CHAPTER NINETEEN #2
Kristin looked at her, clearly bewildered. Tabby thought she was about to step into the chamber, and she prepared to assault her. But before she did so, a big, dark-haired man filled the doorway. He smiled slowly at her.
Tabby’s pulse skipped and raced. She instantly recognized a much older Coinneach. He had turned into a handsome Highlander. He had to be well over two hundred years old, but he looked about forty. “Coinneach,” she breathed. Surely he would save the day!
“Hello, Tabitha,” he said softly. “Are you trying to enchant my sister?”
Tabby froze. She’d forgotten that they were siblings. He was Criosaidh’s son—and obviously not exactly mortal.
Kristin started and her expression changed and hardened. “I almost fell under her spell.”
“I can see that.” He continued to smile, but it did not reach his eyes.
He hadn’t been evil when he was a boy, and he didn’t feel evil now.
She would bet he did not have any demonic DNA.
But his eyes were ice-cold and the look in them reminded her of Macleod at his most ruthless.
She was afraid that he was burning with the need for Highland revenge.
“Coinneach!” She needed him as an ally. Surely he would help her—he owed her.
“I have to find Macleod. I helped you once, surely you remember? Please, help me now.”
His cold smile vanished. “Ye brought me bread an’ water. Ye cared. But that was long ago, Tabitha. I have been fighting Macleod for two hundred years.”
She realized he wasn’t going to help her.
“That’s right, Lady Tabitha. An eye for an eye. He murdered my father and I will bring your head to him now.”
She backed up. “You would never murder me.”
His eyes blazed. “Think as ye wish, as if it comforts ye!” He turned to Kristin. “If ye torture her, make sure ye silence her. I dinna wish to be annoyed with her screams.”
“Hmm, torture. How did you know I intend to enjoy myself fully?” Kristin laughed.
Coinneach looked at her with distaste and hurried down the stairs. Before he was even gone, Tabby put a protective spell around herself. He wasn’t into sadism, but she couldn’t count on him, either.
Where was Macleod? Wasn’t he ten or fifteen miles to the north at Blayde, centuries older and, maybe, centuries wiser?
“Is it getting stuffy in here, or is it my imagination?” Kristin murmured.
“I can breathe well enough.”
“Really? Noose, tighten.” Kristin smirked. “I murdered my roomie this way.”
Tabby tensed, briefly sickened by the snide remark, which she was certain was the truth. But she did not feel any pressure around her throat, which meant her protective spell was rock solid—for now.
“And I almost got your sister. Did you know that? I’ll bet my spell felt like a butcher knife going through her stomach.”
This was the second time that Kristin had mentioned hurting Sam. “I am not vindictive, but you will pay for hurting Sam.”
Kristin sneered. “Oh, I let the bitch live.”
Tabby was so angry she had to close her eyes for an instant. Anger would only interfere with her magic, and she needed her power now. She needed it as never before. It had to work.
Because as much as she did not want to fight Kristin—especially if Kristin really had the source of evil she claimed—there might never be as opportune a time. Once Criosaidh arrived, it would be two against one. And Kristin had hurt Sam.
She wished Macleod would sense her distress and help her out. She didn’t care if it was her Macleod from 1298, or the older man who was currently a few miles away.
But she couldn’t count on him, or anyone.
She could do this. Tabby looked coldly at Kristin.
“Fire await my very command. Fire be my weapon and my plan,” she murmured.
And heat seemed to tickle her fingertips, the way it might spark from the tip of a matchstick.
She glanced down at her chest. The moonstone on the gold palm was as brilliant as a laser-cut diamond now.
Kristin’s eyes widened. “Noose, obey me. Noose, tighten!” she cried.
There was no effect. Relieved, Tabby ordered, “Fire arise.”
Fire blazed between them.
Kristin cried out.
“Fire arise!” Tabby cried louder.
And the fire became an inferno, cutting Kristin off from the doorway. Where Tabby stood, there was not a single spark, and the air was pleasantly cool.
Kristin began to choke. Then her skirts caught on fire and she screamed, beating at them with her hands. She screamed again, the guards rushing into the room, but before they could reach her, her skirts blazed.
Tabby knew she couldn’t go through with this kind of violence and cruelty. She wasn’t a Slayer. Her magic was meant to be used to help others, not hurt or destroy them. “Fire obey me, fire go out.”
The fire died.
