“I don’t want perfect, Drustan,” she said. She struggled to rise, and he held her up through another contraction. When she could speak again, she reached up to grab his neck, bringing him closer. “I want you, the child who learned to survive without touch, the boy who felt remorse when his caregivers died, the man who despised the mistake he made in his anger. It’s made you who you are, Drustan. A battered heart that survives is the most beautiful of all.”
“I will be a better man,” he whispered, his lips near hers.
She shook her head. “I love you, Drustan, the man who’s survived all of that. If you wash those things from your past, you won’t be the same. If you allow your baby daughter to die…” Anna choked on the words, tears and nose running without care. “If you let her die, you won’t be the man I love.”
His eyes moved across her features. Did she look as tortured as all those sketches he’d drawn? His face matched hers in pain. He kissed her lips so gently that it brought her another wave of tears. He pulled back, resting his forehead against hers. “I will be better,” he said. “I promise.”
“No you won’t.” She choked on a sob which rolled into another contraction. “You won’t,” she breathed, letting the tears flood her vision. She collapsed back, closing her eyes against the agony and despair. It would surely tear her apart. At the moment, she didn’t wish to stay together.
Strong arms lifted under her knees and back. She smelled Drustan and turned her face into his chest to block out the foul breeze that heralded the demons. “Place them on the slab,” Drustan said and lowered her back onto the table a moment later. Layers of blankets cushioned her, one covering her feet she could pull up.
Semiazaz floated over again, something hidden in the folds of his robes. Anna twisted her face toward his, instinctively knowing he harbored danger. The wizard lifted his hand, bringing forth a long silver knife. Anna’s throat dried up, squeezing, but then another contraction took over.
“Not until the baby is born,” Drustan said. “I would never hurt Anna.” Sadness filled his every word, making them slow, sluggish. She sobbed harder, totally defenseless.
“I will hate you,” she breathed, releasing her hold on his arm. “I will never forgive you for hurting my baby girl.” She tried to turn on her side, but the contractions were coming so fast she couldn’t move.
“I know,” he said close to her face. “But I will go back to a time before this. I will clip this out of existence so it will not happen. You won’t remember it.”
She glared into his pleading eyes. “I will know. Remember, I’m never wrong when it comes to hearts.”
“Get away from her!” Drakkina’s voice reverberated among the stones, filling the air, making Anna’s frantic heart jump. She tried to catch her breath, but the pain held it hostage.
“I am here,” Merewin’s voice was like a balm. Anna’s head rolled to her when she felt a cool hand touch her arm. A real hand, not mist. The forest beyond the stones wavered. Although the stones stood solid, unshifting, the trees and rocks around them changed between the current time and all the times where the sisters lived. The shifting gave Anna a headache, and she closed her eyes.
“Move away, brother,” Merewin said, her voice stern but kind. She didn’t know yet what he intended to do.
“Help me,” Anna gasped.
Merewin closed her eyes, and Anna felt a warmth slide against the pain, deadening the deep ache boring through her. “Anna, you need to breathe. Rest for a while. I’ve dulled the pain.”
Behind Merewin, Anna saw shapes forming; a small army of women flanked by warriors strode in from the mist. Drustan’s sisters had arrived. The demons moved in, forming a semi-circle before them with Anna on the granite slab in the middle. They all stood staring, sizing one another up.
Drakkina and Semiazaz faced each other off to the side. “Kina,” Semiazaz called. “If you give me the orb and amulet, we can go back and fix all of this.”
“You are insane, Semiazaz,” she called, thunder in her voice. “You can’t go back to fix things in time. It will destroy reality. Every thread of time is connected to the next.”
“I know how to snip just the right ones, Kina. We can go to our youth, back before I lost you.”
“Back before you became corrupted with power?” she asked, her voice harsh, hateful.
“If you desire. I will let you choose, Eògan or me, a fair contest of the heart. It will be up to you, Kina. Just give me the orb and the amulet.”
“Never,” she spat as if it were a curse.
“I love you, Kina,” he said, his robes shortening into a tunic embroidered with dragonflies. “It is me, Eògan. I am still in here. Do what he says, and we can be together again.”
“Lies.” Her dragonflies scattered and contracted, ringing her. “I will never surrender my power to you. You don’t know what love is Semiazaz.”
