Embrace the Highland Warrior (29 page)

“You sure it wasn’t the cat?” Duncan asked.

“No, I was holding the cat, only because it was dark, and my flashlight was dying,” she said, defensively.

Cody moved toward the corner where Matilda pointed. “Nothing here.”

“How did you kill him?” Ronan asked, eyeing Matilda doubtfully.

“Holy water.”

“Where the hell did you get holy water?” Duncan asked.

“Well, I was clutching my bottle of water to my chest. I carry one with me so I don’t get dehydrated. The doctor said I need to stay hydrated. And I got lost, like I told you, and I started praying somebody would find me, and since I was holding the water, I guess the praying must have blessed it. Or it might have been the cat.”

“The cat blessed the water?” Duncan asked, scratching his head.

“No. Killed the man. When he hissed at me, the cat hissed back and jumped at him.”

Cody caught Ronan and Duncan’s worried gazes.

“Then I threw my water bottle at him.” Matilda held her heart. “I think I might faint.”

“Come on, Matilda,” Duncan said. “I’ll take you up. Ronan and Cody will check it out. I’m sure it was just a shadow.”

“I’ve never seen a shadow with red eyes.”

“It couldn’t be,” Ronan said, his voice somber, as Duncan led Matilda away. “Maybe she’s insane.”

“She’s not normal, but she’s as sharp as your sword.”

“What the hell did she see, then?”

Cody aimed his light along the walls. “Damn.”

“What is it?” Ronan joined him, his gaze on the beam of light on the floor. A bottle of water lay in a pile of dust.

Cody felt the blood rush from his head. A vampire. “They got inside. They know she’s here.”

Ronan looked as if he’d turned to stone. “Alert the guards. I’ll look down here.”

Cody whirled and ran back to the castle. He opened the hidden door and burst into the library, where half the house had gathered around Matilda.

“…and it hissed with these big red eyes, and the cat flew out of my hands… where’s the cat?” she asked, looking around.

“Did you actually see this… man?” Duncan asked.

“Well, no. It was shadowed, but when the cat leaped at the man, I heard this terrible screeching sound. I figured it was the holy water melting him.”

Nina entered the library. “What have you done now, Matilda?” she asked, staring at her cousin’s cobwebbed hair.

“I killed a man,” Matilda said.

“You just saw a shadow,” Cody said, motioning for the warriors to join him.

“Of course it was a shadow,” Nina said, “just like the one you saw back at the house. We’ll make an appointment and have your eyes checked as soon as we get home.”

“She saw shadows at home?” Lachlan asked, making a rare appearance. Since Matilda’s arrival, he usually slept in one of the cottages and guarded the woods.

“Out behind the house. Let’s get you to bed, Matilda.” Nina took her cousin’s arm and led her from the room. “You’ve got to stop exploring, or they’re going to throw us out. Oh, has anyone seen Shay?”

“She’s asleep,” Cody said.

“I just stopped by her room,” Nina said. “She’s not there, and her room is cold. Someone left the window open.”

Cody broke into a run, feet pounding down the corridor. He heard the others behind him, but he didn’t stop. He burst through Shay’s door. The room was empty, balcony curtains swaying in the wind. He hurried outside. She wasn’t there, but a ladder rested against the ledge of the balcony. His heart lurched. He scanned the grounds and saw something white moving toward the woods. A dark shadow stood just inside the tree line.

“No!” Cody leapt from the balcony, springing into a run when his feet touched the ground. He sprinted across the castle grounds. “Stop!” he yelled as Shay moved closer to the trees. “Shay! Stop!”

He saw a blur of white dart between Shay and the shadow, and the shadow jumped back. Cody ran faster. When he reached her, Shay stood staring into the woods, her body stiff, face unresponsive, like the night on the balcony. The shadow was gone. “Shay?” Cody touched her, but she didn’t move. She looked as if she’d been drugged. Half a dozen warriors ran up behind Cody. “Where the hell are the guards?” Cody asked.

“There’s one,” Ronan said, running to kneel by the prone form several feet away. “He’s unconscious.”

