“The demons are coming and you’re stuck underwater with your Highlander on the shore. Aye, this is bad.”
In and out, in and out, Kat continued to breathe despite the press of panic in her chest. “Toren, where’s Toren?”
“I will get him,” Drakkina said and began to ascend.
“No!” Kat yelled as darkness crept back in. “Don’t…don’t leave me!”
Drakkina settled back down to stare into Kat’s face. Her eyes were soft, gentle as she nodded. “I will not leave you, Katell,” she said and placed her hands along Kat’s cheeks. Kat felt the soft sizzle of her touch. “Relax your wards, Katell, I will keep the beasties away. Save your strength. Your Highlander will find you. And I will stay with you until he does.”
Kat let out a sob and nodded at Drakkina. Talk to me. Tell me anything so that I don’t think about where I am right now, please, Kat said through her mind.
“What should I tell you?”
Anything, something interesting. Tell me about you, when you were young.
Drakkina’s brow furrowed. “It was so long ago, thousands of years.”
But you were a child once?
“Of course,” she said and smiled. “A precocious little brat to be sure.”
Sisters, brothers?
“Neither,” Drakkina said and threw her light out toward a long nosed fish with pointy little teeth. The fish diverted.
Mother, father?
“I suppose, but they died early. I lived with an aunt.”
Was she a witch?
“Aye, and she was very busy, hardly had time for me until I was older, a woman really. Then she showed me some things I hadn’t already picked up on my own.”
Kat watched sadness shadow Drakkina’s face. Neglect, she’d seen it in many slacked jaws and downcast eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Kat warbled through the water, and Drakkina’s eyes focused sharply on hers.
“For what?”
That you were alone.
“No child should be alone.”
Drakkina stared at her for a long moment. “Those children of yours, the ones you take care of. You make sure they are never alone, don’t you?”
Tears squeezed out of Kat’s eyes to add to the salt water bathing her. She nodded. “I love them.”
“More than your Highlander?”
Kat closed her eyes. In and out, in and out.
****
Wind swirled the dust off the edge of the water. Thunder clapped and lightning crackled in the north. Toren turned from the sky to watch the Hell Burners breaking into the fleet of Spanish ships anchored across the channel in Gravelines. From the glow of the fire it was apparent that the crescent was breaking.
Toren heard steel slide against steel behind him and he pulled his long sword free, swiveling in time to meet the thrust.
“Bloody bastard!” Fergus cursed and twisted his sword to slide along Toren’s. Toren easily deflected it, a hard grin cutting along his stony face.
This he would relish. One quick glance told him that no one watched. He faced his enemy alone, in the dark, along the edge of dark water that would welcome Fergus Campbell’s body into her deadly embrace. But first he would kill him, slowly.
Toren’s grin turned to a firm smile. “How considerate of ye, Campbell,” he said and waited for another lunge. Toren side-stepped it and turned to stab, but Campbell met the blow. “I was hoping we’d have a chance to settle this,” Toren said and advanced, turned and lunged again. The dance was a part of him. He’d practiced and honed it his entire life. He knew the feel of the movements and a deadly calm sat heavy inside him. The core of a warrior.
Toren pushed all other thoughts out of his mind as he focused on the flicks of Fergus’s blade. Twist, lunge, pull back. Toren struck Fergus’s shoulder with the tip of his blade and a dark spot of blood spread on the white shirt. Only a torch near the water’s edge showed the movements of his prey, but Toren didn’t need light. He knew the movements of an enemy, one desperate and angry, one who was destined to die. Fergus would die and Toren would have no further worries about his family. Once beheaded, the serpents could do nothing but go to hell.
“She’s probably already dead.” Fergus huffed as he staggered back.
Toren kept his sword arm raised but his breath stopped. “More lies,” he answered calmly.
A rabid laugh barked out of Fergus’s mouth. “Ye’re a fool, MacCallum. Leaving her alone to saunter around the camp when ye knew I was about. First ye lose yer sister and now yer wife. Can ye not protect anyone?”
Toren drew his sword back, his eyes assessing the grinning fool before him. Fergus fingered something from his doublet and tossed it through the air. Toren’s fist caught it. He turned it over in the torchlight but from the feel he knew. The tightly held control in his body snapped and he dropped the blue butterfly into the dirt.
