Midnight's Temptation

The normally vibrant female Warrior looked frail and weary. Dark circles marred her pale skin and said what she couldn’t. Whatever was inside her was slowly eating away at her.

Larena shrugged. “Fallon hovers. He means well, but I was about to scream if I didn’t get away for a moment. He only let me go when I told him I was coming up here with you.”

“He loves you. He just wants to see you well.”

“I know.” Her sigh said it all. “Believe me, I know.”

Phelan licked his lips. “You’ve spent four centuries with Fallon. Was there ever a time you regretted it?”

“Never. I knew as soon as I saw him that he was different, and not just that he was a Warrior. When I’m with him, I’ve found my other half.”

“I normally only spend a few hours in the company of any one woman.”

“Until Aisley.”

Phelan glanced at her, noting there was no anger in her voice. “Aye.”

“Were you happy with her?”

He thought of Aisley’s smile, her penchant for burning anything she cooked, and the way she left a trail of her stuff all over his house. “I was. Until I learned she was drough.”

“Forget that for a moment,” Larena said as she faced him. “You’re over five centuries old, Phelan. In all that time, can you tell me another instance you were as happy?”

He couldn’t answer her, because he couldn’t fathom having a drough give him the peace and contentment that Aisley did.

“I take that as a no,” Larena said. She laughed softly. “Why is it men always fight what’s in front of them?”

“I’m no’ fighting anything. She’s a damned drough.”

“She’s a Druid,” Larena corrected, her voice edged with anger. “You admitted yourself she went through a lot before Jason found her. You don’t know what led her to make the decision to become drough or if Jason forced her.”

Phelan shook his head and looked back over the town, refusing to listen anymore. “Nothing excuses becoming drough. Nothing.”

“This coming from a man who thinks sleeping with a different woman every night is all right.”

“As if I have no’ heard that before. The women I leave are satisfied.”

“Perhaps. Are you there when they wake? Do you know what happens to them after you’re gone?”

“It’s no’ my problem.”

Larena’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “No, I don’t guess it is.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I always took you for a smart man, Phelan.”

He threw up his hands in defeat. “Enlighten me then.”

“Only you know why you do the things you do. You’re the only one who knows what happened in your past to make you the man you are.”

“So,” he said with a nonchalant shrug.

One perfectly arched blond brow lifted. “So, we might guess why you are the way you are, but only you know the truth.”

“Why are you taking up for Aisley? She shot you, Larena. She killed you.”

Larena’s face went into a cool mask of indifference as she turned her face away. “Dale was going to behead me. There wouldn’t have been anything to bring me back from that. Maybe Aisley did me a favor.”

Phelan had heard enough. He shook his head and wished Fallon would come retrieve his wife. “Now you’re defending her. You wouldna be struggling with what you are if she hadna shot you.”

“And you wouldn’t be alive today if Deirdre hadn’t unbound your god.” Larena’s head swiveled back to him. “Life is what it is. We’re the lucky ones, because we survive it all and live to see the world change around us. We have chances to change things in our lives that mortals can’t. I can’t claim to know what drove Aisley to become drough, but I know the yearning for a child.

“She held her daughter in her arms. Aisley watched her take her last breath. I want to feel life grow within me. Aisley had that opportunity. I can only imagine the anguish she felt as a mother to not be able to save her child. That would tear anyone up inside.”

Phelan didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to think of Aisley in any kind of compassionate way. If he felt pity for her, then he opened himself up to other feelings he couldn’t allow.

Ever.

He knew it was time to change the subject. “Can you handle the battle?”

“I doubt it.”

Phelan wasn’t surprised she didn’t try to lie. Larena had always faced whatever life threw at her with bravery and courage. “Does Fallon know?”

“You mean does Fallon know that by releasing my goddess and killing I could give away enough control that she takes over?”

“Aye.”

Larena swallowed and gave one shake of her head. “He has enough to worry over. It’ll be up to me to keep my goddess in check.”

“Have you told anyone else?”

“Cara and Marcail know. They, like you, suspected.”

Phelan wanted to bellow his frustration to the sky. Droughs were the cause of all their problems. If they had never existed he would’ve never been taken from his family, and Larena wouldn’t be suffering as she is now.

And Aisley’s soul wouldn’t belong to Satan.

“What about Malcolm?”

Larena smiled sadly. “My dear cousin has done so much for me already. I don’t want him to know what’s happening to me.”

“He’d want to know.”

“I don’t care,” she said with a shrug. “He barely responds to me anymore. I fear if something does happen, he’ll be lost to everyone.”

Phelan had long assumed that. “You could help him. Together you two could help the other.”

“Phelan, I—”

Larena’s words halted as both of them felt a pulse of black magic in the air at the same instant Gwynn let out a loud cry when wind rushed through the streets.

“The wind told Gwynn something,” Larena said.

“Aye.”

“Is he here?” she asked, looking around. “I can’t tell.”

“No’ yet. Though I’m eager to begin this fight. The bastard needs to die.”

Larena pulled her golden locks into one hand at the back of her head and quickly secured them into a ponytail. “That he does. I just wish we could’ve waited another day to give Britt time to finish the serum.”

“That’s what I’m here for. My blood, remember?”

She paced from one side of the roof to the other. “Jason isn’t going to come. I told Fallon this wouldn’t work.”

“Oh, it’ll work,” Phelan said. “Wallace wants to end us. This is the perfect place since we’re all gathered in one spot.”

“It should work, but it isn’t going to. Jason wants this on his terms.”

Phelan tried to suppress the anxiety that was building at a rapid rate inside him. He wanted to disregard what Larena said, but he knew she was right.

“He’s not coming,” Gwynn shouted as she ran out of the bar and into the streets.

“Shite,” Phelan said.

He and Larena looked at each other and at the same time said, “The castle.”

Larena raced back into the building while Phelan jumped from rooftop to rooftop on his way to Charon. He landed to find Charon scowling at him.