“Same here,” Shane called, on the other side.

“I see another one farther down,” Niall said.

“This one’s coming ’round,” Ronan said.

The young warrior jumped to his feet and drew his sword. Ronan fell back, narrowly avoiding losing an ear. The warrior’s gaze darted wildly. “What happened?” He blinked at Shay. “Where’d she come from?”

“It’s okay,” Ronan told the guard. “Something knocked you out.” Ronan looked at Cody. “I’m going after it.”

“You can’t go alone,” Cody said, but Ronan was already gone. “Niall, go after him before he gets himself killed.”

Niall took off after Ronan, lithe as a panther, for all his bulky size.

Cody kept a hand on Shay, who looked like she might collapse. “Lachlan, get every warrior we have out here. Barricade this place. Someone check the secret passages and the tunnel.”

Shay shook her head, looking around as wild-eyed as the guard. “Cody? What are you doing? Where are we?” She looked confused. “Where is… he?”

“Who?” Cody asked.

She looked toward the woods. “I don’t know,” she said, and her body slumped into a faint. Cody caught her, swinging her up into his arms. He ran with her toward the castle, shouting out to the warriors swarming the place.

Coira was waiting in the infirmary, readying her medical supplies. “Put her here,” Coira said.

Cody placed Shay on the bed and stood back as Coira checked Shay’s pulse. “She seemed fine an hour ago.” What the hell was happening?

“Pulse is slow. What’s this?” Coira asked, looking at the red scratch on Shay’s pale skin. It looked even angrier.

“She said she scratched it. I was going to get you to look at it.” He leaned down and sniffed. It didn’t smell sulfurous, like a demon scratch, but it probably wouldn’t, since it was several days old. “Is it infected?”

“I don’t think so, just inflamed. Her pupils are normal,” she said, shining a light into Shay’s eyes. “That’s good.” The blood pressure cuff beeped. “Blood pressure is low.”

“Maybe we should take her to the hospital,” Cody said. They tried to avoid hospitals if possible. It opened the door to too many questions they didn’t want to answer.

“I think she’ll be okay. Let’s let her rest for a bit. What was that out there, Cody?”

“All I saw was a shadow with black hair.”

“You think it was the same thing that attacked Jamie?”

“I don’t know.” Jamie hadn’t been able to remember much about the attack. “Why didn’t he hurt Shay? He just stood there, like he was waiting for her.”

“This is unnerving. Those things getting inside the castle wall, even inside the secret passages. I’m starting to wonder if Angus was right about the traitor.”

She wasn’t the only one wondering it. The castle had two lines of guards around the perimeter. How had this—whatever it was—found the place and gotten through?

“Go find it, Cody,” Coira said fiercely. “Before this thing finds Shay.”

Cody bent and pressed a lingering kiss to Shay’s forehead, and stood, his face set tight, prepared for the hunt. He knew what had to be done. He would destroy Malek, at least weaken him, even if it meant his own death. But there was one place he needed to stop first.

***

“Malek? Hell, are you sure?” Cody asked.

“My memory was cloudy before, but now I’m positive,” Jamie said, his face gray. “How did he find her?”

“He must have followed us from the airport or from Shay’s house. I suspect the fire was a trap to draw Shay into the open, but if someone followed us, he was invisible. We had another breach earlier. Someone tried to lure Shay outside, but it wasn’t Malek. This guy had black hair.”

Jamie threw back his covers. “Is she okay? What happened?”

“Coira’s taking care of her. She’ll be fine.” He couldn’t consider anything else. “The three guards closest to where we found her were unconscious. All they remember is hearing the wind. Next thing they knew they were waking up. The other guards farther away were unaffected, but they didn’t see what was happening. Ronan and Niall are tracking it. I’m headed out now.”

Jamie swung his feet to the floor and went pale with the effort. “I’ll come with you.”

“You still need rest.”

“I’m sick of rest.”

“You need to heal,” Cody said, putting his hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “You’re lucky to be alive. Not many can say they’ve battled one of the old demons hand-to-hand and lived to tell about it.”

