Surprise filled the man’s expression before his eyes went blank. Fearing Ian lay dying behind him, Todd swiveled and peered into his father-in-law’s smiling face. His opponent lay dead at his feet.
Duncan dodged the bow. A ball of fire thrust through his fingers at the two sending arrows into his path. Their shock at his display of magic gave him the advantage. One man ducked under the ball of flame, the other met it in a cry of anguish. Behind him, Fin crossed swords between the horses. The screeching cry of the falcon above caught his attention. His enemy attacked.
Fin took a blade in the shoulder. Blood spouted.
Rage bubbled over, and the ground rumbled with Fin’s fury.
The horse of the man fighting Fin reared and tossed the rider to the ground. Fin jumped from his mount and dove upon his enemy with deadly force.
Duncan and Fin watched as the remaining opponents fled for their lives.
“Look,” Fin pointed to the sky. The falcon circled. “Can you hear Tara?”
Fear crept up Duncan’s spine. “Nay, nothing.
Simon no longer appears to be controlling the falcon.”
“What do you think happened?”
Duncan’s jaw set tight. He couldn’t be sure. He simply knew he needed to return to the Keep as if the devil himself was at his heels.
Their father and Todd met them at the crumbling gates. Their enemies lay dead or running over the hills. Only chickens and piles of burning hay remained.
Side by side, they went to find the witch.
“They’re coming,” Steel reported to Grainna. “Let them,” she said with confidence. She gathered her skirt and walked up the crumbling stairway to the highest peak.
“We have no way of getting past them up here,”
Steel warned.
She ignored his words and continued. Once out in the open, exposed to the sky, Grainna forced the clouds to part and the sun to shine down on her.
Fin, Duncan, Todd and Ian’s eyes all stared up to see her.
Her black dress cast a dark shadow upon them.
Did they tremble with fear? She attempted to probe into their minds, but couldn’t break through their guards. Her hair whipped wildly around her body when she started to laugh.
Officer Blakely shifted his feet, but didn’t look away. He would be the easiest to remove from their numbers.
“You think you have won,” she called above the biting wind.
“When the world is rid of you, then we have won,” Duncan yelled back. With both hands, he pushed a three-foot ball of flame up and in her direction.
Fool. She batted the flames away as if they were nothing more than a fly. The ball of fire fell on the building where she stood. Her laugh crackled over the burning home.
Grainna twisted her fingers, expecting them all to fall without air in their lungs.
Blakely grasped for his throat, but instead of struggling for air his hand reached into his pocket where he removed an amulet burning with a rich amber light. He took a full deep breath before he sent a cocky smile focused her way.
Fin, Duncan and even Ian all clutched or reached for an object that glowed.
Grainna’s smile fell, her teeth ground together in frustration.
With a screech, she reached deep into the pit of her black heart and pulled out her dark power. She thrust her hands in the air, willing them all to drop to their knees.
The cocky smile upon Fin’s face urged her on.
Blakely glanced around, and Grainna focused all her strength on him.
Duncan smiled, and Ian braced his legs. Fin shut his eyes as the ground began to shake.
The earth quaked when Fin opened his hands, and the walls supporting Grainna started to collapse.
“Hold on,” he told the family. His warning could barely be heard above the roar of the falling stones from the building where Grainna and Steel stood.
“Holy Shit!” Blakely exclaimed.
Steel pulled her back from the wall, and kept her from plunging to earth. “Now what?” Steel asked.
Grainna glared at her enemies standing smug in her transient defeat. “This is not over,” she warned.
Steel’s anxious gaze searched around them. He covered his head when the bricks continued to fall.
Grainna clasped a deadly grip on Michael’s throat and turned him toward her.
His eyes widened with panic when she stared into his questioning face. He struggled against her, but her strength kept him in place.
I’m immortal, he cried in his head.
“Do you really think I’d share that gift with you?” Grainna taunted him.
The light in his eyes started to fade as she kept air from reaching his lungs.
“You’re nothing more than a fool.” Grainna’s nails dug into the flesh of his neck. She pressed her lips over his to take his last breath. His body buckled beside hers, and with his death, his essence filled her, giving her his knowledge, every skill, and all his power.
Above, the falcon screeched. Instead of filling the bird’s head and bending it to her will, she stretched her arms.
The dress she wore floated to the ground as her features morphed. Black as a crow, with the strength and speed of the falcon, she changed from human to hawk.
She took to the air calling in triumph. Below her, the awestruck expressions of the MacCoinnichs and Blakely filled her black soul with pride.
“God’s blood,” she heard Ian exclaim before she flew away.
Tara screamed. Sweat poured off her brow, her breaths spurted in short gasps. “Shit, shit, shit!” Liz hid her smirk when the maid turned red at Tara’s words. “Not much longer, Tara.”
“Not. Without. Duncan!”
“You’ve been at this for too long.”
Myra knelt at the foot of the bed along with her mother. The infant’s head started to crown.
“You need to push,” Lora instructed.
“No!” Tara screamed hysterically. Her head shifted from side to side on the pillows in protest.
“Dammit, Tara!” Liz cursed in her face. “Push!”
“The baby has to come, you can’t wait for Duncan.”
“Lora,” Tara said between pants. “Can you hear them?”
Lora shook her head. Tara’s labor had gone long into the night and the whole of the following day.
The sun was already starting to set again.
With Tara’s distraction, they weren’t able to connect to the men. “They were nearly three days away, even if they turned back the moment we lost touch they wouldn’t make it in time. You have to push.”
Another pain wrapped around her, tearing a scream from of her lungs. “Dammit, Duncan, get your ass home!” She breathed through her next contraction.