* * *
27
SAMHAIN
TWENTY-NINE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
“That’s it, Jessica. The wards are down. You ken what that means?”
Taking a slow, deep breath, Jessi nodded. “Yes,” she replied softly. “Lucan will be able to enter the castle now, but he won’t be able to use sorcery.”
“Doona make the mistake of thinking you’re safe from him, lass. He can still harm you in the way of any man. I want you to wear this.”
He fastened a sheath snugly to her forearm, then slipped a plain-handled dirk into it, tip to her elbow, handle at her wrist. “Don your sweater over it.”
She obeyed tensely.
“Do this.” He made a twisting motion with his hand. “Drop it down.”
She mimicked his movement, surprised by how well it worked, smoothly guiding the handle into her palm.
He helped her resheathe it. “He’s desperate, Jessica. ’Tis the only reason he’s agreed to this. Doona think he’s truly agreed to it. Expect deceit. Expect last-minute treachery. It will come.”
She glanced up at him sharply. There’d been a strange certainty in his voice when he’d said the last: It will come. As if he knew something she didn’t.
“But you said yesterday that you thought he would pass the tithe through the glass and go away,” she protested anxiously. “You said you thought he’d focus on finding the Dark Book before he would come back and try to take the mirror from the Keltar. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? To buy a little more time. Right?”
He stared down at her a long, pensive moment. “I’m but advising you to be on constant guard, lass. Constant,” he repeated. “Watch yourself. Doona let your defenses down for even a second. You’ve no way of knowing what might happen from one moment to the next. Remember that. Be prepared for anything. Anything.”
“You’re starting to worry me. What do you think—”
“Hush, lass,” he cut her off. “I must go. Time is short and we doona wish him to see me. He believes you act alone. He must continue to believe that. But doona fear, I will be watching over you.”
Halfway down the corridor, he turned back. “Constant guard, lass,” he hissed.
Jessi swallowed. She tensed her wrist, feeling the weight of the blade. “Constant guard, Dageus,” she echoed. “I promise.”
Twenty minutes to midnight.
Jessi shivered as she hurried down the corridor. Five days ago, when she’d promised Cian that she wouldn’t watch him die, she’d possessed great determination but little hope.
Later that night, however, her circumstances had changed drastically.
After the mirror had reclaimed Cian, she’d left the Silver Chamber and hastened to the library to open communications with Lucan. She’d been sitting at the computer, her inbox open, about to click on one of his E-mails, when Dageus had stepped from behind the drapes, catching her in the act. He’d told her he’d been in the library a few nights ago, and knew she’d been receiving E-mails from Trevayne.
As she’d gaped up at him, half expecting to be dragged off to some medieval dungeon for punishment, he’d further shocked her by saying, How bad do you want him to live, lass?
Figuring she had nothing left to lose at that point, she’d told him, in no uncertain terms. I’d do anything. Even make him hate me.
He won’t hate you, lass, Dageus had assured her. If aught, he’ll hate me.
She was counting on that. Not that he would hate Dageus, but that he would eventually forgive her for helping his enemy pass the tithe through to keep him alive.
I thought you said you didn’t know of any way to free him. Why would you do this?
Why would you? he’d countered.
Because I believe there has to be a way to get him out of there, that we just need a little more time to find it.
I believe there’s a way to get him out of there, too, lass, he’d replied after a brief pause.
Really? Her heart had soared at those words.
It was one thing for her to believe it; she was desperate enough to cling to any hope and she knew it. But if a Keltar Druid believed it, it was more than just possible, it was probable. No, it was an eventual certainty. There was no way Dageus and Drustan would run the risk of Trevayne ever getting the Dark Book, which meant they had to be convinced they could ultimately free Cian, and reasonably quickly after the tithe was paid.
It had been nearly impossible to conceal her change in spirits from Cian. Especially today—on what he’d thought was their last day together—but she’d managed. Dageus had been insistent she discuss their plans with no one, even going so far as to say he wouldn’t help her at all if she failed to convince Cian that she believed tonight was his last night alive. He believes ’tis the only way, lass, Dageus had warned, I fear he will become difficult if he suspects we plan to stop him.
Though acting the part had nearly killed her—thank God, she’d not had to actually live it!—she’d been convincing, unwilling to jeopardize her only chance to save him.
E-mail Trevayne, Dageus had instructed her that night. Tell him you’ll help him get in the castle to pass the tithe through. But the Keltar keep the mirror.
She’d done it. At first Trevayne had refused, offering myriad alternatives, all of which she’d rejected at Dageus’s behest.
But late last night, twenty-four hours from the zero-hour to the minute, Trevayne had finally agreed.
And now—Jessi paused at the back door, inhaling sharply—he was here. Making her skin crawl. She could feel him through the wood of the door, cold, dark, rotten, and much, much too close for comfort.
And about to get closer.
He’d accepted her deal only when she’d pledged herself as his hostage.
You must let me use you to get in and out of the castle.
Eyes wide, she’d stared up at Dageus. Nostrils flaring, he’d shaken his head curtly. But the dark sorcerer had refused to come onto Keltar-warded land any other way, and Dageus had finally nodded.
