by Donna Grant
“When it appeared the Romans might actually conquer the Celts, they turned to the mies for advice, but the Druids didna have an answer for them. Having nowhere else to go, the leaders went to the droughs.”
“What did they do?” she asked softly.
Charon crossed an ankle over the other. “The droughs called up primeval gods long locked away in Hell. The strongest, bravest warriors of each family stepped forward to take the gods into their bodies. The men became Warriors. They had inhuman strength and speed along with enhanced senses. More than that, the Roman army didna stand a chance against them.”
“Rome left then?”
“Aye. But the Warriors answered the gods’ call for blood. With no more Romans to kill, they slaughtered whoever crossed their path. The droughs tried to pull the gods out of the men and back into Hell, but the gods had a firm hold of the men.”
Her pale green eyes watched him raptly. It took everything he had not to go to her and pull her into his arms, to promise her that he would set everything aright. He wanted—nay, needed—to have her in his arms again.
That need was as strong as his god’s call for death. It startled Charon, how deeply he felt for Laura.
He popped the knuckles in his left hand. “The droughs are strong with their black magic, but nothing they did could move the gods back to their prison. The droughs might be stronger individually, but when a group of mies combine their magic, the force of it is incredible. The droughs knew this, so they turned to the mies for help.
“It was the first time in ages the mies and droughs combined their magic, but even that was no’ enough to send the gods to Hell. All they were able to do was bind the gods inside the men. The gods, however, moved through each bloodline, going to the strongest warrior each time, waiting, hoping for the day they would be released.”
Laura swallowed the last bit of her food. “And the men the gods first inhabited? What became of them?”
“They returned to the life they led before.”
“Were you one of the first?”
He gave a quick shake of his head. “Nay.”
“Who unbound your god?”
Charon pushed away from the door and sighed. “Her name was Deirdre. She was a drough who lived for a thousand years by killing every Druid she came across and taking their magic. She found a scroll with the spell to unbind the gods. Over seven hundred years ago, she attacked this verra castle and killed every living thing inside it to get to the MacLeod brothers.”
Laura looked away. She didn’t want to believe Charon, but the emotion that filled his words left her little choice. His tone made it even more convincing because she didn’t think Charon knew how emotional he sounded.
An odd twinge unsettled her as she listened to his tale. When his voice shook slightly as he spoke of Deirdre, anger had pervaded her.
This was the story he hadn’t wanted to share before. Now, he was telling her all of it. Despite the fact that retelling it seemed to pain him. And she hated to see him hurting.
“What happened to the MacLeods?” she asked as she got to her feet and looked out the window. She couldn’t look into Charon’s dark gaze anymore and see the misery and doubt.
“Deirdre’s magic was the ability to communicate with stone. Cairn Toul Mountain was her fortress. Inside that mountain was where she lived and practiced her black magic. She brought Fallon, Lucan, and Quinn to the mountain and unbound their god. As brothers equally strong in battle, they shared a god. They were lucky enough to escape Deirdre after their god was unbound to return here.”
Laura watched the sea roll endlessly from her window. The birds flew along the currents hunting for food, but she never heard them. She was too focused on the sinfully gorgeous man behind her and his tale she wasn’t sure she wanted to know anymore.
“Deirdre didna stop with the MacLeods,” Charon continued. “Ramsey was the next to be taken. So many more men were captured and their gods unbound.”
Her hands gripped the windowsill as her heart pounded in her chest. He had yet to speak of himself. What had happened to him? Was it as dreadful as she feared, as the slight tremor in his voice bespoke? “And you?”
“I was taken. Six hundred and twenty-some odd years ago.”
She swallowed hard. No wonder Charon always had the answers. He’d been around for six centuries. He’d seen everything.
“Does it bother you that I’m so … old?”
Laura looked at his reflection in the glass and found his gaze locked with hers. She slowly turned to him. “No. A lot about you is beginning to make sense now. Will you tell me more?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “No. But I think I need to know.”
“You do need to know. Even if I hadna felt your magic, I’d be telling you this now. Wallace put you in the middle of our war. It’s a place I never wanted you to be.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t matter what we want. Fate does whatever she wants.”
There was a long stretch of silence before Charon began talking again. “The screams from Druids and men alike from Cairn Toul still fill my head when I sleep. The pain of every muscle shredding, every bone breaking in multiple places as my god was released is indescribable.”
Laura’s heart missed a beat as she watched fury and despair fill his dark brown eyes. She wanted to go to him, to touch him as he relived his time with Deirdre. He didn’t need to go into detail. She knew the pain he suffered by watching how his body had gone utterly still, every muscle locked.
“The real agony was battling my god for control. Deirdre kept all of us in dungeons deep beneath the earth. We were tortured with magic, brought to the brink of death, and healed by our gods dozens of times a day for months and years, all to break us to her will. Yet, there were a few who were able to stand against Deirdre, who gained control of our gods instead of them controlling us.”
Laura wanted to ask him to stop, but his eyes shone with such stark desolation that she couldn’t get the words past her lips.
“I make no excuses for what I am. I’m a monster, Laura, a beast who dares to walk among mortals. I didna ask to become this, but I will fight against evil until my dying breath.”