“Where is she?” he roared at Fergus.
For an instant, uncertainty flashed across Fergus’s features, fear. Toren rushed toward Fergus but Fergus retreated. The man’s sword pointed out over the black water beyond Toren’s shoulder.
“There, MacCallum, she is there. But ye better hurry for I think she’s dying. In fact,” he said, his face smug, “I’m certain of it.”
Toren’s gaze shot back and forth between the man that must die before him and the black water. He opened his mind up as he tried to force his breaths to stay calm, his mind to work.
“Help me! Toren!” Kat’s pain washed through Toren. He felt her panic, felt her terror.
Fergus laughed. “Believe me or not.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. She’s still dead.”
Toren watched the growing blood spot on Fergus’s shoulder. He could finish him here and now, stop the bastard from threatening his family ever again. But every second wasted could cost Kat her life.
“Ye will die by MacCallum sword,” Toren said, his eyes searching the shore. There, a row boat turned over near the edge. “Tonight or tomorrow.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Ye’re still dead.”
Toren ran to the boat and flipped it. The coward didn’t follow. Toren knew he wouldn’t, not with that bleeding shoulder.
The row boat flipped in the air, helpless to Toren’s warrior fury. His whole being hummed with power. Kat was near death. Fergus had sworn it, Kat’s terror confirmed it. What was happening to her? Where was she?
Toren slammed the boat out against the growing waves and jumped into the hull. He grabbed the oars, turned his back to the dark sea and heaved, his shoulder muscles working, hurtling the dinghy out into the towering waves. He glanced over his shoulder. “Kat! Where are ye!” All he could see were the flames of the Hell Burners exploding near the Spanish fleet. Lightning splattered against the night, blinding him. He cursed into the growing wind. “Kat!” his roar reached across the waves, through his skull, through his heart, an arrow to her. If only he’d bound her to him like the amulet. It would have been simple, they were half way there already. She’d given him her maidenhead, her part of the binding, even without words, a binding of the flesh. He’d given her his colors, his tartan, in the little hollow orb. All he had to do was utter the words.
“Bloody damn!” He heaved on the oars. Where was she?
In the glow of the distant fires, Toren’s eyes picked up a cloud moving toward him. It changed shape. He blinked hard against the sting of sweat and salt water in his eyes, but the cloud still grew and…sparkled? And it was coming toward him. His gaze snapped to the lightning off to the north as it splintered against the clouds. Unnatural lightning. The lass was using magic.
Something brushed against his cheek pulling his gaze. His breath froze. Butterflies, thousands of them sat along the rim of the boat. He looked up and the cloud of fluttering wings hovered above him.
“Kat, she’s in danger! Find her!” he demanded, not knowing if they could comprehend or not. The iridescent wings alighted from the row boat to join the swarm. The butterflies moved, spreading out into something of a straight p
ath, out into the center of the channel.
“Kat! I’m coming,” he roared and put his back and heavy thighs into the power that propelled through the black waves. Spray kicked up as he plowed the water. Pull! Pull! Pull! Every so often he’d check the mass of fluttering wings, the bridge that must be leading him to Kat. They must, for he had no other way of finding her.
A jolt of panic and fear gripped Toren’s chest. Kat’s fear. “Och, love, help is coming. Hold on,” he gritted out with each pull, his rhythm smooth, hard, full of passion. “God!” Toren yelled up into the stormy sky. “God, help her, help me help her!”
“Highlander!” the voice ripped in his head.
“Witch!” Toren yelled back. “Kat’s in danger!”
“I’m with her, but I can’t help her. Get here, look for my light.”
Toren’s head rotated around, north, west, east, south, but the only light he saw came from the burning boats and the lightning above. The lights of Dover wavered against the shore as the waves grew to block them out.
“Where!”
“Look down, Highlander!”
Down? Down!
The cloud of butterflies now sat on the water, drowning against the soft glow of light coming up from the depths. Their wings fluttered against the wet pull, sacrificing themselves to show him the way.
