Midnight's Warrior

by Donna Grant

  Galen asked, “How many men were sent out?”

  “It just says a handful.” Ramsey looked at the scroll and shook his head. “This idea came into being after I was taken and the first few sets of Druids sent out didna kill Deirdre. This plan was in place for decades.”

  “What else does it say?” Fallon asked.

  Ramsey swallowed as he looked at the scroll and his father’s bold handwriting. He took a moment to read the next few paragraphs, his stomach falling to his feet with a thud.

  His gaze snapped to Fallon. “Get us back to MacLeod Castle. Now!”

  Without a word, Fallon placed a hand on both Ramsey and Galen. The next moment they stood in the castle’s great hall. Which was empty.

  A sick feeling filled Ramsey. “Tara!” he called.

  Larena appeared at the top of the stairs. “You three better get up here now.”

  Ramsey took the stairs four at a time, his heart beating with a low, thunderous pounding in his chest. When he turned the corner and saw Larena walking down the corridor to the right, he knew she was going into Tara’s chamber.

  He ran to Tara’s doorway, and stopped short when he found her lying in the bed with the Druids surrounding her, their magic filling the room.

  “What the hell?” Fallon said from beside him.

  Ramsey shouldered his way into the room and knelt beside the bed. He rested his hand atop her forehead and looked up at Sonya. “What happened?”

  “We were teaching her how to strengthen her magic,” Marcail said.

  Saffron nodded. “We discovered that it’s sunlight that she’s drawn to.”

  Reaghan met Ramsey’s gaze. “She went to the ancients, Ramsey. She should have been safe.”

  He clenched his jaw, the scroll clutched in his other hand. “How long has she been like this?”

  “A few hours,” Sonya replied. “We tried to call on Fallon’s mobile, but he never answered.”

  Dani cleared her throat, but couldn’t meet Ramsey’s gaze. “I … I know what happened.”

  “What?” Ramsey demanded, afraid to find out by using his own magic after what had happened at the cave.

  Dani exchanged a glance with Ian. “It’s Declan. Saffron felt him, and I used my magic to search Tara’s mind. He’s not just taken over as he has with others. This is different.”

  “As if he’s in Tara’s thoughts and not just telling her what to do,” Saffron said.

  Dani nodded, and the knot inside Ramsey tightened. For long moments he simply stared at Tara lying so still upon the bed. He didn’t know how to reach her, or if he even could.

  “What did you read in the scroll?” Galen asked.

  Ramsey blinked and glanced at the scroll in his left hand before he looked at Galen. “The plan to send a handful of men out into the world wasn’t the only thing they had done. It seems there was a Seer who foretold of one family who would take in a Torrachilty Druid. It was a drough family.”

  Every eye shifted to Tara.

  “It was Tara’s family,” Ramsey finished.

  “Holy hell,” Quinn said as he rubbed a hand over his chin. “No wonder she can no’ control her magic.”

  Broc held out a hand. “Wait. I thought you said no woman could withstand the magic, that it drove them insane.”

  “Aye. A full dose of our magic would,” Ramsey said. “But it’s been diluted many times over the centuries.”

  Lucan leaned against the wall, his face thoughtful. “What does this mean for Tara?”

  “It means if she can ever control her magic, she’s likely to be as powerful as Isla and Reaghan,” Ramsey said. “But first, I have to get her free of Declan.”

  Camdyn grunted. “At least now we know why Declan wants her so desperately.”

  “I’m no’ so sure,” Charon said. “I doona think Declan knows what she holds inside her.”

  Ramsey slowly stood. “If he didna before, he does now. If he’s inside her mind, he has access to all her thoughts. He’ll be able to look deep into her consciousness for things she doesna remember.”

  “What do you need from us?” Sonya asked.

  Ramsey rolled up the scroll and handed it to Fallon. “Keep this for me.”

  “What are you going to do?” Logan asked.

  Ramsey smiled, but it was filled with malice and vengeance. “I’m going to get Declan out of her head.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Gwynn said, her lips pinched with worry.

