by Donna Grant
Laura had so little information she wasn’t sure who to trust. Druids and Warriors. Magic and power. How was it they were in her world and she’d never known about them?
More importantly, how was she a Druid and hadn’t known about it?
Her controlling family popped into her head, and Laura inwardly grimaced. If they could see her now, they would say she should have let them run her life and she wouldn’t be in such a predicament.
Laura was tired of not knowing what to do. She thought she’d gotten past that when she left her family behind. Now, she found herself in a much more dire situation.
The way the people surrounded her, caging her without chains, made her begin to shake from the memories of her youth.
“Where are we going?”
Aisley kept her gaze straight ahead. “Somewhere Charon will never be able to find you.”
If Laura believed all Jason told her, then she would feel better knowing Charon couldn’t find her. But all she felt was an overwhelming sense of dread.
For the next fifty yards, she fought against all Jason had told her, and something snapped in her mind. Like a rubber band holding something back, everything became clear.
“I can’t,” she whispered as she came to a halt.
Aisley stopped and looked at her, a frown marring her forehead. “Can’t what?”
“Go with Jason. He did something to my mind, I know it. Whether Charon lied or Jason lied, I need to find out the truth on my own. I don’t want to go with Jason.”
“It’s too late.” Aisley glanced to where Jason led them through the trees. When she looked back, there was defeat in her brown eyes. “He’ll never let you go.”
Her whispered words only propelled Laura to get free that much quicker. She thought of what was inside her, magic or something else, and felt it flow through her veins thick and hot as lava.
It gave her strength and helped to calm her nerves even as they began walking again. She had only one shot to get free, and she needed to make sure it was a good one.
Laura let her magic build and build until her body hummed from it. No one seemed the wiser until the big brute who had fought Charon whispered Aisley’s name.
Aisley looked over her shoulder and moved her gaze to Laura. “You’ll never make it.”
“I’ll stay if you can honestly tell me Jason is the good guy here. Tell me he isn’t the monster Charon said he is.”
Aisley hesitated a second too long, and that’s all it took for Laura to make her decision.
She let instinct guide her as she halted and let her magic rise up within her. It swirled around her, in her, through her. The sensation was heady and amazing.
The sheer power of it left her reeling and searching for more. It felt good to be in control, to be the one others might fear.
Because she was tired of people messing with her. It began with her mother locking her in her bedroom, her father refusing to see what was happening, and her sister ruling every second of her life. Then Jason had dared to fiddle with her mind, using his magic to get what he wanted.
No more would she be a stepping-stone. No longer would she be bullied and pushed around.
Her magic—yes, it was magic!—saturated every pore, permeated every particle of her being. The sound of distant drums reached her once more. The chants were softer, the words difficult to make out.
Then, in her mind, she heard a thousand voices scream, “Now, Laura!”
She let loose her magic. It was uncontrolled, violent. It was ten times the force that had destroyed Charon’s cabin. And it felt glorious!
Her eyes closed before the white light blinded her, but it was the potency of the magic itself that sent her flying backwards.
Laura landed hard on her side, her head slamming into the root of a tree. Through it all, she kept her mind on her magic, on punishing Jason and getting free. She heard a woman scream and men cursing.
Then … nothing.
Laura drew in a ragged, broken breath and opened her eyes. Her head pounded, her heart raced. All along her skin, magic sizzled, waiting for her to use it again.
She climbed to her feet and smiled when she surveyed everyone laid out on the ground. When she spotted Jason, she walked to him. She could kill him. It would take just one thought and her magic could do it, but she wasn’t a killer.
“Come after me again, and I will kill you,” she promised his unconscious form before she turned and ran.
* * *
Charon felt the wave of magic that blasted through the forest with the force of a cannon. It made no sound as it sailed through the woods, but he knew instantly who it belonged to. “Laura.”
“How the hell is she a Druid?” Phelan asked.
Charon had no idea, but he planned on finding out.
“This way!” Broc shouted as he ran through the trees.
They others easily caught him as six of them moved as silently as ghosts and as quick as the wind. All the while, Charon’s heart pounded in his chest as he raced toward Laura. He couldn’t wait to hold her in his arms again.
And God help Wallace if he’d laid a hand on her.
This time Charon would tell her everything from beginning to end. After he made love to her again. He should have told her what he was and how the Warriors came to be when she asked.
Maybe then she wouldn’t have willingly gone with Jason.
Their story was a secret only Druids and Warriors knew, but it had also been a reason to keep her from seeing him as the beast he was.
How had he not known she was a Druid? Was she so powerful a Druid that she could hide her magic from him? At the moment he didn’t care. He just wanted to know she was all right.
Charon jumped across a stream and couldn’t help but wonder what Jason had said to convince Laura to go with him. Two years, Charon had known her and never lied. Why hadn’t she waited for him as he asked?
As much as that question bothered him, it was her answer he was afraid to hear.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Laura ran as if the Devil himself were after her. She didn’t slow when she slipped and slid down a hill, or when the rain started.
She didn’t care that her legs ached and the stitch in her side demanded she stop. All she wanted was to get to Ferness so she could pack a few belongings and get the hell away from Charon and Jason and everyone.