Kristin staggered back, her skirts falling apart, looking at Tabby, her eyes glazed with pain, fear and hatred. Then she rushed from the room.
The two soldiers backed out, slamming the door.
As it closed, she felt Criosaidh’s evil welling up from the lower floors.
Tabby’s spine hit the wall. She grasped the pendant, and repeated her protection spell. The chamber shifted. The air glimmered. And Criosaidh began to materialize.
“YOU HAVE CERTAINLY improved your ability to leap. You do know, don’t you, that by now MacGregor has put out a Code Red, since we’ve overstayed our historic welcome by an entire seventy-one minutes and five seconds.”
As they paused in the central courtyard of a much more lavish and modern Melvaig Castle, Nick seized Jan’s arm. “How could I not follow Tabby here?”
Jan went still. They both watched Kristin run into the courtyard, coughing, her skirts badly singed and burned. She fell to her hands and knees, gasping for air. “I wish you weren’t right ninety percent of the time.”
“Actually, I’m right ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time.” Nick grinned. But the words weren’t even out of his mouth when fire exploded in the sky above them.
“Must be June nineteenth,” Nick muttered, but he was striding toward Kristin.
“Tabitha’s up there. What should I do?” Jan cried.
Kristin froze on all fours, and her gaze locked with Nick’s. Slowly, with malice, she smiled. “It’s not June nineteenth, Forrester. We will change your history today.”
“Like hell you will.” He smiled coldly back, comprehending her. He would never let the demon witch change history. A huge gust of shockingly cold air hit him, but he refused to budge or be pushed back. “Are you kidding me?”
“Noose, find him,” she hissed.
He instantly blasted her, thinking about Elizabeth Adler, but as he did, he felt the rope around his neck.
He knew it was her magic, and he didn’t try to seize the cord, as nothing would be there.
He breathed harder, choking, but he blasted her.
She cried out, his energy hurling her into the tower wall.
“Noose, tighten!”
Fuck, he thought, blasting her again, but he was on his knees. Against his own will, he grabbed at the virtual cord.
“Nick!” Jan screamed. Drawing her Beretta, she began firing point-blank and repeatedly into Lafarge.
But the bullets bounced off her, deflecting everywhere.
However, the cord loosened and he stood, energy blazing. Kristin screamed, collapsing onto her back, as chunks of burning stone began falling from the tower above them.
Nick reached her, flipped her, straddled her. “Don’t you fuckin’ die,” he said, yanking her wrists as hard as he could behind her back. He heard her bones break. “Payback for my little Sammie,” he said.
Jan stood over him. “We need info, Nick,” she warned. “Besides, I want the honor of dispatching her.”
Nick leaned his entire body on top of her, the position dominant and sexual. She hissed in fury and he said against her ear, “Who’s giving you orders, bitch? Why did you go to the Carlisle Hotel? A big, motherfucking demon there?”
She turned her face to his and spit.
They both felt the falling boulder at the same time. Nick looked up. For one moment, he thought it a small meteor. He jumped up, seizing Jan, and they dived away as it crashed to the ground, Nick making sure to land on top of Jan to protect her with his body.
And he knew.
He turned his head. The stone had buried Kristin. No one, not even a witch with an ounce or two of demonic blood, could survive that.
He cursed.
Blayde, Scotland
June 1, 1550
ALARM CAUSED him to awaken.
Guy Macleod sat bolt upright in his bed.
Tabitha.
In that instant he knew that she was in danger. But she was in Edinburgh with her sister, Sam, a warrior whom he trusted. And he was confused, for he thought he felt her there, in a quiet and happy moment.
Instead, his senses veered south and he felt her determination, her anger—and her fear. He also felt doubt.
His confusion escalated. Something was terribly wrong! Tabitha had great magic and she never doubted her powers. And then he felt Criosaidh.
He instantly understood that she was at Melvaig. It was oddly familiar—as if he had already been in this moment.
But of course he had. Every moment in time existed infinitely in parallel dimensions—he was old enough and wise enough to understand that now. A part of him would always recognize the most fateful events of their lives.
As he rose from the bed, his gaze veered to a south-facing chamber window. The night sky was still and blue-black, glittering with a billion stars. His senses sharpened. For one moment, he thought the night sky there on fire. But that was impossible.
Or was it?
Guy Macleod leaped. He landed a scant instant later in Melvaig’s central courtyard. And the sky above was on fire….