Midnight's Captive (Dark Warriors)

by Donna Grant

  He waited until she moved aside the rug and found the handle to the hidden door. Charon had built the cabin on the side of the mountain for any kind of emergency.

  Now all he had to do was keep Jason focused on him, and pray Phelan found Laura.

  With one last look at Laura, Charon opened the door.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Laura’s hand wrapped around the handle, but she couldn’t pull up the hidden access in the floor, because her gaze was locked on the place Charon had been.

  The look he had given her before he walked from the cabin left her cold, hollow. Empty. There had been sadness and resignation in his dark eyes, a misery that yanked at her heart.

  Charon, the man she’d wanted for years, had finally been hers for a few splendid hours. He hadn’t told her how he was involved in a world of magic, but she knew him well enough to know he was worried.

  That in itself gave her pause. Charon had never shown fear for anyone or anything. Whoever this Jason Wallace was had Charon troubled. Laura knew she needed to run away, but she couldn’t make herself leave Charon.

  She released the handle and straightened. The cabin had numerous windows to gaze at the beauty of the forest, which gave her a good view of Charon and the people who had surrounded him.

  These were the Druids he’d been running from? The ones who had followed her instead of him?

  Evil Druids.

  Laura fisted her hands at her sides in an effort to keep them from shaking. Magic wasn’t supposed to be real. People weren’t supposed to use magic, but there was no doubt looking at the people who appeared, they were definitely evil.

  She wanted to help Charon. He was one man against many. Yet how could she? What few self-defense moves she had picked up hadn’t helped her with Ben. That left her little option in how to get both her and Charon away.

  A glance around the cabin showed no weapons of any kind. She had never fired a gun, but for Charon she was willing to give it a try. If only he had one in the cabin.

  “Bloody hell,” she said, wishing he could have been there to hear her cuss.

  Her attention was snagged when a man with blond hair and five vicious gashes across his face stepped out of the group. He held his hands in his pockets of his dress pants, a knowing smirk on his hawkish face while his frigid blue eyes looked Charon up and down with revulsion.

  “You’ve foiled my plans, mate,” the man said.

  Charon shrugged. “You can see how much I’m torn up about that, Wallace. I think the scars on your face improve your appearance somewhat.”

  So this is Jason Wallace. God, how Laura wished she could see Charon’s face. His voice was filled with sarcasm. And anger. His stillness told her of the rage he barely contained.

  A muscle in Jason’s jaw jumped as he glared at Charon. “You know you doona stand a chance against us.”

  “Care to find out?” Charon said and held out his arms.

  Laura took in the sight of Charon with his shirt straining against his thick muscles, a sheen of sweat covering him. With the sun alighting upon him through the tree limbs, it looked as if he were offering himself to some ancient god.

  Her thoughts halted while she watched, transfixed, as Charon’s tanned skin changed to a beautiful copper right before her eyes. She took a step back in alarm when long, gleaming copper claws extended from his fingers.

  But it was the deep, resonating growl coming from him that made her heart skip a beat.

  This was what he hadn’t wanted her to see. This was what the villagers had been whispering about for months. This was his secret he hadn’t wanted to share.

  Laura hurried back a few steps, knowing she should run, but she couldn’t. What Charon had become scared her more than she could put into words, but he had never harmed her.

  He had protected her, watched over her. And made love to her.

  “Oh, God,” she mumbled, her stomach knotted with disbelief.

  Druids and whatever it was Charon had turned into. Phelan had said he and Charon were warriors. Could this be what he meant?

  Her thoughts were torn away from what Charon looked like and what he could possibly be by the tension growing around them. It pulsed angrily, steadily expanding until her skin all but buzzed with it.

  Laura gasped and covered her mouth with her hand when Charon turned his head and she saw the large, thick, dark copper horns that protruded from his temples to wrap around his forehead and come to points that nearly touched.