His sun-kissed skin disappeared, copper taking its place. Claws a dark copper sprang from his fingers. The horns she’d glimpsed before were startling—and exquisite—with their penetrating copper color and the way they curved around the front of his forehead. She caught a glimpse of fangs, but it was his eyes that held her spellbound.
Copper colored his eyes from corner to corner, bleeding out any white. It was eerie and beautiful to look upon. She could practically feel the coiled violence beneath his muscles, waiting to let loose, but he kept a tight leash on it.
She’d seen how quick and agile he moved when fighting Dale. Before her stood a warrior in the truest sense of the word, a master at battle with the power of a god.
“I’m a Warrior. Ranmond, the god of war, is inside me. He gives me immortality, speed, enhanced senses. And the power to disintegrate anything.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Aiden yelled at Galen and sent a blast of magic against a drough going after the Warrior. Aiden stood in front of Britt, protecting her while she huddled against the building. His magic was nothing compared to that of the droughs attacking, but he wasn’t going to give up. Only death would bring him to his knees.
“Aiden!” he heard his father shout behind him.
Galen dived to the ground to miss a blast of magic from a drough. He came up on Aiden’s right and said, “Get Britt out of here.”
“Nay.” The Warriors were impossibly fast, but they weren’t immune to magic. His father and Galen needed him. “We leave together.”
Galen growled and beheaded a drough before the Druid could use her magic.
Aiden couldn’t believe his eyes when Galen jerked and fell to his knees as black magic held him painfully in its grip. Aiden quickly spotted the drough respon
sible and sent several blasts of magic at her.
Her red lips twisted in a sneer right before she turned her magic on him. Aiden deflected her first shot as he saw Galen climb to his feet out of the corner of his eyes. Before Aiden could blink, he was hit a second time by the female the instant two other sets of magic slammed into him.
Aiden bit back his bellow of pain. It took every ounce of strength and his growing fury to keep himself upright as his body spasmed, but at least Galen was back on his feet. Aiden could feel his magic slipping away, being drained by the droughs and their too-powerful black magic.
Then he thought of Britt, of his father and Galen, and Aiden pushed aside the agony to focus on his magic pulsing within. He would give them all the time they needed to get free.
Aiden pivoted at the last minute as another blast came at him, and his gaze snagged on a tall woman who stood off to the side, watching. He couldn’t see her face in the shadows, but he knew she was drough. Aiden had no idea why she wasn’t fighting alongside the others. If she joined them, he didn’t stand a chance.
But she didn’t.
It was a reprieve, and he wasn’t going to complain.
Aiden kept himself upright by gripping the side of the building while Galen used his speed to rush the drough with the bright red lips. Galen was almost upon her when Dale intercepted him. But not before Galen sliced the drough down her arm.
The drough cried out, and Dale lifted her in his arms and sped away before Galen could finish her off. The other droughs were quick to follow, leaving the alley quiet and still once more.
“We need to get you and Britt out of here,” Quinn said as he walked up.
Aiden’s chest heaved from the exertion of battle, and his body was a ball of aches. Yet, he’d never felt more alive than at that moment. His father’s shirt was gone but his wounds were healing, and he had a satisfied grin upon his face.
“You wanted drough blood?” Galen asked as he held up his hand, blood dripping from his claws.
Aiden laughed, and then gripped his side, where the magic had pummeled him, as the throbbing reminded him how close he’d come to death.
That smile faded when he remembered Brit and all she had witnessed. Aiden turned to find her eyes wide, staring at all three of them in a combination of shock and alarm.
God only knew what she thought of him now, but Aiden would deal with that later. First, he had to get her out of the alley before the droughs returned.
“Britt, this is my father,” Aiden said, and pointed to Quinn. He then jerked his chin to Galen. “And this is Galen. I can explain everything.”
Britt stood and visibly swallowed. “If I’m to sample the blood on Galen’s … claws … I need to do it immediately.”
Aiden would give her credit. She didn’t melt into a puddle of screams as Galen and Quinn stood in their Warrior forms next to him. It was just another reason Aiden found her irresistible.
“Wallace knows what we’ve been doing,” Quinn said, his voice hard with anger. “We can no’ chance returning to the lab now.”
Aiden shook his head. “We can no’ give up on this. We have to finish.”
“I’ve got equipment at my flat,” Britt said.
Galen’s nostrils flared as he exhaled. “No’ safe enough. Wallace will have that watched as well.”
“The hospital,” Britt offered, her hands shaking as she clasped them in front of her. “I can get in there to do some testing.”
Aiden stared at Britt in amazement. She might be traumatized by all she’d witnessed, but she pulled herself together to help him. “We need to get moving, then.”
“We doona have time to walk. We need to use speed. Warrior speed,” Quinn said with a wink to Britt. He then held out his hand. “Shall we, lass?”
Aiden let out a sigh when Britt took his father’s hand and Quinn lifted her in his arms, then ran toward the hospital. Aiden pulled his hand away from his side and looked at the blood coating it
“Oh, shite,” Galen grumbled. “You should’ve told your father.”
