She doubled over in agony. Her knees gave out, and she went down on the ground. She hugged her arms around her stomach, but it took her almost ten minutes of moaning and rocking before she got the strength to rise to her feet.
She stumbled on for the rest of the day. The pains tormented her every step of the way, and she collapsed several times. By sundown when she reached the south coast, she started coughing up bloody chunks of lung tissue.
She hurried as best she could. Christie. She couldn’t think of anything else. Christie would heal her. He alone could save her from this—from everything. She hunted up and down the coast until she found a fisherman scrubbing down the deck of his boat.
“Will you take me over to Mull?” she asked. “I can pay you.”
“What do ye want to go over there for?” he asked. “Ye dinnae want to go over there.”
“I’ll decide where I want to go,” she replied. “Do you want to money or not?”
He took the money and sailed her over. He dropped anchor and rowed her to a beach.
“Can you tell me how to find Duart Castle?” she asked.
He pointed up the coast. “That way.”
He left without a word, and she followed his directions. She walked into the dark until she couldn’t find her way anymore. She hunkered down under a tree. She hugged her knees to her chest and buried her head in her arms to wait until morning.
The stabbing pains got worse and more frequent as time went on. Her nose dripped blood, and she tasted it in her mouth. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t die when she was so close to finding Christie.
Her heart ached for him. She dreamed of his arms protecting her, or his soft eyes gazing into her soul. All the answers she ever sought lived in him.
No one else could help her, and that didn’t have anything to do with being Faery or a werewolf or anything else. It was just him and his big beautiful heart that he gave away without any hesitation or hope of compensation. That’s just the kind of guy he was.
At the first glimmer of dawn, she struggled to her feet and continued on down the road. She spied Duart in the distance long before she reached it. Its tall towers wavered in the sea mist.
For a moment, it resembled something out of a dream. It came and went from the visible world until the sun broke through the mist and made it glow.
She hurried down the road and up to its front door. She banged on the wooden planks, and the sound echoed inside. No one came to answer. Alexis looked around. For the first time, she noticed there was no one around. She was alone.
She knocked again, and when no one came, she tried the latch. It popped open and the door creaked back on its hinges. She stepped into the entrance hall, and her foot echoed on the stone floor.
She looked around and came to the Great Hall. Lining the floor in orderly rows lay dozens and dozens of bodies covered with blankets. The whole place rang silent as the grave. Alexis’s skin prickled. At that moment, another devastating spasm hit her. She doubled over and hit the floor.
She jammed her elbows into her gut and moaned in agony. Her journey couldn’t end like this. She couldn’t come all this way to find Christie, only to find Mull devastated instead. He could be dead in this castle, but she dared not pull back those blankets to find out.
Tears came to her eyes, and when they fell, drops of blood landed on her hands. She was dying, just like these people. She had nowhere in the world to go. These were the wolf people—her people. If she died, she better die here with them.
After a long time, the pain subsided enough for her to stand up. She explored every room in the castle. Hundreds of bodies lay everywhere, in beds, in rooms, on floors, and on benches. Not one person was left alive.
She climbed the stairs from one floor to another. She searched the whole castle with a sinking heart. At last, she made her way up to the roof. The island and the brooding ocean lay all around her. The surf hissed on the shore. The sun sparkled on the moors. No one could ask for a more beautiful place, but it was utterly empty.
Alexis gazed out over the countryside and the sea. Something inside her fought to break the surface. She struggled to contain it, but it wouldn’t lie still. It boiled out of her deepest insides until she couldn’t hold it in.
She flung her arms into the air and threw back her head. She cried out at the top of her lungs, even though she knew no one could hear her. “Christie! Christie!” Her voice broke with sobs, but she couldn’t stop screaming his name to the four winds. “Christie! Christie!”
Chapter 23
Christie pulled his saber and hacked his way through the fluttering trolls hitting him in the face. He fought his way to the door of the Grand Hall. He couldn’t see his comrades anywhere, but he heard Lachlan roaring above the noise. “Christie! Where are ye, lad?”
