CHAPTER NINETEEN
MALCOLM STRODE toward the queen’s hall, passing only a handful of solemn noblemen and taciturn royal soldiers as he did so. It was still early, the sun straining to rise, the sky outside only just blushing. Undoubtedly the revelry had gone on to the midnight hour last night.
He did not know what the queen wished and he was afraid the summons had something to do with Royce.
As he could not deny the extent of his worry for Aidan now, he felt sorely pressed.
But he had been given permission to leave when he had been released.
The sooner he got Claire away from the palace, the better.
And then he saw Royce emerging from the queen’s hall, two guards closing the door behind him and standing in front of it. Royce saw him, as well, and appeared as surprised as Malcolm felt.
“What are ye doing here?” Royce asked.
Malcolm gave him a cursory glance and decided he was in one piece. “I was summoned. I thought surely ye had annoyed Her Highness.”
Royce smiled. “She be well pleased and is sleeping deeply. I doubt she’ll rise before noon.”
Malcolm started. “I was summoned by the queen.”
Royce’s smile vanished. “Malcolm, I just left her. Her orders were that no one disturbs her till she rises.”
And Malcolm realized the summons had been a trap. “Claire!” He turned and ran down the hall, Royce behind him. He rushed up two sets of stairs. The door to his chamber was closed but he knew before opening it that she was not here. As he flung it aside, he felt the terrible chill within.
Moray had taken her.
CLAIRE AWOKE.
She lay on cold, uncomfortable stone. It took her a moment to orient herself.
She blinked, realizing she was in a round tower and, from the look of the gray sky outside, high above the surrounding land.
She recalled Moray walking into her chamber at the palace with his frightening smile, and then there was only darkness.
Claire clawed the stone. She remembered everything about the night of her mother’s murder now.
Moray had been the demon who had drifted into their Brooklyn home that night. He had been the demon who had opened the closet door and taken her hand—and told her he would return for her.
Claire choked on bile and fear. She no longer believed in coincidence. She knew, in that heart-stopping moment, that he was the demon responsible for her mother’s murder; that he was the demon she had wanted to hunt down and destroy to avenge her mother.
She began to shake convulsively. He had been hunting her instead.
She turned on all fours and retched.
Was it Malcolm he wanted—or her?
Claire slowly got to her feet. Her dagger and gun were gone. She was defenseless.
But she was defenseless even with those weapons, because nicking him would not save her from whatever he planned.
She began taking deep breaths. Fear wasn’t going to help her now.
She looked around. The tower was larger than the tower at Awe, but only a small table, two chairs and a pallet graced it.
Engraved on one wall was a symbol she recognized—the universal symbol for evil and the devil.
A black pentagram in an odd circle glared at her.
There was a pitcher on the table. Claire assumed it contained water or wine—she wasn’t going near it.
She walked over to one of the tower’s two windows. The tower was clearly centuries old, and the opening was two and a half times the size of an arrow slit. She glanced outside and saw why the windows were large enough to accommodate a small man.
They were a hundred feet above the forest below. No one could scale the tower to get inside. The castle was on the top of sheer cliffs and the forest below was pine, thick and impenetrable. It was a gray, windy day. She smelled salt in the air. They were not far from the ocean.
She stared outside, trying to decide where he had taken her, but it was so gray and foggy out Claire could not decide where the sun might be. She had no idea where she was.
She hesitated, shivering with a fear that wouldn’t quit. Then she turned back to the window. With her nail, she started scraping a cross in the stone. It was faint and white but oddly comforting. She needed God now. She needed the Ancients, too.
She felt him coming.
Claire tensed, the arctic chill coming from outside the tower door, not from the wind or the sea. The black door opened and Moray walked in. He did not bother to close the door and he smiled at her.
“Where am I? What do you want?” Claire said. And she saw that he was wearing her mother’s stone.
“You are at Tor, Claire. My home in the Orkney Islands.”
Claire’s eyes widened. “You killed my mother.”
“How clever of you, Claire. Yes, I did. She was too beautiful to resist.” He touched the charm stone.
“Why?” Claire cried, fists clenched, as furious as she was afraid. “It wasn’t random, was it? You chose her for some damn reason!”
“I was hunting Alexander,” he said softly.
It took Claire a moment. Her father’s name had been Alex. “What?”
