smile curved a little wider. "Almost helpless. Look to the clearing, Calin Farrell, and take what is offered to you. My daughter waits. Without you, she dies this night."
"Dies?" Terror gripped his belly. "Am I too late?"
She only shook her head and faded back into air.
He awoke, drenched with sweat, stretched out on the cool, damp grass of the bank. And the moon was rising in a dark sky.
"No." He stumbled to his feet, found the sweater clutched in his hand. "I won't be too late. I can't be too late." He dragged the sweater over his head as he ran.
Now the trees lashed, whipped by a wind that came from nowhere and howled like a man gone mad. They slashed at him, twined together like mesh to block his path with gnarled branches armed with thorns. He fought his way through, ignored the gash that sliced through denim into flesh.
Overhead, lighting cut like a broadsword and dimmed the glow of the full white moon.
Alasdair. Hate roiled up inside him, fighting against the love he'd only just discovered. Alasdair would not win, if he had to die to prevent it.
"Bryna." He lifted his head to the sky as it exploded with wild, furious rain.
"Wait for me. I love you."
The stag stood before him, white as bone, its patient eyes focused. Cal rushed forward as it turned and leaped into the shadows. With only instinct to trust, he plunged into the dark to follow the trail. The ground trembled under his feet, thorns ripped his clothes to tatters as he raced to keep that flash of white in sight.
Then it was gone as he fell bleeding into a clearing where moonlight fought through the clouds to beam on a jet-black horse.
Without hesitation, Calin accepted the impossible. Taking the reins, he vaulted into the saddle, his knees vising as the stallion reared and trumpeted a battle cry. As he rode, he heard the snap of a cloak flying and felt the hilt of a sword gripped in his own hand.
Chapter 9
The Castle of Secrets glimmered with the light of a thousand torches. Its walls glinted silver and speared up toward the moon. The stone floor of the great hall was smooth as marble. In the center of the charmed circle cast by the ancients, Bryna stood in a robe of white, her hair a fall of fire, her eyes the blue of heated steel.
Here she would make her stand.
"Do you call the thunder and whistle up the winds, Alasdair? Such showmanship."
In a swirl of smoke, a sting of sulphur, he appeared before her. Solid now, his flesh as real as hers. He wore the robes of crimson, of blood and power. His golden looks were beautiful, an angel's face but for the contrast of those dark, damning eyes.
"And an impressive, if overdone entrance," Bryna said lightly, though her pulse shuddered.
"Your trouble, my darling, is that you fail to appreciate the true delights of power. Contenting yourself with your woman's charms and potions when worlds are at your mercy."
"I take my oath, and my gifts, to heart, Alasdair. Unlike you."
"My only oath is to myself. You'll belong to me, Bryna, body and soul. And you will give me what I want the most." He flung up a hand so that the walls shook.
"Where is the globe?"
"Beyond you, Alasdair, where it will remain. As I will."
She gestured sharply, shot a bolt of white light into the air to land and burn at his feet. A foolish gesture, she knew, but she needed to impress him.
He angled his head, smiled indulgently. "Pretty tricks. The moon is rising to midnight, Bryna. The time of waiting is ending. Your warrior has deserted you once again."
He stepped closer, careful not to test the edge of the circle and his voice became soft, seductive. "Why not accept—even embrace—what I offer you? Lifetimes of power and pleasure. Riches beyond imagination. You have only to accept, to take my hand, and we will rule together."
"I want no part of your kingdom, and I would rather be bedded by a snake than have your hands on me."
Murky blue fire gleamed at his fingertips, his anger taking form. "You've felt them on you in your dreams. And you'll feel them again. Gentle I can be, or punishing, but you'll never feel another's hand but mine. He's lost to you, Bryna. And you are lost to me."
"He's safe from you." She threw up her head. "So I have already won." Lifting her hands, she loosed a whip of power, sent him flying back. "Be gone from this place." Her voice filled the great hall, rang like bells. "Or face the death of mortals."
He wiped a hand over his mouth, furious that she'd drawn first blood. "A battle, then."
At his vicious cry, a shadow formed at his feet, and the shadow took the shape of a wolf, black-pelted, red-eyed, fangs bared. With a snarl, it sprang, leaping toward Bryna's throat.
Cal pounded up the cliff, driving his mount furiously. The castle glowed brilliant with light, its walls tall and solid again, its turrets shafts of silver that nicked the cloud-chased moon. With a burst of knowledge, he thrust a hand inside the cloak and drew out the globe that waited there.
