CHAPTER ELEVEN
ROYCE GAZED DOWN at the tiny woman in his arms and felt his fear escalate wildly. She had become as pale as linen before it was dyed. She didn’t even appear to be breathing. “MacNeil!” he cried and he heard the desperation in his tone.
The Abbot remained kneeling over the last of the wounded. “Take her in. I’ll be up shortly,” the Master said, not looking up.
Claire touched his arm, commiseration in her eyes. “Follow me.”
Royce nodded, his stomach twisted into painful knots.
Ailios was the bravest person he had ever seen, man or woman, and she could not die now.
She could not have given her own life to save the others.
Terrified, he followed Claire into the hall and up the stairs of Malcolm’s tower, Ailios as light as a small child in his arms—and as still as a corpse.
Claire shoved open a door to a small, pleasant bedchamber and he laid Ailios on the bed. She didn’t stir.
He sat beside her, seizing her hands. He was horrified because they were so cold, and he placed his cheek close to her nose, aware of his racing heartbeat, his rampant fear. At first, he felt nothing, and his fear became terror. Ailios could not be dead.
And then he felt her faint, shallow breath on his face.
Relief made it impossible to speak clearly.
“She’s barely breathing,” he said thickly.
How could this be happening? He had brought her to Dunroch to protect her.
It had been his best judgment that Dunroch would be a safe haven for her, with Malcolm to defend her.
Instead the deamhanain had followed them there.
Moffat had dared to violate Dunroch and he had almost seized her.
He should have never brought her to Dunroch; he should have never thought to hand her over to Malcolm. MacNeil had chosen him for a reason.
“She is selfless,” Claire said, interrupting his panicked, racing thoughts.
“Aye, she never thinks o’ herself.” She had tried to heal too many of the wounded, but that was what Ailios would do, for he knew her now.
If another battle came, she would act no differently.
But only a true goddess could heal so many of the sick and dying.
She wasn’t a goddess. If she could not control her need to heal, someone had to do it for her.
This was the fifteenth century, where battles were common, a weekly event.
Surely it wasn’t written that she would die now, this way.
She was going to be his lover in the future!
“How ill is she?” he asked Claire without turning to look at her. He kept Ailios’s hands clasped tightly against his chest. They remained as cold as the water in the ocean below Dunroch.
“I can feel her life.”
Did Claire take him for a fool? Furious, he looked at her. “Aye, what’s left of it! How much life is left? Or has she killed herself?” he demanded. His heart raced in agitation. What could he do to help her? He had never felt so powerless.
“I don’t know,” Claire whispered, ashen. “She’s so weak.”
MacNeil strode in, his bold red and black plaid swinging against his muscular thighs. “I dinna think to meet Elasaid’s daughter this way,” he said grimly.
In common circumstance, MacNeil was a man of smiles, wisdom and wit. He was only deadly serious when the situation was dire. He was deadly serious now.
Royce stood so the Master could sit beside Ailios. “She would die to save even the most common life,” he said harshly.
MacNeil stroked Ailios’s thick dark hair away from her cheeks. “Such a small woman for such a great Healer,” he murmured. “Aye, like her mother, she will give to others until the death.”
Royce felt like striking the other man. “She willna die. She is small—an’ mine.”
MacNeil did not bother to glance at him, his gaze remaining on Ailios.
He cupped her cheek. Royce fell silent, because he could actually see the Master sending her a white light.
A moment later he saw her chest rise and fall visibly; two small spots of pink color appeared on her cheeks.
Her lashes fluttered but her eyes didn’t open.
And for the first time in his life, Royce felt faint. Relief overwhelmed him.
He must thank the gods, he thought.
MacNeil smiled, revealing two deep dimples. Not looking up at Royce, he said, “Ah, Ruari, ye can thank me sometime.” He ran his blunt finger over the curve of her cheekbone and murmured, “Rest now, Allie Monroe.”
Royce became incredulous. He seized the Master’s shoulder and whirled him, the chamber suddenly a blaze of red.
MacNeil simply grinned as he stood. “Oh, come, I ken she’s yer Innocent, but she belongs to all of us, too. An’ ye canna forgive a Master for taking such an opportunity. I’d be dead if I didn’t want to touch her.”
“Ye had no call to stroke her face!” Royce said, and before he’d even finished speaking, he balled up his fist and struck MacNeil in the jaw.
