She didn’t have a watch.
Her mobile phone kept better time since she didn’t have to wind it. Based on how long it had taken her to run here and that the centre was another nineteen kilometers farther back the way she’d just come, it would probably require the same time to reach the village as Peadar’s place.
That was based upon her not being physically spent. Factoring all that in, she might need closer to eight hours to cover that distance.
Even that amount of time could run her too late.
And estimating eight hours tops would be only if she struck out in a straight path to the centre without following the flatter winding roads.
Squatting, she placed the sword on the soft grass and rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes.
What if she chose the wrong direction and something bad happened to Fenella?
One possibility after another assaulted her. She grabbed her head to quiet her mind and make a decision.
When she managed to focus, Herrick’s words came to her from the times they’d trained together. She’d once asked him how to make the best decision on the fly.
He’d given her question serious thought and replied, “If only one action will result in an absolute outcome, choose that one.”
She dropped her hands and stared into the darkness.
Choose the action with an absolute outcome.
She knew what to do.
If she failed to arrive in time to meet Cavan, she’d guarantee Fenella being harmed. Getting to the centre early would provide Casidhe a way to call Fenella’s phone and Peadar’s goat farm.
Standing up, she hoped with all her heart the time right now was closer to one in the morning than two. She turned in the direction of the village and begged her limbs for more endurance tonight.
She told herself, Just put one foot in front of the other and do it again. Once her stiff muscles loosened up again, she’d break into a jog.
How had her life blown up in less than a day?
This would be a great time for Herrick to have a satellite phone. No matter how she tried, she’d never be able to drag a dragon shifter as old as Herrick into the new millennium. He had no form of electronic communication where he and a small group lived in the Caucasus mountain range, which ran between Asia and Europe.
Contacting him quickly would not be possible and she couldn’t entertain the idea of another trip to visit the family. Not after that last debacle.
More importantly, she would not risk leading the stranger from her cottage, or Cavan, to Herrick.
What if the intruder found her phone amid the destruction in her cottage?
Casidhe slapped a hand against her forehead. He’d have access to Fenella if he knew how to crack into the mobile phone.
After considering that likelihood, she rolled her eyes and kept walking.
Nothing about Tall, Dark, and Demanding had left her with any impression of being a techie.
If he was, she could do nothing about it right now.
He’d had muscles on muscles, and moved fluidly when he fought, but his speech reminded her of talking to people living at Herrick’s castle. In retrospect, she could admit she found the stranger attractive, in a primitive and annoying way. His face had sharp planes and a nicely-shaped nose, though a bit crooked. Those gray eyes had hid his emotions until an invisible switch flipped him from conversational to furious upon discovering Cavan had captured his friend.
How had he learned of the capture right then?
Why would Cavan take the intruder’s sidekick?
What did all these people have in common?
Her.
No, not her. Maybe the Treoirs.
Cavan had asked about the Treoirs during a first trip to the centre, before he returned to deliver a book on dark druids he’d given to Fenella for Casidhe to read. When Cavan surprised Casidhe at the grocery and grabbed her arm, his power had felt old, very old.
The intruder had argued about the red dragon seen in public being a fake and asked what she knew about the Treoirs.
Could he possibly know the red dragon shifter?
Was he the red dragon shifter?
She gave that serious consideration for all of two steps then snorted at that thought.
Why would her intruder have stood around asking for information and fighting demons when he could have just shifted and flown away with her clutched in his dragon’s claws?
Too many questions and not enough answers.
She shoved Cavan and the intruder aside for the moment to concentrate on how to spirit Fenella out of this area safely.
First she had to find her friend. What if she didn’t find her?
Casidhe swallowed a lump of emotion clogging her throat.
Negative thinking would not save Fenella. Only getting busy reaching the centre as fast as she could would help. She’d be able to use the desk phone at the centre.
Ignoring the ache in her legs, she picked up her pace to jog faster this time. She’d pay later for pushing her body so hard tonight, but her gut screamed that Fenella was not at the goat farm.
After an hour, Casidhe stumbled forward and dropped to her knees, heaving breaths. She had a cramp in her side. Her legs were spent and she needed water.
Tears stung her eyes.
Time ticked away with every labored breath.
Chapter 4
“What the hell are you doing out here before dark?” Quinn shouted at Evalle.
She finished cleaning her spelled dagger on a dead demon, one that had not disintegrated into flames and ash.
She’d killed it near the old train tracks in a rundown area beneath the surface streets of downtown Atlanta.
Her killing a demon was SOP.
But performing that task just after one in the afternoon could be fatal for her if any of the dark clouds overhead allowed sun to come through.
“Don’t panic,” Evalle murmured with her head down. “’Sposed to rain all day.”
“Rain? You think that’s going to protect you from turning into a charcoal briquette?” He loved her like a little sister, but unlike other Alterant-gryphons with glowing green eyes, she had a deadly reaction
