Duncan (Immortal Highlander Clan MacMar #5)

Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

N icole woke in Duncan’s arms, both of them naked, their limbs entwined. She dimly remembered him rising and leaving her in the night, but it couldn’t have been for very long. For a few minutes she let herself admire his handsome face so she could remember every feature, and then tenderly brushed a swath of dark hair back from his cheek. As she looked closer she saw that the streaks she had thought were gray were actually a very light blue.

“Keep touching me, my love, and I shall never again sleep,” he murmured without opening his eyes.

“I have no objections, as long as we can stay in this bed forever.” She sifted her fingers through the glittering strands. “I just realized you have blue streaks in your hair. Did you inherit that from your father?”

“The night before he ended himself, the prince came to my chamber. I remember he put his hand on my head and said something in old Fae to me, mayhap a blessing.” He looked at her, his dark eyes sad now. “Where he touched me my hair turned silvery blue.”

“Maybe he wanted to leave you with something to remind you of him.” She touched the red stone pendant. “My aunt gave this to me when I was thirteen. She said it belonged to Eilonwy, and if I wore it I would always be safe. I guess I shouldn’t have taken it off on the night of the family reunion.” As his expression changed she curled her arms around him. “In another day or two this will be decided, one way or another. When we win, I want to marry you.”

“’Twouldnae be for long.” He pulled her close and tucked her head under his chin. “I cannae leave my clan, and your family awaits you in the future.”

“If the druids can send me to the future, then maybe they can bring me back.” She showed him Lady Joana’s ring. “Or maybe this will let me make one last trip after I save my dad.” The sound of shouts and heavy footsteps running in the passage made her stiffen. “No more time. They’re here. ”

Duncan kissed her before he helped her out of bed and dressed with her. Draping her with his tartan, he picked up his medical case, and from it took out a sheathed dagger attached to a small strap.

“I ken you wish use words to defeat the enchantress,” he said as he fastened the weapon to her left arm, and pulled her sleeve over it. “My sire said a knife strike here can slow the Fae.” He touched the back of her neck.

“I’ll remember that.” She hugged him tightly before they hurried out into the passage, where Lark and Julianne came rushing toward them.

“The watchers reported the mist barrier falling just outside the bay, and a merchant trader sailing through the gap.” the seamstress said breathlessly. “Jamaran and the Finfolk garrison are fighting back a bunch of hybrids that attacked their settlement, but some slipped through their lines and reached the shore. Caroline went with Nyall down to the bay. She said she’ll wait to stop time until we get there, unless she has no choice but to use it.”

They still didn’t know if Caroline’s time freeze would affect Nicole or Julianne; so far the only ones immune to it beside the diver were her men.

Nicole grabbed her pendant and held it tightly. “Where is Valerie? ”

“V’s taken all the ladies and kids from the village and the farms into this ginormous storage basement under the watch tower,” the lifeguard said. “Their guys are with the clan so they can help defend the castle. I’ll jump you down to where Caroline is. If she doesn’t stop time, then we can jump to the ship.” She gave Duncan an unhappy look. “You should maybe get the infirmary ready for lots of patients, Doc.”

“I shallnae stay behind tonight, my lady. I’ve brought what I shall need with me.” He lifted his medical case. “We shall go together, and mayhap I’ll buy you the time you’ll need so you may reveal the truth she’s hidden from the shifters.”

Putting him in harms’ way was the last thing she wanted, but Nicole was done with saying no to him. “Let’s go.”

As darkness fell over Caladh, Duxor began to worry that Jamaran hadn’t meant to only frighten him, but never intended to return and release him. He had already tried time and again to free himself from the stakes, but the long hours out of the water had left him weak, and the cords cut into his dry, flaking flesh now whenever he moved.

The water in the shallows off the islet threshed, and he managed to lift his head to watch as the commander waded on shore. The shadows and his blurry vision made it impossible to focus on Jamaran’s features, which seemed paler than before. He’d also thought Merrick’s thug had blue eyes, not black.