“And you do?” he called back. “You who led two foolish boys along, never choosing, forever teasing. You used love for your own purposes.”
Drakkina stood with her arms spread wide. “I was just a foolish girl then, but I’ve learned about love.” She shook her head. “I will never surrender my power to you.” Drakkina raised her hands, sending a bolt of lightning toward the image, but Semiazaz dissolved and rematerialized as himself further to the right.
“Very well,” he said as a great wind began to swirl within the stones. “We will do this the hard way.” The final battle had begun.
****
Semiazaz’s wind gusted through the stones, kicking up dust and stones; though Kailin seemed to hurl it all back at him. Drustan guarded Anna against the debris. He kept the knife by his leg, his hand aching as he grasped it.
“Don’t…” Anna started as she fought to draw in air, her eyes desperate and shifting between him and Merewin. “Don’t let…him…kill her.”
Merewin’s eyes narrowed into hard lines. “I will protect your babe as my own, Anna. I promise I won’t let Semiazaz touch her.”
“Not Semiazaz.” Tears stained Anna’s beautiful face. “Drustan.” The sadness and desperation weighed heavy and familiar on her features, as if one of his sketches had come to life. “Don’t let Drustan kill my baby.”
Anna’s words sliced through Drustan, leaving him bloody and raw inside. The fear in her tone, fear of him, made his knees weak. And yet somehow he stood. Holding a blade. He looked down at it as if it were some strange object placed in his palm without his notice.
There will be a babe at the final battle. Kill it, and you will have control over time. You will absorb its power. We will defeat the witches and have everything you’ve always desired. Semiazaz had detailed it out for him, showing him the sharp blade that would make it painless and quick. The babe has your evil in it. It is a monster and will kill your mate. But if you conceive it free of your cursed touch, no longer the monster, then the babe will be pure.
Drustan tried to touch the mind of the small soul struggling to break into the world, but she was attached to Anna, impervious to his magic. It was why Semiazaz had given him the knife. Since the baby was attached to Anna, Drustan’s soul mate, the baby’s powers were useless against him, too. Drustan was the only one who could get close to her with all her power. The death must occur before she was separated from Anna, the umbilical cord cut.
Behind him Drakkina threw threats interspersed with lightning at Semiazaz as his sisters worked their magic. Serena touched Drustan’s thoughts. Help us, brother. Defeat Semiazaz and his brethren. They are full of lies.
Drustan easily reinforced the barrier around his mind. He looked over to her, and Serena shook her head at him. For a moment, he remembered her young, cradling him while Gilla rested. She had the sweetest singing voice and would tickle his bare toes.
Drustan snapped his gaze away to where Elathan commanded bats from the forests of Denmark. His great wings stretched and beat above the swarm of screeching animals, urging them to attack Merewin and Hauk. Drustan threw up a ba
rrier around Merewin. She must help Anna.
For a minute the bats obscured the rest of the field, their black and brown bodies thumping and scratching along the bubble he’d wrapped around the center slab. Anna gave a quick scream.
“I won’t let them hurt you,” he said. He wanted to wrap her in his arms, but a single touch would let the bats through.
Her eyes snapped open, green and sharp like cracked emeralds. “But you would kill our daughter.”
“She is a monster, Anna. She will kill you,” he said and spied Megaira sending snakes toward Kailin and Jackson. Semiazaz wanted the orb almost as much as he wanted Drakkina, and Jackson still controlled it.
“She is not a monster,” Anna yelled back. “She loves me. Give her a chance to love you, too.”
He looked back down at her, letting the excruciating sadness seep into his eyes like he’d opened the window to his soul. “She is mine as she’s grown so fast in you. A monster comes from a monster. I am a monster, but I will change that, I will change all of it.”
Anna tried to sit up even though Merewin had moved to the end of the table, draping her legs modestly with the blanket. Anna raised her finger to poke him in the chest, but he moved out of reach, so she jabbed the air. “She is yours because you’re the only person I’ve had sex with.”
“Murdock—”
“Is marrying Matilda. You saw him with Matilda, not me. Semiazaz orchestrated the whole damn scene,” she yelled. “Wake up and realize that he’s been lying to you since you were a baby.”
