Highland Mist (33 page)

Gregor turned and looked at him. “He’s all yours. Good luck,” he said, and continued fighting.

Conall jumped to his feet and smiled when he saw the pain MacNeil was in because of the cut on his calf. “I drew first blood.”

“But I’m the one who’ll win the day,” MacNeil taunted.

Conall swung his sword and lunged. “Don’t be so sure. You have much to pay for.”

MacNeil sneered. “You’re not man enough to kill me. You couldn’t even keep your sister or daughter safe.”

With a lunge and a fierce thrust, Conall stabbed MacNeil in the shoulder. “I don’t care if I have to take you piece by piece. I will have my revenge.”

* * * * *

“Hold,” Aimery told his people. They itched to join Conall’s men and fight, but it wasn’t meant to be. Their presence in the Highlands, and in fact the world, must continue to go unnoticed. Things could get out of control if people knew the Fae were still among them.

It was enough that they were able to watch this battle between the MacNeil’s and MacInnes’ soldiers. There would come a time when they would have to fight.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Glenna watched, horrified, as her vision played out before her eyes. She couldn’t let Conall die. She refused to let her vision come to pass. They fought fiercely and violently, their blades clashing loudly over the roar of the battle.

Conall’s sword moved faster than MacNeil’s, and MacNeil was tiring, but still Glenna knew anything could happen. If only she could aide Conall somehow. She held her breath, hoping Conall would gain the upper hand until he stumbled over a fallen soldier. He hit the ground hard as MacNeil raised his sword above his head.

She called out to Conall, thinking to save him until she saw him kick the sword from MacNeil’s hands. But then it was too late. She had distracted him.

He turned and it was then she realized she was the cause of his death. Her vision hadn’t showed her everything.

* * * * *

Conall jerked around when he heard Glenna scream his name. He didn’t understand until he saw the horror on her face. The sound of a sword slicing toward him reached his ears.

He rolled, but not in time as the blade cut across his back. Agony blazed a fierce trail across his back, and the burned ground he rolled on sent stinging pain lightning around the cut. But he pushed aside the throbbing and sprung to his feet. He turned and saw it was MacNeil’s commander who had tried to kill him.

Out the corner of his eye he spotted MacNeil crawling away, but the commander stepped in front of Conall to stop him. Conall cast a glance at MacNeil before turning his full attention to the soldier.

With his sword clutched in one hand, he reached into his boot and pulled out his dirk. He wanted this fight over with quickly for he had other, more interesting game to catch.

The commander was no match for him. With each thrust of Conall’s sword the soldier raised his arms and left his body unprotected. Conall swung his sword and sliced the soldier nearly in two.

The commander’s body hadn’t touched the ground when Conall saw MacNeil seize a crossbow. Before Conall could reach him, MacNeil had already shot the bow, and Conall watched the arrow find its mark. In dismay, he saw Glenna collapse.

Moira’s scream rent the air as Glenna fell. And suddenly his mother’s words that fateful day, when he was but seven and told the prophecy, came to mind. Every word of the prophecy screamed in his mind as he stared at Glenna’s fallen form.

The impact of the prophecy, even the part that he had forgotten, pounded heavily in his chest. He had been a fool to want to forget something that affected his life so thoroughly. If only he had remembered sooner, he thought.

Anger suffused him as he turned to MacNeil. “You’ve done enough damage in this lifetime. It’s time your life ended,” he said, and held the tip of his sword to MacNeil’s heart.

He heard Moira call his name, but revenge for all MacNeil had caused him rang loudly in his head. He shut out Moira’s voice and focused all of his anger and hate at the monster who had created it all.

“Conall, Glenna needs you,” Moira called once again.

Conall’s blood sang for vengeance but his heart cried for Glenna. She had healed wounds he hadn’t even known he had. And she needed him. He couldn’t deny her, yet he couldn’t allow MacNeil to live.

MacNeil laughed and came up on one elbow. “Seems you have a choice. Kill me or save Glenna. I wonder which one you’ll choose.”

“Conall,” Gregor called as he ran toward the forest. “Hurry!”