“You took your time returning,” he said, and grew startled at how thin and reedy his voice sounded. “Release me at once, or I shall tell the king you cruelly sported with me when I might otherwise defend our settlement.”

The commander stopped, and then dropped down on the sand as more Selseus came out of the water.

Their strange scent made Duxor’s stomach turn, for they stank of his creatures. Had they killed them all? “Didnae you hear me? Remove these cords or I shall tell Merrick you tortured me.”

“As you tortured us, master?” The one he assumed was Jamaran stood and came to loom over him, its gray and white body shifting into that of a Cait Sith he’d merged with a white-mouth. “Dinnae you ken how painful ’tis when you jam together a shark and a shifter?” ’Tis as if set on fire inside and out.”’

He couldn’t remember the female’s name; he had changed too many. Nor could he read her thoughts anymore. She thought like a shark now, not a person.

“I shall heal you.” His voice was shaking badly now, so he cleared his throat. “Release me, and I’ll reward you handsomely, I vow.” He looked around him as much smaller shifters came crawling and then toddling up the sands to cluster around the legs of the Cait Sith.

“My spawn, they’re hungry,” the shifter told him, and smiled with the teeth of a shark. “Ever and always, and I’m the same. Shall you reward us now, master? Surely we deserve such.”

Duxor shook his head violently. “No, first you must obey me, and release me, or I cannae restore you. Spare my life, and I shall see you and the shark separated. You shallnae suffer any longer.” He cried out as one of the tiny shifters latched onto his arm with its needle-like teeth. “Please, I beg you. Spare me and I shall give you whatever you wish.”

“I desire your flesh,” his creation said as she bent down.

Duxor screamed as her young converged on him, biting chunks out of his flesh, the sound ripping through the air, and then all he knew was agony as she tore out his throat.

Even with what Julianne had said, Duncan wasn’t prepared for the scene of utter carnage spread all over the bay shore. The corpses of hybrids and Finfolk littered the blood-soaked sands; others floated in the dark waters of the shallows. The stench of death came rolling up to the cliff stairs, as if the sea had turned into a vast caldron of rotting fish. Down by the surf’s edge his brothers had formed three lines; the frontmost attacking the shifters that came surging out of the shallows. Those that managed to get by them were quickly dispatched by the second and third ranks, but it quickly became obvious there were far more hybrids than MacMar warriors.

“Caroline’s at the cove,” Nyall said as he rushed over after helping slay two shifters that resembled enormous eels with mortal limbs. “Fletcher’s protecting her.”

“Shaw?” he asked.

“Connal has him patrolling the inner bailey,” the captain said. “Naught shall get past him and into the stronghold.”

As long as we keep the enchantress away from Dun Ard. He glanced down at the heavy boots Nyall wore, which had been hastily fitted with slate stone soles. “Watch your back, Brother.”

Hurrying with Nicole and the other women for the secluded spot, Duncan drew his own sword, and used it to behead a small shifter that slithered out of the surf toward the women. Ahead he saw Fletcher grimly dealing with a dozen more, and ran to aid him.

“Facking things keep coming.” For once, more determined than enraged, the seneschal swung his sword through the last shrieking shifters before wiping the blood spatter from his face onto his sleeve. Then he saw his wife and swore furiously before he demanded, “ Uiseag , what do you ladies here with only Duncan protecting you?”

“I’m their protection.” The petite redhead made a casual gesture, and a new group of shifters emerging from the sea went flying across the bay. She stood on her toes to kiss her husband. “I love you, but I have to go smash a ship’s hull now, dear. Take out your temper on the hybrids, please.”

Caroline had on her wet suit and was watching the ship sailing into the bay with a dark expression. As soon as she saw them, she sheathed the dagger she was holding and trotted over to meet them.

