by Donna Grant
* * *
Sammi was aghast at the melee before her. No sooner had Tristan attacked than Ian punched a Dark and dove to the floor. When he got to his feet he had Rhi’s sword in hand.
As for Rhi, she and Balladyn were once more rolling around on the floor, colliding into furniture and walls alike as they beat each other.
A moment later, the front door flew open as Dragon Kings and Warriors came pouring in. Sammi smiled, because she knew they would be victorious.
She quickly went to stand between Laith and Phelan while the others attacked the Dark Fae. Sammi couldn’t see the magic being thrown around by the Dark and Kings, but the air was electric with some unknown charge that could only be magic.
Three Dark lay dead, their lives taken by Ian, who swung Rhi’s sword as if it was a part of him. He wasn’t the only one with a sword, however.
Tristan also held one. She had no idea when he had gotten it or how, but it was beautiful in its simplicity. The blade was straight and the pommel leather wrapped with enough room for a hand and a half as he swung it.
The tide was quickly turning in their favor. Sammi looked at Laith to see the Dragon King’s face was grim. “What is it?”
“Two more Dark are here.”
“What?” she asked in confusion.
Then she saw them. The two Dark that quickly turned into six and then ten. It had been a trap, but not set by the Kings. This one had been set by the Dark.
Sammi lost count of the new Dark Ones appearing. Laith left her next to Phelan as he joined the others in the battle. Beside her, Phelan was fisting his hands and growling as he yearned to get into the thick of things.
“Go,” she urged.
He shook his head. “I can no’ leave you alone.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than his skin shifted into gold and gold claws shot from his fingers. He let loose a long, vicious growl and ducked a blast of magic before he speared the attacking Dark in the throat.
Blood sprayed Phelan as well as Sammi, but she didn’t bother to move. She had worked herself into a corner with Phelan now standing in front of her ready to defend her against a steady stream of Dark.
It wasn’t long before Charon returned and the two of them kept the Dark at bay. But for every Dark they killed, three more replaced them.
“Duck!” Charon yelled at her.
Sammi’s mind was still processing his request, but her body went into action. Her legs folded and she ended up on all fours on the floor with a smoldering hole in the wall where her head had been.
“Bloody hell,” she murmured and decided to stay lower to the ground. She put her back into the corner again and pulled her legs against her.
Her palms were sweaty and her mouth dry with fear. She searched the area for Tristan and found him fighting three Dark Ones with an ease that should have relieved her mind.
Instead, it made her all the more nervous, because Tristan was like a madman as he fought. He would fight until there was nothing left. He would put himself in peril, put Dreagan in peril.
There was a crack as if a strain on the wooden beams of the ceiling. Sammi easily found the source. It was Laith. He had shifted into dragon form. He stood, a wall of black scales against the Dark.
With a roar he busted his head through the roof. His tail took out two Dark Ones as well as the left half of the cottage. Sammi covered her head with her hands as debris began to rain down.
No sooner had Laith shifted than Banan joined him. Black stood next to Blue, and between the both of them the roof was completely demolished.
Boards bounced next to Sammi, one hitting her shoulder. It wasn’t until she looked up and found Phelan and Charon standing over her like shields that she realized why she was all but unfazed.
Charon let out a furious growl when his right leg crumpled and he went down on one knee. The air around him was charged higher, letting Sammi know magic had been used.
The Dark responsible was soon fighting Phelan. Sammi looked at Charon’s leg to see a ragged hole the size of a football burned into the lower back half of his jeans. The skin bled amid the burns. To her shock, his wound began to heal right before her eyes.
“If only we healed as quickly as the Kings,” Charon said with a wink.
He was up and fighting alongside Phelan again a moment later. Her mortality hit home like a sledgehammer. Every being, excluding herself, was immortal to some degree.
Her life could be snuffed out in an instant. A blast of magic from a Dark hitting her would most likely end her life. There would be nothing inside her to heal such a wound.
She stood in a room full of supernatural beings, immortal and powerful. They were fighting a war she had no part in, a war that she had been pulled into against her will.
But now that she was in it, Sammi didn’t think she could leave. How could she return to Oban and her pub knowing what existed on Dreagan?
There was no way any man would ever compare to Tristan. He was wild and fierce, untamed and ferocious—and she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
The raw, visceral power left her astounded and dazed.
The brutal, primal strength was startling and remarkable.
The fierce, potent energy of him made her heart pound and her soul come alive.
Tristan was the epitome of a Highland warrior. He was ruthless, merciless as he fought.
She was so in tune with him that she slowly stood to go to him. One step away from the corner and everything changed.
Perhaps Sammi should have paid more attention to the room at large rather than seeing Tristan with new eyes. Maybe then she would have realized there was a new Dark One in the room.
An arm wrapped around her from behind and grabbed her neck. Some unknown, unseen force was preventing her from speaking to warn Tristan or even Phelan and Charon that a Dark had her.
“Well, well, well,” said a deep, husky Irish voice in her ear. The male laughed softly. “Ah, but this was too easy. Tell me, dear, do you know which one is the real Tristan?”
Sammi shook her head. It didn’t matter what they did to her. She wasn’t going to tell them anything.