How do I know this isn’t a trap? Trevayne had typed.
How do I? she’d countered.
There’d not been much to say after that. It had been the bottom line, really. They were both risking all. And they knew it.
She glanced at her watch.
It was eighteen minutes to midnight.
Dageus had been adamant they give Trevayne barely enough time to get to the mirror and pass the tithe through. I doona want him to have a single moment with you during which he doesn’t have to keep moving. Once it’s over, I’ll show myself and we’ll get him out of the castle.
It was now or never.
She braced herself for Trevayne’s hideous appearance.
Whatever happened from this moment forth, she would betray no fear, no weakness. She was Jessica MacKeltar, wife of Cian, and she would do him proud.
The bastard she was about to let in Castle Keltar had held her husband imprisoned for eleven hundred and thirty-three years and, though she’d never thought herself a violent person, she’d plunge her concealed dagger into Trevayne’s heart in an instant if she thought she had a snowball’s chance in hell of killing him.
She slid the deadbolt back and turned the doorknob.
“Lucan,” she said coolly, inclining her head.
“Good evening, Jessica,” Trevayne replied with a cordial smile. Sort of.
When he took her arm, Jessi barely suppressed her revulsion.
Dageus stood in the shadows of the corridor off the balustrade that overlooked the great hall, listening intently. Upon leaving Jessica, he’d loped up the back stairs, taking turn after turn, wending a circuitous route to his current position, all to avoid passing Cian’s mirror.
His brother, Gwen, and Chloe were safely ensconced in a chamber two corridors down. Until a few hours ago, he’d had to conceal his plans from even them so none could inadvertently betray it to Cian by thinking about it in their powerful ancestor’s presence.
’Ti
s too dangerous, Drustan had growled.
’Tis the only way, brother, he’d replied.
The Draghar knew this for a certainty?
Aye.
Too many things could go awry, Dageus. You have no way of controlling what happens.
Dageus hadn’t bothered arguing. It was a long shot and he knew it. He was doing little more than setting the stage, and hoping his instincts about the actors involved would prove true.
Drustan had been reluctant to agree, until Dageus had assured him that no matter what happened, Trevayne would not pass the tithe through. That he would stop him himself if necessary. But not until the last possible second, he’d added in the privacy of his mind.
A few dozen yards away, mounted on the wall of the landing, high above the great hall hung the Unseelie Dark Glass.
It was flat silver.
He imagined his ancestor inside it. Was Cian stretched out on his stone floor, arms behind his head, staring up at the stone ceiling, waiting for death?
If so, he knew the mere waiting was killing his ancestor a thousand times over. ’Twasn’t in a Keltar’s blood to accept death. Especially not once he’d found his mate and given the binding vows. Dageus knew. He’d been in far too similar a position himself.
Indeed, it was the similarity in their positions that had given him this idea to begin with.
He glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes to midnight.
Expect deceit, he’d told Jessica. Expect last-minute treachery. It will come.
What he’d not told her was that ’twould come not from Lucan but from him.
_______
Cian had been listening to the clock in the great hall below him chime the passing hours all evening.
’Twas now but mere minutes to midnight, and he was as prepared as he would ever be to draw his final breaths. He’d conjured a perfect mental vision of Jessica’s face in his mind hours ago, and he intended to die holding it there.
It was jarred slightly by the sound of approaching footsteps. She’d promised not to watch, he’d thought, stiffening.
Then he jerked ramrod straight and pushed up from the floor as another sound reached his disbelieving ears.
The hated sound of Lucan Trevayne’s laughter.
Nay! ’Twas not possible! There was no way the bastard could get inside Castle Keltar! Not without someone helping—
“Och, Christ, nay, lass,” he whispered. “Tell me you wouldn’t. Tell me you didn’t.”
But he didn’t need to seek visual confirmation of what he’d just heard to know she had. And the truth was, he couldn’t blame her. He’d not have let her die, either. He’d have moved mountains. He’d have battled God or Devil for his wife’s life.
She’d betrayed him.
He smiled faintly.
And in so doing, she’d honored him beyond measure. His Jessica loved him enough to break all the rules for him, enough to damn the whole world just to save him.
He’d have done no less for her. He’d have kept her alive by any means possible.
“Highlander,” Trevayne’s voice rang out triumphantly in the great hall, “you’re mine for another century.”
His smile faded. Unfortunately, her actions changed nothing. “Over my dead body,” he murmured. Which, as he’d always known, was the only way.
_______
Jessi gazed up at the landing, high above the hall where, for the past two weeks, she’d slept every night unless Cian had been free to sleep in a bed with her.
Framed in the mirror, he stared down at her as she stood arm in arm with his enemy. He closed his eyes briefly, as if trying to cleanse the image from his vision. Then he said softly, “Call me out, lass. You doona wish to do this. You must let me stop him.”
Jessi glanced at the tall grandfather clock in the alcove to the left of the staircase. Five minutes to midnight.
Biting her lip, she shook her head.
“Jessica, you’re not just keeping me alive, you’re letting him live. We’ve been through this. You must summon me out.”
Spine straight with resolve, she shook her head again.