“I’m here, mon,” Christie called back. “Where are ye?”
“I dinnae have a weapon,” Lachlan cried. “Help me!”
Christie spun around in a rage. He chopped through the tide of monsters heading toward the sound. He carved a hole in the cloud of wings until he spotted something golden flashing by the window.
He fought toward it until he saw Lachlan, but he couldn’t reach his brother. The harder he fought, the more trolls crowded all over him. He could barely swing his blade.
He pulled his dirk. “Lachlan!”
“I’m here,” Lachlan cried. “I cannae hold them off.”
“Here, mon.” Christie dropped on one knee. He slid his dirk across the floor. “Take this. It’s better than nothing.”
He heard the dirk hit something and the blade lift off the stone floor. Then he heard the blade crunching and stabbing into things. Lachlan’s voice changed to an enraged bellow. He had a blade in his hand, and he was fighting back.
Christie rounded on his enemies with renewed energy. He cleaved off their wings and heads. He battled his way through the morass until he found his brother.
Christie seized Lachlan by the shirt. “Come on, mon. We’re getting out of here.”
“Where are we going?” Lachlan asked. “They’ll be all over the castle.”
“We must find Alexis,” Christie replied.
“Alexis!” Lachlan exclaimed. “What about her?”
“She’s here,” Christie muttered. “She must be. These things wouldnae attack if she wasnae here. We must find her. That’s the only way to get rid of these things.”
He raced out of the hall. He and Lachlan had to stop every few steps to hack the trolls aside. They made it a few steps before another glut of the things enclosed them in snapping teeth, raking claws, and flapping wings.
“I could almost prefer the vampires to this lot,” Lachlan told him. “At least with the vampires, ye didnae have to worry about them getting in your face with their infernal wings.”
Christie gave a wry laugh. “Better to be able to see them. Ye cannae fight what ye cannae see. I was scared on the mainland when I didnae ken what was attacking. Now I can hate them proper, and I dinnae feel the least bad about destroyin’ them.”
Lachlan paused to regard him. “Where’ll we find Alexis?”
“If I kenned that, I’d have found her by now,” Christie replied. “She must be here. She must be in the castle, or they wouldnae come through the door. She could be anywhere.”
“How’ll ye find her?”
Christie looked around him. “I dinnae have the time to go looking for her. Come on. We must get up to defend the roof.”
“What about the women and children?” Lachlan asked. “What’ll ye do about them?”
“We cannae evacuate them with the battle going on. As soon as we carve a hole in this lot, we’ll send them out. At least they’re no’ getting sick, and as soon as they leave Mull, they’ll be safe.”
“Who told ye that?” Lachlan asked.
Christie shot him a grin. “Dinnae ask questions to which ye dinnae want the answers. Come on.”
They raced upstairs to the roof, and just in time. Cl
yde and his men fought to their utmost to keep the trolls away from the chimneys and air vents.
Lachlan plunged into the battle with his dirk flying. He pushed forward until he found a fallen man. Between slashing the trolls away with one hand, he pried the man’s saber from his stiff fingers. Then Lachlan whirled around to face the enemy in all his ferocious rage.
Christie’s last sight of his brother was a wave of those black wings washing up Lachlan’s legs and covering over his head. Another unstoppable surge of bodies hit Christie all over. The demons raked their claws up his legs and burrowed inside his shirt. They cut his skin and tangled their fingers and toes in his hair.
He yanked them off and sliced off their heads. He clubbed them right and left, but they only came at him stronger than ever. No one could fight so many.
His mind raced to gauge the battle. The curse must be far in advance of what he expected, if this many trolls attacked at once. They would keep coming, no matter what he and his Clansmen did. They couldn’t win.
All at once, one of the trolls sank its fangs into his wrist. He gasped out loud in pain, and his fingers uncurled. His saber fell out of his hand, and the masses of trolls closed over it. He couldn’t even see where it was to pick it up, and he couldn’t move the fingers of his right hand. He was defenseless.
