by Donna Grant
Quinn took his time walking to the door that locked them in the Pit. As with everything, the door was made of stone, with a square large enough for food to be passed through but too small for anyone to escape through. Besides, Deirdre had used her magic, and no matter the power of a Warrior, he wouldn’t be able to flee the Pit without the door being opened.
And even then it was risky.
“What do you want?” Quinn demanded when he reached the door.
Broc flexed his great wings that loomed over his head and folded his arms over his chest. “Your time is running out.”
“Does Deirdre send you here to annoy me, because you aren’t telling me anything I don’t already know?”
Broc rolled his eyes. “You may be the smart one of the brothers, but sometimes, Quinn MacLeod, you are dense.”
Now that got Quinn’s attention. He moved closer to the door and lowered his voice. “What are you talking about?”
“Do you really believe Fallon and Lucan will come for you?”
“Without a doubt.” Though he’d had his reservations a time or two. After all, he hadn’t been the best of brothers.
Broc glanced at the guard to his left and lowered his voice. “She will make it difficult for them and you. She wants you, Quinn, wants you enough to make sure you never leave.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I think you need to understand where you stand. You’ve been in the Pit for a few weeks. You’ve stated your authority with the Warriors, which just proved to Deirdre that you are the one she needs.”
Quinn narrowed his gaze on Broc. “It doesna matter what she threatens me with, I will never succumb to her.”
“Be careful what you say,” Broc warned and backed up a step. “Your time is running out.”
Quinn wanted to call Broc back and ask why he had repeated that last statement. Just what did Broc know? Quinn knew better than to ask the Warrior, though he longed to call him back. If Broc had wanted him to know, the Warrior would have said.
Quinn turned and walked back to his cave. He didn’t stop at the entrance but continued inside to Marcail. As soon as she saw him, she stood, once Duncan had moved aside.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“One of Deirdre’s Warriors, named Broc. He’s the only Warrior I know that has wings.”
“Wings?” she repeated, her eyes wide.
Quinn nodded and glanced down to the torch that Duncan grabbed to relight. “Every Warrior is different.”
“I’m beginning to realize that,” she murmured. “What did Broc want?”
“To warn me.” Quinn looked from Arran to the twins. “Broc asked if I was sure my brothers would come.”
Arran snorted. “Of course they will come.”
Quinn began to wonder, though. Maybe Deirdre hadn’t told his brothers where he was, as he had been led to believe. Maybe she’d told Lucan and Fallon that he had joined her.
He should never have run from his brothers no matter how painful it was to see Lucan and Cara together. If, no, when, he escaped the mountain, Quinn was going straight to his brothers and begging their forgiveness for being such an arse for three centuries.
“What else did Broc say?” Ian asked.
Quinn shrugged. “He just wanted to remind me that Deirdre has noticed how I’ve taken over down here.”
“I assume that has pleased her,” Arran said dryly.
“Unfortunately.” Quinn looked down at his black claws. They were long and sharp and had seen much blood since his god had been unbound. How much more blood would have to be spilled before he found some peace?
Marcail’s hand touched his arm. In a heartbeat he tamped his god down. He didn’t like her being around him when he was transformed. It was silly, he knew. She saw the others in their Warrior form, but he had spent so many years with some part of his god showing that he wanted to prove to himself he was in complete control.
It took a moment for him to realize the others had left him and Marcail alone.
“They are never far from you,” she said of his men.
Quinn looked back at her hand on his arm. “You touch me more freely than anyone ever has.”
“And that bothers you?” She let her arm drop to her side.
“It should.”
“My grandmother taught us that sometimes a touch can do more for a person than any amount of words.”
Quinn clenched his hand in an effort not to wrap his fingers around her wrist and pull her against him. “Your grandmother was very wise.”
“Why is it my touch disturbs you so?”
“I told you. It’s because I’m not used to it.”
She shook her head, the rows of braids falling into her eyes. “That’s very sad.”
“My wife didn’t like my touch.”
Quinn wasn’t sure what made him share such a secret with Marcail. It could be because the Druid hadn’t judged him in any way, or it could be that he just wanted to talk about Elspeth.
Marcail grabbed his fist with both of her hands and gently pried open his fingers. She sat on the slab and tugged him down beside her. “What kind of woman wouldn’t want your touch? You’re a handsome man who comes from a powerful family. You had your pick of women, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Quinn confessed. “My wife and I grew up together. She was always following me around. As a lad she was an annoyance. When I got older we became friends.”
“She must have loved you very much.”
“I thought so.” And that had been his downfall. His mother had cautioned him on marrying Elspeth before looking around at other women, but Quinn hadn’t listened. He had paid dearly for his mistake.
“Were you married long?”
“Nearly four years.” It had felt like four lifetimes.
Marcail sighed, her hands still wrapped around his. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Quinn didn’t want to do any such thing. But his mouth opened, and the words spilled out. “Elspeth became pregnant almost immediately. I was so happy, and she seemed to be as well. She had a difficult time, though. She was sick most of her term and could rarely leave the bed. Any time I got near her she asked me to leave.”