It swam red as blood, fire sparks of light piercing the clouds. He willed them to clear, willed himself to see as he thundered higher toward the crest of the cliff.
Visions came quickly, overlapping, rushing. Bryna weeping as she watched him sleep. The dark chamber with the globe held between them and her whispering her spell.
You will be safe, you will be free. There is nothing, my love, you cannot ask of me. Follow the stag whose pelt is white, if your heart is not open come not back in the night. This gift and this duty I trust unto you. The globe of hope and visions true. Live, and be well, and remember me not. What cannot be held is best forgot. What I do I do free. As I will, so mote it be.
And terror struck like a snake, its fangs plunging deep into the heart. For he knew what she meant to do.
She meant to die.
She wanted to live, and fought fiercely. She sliced the wolf, cleaving its head from its body with one stroke of will. And its blood was black.
She sent her lights blazing, the burning cold that would scorch the flesh and freeze the bone.
And knew she would lose when midnight rang.
Alasdair's robes smoked from the violence of her power. And still he could not break the circle and claim her.
He sent the ground heaving under her feet, watched her sway, then fall to her knees. And his smile bloomed dark when her head fell weakly and that fiery curtain of hair rained over the shuddering stones.
"Will you ask for pain, Bryna?" He stepped closer, felt the hot licks when his soft boots skimmed the verge of the circle. Not yet, he warned himself, inching back. But soon. Her spell was waning. "Just take my hand, spare yourself. We will forget this battle and rule. Give me your hand, and give me the globe."
Her breath was short and shallow. She whispered words in the old tongue, the secrets of magic, incantations that flickered weakly as her power slipped like water through her fingers.
"I will not yield."
"You will." He inched closer again, pleased when he met with only faint resistance. "You have no choice. The charm was cast, the time has come. You belong to me now."
He reached down, and her shoulder burned where his fingers brushed. "I belong to
Calin." She gripped the amulet, steeling herself, then flipped its poison chamber open with her thumb. She whipped her head up and, with a last show of defiance, smiled. "You will never have what is his."
She brought the amulet to her lips, prepared to take the powder.
The horse and rider burst into the torchlight in a flurry of black, storm-gray, and bright steel.
"Would you rather die than trust me?" Cal demanded furiously.
The amulet slipped through her fingers, the powder sifted onto the stones.
"Calin."
"Touch her, Alasdair"—Cal controlled the restless horse as if he'd been born astride one—"and I'll cut off your hands at the wrists."
Though there was alarm, and there was shock, Alasdair straightened slowly. He would not lose now. The woman was already defeated, he calculated
, and the man was, after all, only a foolish mortal. "You were a warrior a thousand years ago,
Caelan of Farrell. You are no warrior tonight."
Cal vaulted from the horse, and his sword sang as he pulled it from its scabbard. "Try me."
Unexpected little flicks of fear twisted in Alasdair's belly. But he circled his opponent, already plotting. "I will bring such fury raining down on your head…"
He crossed his arms over his chest, then flung them to the side. Black balls of lightning shot out, hissing trails of snaking sparks.
Instinctively Cal raised the sword. Pain and power shot up his arm as the charges struck, careened away, and crashed smoking into stone.
"Do you think such pitiful weapons can defend against a power such as mine?"
Arrogance and rage rang in Alasdair's voice as he hurled arrows of flame. His cry echoed monstrously as the arrows struck Cal's cloak and melted into water.
"Your power is nothing here."
Bryna was on her feet again, her white robe swirling like foam. And her face so glowed with beauty that both men stared in wonder.
"I am the guardian of this place." Her voice was deeper, fuller, as if a thousand voices joined it. "I am a witch whose power flows clean. I am a woman whose heart is bespoken. I am the keeper of all you will never own. Fear me,
Alasdair. And fear the warrior who stands with me."
"He will not stand with you. And what you guard, I will destroy." With fists clenched, he called the flames, shot the torches from their homes to wheel and burn and scorch the air. "You will bow yet to my will."
With lifted arms, Bryna brought the rain, streaming pure and cool through the flames to douse them. And felt as the damp air swirled, the power pour through her, from her, as rich and potent as any she'd known.
"Save this place," Alasdair warned, "and lose the man." He whirled on Cal, sneered at the lifted sword. "Remember death."
Like a blade sliced through the belly, the agony struck. Blood flowed through his numbed fingers, and the sword clattered onto the wet stone. He saw his death, leaping like a beast, and heard Bryna's scream of fear and rage.