by Donna Grant
He knew he should wait for the others to arrive, but when Charlie shook Danielle and Ian heard her inhale there was no waiting.
Ian roared and launched himself at Charlie. He wrapped his arms around Charlie as he drove the Warrior into the floor. Dimly, Ian heard Danielle cry out. But with his hands now around Charlie’s throat, all Ian could think about was killing the bastard.
Time and again Ian slashed his claws across Charlie’s chest. He pounded his fists into Charlie’s nose until he heard the crunch of bone. Ian pulled back his arm, readying to take Charlie’s head when several pairs of hands grabbed him and pulled him off Charlie.
Ian bellowed and fought, desperate to get back to Charlie and take his miserable life for harming Danielle.
“Ian! Enough!” Arran yelled.
Ian heard him, but his fury was too great. Just the memory of Danielle being held by Charlie sent another wave of rage rushing through Ian.
“Bloody Hell,” Hayden said as they continued to hold Ian.
“Dammit, Ian. Calm yourself!” Quinn bellowed.
It wasn’t until Ian’s gaze found Danielle huddled near the fire that he was able to tamp down his rage and his god. Still, the others held him.
“What was that about?” Hayden asked.
Ian no longer fought his friends, but it was difficult. They held him, kept him away from Danielle. “Charlie had a hold of Danielle,” Ian ground out. “He shook her. Hurt her.”
“What?” Quinn asked as his head swiveled to Charlie, who had risen to his elbows on the floor.
Charlie wiped at the blood from his nose that had already healed. “Ian saw me and Dani together. About to kiss.”
“Nay,” Ian said with a growl.
Quinn looked at Ian. “Are you in control?”
Ian gave a nod and glared furiously at Charlie.
Hayden’s and Arran’s hands released him as Quinn walked to Danielle. Ian clenched his jaw together when he saw Quinn gently help her to her feet.
When Ian caught sight of the blood dripping from her arm and the five long slashes through her sweater and into the skin underneath, he felt sick to his stomach.
He swung his gaze back to Charlie. He would kill Charlie. Slowly. Painfully.
“What happened?” Quinn asked Danielle.
She lifted her gaze still full of apprehension and unease to flicker over Charlie before she looked at Ian. “I … I remember talking to Charlie.”
“Who cut you?”
She looked down at her arm, her face losing what little color it had had. “I don’t know.”
“I never released my god,” Charlie said. He gained his feet slowly. “I’m newly made and no match for Ian.”
Ian felt every eye in the hall turn to him. He couldn’t take his gaze away from the cuts on Danielle’s arm. Surely he hadn’t done that. Had he?
In his rage to make Charlie release Danielle he could have accidently cut her. But surely he hadn’t. He’d been so careful with her.
Ian briefly squeezed his eyes shut before he looked at Danielle. “I’m sorry.”
He strode from the hall before he could hurt her more.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
Danielle felt her heart jump to her throat when Ian walked out of the castle. She followed him with her eyes, wanting to tell him everything would be all right.
But she couldn’t.
She recalled the fear, the feel of the claws ripping into her flesh. The Godawful pain.
All this time she had been telling everyone Ian would never hurt her, yet he had. How could she have been so wrong about him?
“Dani,” Hayden said as he walked to her side. “Tell me what happened?”
She shook her head. “I’m trying to remember. It’s all so fuzzy.”
“Fuzzy?” Arran repeated.
“Yes. As I said, I remember being in here with Charlie. I remember him pulling me from the chair, and then … the roar.”
“Were you and Charlie about to kiss?” Hayden asked.
Danielle blinked at him, unsure if she’d heard correctly. “Kiss? No.”
“It’s what he alluded to,” Arran said.
Danielle looked across the hall where Quinn had taken Charlie. Even with his clothes ripped and bloody, Charlie looked calm and unruffled.
“No. I wouldn’t kiss Charlie. Ian doesn’t trust him.”
Hayden ran a hand down his face. “Who cut you?”
