathless. His energy was flagging fast.
Hegarty nodded as he knelt before Talon, shoving his hands against the worst of his wounds. “Aye. And you must live, laddie.”
Talon shook his head. “Julia ...”
“She’s fine, if a wee bit uncomfortable. Your injuries come first.”
“The ring ...”
“Is on my finger now, and will increase my healing gifts tenfold. Ye’ll be fine in a thrice.”
Talon closed his eyes as a warm heaviness flowed through his body as if Hegarty had opened him up and poured warm water into him to cleanse him of all his injuries.
Moment by moment, the pain left him and his strength returned. With shocked surprise, he blinked his eyes open and stared at the man who’d saved him all those years ago.
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