  But Ramsey wasn’t deterred. “I’m no’ leaving her like this. There’s no telling what he’s doing to her.”

  “And what if he takes you?” Broc asked.

  “He’s going to die by my hands one way or another.” But Ramsey heard their concern and understood it.

  There was a lot at stake in trying to go into Tara’s mind, but he was willing to do it. He would do anything for her.

  That thought brought him up short.

  He had felt that for the other Warriors, but never for a woman. Not once in all his centuries of living had anyone ever captivated him as Tara did.

  Something touched his arm and he looked down to find Dani’s hand. Her emerald eyes clouded with worry.

  “I barely got into her mind,” Dani said. “As soon as I did a wall went up, blocking me from going further. And it wasn’t Declan who put the wall up.”

  “You’re suggesting it was Tara?”

  “I’m saying it was Tara,” Dani said. “I’m sorry, Ramsey, but I think he already has her.”

  “Nay. Nay,” Ramsey said again, more forcefully. He wouldn’t believe it until he saw it with his own eyes, and even then he would fight for Tara.

  Ian moved behind Dani and wrapped her in his arms. “My wife knows what she saw and felt, Ramsey. You need to prepare yourself.”

  He gave a curt nod. “I’m prepared. Now you all need to leave.”

  “But—” Reaghan started to say.

  It was Galen who took his wife’s hand and pulled her to the door. “Ramsey is right. Everyone needs to get out.”

  Fallon motioned his hand to the door for everyone to leave. “The sooner we get out the sooner Ramsey can reach Tara.”

  One by one the Warriors and Druids left the chamber until only Fallon, Ramsey, and Tara remained. Ramsey watched the eldest MacLeod closely. Fallon felt responsible for everyone within the castle walls, and he wanted to protect them all.

  “Will you be all right?” Fallon asked.

  Ramsey shrugged. “I can no’ answer for sure.”

  “I know you want to save Tara. We all do, Ramsey, but if we’re going to defeat Declan we’re going to need you. Especially after what I saw today.”

  “My glowing?” Ramsey asked with raised brows.

  “It wasna just that, my friend. It was the magic I felt as well. You’ve hidden it from us, and I doona want you to do that any longer. We need you as a Warrior and as a Druid.”

  Ramsey didn’t have words to respond. Instead, he held out his arm, and with a wry smile, Fallon clasped his forearm.

  “Be safe,” Fallon whispered before he left the chamber and closed the door behind him.

  Ramsey took a deep breath and faced Tara. Now that he was alone with her, he let the distress show in his face. “Hold on, Tara. I’m coming for you.”

  He climbed in bed beside her and took her hand in his. Then he closed his eyes and gave himself up to his magic. The drums and chanting soon filled his ears. He moved toward it, seeking the only connection he had to reach Tara.

  If the ancients couldn’t help him, he didn’t know what he could do.

  “He has her,” their whispered voices echoed around him.

  The fact that they knew Declan was in Tara’s mind was good. If they could reach Tara, then he could as well.

  “She doesn’t hear us,” the ancients wailed.

  What little hope Ramsey had disappeared with their words, but still he tried to cross over to Tara. He concentrated all his magic as he meditated deeper, searching, seek
ing Tara.

  And with an ease that raised an internal alarm, he was suddenly inside Tara’s mind.

  But the Tara he saw wasn’t the one he had made love to the night before. The Tara looking at him had cuts down her wrists, signaling she was a drough.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Declan knew the instant someone entered Tara’s mind. Not that he cared. It had taken him longer than he’d thought, but Tara was his.

  The torture he could dole out physically was nothing compared to what he could do to a person’s mind. Tara had withstood a lot, which impressed him.

  He had only been in her mind a few hours, but to her it had been months. Her mind wasn’t nearly as fragile as he’d always believed. She was strong in mind and in body. And her magic … Declan smiled as he relished her potent magic.

  If he’d known ten years ago what kind of magic she held within her, he’d never have taken his eyes off her. He wasn’t sure how she’d gotten such powerful magic when it wasn’t evident anywhere else in her family, but he wasn’t going to complain.

