Sword of the Raven

by Diana Duncan

  “I’m sorry. She’s a ghost.” He shook his head. “There’s no trail. Nobody can contact her.”

  “She’s my last chance to track Rowan. What am I—” Delaney pressed trembling lips together. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Rest. Regroup. Restart tomorrow.”

  “I’m out of time, Archer. Tonight is Samhain Eve. If I miss it, I lose my best opportunity of ever reaching him.”

  “Life unfolds the way it’s supposed to.” Archer’s arm tightened in a hug. “You might not be meant to reach him. The Enforcer gave you his Powers for a reason. Maybe you were always supposed to have them. Ceard obviously still had her hooks in him, but her crew can’t touch you now.”

  “No. No! I reject that Rowan was meant to die so I’d become the heir apparent.”

  “Eventually everybody has to learn you can’t fight destiny.” He traced a fingertip down her cheek. “Even someone as tenacious as you, Delaney.”

  “Screw destiny. We make our own fate.”

  “I used to believe that, too.” He sighed again. “And it bought me a world of hurt.” He said something in the unknown language, dousing the flames. “Let’s go home.”

  She went with him, only because she wasn’t sure what to do next.

  Inside her too-quiet apartment, the clock ticked loudly on the mantel…irrevocably counting down the few remaining hours to locate her Mage. She rested her forehead against the cool, rain-streaked windowpane and stared sightlessly into the deepening gloom. Defeat was temporary. Giving up was the only thing that could make it permanent.

  “Come on, Clan MacLachlan, help me get our guy back.”

  Memories flooded her mind. She saw craggy purple mountains. Smelled honeyed heather. Heard the low strum of a Scottish harp blend with the merry chuckles of a mischievous toddler as small, dimpled hands splashed in a muddy puddle.

  Delaney tensed. They were Rowan’s memories.

  She felt coltish muscles stretch in a young lad’s headlong rush toward a huge, sparkling loch, and gloried in the joyous leap into the fluid embrace of crystal water.

  Saw big, callused hands thrust into a storm-clad sky while tossing back a mane of raven hair, exposing a strong profile and long throat to drink in a refreshing rain-shower.

  Raindrops smacked the pane in front of Delaney’s face, jolting her back to herself. Back to the present. She watched silver rivulets undulate down the glass. Rowan’s memories of growing up had centered on water.

  She gasped. Of course! The path to Rowan was through his element!

  An element they now shared.

  Delaney tore out the door, sprinted down the hallway to the elevator. On the ground floor, she raced outside. She lifted her face, closed her eyes and let the icy curtain of rain drench her. “Rowan,” she whispered. “Where are you?”

  A ripple of Power skated up her spine, spread in widening rings. She started to shake. She opened her eyes as the ground dropped out from beneath her feet…and her body dissolved into mist. The storm howled around her, the landscape rushed past in a blur.

  Yes!

  Dizzy and disoriented, Delaney let the momentum carry her, until she finally rematerialized and landed flat on her back with a jarring thud.

  She lost her breath and went lights-out.

  * * *

  When awareness returned, her fingers were curled into the deep, loose substance piled beneath her. Coarse and cold.

  Triumphant, she sat up.

  Cruel reality crushed her hopes. Her fists weren’t full of ashes.

  They were full of sand.

  She was at the beach. By the lighthouse.

  Delaney threw the sand into the ocean. She glanced at her watch. Four minutes until midnight. Swallowing bitter disappointment, she clambered to her feet.

  Life unfolds the way it’s supposed to.

  Rowan’s water memories, his mode of Supernatural travel had led her to this place. She and Rowan had consummated their relationship here. On this sacred ground, they’d forged their irrevocable bond of blood and passion and Power.

  She tugged open the heavy lighthouse door just like she had so many times before. Trod up the hundred-plus steps to the tower. Opened the smaller portal and stepped out onto the narrow widow’s walk.

  Cold, briny air tingled in her nostrils and the sea roared in her ears. Delaney looked past the jagged boulders far below, at the lashing water. She looked at her watch again. In one minute, the shields between worlds would briefly open.

  The haunting words from her nightmare about her stepfather in this very place echoed inside her. The only way you can win is to pay the ultimate price.

