by Donna Grant
“That looks to be our way out.”
Saffron shook her head. “There is nothing for us if we retrace our steps.”
“I have a feeling we willna be retracing our steps,” Camdyn said as he pulled her to her feet.
Sure enough, as soon as they stepped into the hallway, they could tell they were in a different location. No more water ran down the walls, but they were covered in even more spiderwebs.
Saffron walked with her shoulders hunched forward in the middle of the tunnel so she wouldn’t have to touch the walls. She didn’t look down, not even when she felt something crunch beneath her foot.
“Duck,” Camdyn warned her.
Saffron didn’t look up, just did as he told her. She bent as low to the ground as she could without actually touching the stones beneath her feet.
“You can stand now.”
She could feel the terror fill her, the absolute spine-tingling chills that raced along her skin. Because there were spiders.
Camdyn took her hand and they began to run down the tunnel. She should have cautioned him about booby traps, but all she wanted to do was get as far from the spiders as she could.
A glance upward showed there were spiders hanging on the walls and from the ceiling. Huge spiders, small spiders. It didn’t matter the size, they were spiders.
The tunnel led them to the left, right, left, right, and left again until Camdyn skidded to a halt. Saffron was out of breath, but she would have run for days if it got her away from her fear.
“I think we’re past it now,” Camdyn said as he looked at her.
She could feel his gaze searching her face. Saffron nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”
He turned and looked around them.
“Where are we?” she asked as she ran her hands up and down her arms, wishing for her jacket once more. She should have known better than to forget it, but the maze with its magic was sending her emotions on a never-ending roller coaster ride.
“Looks like we need to decide whether to go left or right.”
“We have one more artifact,” she said.
He gave a single nod and touched his pocket where the key rested. “One more, then we awaken Laria.”
Saffron smoothed the hair away from her eyes with her hand and tried to keep a tight rein on her anger and frustration that were slowly mounting. If she didn’t get out of the maze soon she was going to erupt like Mount Vesuvius.
“You decide,” she told him, and put her hand against the wall.
Instead of her hand propping her up, she felt herself falling.
“Camdyn!” she screamed as the wall turned and she tumbled into a darkened room.
She turned and pounded on the wall, hoping she could get back to Camdyn.
“Camdyn! Camdyn, can you hear me!”
She shouted until her throat was raw, but not once did he answer her. But even worse, she heard the unmistakable sound of spiders.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
Camdyn tried to reach Saffron before the wall turned, but he missed her. He shoved his shoulder into the wall twice to try and move it as it had for her.
“Saffron! Saffron, are you all right?”
Her scream echoed in his head, reminding him he had failed to protect her. His god raged inside him, and Camdyn didn’t bother to try and tamp him down. He released his god, and threw back his head with a roar.
“Saffron!”
When she didn’t answer, he punched the wall, kicked the wall, and even scoured the stones with his claws. But nothing would make it budge.
Camdyn splayed his hands on the wall, and that’s when he felt the thrum of magic. “Damned Druids,” he muttered.
He had no idea where Saffron was or if she was injured. But he wouldn’t give up finding her. He told himself it was because of obligation and his promise to her, but he suspected it went much deeper than that.
Camdyn moved along the wall until the steady feel of magic began to fade. Then he balled his fist and rammed it into the wall. The stones crumbled around him.
He peeled back his lips over his fangs and growled as he began to tear down the wall stone by stone. If it took him dismantling the maze in order to find Saffron he’d do it.
“I’m coming, Saffron!” he bellowed. “Doona give up!”
He shoved aside another weighty stone. “Doona give up,” he muttered. “I’ll find you.”
* * *
The fear held Saffron in its steely grip. She couldn’t move, even though she knew spiders were all around her. All she had to do was run, to step on them, but her body was frozen.
She couldn’t see the spiders, but she knew they were there. Thousands of them, and they were all coming toward her. Her breathing was ragged, her heart pounding like a drum in her ear, and her blood had turned to ice.
Saffron hated the terror inside her, the anxiety and fright, but the years of Declan torturing her with spiders had only expanded her arachnophobia into something more than just a fear.
It paralyzed her.
“Is this your fear?” a voice like dozens of people speaking at once whispered.
Saffron felt the tears run down her cheeks as a spider dangled in front of her face. All she had to do was swipe it away and step on it.
If she could only move.
“You are a Druid. With magic.”
Saffron screamed when a spider landed on her arm from above and bit her. That scream released her from her paralysis and she screamed and screamed and screamed.
All those years of holding everything in so Declan wouldn’t know she was terrified, all those years of hiding how hurt she was by her mother’s indifference. All those years of pretending she was fine by herself exploded.
She threw out her arms and magic erupted from her hands. Saffron moved her hands everywhere she thought there were spiders. She might be too afraid to get near them, but her magic could do it for her.
The more she used her magic to kill the spiders, the more her fear began to fade. Everything she had held in all those years dissipated until the spiders were no longer giants in her subconscious ruling her life.