She shrugged, wishing she could give them answers because she wanted to know herself.
“Something is no’ right here,” Arran said. “I know Ian. He wouldna hurt her.”
“No, no’ on purpose,” Hayden admitted.
“But he was in a rage.”
Hayden nodded. “As soon as I heard his roar I raced into the castle to find him on top of Charlie beating the crap out of him.”
Danielle swallowed and felt her stomach begin to churn. She breathed through her mouth as she sank into the chair between Hayden and Arran.
“I’ll get Sonya,” Hayden said and raced off.
Arran squatted beside Danielle. “This doesna look good for Ian.”
“I know,” she said, and wrapped her arms around her stomach. She knew all too well. “What will he do?”
“I need to find him.”
“Go. And tell him I don’t blame him.”
Arran smiled sadly before he rose and followed the path Ian had taken moments before.
Danielle wanted to go after Ian herself, but she didn’t think he’d listen to her now. And a minute later it didn’t matter because Sonya and Isla were suddenly before her.
While Sonya healed her, all Danielle could think of was the few seconds where her memory was unclear. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before. Was it because it had been Ian who had cut her, but she didn’t want to believe it?
Or was it because of something else?
If Charlie had lied about them almost kissing, what else had he lied about? And more importantly why?
Danielle had to get to the bottom of it for Ian’s sake. She knew how desperately he had wanted to return to the castle. And how much he feared it.
If any doubt entered Ian’s mind that he couldn’t be in control of his god around others, Dani knew he would leave. Without a backward glance or a word to her.
“You need to hold still,” Sonya told her.
Danielle grabbed hold of Isla’s hand and pulled her closer. “I need help from both of you.”
Sonya and Isla exchanged a look before Sonya’s amber eyes locked with Dani’s. “What do you need?”
“Help with Ian. I can’t believe he’d do this to me.”
Isla sighed and patted Danielle’s hand. “When I first came to the castle, Hayden was struggling with his god. His years of rage against his family’s slaughter ate away at him. When he lost control and let his anger take him, he would forget himself and just who was around him.”
“You think that happened to Ian,” Danielle said.
Sonya shrugged. “It’s a theory. The fact you can’t remember and Charlie’s and Ian’s stories are so different casts doubt.”
“On Ian.” Dani shook her head. “Why doesn’t it also cast doubt on Charlie?”
Isla cut her eyes to Charlie and flattened her lips. “A very good question.”
Danielle took each of their hands into hers. “I know there have been a lot of additions to the castle lately. You don’t know me, but I have to ask, have you felt anything … off?”
“Off?” Sonya asked.
“Yes. Off? Odd? Strange? Anything?”
Isla gave a slight nod. “I don’t feel it often, but sometimes, there is a hint of something. I feel it through the shield I have surrounding the castle.”
Sonya pulled at the end of her strand of red hair. “Why haven’t you said anything?”
“I wasn’t sure,” Isla said. She then turned her gaze to Dani. “Ian told Hayden you were sent here. By who?”
Danielle knew if s
he were going to gain their trust, she would have to tell them the truth. “Not by who, but a ‘what.’”
Sonya pulled Danielle to her feet. “Come. I have a feeling this will require privacy.”
Danielle didn’t miss the look that passed between Isla and Hayden as the three of them walked out of the hall and up the stairs.
“Hayden will keep Charlie busy until I return,” Isla said.
Dani soon found herself in Sonya’s chamber. Isla shut and barred the door, then turned to face her.
Danielle twisted her hands together as she began to pace. “Remember when I told Saffron what my magic was?”
“Aye, objects tell you who they belong to,” Sonya said.
“Exactly. Well, that’s what happened. I found an object, and it demanded I bring it to the MacLeods with all haste.”
Isla took a step to her. “What is it?”
“That’s just it,” Danielle said with a frown. “It doesn’t want me to give it to the MacLeods yet. As soon as I walked into the castle, it stopped bellowing to be given to the MacLeods and instead started begging me to wait.”
