Temptation of the Warrior

by Margo Maguire

  He kept an eye on the hostile lightning and trusted that the wealrach’s instincts would keep them safe.

  He’d been aware of Jenny’s burning need to ask questions all during their flight from Carlisle to the sea. But now she was deathly silent, holding him tight enough to bruise him. He nuzzled her ear.

  “The brìgha-stones were hidden eons ago,” he said, as much to distract her from her nervousness as to give her some answers. ’Twas quiet and peaceful in the air high above the water, with only the wisp of the wealrach’s gracefully billowing wings on either side of them.

  Merrick closed his eyes and felt the breeze in his hair, and breathed deeply of Jenny’s pure, feminine scent. He wished they were returning to a tranquil, peaceful isle. Instead, he feared his céile mate would have to meet her new life on Coruain through even more deadly trials than they’d already faced.

  “My brother did not even believe in the stones until Ana saw them. When I came to your world in search of the stone you’ve worn ’round your neck all these years, I only knew to search for Keating, on the road to Carlisle.”

  The huge bird took them over the primary city of Coruain, then climbed high to circle over the cliffs where Coruain House was located. Jenny’s fingers dug into his arms when the bird caught a vortex of wind and rode it downward in wide circles. Everything was going to be so new and foreign to Jenny. Merrick hoped she would have a chance to meet Ana—and hopefully, Brogan—before Pakal found them.

  But he doubted it.

  “Brogan was to search a place called Raven-field, in England, in another era altogether.” Merrick said to her. “I hope he found the stone he sought, for I doona think we can defeat Eilinora and Pakal with only the one stone you carry inside your locket. No’ while they possess my father’s scepter.”

  A burst of lòchran crashed through the shield over the isles, but Merrick saw that it was repelled by a dark-haired man standing on the cliffs. He saw the chieftain’s dragheen guards lined up in formation behind the man, outside Coruain House. In his mind, Merrick heard the dragheen voices speaking of terrible troubles.

  “Look, below, moileen. ’Tis Coruain House. And my brother, Brogan, standing on the cliff side.”

  The Isle of Coruain, 981

  The huge bird descended, coming in a wide circle around the beautiful house before landing on the blessed ground. Though she’d been frightened nearly out of her wits, Jenny could not deny that the ride through the air had been wondrous. Merrick leaped off the bird and extended his hand to help her dismount. Her knees buckled, but Merrick supported her.

  “Please tell me there are no more…” After all that had happened, she could withstand a mere flight through the air. She took a deep breath and straightened, though she kept hold of Merrick’s hand. “I am all right.”

  “Aye. Verra much all right,” he said warmly, taking her in his arms and touching his mouth to hers. Jenny leaned into him when he pulled her tightly against him, and allowed herself to forget—momentarily—about the coming challenge.

  “You make a braw entrance, brother,” said the handsome young man near the cliff’s edge.

  Merrick lifted his head and released Jenny, keeping her close. “Aye, Brogan, but only because Pakal is right behind us. We’ve seen no sign of Eilinora.”

  Brogan clasped Merrick’s forearm as Merrick did the same, then the two men pulled each other into a brotherly embrace. Jenny was struck by the similarities in their appearance, both in features and in build. Brogan wore the same kind of loose trews Merrick now wore, only his were light gray. He wore a deep blue tunic, belted at his waist.

  He made a simple but formal bow toward Jenny. “I am Brogan Mac Lochlainn.”

  “Brogan, this is Jenny céile Mac Lochlainn,” said Merrick, ignoring the widening of Brogan’s eyes as well as Jenny’s questioning ones. She did not realize she had already taken his name. “We intend to wed as soon as Pakal and Eilinora are vanquished. Did you find your stone?”

  At the mention of the brìgha-stone, Jenny took the chain from her neck and handed the locket to Merrick. She was not the one who should wield it.

  “Aye, Merrick.” He touched a leather pouch hanging from his belt. “But there is one less enemy to worry about. Eilinora is dead.” Brogan turned and started for the house with Merrick and Jenny alongside him.

  “You killed her?” Merrick asked.

