Page 16 of Highland Warrior
“I doona blame ye.” Malcolm stroked her hair, thinking that he ought to take the shackles from around her wrists. She didn’t deserve them. She’d been imprisoned enough.
Lifting her chin, she rose on her toes to press a kiss to his jaw, her lips seeking his own. Malcolm tilted his head down to cover her mouth with his. The kiss was soft and achingly sweet. Malcolm drew his lips over hers again and again, the tenderness passing between him blooming to life against his soul.
She pulled back, her lovely eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “I lied,” she whispered. “I lied to myself.”
“How do you mean?” Malcolm brushed her hair away from the pale perfection of her cheek. She was such a beauty.
“Your cause is to save humanity from the Apocalypse. That is a cause worth giving my soul for.”
“Vían,no.” Malcolm panicked, clutching her to him with all his strength. “Doona do anything foolish.”
A tear slid down her cheek, but her features were serene. “And you, Malcolm de Moray, are a man worth the sacrifice, because it’s one you’d never ask me to make.”
He gasped her name, but in the next instant he was only clutching her thin, empty garment as the manacles that had once shackled her wrists clattered to the stones.
The inhuman sound that ripped from him shook the entire castle and brought his family storming into the dungeon.
“Malcolm!” Kenna gasped, her amber eyes wide with astonishment. “What’s happening?”
Malcolm turned to them slowly, shaking with the force of his rage and loss, trying to summon the cold wrath of which he knew himself capable.
“Arm yourselves,” he ordered his Druid family, and their Berserker mates in a dark voice he’d never heard before. “We’re going to war.”
Even Bael and Niall stepped out of Malcolm’s way as he stalked toward the stairs, aiming to make preparations for the battle to come. First, he was going to defeat the Wyrd Sisters and stave off the Apocalypse. Then, he was going to fetch his woman, even if he had to claw his way through the depths of hell to do so.
Chapter 7
Sunset turned the Berserker knights and their Viking comrades into dark silhouettes against the flaming sky. Loch Fyne glimmered like a lake of fire as it buffeted against the western side of the castle. Thirteen men, including Bael and Niall, stood bravely in front of the fence of wooden stakes, angled to impale an advancing enemy. Across the expanse of the Moray Valley, a vast army crested the rough Highland peaks and began a syncopated march down toward Dun Moray and the village.
Ingmar—a general of Niall’s who would have been a jester but for his voracious bloodlust—turned to address Malcolm and his small garrison of kilted countrymen as they approached the Vikings from behind. “You should stay behind your wards, King Malcolm, and letusbattle your enemies,” he said smugly. “You’ve marched to the front lines with no armor, flanked by women and mostly naked men, which, in my opinion, should be the other way around.” He hit his leather jerkin with his shield. “Leave us the glory of plunging into battle and bloodying our armor.”
“I believe we shall,” Malcolm replied absently, as he scanned the approaching army for the Wyrd Sisters. They were yet too far away to make out distinct features, but Malcolm knew they were out there. The distinct stench of evil flowed on the Highland breezes, and demoralizing threats whispered on the chill winds.
“Who are they, Colm?” Morgana touched his elbow and squinted into the gathering shadows that seemed to follow the endless swarm of the advancing enemy. “They wear no colors.”
“I think it’s an army of the damned,” Kenna drew up to his other side. “Badb said that she had countless souls at her disposal. I think she’s unleashed them all upon us at once.”
Souls like Vían.Some innocent. Some malevolent. All desperate to do whatever it took for the promise of redemption. Or maybe just for the release of death.
“Do you think she’s out there?” Morgana whispered, the compassion in her eyes cutting Malcolm to the quick.
He knew to whom his sister was referring.
“Nay. The Wyrd Sisters know Vían wouldna march against me. ‘Tis why they took her from me.” Malcolm fought to keep his composure, and reminded himself that a village full of women and children relied on his protection.
The future of humanity, itself, relied on the strength of his principle and power.
How would they feel if they knew he was tempted to sacrifice it all forher?
“I expect the village bard will be writing lyrics to our valor and ingenuity,” Ingmar was still taunting them.
“I told ye not to touch my castle grounds weeks ago. Not to cut down trees to make yer fences,” Malcolm said slowly.
Niall turned, ignoring the warning look from Kenna. “What would your people have done without our fortifications?”
“What if the army breaks through the line?” Ingmar asked smugly. “Not that it’s likely,” he added. “But Dun Moray would have been defenseless if not for us.”
Malcolm made a slight gesture to his men, and the forty archers spread out, making enough space between them to reach the edge of the loch.