“They’re getting ready to lower their skiffs, so now’s the time, Lark.” As the seamstress turned her attention to the merchant trader she said to the lifeguard, “Jules, as soon as you drop Nicole jump back, okay? Our guys need our help on the beach.”

“I’m taking Nick and Duncan,” the lifeguard told her. “He wants to go, too.”

Caroline gave him a narrow look. “You two need to work fast. If I have to freeze time to stop the shifters from overrunning the castle, I will.”

The sound of water and something heavy crashing down into the bay drew everyone’s attention, and Duncan saw the Cait Sith’s vessel land on a group of shoals near the ferryman’s islet. Wood exploded in all directions from the hull as the rocks smashed through the lapstrake.

Lark rejoined them. “Okay, they’re not going to sail off anywhere in that boat. Um, I also knocked some of them into the water. What a shame they never learned to swim.”

“Stay close to Nyall and Fletcher, my ladies,” Duncan told her and Caroline before he took hold of the other women’s hands. “When you’re ready, Lady Julianne.”

The lifeguard nodded, and then the air around them began to glow. The world blurred as a powerful force seized Duncan and the women and rushed them through space and time until they stood on the deck of the merchant trader, surrounded by Cait Sith sprawled everywhere. The shifters gave them astonished looks as they scrambled to their feet and brandished daggers, swords and unlit torches like clubs.

“Hey, shape-changers. I’m back.” Julianne released his hand to give the crew a cheerful wave. “My friend Nick here needs to talk to you about that dark enchantress chick with the awful name. Could you like call her out, too? She should hear this stuff. Oh, and I’d say laters but I don’t think I’m going to see you again. Also didn’t like that movie. So not sexy.” She winked at Duncan, and then vanished.

The door to the cabin flung open so hard it broke off its hinges and went over the side of the sinking vessel. As a darkly beautiful woman emerged, her eyes glowing with power, Duncan pushed Nicole behind him.

The enchantress had dressed for battle in gleaming black armor etched with Fae symbols in silver. Thousands of huge black pearls clustered around her magnificent face, and fresh blood reddened her full lips. In her black eyes glittered a terrible joy as she approached them.

“Derdrui,” he said. “Cease your attack on the Clan MacMar, and order your shifters to surrender, or you shall die here tonight.”

The Therion Fae’s lips parted and curved around her teeth, which were stained with dark blood. “But I came all this way to see you and your brothers, my darling boy. The time has come to pay for what your father did to me. ”

Nicole took hold of her pendant, but instead of clutching it as she usually did she tugged on the chain until it snapped and she gripped it tightly in her fist. “You have business with me first, Enchantress.”

Derdrui’s gaze shifted to her, and her smile turned into a sneer.

“Ah, and here is the image of that sniveling princess Mar was so desperate to marry.” She sniffed. “You even smell like her. Do all Woodland Fae sluts wallow in the scum of the forest?”

Looking at the dreadful beauty of the Therion Fae made Nicole dizzy; in her obsidian eyes red streaks flickered in and out. It was the same as staring into the mouth of a volcano ready to erupt and seeing lashings of magma shooting up from the lava bed.

The enchantress circled around her, as casually as if she were sizing her up for a dress fitting. “You are a halfling, too. I know Eilonwy would never stoop to bed a mortal. Are you one of her sisters’ spawn?”

That was the lead-in Nicole needed.

“You know that I am. I had no idea you had so many half-mortal daughters. It’s good to see you keep them close to you.” Nicole saw all of the Cait Sith around them go still and stare at her, and regarded one heavy-set female who appeared especially thunderstruck. “Do they call you mother, or is there a special Therion term for the woman who gave birth to you?”

“She is our sovereign, no’ our màthair ,” the shifter said.

“Prince Mar had only sons with his mortal wives,” she told the Cait Sith, “just as my Fae mother could only have a daughter with my human father. Female Fae who breed with mortals may only give birth to female halflings.”

“Be silent.” The enchantress wrenched a torch from its bracket and threw it at her, but Duncan batted it away. “Pay her no heed, Speal. The mewling slut knows nothing of our kind.”

“You’ve Woodland Fae blood,” the heavyset woman told Nicole. “We’re of the Therion. We’re no’ the same.”

“It doesn’t matter what type of Fae your parent is. With mortals, females have only daughters, and males have sons.” She glanced at the enchantress. “Why didn’t you ever tell them the truth? They are your daughters. I know you can’t lie if they ask you a direct question.”

“You know nothing of my Cait Sith. They will always be loyal to me.” Derdrui looked around at the faces of the crew. “Why should you listen to her? She seeks to drive us apart. Tell them, Speal. ”

The heavyset shifter took a step back from the enchantress. “Are you our màthair ?”

“I am the princess you swore to serve for the rest of your worthless lives,” the enchantress said, shrieking the words. “That is what matters.”

All around the ship the sea began to roil, and dozens of huge black and white orca barreled past, heading for the shifters and aquatics still fighting in the bay shallows. Nicole saw Merrick riding on the back of the biggest killer whale, his Selseus crown still on his head. The huge swath of orca were followed by hundreds of dolphins.

The hybrids didn’t kill the king. He went to get help.

Nicole noticed Duncan had taken a familiar-looking crock from his bag and uncorked it, and stepped in front of him.

“I’ve shared the memories of one of your daughters, Enchantress. She watched you violating your male victims while you tortured them.” She glanced at Speal. “Derdrui roamed here for close to a thousand years while she hunted Prince Mar. What do you think she did with all the daughters she conceived by raping those men?”

As the enchantress lunged at Nicole, swiping at her with her talons, Duncan got between them and took the blow instead. The swarm of woodland imps he’d released from the crock attacked the enchantress, who blasted them away with a wave of her magic.

“You think your little creatures can harm me?” the dark Fae demanded, seizing Nicole by the throat as her form swelled and shifted into a nightmarish giant bat.

The deck fell away as the enchantress took to the air, carrying her in one claw as she flew to the island. Nicole didn’t try to resist, but hung helplessly as if she’d fainted. As the cold night air buffeted her, and the dark Fae’s claws dug into her neck, she thought of Duncan on the ship, and prayed Julianne would go back and rescue him.

Silently she reached out with her power, hoping her thoughts would reach the mind of the animal that the enchantress had become. Take me to the forest made of stone. You can finish this there.

The bat began to drop slowly, descending as it passed over the cove and the woods beyond it, and for a moment Nicole thought she had failed. Then the creature finally dropped down, alighting just outside the Stone Forest, where she threw Nicole to the ground.

“Now I shall finish you,” Derdrui said as she changed back into her female form while retaining the bat’s giant fangs.

At the same time Nicole remembered what Merrivane had told her. If you use it properly, child, nothing in this world or in any other can stop you. But only the once.

“You can end this right now without hurting anyone else,” she told the enchantress as she pushed herself up, and eyed the closest tree, a petrified ash. “Or I can.”

“You possess only a dribble of Woodland Fae blood.” The enchantress’s hands turned into feline paws with enormous talons. “As for that enchanted bauble that whore or her sisters gave you, the charm is useless against me.”

“It’s not a charm. It’s the depository containing the last of my aunt’s elemental magic.” As soon as she placed her empty hand on the tree, her pendant shimmered. “You know that dominion over an element is the ultimate power. Prince Mar had dominion over water, and his wife had her own.”

Derdrui jerked her around to face her. “You think your puny relic can challenge me? I rule all Therion, and my royal blood is pure, as is my power.”

“Your dominion is back in Elphyne, along with your kingdom, and you’ve already used up a lot of your power.” Nicole reminded her. “Eilonwy was a princess, too, and she had dominion over woodlands.” A branch shot out and pierced the enchantress’s taloned hand, making her shriek with fury. “All woodlands.”

The dark Fae woman screamed as she writhed and yanked at her impaled hand.

Nicole sensed the power of the pendant enveloping her. Merrivane had never told her how long it would last, but she only needed to keep the enchantress confined until the clan joined them. It was time to use her newfound gift.

She took in a fearful breath. She had never asked for this; she suspected she wasn’t strong enough to survive what she needed to do. She didn’t want to do it, either, but if she waited for the others, Derdrui might free herself and kill her anyway.

For Duncan, then, and his brothers, and all the people they love.

“I am sorry for what the Prince did to you,” Nicole said, eyeing the ash, which rammed two more branches through the enchantress’s torso. “I understand why your rage has kept burning for thousands of years. But I never harmed you, and neither did my aunt Eilonwy, or the MacMar Clan. You can’t punish us for what happened between you and the prince thousands of years in the past.”

Julianne appeared a moment later with Duncan and a half-dozen shifters, including Dearg, who was still in chains. The lifeguard made an OK signal with her fingers before she vanished again. In the distance Nicole saw more MacMar charging toward the Stone Forest, the ground behind them seemingly turning to undulating glass.

Seeing her lover made Nicole wish he had stayed behind so he wouldn’t have to watch this. “Duncan, it’s just like I said. I can’t stay. I’m sorry.”

“Never worry, love.” He looked into her eyes, the love in his becoming for a moment her universe. “When you leave, I’ll follow.”

“I shall skin and spit you both alive, and keep you breathing for eternity while your raw flesh roasts,” Derdrui promised, bringing her attention back to her impaled body. “You may burn together forever over an unquenchable fire.”

Nicole regarded the enchantress, who could barely move now.

Her emotional pain is her weapon, but I can disarm her.

“No, we won’t burn forever.” Nicole approached her, coming close enough to see herself burning in the enchantress’s eyes. “And neither will you.”

She pressed her hand against Derdrui’s cheek, and the healing power inside her opened her soul. A flood of evil gushed into her, as agonizing and inescapable as if someone had poured a vat of lava over her head. Countless centuries of hatred and sadistic pleasure swamped her, along with rage over betrayal and the icy rebound of unwanted love. The enchantress’s memories came with that, shoving millennia of sadistic pleasures into Nicole.

I won’t survive this .

She clung to that surety, relieved that death would release her from existing with the knowledge and remembrance of Derdrui’s evil. Dimly she saw Duncan moving toward her and gasped out, “Don’t touch me.”

“Ever shall we share our joys, our pains, and our hearts, my love.” As he bent his head and kissed her the silver-blue streaks in his hair glittered, and the deep gouges Derdrui’s claws had made in his face began to shrink. Then he took hold of her hand. Blue and green lights sparkled in Duncan’s dark eyes, and then appeared all around them. Between their palms her pendant throbbed like a tiny heart.

Everything around them dimmed for a moment as a transparent vine of golden ivy wound around Nicole. At the same time ghostly rain poured over Duncan.

Mar.

Eilonwy.

The MacMar Clan suddenly burst into the Stone Forest, accompanied by a flood of dark water. On the surface bobbed hundreds of spheres that began to glow. The scent of the sea and the men surrounded the frozen enchantress, their swords ready.

“Och, Healer, here you and your lass came,” Brochan said. “I reckoned as much when we saw that great bat flying here.” He winked at Nicole. “Save a dance at your wedding for me, my lady.”

The cook slogged through the water, heading for the far end of the forest, and the sea followed, leaving the glowing orbs behind, which sank into the ground. Then a streak of inky black poured into the forest from the direction of the castle, and solidified into Shaw.

“I didnae ken why the beast chose me until tonight,” the chieftain said to her, and put his tattooed hand over hers and her lover’s. “But it sends me now. ’Tis time we end all suffering, Healers.”

Nicole wondered if Shaw’s beast would kill her and Duncan, but all she experienced was a wave of cool darkness that came over her, swallowing up the terrible emotions she had absorbed from the enchantress. As they thinned and faded, the pendant shifted between her and Duncan’s hands. The stone dissolved into sparkling sand, which poured out from their fingers onto the ground.

“No.” Cracks began to appear on Derdrui’s darkly beautiful face as she fought to free herself without success. “It cannot end this way. I must have my revenge. That is all I have lived for since he betrayed me.”

All around them the Stone Forest took on a subtle silver-blue glow.

“If we may attend our màthair ?” Speal politely asked Duncan, who with Nicole and Shaw stepped out of their way.

Dearg stared at her, aghast. “No. ’Tisnae truth.” Fangs stretched out of her cherub’s mouth. “They made you lie.” She crouched down if front of the enchantress as if to spring at the other shifters, and then uttered a liquid gurgle and looked down at the sword thrust into her chest.

“You shallnae use the wee fiend against us again,” Speal said, her voice slurring over the words. “’Tis time you have the vengeance you’ve earned, Derdrui.”

As the Cait Sith surrounded their sovereign, the enchantress hung helpless, still skewered by the stone ash’s limbs.

“Release me at once, or I will make you suffer as you’ve never imagined,” the dark Fae promised, glaring at each one. “I shall chop you up and make you watch as I feed the parts of you to vermin. You shall know pain unlike any ever known in this realm.” As they crowded closer she shrieked her last words. “You cannot do this to me. I am your mother. ”

Nicole glanced back once, and saw the shifters’ bodies changing as they converged on the enchantress under the light of the rising full moon. Black fur covered their flesh, and talons sprang from their fingertips. They yowled and hissed, baring long, sharp fangs. Then Duncan touched her cheek to turn her attention to him.

“You shouldnae watch any more, my lady,” he said, putting his arm around her and walking with her along the path, leaving Shaw behind with the shifters.

As they made their way back to the bay, Fiacail passed them, followed by a large group of young hybrids. They also began sprouting black fur. More Cait Sith in the midst of changing came up from the shoreline, falling to all fours as they rushed toward the Stone Forest, where a furious yowling had started. Then came the sound of the enchantress screaming again, but this time with horror and agony, and Nicole finally understood why Duncan had told her not to look.

When they reached the shore they found Nyall and the men of the garrison hauling the bodies of the dead shifters over to an enormous pyre where more were burning. In the shallows Jamaran stood speaking angrily with King Merrick, who shrugged before he dove into the water and swam with a dozen dolphins toward the pod of killer whales in the center of the bay .

The captain came over and inspected them both. “Tell me you’re no’ shifters that killed Mistress Fairburn and my brother.”

“We’re no’ shifters, and the killing, ’tis over for the night,” Duncan told him. “Mayhap for good.”

“Thank the Gods,” Nyall said. “’Twould be me and the garrison burning on that pyre, had Merrick not brought every whale-killer in the north sea to our waters. How he convinced them help us fight the hybrids, I’ll never guess. After seeing them hunt and kill, nor shall I ever again swim near any whale-killer.”

Jamaran slogged through the surf and came to join them, his expression furious. “Merrick’s told the elders he’s abdicating the throne. We’ll crown a new king on the morrow, if those shifters that yet live dinnae slay us all.”

“Who is the new king?” Nicole couldn’t help asking.

“Me.” As Duncan and Nyall grinned, the Selseus commander muttered something in another language that sounded vile, and waded back into the sea.

“Look over there,” Nicole said, pointing at the sky above the Stone Forest, which had lit with an aurora borealis in a beautiful shade of silvery blue. “Did we do that with my pendant?”

“I cannae tell you, my lady,” her lover said. “Only I remember, ’tis the same magic I saw lighten the sky the night before my sire ended himself.”

“The magic, ’tis enchanting the entire island,” Nyall said, staring at the spot, which appeared to be expanding. “Mayhap we should take cover.”

That was when the sky exploded with millions of blue lights.