Flames ravaged it.
Hell ravaged it.
“Go, Son!” Grant roared.
Jackie had no chance to see what was happening before Darach swung her onto Eara, leapt up behind her and the horse took off.
“Oh no,” she cried as the great hall vanished, and they ended up back in the last place she wanted to be.
The Celtic Otherworld in Ireland.
“Aye.” Darach swung down then pulled her after him. “But I think we might stand half a chance here this time.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you kissing Heidrek in the tapestry didnae hurt our cause. Now Eoghan wants you more than ever,” he whispered near her ear before pulling away.
Her eyes widened. That didn’t sound good. She shook her head and strode after him. “I didn’t kiss Heidrek. He kissed me.”
Darach pulled a dagger from his boot and handed it to her. “It doesnae matter.”
“I think it does.”
“Nay, lass.” He nodded at the blade. “Use that wisely.”
Eara neighed and stomped her foot. “Aye, fight well. Both of ye.”
“But we’re back where we began,” she argued. “We don’t stand a chance.”
“Mayhap not.” Darach walked backward, his eyes on the sky as a black cloud rushed over them, then thumped down hard. “But we’ll soon find out.”
His eyes fell to hers. “Remember everything I taught you.” He nodded at her dagger. “Use it only if needed.”
“What? Wait!”
But it was too late. Darach spun and raced away. The second the black cloud shifted into Eoghan, he drove a foot into his chest and rushed him. The demi-god flung out his hand, and Darach fell back.
Not that far, though.
Darach leapt to his feet and swiped the blade. Eoghan evaded then came back at him. When Darach thrust at his throat, the demi-god dodged. Darach jumped the blade when Eoghan swiped low. The fighting became so fierce there was no way of keeping up. All she could do was watch closely and be there if Darach needed help.
“Soon enough,” a soft voice said.
Her eyes whipped to the beautiful woman who materialized beside her. It couldn’t be. Jackie had last seen her at MacLomain Castle before Darach thrust her into Heidrek’s arms. The evil bitch had been fighting her own brother Cullen, a Highlander turned angel.
Jackie narrowed her eyes. “Brae Stewart.”
“Aye,” Brae drawled. “Back once more.”
Brae had been Eoghan’s sidekick from the beginning. She was every bit as corrupt as him. Jackie kept a cool head and clenched her dagger. “You’re not going anywhere near Darach.”
Eyes trained on the fighting, Brae offered no response.
So Jackie did what she was taught. She focused on her surroundings, tuned out the fighting and paid attention. To the way wind kept blowing Brae’s hair in her eyes. How she seemed to favor her right hand. Better yet, how Brae didn’t see Jackie as a threat in the least. If Erin was right, the Scotswoman’s magic didn’t work here either.
So it was now or never.
Jackie waited for the next gust of wind then made her move. She tagged Brae in the jaw then punched her in the stomach. Ouch. Everyone made it look so easy, but that likely hurt her fist as much as Brae’s chin.
Brae rubbed her jaw and frowned. “I probably deserved that.”
“Are you kidding me?” Jackie held out her dagger and circled Brae. “You totally deserved that for everything you’ve done!”
“Nay, Jackie,” Darach said into her mind. “She’s on our side now.”
She frowned, dagger still at the ready. “Since when?”
“Since now.” He dodged another close swipe of Eoghan’s blade. “I’ll fill you in later.”
“So she’s on your side now, aye?” Clearly having heard their silent communication, the demi-god roared with laughter. “Then Brae Stewart has decided the life of her parents and clan no longer matter.”
Some had started to speculate that Brae Stewart was aligned with the demi-god against her will, but most remained unconvinced. After all, she had killed her own brother.
Brae’s eyes flickered between Jackie and a nearby hill. “Ye must save yerself, lass. Get up that mountain now.”
What? How was running up a mountain going to do any good? Jackie shook her head. “No way. I’m here to help Darach.”
“As am I.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Jackie said.
