Page 19 of To Wed a Highlander
The older women leapt out of the way as the girl child deflected the arrow of flames with an arcane hand gesture and a few whispered words of her own. The fire illuminated the terrified, owlish eyes of cloistered women all huddled beneath the archway, desperately praying to a God who would not intervene.
Thunder roiled over the tops of the craggy Highland hills, bringing flashes of lightning forking toward them, just barely out of reach. The air promised moisture, and Niall knew that flames would be more difficult to maintain once the air and water Druids could concentrate storms to drench his mate.
“The book, Kenna,” the Crone demanded. “It ishere, I can feel it.”
“It doesn’t belong in your hands,” Kenna called from the flames. “You cannot use it as an instrument for the end of days.”
Despite what was happening around him, Niall couldn’t tear his eyes away from his mate. Her clothes had been incinerated, her bonds no more than ashes at her feet. She was a vision of bliss and beauty ensconced in a deadly heat. A warrior of the elements, a protector of truth and power. A paladin, in her own right.
And she washis.
How could one man be so fortunate as to find such a mate, and so tragically cursed to perhaps lose her so soon?
The flames around her body seemed to culminate toward her middle as she gathered them within the shapes of her hands, and again arced fire toward the Wyrd Sisters.
This time, when Nemain deflected, the ball of fire hit the stupefied Mother Superior and engulfed her instantly. The woman didn’t have time to scream before she was nothing but a pile of soot.
“She’s the first casualty,” the girl taunted. “We can slaughter these hundred virgins before you take your next breath, and then we’ll flay the skins of the Vikings from their screaming bodies. Is that what you wish, Kenna, to be the cause of all that?”
Niall could see the way the old nun’s death affected Kenna in the rapid, horrified blinks of her eyes, but she said nothing.
“We’ll leave your Berserker for last.” The Crone licked her dry lips and lifted herself toward him as though she floated on a pocket of air. “And we’ll leave you alive long enough to endure their suffering, to relive it in your dreams. When the horror passes, and your soul dies, we’ll end your life, as well, with the knowledge that Malcolm belongs to us.”
“I can’t,” Kenna gasped, her frantic eyes touching each prone Viking body, and scanning the line of frightened nuns before resting upon Niall’s face. “I won’t. I must protect the Grimoire.” She said this like an apology. For that’s exactly what it was.
“I know,” Niall acknowledged, pride welling in his heart along with a slew of other transcendent emotions. “I gave you my power, woman, I want you to use it to defeat your enemies. No matter the cost.”
* * *
The cost.The cost would be the future he represented to Kenna. The life they might have had. For those with responsibility such as hers, the cost was always too high.
Kenna couldn’t let the crone drift any closer to Niall, so she threw one more flaming arc between her and the man who was very slowly gathering his strength, cutting him off from the evil sisters.
“I swear to the Goddess that I will destroy the Grimoire before I let you take it,” she declared.
“Don’t be foolish,” the water witch, Macha, scoffed, the long sleeves of her dark robes rustling with hidden movement. “The Doomsday Grimoire has survived barbarians, genocide, Romans, fires, floods, and countless catastrophes. It is written in the blood of the First Druids and bound in the skin of their enemies. It is the height of arrogance to think that a slip of a fire witch like you could wield the power hidden within, let alone destroy it.”
Lightning struck the spire of the abbey, punctuating the truth of Macha’s words. Rain pelted the ground, and hissed through Kenna’s fire, weakening her barrier between Niall and the witches.
Nemain was the first to step through her wall, as she was immune to the flames as Kenna. Then Macha, followed by the levitating Badb. They surrounded Niall in a triangle each of them running hands over his magnificent body.
“You feel for this one, I think,” Badb sneered, her dry, white tongue snaking out to lick at his cheek.
Niall growled at her, and the witch growled back, uncovering rotten, sharp teeth.
“He tastes like fire and sex. Your doing, I believe,” the crone continued.
Kenna wanted to lash out at her. The masculine power within her carried with it a bit of the man from which it was drained. A desperate fury called for her to murder the witch and peel the flesh from her bones to wear as a trophy. But she dare not strike, lest she miss, or the witches use her weapon against Niall.
Where are you Malcolm and Morgana? Please hurry!She silently prayed.
“The pain we could cause your Berserker,” Badb crooned. “He would beg for death.”
“Do your worst,” Niall sneered, then laughed, his muscles seeming to come alive with his struggles, and the ropes creaking beneath his impressive weight. He was regaining his strength, just not fast enough. “I’m not afraid to die.”
“My worst?” Badb cackled over the sound of the storm. “My worst, Barbarian is something you can not fathom. So much more terrifying than death, but just as final. You see, I know where your soul resides. I can reach for it with my dark magick through the empty spaces between the tiny fibers that comprise your thick, strong body. I can render you helpless. I can do things that you can’t swing a sword at. I’ll rattle the cage where your beast hides and rip your very essence through the cracks. It’ll be bound to me, a slave to my bidding. And once I die, your soul will be trapped here, never to be reborn, never to see the Other World. Just a wraith for a lonely eternity until the end of days.”
“You couldn’t,” Kenna gasped, her fire shield sputtering around her body weakened by her fear, and taking more energy to maintain. “The Goddess wouldn’t allow it.”