  Clarity hit like a tidal wave.

  A slight smile curled the corners of her mouth. Embodied souls couldn’t walk in the Abyss.

  She climbed onto the railing. The wind snatched at her clothes, fluttered her hair with damp, anxious fingers as she slowly stood up in a precarious balancing act.

  There were two ways to enter the Abyss. If the door wouldn’t open, then she’d smash through the window. “Whether you like it or not, I’m coming to get you, MacLachlan.”

  Spreading her arms, she stared down at the translucent gray-green waves…and let herself fall into his eyes.

  Chapter 21

  Something was stalking him.

  Rowan crawled through stinging, abrasive cinders, dragged himself over scattered clumps of sharp rocks, and inside the dank cave. He was no longer the hunter, but the prey.

  Endless, agonizing weeks had passed before he’d healed enough from Ceard’s torture to crawl to the subterranean shelter. He’d been trapped in ashes and pain for thirty-two days by earth calculations. Time was capricious in the Abyss. He was here for punishment, so naturally, it would lag.

  Shaking, gasping, he curled on his side, vainly seeking warmth. The naked shell of his body was translucent, yet fully capable of feeling…and freezing. He had no strength. No weapons.

  No chance in hell.

  If the demon on his trail didn’t find and finish him, Balor eventually would. And not by any fast or painless method. Then, because he’d done the unforgivable and given Delaney his Powers, Rowan’s essence wouldn’t be allowed passage into the Otherworld. He’d be vaporized. Cease to exist.

  He was well and truly buggered.

  But he’d known the consequences of his actions. Didn’t regret damning his soul to purchase Delaney the ultimate Gift.

  He longed for her with every ragged breath, every labored beat of his heart. Had he not been stripped of his Powers, he might’ve been able to locate a portal and catch a glimpse of her. With their combined Gifts, she’d be damned near invincible. Rowan’s lips slanted in wistful yearning. He’d give anything to be able to see her one last time, wielding her new Powers. She’d be magnificent.

  His chin dropped to his chest. That wasn’t gonna happen.

  Smarter to concentrate his meager resources on limited survival. His too-feeble fist grasped the pointed rock he’d filed into a dagger as he laboriously re-honed the edge on a nearby boulder. The activity exhausted him, and he drifted into a restless doze.

  Stealthy, rustling footsteps jerked him awake. Hunkered behind a tumbled pile of boulders, he strained to lift his makeshift dirk with a hand that trembled. He wasn’t accustomed to weakness. Fecking hated being vulnerable.

  The end would almost be a relief.

  A shadow blotted out the gloom at the cave’s mouth. Rowan went immobile, held his breath. Perhaps the predator wouldn’t sense him.

  The footsteps slithered closer. Prowled deeper into the cave. Crept around the stack of boulders.

  The shadow rippled over him.

  Rowan looked up into the colorless eyes of a huge Fomorian demon.

  “What’s this?” The demon flashed a double row of serrated fangs. Studded black body armor encased its gray-scaled torso and a broadsword glinted in its claw. “An Enforcer…yet as bare and breakable as a newborn babe. Someone’s been a naughty boy.”

&n
bsp; Concealing his sharpened rock, Rowan struggled to sit up. The effort left him panting. “Breakable, my arse,” he muttered.

  “I could arrange it.” The demon’s ugly smile spread.

  He needed to lure the demon closer. He again mumbled his reply. “Your lot hasn’t the bollocks.”

  “I didn’t quite catch that.” His opponent leaned toward him.

  “Sod off, Fomorian.” Rowan drove the sharpened stone toward its eye socket.

  It flinched, Rowan’s slow strike barely grazing the tough cheek.

  The Fomorian laughed, low and grating. “I’m going to lap up your soul while it’s warm and oozing from your gutted body. But first, I’ll watch you plead to die.”

  Rowan rubbed his thumb along the stone blade, the edge just jagged enough to open his jugular.

  Perish quickly by his own hand?

  Or become demon fodder, and then perish?

  His fingers gripped his meager weapon. Bloody shagging hell. He wasn’t letting this bastard end him so easily. “You can try.”

  It might be the shortest battle in history. But dammit, he’d go down fighting.