“I don’t understand,” Sonya said.
Danielle lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “When the … object … began to urge me to keep it hidden and safe, that’s when I started to feel there was something off in the castle.”
“Is the object evil?” Isla asked.
Sonya gave a firm shake of her head. “Reaghan looked into Dani’s eyes and saw the truth of how she came to be with Ian.”
Danielle still couldn’t believe there was a Druid who could know if she spoke the truth or not. “Has Reaghan looked into Charlie’s or Kirstin’s?”
“She couldn’t get any type of reading on Kirstin, and with Charlie he wouldn’t hold eye contact,” Sonya said.
“Which doesn’t necessarily mean he’s lying,” Isla pointed out.
Danielle lifted a brow. “It sure is suspicious to me.”
“Will you show us the object that brought you to the castle?” Sonya asked.
Danielle thrust her hand into the front pocket of her jeans and wrapped her fingers around the key. “I want to show all of you. I want to give it to you now.”
“But it won’t let you.”
“What if you just tell us?” Isla asked.
Dani let out a deep breath. Ian trusted these people, and so must she. Slowly, Danielle withdrew her hand from her pocket and held her arm out in front of her.
She turned her fist toward the ceiling and unfurled her fingers so that the key lay visible in the middle of her palm.
“By the saints,” Sonya whispered.
Isla reached out a finger and carefully traced the top of the key. “We’ve been looking for a key.”
“I know. It fits into a cylinder-shaped object with Celtic engravings.”
“How—” Sonya began.
“The key showed me,” Danielle answered.
Isla dropped her hand. “The others need to know.”
“No,” Dani said louder than she intended. She tucked the key back into her pocket. “There is someone here preventing the key from being known. Until we find that someone, I must keep the key to myself.”
“Why tell us then?” Isla asked.
Dani thought of Ian’s laughter, of his sherry eyes as he looked down at her right before he kissed her. “Because Ian trusts you.”
“You think Charlie had something to do with your cuts, don’t you?” Sonya asked.
Danielle nodded. “I can’t prove it, but I feel it in my gut. Twice Ian was in the midst of battle and saved me, and neither time did he so much as nick my skin.”
Isla’s lips twisted sardonically. “Aye, but Warriors can be insanely protective of their women. Ian might have lost control because he believed Charlie was either going to hurt you, or going to try and take advantage of you.”
Fear. Danielle remembered she had felt fear while Charlie had held her. “What power does Charlie have?”
Sonya shifted. “He can control wind, why?”
“Could he be lying about it?”
Isla’s ice blue eyes narrowed. “We took him at his word.”
“Be vigilant around him,” Danielle said. “It was something Ian asked of me, and I didn’t take heed. Now, I need to find Ian and get this sorted out before he does something stupid like leave the castle.”
“Which could be just what Deirdre wanted,” Isla said.
The three of them left the chamber together. Dani to go in search of Ian, and Sonya and Isla to find their husbands and let them know what they had discovered.
* * *
Ian stood facing the stone wall damp from the earth just on the outside of it. The ground beneath him was nothing but dirt and rock, hard from the cold.
“Ian, you can no’ be serious,” Fallon said from behind him.
Ian had known Fallon would object to what he wanted, but there was no other way. “I willna put Danielle’s, or anyone else’s, life in danger. Close the door, Fallon.”
“Nay,” Quinn said as he ran into the dungeon. “Ian, get out.”
Ian turned to face Quinn who stood next to his two brothers. Lucan hadn’t been happy with Ian’s request, but out of the three of them, he seemed to understand why Ian would want to be locked in the dungeon.
“After all the time you spent locked in Deirdre’s prison you’ll willingly put yourself back in one?” Quinn asked.
Ian took a deep breath and released it slowly. “For Danielle, aye.”
“You care for her,” Lucan stated.
“She is … different than any woman I’ve met in my two hundred”—he paused and recalculated—“well, six hundred years of existence.”