“You said another warrior was killed before I was attacked. It must have weakened Malek. That’s probably the only reason I’m alive.”

“Maybe, but you are alive, and you’re a good warrior, and we’ll need you when you’ve recovered.” He hoped Jamie took the words for the apology it was. It wouldn’t make up for his jackass jealous behavior, but it was a start. “We have other warriors coming to help.”

“I feel like a bloody invalid, lying here while the castle is attacked. Are you sure Shay’s okay?” he asked stiffly. It was still awkward for the two of them to mention her.

“She’s okay, thanks to that damned cat. It darted between Shay and whoever was in the woods. It might’ve saved her life. Matilda’s too. You don’t know about Matilda. She said she killed a man in the secret passage. We found a pile of dust.”

“Vampires? Inside the castle!”

“Must have entered through the tunnel. Matilda thinks the cat attacked whatever she saw. Hell. That cat probably saved all our lives. If the vampire had waited until we were asleep, he could have killed us one by one.”

“Maybe it’s a vampire-killer cat. So a castle that’s remained a secret for centuries has been breached three times in a matter of days, by a demon and a vampire and who knows what else?”

“I don’t know what that was outside, but he must be powerful, to knock out three warriors without even touching them. I’m beginning to think the whole underworld has joined forces against us.”

“What’s next?” Jamie asked. “Werewolves?”

Cody’s mentor had told him about a creature he saw when he was a kid, a human that changed into an animal. Daniel swore it wasn’t a demon. He spoke of it only once, when he had too much whisky following a hard battle.

Jamie shifted, wincing. “Is someone guarding the tunnel?”

“Shane and Tomas checked it earlier, and we’ve posted two guards there.”

“Maybe we should move Shay to New York,” Jamie said.

“If we move her, we’ll risk having her out in the open until we can get her inside the castle walls there. Even though we’ve been breached here, more warriors are on the way. France has a dozen on the way, and Ireland’s sending twenty.” He hadn’t asked the clan in Ireland, not after sending one of their own back in a casket, but they had volunteered. “We can line them up shoulder to shoulder, if we have to.” Cody looked around the room, trying to decide how to ask Jamie what he wanted to ask. “I need a favor.”

Jamie looked surprised. “I’m listening.”

Cody held Jamie’s gaze and remembered staring at him across the body in the woods, thinking Shay was dead. “If something happens to me… I want you to take care of Shay.” His throat tightened at the words, but he had to make sure she would be okay. Jamie loved her. He would protect her. Give her a good life.

Jamie watched him for a minute and then he nodded. “You have my word.”

“Thank you.”

Duncan stuck his head in the door, his scowl even more pronounced than usual. “Has anyone seen Sorcha? Bloody woman’s never where she’s supposed to be.”

“She’s guarding the gate,” Cody said. He hadn’t seen Sorcha and Duncan together since Duncan kissed her during the Council meeting.

“I’m going to check on her,” Duncan said, passing Coira on the way out.

“Have you been to the bathroom tonight?” she asked Jamie.

He rolled his eyes. “Not yet.”

“Better do it while you have a man to help you, or I’ll have to stick a bedpan under you. I’m going to sleep in the infirmary so I can watch Shay. Don’t forget your pain pills. Won’t do anyone any good if you don’t rest so your body can heal.”

“Damn,” Jamie said, after she left.

“Uh… you need to go?” Cody asked.

Jamie nodded and slowly sat up. It took him a minute to stand. Cody put his arm around Jamie, supporting him, and helped him into the bathroom, wondering if this was some kind of karma or penance for acting like an asshole.

***

Ronan frowned as Bree stood over Shay’s bed. He and Niall had spent the night hunting that thing in the woods. Cody left minutes after they had. He hoped Cody had better luck. It was as if it had vanished into thin air with not even a track.

“What’s wrong?” Faelan asked Bree.

She leaned closer and touched the bandage on Shay’s arm. “Vampire,” she said, and blinked several times. “She’s been marked by a vampire.”