“’Tis true.” Darach ducked beneath a mighty swipe of Eoghan’s blade. “The demi-god’s power is nearly gone. A power that forced her into slavery in order to keep her family safe.” Darach spun and leapt when Eoghan’s blade swept low. “She’s here to see him to his end. To right wrongs!”
Grunts of pain rippled through the air as the men fought.
“Run, Jackie!” Darach roared seconds before Brae jumped into the fight as well.
Run? That was about the last thing she wanted to do.
“Of course, it is,” Eoghan murmured before he flung up his hands and black crackled around him. A sizzling shadowy force field stretched out and encompassed Jackie as well. Though Darach and Brae kept swinging their swords, the demi-god was untouchable.
A second later, he stood in front of her. His icy fingers touched her cheek with affection. “My master might be gone, but ye are not.” His eyes focused on her ring then shot to her eyes. “We can be together again. Do ye not remember what we had?”
“I do. Very clearly.” Jackie gripped her dagger tightly. “You wanted me, and I didn’t feel the same.”
“But ye did.” He shook his head, as deranged now as he had been back then. “Ye must have, lassie.”
Maybe it would be better to go about this another way and use his desire against him.
“You’re right.” She softened her voice. “But do you understand how I might have forgotten?”
“Aye, the bloody ring.” He frowned, and his eyes swept over everything before they landed on her again. “This was where we first met. This was everything, Gwendolyn.”
Though she started at the use of that name, she showed no reaction. “I know. I’m sorry.” She touched her temple. “I just kept forgetting, and I knew something was wrong.”
Enchantment and insanity mixed in his dark gaze. “Aye. Close. But not quite there.” He touched a spot slightly higher than her temple. “I asked him to put it here.”
Jackie struggled to breathe as he pointed to the location of her tumor. She tried to remain logical despite the horror. “So you know about it.” Bile rose in her throat. “You were there when it…” she started to whisper but trailed off.
Eoghan’s brows perked and an unnatural smile curled his lips. “Aye, lassie, Balor made sure the growth took root.” He leaned closer, pleased. “So that ye would once again be mine.” Lust and promise lit his dark eyes. “And now we will pick up where we left off.”
Chapter Nineteen
JACKIE COULDN’T PRETEND to desire this monster…could she?
She might have been cast into slumber at the time, but she heard what Lair said at Hamilton Castle. How the tumor was unnatural. That evil likely put it there. And now evil controlled it…her. Or at least it had. Because regardless of what happened now, she wasn’t simply accepting her fate anymore. She was ready to fight. To go down fighting. Yet she was careful to keep her anger hidden.
“You’re right,” she whispered. “I’ve been blinded to the truth for far too long.” Her eyes rose to his as she stepped closer. “But now I remember.” Though repulsed, she pressed her hand against his heart. “How much you cared.” She hid behind her eyelashes and kept a lovelorn tone. “How much I cared.”
His pupils flared. “Ye remember now, aye?” He closed the distance, cupped the back of her head and lowered his lips. “There’s still time to marry. To restore things to what they should have been…” He leaned closer and whispered, “I love ye, lassie and have come so far to have ye once more.”
“I’m so glad you never gave up,” she murmured and closed her eyes, tried to remain calm.
“My lassie,” he murmured then his lips closed over hers.
This was it.
Her golden opportunity.
So she drove her dagger into his gut.
The demi-god roared with rage and staggered back with disbelief as the cage around them fizzled away. All hell broke loose as Darach and Brae came at him again. Eoghan ripped out the dagger, more furious than ever as he battled.
“Get her up the mountain, Darach!” Brae cried as she went at Eoghan.
Jackie yelped when Darach flung her over his shoulder and ran.
“Put me down!” she said. “I’ll run.”
“Not fast enough.”
The fighting behind them intensified. The demi-god was definitely changing...weakening. His movements were slow and the dark aura that always seemed to shift around him fading.