  The Fomorian wasn’t on guard, its sword slack. Rowan aimed at the Achilles tendon, slashed a second time. A scaly foot stomped Rowan’s wrist, pinning it.

  Rowan rolled as the demon’s blade whistled, and steel clanked against a boulder in a shower of sparks. He tugged his wrist from beneath the demon’s foot, scraping off fragile translucent skin to the bone.

  A brutal kick slammed into his side. His breath exploded on a grunt of agony. Sonofabitch. Another kick splayed him on his back in the frigid ashes.

  The demon’s face loomed over Rowan. Its toe nudged the homemade dirk from his limp hand. “So little effort, Enforcer. I’m disillusioned.”

  The sword dipped toward him, and Rowan braced himself.

  The sharp tip lightly bit his throat, cut a shallow, stinging path down the center of his chest. He gritted his teeth, muscles clenched against the icy burn as the blade etched a taunting circle around his abdomen, then hovered above his groin.

  Hell, compared to Ceard’s farewell party, this was a stroll through the heather.

  The demon smirked. “Let’s hope you’ve got a little more fun left in you.”

  “Feck. You.”

  The nasty smirk widened. “If you ask nice. Then I’ll trade your sorry ass to Balor. He likes playing with his food.”

  No sodding way…in this or any other plane.

  He had to quickly release his essence, before the demon could consume it. Rowan marshaled his waning strength. His gaze had clung to Delaney’s as he’d drowned, her loch blue eyes his final sight on earth. Now he conjured up the image of her beautifully determined features as he gathered his elbows to his sides. Where the demon’s blade was positioned, Rowan could employ one hard, upward surge of his body to gut himself.

  He shifted his weight onto his forearms.

  The demon stiffened. Surprise widened its eyes.

  Damn, had it guessed his strategy?

  Farewell, my bonny lass. As Rowan lunged toward annihilation, the Fomorian uttered a strangled gurgle…and dropped its weapon.

  A glowing gold sword point speared through the demon’s chest, piercing the body armor from behind. The blade slid back out and then a gleaming arc severed its head from its neck. The dead demon toppled aside, disintegrating into ashes.

  Rowan flung up his hand to shield his face from the blinding glare. What the—?

  “Hello, Enforcer,” said a husky female contralto.

  His stomach twisted. Saints in Heaven.

  His arm dropped. He blinked. Nay. He was hallucinating. It was impossible. The entire demon encounter must’ve been a figment of his fevered mind.

  “I’m real. Believe it.” Delaney knelt at his side, cupped his cheek. She was trembling. “After all, you’re the one who hammered home Rule Number One.” Then she scooped him into her embrace. “Oh, Rowan!” she whispered. “It’s been so long! I was so afraid I’d never see you again.”

  His arms went around her. Held tight. He buried his face in her neck and breathed in her scent. A scorching lump lodged in his throat and he squeezed his eyelids shut against a rush of emotions. She’d come for him.

  Rowan groaned. Shite. She’d come for him. She hadn’t sought out Zack when the cop had walked away from her in the real world…but she’d followed Rowan into the Abyss. Somehow, she’d followed him into the friggin’ most dangerous place in the universe.

  She pulled back. “Am I hurting you?” Her bright form appeared solid, which mean she was embodied, not dead. Which was also supposed to be, aye, impossible.

  “You can’t be here. Shouldn’t be here.”

  “Neither should you.”

  “Wrong. I earned—” He frowned. Stared at her gilded skin and blazing golden Aillidh, interspersed with radiant green and silver waves that had once been his Aillidh. At the short dress of ebony raven’s feathers beneath the enchanted cloak. At the simple garnet crown with the unmistakable Celtic symbol adorning her fiery curls. He swallowed so hard it ached all the way down. She wasn’t the only one trembling now. He’d never guessed. Couldn’t begin to imagine…

  He’d made the mother of all underestimations.

  Delaney was Slaighre a’ Teathra.

  She tilted her head, catching his silent exclamation. Slaighre a’ Teathra?

  ‘Tis an ancient myth as old as time. An alluring story. He inhaled unsteadily. Or so we thought.

