Awaken the Highland Warrior

“Them… good-bye.” He snapped his fingers and moved closer, cupping her cheek in his familiar, calloused hand. “But I’ve chosen you to give me offspring,” he said as if bestowing a great honor.

She backed away, shaking her head. “Over my dead body.”

Druan appeared shocked for a moment. “That can be arranged,” he said with a snarl out of his perfect, handsome face. “You can meet the same fate your grandmother did.”

“My grandmother?”

“I’m afraid I got angry the last time I tried to persuade her to let me dig, and she saw my other side. I couldn’t let her ruin all my plans.”

“No.” Bree shook her head, refusing to believe it. “She died of cancer.”

“True, she had cancer, but—”

“You killed Grandma?” Something hardened inside Bree, like steel replacing muscle and bone.

“And Frederick, poking around where he didn’t belong.”

“You bastard!”

Druan’s face chilled. “If you’re not careful, I’ll send you to join them. You think I’ve waited centuries just to sit back while humans try to destroy me? Infiltrating my camp, pretending to be workmen and campers? No one interferes with my plans. Not humans, warriors, or demons. Not even you.”

Angus must have been working undercover at Jared’s dig. Bree pictured him, bloodied and torn, and Faelan, who could be dead, both fighting to save the lives of humans who didn’t know they existed. And her grandmother who’d welcomed every stranger with open arms. Innocent lives lost to Druan’s evil.

Bree flew at him, catching him off guard. She clawed his handsome features, and the face began to shift. The eyes changed first, becoming narrow and yellow, the pupils reptilian. Bones cracked and lengthened, and smooth skin that had held her close and soothed her fears turned leathery and gray. He smiled, and where there’d been an orthodontist’s dream, there were only sharp teeth and an odor so foul she couldn’t breathe. The monster of her nightmares, worse than the thing in the chapel.

“Do you want to take me on, my human?” he asked, his voice deep, rumbling from his chest. He rose to his full height, towering above her.

Bree took a step back, trembling inside, knowing she didn’t stand a chance, but she refused to let him see her quake. “You’re the one who’s pathetic, a hideous beast hiding behind human skin.”

“My looks don’t please you? That could make things interesting. I’d hoped you would come willingly, but I can take now what I didn’t take before.” He ran a sharp nail slowly down her neck, his stench caressing her face. “What I’m sure you’ve given the warrior. And I won’t be in the pretty archeologist’s form.”

“You can go back to hell.” Bree threw the only weapon she had, her flashlight. Druan screeched in rage and flew at her.

Chapter 31

“We don’t know if Druan’s using the same virus or a different one, but he has to be stopped,” Faelan told the warriors gathered in the bed and breakfast where he and Bree had stayed. It hurt just thinking her name. The others still believed she was innocent, that Druan was up to his old tricks. Faelan knew what he’d seen, no matter how much he wished he hadn’t. He’d already lost everything in the world he cherished. There was no reason to hope he’d be spared this.

“I think there are others helping him. I saw five men in my dream,” Sorcha said. This time there was no coy look slanted at Duncan. She’d been oddly subdued since Angus’s death. “The faces were blurred. Two could’ve been Faelan and Druan, but who were the other three?”

“Tristol, Malek, and Voltar?” Duncan suggested, his gaze on Sorcha.

Faelan wondered if anyone else noticed how the warrior’s eyes softened when Sorcha wasn’t provoking him.

“The demons of old? Blimey. Don’t even think it,” Brodie said, crossing himself.

“They’ve probably all been secreted away working on this virus,” Ronan said.

Faelan nodded. “If they’re alive, and I know Druan is, you can be sure they’re not sitting around idle.”

“You have the shackles ready?” Shane asked.

Faelan studied the short blade of his sgian dubh, dreading to answer. His father had the dagger made as a gift for when Faelan came home from America. It had been locked away all these decades. Sean had sent it with Duncan. The sgian dubh had never been used, yet it looked older than the dirk he had in the time vault, the one Kieran had given him his first year as a warrior. “I’m not using the shackles. Druan’s desperate. He’ll be nigh impossible to suspend.” He didn’t tell them he had no choice, since Bree, or someone, had stolen the key along with the Book of Battles. If he told them, they’d have to kill her. He would find out where she’d hidden the things before anyone knew they were missing, and then… he didn’t know what he’d do.

A knock sounded at the door, Mrs. Edwards again, asking if they needed anything. The woman was nosier than Bree.

“I agree with Faelan,” Duncan said, after Mrs. Edwards had left. “There’s too much riding on this to take a chance.”

“Aye. Better off to blast him the minute you see him,” Brodie added, “and pray the other demons aren’t there.”

“Cody’s already at the castle, scouting the grounds, keeping an eye on the place.” Faelan hadn’t wanted to let Cody go in alone, but they both knew one man could hide easier than two. Besides Faelan, Cody was the most experienced of the group. Faelan pulled aside the ruffled curtain at the window and peered at the orange-pink sliver riding the mountain. He let the drape fall into place and turned back to face the others. “It’s time. Let’s move.”

One by one the warriors filed out of the Victorian bedroom, their weapons hidden in what looked like suitcases. Warriors in his time used the secret compartment of a trunk, like the one in Bree’s attic or a specially made box. They hadn’t had swords that could collapse to the size of a dagger or these fancy gadgets and weapons. They went out armed with a talisman, a sword, strong senses, a sgian dubh, and a dirk. Occasionally