Who was telling the truth? And who was lying?
There was something dark, something evil about Jason that made her run. He’d used magic on her. She didn’t know how she knew, only that she did.
Until she could get her mind straightened out, she was better on her own.
Laura ducked beneath a low-hanging limb as she spotted a building through the trees. She didn’t want to think of Charon, but she couldn’t help it. He was gone, and with him any chance that she might find out the truth.
She could look for Phelan, but why would he tell her anything if Charon hadn’t? Trusting anyone now was going to be impossible.
With her clothes soaked and clinging to her, Laura slowed to a walk as she reached the edge of the forest. She had somehow managed to come out of the trees behind the pub.
She strode by Charon’s Mercedes, running her fingers along the sleek car as she thought about the last time they were together, before hurrying through a nearby alley. It didn’t do her any good to think of Charon. He was gone and unable to help her.
Laura peeked around the corner of the building to see if anyone was about. When no one came in sight, she dashed across the street. She had leaned on Charon too much. She saw that now, now that it was too late and no longer mattered.
She wiped at a tear. Why did he have to die? Why couldn’t her magic have killed Jason instead of Charon?
Laura’s heart thudded in her chest when she spotted the door to her flat still hung precariously on its hinges. The memory of Ben trying to pull her into the car was one she knew she’d have the rest of her life. Yet it faded in comparison to Charon striding through
the door and lifting her in his arms before taking her to safety.
He hadn’t wanted anything other than to keep her safe. He’d been gentle, his touch soft, as if he were afraid she might shatter into a million pieces.
And through it all, she felt his rage at what had been done to her.
Laura touched her cheek where the bruise was. Ben hitting her was nothing to what she had endured over the last few hours. Even then she didn’t want to think about magic.
It was inside her, flowing through her veins just as her blood did. It pulsed bright as the sun just beneath her skin. Laura had no idea what to do with it, nor did she know how to use it.
Where had her magic been when she’d fought helplessly against her sister and mother? Where had that magic been when Ben had tried to kidnap her?
Was it something that would come and go, or was the magic something she could count on from now on? And did she even want to know?
“Charon, I wish you were here.”
Any time she had a question, he always gave her a truthful answer, even if it hadn’t been what she wanted to hear. Had he known she had magic? Was that why he had hired her?
She exhaled and shoved the thought of magic and Charon from her mind as she pushed the door open a crack and stepped inside. Laura turned to her bedroom and stopped in her tracks when she saw her sister standing in front of her.
“Lacy.”
Her sister smiled tightly and took a step toward her. “Hello, little sister.”
“How did you find me?” Laura demanded.
There was only one reason Lacy tracked her down, and Laura knew it had nothing to do with sibling love and everything to do with controlling her again.
Lacy laughed, the sound too loud in the quiet of the flat. “We’ve always known where you were, silly goose. We’d have liked you closer to home, but I made things work.”
“What are you talking about?” Why was Lacy suddenly there? After two years, why show up now?
There had never been any love lost between the sisters. Lacy was their mother’s first child, born when she had been just seventeen and unmarried. Laura hadn’t come along until ten years later, after their mother married.
Lacy hadn’t been cruel exactly, just controlling like their mother. Or at least that’s how Laura had always seen her. Now, however, Laura was seeing her with new eyes, and she didn’t like what she saw.
“How did you do it?” Lacy asked, and took another step to her. “How did you get your magic back?”
The room tilted around Laura so that she reached out and grabbed the back of the sofa to keep herself upright. Magic. How did everyone know but her? “You knew?”
Lacy rolled her eyes. “Well, of course, we knew. We come from a long line of Druids. But our magic was running out. There was hardly any left to even make a plant grow. Then you were born.”
“You knew,” Laura repeated, her mind still trying to wrap around the notion that her family had kept what she was from her.
“My perfect, beautiful little sister didn’t just get the great hair and body, you also got an incredible dose of magic. Mom and I could never figure out how,” Lacy said nonchalantly, a sly tilt on her lips as she fingered a dish towel. “It infuriated both of us. It was quite by accident when I stumbled across a way to syphon your magic.”
Laura thought she was going to be sick. Her stomach roiled viciously. “You took my magic?”
“Oh, that first taste of your potent magic was … addictive,” Lacy said with a laugh. She grabbed an apple from the basket on the kitchen counter and tossed it up in the air before catching it. “Once Mom and I had a taste, we couldn’t stop taking it from you. And you never knew.”
“Why are you here now? Was my magic not enough? Do you want my life now?” Laura glared at her sister, anger and hate threatening to swallow her.
Not even when she had been locked in her bedroom had she felt such impotent rage. She had thought she escaped her family, when in truth they had simply let her leave. How infuriating after it had taken her unbelievable amounts of courage to make her break from them.
“You always were so dramatic. If you’d only grown a backbone, we might have let you have some of your magic.”
Laura curled her hands into fists. “Let me?” she repeated, fury causing her voice to shake. “You might have let me have my own magic. How very generous of you. And here I always thought you such a bitch.”