“Some women’s bodies don’t have an easy time of it. None of that was your fault.”
He knew that now, but at the time he hadn’t. “When my son finally came I thought everything would be all right, but he was turned. She was in labor for hours. At one point, the midwife didna believe Elspeth would live. It was nearly two days after she went into labor that our son was born.”
“A joyous moment to be sure.”
Quinn smiled, recalling how Lucan, Fallon, and their parents had celebrated. “Oh, aye. It was a grand celebration, I was told later. I didn’t join in because I wanted to be with Elspeth.”
Marcail’s lips lifted in a smile. “As you should have been.”
“The midwife told Elspeth that she shouldna chance having any more children. She gave Elspeth some herbs to take daily so she wouldn’t swell with my child again.”
Marcail inwardly cringed. She knew what Quinn would say next, but she didn’t stop him. He needed to share this.
“Elspeth refused to take the herbs for fear they wouldn’t work, and I didn’t want to risk her life again. She wouldn’t even allow me to sleep in the bed with her because she thought I would force her.”
Marcail couldn’t believe Quinn’s wife had been so selfish. If she had really known Quinn, Elspeth would have realized he would never harm her.
“Did you never speak to her about it?” she asked.
Quinn shook his head. “I tried a few times in the beginning, but she wouldn’t listen to reason. I stopped trying after that.”
“No one knew, did they? Your family? They thought you were happy?”
The way Quinn looked at her, as if it was strange that she understood him, made her heart catch. The stories she had heard about the MacLeods didn’t tell much about the brothers. They
certainly never told her how handsome Quinn was or how he would make her wish she had the magic to give him all the happiness he wanted.
“Nay,” he answered after a long stretch of silence. “My family never knew. I wanted it that way. And yours? Did your grandmother know you were unhappy?”
Marcail released his hand and turned her head away. It was always easier listening to others than revealing anything about herself, especially a part she wished had never existed.
To her surprise, Quinn took her hand in one of his large ones. A finger from his other gently turned her face back to his.
“Is it too painful?”
“Only because I wish it had never happened. Rory wasn’t abusive, but he feared the magic that ran in my family’s blood.”
Quinn’s brows drew together at her words. “How powerful?”
“Powerful enough that my grandmother can hide the spell somewhere in my mind.”
“And your magic?”
She swallowed and lowered her eyes. “My mother and grandmother did not have an easy relationship. My mother thought we should forget the Druid ways. Because of that, I was not taught the spells, and my mother refused to allow my grandmother near me so I could be taught.”
“You don’t know magic?”
“I do, just not as I should. When my father was killed defending our village from wyrran, I think my mother realized how wrong she had been. Yet the grief she felt for my father’s death made her forget me and my brother. It wasn’t long afterward that she died. When my grandmother came, she began teaching me as much as she could, but too many years had gone by already.”
Quinn’s thumb rubbed over the back of her hand. “You know how to heal yourself.”
“Aye, and I can sense people’s moods. My grandmother said that was my greatest power that could have been much more had my mother done as she should have. You see, not every Druid has special magic.”
“Why is that?” He leaned back against the rocks and brought a knee up to place his arm on.
“My grandmother says it’s because they have either begun to drift from the Druid way or their magic wasn’t very strong to begin with.”
Quinn shook his head. “I doona understand. Either you have power or you doona. Cara, my brother’s woman, had no idea she was a Druid. We all discovered it by chance when she was trying to grow the garden.”
“Ah. It is a part of every mie to want to see something grow. We have that power.”
“As we discovered with Cara. It was when she got angry and the plant took it into itself and began to die that we realized the magic she had.”
“Is she learning of her magic? Is there a Druid to teach her?”
Quinn lifted a shoulder. “When I left, Lucan was talking about trying to search out a Druid for Cara, but I don’t know what has happened since I was taken.”
“If there isn’t a Druid to help Cara, then I will.”
“You are a good woman, Marcail.”
She smiled, at ease once more.
“Now, tell me of Rory.”
Nine
Quinn hated to say her husband’s name, to know that another man had tasted her lips and felt her skin on his. It made Quinn’s rage bubble forth all too quickly from unwanted jealousy. He fought to keep his god under control, praying Marcail didn’t notice how stiff he had become.
“There’s nothing to tell. I didn’t want to be married. It’s as simple as that.”
“Nothing is that straightforward,” Quinn said. “You might not have loved him, but you two could have been friends.”
“I don’t think that was ever a possibility,” she whispered. “He didn’t want to marry me any more than I wanted to marry him. Neither of us had a choice. We did what was best for the village.”
“What was best?” Quinn knew what it was like being married to someone he wished he weren’t. But at least he and Elspeth had been friends once upon a time. Marcail and Rory apparently couldn’t even say that.
Marcail leaned her head against the rocks and sighed. “I wasn’t happy when he died, but I was pleased to be free. He made me question everything about myself. He didn’t like my hair, he didn’t like my magic but hated when I didn’t know everything a Druid should know.”