  Brogan nodded. “The witch’s power was naught against the stone, but she relinquished Kieran’s scepter to Pakal.”

  “Aye. We saw it.”

  “Then you saw Pakal.”

  “Aye. He canna be far behind,” said Merrick.

  They walked in silence for a few paces. “There will no’ be much time to plan our defense.”

  Jenny’s step faltered when the red-haired woman from the Gypsy’s glass ball stepped out of the beautiful wood and glass building on the cliff. She wore loose silk trews of a green so rich, it reminded Jenny of the grass at home, and a long, cream-colored tunic over them. She walked carefully, as if every step pained her.

  Jenny knew she must be Ana when Merrick embraced her and kissed her on each cheek.

  Beside her was another young lady, also near Jenny’s age, wearing a more conventional gown. She looked to be as far out of her element as Jenny felt. She was very pretty, and when Brogan slid his arm around her, her hazel-green eyes lit up. There was an aura about them…Somehow, Jenny could see that their sòlas beings were joined.

  “Allow me to present my own céile mate, Sarah,” said Brogan, but before proper greetings could be made, the ground behind Jenny cracked.

  The air turned cold, and a sudden downpour of sharp, icy pellets rained down on them. Fierce, circling winds tore at their clothes, and lightning crashed from sky to ground. Jenny held on to her blowing skirts and watched in horror when one of the cliffs on the far side of the dale broke away and collapsed into the sea below with a thunderous, deafening crash.

  A filmy apparition formed out of the air and came toward them, with even more warriors right behind.

  “Pakal!” Jenny whispered.

  “Take care,” cried Ana. “His tànaiste spell is—” The sorcerer whipped his arms up and out, extending the gold scepter toward Merrick and the others, speaking to them in such deep, quiet tones that Jenny could not hear.

  Instantly, the two men dived at each other’s throats while Sarah headed slowly toward the cliff, struggling as though she were being dragged there. Ana fell to her knees and grabbed at her neck, pulling away an invisible rope.

  Bright sparks of magic surrounded them, nearly blinding Jenny. And she realized Pakal must have used some terrible magic to cause madness in the others. Reaching for her locket, she suddenly remembered she no longer had it. Desperate to get to it, she started for Merrick, but Pakal darted behind her and grabbed her arms.

  Jenny felt his breath at her ear, but could not hear his words.

  “Stop it!” she cried, struggling to get away as Merrick and his brother fought viciously, throwing punches, each one doing everything he could to destroy the other.

  Her luminous threads shot out from her chest, and, without thinking, she projected them back, toward the evil entity that held her in place. She used her small ability to wrap them firmly around his neck. Then she somehow managed to tighten them.

  Chapter 15

  “Destroy him before he destroys you!” The words spoken by the painted sorcerer were more compelling than any Merrick had ever heard, and he could not seem to stop himself from attacking Brogan, from wishing him dead, yearning for a weapon to finish him off.

  Ignoring the freezing rain, he threw his brother over his shoulder, brutally tossing him to the ground. But Brogan regained his feet and came at Merrick again with destruction in his eyes and a roar of pure hatred in his throat. Clearly, his brother felt the same fierce need for annihilation.

  Brogan put his hands ’round Merrick’s neck and squeezed even as he slid one leg behind Merrick’s and tripped him. Merrick ro
lled away to the edge of the cliff as Brogan kicked. He grabbed Brogan’s leg and pulled him down, delivering what was to be a killing blow, but Brogan dodged it. Brogan sidled closer to the edge of the precipice, grabbing Merrick and taking him with him. Merrick shoved Brogan onto his belly in the mud and hammered one knee into his back. Brogan pushed up on all fours and knocked Merrick away.

  Hatred burned deep in Merrick’s belly, and he wanted naught but to end the life of this—

  Jenny’s scream penetrated his madness.

  Merrick caught sight of her at the opposite end of the cliff with Pakal standing behind her, holding her ’round her neck with one arm. With his other he was struggling against some kind of onslaught—

  Mo oirg, the stone!

  “Sarah!” Brogan shouted, suddenly catching sight of his own mate at the precipice of the cliff.