“Ohhh,” Lacy said, and threw up her hands in mock fear, her eyebrows raised and her eyes wide. “Did I strike a nerve?”
“Leave. Leave now. I don’t want to ever see or hear from you again.”
Lacy looked at the apple and gently ran her finger over it. “I’m not leaving until you give me back my magic.”
“It’s my magic!” Laura’s chest heaved from the violence she felt, which caused her heart to pound like a drum.
“Wrong response.”
Laura didn’t have time to duck as the apple came flying at her head.
* * *
“I found her!” Broc yelled. “Laura is in Ferness.”
Charon didn’t care how Broc had all of a sudden been able to use his magic. He raced toward Ferness, his sole thought to get to Laura and have her safe.
Even if she didn’t go with him, he just wanted her protected. Charon wasn’t looking forward to explaining why he hadn’t told her about himself. But there were answers he wanted as well. Like how the hell was she a Druid?
Worry began to niggle at him when he couldn’t feel any Druid magic. If Laura was in Ferness, shouldn’t he feel her?
Charon didn’t slow when they reached Ferness. Broc pointed to her flat, and Charon busted through the broken door to find Laura sprawled on the floor, unmoving.
“Laura,” he called, and rushed to her.
Phelan knelt on the other side of Laura. “Where is she injured?”
Charon did a quick look. “I can find nothing.”
“Then get her, and let’s get out of here,” Lucan said.
Ramsey stood at the door and looked over his shoulder at them. “I agree. I feel drough magic. Jason is most likely on his way.”
“Mobiles still doona work,” Lucan said with a growl.
Charon lifted Laura in his arms. “I’ll run all the way to MacLeod Castle if I have to.”
“You willna have to,” said a voice behind them.
Charon turned around to see Malcolm standing in Laura’s kitchen.
Malcolm gave them a brief nod. “I’ll find what’s causing the mobile phones no’ to work. It’ll take but a moment. Then get the hell out of here with the woman.”
“Thank you,” Charon said.
Malcolm paused on his way out the door, but didn’t say anything.
“He’s getting worse,” Ramsey said softly.
Broc sighed. “He carries too much guilt.”
“That’s no’ guilt,” Charon said. He carried enough of it that he knew what it looked like. What was wrong with Malcolm was much worse.
Phelan stood. “Nay, it isna guilt. There’s nothing left inside him.”
“That’s shite,” Lucan said, his face scrunched in a frown. “If he didna feel anything, he wouldna be here.”
“He came because Larena told him what was going on,” Charon said. “Malcolm always helps when Larena asks.”
Their conversation ended abruptly when lightning exploded through the village. Lucan immediately reached for his mobile. A second later, he was exchanging words with Fallon.
Charon looked out Laura’s window, searching for Malcolm when Fallon appeared. He wasn’t given a chance to say anything as they were all transported back to MacLeod Castle.
He held on to Laura tightly and looked around the great hall. As Charon scanned the faces in the crowd, he realized Quinn, Aiden, and Galen weren’t present.
“Malcolm said to leave him,” Larena stated into the silence. “He wants to watch Jason and the others.”
Fallon turned away, a string of curses f
alling from his lips.
“I’ve prepared a room,” Sonya said as she came up beside Charon. “Bring Laura so I can heal her.”
Charon walked behind Sonya up the stairs to the second floor. Then they turned right and proceeded down the corridor until they stopped at a door on the left.
Sonya waited as Charon slowly lowered Laura to the bed. He straightened but couldn’t leave. She had been alone in the forest for an entire day and night. Alone. Until Jason found her.
He looked up when Sonya touched his arm. “I didna find any wounds. The bruise on her cheek is from when they tried to kidnap her.”
“I’ll see to her. Rest, if you can,” Sonya said.
Charon rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He was weary to his bones, but it was Laura he worried over. What had Wallace said to her? More important, how had she gotten away from him?
What was most disturbing was that he couldn’t feel any magic from Laura. It was like it had never been there.
A strong hand clamped on his shoulder, and he turned his head to find Phelan. His friend nodded and stood beside him. “She’s strong. Laura will be fine.”
“Yes, she will,” Sonya said. “I’ve healed the bruise, and it appears as if someone knocked her out by the bump on her head.”
Charon leaned a shoulder against the stone wall of the narrow chamber. “Who would have done that and no’ taken her?”
“Good question. Let her rest, and then we’ll ask,” Phelan said.
Charon let Phelan nudge him from the room. He walked silently down the corridor and stairs to stop in the great hall. Everyone wanted answers, answers he didn’t have.
“Thank you for helping Laura,” he said to the room at large.
Ramsey wrapped an arm around his wife, Tara, and said, “We did it for you.”
“Jason isna done with me,” Charon said instead of responding to Ramsey’s statement. “He’ll be looking to hurt each of us in ways we willna expect.”
“I told them,” Fallon said, his face lined with worry.
Marcail cleared her throat and tugged on one of the many small braids atop the crown of her head. “Aiden is being extra careful. My son knows what’s at stake, and it’s why he wants to stay and learn what he can of the blood. Quinn and Galen are keeping watch over Aiden and Britt, who is helping him.”