Aiden grinned through the pain. Battle was exhilarating, but not when loved ones’ lives were on the line, or when black magic rendered him almost useless. “Britt can give us answers. I can no’.”
“Nay, you imbecile, you’re just his son. Quinn would give his own life for yours.”
“I know.” Aiden leaned his shoulder against the brick of the building and let his eyes close for a second. It was becoming more and more difficult to keep on his feet. “But I’m no’ the one who defeats the evil. It’s you, my father, and the other Warriors.”
Galen let loose a low growl of frustration. “Come. They’ll be waiting on us. You’ll have that seen to when we get there.”
With Galen’s speed, he got them there just as Britt was using a keypad to open the door into the hospital. Aiden leaned against the wall for support, the blood seeping between his fingers now.
Britt winked at him when the door gave a loud beep and opened. He tried to smile, but the world was going black at the edges of his vision.
“Aiden!” Britt yelled.
He wanted to tell her it would be all right, but the darkness already claimed him.
* * *
Britt’s hands shook while she took samples of the blood on Galen’s dark green claws as she worried about Aiden. She kept glancing at him, hating how still he lay on the table as his father—father!—cleaned his wound.
“Why didn’t he tell us he was hurt?” she asked.
Quinn tossed aside another towel soaked with blood. “Because he’s as stubborn as his mother.”
“Nay,” Galen said. “He’s like his father.”
Quinn turned green eyes to Galen that were filled with worry. “He’s my only son. I can no’ lose him.”
“Then call Fallon. He can have Sonya here before your next breath.”
Britt listened to them, questions rushing through her mind. Druids, magic. What else was there? It terrified her, but she had come to know Aiden, and her findings on the blood were career changing.
Or they had been. Now she understood why Aiden hadn’t wanted to tell her anything. She wouldn’t have believed him, for one. But seeing for herself tended to alter everything.
Once she had several samples of blood from Galen, he wiped off his claws. The next time she looked, they—along with his fangs, green skin, and freaky eyes—were gone.
“You doona have to be afraid of me,” Galen said gently. “I willna hurt you.”
She nodded jerkily. “Aiden trusts you. So I trust you.”
“He likes you,” Quinn told her. “Aiden, I mean.”
Britt glanced at Aiden. “I like him.”
“I willna let him die,” Quinn stated into the quiet.
Quinn’s promise gave Britt the courage to turn to the microscope. After all she’d witnessed that night, she believed him.
She ran several quick tests on the drough blood while Quinn was on the phone with someone named Fallon.
“About time,” Quinn said suddenly.
Britt looked up to see another man in the room. He had deep brown hair, and eyes a shade darker than Aiden’s. What really snagged her attention was the gold torc around his neck so similar to the one Quinn wore.
“This is my brother, Fallon,” Quinn told her. “And this is Sonya.”
Britt was so confused by Fallon’s having gotten into the room without her hearing him that she hadn’t even seen the redhead. She gave a nod to both people, more questions than ever filling her mind.
“Sonya is a Druid with healing magic,” Galen told her.
Britt forgot about the tests she was running and watched as Sonya walked to the table were Aiden lay. The Druid winced and lifted her gaze to Quinn when she saw the wound.
“It’s bad, Quinn. The magic he took was meant to kill. I’m not sure how he survived.”
“He’s a MacLeod,” Quinn said, his eyes never leaving Aiden.
“I’ll do what I can,” Sonya said.
>
Next, Sonya lifted her hands, palms down, over Aiden’s body. She closed her eyes and whispered words Britt didn’t understand.
Britt couldn’t look away, and a few moments later when the blood from Aiden’s wound began to slow to a trickle, she was glad she hadn’t. During those few minutes, magic had been used. She couldn’t feel it, couldn’t see it, but there was no other explanation.
The waiting became unbearable as she silently urged Aiden to open his eyes and look at her, to give her that charming smile that always made her stomach flutter. The longer he went without moving, the more anxious she became.
She needed something to do to occupy her mind. So, Britt turned back to the microscope.
In between running her tests, Britt would glance over at Aiden. Quinn stood by his son, his gaze never leaving Aiden’s face. Galen and Fallon were like sentries on either side of the door while Sonya continued to use her healing magic.
Magic. Britt had never considered it could really exist before she met Aiden. He’d shown her himself, but the real proof came from the battle she’d witnessed. Was it magic that kept Quinn looking as young as Aiden?
Britt forgot about magic when she put a drop of the drough blood into sample C and the sample began to die instantly.
“It’s a good thing he didn’t take that hit directly,” Sonya said, breaking in to Britt’s thoughts.
Britt lifted her head from the microscope and glimpsed Quinn running a hand down his face in a gesture so similar to Aiden’s.
“He shouldna have been here,” Quinn said.
Fallon blew out a harsh breath. “Where would you want him? Hiding with the other Druids? He’s a Highlander, Quinn. You can expect no less of him than what you yourself would do.”
“You didna tell Marcail, did you?” Quinn asked as he looked from Fallon to Sonya.
Sonya shook her head of short red curls. “No, but I will when I return. You’ll face her wrath later.”
“I know.”