The magic was healing her, and it felt glorious. Saffron closed her eyes and let the magic pour from her, surround her.
Take her.
* * *
Camdyn’s stomach plummeted to his feet when he heard Saffron’s screams. He bellowed her name and clawed through the stones faster and faster.
He called to his god to help him. It was a risky thing. The gods inside them wanted control, and if a Warrior was weak minded or gave too much to the god, the god would rule them.
It was a gamble Camdyn was willing to take. For Saffron. She had suffered as no Druid ever should have, and she was suffering again.
He’d kept in contact with other Warriors like Galen who he’d seen through the centuries. But Camdyn had retreated into himself after Allison’s death.
It wasn’t until he’d met Saffron that he’d felt such a riot of emotions. She made him angry, made him want to throttle her. But she made him want to smile and laugh. And she made him yearn for her with a hunger that consumed him.
Although he knew he needed to put distance between them before he got too close to her, he did the unthinkable and shifted part of his control to his god, Sculel.
Camdyn felt the increase in his strength immediately. He roared when he heard Saffron scream again. He tore through the wall that was several feet thick and found himself in another tunnel that ran alongside the chamber Saffron was in.
The magic surrounding the chamber was enough to stop even a Warrior from entering.
“Nay,” he bellowed and slammed a fist into the stones.
The fact that the stones didn’t even shake against his onslaught told him how powerful the magic was. He was cursing his luck when he spotted a door.
Camdyn ran to the door and put his hand on it. He could feel the magic in it, could feel the potent power. He laid his hands upon the door and dropped his forehead a
gainst the thick wood when he heard Saffron scream again.
If anything happened to her …
Nay. He wouldn’t let himself think it. He couldn’t. He had to stay focused and find a way to reach her. He was all she had to save her from whatever was inside, and by the sounds of her screams, she was terrified.
“Saffron!”
Her screams fell silent, and Camdyn lost what little hold he had on his rage. He pounded on the door, slashing it with his claws as he bellowed her name over and over again.
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that before the door suddenly opened. Camdyn was instantly wary. His claws were ready and eager for blood, his god hungry for death. If anything was in there besides Saffron, it was dead.
Camdyn spotted a faint light through the crack in the door. He nudged the heavy door with his toe and peeked around it. What he saw stopped him in his tracks.
Saffron hung suspended in the middle of the chamber with her arms held out to the side. A faint, pale light emanated from her hands and feet. Her eyes were closed, her face serene.
And then the force of her magic slammed into him.
Camdyn doubled over, not from pain, but from the intense pleasure of her magic. He went instantly hard, his need so strong, his yearning so powerful, he wanted to take Saffron right then.
To lay her down on the stone altar he saw behind her and cut away her clothes with his claws. He wanted her body bared to him so he could look his fill at her breasts.
He wanted to spread her legs wide and slowly enter her. To hear her moans of pleasure, her cries of passion as he thrust in and out of her sex.
Camdyn cupped his aching cock and shifted it to help ease his need, but nothing was going to help him until he was inside Saffron. Claiming her.
He straightened with a grimace and looked around the chamber for whatever had harmed her. But all he saw was the altar behind her, and a door beyond that.
“Camdyn.”
His gaze jerked to Saffron, whose eyes were open and looking at him. He took a slow, measured step toward her. Camdyn wasn’t sure if she had done this to herself, or if someone else had. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.
“You came for me,” she whispered.
“I told you I would. I doona make promises I doona intend to keep.”
A single tear fell down her cheek, and it was his undoing. He tamped down his god, briefly noticing the ease with which he did it, and strode to her until he had to look up at her to see into her face.
The light emitted from her hands and feet began to fade as she lowered to the floor. And with it, her magic diminished as well.
Camdyn ached at the loss of it, but at the same time, he was able to gain a measure of control over the yearning he felt for her. It was a small amount, but more than he had had a moment before.
Her feet touched the floor and she walked over to him. Camdyn stood silently as she wrapped her arms around him and laid her head upon his chest. Hesitantly, he folded her in his arms and simply held her.
“What happened?” he asked.
“The spiders. They were everywhere. All over me, the walls, the floor, the ceiling. I couldn’t get away. Couldn’t move because of my fear.”
Camdyn ran a hand up and down her back as she began to shake.
“I heard a voice, but I was too scared to listen. And then a spider bit me.” Her head lifted so that he looked down into her face. “I don’t know what happened, Camdyn. It’s like something flipped inside me. My magic took over.”
He cupped one of her cheeks and smoothed away the remnant of the tear. “Whatever happened, it’s over now. There are no spiders.”
She frowned and glanced at the floor. “The voice. It asked me about my fear. The spiders. I killed them. Thousands of them. Where are the bodies?”
“I see none.”
“Exactly. The voice then told me I was a Druid, that I had magic. After that is when I snapped.”
“So you think this was a test?”
She sniffed and gave a half shrug. “If it was, who ever came up with this idea needs to suffer their own fear a hundred times over.”