MacNeil didn’t budge, as if an ancient oak. He didn’t even vibrate. But his kelly-green eyes widened with genuine shock.
Claire cried out, running between the two men. “Stop!” She looked wildly between them. “What are you doing?” she cried, first to MacNeil and then to Royce.
Royce smiled grimly, briefly satisfied, hoping MacNeil would take the bait—because he deserved a pummeling.
But MacNeil only rubbed his jaw. “What’s wrong with ye?” he finally said, puzzled. “T’is forbidden, in no uncertain terms. Masters dinna fight one another. We’re allies, not rivals.”
“Then ye should have healed her without giving in to the need to caress her,” Royce spat.
MacNeil’s eyes narrowed. It was a moment before he spoke. “Come to Iona.” He vanished.
Royce tensed, because he had just been given an unmistakable command.
MacNeil had been the Abbot of Iona for as long as he could remember.
No Master outranked him. If orders were to be given, he gave them.
If decisions were to be made, he made them.
MacNeil’s first duty was to the Brotherhood and the Ancients and he left Iona only to battle the highest deamhanain, in the gravest of crises.
“Come downstairs.” Claire laid her hand on his arm and smiled. “She’ll be fine, Royce.”
He glanced at Ailios, now sleeping peacefully in the bed, so small she was dwarfed by it like a child.
But she was a lovely, seductive and sensual woman.
The sight of her caused his heart to leap, lurch, overturn.
“Nay. Leave us,” he said. He took a wood chair, brought it to her bedside and sat down beside her.
He heard the door closing.
He had been out of his mind with fear when he’d thought she might die.
And he wasn’t quite calm now.
He had never wanted to vanquish anyone the way he’d wanted to vanquish Moffat when he’d seen him with Ailios, taunting her, lust in his eyes.
What had he said? Royce’s gut roiled all over again. He had almost finished the task of destroying the deamhan. Had Moffat lived because it was written that he should die by Moffat’s hand in 2007?
Many decades ago, he had realized death did not matter to him very much.
His life had become impossibly tiresome centuries ago—2007 was five centuries away, almost as long as he had already lived.
But…his life didn’t feel tiresome now. His duty to protect and defend the little woman lying in the bed had become consuming.
Every demonic conflict, chase and hunt had new and higher stakes. How could he die when she needed him?
Her recklessness terrified him!
He slumped in the chair. He was tired. He had been tired of the cycle of this life for a very long time.
Moray had been the greatest deamhan to ever walk Alba, but he had been vanquished.
And then Moffat, who’d existed for centuries, rose up to take his place.
For all anyone knew, he might even possess the missing Book of Power, the Duisean, which would explain his ascendancy over all the other dark lords.
Moray had possessed the Book before his death.
Centuries ago, he’d stolen it from its holy shrine.
Many Masters had since searched for it, but it had not been recovered.
When Moffat was vanquished, a new dark power would rise up to preside over all evil. It was the way of the world. The Masters could ceaselessly and tirelessly fight the shadows, but the shadows would always return. There would never be peace, and if there were, the Brotherhood would die.
Still, one thing had changed. This one had become his Innocent in the south of Hampton, and she remained his Innocent now.
He could not trust her with Malcolm, and that had become clear this day.
And she must live at all costs, even at the cost of his own life, which wasn’t worth all that much anymore, anyway.
He could not be sure of Ailios’s Fate, but it was great. Somewhere, it had been written as such.
He looked at her and thought about taking her back to Carrick. He was a man, and his loins filled. No matter how he wanted her, he had to stay away from her, because his enemies must never think they were lovers. That day had proven that, too.
He felt himself flush. The entire castle had seen his concern for Ailios that afternoon. He had told MacNeil that she belonged to him. Claire had witnessed the absurd statement.
MacNeil and Claire could be trusted to be discreet; others could not.
He had to keep a firm grasp on his virile nature and his overwhelming attraction to her.
But how could he do that, when the moment she was better and they were alone, he was going to want to mount her, pleasure her and have her pleasure him?
The door burst open.
Royce leapt to his feet, his sword ringing as he drew it.
Guy Macleod looked at him and at the woman in the bed. “You willna lust after my sister,” he warned.
Royce sheathed his sword. “Dinna ye think to knock?”