The bats had cleared away. Drustan dropped his barrier, and Tenebris ran through the melee to stand before Anna’s table, snapping at any animal that tried to approach. Drustan looked across to Semiazaz as he whipped magic at his sisters and Drakkina. Suddenly, a second, identical Semiazaz appeared next to the first.
“You idiots,” the second wizard yelled, though his voice had a higher pitch. “Too many animals. I can’t fight with all of them. Clear the field.”
Bast immediately called back the fierce and elusive Scottish wildcats, and Bechard pushed the wolves to the perimeter with one wide stroke of his magic. The real Semiazaz stared at Kat dressed as himself. “Listen to her voice. She is not me. Stay true to the plan.”
“I see her head,” Merewin called from the foot of the table, drawing Drustan’s focus. “Anna, get ready to push.”
Anna looked at Drustan. “You will become a monster. Your heart will change forever. It has been Semiazaz’s plan from the start.” Anna’s eyes squeezed shut as she began to pant. Her words struck the taught cord inside Drustan. He’d been watching Semiazaz for weeks, looking at his past, trying to discern his true strategies. The wizard continued to talk of how they would make the world anew, bringing back everyone who should love Drustan. They wouldn’t remember any of this. They would only know him as the good, untainted monster he had been before the demons took him. They would change; he would change. But would this horrendous act blacken his heart, killing what humanity he had?
Anna groaned before him on the slab. “That’s it, Anna, time to push,” Merewin said and looked to Drustan. “You stay back.”
Without looking away she yelled. “Hauk, come here.” The Viking came running, his war axe ready to strike. Drustan yanked the axe away from the Viking with a twitch of his hand and threw it fifty feet away beyond the stones.
Merewin held a hand out to stop Hauk and looked at Drustan. “I remember you as a wee bairn, Drustan.” She shook her head. “We loved you, an innocent soul, just born, uncorrupted. This bairn is the same. Protect her.”
“She will kill Anna,” he said, hardening his voice as he tried to harden his resolve.
Merewin shook her head. “Serena has seen only good in the bairn.”
Drustan’s mind and eyes flashed to Semiazaz. Did you lie to me about the baby?Is the child good?
Semiazaz’s gaze shifted to him from across the field. There was only one again as Kat had transformed into a pounding giant to battle Bechard and his wolves, her Highlander husband swinging his sword against them.
With a brief sucking in of light turned shadow, Semiazaz changed his appearance into that of the boy Drustan had killed at the hanging tree, the innocent one that had just come along with his violent brother. The boy was pale, obviously dead, with his internal organs spilling out of his gut to hang around his legs. His blood-soaked lips moved as he spoke, the words coming to Drustan’s mind in answer. What good has ever come from you, Drustan?
At some unspoken signal, the demons turned toward Drustan, one by one changing their appearance into someone he’d murdered. Sister Elizabeth, Sisters Mary, Margaret, Josephine and Henrietta. Bast transformed into the woman Trudy, a trickle of blood snaking down from the corner of her parched lips. Their gazes pierced Drustan, accusation and judgement flying across the distance.
Nothing good has ever come from you, Drustan. The babe is a monster just like you. Their voices throbbed in unison into his head. He strained not to cringe, not to give anyone the satisfaction of knowing that they affected him, hurt him, affirmed what he’d always known.
“That’s it. Another push,” Merewin coached.
Hauk stood on the other side of the table watching Drustan. He looked over his shoulder and back at him. “They are masters of manipulation,” Hauk said, his voice deep. “Guilt will drive a man to journey beyond sanity. I’ve wallowed in its darkness. I know.”
Drustan met the Viking warrior’s gaze and caught a glimmer of something sincere in his eyes. Not pity or vacant sympathy, but something deep and tarry, like regret. “And how did you journey home?” Drustan asked. Part of him wondered at the absurdity of talking during battle over his mate giving birth, but he waited for the answer.
Hauk’s gaze glanced to Merewin as she guided under the blanket. “Love is part magic, part antidote. It is a floating raft found when nearly drowned at sea. Merewin brought me home.”
“I don’t know how to love,” Drustan said and dropped his gaze to Anna on the table, her hair a wild tempest under her head, her lips pulled back over gritted teeth.