“He’s becoming human, isn’t he?” she said.
“Aye.” As he had at MacLomain Castle, Darach moved amazingly fast considering the hazardous route up the mountain. “And your dagger is getting him there a wee bit faster. ‘Twas quick thinking, lass.”
“It was awful.”
“I’m sure, but ‘tis good you keep dishing out kisses,” he said. “Verra helpful.”
She didn’t take his bait. Not after kissing evil. “Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.”
“You more than most,” he mocked.
“Are we really having this conversation?”
“Are you properly distracted?”
Jackie sighed and shook her head. He was doing the same thing he’d done to keep her mind preoccupied when they were in Ireland.
Her gaze returned to what was happening behind them. “He’s coming after us!” She narrowed her eyes. “But he’s not shifting into a black cloud. He’s still a man. That’s good, right?”
Darach didn’t respond but kept moving. Luckily, Brae was making things tough for Eoghan and battling him as they climbed.
“Really, you should put me down,” she said. “You need your strength.”
“You dinnae weigh overly much,” he said.
“Overly?”
Darach plunked her down, eyed her chest and smirked. “Well, those likely weigh more than most.”
She frowned. “How can you joke right now?”
“Sorry, lass. I’m only trying to keep your spirits up,” he said. “Because this is where we make our final stand.”
Her eyes widened as she took in their surroundings or lack thereof. Though it didn’t seem like they had climbed nearly long enough, they were at the top of the mountain. Yet it looked more like a plateau with nothing but a sheer drop on every side except the one they’d climbed. A rock pathway completely surrounded a large, circular wading pool.
“Is that a waterfall I hear?” she murmured, astounded by the crystal clear water considering everything else seemed so murky and dark.
“Aye.” His eyes met hers. “If Da’s right, we should be at the verra top of the mountain the oak tree grew up.”
“The Magic Mountain of Fertility?”
The corner of his lip shot up, and he nodded.
“But how is that possible?”
“I dinnae have time to explain.” He led her along the right-hand side of the water. “Stay here, lass.” His brogue thickened with urgency. “Dinnae move unless ye’ve no choice, ye ken?”
“But—”
He put a finger to her lips and shook his head. “Just do as I ask, Jackie.”
“But I want to help,” she said into his mind.
“And ye will. From right here when I ask it of ye.” He pulled his finger away. “All right?”
“Why not let me fight alongside you guys?”
“Because when ‘tis time your battle is right here,” he said softly. “Promise me ye’ll do as asked.”
She searched his eyes. “I take it you’re not going to tell me exactly what my part is.’
He shook his head. “Not yet. I just need you to trust me.”
“I do.”
“Then promise.”
How could she say no when he looked at her with his heart in his eyes?
“Okay,” she whispered. “I promise.”
Darach brushed his lips over hers then headed back the way they came. He no sooner vanished over the edge when the sound of metal striking metal rang out. The fighting sounded intense. Fast and furious. Then suddenly ear piercing. But why so loud?
“’Tis time, lass. ‘Tis time to fight just as I taught you,” Darach said. “Close your eyes and visualize your surroundings.”
Jackie frowned. It didn’t seem like they had time for that.
“You promised, Jackie.”
She had. And if these were their final moments she didn’t want to break her word. About to do as asked, she tried not to panic when everything suddenly went black.
She couldn’t hear, see, speak, feel or smell anything. It was as if she suffered all of her friends’ disabilities at once. Tingles spread through her as anger flared at the difficult journeys each had suffered. So did a renewed sense of pride. How much they had learned. How brave they had been.
Then the tingles faded along with the anger.
And something else got through.
Darach’s voice from far away.
“Fight your darkness, Jackie,” he said. “Close your eyes and visualize your surroundings, lass.”
Jackie swallowed back fear. She swore she would fight. She promised. So though already seemingly blind, she closed her eyes and paid attention. First, she saw the flicker of her ring. The blue of Darach’s eyes.