“Putting yourself behind these bars will no’ help her,” Quinn said.
Ian and Quinn had shared several months in Deirdre’s mountain. Along with Arran and Duncan, the four of them had bonded, their trust in each other absolute.
“I swore I wouldna hurt anyone while gaining control of Farmire,” Ian said. “And I harmed the very person I swore to protect.”
“There has to be another way,” Fallon said.
Ian grabbed the iron bars of the door and slammed it shut. He looked at the MacLeod brothers. “I beg of you to watch over Danielle while I’m in here. As soon as I have control, I’ll ask to be released. But if Farmire takes over…”
Quinn nodded, his face full of sadness and regret. “I’ll see it done. I willna allow Deirdre to get you.”
Ian gripped the bars once the brothers were gone and rested his head against the cold metal. The last thing he wanted was to be locked away again, but for Danielle, he would do it.
To keep Danielle safe, he would endure anything.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
“Where is Ian?” Dani demanded. She was fast losing patience as the MacLeods continued to evade her question.
“He’s fine,” Fallon answered.
Danielle took a deep breath and tried to count to ten. She only made it to three. “I didn’t ask if he was fine. I asked where he was.”
They’d been going through this for over fifteen minutes and Dani was about to pull her hair out. When neither Isla nor Sonya was told anything different, Danielle began to get a sinking feeling in her gut.
She knew Ian had been closest to Quinn because of their confinement in Cairn Toul together, so she turned to the youngest MacLeod. “Please. I need to know where Ian is.”
Quinn ran a hand through his hair and murmured, “Holy Hell.”
“Doona say it,” Lucan cautioned.
Danielle glared at Lucan, then faced Quinn. “Ian and I gave each other promises. He vowed to bring me here, and I swore to help him gain control of his god.”
“He’s still here,” Quinn finally answered.
“But where? I’ve searched all over. I need to speak with him.”
Lucan shook his head. “That wouldna be a good idea.”
“Dammit,” Dani shouted and buried her face in
her hands. Why wouldn’t they tell her where he was? The idea of not seeing Ian, not touching him left her … cold.
She had just begun to feel. She didn’t want to be that cold, lonely person again.
Danielle lifted her head and blinked away her tears as she faced the brothers. “If you’ve hurt him…”
“Hurt him?” Fallon said with a snort. “Ian did it for you!”
“Shite, Fallon,” Lucan said, and kicked the leg of the table.
Dani frowned and turned to Quinn. “Where is he?”
Quinn swallowed, a muscle in his jaw working as he clenched his teeth together. “Understand that this was Ian’s idea. He did it because of you.”
“Did what?” She took a step closer to Quinn, silently begging him to give her the information she so desperately needed.
“He locked himself in the dungeon.”
The room tilted as Danielle reached out to grab hold of anything to keep her upright. It was Isla who steadied her.
“Nay,” Dani whispered.
Isla blew out a breath. “Why? Why would he willingly lock himself away after all he had endured in Deirdre’s mountain?”
“Do you really need us to answer that?” Lucan asked.
Danielle looked at Isla. “What does he mean?”
“He means Ian cares a great deal for you,” Isla answered softly.
Dani shook her head. “He barely knows me. I know how much he hated being locked away. He shouldn’t have put himself in a cell again. It’s not right. We need to get him out,” she said as she surged toward the doorway that led down to the dungeons.
Quinn’s arm snaked out and snagged her before she could rush past him. “Nay,” Quinn said as he held her.
Dani continued to struggle as images of Ian confined in a cell flashed in her mind.
“Nay,” Quinn said again. “He willna want you to see him like that.”
Danielle stopped fighting against Quinn’s hold as his words sank in. “He doesn’t want to see me?”
“I’ve no doubt he wants to see you,” Fallon said. “It’s more he doesna want you to see him caged as he is.”
“Then let him out.”
Lucan glanced at the floor before he said, “We promised him we wouldna let him loose until he had control of his god.”