When the mirror blazed brilliantly and the hall was suddenly skewed by that odd sense of spatial distortion, for a moment Jessi simply couldn’t make sense of it.
Then Dageus stepped from the shadows behind the balustrade and she realized he must have murmured the chant to release Cian—the chant she herself had told him that first night in the library—softly enough that only Cian had been able to hear.
But why?
“Dageus—what are you—why did you—oh!” she cried. He was moving protectively toward the Dark Glass, making his intentions all too clear.
She was too stunned by Dageus’s betrayal to register the danger she was in until it was too late.
Lucan dropped a silken cord over her head and had it cinched tightly around the slender column of her throat, the choke handles twisted before she even knew what he was doing.
“You son of a bitch, let her go!” Cian roared, bursting from the mirror.
Rather than releasing her, Lucan turned the choke handles just a bit.
Jessica went stiff and still. She understood the use of those handles, she was familiar with the garrote as an ancient weapon. One twist and she was dead. She didn’t dare move even the few inches necessary to try to use the dagger Dageus had given her.
Expect anything, he’d said.
Now, she thought bitterly, she knew why.
Three minutes to midnight.
Lucan had his wife hostage, a garrote about her neck.
“Get back in the mirror, Highlander. Return to it willingly and I’ll let her live. Move. Now.”
Cian stretched his senses. He should have felt it earlier, but he’d had no reason to suspect anything. Aye, the wards barring Lucan from the castle were down.
But the wards preventing Lucan from using sorcery were still up. Which meant Cian could use a spell on the bastard and Lucan wouldn’t be able to counter it.
He opened his mouth, and just as he did, Lucan hissed, “Say one word in sorcerer’s tongue and she’s dead. I won’t give you the chance to bespell me. If I hear one wrong syllable, I’ll snap her neck.”
Cian closed his mouth, a muscle working in his jaw.
“And that goes for you too,” he barked at Dageus. “Either of you start a spell and she dies. Get back in the glass, Keltar. Now. I’m coming up to pass the tithe through.”
Centuries of hatred and fury filled Cian as he stared down at the man who’d stolen his life so long ago and was now threatening his woman.
Vengeance: ’Twas what he’d lived and breathed for for so long, he’d nearly lost his own humanity.
’Til his fiery, passionate Jessica had come along.
Once he’d hungered for nothing more than to see Lucan Trevayne dead. No matter the cost. In truth, it hadn’t been so many days ago that he’d hungered for it above all else—twenty-six days ago, to be exact.
Now, staring down at his ancient enemy holding his woman captive, something inside him changed.
He no longer cared if Lucan lived or died. All that mattered was getting the bastard’s hands off his wife long enough to save her. Nothing else. Just that his woman live. That she see another dawn, be granted another day. She was his light, his truth, his highest aspiration.
Love for her filled him so completely that, in the space between one heartbeat and the next, eleven centuries of hatred and lust for vengeance were burned out of him as if they’d never been.
Trevayne was no longer his problem. Only Jessica was.
A quiet resolve, an unexpected serenity filled him, unlike anything he’d ever felt before.
“I would have bargained with the devil for you, too, lass,” he said softly. “I’d have done anything too. I love you, Jessica. You are my one true mate, lass. Never forget that.”
“Back in the glass, Highlander,” Lucan snarled. “Or she dies. I mean it! Now!”
“You want to pass the
tithe through, Lucan? Fine. Be my guest. I won’t stop you.”
In one smooth, fluid motion, he turned, lifted the mirror from the wall, spun about, and tossed it into the air, casting it end over end, out and over fifty-odd stairs, down to the hard marble floor below.
“Catch.”
For the second time in her life, events unfolded for Jessi as if in slow motion.
With Cian’s admission that she was his one true mate ringing in her ears, she watched the only thing that could keep him alive plummet to virtually certain destruction.
She knew why he’d done it. To save her. Trevayne could not both hold her and go after the mirror. Cian had forced him to choose.
Her husband knew his ancient enemy well. Of course he’d go after the mirror. Survive now, live to kill another day.
The rope slackened around her neck as Lucan released the handles and lunged forward.
She tugged the garrote from her throat and dropped it to the floor, watching, heart pounding.
If, by some miracle, Lucan managed to actually catch the man-sized looking glass, she wouldn’t be surprised if the ancient mirror shattered merely from the impact of him stopping its fall.
Eyes huge, she tipped her head back and up. Cian stood at the top of the stairs, staring down at her. Love blazed in his eyes so fiercely, so intensely, that it took her breath away.
She stared at him, drinking him in. She knew she’d never make it up the stairs in time to touch him. To hold him. To kiss him just one last time.
Lucan was almost beneath the glass.
Almost.
She caught her breath and held it. Miracles sometimes happened. Maybe he’d reach it, shove the tithe through, and they’d all live to fight another day.
Mere inches from Lucan’s outstretched hands, the mirror crashed to the floor. One corner of the ornate golden frame struck marble with the sharp report of a gunshot.
The Dark Glass shattered into thousands of silvery, tinkling pieces.
To Jessi, it seemed as if the entire universe froze but for those glittering shards of silver cascading across the floor.
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