“I was hunting your father, Claire, and he was hunting me. We’d been doing so for hundreds of years. He led me to your mother. Their affair was random, but clearly, like Malcolm, he dared to care. How foolish. A Master should know better.”
Claire couldn’t breathe. “Tell me who he is!”
“But you’ve met Alexander of Lachlan. I believe you know him as Ironheart.”
Claire cried out. There was so much shock, so much disbelief. She recalled the way he’d looked at her stone, his choice to help her learn to fight, the surprising invitation to the Black Isle. “Oh, my God.”
“The gods aren’t here, Claire. No god would ever dare enter my home.”
Claire began to tremble again. “Ironheart will join with Malcolm to destroy you,” she cried.
“I gave up hunting him when he came completely into his powers. They are vast. I suspect you have some of those powers, too, but it will be decades before you realize them. Despite his power, he failed to destroy me a hundred times. Like the Masters before him, he has turned his efforts to the Deamhanain he can destroy. Even if he did come after me, he cannot vanquish me. There is no living Master who can.”
She wet her lips, her heart racing frantically. “What do you intend? Somehow I don’t think you’d go to all this trouble for an old grudge against Ironheart. I know this isn’t about Malcolm, either. It’s about me.”
“Oh, of course I would go to such ends to provoke your father! And I do love turning young Masters, Claire. Never mistake that. They make the most powerful Deamhanain when they have matured. But you’re right.
I was toying with Malcolm. I did think he’d give in to his lust—and to me—but it doesn’t matter.
There are other Masters to hunt. No, it’s you that I want. I knew it when I saw you as a child.”
Claire had a terrible sense of dread. “I am going to kill myself,” she said slowly, “before allowing you to touch me.”
“No, you will not. Because the daughters of Masters have a particular value to me. They bear me great, powerful Deamhan sons. I will even let you return to Malcolm with my bastard. You may raise and love him—and then one day you will watch him worship me.”
“You’re sick.”
“No, Claire, I am the devil.”
Claire backed up against the wall. She shook her head.
“I have many guises,” he said softly. “Come, darling,” he said, and his eyes began to glow, not silver but red.
Claire looked away. “Aidan is not evil!”
“Ah, well, he may have a genetic defect. His mother is far too devout and I think that is the problem. However, I have not given up on him. I will never give up on him. He is the only one of my many children to dare defy me. Look at me,” he murmured.
Claire knew she was about to be used, and her life would never be the same. This man had murdered her mother. Helpless, she looked up into his fiery eyes, but as she did so, she started praying. And to her shock, the words forming in her mind weren’t English or even Latin—they were Gaelic.
She had been listening to the Highlanders conversing in their native tongue for weeks now, but she wasn’t a genius and she didn’t know the language.
She didn’t know how she knew this prayer, but she knew every word she was saying.
It was a supplication to Faola, the willful goddess Malcolm claimed was his ancestor, for her help and protection.
Moray seemed delighted. “She won’t help you now. As bold as that goddess is, she would never dare to confront me here. Here, my power is absolute. Here, the Ancients fear me.”
Claire was panting. From the corner of her eye, she saw the tower window.
“I told you, I won’t let you die. You will not jump. You do not want to.”
I do want to, Claire thought. And she steeled her mind against him.
“You can’t block me,” he said quietly, amused. “My powers are vast. Yours are pitiful in comparison.”
She could and she would. And Claire decided to jump to her death.
“I will not allow you to jump,” he said easily, clearly reading her mind.
And the window vanished, becoming stone. Claire gasped, dismayed. The certain death had been her only way out.
And suddenly Claire felt his thoughts. She had been clinging to the prayer with the back of her mind, but now she let it go.
“Haven’t we had enough conversation? Now you know the truth.
There is nothing left to tell. And you can rest more easily, my dear, for I will return you to Malcolm with my bastard in your womb when I am done with you.
Come to me, Claire.” He extended his hand.
“You want to come to me now. You want my touch, my caress, my power. You want the pleasure I will give you. Come.”
And Claire became dazed. For one instant, she saw herself in a handsome man’s arms, in the throes of sublime ecstasy. Her body became heavy, her flesh began to swell. The air cloaked her, hot and heavy, swirling with so much strength, she felt as if she were being pushed forward by a powerful wind.