  The two brothers pulled away from each other abruptly. Merrick yanked Jenny’s chain from his neck and split open the cracked locket. Even though he could not dispel the virulent hatred he felt for Brogan, the sight of Jenny’s struggle was enough to distract him from the need to kill his brother.

  “Ainchis ua oirg!” Brogan muttered, leaping to his feet to run for Sarah. He grabbed her ’round her waist and pulled her from the cliff’s precipitous edge. Holding on to her tightly, Brogan drew a blood stone from the pouch at his belt.

  He shouted to Merrick, “We must help Jenny!”

  But Merrick had already aimed the power of his stone at Pakal and the Odhar that stood behind him. Jenny was somehow managing to hold the sorcerer at bay, but she was clearly weakening. When the first burst of energy from the brìgha-stone hit Pakal, small, bloody gashes appeared on the faces and shoulders of the sorcerer and his invaders.

  With a shocked expression on his ornately painted face, Pakal released Jenny, and she fell to the ground. Freed from whatever power Jenny had used on him, Pakal and the Odhar regrouped and unleashed their own formidable attack. Pakal used the scepter to deliver a crushing blow to Merrick, knocking the air from his lungs and leveling him to the sodden ground. The stone fell from his hand, rolling just out of his reach.

  Brogan aimed the flashing spears of light from his stone at the Odhar, destroying them the same way Jenny had done on the beach. But the one stone alone could not vanquish Pakal. The painted sorcerer took a step backward at the onslaught, but it was not enough. Struggling for breath, Merrick rose to his knees and fought against the power of Pakal’s assault. He saw Jenny reach for the blood stone that had rolled to her. She held it up and turned it to the painted man, adding the strength of its magic to that of the stone Brogan wielded.

  Pakal dropped the scepter, but did not go down easily. The very air around them tore into black gashes, and when he shouted some foreign incantation, a heavy, screeching vacuum swirled ’round all of them and tried to swallow them into the empty voids in the air.

  Jenny dug her fingers into the ground and held on. Fighting the suction Pakal created, Merrick crawled to her and helped her to sit up. Holding her tight and anchoring her to the ground, he sat behind her, straddling her body with his legs. He cupped her hand with his own and added his power to hers as she raised the brìgha-stone against Pakal once again, while Sarah and Brogan did the same.

  The icy rain stopped suddenly. Ana limped forward and reached for Kieran’s scepter. Standing between her two cousins, she raised the thick, gold rod and aimed it at Pakal. His painted body took on a whole new design of red gashes that rent his flesh.

  The Druzai did not relent in their combined assault. Pakal jerked uncontrollably, and the dark voids disappeared, stopping their vacuous screeching. In silence, Pakal’s black bràth fled his body, succumbing to the powerful brìgha assault, and dissipating into the air as his body fell to the ground and shattered into scraps and fragments of red and black.

  A warm wind blew away the miasma of Pakal’s attack, and the sky returned to its normal cerulean blue. What remained of the painted sorcerer blew over the cliff and into the sea, but not even the wealrachs would dive for that unsavory feast.

  “’Tis over,” said the dragheen commander, his voice heavier than usual and rough with emotion. “Welcome home, young lords.”

  Merrick turned toward the guardians who’d lined up in front of Coruain House and gave them a nod.

  Merrick helped Jenny to her feet and took her hand in his. Brogan and Sarah came to flank them on one side, and Ana on the other. Jenny felt weak and spent, but she knew it was over. Pakal was truly destroyed.

  “We must find the portal used by Pakal to find Eilinora.”

  “And us,” Merrick added. “He found us in Tuath.”

  “He and Eilinora found us, too,” said Brogan, slipping his arms around Sarah and brushing a kiss on her forehead.

  “There are more of them…Lords of Death,” said Ana. “I see them.”

  “Aye, then,” said Merrick. “By all means, destroy the portal.”

  For a moment, Jenny was afraid they would decide they needed to go after the other death sorcerers like Pakal. Yet she knew she could face it with Merrick at her side.

  “They derive their power from fear and hatred,” said Ana. “Soon they will destroy each other. But we canna let them find us first.”