  He was a beautifully terrifying spectacle to behold. The muscles she had spent hours caressing were rigid, straining as he flexed his claws as if he couldn’t wait to sink them into Jason.

  And then all Hell broke loose.

  Jason raised a hand and suddenly Charon was jerked backwards. He crashed through the cabin wall as if it were paper.

  Laura dived to the side and covered her head with her arms as debris slammed into her. She expected to look up and find Charon dead, but he jumped to his feet as if nothing had happened.

  His shirt was shredded, and through it she witnessed the deep gouges acquired when he went through the window and wood begin to heal.

  Laura was glad she no longer stood, because she was sure her legs would have given out.

  “You doona stand a chance against my magic, Charon,” Jason said, laughter in his voice. “How many times must I show you that?”

  “Until I’m dead.”

  Laura squeezed her eyes closed, tears gathering, when she heard Charon’s response.

  “You came for me,” he continued. “Get on with it.”

  Jason chuckled, the others joining him. “Ah, but it’s no’ any fun if I doona have something to make you suffer. That’s what the woman was for.”

  Charon’s lips peeled back, and Laura caught a glimpse of what she thought were fangs.

  “Good luck finding her. She’s out of your reach.”

  Laura wanted to stand and see Jason’s face, because given his lack of a witty response, she imagined he was furious.

  “I’ll find her,” Jason promised menacingly. “I’ll find her and torture her. She may no’ be a Druid, but she’ll bleed just the same.”

  She jerked when Charon threw back his head and roared. The sound left her ears ringing it was so loud and fierce. She knew she had to keep quiet, but she wanted to call out to him when Charon’s legs bent and his gaze focused on something, probably Jason.

  One moment Charon was standing there, and the next he was gone. She scrambled up, and caught sight of him using his claws to sever one of the men in half.

  Laura barely registered that fact when a man with skin the color of light green leaped atop Charon. The newcomer had the same long claws and fangs, but no horns. He and Charon seemed to be matched with strength and speed by how viciously they attacked each other.

  The others, who Laura assumed were Druids, began to laugh and jeer at the fight. She took a step toward one of the non-broken windows when Charon’s arm was stopped mid-swing by some unknown force.

  “Magic,” Laura whispered.

  Charon was held in place, his roars drowning out everything else. Then his opponent sank both sets of claws into Charon’s abdomen.

  “No!” Laura screamed.

  Her shout was lost to the whoops and hollers of the others. Laura scanned each of the Druids and saw a woman with black hair standing apart. She didn’t clap at the spectacle, but she didn’t stop it either.

  Maybe if Laura could get to her, she could make the woman help. That thought was quickly banished as Charon’s attacker yanked out his claws and began to slash Charon’s chest over and over.

  Blood poured down his front to stain the ground. Laura gagged, knowing she was watching Charon die before her eyes. She hated feeling so helpless, so … useless.

  She began to shake—not from fear, but from fury. That emotion escalated, intensified … expanded. She took hold of that anger, welcomed it when Jason came to stand in front of Charon.

  Her breaths were ra
gged and her head began to pound. It was her skin, and the feeling as if something was moving inside her that made her fist her shaking hands before she began to scratch her skin. Laura looked down at her hands, not understanding what was happening.

  Charon’s bellow of pain brought her head forward and she spotted Jason holding his arm over Charon as his blood dripped into Charon’s injuries.

  “No,” she said as she watched.

  Her body began to vibrate from whatever was inside her. She didn’t want to fight it. She wanted it out, loosened upon Jason and the others. The need within her was too great, too powerful to ignore.

  “No,” she said louder when she saw Charon grit his teeth in pain.

  Whatever was inside her flowed easily, fiercely through every part of her until she felt as if she were glowing from it. From a great distance, she swore she heard the low beat of drums … and chanting.

  But none of that mattered. Freeing Charon did.

  Charon writhed with agony, his face mottled with pain.

  It was the last straw.