Toren stopped rowing over the glow and dropped the oars. He kicked off his boots and prepared to jump in. Then he saw the barrel, floating with butterflies covering it.
“Kat? Love, where, how?” he questioned the dark, trying to make his brain work.
“She’s tied to the rope on the barrel.” Drakkina’s voice brushed again through his brain, softer now as if her power faded.
Toren grabbed an oar and slammed it against the barrel, capturing it in a cloud of butterflies that alighted into the dark. In a heart beat, he pulled it to him and grabbed the thick cord. His muscles leapt with adrenaline as he pulled, hand over hand, smoothly. He didn’t know how she was attached. Could he yank it from her hands? Smoothly, up, up through the cold dark water, he pulled. Lightning splintered the sky and thunder cracked. Ships burned and popped. Spanish curses from over the waves were caught on the wind and waves. Up, up, pull, hand over hand, not too sudden, smoothly.
Kat, Kat, my love! How long had she been under there? How had Fergus gotten her out here?
Drakkina’s light surfaced with her, but Toren barely noticed. “Find my dragonfly, quickly,” she said and faded.
Kat’s head broke the water, long hair flat against her pale face. Wide eyes stared up at him.
“Kat!” he yelled and reached for her hand. He grasped her cold fingers and realized her wrists were bound.
“I’ve got ye, love.”
She didn’t say anything but her face tightened on a silent sob. He grabbed her under the arms and pulled her over the edge of the dinghy. His dirk swiftly cut the rope from her waist and wrists. He pushed the barrel back into the water where it bobbed in the waves.
“Kat,” he breathed against her face and pushed her hair back. Kat turned her head and vomited. Swiftly he held her over the edge of the boat as water poured from her mouth. She coughed, the first sound she’d made. And took a breath of air.
She turned her face to him. “Toren!” she sobbed. Wretched pain creased the beauty of her face and Toren’s chest clenched. He pulled her into his arms and held her in his warmth while she shuddered against him.
“I’ve got ye, love.”
Kat nodded, brushing against his chest.
“Fergus. He tied me up on a Hell Burner. I…I had to jump or be burned alive. The dress…so heavy.”
“Love.” He kissed her forehead while she rambled. “I am so sorry.”
She pushed up from his chest as Toren steadied them on the tossing boat.
“I used magic,” Kat confessed. “A lot of it, to…to stay alive.” Guilt engulfed her words as wide worried eyes gazed up at the sky.
Toren placed her in the bottom of the boat, draping her with his wet, yet warm coat. He grabbed up the oars. “Of course ye did.” He met her gaze and pulled hard on the oars. “A warrior stays alive to fight another day.”
She nodded but sat huddled with her knees bent under her sopping, misshapen gown, fingers white and thin against the rails of the boat. Toren threw his muscles into each pull, back to the shores of Dover. He had to release that amulet and somehow give it to the witch. The damn thing just pulled the demons closer to Kat. They wouldn’t stop until they had her. With the amulet, the witch could lure the evil away. He had to get Kat to safety. Just exactly where that was, he wasn’t sure. At least not in this time. Thunder cracked as light sparked.
He surely wasn’t letting her leave his side. They’d get the amulet together, even if they had to grab it off of Elizabeth. As he pulled hard and watched Kat in the boat, he opened up his link to the amulet. How far away was it? Close, it was close, just on the shore.
Did Elizabeth stand on the shore? He glanced over and saw a small contingent of soldiers surrounding none other than the strong monarch. The slender stature of a woman, yet confidence and authority radiated out from her like a sun, a king no matter what form she took.
“Fergus,” Kat said. Toren turned back to her. “Has the amulet. I had it. He must have taken it from me when he knocked me out.”
“He struck ye?” Toren peered closer at her face in the dark. Anger surged at the bruising on her jaw. “Bloody hell, I’ll peel his skin from his bones.”
A small grin played on Kat’s lips at his adamant curse. “The man tied me to a Hell Burner and sent me to burn or drown. But it’s a bruise on my face that makes you want to skin him alive?”
She teased, he knew, but the fury ran so strong that he could only growl. Kat reached forward and touched Toren’s fist on the oar handle.