  With her magic added to his, nothing and no one would be able to stand in their way. And unlike Deirdre, Tara would never think to go against him. Not now, at least.

  Declan knew he couldn’t stay in her mind much longer. It was wearing on him, and the pain from the magic tearing at his insides was making it more difficult to keep his concentration.

  If Tara had only lasted a little while longer she would have bested him. But Declan was effective when it came to knowing how to torture a person. The fact that he enjoyed it only made it more pleasurable.

  Just as Declan was about to leave Tara’s mind, he felt the presence of a Warrior. Things couldn’t have gone better had he planned them himself.

  “Kill him,” Declan ordered Tara.

  * * *

  Ramsey’s eyes flew open as he heard an furious scream in his ear. He saw a dagger come at him, and instantly he lifted his arms to stop the attack.

  “Tara?” he whispered as he looked at his attacker.

  And just like what he had seen inside her mind, this wasn’t the Tara he knew. Her blue-green eyes were filled with malice. And her strength. He had no idea how she’d suddenly developed the strength of four men, but even that couldn’t compare to the might of a Warrior.

  Ramsey’s first thought was to toss her off him, but he didn’t wish to hurt her. Whatever had happened to her he knew it was Declan’s doing. This wasn’t his Tara.

  “You have to die,” she said through clenched teeth.

  Her voice, laced with hate, startled him enough that his arm slackened and the dagger she held drove into his chest.

  Ramsey roared, not in pain, but in anger over what Declan had done. Ramsey pulled the dagger from his chest and plunged it into the stones in the wall. Then he flipped Tara onto her back and held each of her arms in his hands.

  He straddled her, and the way she bucked against him reminded him all too well of her silky body as he’d made love to her the night before.

  “Fight whatever Declan has done,” he urged.

  Tara began to chuckle, and it grew into a laugh that echoed off the walls of the chamber. “You have no idea what Declan can do. Or what he’s done to me. He’s freed me from the restraint I had on myself. Now the magic I feared is mine to use as I wish.”

  “If you doona fight Declan and the evil he has planted inside you, Tara, you’ll be lost to me forever. The magic and Declan will see to that.”

  “Maybe I was never meant to be yours. If not for you I wouldn’t have come to MacLeod Castle,” she said as she eyed the blood seeping from the wound that was even now closing. “If not for you I wouldn’t have been befriended by the Druids and learned how to seek out the ancients. Declan wouldn’t have found me, and I wouldn’t have access to my magic.”

  “Tara … please, fight this,” Ramsey begged.

  She smiled. “He told me to kill you. I won’t stop until it’s done.”

  Ramsey closed his eyes, the knowledge that Tara was beyond his help too much to take. His chest felt split open, a hole too dark and too deep to imagine threatening to swallow him whole.

  His magic swelled inside him as he called to it. He let it move freely from him into Tara. She stiffened as if it hurt her before she began screaming and bucking against him.

  But Ramsey didn’t relent. When he opened his eyes and locked gazes with her, he said one word, “Cadal.”

  Instantly she fell asleep.

  “Do I even want to know?” Charon asked from the doorway.

  Ramsey gently wiped the locks of hair from Tara’s face, his heart shattered by the realization that the beautiful woman who had lain beside him in his bed had been replaced by someone who despised him.

  “Declan got to her. The spell I used will cause her to sleep, but I doona know for how long. We need to put her somewhere she can no’ escape.”

  “The dungeon,” Lucan said.

  Ramsey wiped the emotion from his face. The others didn’t need to know how greatly Tara’s change affected him. If they knew, they wouldn’t let him carry out his plans. And even if he had to lock all of them in the dungeon, he was going after Declan.

  He jumped from the bed and lifted Tara in his arms. When he turned to the door he found everyone watching him.

  Arran looked from the dagger embedded in the stone to the blood on Ramsey’s shirt. “She stabbed you?”

  “Aye.”

  Phelan’s lips twisted in confusion. “I doona know whether to ask how she stabbed you or where she got the dagger.”