He had to agree, because the terror that had taken him at not being able to reach Saffron had been the worst thing he had ever experienced in his very long life. And he didn’t care to ever repeat it.
A test for her? Or had it been a test for him? Maybe for both. He had managed to give a measure of control to his god, and somehow he’d gotten it back. He’d never attempted that before, but he hadn’t hesitated. Because it had been Saffron who needed him.
“A test or no’, you defeated whatever was in this room so that I could get to you. There was magic blocking me from getting in.”
“Me? I defeated what was in the room?”
“Aye. You.”
She shook her head and tried to step out of his arms, but he held her tight. “I don’t have that kind of power in my magic.”
“I think you do.”
They stood locked in each other’s gazes for several moments before Camdyn looked away. He had to or take her lips again. Need rode him, and he wanted nothing more than to taste her, but now was not the time to give in to his desires.
“There is a door behind the altar,” he said.
Saffron turned to look at it. She walked toward it, and as she passed the altar she let her hand run over the stone.
Camdyn followed her, never more than a step behind. He wasn’t going to let them be separated again. Next time he might not be able to reach her.
She turned to look at him, excitement making her tawny eyes dance. “There’s a lock on the door.”
“Perfect, since we have only the key left.”
She nodded. “You do it.”
“We do it together,” he said.
Camdyn pulled out the key. When she had taken it he wrapped his fingers around hers, and together they inserted the ancient key and turned. The click as it unlocked seemed overly loud in the quiet of the room.
They paused as the walls began to shake around them. Camdyn strained his ears to listen. “It sounds like doors opening. Or closing. I can no’ tell which.”
“Let’s finish,” Saffron said.
“We have.”
“Nay, we haven’t.”
Camdyn turned the key once more with her, and to his surprise there was another click before the key was yanked out of their grasp and disappeared into the lock.
He moved so that he was in front of Saffron as the door creaked open.
* * *
Fallon and the others jumped up as a gust of wind poured into the cavern from one of the doorways, as if inviting them in.
“Saffron and Camdyn must have done it,” Logan said.
Dani paused beside the door and smiled. “This is the way we need to go.”
“Then let’s hurry,” Fallon said as he took Larena’s hand in his own.
Finally, Deirdre was about to be ended.
Finally, they could have their family and the future they’d craved.
* * *
Saffron didn’t mind that Camdyn was walking ahead of her into the room, but when she heard his sharp intake of breath she hurried to stand beside him.
Then gasped herself.
In the middle of the large chamber was another altar, and upon it lay a woman with long golden-blond hair wearing a medieval dress of dark green.
“We did it,” Saffron whispered.
Camdyn turned his dark eyes to her. “You did it.”
Saffron briefly forgot all about the woman as Camdyn’s fingers wrapped around hers. Never in her life had she thought she could have survived all those spiders, but she had. It wasn’t on her own though. Camdyn had given her that strength, he had given her the courage.
Because she hadn’t wanted to give up as she had so many times in Declan’s prison. No, she had wanted a life, and she was willing to do whatever it took to have it.
To have Camdyn, even if just for a little while.
C
HAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
Camdyn lost himself in Saffron’s tawny gaze. He was adrift, floating. Swept away. And he never wanted it to end.
The mix of excitement and passion in her gaze was too much for him. As one, they faced each other. He rested his hand on the small of her back and pulled her closer as her hands lay atop his arms.
She had dirt smudged on her cheek, her hair was disheveled, and her clothes dirty. But in his eyes she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
“Camdyn,” she whispered as she leaned toward him.
He desperately wanted to kiss her, to drink in the exquisite taste of her. How he ached to drown in her scent of midnight and snow.
His fingers curled, pulling her toward him. Her lips parted and it sent a jolt of longing through him straight to his cock. A longing so profound that Camdyn knew if he kissed her, if he gave in to the desire pulsing for her, he would be lost in her.
Her lids slowly closed as his face drew near hers. A soft exhale reached his ears. Her face tilted up to his, as eager for his kiss as he was for hers.
But just before his lips touched hers, his enhanced hearing heard the unmistakable sound of feet running toward them.
Camdyn’s eyes memorized Saffron’s face for the long years ahead of him before he released her and took a step back. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he knew he had saved himself by doing so.
Saffron’s eyes fluttered open. The passion melted from her face to be replaced by confusion and a thread of anger. She had every right to be cross. Camdyn couldn’t keep his hands off her. Couldn’t stop looking at her.
Couldn’t stop hungering for the one thing he couldn’t have.
But he also couldn’t give her what she wanted.
She took a deep breath, her eyes brimming with fury. But before she could let loose with the scolding he knew he had coming, Arran and Logan came to a halt at the doorway.
Camdyn turned to them as the others filed in behind the Warriors. He wasn’t sure what to say or do. He felt like the worst kind of arse for continually kissing Saffron yet pushing her away at the same time.
There were words he needed to say to her, but they caught in his throat. He wasn’t a charmer, wasn’t one who always knew what to say. And in this instance, it was better to keep his words to himself, to keep Saffron from knowing how much he wanted her.
