Chapter 28
“I knew you would find it.” Deirdre said. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her white hair a startling contrast to her black gown.
Broc counted twenty wyrran. He could kill them easily enough. But then again, he’d never battled them with Deirdre near. It could prove interesting.
Above all, he could never take his attention off her.
Deirdre’s white brow lifted high on her forehead. “Nothing to say, my dark Warrior?”
“There are many burial mounds in this valley.”
Her smile was malicious and cruel. “Oh, dear Broc, I know you too well. This is the tomb.”
“Maybe. Good luck getting inside. The spells are ancient, and the magic extremely powerful. You willna be able to get near the tomb.”
“That’s why I have you,” she said as she dropped her arms to her side. “We can do this the easy way.”
“Or the difficult way?” he asked with a laugh. “You’ve already taken everything from me. There’s nothing left you can threaten me with.”
Her smile hardened. “There’s Ramsey.”
Broc’s lips lifted in a true smile as he thought of his friend. “You can try. You can threaten every Warrior at MacLeod Castle, but each of us has escaped your clutches. You cannot hurt us.”
“I can hurt the Druids within.”
“Maybe. You’ve attacked the castle several times already. And you’ve lost each time.”
Her white eyes narrowed as she stepped closer to him. Her hair began to twitch at the ends, indicating her anger. “I will no longer be sending my wyrran or any Warriors alone. I will be with them.”
“You?” Broc repeated. He wasn’t sure what Deirdre was planning, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
“Aye, me. The next time MacLeod Castle is attacked, I’ll be leading the wyrran. You think because you defeated some wyrran, mortals, and a few Warriors that you can defeat me?”
“We did. In your mountain.”
Her face lost any semblance of a smile. “I haven’t forgotten all who played a part in that. I wasn’t jesting when I said there would be retribution. You all will suffer mightily at my hands.”
“We shall see.”
His gut tightened when Deirdre’s eyes lowered to the ground. When she lifted her gaze, there was a knowing smile upon her lips, a smile that told him she knew he wasn’t alone.
“Who is your companion?”
Broc flexed his fingers, his claws eager to sink into wyrran skin. “I’m alone.”
“Now. What did you do with the woman? I can tell by the tracks left beside yours that it was a female. Tell me where she is.”
“Do you want to stand around all day or fight?”
She motioned to the wyrran on her right and they attacked.
Broc knew he chanced being incapacitated again with drough blood each time the wyrran cut him, but it was a gamble he couldn’t avoid. The wyrran were quick and their claws sharp.
He gripped a wyrran by its head and gave a jerk. The sound of a neck breaking was drowned out by the shrieks of the others. Broc snarled as a wyrran jumped on his back and sank its claws in his neck.
He reached behind him and took the creature’s skinny arms in his hands and pulled out the claws. He continued to pull on the wyrran’s arms until they were yanked out of their sockets, then from its body and they dangled from Broc’s hands.
The wyrran fell from his back, only to be replaced by another. It became a blur of blood and yellow skin as Broc killed wyrran after wyrran.
Their screeches echoed in his head as his own blood ran down his body to blend with the ground at his feet. He never stopped, never gave up. Poraxus’ fury was too great. And Broc had made a vow.
Suddenly something long and white snaked out and wrapped around his throat. He hastily cut the strands with is claws. He hated that Deirdre always went for the throat.
Broc ducked more of her hair and spun away. He used his wings to knock three wyrran away from him, and just as he was about to launch himself in the air, something snagged his wrist.
He glanced down to find Deirdre’s hair. More of her lethal hair wrapped around his other wrist and his throat.
“Enough!” she yelled. Her eyes blazing with anger as she glanced around at the dead wyrran.
He began to laugh. “Did you really think they stood a chance against a Warrior? They never do.”
“They took you down before.”
“Only because of the drough blood.”
“Stop killing my wyrran,” she said between clenched teeth.
He bared his fangs at her. “Stop sending them to attack me, and I’ll consider it. Then again, I may kill them out of spite.”
Deirdre screamed, and the hair around his neck tightened so he could barely breathe. He tried to get his hands up to cut away her hair again, but the strands were as magical as she was.
“You can cease your fighting. You will not get away from me now,” Deirdre said.
His mind raced with possibilities. He could try to fly. Deirdre wasn’t controlling his wings, but she could snap his neck. '
“I told you that you would be mine. There is nothing you can do to escape. By the time I’m done exacting my vengeance, you will do anything I want. You will be mine to control.”
He didn’t bother to argue with her. He’d said it all while chained in her mountain. However, he wasn’t about to be taken without a fight. Somehow, someway he would keep himself—and most especially Sonya— from Deirdre.
Sonya has only a few hours in the tomb before she runs out of air.
It would be weeks or months before Deirdre was done with him. Sonya would be long dead by then.
“I can get the artifact,” he said.
Deirdre tilted her head to the side and grinned. “What do you plan, Broc?”
“I’ll retrieve the artifact from the tomb for you.”
“And why would you do that so willingly?”
Broc knew he had to say something believable. As much as he wanted to keep Sonya away from Deirdre, she might be the only way he could get free long enough to retrieve Fallon and the others.
“Well?” Deirdre urged, growing impatient. “I’m curious to hear why you would offer to get the artifact. What could be so important that you would do something like this? For me?”
He swallowed before attempting several times to get the words out, but they kept getting stuck in his throat. Telling Deirdre about Sonya went against everything he had done over the past years.
Deirdre’s hair squeezed his neck and wrists, cutting into his skin. “Let me guess. The woman with you?”
“I kidnapped her,” Broc lied. He would find another way to help Sonya.
That piqued Deirdre’s interest. “Really? Why would you do that?”
When he didn’t answer fast enough she squeezed his neck tighter.
“The tomb,” he forced out of lips which could barely move.
As soon as the words left his mouth, the strands eased upon his neck. Broc drew in great gulps of air as he glared at Deirdre.
“Where is this woman?” Deirdre demanded.
“Inside the tomb.”
Deirdre’s gaze slid to the burial mound. “Inside?”
“I was going in with her when I heard the wyrran. I came out here to fight you.”
“This woman is a Druid, then.” Deirdre chuckled. “How did you find a Druid?”
“She’s no’ a Druid. She’s from Glencoe. She led me to the tomb.”
Deirdre motioned the remaining wyrran to back away from Broc. “Why don’t you take me to this…female.”
Broc gave a jerk of his head, and her hair released him. He wanted to reach up and rub his neck, but he held back. She would enjoy it too much.
“Keep your wyrran away,” Broc said as he turned to enter the tomb.
“They go where I go.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “I doona thi…”
His words trailed off as wyrran began to shriek and fight what looked like six or seven Warriors. Broc froze, staring. He had no idea where the Warriors had come from. Or who they were.
Deirdre screamed and rushed out to fight alongside her wyrran. She used her hair along with her magic as she jumped into the fray.
As curious as he was to know who these Warriors were, he couldn’t waste another moment. He hurried from the tomb and leapt into the air.
He looked down at the first beat of his wings and saw a golden-skinned Warrior standing atop the mountain. And in a blink, the Warrior was gone.
Broc forgot the Warrior and rose into the sky so the clouds would conceal him. He had to fly fast, had to hurry to MacLeod Castle before it was too late for Sonya.