Across from him Hauk snorted as if amused. “It’s reflected in your eyes, demon man. And that is no mirage like the play they put on.” He hooked a thumb backward toward Semiazaz.
Look at me. Look at what you’ve done. Semiazaz even sounded like a young boy.
Drustan’s gaze moved between the dead boy, the nuns, Trudy. Their images caught him, gripped him so that he couldn’t look away. How could he not be a monster? He heard Hauk say something to Merewin, but his focus remained on his past, Semiazaz whispering of Drustan’s darkness. Drustan didn’t even try to block it out anymore.
“Bela, go,” Merewin said, and Drustan watched Kailin’s owl swoop down, talons pointed and clasping. Great wings blew the wildflowers, scattering them around Anna, dropping them to the leaf-covered ground. The owl grabbed the fluff of fur from Merewin’s outstretched hand.
Tuto dropped the mink on top of the boy. Bela bit the boy’s face, scratching as he grabbed for it. Semiazaz’s beard unwound down, his robes a flood of blue as they covered the boy’s raw organs, changing him back into the wizard. He swatted at the acrobatic attacker.
Tuto continued his momentum, talons extended to scratch and pluck at the eyes of Sister Josephine who turned back into Megaira. She disappeared from under his attack and reappeared on the other side of Sister Mary, but Tuto followed her, striking against the other nuns as he shot through them, wreaking vengeance with his talons and dagger-like beak.
A shot of blue dove amongst the images of Drustan’s past, attacking with the owl, fearlessly jabbing into the soft tissue of eyes. Soon only Trudy remained. With sorrowful eyes, she walked toward Drustan, arms outstretched. You killed me. Bring me back, Drustan. You owe me my life.
You owe her nothing. Serena’s words penetrated Drustan’s mind at the same time she ran at Trudy, a blade in her hand. She jammed the knife into Trudy’s neck, turning her instantly to Bast. Bast hissed an
d grabbed her ethereal throat. I can’t shift, Bast shrieked in her mind. With a powerful swing, the she-demon threw her arm back, catching Serena, knocking her to the ground.
Keenan ran at Bast, his sword raised and his lips curled back in a battle cry. Bast only had time to look up, a smile still on her blood-red lips, as his blade swung down, severing her head from her body. It fell amongst the leaves, her body dropping to her naked knees to tumble sideways. Apparently on this plane of existence, the demons were as vulnerable as his sisters. Keenan lifted Serena, bringing her to the table, toward Merewin.
Anna continued to breathe, her gaze focused on Merewin’s face. Merewin took a moment to touch Serena. “She will be well,” Merewin said. “Set her down.” Keenan lowered Serena next to the slab and brushed her hair from her face. She blinked her eyes open, and Keenan dropped his head between his braced shoulders in relief.
Tenebris’s growl came out in short barks as he jumped away from the center slab and leapt side to side, dodging other wolves, demons and warriors. Drustan looked ahead of him where Kailin and Jackson struggled against Elathan’s wings. He’d wrapped them inside, squeezing them to death.
The thought of losing Kailin twisted Drustan’s stomach, and he lifted his hand full of fire. But Tenebris reached them first, jumping without a care for his life onto Elathan’s back. Claws ripped down the black feathers, opening up flesh underneath. The demon threw back his horned head in a shrill howl. In a mere second he vanished, dropping Kailin and her mate to the ground where they coughed. Tenebris circled them, snapping at any approaching demon or beast. They helped each other to their feet.
Anna screamed, and Drustan jumped forward, his gaze back on her, while Keenan helped Serena rise. Drustan supported Anna’s back as she strained upright. Hauk battled Trill and two other demons, his back to Merewin. Keenan joined him. Drustan had no doubt the two of them could handle the three. Hauk’s battle cry alone made Trill hesitate, and the little mink with its needle teeth had returned to torment the others.
Drustan focused on Anna and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She didn’t pull away. Could that mean she could one day forgive him? Forgive him for an atrocity? The little grain of hope swelled and burst inside his chest. He lowered closer to her face, stroking back her hair, watching the pain splinter across her face. Her hair was matted with sweat, her face damp and flushed. Tears spiked her eyelashes together, and she panted. Bravely she focused all her efforts to bring forth life. She was exquisite.
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