“He might have been the best fighter your village had, but he was the wrong man for you.”
She chuckled. “Thank you. No one would admit that in the village.”
“They’re idiots.”
Her smile was infectious as she turned it on him. “You’ve made me laugh despite my situation.”
Just as he had earlier, he found himself drowning in her turquoise eyes, his body demanding he pull her against him and kiss her. To claim her lips and her body as his. He wanted nothing more than to have her arms wrap around his neck and hear her sigh as her body sank into his.
But then he thought of his conversation with Broc and the Warrior’s words of warning.
“You’re frowning,” Marcail said.
“Broc told me I was running out of time.”
“What does that mean?”
Quinn leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. His head dropped down as he blew out a deep breath. “I have no idea. I’m assuming it has something to do with Deirdre. Everything in this cursed place has to do with that bitch.”
“Lucan and Fallon will come, Quinn. I know they will.”
Quinn wished he had her confidence.
Charon tapped his copper claw against the rocks at the entrance to his cave. He hated the Pit, hated the mountain, but just as with the rest of them, he wouldn’t be leaving any time soon.
He would depart before many of them, though. Deirdre had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Everyone suspected there was a spy in the Pit, but no one had realized it was him.
Though he was interested in what Quinn MacLeod did, Charon didn’t enjoy spying when he was forced into it. He liked to choose his own vices, and he had many.
He was surprised at how quickly Quinn had stamped his domination over the Warriors in the Pit. Charon hadn’t fought him. Yet. It would come to that eventually. But Charon was biding his time.
Everyone had a weakness, including the great Quinn MacLeod. Charon would find that weak spot and use it to his advantage against Quinn and Deirdre. It was all a matter of time before Charon put this heap of stone behind him and got back to the pursuits he enjoyed.
Charon smiled at Arran, the white Warrior who always stood near Quinn. Arran didn’t trust Charon, as well he shouldn’t. What was interesting was Quinn saving the woman. Not that Charon wouldn’t have helped her.
He was a man after all. It had been a terribly long time since he had slaked his lust between a woman’s thighs. And the wee Druid was certainly delectable enough.
Quinn, however, had reached her first. And now Quinn sheltered her as if she were the answer to his prayers. Arran and the twins were never far from the woman either.
Fascinating, very fascinating.
Charon wasn’t surprised when Arran walked across the space to him. “More protective than usual, aren’t you?”
Arran stopped in front of him. “Tell me, Charon, why haven’t you sided with us? You don’t help Deirdre. The more Warriors on Quinn’s side, the better our chances of escaping.”
“It’s been many decades since anyone has escaped from this mountain. I doona expect to be seeing someone do it anytime soon.”
“Why not help?”
“Why should I?” Charon asked.
A muscle in Arran’s jaw jumped. “Because we’re put in here to either die or convert. Personally, I would rather do neither. Quinn is our best hope.”
“He’s your best hope. For me, I look to myself.”
“One day you’re going to need my help, and I’m going to be in the position to tell you nay.”
Charon laughed. “That day will never come.”
“We shall see,” Arran said before he turned on his heel and strode away.
He kept the smile in place
even as Arran disappeared into Quinn’s cave. Charon didn’t like predictions of any kind, because he had learned early on just how far a foretelling could go.
Marcail tried to pass the time by thinking of the spells her grandmother had taught her instead of gazing at Quinn like a girl who had never seen a handsome man before.
She had seen handsome men, but none of them had been Quinn MacLeod.
For all her words to Quinn, Marcail had kept much of her mother’s ideas throughout her learning. The Druid ways hadn’t been part of Marcail’s upbringing, so to hear her grandmother spout words such as “war to end all wars” and “the end of all that is good in this world” hadn’t meant much to Marcail.
They hadn’t until Dunmore and the wyrran had shown up at her village. All the while Marcail had run through the forest she had tried to recall every word her grandmother had ever told her. But it was too late.
The magic she should have held easily within her body didn’t respond when she called it forth. She could heal herself, aye, but only because her grandmother had made her do it every day while she had been alive.
Her grandmother had made Marcail practice it so often that it had become second nature to her, unlike any of her other magic. Marcail’s one great power, discerning people’s feelings, came to her at unexpected times. And other times, like now, when she wanted to discover what kept Quinn so reserved, her magic ignored her call.
It was beyond frustrating. And she hated herself at that moment. Her grandmother had tried to warn her, tried to prepare her for what was to come. Maybe it was because Marcail hadn’t paid attention as she should have that her grandmother had buried the spell to bind the gods in Marcail’s mind.
Marcail held out her hands. The flickering light of the torch cast her hands in a red-orange glow. She had the hands of a Druid, with strong Druid blood in her veins, but she couldn’t help the men around her fight a relentless evil.
At one time the mie could have stood against Deirdre, but Deirdre had kept her growing power to herself, quietly hunting along the countryside for any Druids and stealing their power. By the time that the mie realized what she was about, Deirdre’s magic was too strong. It would have taken many mie standing against Deirdre, and the Druids, both mie and drough alike, were too afraid of her.