Rage exploded out of his heart. He would maim and destroy these monsters before he went down. How dare they attack his castle and kill his people like this? He would make them pay for this.
At that moment, a bunch of the winged monsters seized his arm and yanked him to the right. More of them grabbed his left arm and tugged him left. They would pull him apart in a second.
Somewhere deep inside him, his heart cried out in mortal anguish. Alexis, where are you? Alexis!
A scream answered him from across the roof. In front of his eyes, she appeared on the battlements. She stood up tall and beautiful and perfect. The wind swept her hair back, and her eyes trained out to sea. She’d been there all along.
At that instant, a thousand trolls attacked her at once. She reacted the same way everyone reacted when countless bodies hit her in the face. She batted her arms around her head to tear them off.
They scratched at her eyes and dug their claws into her skin. He heard her cries rise in panic. Christie lunged toward her, but a solid wall of wings blocked him. He had to get to her at all costs.
He called out across the roof. “Shift, Alexis! Shift now.”
She looked around her to find the source of the voice, and her eyes settled on him. He called out one more time. “Shift, Alexis. Fight them as a wolf.”
She shook her head. She resisted, even now.
He lowered his voice and changed his tone. Maybe she couldn’t hear him over the noise of screeching trolls and screaming men, but he had to convince her. He had to work his way into her mind if it was the last thing he did. It was the only way to save her life.
“Shift, Alexis,” he told her. “Give in. You’ll be safe. I’m right here. I’ll save ye.”
Her eyes locked on his face, and he saw his words sink home. The terrified uncertainty dissolved from her features, and rock solid determination took its place. She made up her mind to do it. She tightened her mouth and her brow furrowed in concentration, but she still didn’t shift. She didn’t know how.
Christie made up his mind. He couldn’t fight these monsters barehanded, either. He had no other weapon. He had to show her what to do. He took a flying leap off the roof and shifted in mid-air. He turned into a black wolf.
The trolls never let him hit the ground. They surrounded him on all sides. Their claws caught hold of his fur, and their wings held him aloft while they pecked and cut and ripped him to shreds.
Christie snarled in rage and set to work on them with his fangs. He crunched their bones and slashed their bodies open. He tasted blood, and it sent him into a blind animal rage.
Across the roof, Alexis watched him in startled horror. His foaming snarls penetrated her mind, and she exploded out of her skin. She threw her arms out to each side, and trolls sailed off her to the four winds. She roared out loud, and the sound came from deep in her soul.
Her back arched, and the wolf broke through her skin. She changed, and the silver she-wolf from the Faery ball launched at the trolls threatening Christie. She couldn’t get anywhere near him, but that she-wolf knew how to fight a lot better than Alexis did.
She snatched a troll out of the air and shook it. Christie heard the sickening crunch of its spine snapping. Alexis threw it away and lunged for the next one. Blood stained her muzzle and dripped down her chest. She peeled her lips back from her teeth, and her bloody fangs gave her a demonic look.
Seeing her like that sparked a sensation in Christie’s soul he never experienced before. His guts burned, and that scorching heat spread all over him. It coursed down his limbs and into every hair on his black coat. Rage and excitement and craving need for her got all mixed up in one torrent of emotion. That was his mate, his female, his counterpart, his heart.
She fought until she stained her coat with the blood of war. She killed and destroyed. She was a harbinger of death, and he loved her beyond comprehension. Pride in her and need for her gave him unbeatable power. He charged into his enemies with no fear or concern for his own life. Nothing mattered but her.
Wolves fought all over the roof, but the trolls still got the upper hand. Christie heard Lachlan roaring. Just then, the roof door blew back on its hinges. Thousands of trolls swooped screeching from inside the castle on their way out. They must be so thick inside they couldn’t find room anymore.
That could mean only one thing. The castle had fallen. No one would be left alive. If that was the case, if Christie was going to die on this roof, he would die with Alexis. He shook the trolls off himself and landed on his feet on the battlements.