“I’m okay, Toren. You saved me. Let’s just get that darn dragonfly back and we’ll worry about Fergus later.”
“If he has it, then I get to deal with him the sooner,” Toren said, his eyes dark and full of blood lust.
“All right, then,” Kat said as if bracing herself for another ordeal. She nodded. “Sooner then, but together. I don’t want to be alone again for a good long while.”
She held his gaze until he nodded. “Together,” he said as if sealing a pledge. The words, he should say the words, locking them together for eternity, binding them as one. Simple words said with a surge of magic, I bind you to me for all time. I bind you to this world with me. But she should know first. “Together,” he said again, the words on the tip of his tongue, the hum of magic buzzing with his adrenaline. “I…”
She smiled, waiting, trusting. He could bind her then, to him, to his century, keep her safe with him forever. Simple words said with simple magic and a sincere heart. She’d already done her part whether she knew it or not. “I…I love ye, Kat.”
Her eyes grew round and then crinkled as her smile overtook shock. She blinked. “I love you too,” she said and the words sank into him, dousing his magic, and filling him with another feeling. A buzz of warmth spread through him, a magic of a different kind.
“Guards, arrest that man and his woman!” Elizabeth’s voice reached him as he felt the boat hit bottom. Toren turned, jumped out of the boat and picked Kat up. He growled at the ridiculous guards in their tin suits. He stalked through the water, daring them to touch him, to touch his love.
Fergus stood beside Elizabeth, a bandage over his shoulder. Lying coward.
“See, they return from trying to aid the Spanish,” Fergus called. “Traitors, both of them.”
Wind whipped at the banners held by four men around Elizabeth. Toren’s eyes went to Elizabeth’s chest. No dragonfly. He felt the pull and his eyes moved to Fergus. He had it somewhere on him. He let Kat slide gingerly to the ground next to him.
Kat squeezed Toren’s granite hand.
His hidden pocket, sewn in the back of his doublet. Drakkina’s voice wafted like whispery wings against Kat’s
mind.
“Lies again, Campbell,” Toren said.
“Why else would you be rowing in this growing storm, from the Spaniards?” Fergus asked. His body swelled with smugness.
“To rescue my wife,” Toren growled and Kat held tight to his arm. He began to pull away as if he truly were going to rip the man’s skin from him right there while they all watched. “Ye tried to kill her, but ye failed, again, Campbell.”
Fergus’s boasting smile faltered and he looked at Elizabeth. The monarch stood silent, assessing, staring at Toren and then Kat.
“I haven’t even seen the Lady Kat until now. And heavens, why would I try to kill her?” Fergus asked innocently.
Even with Elizabeth staring her down, Kat found her voice and pushed it up from her raw lungs. “Because I saw you take her dragonfly necklace, the one Toren gifted her,” she rasped out.
“What?” Fergus looked at Kat with disdain. “Ridiculous.” His eyes threatened, promised worse than death if she continued, but Kat ignored it.
“I saw you take it. I said that I would reveal your treachery and you hit me.” Kat’s fingers touched the bruise she knew stood on her jaw. Her eyes moved to Elizabeth’s. “When I woke he had me tied up on a Hell Burner headed out to sea.”
“Outrageous tale!” Fergus yelled but Elizabeth held up one hand to silence him.
“I had to jump overboard to save myself from the flames.” Kat fought to keep the shudder of fear down. She held her chin high. “But Toren saved me before my strength was completely gone.”
Elizabeth’s eyes raked Kat, taking in her appearance. “Turn,” she ordered and Kat pivoted slowly around, dropping Toren’s coat from her chaffed shoulders. Kat couldn’t see them, but she knew the fire had burned against her back.
Several grunts sounded behind her and Toren’s hand lay gentle on Kat’s back. “Och love, yer back.” The cool wash of wind told her that the dress had been burned away from her back in places and blisters must sit on her red puckered skin.
“Burnt trying to reach the enemy,” Fergus said, trying to dismiss her agony. “Serves her right,” he murmured and Toren lunged. Kat wobbled around. Toren held Fergus by the throat, choking him with one solid fist, his face within an inch of Fergus’s pinched features.
Masquerade (The Dragonfly Chronicles Book 3) Page 27