Then more.
Bit by bit she started to hear a raging waterfall and lapping water. She began to feel the fine mist of moisture caught on a warm wind. The scent of wildflowers and spruce.
More than that, she began to see her surroundings.
Not as they had been, but what they were becoming. Sunlight warmed her cheeks. Replaced with color, darkness began to fade away. Only when Darach raced over the edge in her direction did she realize her eyes were open.
They were no longer in the Otherworld Eoghan had created.
“Well done, lass,” Darach said before he spun back and everything happened within the blink of an eye. Sunlight spiked over the staggered, green mountains as he lifted his arms over his head and gripped the hilt of his sword. The metal seemed to flash against his back before Eoghan rushed onto the edge. All dark divinity was finally gone.
The demi-god was human.
Darach whipped the sword.
Eoghan whipped his as well.
Darach’s sword lodged hilt-deep in Eoghan’s stomach, and he fell to his knees, shocked as he looked down at his own blood. A split second later, Brae came up behind him and drove her sword through his back.
Yet Eoghan was strong enough that he managed to swipe his leg around and catch Brae off guard. She stumbled back, lost her footing then went over the edge. And not the one she had come up but a sheer cliff. There came no scream but a silent drop to what could only be certain death.
But none of that mattered when Jackie realized Eoghan’s blade had struck Darach. Her world came to a screeching halt when he yanked a sword out of his stomach and turned. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as his eyes found hers.
“I’m sorry, lass,” he whispered into her mind before he staggered then landed in the water.
“Darach,” she cried and stumbled after him. “No, no, no. This can’t be happening.” She managed to drag him a few feet until she fell down on the side of the pond and rested his head on her lap.
“I need to drag you further,” she gasped as red blossomed in the water.
“Nay, lass,” he whispered. “There’s no point.”
“There is,” she said through tears and tried to put a hand over his wound to stop the bleeding. “If I had to fight, so do you!”
“I did fight. We both did.”
He wrapped his fingers around hers. “And won.”
“We need to find Lair…or your Aunt McKayla,” she urged, trying her damnedest not to panic. “Someone who can heal you.”
“No time,” he murmured, struggling for breath as his eyes stayed on hers. “Just be with me, lass. ‘Tis all I want in the end. Just ye.”
The end? God, no. Not after everything they had been through.
But it was, and she felt it right down to her soul.
She choked back a sob before blinding pain ripped through her head. A thump sounded off to their left as Eoghan finally slumped to his death at the same moment Darach took his last breath.
Pain increased.
Right where her tumor was.
Yet she never let go of Darach. Or she didn’t think so. The pain became far worse. Unbearable. Crippling. She lost sense of everything around her.
Then a little bit at a time, the pain faded.
That’s when she realized she sat on his lap, and he held her. The oak that grew up the side of the mountain had apparently continued growing because its branches fanned over them. Colors had only intensified, and the clear water shone a bright, Caribbean-colored blue.
It was stunning. Indescribable.
Darach cupped the side of her neck, concerned. “How are you feeling, lass?”
“Good…I think. What happened?” she whispered, confused, before it occurred to her she had to be hurting him. “Darach, I’m sitting on your wound!”
When she tried to move, he shook his head. “Nay.” A smile lit his eyes as he stood, lowered her to her feet and made sure she was steady. “The wound is gone.”
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered, smiling with relief and wonder as she touched his midsection. The wound had completely healed. “But how?”
“I dinnae know,” he murmured before he cupped her cheeks and kissed her so tenderly that all the horror she’d just witnessed drifted away.
“So ye are back where ye began. Beneath the oak,” came a whisper on the wind. “Or should I say its offspring.”
They pulled apart as a beautiful woman, and tall, blond warrior shimmered out of nowhere.
“Goddess Brigit,” Darach whispered. “And Fionn Mac Cumhail.”
Passion of a Scottish Warrior (The MacLomain Series: Later Years Book 4) Page 27