He didn’t wait around for them to catch him again. He jumped toward Alexis. At the same moment, she came at him flying the other way. Trolls clung to her coat. They shrieked to wake the dead, but she paid no attention. Her burning yellow eyes found Christie, and they sailed at each other through the air.
Every troll on the roof spun around to attack them, but it was already too late. The trolls swarmed off Lachlan and Colin and a dozen others. They all converged on Christie and Alexis at once. They pounded down on Christie’s back and ribs and head. He closed his eyes. Alexis filled his whole awareness.
They catapulted across the roof and collided. Christie’s limbs jerked forward, and he clutched at her as best he could. He buried his muzzle in her fur and braced for impact. The instant they made contact with each other, a deafening boom shattered both his eardrums, and he hit the ground hard.
Chapter 24
Alexis opened her eyes and looked up at Christie leaning over her. His hair brushed her cheeks. “Are ye all right, lassie?” he whispered.
“I’m…I’m okay. Are we alive?”
He laughed. Tears welled up in his eyes. “We’re alive. I didnae think you’d come.”
“I’m here. I had to find you. Oh, I’m so happy you’re alive!”
Her hand flew to his cheek, and he bent down and kissed her. He sniffed back tears and laughed. When he sat up, she found herself lying on the roof of Duart Castle. A few other Highlanders collected themselves nearby. The trolls were gone.
Christie leaned back and helped her sit up at his side. “What happened to ye? Did ye go back to Faery?”
She passed her hand across her forehead. “God, don’t remind me about that. I came back here to find you, and everyone was dead. The whole castle was full of dead bodies. I came up here, and I was calling out for you when you all of a sudden appeared. I don’t know how it happened.”
“Never ye mind.” He helped her to her feet. “We must get downstairs and see who’s left alive. We must start the evacuation straightaway.”
He took her hand. They took two steps toward the open roof door when a tall, blonde man met them coming the other way
. Blood dripped from a gash in his forehead, and he limped. He put out his hand to Christie and collapsed on his knees.
Christie ran to his side. “I’ve got ye, mon. I’ll help ye downstairs, and we’ll get ye patched up.”
Christie hoisted the man onto his shoulder. The man gasped for breath, and his knees wobbled. “I…I couldnae hold them. I…I thought I was dead.”
“You’re all right, mon,” Christie told him. “It’s all over.”
“What did ye do? How did ye do that?”
Christie supported him to the door, where they came face-to-face with Alexis. “This is my brother, Lachlan McLean, Laird of this castle and Chief of our Clan. Lachlan, this is Alexis. I believe ye two have seen each other afore, but never met.”
Lachlan snorted. “I’m Laird of naught, lad. You’re the only Laird around here, and it’s a pleasure to meet his Lady at last. Welcome, Alexis. It’s God’s relief to see ye here with us. Ye saved us all.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she replied. “It was as much Christie as me.”
“Dinnae talk,” Christie interrupted. “We have to get downstairs. I’m sure there’s more wounded than we’ll ken what to do with.”
He turned to the door when a shadow crossed the sun. All three of them glanced up. At first, the bright rays blocked them seeing anything. Then five black shapes swirled around the sun and descended on the castle.
Alexis’s blood ran cold, but Lachlan gave a shout. Christie burst out laughing, and they both charged for the door. Their pounding footsteps echoed down the stairs. Alexis hurried after them.
Lachlan and Christie burst out into the field in front of the castle just as five huge dragons soared out of the sky. They circled again and again until they touched down on the rocky soil.
Men cheered from the battlements and waved their weapons on high. No one would ever suspect they almost lost their lives just now to countless flying trolls.
The dragons beat the air with their wings. They strutted back and forth, and their scaly tails rasped against the stones. Lachlan and Christie strode out to meet them. Lachlan still limped, but he held himself upright to meet these magnificent creatures.
Curse Breaker (Phoenix Throne Book 7): A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance Page 16