“No matter,” he whispered, his voice lowering even more. “Soon, Tristan will be coming to me. You see, I have what he wants. You.”
Terror, unyielding and inexorable, engulfed her. She had made a critical mistake, one that could be the end of her. Her gaze looked past the groups fighting to what was left of the bedroom.
The white linens were barely visible from the collapse of the roof. In her mind, however, the bed was clean and on it were her and Tristan locked in a kiss with their limbs tangled as they learned each other’s body.
It was the last thing she saw before the chilling, horrifying darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Dark Tristan was fighting disappeared before he could land the killing blow. It was just like the cowardly fuckers to pull that kind of stunt.
He whirled around, ready to take on the next Dark One, but there was no one other than the Warriors and Kings. Until his gaze landed on Balladyn and Rhi still locked in battle.
This time Rhi had the upper hand. She stood with one gold heel of her shoe on his throat and her sword at his groin. “It’s over, Balladyn. Call off your dogs.”
His slow, evil smile sent a chill of foreboding down Tristan’s spine.
“Look around, pet,” Balladyn prodded her.
Rhi paused before she looked up, her gaze clashing with Tristan’s before she slowly surveyed the room. “Where did you send them?”
“Where else? We got what we came for.”
Tristan’s heart squeezed as if a fist had plunged into his chest and wrapped around it. He couldn’t catch his breath. He turned his head to the corner he had spotted Sammi in to find it empty.
Phelan and Charon turned as well, their puzzled expressions saying what words could not.
“That’s right,” Balladyn said.
Tristan jerked his head to the Dark to
find his red eyes staring at him.
Balladyn’s smile grew. “We have her, Dragon King. If you want her back, you know where to find us.”
He teleported out just as Rhi was bringing down her sword. The blade cut through the rug into the wood floor while she cursed.
Tristan knew what they would do to Sammi. He knew all too well what awaited her in the depths of the Dark Ones’ home. His plan had been to protect her.
Instead, she was now in the hands of his enemy.
Tristan threw back his head and roared all his fury, his ineffectiveness. His vehemence.
Hopelessness slid into his gut like a snake, coiling its cold skin around him until he was drowning in it.
It had been pure luck, Rhi, and Kellan’s quick thinking that had gotten Kellan and Denae out of the Dark Fae’s prison last time. At least Tristan had Rhi. He hated to ask her to go back to such a place, but he had no choice. He had to get Sammi back.
Even if it meant he changed places with her.
“It was all a damned trap,” Ian growled.
Rhys said, “We were too damn confident in our success.”
“How did they know our plan?” Phelan asked.
Banan and Laith shifted back into human form, but Tristan couldn’t take his eyes off the last place he had seen Sammi.
“Do they have someone who can stay veiled as long as Rhi who might have spied on us?” Banan asked.
Laith made a sound at the back of his throat. “Why would they risk so much by coming onto Dreagan?”
Tristan had no answers for them. His mind was in a whirl of rage and ire over how he could have messed up so badly that Sammi was taken.
Somehow he had to pull himself together, to become a cold, calculating machine so he could go into the depths of the netherworld to find her.
Just how the hell he was going to do that was something he hadn’t figured out.
* * *
Rhi didn’t think she had ever seen someone as desolate as Tristan. The shock and surprise at finding Sammi gone showed plainly on his face.
“Tristan,” Ian said as he walked to his brother’s side. “We’ll find Sammi.”
Rhi felt eyes on her and turned her head to Phelan. She, Phelan, and Tristan had been in the tunnels outside of Taraeth’s fortress recently, and Rhi would be content to spend eternity without seeing them again.
That wasn’t going to happen though. She would be going back into the awful place because she knew Tristan would ask it of her. As much as she wanted to refuse, she couldn’t. She was a romantic, a sucker for love.
Sammi and Tristan might not have realized it yet, but they were made for each other. Just as she and her dragon lover had been.
They hadn’t survived, but Rhi would do all she could to help Tristan and Sammi.
The war had begun, and there would be casualties—there always were. Rhi was afraid that this time, the humans were going to be dragged into it.
And that would be the downfall of the Kings.
That didn’t mean the Light Fae would get to share in the spoils of the realm with the Dark. There would be another civil war. She was so tired of fighting, so tired of being the one to put what she wanted on hold.
It was in the Light’s interest to join the Kings. Rhi knew she could talk her queen into it. Constantine was another matter, but then she knew how to go around that.
She would speak to the other Dragon Kings and let them convince Con. If she asked, he would say no just to irritate her, and there wasn’t time for that. He was a first-rate ass, but this war went beyond her hatred of him.
Right now she was more focused on Balladyn. Rhi had thought fighting him would be difficult with their history. It should be hard to battle someone she had considered a brother and mentor.
Balladyn, however, had made it easy for her. His jabs about losing her lover hadn’t made her lose her cool as he had hoped—as it would have done before. This time, it made her more focused.
She ran her fingers through her hair to smooth it out of her face and got a strand caught in her nail. “Damn,” she mumbled when she saw her nail was split, her new polish chipped in multiple places.