  “No!” she screamed, and threw out her arms.

  Light flew from her hands, blinding her. Elation swept through her at the amazing sensations that took her. The release of whatever had been pent up inside her was astonishing, surprising.

  Glorious.

  When she blinked open her eyes she discovered the cabin obliterated and everyone sprawled on the ground. Unmoving.

  Laura looked down at her hands and felt the same pulsing begin again, stronger this time. She lowered her arms and started toward Charon when Jason groaned.

  Charon was on his back, the copper skin, horns, and claws no longer visible. He was the man she had always known, but his chest wasn’t moving with breath.

  It seemed impossible that the man who had always been there for her was dead. Laura’s knees threatened to buckle as tears clouded her eyes. He’d faced Wallace so she could get away.

  He’d planned to keep Wallace occupied and sacrifice himself. For her.

  Laura didn’t understand what happened to her in the cabin, but she did know she was the one who wrecked the cabin and killed Charon.

  The tears wouldn’t stop, and the anger that had driven that odd feeling inside her was gone. Once more she was the scared little girl who spent her life hiding from the world. She reached out a hand to touch Charon when Jason’s arm moved.

  Laura whirled around and ran. She had to get as far from the cabin as she could. Charon was gone, but Jason wasn’t. And Jason had promised he would make her suffer.

  All Laura could hope for was that Phelan found her like Charon had said.

  She crashed through the forest, not caring how much noise she made while she put distance between her and the Druids.

  * * *

  Jason sat up and touched his aching forehead. When he looked at his fingers he found blood. “I’m tired of fucking bleeding,” he declared as he climbed to his feet.

  He looked around, unable to believe what his eyes saw. It looked as though a bomb had gone off inside the cabin. Nothing was left.

  “Jason,” Mindy said as she reached for him from her position on the ground.

  He helped her to her feet and looked at Charon. At least one Warrior was dead.

  “What the hell happened?” Jason demanded.

  Dale flung boards off himself as his pale green skin faded away. “It was a mie. Charon had a Druid with him.”

  “The girl? Laura?” Mindy asked with a snort.

  Dale shrugged. “I doona know.”

  “Find this mie,” Jason ordered. “Whoever she is, she’s in these woods. I want her brought to me.”

  Dale hesitated, and Jason lifted a hand to send a blast of magic at him, only to have nothing. Jason lowered his arm, pretending as if he’d changed his mind.

  He had no magic all of a sudden, but the others couldn’t know that.

  “Why do you wait, Dale?” Mindy demanded.

  Dale meet Jason’s gaze. “I can no’ feel the mie’s magic anymore.”

  Jason didn’t like what he was hearing. Could this Druid’s magic be able to disrupt other Druids’ magic and Warriors’ powers?

  The idea left him reeling, but it was something he needed to consider. Unless the mie had some spell that halted others’ magic for a time.

  Jason began to turn when he saw Dale move away boards from the cabin to reveal Aisley. He had suspected for a while that Dale had some kind of attachment to Aisley, and this proved it.

  Dale helped Aisley to her feet, but Jason realized then that not all his Druids were moving.

  “See who’s dead and who’s alive,” he demanded.

  A few minutes later, and the count of dead had reached four. “Find this mie,” he commanded. “Now!”

  The remaining Druids, along with Dale, fanned out into the forest.

  Jason held out his hand to Mindy. “Shall we go find us a Druid?”

  “I do so want a new toy,” she said with a grin.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Aiden rubbed his eyes and fought to stay awake. The dinner he and Britt had planned fell through the moment she got immersed in her work.

  She hadn’t told him why she was so excited, only that one of her tests had shown a breakthrough.

  So, instead of dinner and small talk, they had takeout and the radio. Aiden had never been away from MacLeod Castle for so long.

  Though he expected to feel free from being away for such an extended time, he found he missed it. All of it. Not just his parents and the others, but the castle and the magic.