  Delaney’s fingers encircled his wrist and healed it. Her palm carefully skated down his torso, mending every cut and bruise, vanquishing all pain. Unfastening her cloak, she draped it over his chilled body, the enchanted garment instantly warming him. Then she scooted beneath him and cradled his head in her lap. “I’ve warded the cave so we’re safe, at least for now. Tell me.”

  “Aye.” He stilled the wild whirlpool of realization inside him. “As the centuries passed with no sign, the tale was all but forgotten…living only in the sacred legends of a select few clan Mages. The clans who will fight at her—at your—side in the final, ultimate battle.”

  “What are you saying? What am I?”

  “Not what, who. After...after Morrigan was betrayed and defeated, she prophesied retribution. A daughter of her daughter who would rise up to take her place. A new queen, worthy to be imbued with Morrigan’s refined and magnified Powers—and the ability to break Balor’s hold and defeat his reign.” He swallowed again. “A living weapon. Slaighre a’ Teathra. The Sword of the Raven.”

  She shook her head. “I’m some kind of…of…living sword?”

  “That you are.” He’d called her his warrior goddess, unaware he’d spoken the truth. He swept his reverent gaze over her. “A warrior queen, descended from one of the most ancient and powerful bloodlines of all time. Morrigan’s royal bloodline. A goddess in your own right.”

  The head-shaking sped up. “Do not look at me that way, MacLachlan. I’m just a person. The same ‘wench’ upon whose narrow shoulders you dumped your Powers, and your war…and then ran out on.”

  He choked. I did not run away. I sodding died.

  “Because of me.” The grief in her eyes slayed him. “Because I grabbed back my Powers while you were engaged in combat.”

  “Nay, luv. ‘Twas my choice to steal your Powers, no one else’s.” Apprehension snaked through him. Had guilt made her follow him?

  “Why did you leave me?” Anger vibrated beneath Delaney’s question. “Why did you steal my memory and my Powers the night before the battle?”

  “I was protecting you.”

  “Yes, I believe that.”

  “And it makes you angry.”

  “This isn’t about how I feel right now. I know you wanted to protect me. But I think you were also driven by another, subconscious motivation. I think you were scared.”

  He stiffened. “The chieftain of Clan MacLachlan fears nothing. Fears no one.”

  “But Rowan, the son, R
owan the cousin, Rowan the lover, does. When I regained my memory, yes, I was furious with you. But after watching you suffer and die… Watching you drown, being unable to stop it—” Tears glistened her lashes and her voice wobbled. “After searching for you here the past month, more terrified with every passing minute I’d never be able to find you…”

  “You’ve been here the entire month?” he rasped. “I meant to spare you hurt.”

  “I understand better now, Rowan. I totally get it. Finding yourself trapped in utter helplessness is horrible. And the more confident you are when heading into a situation, the harder sudden vulnerability hits you. Remember, I’ve been there. Twice.”

  He fumbled for her hand. Her second trauma had been his doing. “I’m not likely to ever be forgetting it, sweetheart.”

  “You lost your whole family in one devastating blow, were forced to watch their massacre.” Her fingers comfortingly squeezed his. “You fear being left behind, fear the guilt and torment of being the lone survivor…more than your own death. You’re afraid to love again, because you’re afraid of losing someone you care for again. Breaking our bond and leaving me, shutting me out of the battle to ensure my survival, seemed less painful than trying to survive another loss, didn’t it?”

  His breath was snatched away. The cave’s ceiling whirled in a sickening black spin, and bile rose in his throat. Was that what he’d done, then? Retreat from her to avoid pain?

  Delaney had followed him into living hell to reclaim him. She wouldn’t willingly leave, despite the fact that she had a war to finish. Rowan could never return to earth. His earthly body was dead, his essence had nothing to inhabit. And even if she wanted to, Delaney couldn’t stay alive in the Abyss very long.

  He’d experienced rare, true happiness with her. He’d been without Delaney thirty days, and the separation had gouged a frozen black void inside him. Was reopening all his wounds, committing fully to Delaney—even for the short time they had—worth the risk?

  Worth the inevitable agony of losing her all over again?

  But if he couldn’t defeat his fears, her sacrifice would be in vain. He and Delaney would be cheated out of the brief future they had left.