A nice long visit to her favorite salon was in order once Sammi was back in the safe confines of Dreagan Manor with Tristan by her side.
That was going to be the problematic part. The Dark would offer to trade Sammi for Tristan. And Tristan, the noble fool, would do it.
Rhi began to formulate several plans that might keep both Sammi and Tristan out of the Dark’s clutches, but every one was chancy and required fate to be kind.
When fate was anything but.
The air moved behind her, and before Rhi could turn, a blade was pressed beneath her chin. She stilled instantly.
“You should’ve remained on guard. Did nothing I taught you stick in that bullheaded mind of yours, pet?” Balladyn asked in her ear.
To Rhi’s surprise, the only one looking at her was Con. His black gaze was blank, uncaring that a Dark had her in his grip. Rhi knew then that this was the end for her.
Even if she called out, even if she tried to get away, Balladyn would kill her. There was nothing anyone could do to help. She was well and truly doomed.
What irked the most was that this wasn’t how she was supposed to go out. In the midst of battle for sure, not being taken by surprise because she’d let her guard down like some stupid youngster.
“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” Balladyn whispered.
Fear was too strong. She wanted to live! Rhi sucked in a breath to call out for help when Balladyn teleported her away.
She found herself in the dark in the next second. Before she could ask what he was doing, Balladyn hit her on the back of the neck, sending her to her knees.
Rhi fell into a puddle of water that made her gag—the stench was so terrible. She was then roughly yanked around and shackles put on her wrists and feet.
“These are the Chains of Mordare. I know you’ve heard of them, of just what they can do to a Fae. No Light magic can free you.”
Her head was spinning, her eyes unable to focus. She wanted to demand that Balladyn tell her what his plans for her were, but she couldn’t get the words past her lips.
“It’s your time to suffer. Pet,” he said contemptuously.
Then there was only silence. And the dark.
It was the worst kind of hell for a Light Fae.
* * *
“Shit!”
Tristan jerked at Con’s explosion. He forced himself to look at Constantine to find the King of Kings pacing in an agitated state.
“Where the hell is Rhi?” Phelan demanded angrily. “Did you send her away, Con?”
Con stopped pacing and spun to face Phelan. “Nay. She was taken. By Balladyn. Who is that son of a bitch anyway? He calls her pet as if they know each other.”
“I think they do,” Phelan said, his face lined with worry as he bent to collect Rhi’s blade that she must have dropped.
Tristan drew in a deep breath. “There’s no doubt they know each other. Those two were fighting as if they had a long-coming grudge to settle.”
“Our way into the Dark’s holding is gone,” Charon said.
Rhys righted a chair and kicked at a dead Dark. “No’ exactly. Phelan can find a way.”
“And I’ll be beside him,” Tristan stated.
Ian rubbed his chest as the dragon tattoo vanished. “I’ll be with you. If nothing else, we can try to fool them again.”
Tristan was shaking his head before Ian finished. “Nay. Balladyn knew who I was. He looked right at me. That ruse willna work again.”
“What did you say to Ulrik?” Banan asked. “Did you accidentally say something that would tip him off to your plan?”
“Never. I went out of my way to keep the conversation on me.”
Laith gave the broken sofa a kick away from a small closet and took out two pairs of jeans. He threw one at Banan and kept the other. After shoving one leg in the pan
ts, he said, “Tristan’s plan was sound. The only way they could’ve known what was going down was to be privy to it.”
“No’ necessarily,” Ian said. “They were thoroughly confused when they saw both me and Tristan. They didna know of that.”
Con sighed loudly. “Which means they guessed and had the extra Dark on standby much as we were. Fuck me!”
“You all can debate that for as long as you want, but I’m going after Sammi. I can no’ leave her there any longer than necessary,” Tristan said.
Con’s eyes, black as coal and cool as a yawning abyss, caught his. “You know they willna exchange her for you, no matter what they’ve said.”
“I know. Just as I know that I’m no’ coming out of there.” It was a fate he resigned himself to.
He had mucked up being a Warrior, and when someone had counted on him, he had royally screwed up being a King. As second chances went, he had fucked up beyond measure. This was his penance.
Phelan stepped forward. “It’s no’ just Sammi we need to look for. There is Rhi as well. Balladyn took her for a reason.”
“And no’ a good one,” Con said angrily. “I know what they do to the Light. You might as well forget Rhi. If she survives, she’ll become Dark.”
“If?” Ian bellowed. “You’re no’ giving her enough credit.”
Banan walked to the doorway and glanced at the broken front door. “And you Warriors have no’ seen how they break a Light Fae. You know what the Dark do to mortals. It’s ten times worse for a Light.”
“I’m no’ going to give up on her so easily,” Rhys said. “She’s helped us when there was no reason for her to. The least I can do is search for her.”
Charon gave a brisk nod. “I’m in agreement.”
“Time is of the essence, gentlemen,” Con said. “You’ll be lucky to find one of them, if either. I’m coming with you.”
Tristan couldn’t have been more surprised than if Con had beheaded Phelan.
The last time he had snuck into Ireland it had just been him and Phelan. This time, the Dark were going to feel the fury of the Kings and Warriors.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE