Midnight's Captive (Dark Warriors) (22 page)

“Would you?” Tara asked as she sat on the arm of Ramsey’s chair.

“I worked with her every day,” Charon said, holding back the anger, not at Tara, but because Tara was voicing doubts that he had already asked himself. “I’d know.”

Ramsey laid his hand atop Tara’s arm. “It’s true, love. Charon would’ve picked up on it.”

“Then how is it one minute she has magic and the next she doesn’t?” Cara asked.

Charon didn’t have an answer for Lucan’s wife. “She admitted to having magic, but she said it’s gone again.”

Ian gave a snort. “That doesna make sense.”

“It does,” Tara said defensively. “I could never count on my magic. Maybe hers is the same.”

Marcail walked to him. “Tara has a point. You said yourself you couldn’t always feel Tara’s magic, Ramsey.”

“Aye,” Charon murmured. If he could only get Laura to trust him again, she might tell him everything.

“I can help you.”

Charon looked at Marcail and the hand she hovered over his arm. Her gift was the ability to take away emotions, but in doing so she made herself ill.

“Nay. No’ only would Quinn take my head for making you sick, but it wouldna help.” He needed to work through all the emotions—as difficult as they were to piece together. All because it involved Laura.

Marcail rolled her turquoise eyes. “Quinn would understand that I did it for a friend. Besides, I think it would help. You’ve too much in that head of yours. You want to believe Laura isn’t working with Jason, but you can’t be sure.”

“I can clear that up with just a few minutes with Laura,” Reaghan said.

Charon didn’t turn away the glass of whisky placed in his hand by Hayden. He drained it in one swallow. It was filled again immediately.

The Dreagan whisky slid smoothly down his throat and spread warmth as it landed in his stomach. It dulled the ache that had gripped his chest like iron manacles since the moment he knew Jason had Laura.

But the unanswered questions, and the tormented look in Laura’s pale green eyes kept him on edge. It wasn’t just the anguish he read on her face, it was a bone-deep betrayal that distressed her. Who, exactly, had betrayed her?

He wanted to hand Laura over to the Druids so his mind wouldn’t be jumbled anymore. Let them sort out the answers in just a few brief moments. But before Laura was his lover, she had been his friend. She deserved more. Especially from him.

“Magic was used in her flat,” Ramsey said. “I noticed it when we found Laura unconscious, but I assumed she’d been the one to use it. Perhaps it was no’ her.”

Lucan crossed his arms over his chest. “You might be right, Ramsey.”

“Sonya said she had a bump on her head. Maybe she was knocked out, and that’s when she lost her magic,” Dani suggested.

Charon squeezed his eyes tightly shut as he recalled Laura’s words during their conversation. When he opened them, he looked at the amber liquid in his glass. “Laura said it was seeing Wallace pour his
drough
blood in me that caused her magic to rise. There was something in her voice, something that said she hadna known what it was.”

“Until Wallace told her,” Broc said with a growl.

Charon drained his glass again and set it down on the table with a thud. “If only we had gotten to her first.”

“What’s done is done,” Larena said. “We deal with what we have.”

Fallon looked at Charon. “Larena is right. I’ll honor your request to question Laura on your own. Until such time as it begins to put everyone else in danger.”

“Agreed,” Charon said.

He started to turn away when Isla called for him to wait as she rushed into the kitchen. A moment later, she returned with a tray of food.

“I’m sure she’s hungry,” Isla said.

Charon took the tray. “Thank you.”

“Trust your heart. It won’t lead you astray.”

He remembered Isla’s words as he walked the stairs back to Laura’s chamber. Charon would rather have taken Laura back to his house, but that option was lost to him now. Thanks to Wallace.

Charon paused outside Laura’s door and swallowed as he shoved thoughts of Jason Wallace aside. He shifted the tray and raised his hand to knock when he heard the shower.

He opened the door before quietly walking inside. Steam billowed from the tiny bathroom and the half-closed door. Charon set the tray down on the bed and closed the door, where he stood waiting for her while doing his damnedest not to stalk into the bathroom and join her in the shower.

After finally giving in to his desire for her, Charon found it difficult to deny his cravings. Laura was like a drug. He’d had a taste—and needed more.

A few minutes later, the water shut off. Charon thought remaining where he was would make it easier on him.

It only made it worse.

He imagined the water coating her body, a drop hanging on the edge of a nipple, waiting for him to capture it in his mouth. His eyes slid shut when all the blood rushed to his cock as he remembered lovely rose-tipped breasts.

With a groan, he clenched his teeth. He heard her moving around and could picture Laura drying off, the towel moving over her silky skin just as his hands had a day before.

His eyes snapped open when she walked out of the bathroom in tight leggings and a shirt and halted as she caught sight of him. He met her gaze before he nodded to the bed. “I brought you food.”

She said not a word as she combed out her wet hair and hurried to the tray.

“Jason told you his story of the Druids and Warriors, but let me tell you mine,” Charon said.

When she looked at him, silently waiting, he figured that was as close to a yes as he was going to get.

He inhaled deeply and began. “In the history books, it describes the Celts as tribes who were always at war with each other. They’re described as savages, wild as the land they inhabited.

“But that wasna the case. Aye, the Celts were savage fighters. They held off the Romans for years. Their ability to use the land as an advantage over the Romans is one reason Hadrian’s Wall was built. Rome never conquered Scotland or her people, but they wouldna give up.”

Charon leaned back against the door, thinking to an earlier time in history when the clans had ruled as his gaze shifted to the window. “The Druids had roamed the land for generations. They were the teachers, the healers, and sometimes even the judges. Clan leaders turned to the
mies
for guidance and advice on everything from where to hunt to when to go to battle.”

He found Laura intently listening while she continued to devour the food on the tray.

“The Druids, like anyone else in this world, have a good side and an evil side. The good are the
mies
. They use the pure magic given to them by nature. They can make plants grow, heal, speak to the trees, and many other amazing abilities.

“The
droughs,
on the other hand, are evil. They perform a ceremony where they give their blood and soul to the Devil in order to use black magic. You can tell the evil Druids by the cuts on their wrists from the ceremony, as well as the Demon’s Kiss.”

He paused as he tried to find the words to describe it. “A Demon’s Kiss is a silver vial worn around a
drough
’s neck. It holds the first drops of their blood after becoming
drough,
and it can be used to heal them.

“When it appeared the Romans might actually conquer the Celts, they turned to the
mies
for advice, but the Druids didna have an answer for them. Having nowhere else to go, the leaders went to the
droughs
.”

“What did they do?” she asked softly.

Charon crossed an ankle over the other. “The
droughs
called up primeval gods long locked away in Hell. The strongest, bravest warriors of each family stepped forward to take the gods into their bodies. The men became Warriors. They had inhuman strength and speed along with enhanced senses. More than that, the Roman army didna stand a chance against them.”

“Rome left then?”

“Aye. But the Warriors answered the gods’ call for blood. With no more Romans to kill, they slaughtered whoever crossed their path. The
droughs
tried to pull the gods out of the men and back into Hell, but the gods had a firm hold of the men.”

Her pale green eyes watched him raptly. It took everything he had not to go to her and pull her into his arms, to promise her that he would set everything aright. He wanted—nay,
needed
—to have her in his arms again.

That need was as strong as his god’s call for death. It startled Charon, how deeply he felt for Laura.

He popped the knuckles in his left hand. “The
droughs
are strong with their black magic, but nothing they did could move the gods back to their prison. The
droughs
might be stronger individually, but when a group of
mies
combine their magic, the force of it is incredible. The
droughs
knew this, so they turned to the
mies
for help.

“It was the first time in ages the
mies
and
droughs
combined their magic, but even that was no’ enough to send the gods to Hell. All they were able to do was bind the gods inside the men. The gods, however, moved through each bloodline, going to the strongest warrior each time, waiting, hoping for the day they would be released.”

Laura swallowed the last bit of her food. “And the men the gods first inhabited? What became of them?”

“They returned to the life they led before.”

“Were you one of the first?”

He gave a quick shake of his head. “Nay.”

“Who unbound your god?”

Charon pushed away from the door and sighed. “Her name was Deirdre. She was a
drough
who lived for a thousand years by killing every Druid she came across and taking their magic. She found a scroll with the spell to unbind the gods. Over seven hundred years ago, she attacked this verra castle and killed every living thing inside it to get to the MacLeod brothers.”

Laura looked away. She didn’t want to believe Charon, but the emotion that filled his words left her little choice. His tone made it even more convincing because she didn’t think Charon knew how emotional he sounded.

An odd twinge unsettled her as she listened to his tale. When his voice shook slightly as he spoke of Deirdre, anger had pervaded her.

This was the story he hadn’t wanted to share before. Now, he was telling her all of it. Despite the fact that retelling it seemed to pain him. And she hated to see him hurting.

“What happened to the MacLeods?” she asked as she got to her feet and looked out the window. She couldn’t look into Charon’s dark gaze anymore and see the misery and doubt.

“Deirdre’s magic was the ability to communicate with stone. Cairn Toul Mountain was her fortress. Inside that mountain was where she lived and practiced her black magic. She brought Fallon, Lucan, and Quinn to the mountain and unbound their god. As brothers equally strong in battle, they shared a god. They were lucky enough to escape Deirdre after their god was unbound to return here.”

Laura watched the sea roll endlessly from her window. The birds flew along the currents hunting for food, but she never heard them. She was too focused on the sinfully gorgeous man behind her and his tale she wasn’t sure she wanted to know anymore.

“Deirdre didna stop with the MacLeods,” Charon continued. “Ramsey was the next to be taken. So many more men were captured and their gods unbound.”

Her hands gripped the windowsill as her heart pounded in her chest. He had yet to speak of himself. What had happened to him? Was it as dreadful as she feared, as the slight tremor in his voice bespoke? “And you?”

“I was taken. Six hundred and twenty-some odd years ago.”

She swallowed hard. No wonder Charon always had the answers. He’d been around for six centuries. He’d seen everything.

“Does it bother you that I’m so … old?”

Laura looked at his reflection in the glass and found his gaze locked with hers. She slowly turned to him. “No. A lot about you is beginning to make sense now. Will you tell me more?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “No. But I think I need to know.”

“You do need to know. Even if I hadna felt your magic, I’d be telling you this now. Wallace put you in the middle of our war. It’s a place I never wanted you to be.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t matter what we want. Fate does whatever she wants.”

There was a long stretch of silence before Charon began talking again. “The screams from Druids and men alike from Cairn Toul still fill my head when I sleep. The pain of every muscle shredding, every bone breaking in multiple places as my god was released is indescribable.”

Laura’s heart missed a beat as she watched fury and despair fill his dark brown eyes. She wanted to go to him, to touch him as he relived his time with Deirdre. He didn’t need to go into detail. She knew the pain he suffered by watching how his body had gone utterly still, every muscle locked.

“The real agony was battling my god for control. Deirdre kept all of us in dungeons deep beneath the earth. We were tortured with magic, brought to the brink of death, and healed by our gods dozens of times a day for months and years, all to break us to her will. Yet, there were a few who were able to stand against Deirdre, who gained control of our gods instead of them controlling us.”

Laura wanted to ask him to stop, but his eyes shone with such stark desolation that she couldn’t get the words past her lips.

“I make no excuses for what I am. I’m a monster, Laura, a beast who dares to walk among mortals. I didna ask to become this, but I will fight against evil until my dying breath.”

His sun-kissed skin disappeared, copper taking its place. Claws a dark copper sprang from his fingers. The horns she’d glimpsed before were startling—and exquisite—with their penetrating copper color and the way they curved around the front of his forehead. She caught a glimpse of fangs, but it was his eyes that held her spellbound.

Copper colored his eyes from corner to corner, bleeding out any white. It was eerie and beautiful to look upon. She could practically feel the coiled violence beneath his muscles, waiting to let loose, but he kept a tight leash on it.