  He missed the dinners where everyone was talking at once, the laughter, and even the arguments.

  He missed movie night and the playful fights on who would get to choose the movie.

  He missed the crash of the waves against the cliffs, wind that could sweep him off his feet at the top of the towers, and swimming in the swift-moving currents of the sea.

  His parents had envisioned a time when the threat of evil was gone and the shield protecting the castle could come down. Aiden long ago realized their words had been nothing more than a dream.

  There would always be evil, maybe not to the extent of Deirdre, Declan, and now Jason, but evil would always exist.

  The shield could never come down from the castle. For too long, there had been no MacLeod Castle. It couldn’t suddenly appear.

  Not to mention, it was Isla’s shield that kept the Druids immortal. Aiden couldn’t imagine how his father would react if his mother died. Love bonded Quinn and Marcail, but that bond was linked to their souls as well.

  “Shit,” Britt said as she threw down her pencil.

  Aiden jerked at her outburst. “What is it?”

  “What is it?” she repeated testily. “I can’t find what makes this different.”

  He glanced at the slide beneath the microscope. “Which blood are you looking at?”

  She released a loud sigh and reached back to rub her neck. “Sample B. Everything I put into the blood, which would eradicate a normal sample, doesn’t faze it. Nothing. I thought I had found something, but I was wrong.”

  “Is that what you’ve been working on?”

  “No,” she said, and leaned her head from side to side to stretch it. “I thought I found what made this blood so different. I was trying to isolate it.”

  “You couldna do it?” he guessed.

  She cut him a look. “Of course I did it. It just didn’t work.”

  Aiden scratched his chin, the sound of his fingers scraping against a day’s growth of whiskers loud once Britt shut off the radio.

  “What’s next?” he asked.

  “Maybe if I really knew what I was looking at,” she began.

  Aiden shook his head. “No’ going to happen.”

  “I know,” she said wearily. “I just thought I’d try again.”

  “Let’s get you home. You’ve been at this for hours.”

  The fact she didn’t protest told Aiden just how exhausted she was.
She continued to work with such dedication even though she didn’t know the real reason. Not many people would have done that.

  He gathered up the blood samples while she put away everything else. Aiden slipped the strap of his messenger bag over his head and waited for Britt by the door.

  “Has any other strange person, besides me, approached you recently?” he asked as he removed the pencils she’d stuck in her hair at the base of her ponytail.

  Britt flicked off the lights, her steps slow. She grasped the door handle and closed and locked it behind them as they walked out. “I have tons of strange people approach me on a daily basis, Aiden. I’m at a university. Raging male hormones and all that.”

  “Besides that,” Aiden said with a wink.

  They were side by side, walking down the stairs, when he glanced up and spotted his father waiting below. Quinn lifted his head and looked at them in that moment.

  “Wow. He looks like you,” Britt said.

  Aiden hadn’t expected to see his father, so was unprepared for a response.

  “Aiden,” Quinn said as he pushed away from the wall.

  Britt continued down the stairs at a faster pace, ahead of Aiden. She stopped in front of Quinn and held out her hand. “I’m Britt. Are you Aiden’s brother? You have the same eyes.”

  Aiden hurried to Britt. It was then he saw the worry in his father’s dark green eyes.

  “Hello,” Quinn said, and took her hand. “I’m Quinn. It’s nice to meet you. How’s your work coming?”

  “Slow,” she said with a sigh.

  Aiden cleared his throat and faced Britt. “Do you mind giving us a moment?”

  “Of course. I’m heading home anyway.”

  “Wait for me to walk you out.”

  She smiled, her blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “You really think someone would hurt me for looking at the blood.”

  “Aye,” Quinn answered. “We willna be long, Britt. Please wait for Aiden.”

  She looked from one to the other, and then gave a nod. “All right. I’ll be right outside.”

  Aiden waited until the door closed behind Britt before he faced his dad. “What is it? Is it Mom?”