  “You are right, cousin. We must obliterate the passage between our worlds.”

  Sarah came forward and touched Ana’s hand. “I think I can help you find it.”

  Jenny felt the stone in her hand, pulsing with life. “And I believe I can help you destroy it,” she said.

  Ana took Jenny’s and Sarah’s hands in hers, smiling as three men in loose robes and a sleek, dark-haired sorceress pushed through the stone guards and came to them.

  “Lords Merrick and Brogan—”

  “’Tis as it was foretold,” said the dark-haired woman, who smiled broadly, keeping her eyes on Merrick.

  Merrick took Jenny’s hand in his and squeezed tightly.

  “But no’ as you thought, Sinann,” one of the men said, taking her arm to draw her away. “Come with me, daughter, and leave the chieftain—”

  “Oh, but it is, Father. ’Twas with our combined power that the threat was vanquished. While we stayed behind the dragheen line, we directed our lòchran into the battle and prevented the foretold disaster.”

  Jenny did not understand the subtleties here, but she was obviously missing something. Cupping Jenny’s hand, Merrick lifted their two hands together and opened them, showing the woman the glowing blood stone that Jenny held.

  Merrick said nothing, but the sight of the stone made Sinann blush deeply red. “But I…” A muscle in her jaw clenched tightly, and she whirled away from them, pushing past her father.

  “The crisis is past, my lord,” said the man with complete formality. “We will leave you to your—”

  “A question, mo curadh,” the white-haired man said to Jenny.

  Feeling overwhelmed by the respect and the strange title bestowed upon her, Jenny replied, “Yes?”

  “How did you repel Pakal’s tànaiste command? ’Tis not long since we saw the power of it in Coruain House…when he used it on Lady Sinann.”

  “His tànaiste command?”

  “Aye. Did he no’ command you to destroy the high chieftain and his brother?”

  Jenny bit her lip as she realized what Pakal must have whispered in her ear, and thanked heaven for the first time in her life for her partial deafness.

  The Isle of Coruain, Lughnasa Day, 981

  Far below the cliffs of Coruain, beside a stone grotto where the highest waterfall of the isle fell, Merrick stood beside Jenny and faced the most senior of the elders, Cianán Mag Uidhir. Hundreds of Druzai stood behind them to bear witness to the chieftain’s vows to his lady, the sorceress from another world, whose bravery and tenacity had saved them from Pakal’s dark conquest.

  Merrick leaned down and spoke into her healed ear, “Doona be nervous lass. I love you with all that I am, with all that I will ever be.” Then he took her
hands in his as Cianán began the ceremony. “Curdaith Merrick Mac Lochlainn, is this the woman of your choosing, your true céile mate?”

  “Aye. Jenny Keating is the other half of my bràth.”

  “And do you commit your life, your bràth, and your love to Jenny Keating for all the years you will live?”

  “I do.”

  Merrick lifted Jenny’s hand and kissed her fingers. He’d known when she’d struck the first blow to help him fight the highwaymen on the road to Carlisle, that there could be no other woman for him.

  “Jenny Keating, is this the man of your choosing, your true céile mate?”

  “Aye,” she said, standing straight and queenly in her silken robes as she repeated the Druzai marriage vows. “Merrick Mac Lochlainn is the other half of my bràth.”

  “And do you commit your life, your bràth, and your love to Merrick Mac Lochlainn, high chieftain of all the Druzai, for all the years you will live?” Cianán asked.

  She turned to gaze up at Merrick, clearly undaunted by the enormity of her vow. “I do,” she said. “I love you with my body, my heart, and my soul.”

  The waterfall’s brilliant rainbows were reflected in her eyes, and Merrick lowered his head and kissed his mate, knowing ’twas a perfect portent of the awesome future they would share.

  About the Author

  MARGO MAGUIRE is the author of fourteen historical novels, mostly of the medieval era. Formerly a Critical Care nurse, she worked for many years in a large Detroit trauma center. Now Margo writes full time and loves to hear from readers at P.O. Box 201094, Ferndale, Michigan 48220, or you can visit her website at

  www.margomaguire.com.

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