  “She stabbed me because she caught me by surprise,” Ramsey answered. “As for the dagger, I doona know.”

  Ian walked into the chamber and yanked the blanket off the bed before he tucked it under his arm. “The girls have gone below to begin a spell on one of the cells in the dungeon so Tara can no’ get out.”

  Ramsey gave a nod of thanks as he walked from the room. With each step his anger grew, and the need for revenge filled him. He would have to control the vengeance if he was going to use his magic, because revenge could turn a good person to evil quickly.

  And though Ramsey knew he wasn’t without his faults and bad deeds, he didn’t consider himself evil. Yet the god inside him was.

  It was a constant battle he fought against his god, and the first time Ethexia found a way to overtake Ramsey, he would.

  Ramsey didn’t say a word as he walked down to the dungeon. Below the castle, the dungeon was dark and dank, with only a few torches to light the way for the Druids.

  As he walked down the middle of the cells Druids lined the aisle. A small cot had been brought into the square, iron-barred prison. Ramsey gently placed Tara on the cot before he straightened and walked out.

  He pulled the door closed behind him. After another look at her, he put his hand on the iron and bound the prison with magic. He also allowed the magic to penetrate deep within the ground so no one would be able to free her except those within the castle.

  Ramsey lowered his hand as he saw Tara begin to move. Her eyes flew open as she pinned him with a lethal stare.

  “I know what you did to me,” she said as she sat up. “I know how you bound my magic because you feared I had too much.”

  Ramsey inwardly winced at her words. “None of that is true.”

  “It is! Declan told me all of it. He opened my eyes!”

  “He’s brainwashed you,” Ramsey replied calmly when all he wanted to do was bash his hand into the stones to release some of the anger inside him. “Do you no’ recall the friends you made here?”

  Her lips lifted in a sneer as she took in the others. “Every one of you used me. And I’ll have my vengeance.”

  Ramsey didn’t know what pained him more, that Tara actually believed the words she was saying or that Declan had harmed her in the process of turning her to his side. Because Ramsey knew Tara may not show physical harm, but Declan had hurt her. Ramsey would stake his life on it.

  “Think what y
ou want,” Ramsey said before anyone else could reply. “You claim it is the truth you have now. Do you remember before? Running from Declan because he’s evil?”

  Tara laughed. “It was you and the rest of the Warriors I was running from. I remember the maroon Warrior in Edinburgh.” Tara then looked to Isla, Larena, Fallon, and Broc. “I remember all of you chasing me.”

  Isla started to respond, but Ramsey held up a hand to stop her.

  He turned back to Tara. “Think what you will. For now, you’ll stay in here. There will be food brought to you, and anything else you might need.”

  “I need out.”

  “Except that,” Ramsey said, and released a breath.

  Tara folded her arms over her chest. “So you plan on keeping me here forever? Wasn’t it enough that you made me think my family evil so I would run from them? Wasn’t it enough that I spent ten years looking over my shoulder and running from everything I considered a threat?”

  Ramsey didn’t reply. He knew there was nothing he could say to Tara that would change her mind. And getting inside her mind to try and alter whatever Declan had done wasn’t an option now that Tara had effectively locked everyone out.

  It took everything Ramsey had to turn and walk away from her, especially when all he wanted to do was take her in his arms. Had he finally found a woman who fit in his world and touched his soul only to lose her?

  It wasn’t until Ramsey was back in the great hall that he noticed how his fellow Warriors surrounded him, the Druids standing in a larger circle around his brethren. He saw the worry and concern etched onto the Warriors’ faces.

  “Say something,” Larena urged.

  Ramsey had learned early on that as the only female Warrior, Larena could hold her own against any of them. Anyone that underestimated her quickly realized their mistake.

  “What do you want me to say?” Ramsey asked. “Declan has effectively altered Tara’s mind by some form of torture. I have no idea how deep Declan has gone, or if it can be reversed.”

  Camdyn crossed his arms over his chest. “Or if we should.”

  There was that, but Ramsey didn’t want to think that far ahead. He wasn’t ready to give up all hope just yet.