Conall didn’t have much of a choice, and he would be a fool to waste any more time. He looked into MacNeil’s eyes and spit on his chest. “You’ll live this day, but I’d watch my back if I were you,” he said, and hurried after Gregor.

* * * * *

Glenna tried to block out the agony screaming through her thigh as Moira and Frang carried her into the safety of the stones.

“Did Conall survive?” she asked for the tenth time, but they wouldn’t answer her. “Please, I need to know.”

“He lives,” Moira whispered, and wiped at her cheek. “Now worry about yourself.”

Glenna felt something wet hit her face and she realized Moira wept. “No tears, sister. You’re the best healer around. If I can be saved, it’s you who’ll do it.”

Moira ducked her head, and Glenna knew her words had affected Moira. Glenna bit her lip to keep from crying out as they placed her on top of a long, flat boulder.

Her eyes drifted open to stare at the blue sky. The clouds drifted lazily above her, oblivious to the battle below them. She couldn’t help but wonder if the Fae were as unaware. If only she had thought to go to them for help, maybe none of this would have happened.

Only a fool would think like that.

And she was being a fool. She hadn’t learned enough to save Conall and had barely saved his clan. If Moira hadn’t been beside her she might not have been able to gather the courage she needed to control her powers.

“Drink,” Frang ordered as he held a cup of her lips.

The cool liquid quenched her parched mouth as it slid easily down her throat. Instantly the pain faded away until Frang grasped the arrow and pulled it from her thigh. She tried to hold the scream inside but blinding pain surpassed her effort.

* * * * *

Conall ran to the top of the cliff but Glenna was nowhere to be found. Only blood was to be found on the rocks. “By the saints, where is she?”

“To the stones, perhaps,” Gregor said.

Conall inwardly groaned but ran to the stone circle anyway. He reached the circle and called out to Glenna when he saw it was cloaked.

“You must come in for her,” Moira said.

“No more games. I need to see her. I need to know she’s all right. Just tell me that,” he urged.

“If you want her, come and get her.”

Conall cursed and hit the stones. “I’m through with the tricks, Moira.”

“Open your mind, Conall. I know you remember the prophecy now, but it isn’t enough. If you love Glenna, then you must come for her. You must believe in her, in us, and yourself.”

Conall looked at Gregor and saw him wave. “What are you doing?”

“I’m waving to Moira,” he said.

Conall ran his hands down his face. This day wasn’t turning out as it should have. For some reason the
fi-fiada
was only cloaking the circle from him. “You can see in?”

“Aye.”

“I didn’t think you believed in what the Druids could do.”

Gregor crossed his arms over his chest. “I most certainly believe, as would you if you’d let yourself.”

Conall turned back to the stones and told himself he believed, and he did believe. But it wasn’t enough. Moira wanted him to take the Druids into his life again as his mother had reared him.

He told himself he could do it, but his heart knew it was a lie. How could he after all the Druids had allowed to happen to his family?

“You can’t continue to blame the Druids for what’s happened,” Gregor said as he stepped closer. “They can only do so much. They don’t have the power to change the world.”

Conall bowed his head and placed his hands on the stone and remembered Glenna’s smiling face, the sun glinting off her dark brown locks and her sweet sigh as they made love. Suddenly he knew he would open his heart to anything as long as she was by his side.

He raised his head, ready to tell Moira just that when he found himself staring inside the circle. He didn’t ask how they knew, only gloried in the fact he could enter now.

Moira stood beside a long, flat boulder where Glenna lay motionless. He let his sword drop as he ran to her side. Her eyes were closed and he feared the worst.

“I’m too late,” he whispered, and placed his hand on top of hers.

“Never.”

He found himself looking into the most beautiful soft brown eyes ever to grace a living soul. “I thought I’d lost you,” he told Glenna.

“Moira wouldn’t allow me say anything.”

Conall laughed. “Will you forgive me for being so stubborn?”

“Only if you kiss me.”

He bent his head and claimed her sweet lips. “I love you,” he said once he was able to pull his lips from hers.

“And I you.”

He wiped the tear that trailed down her check. “Will you come back with me now and be my wife and mother to Ailsa and whatever children we’re blessed with?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Nothing could stop me.”

And then he felt the truth in her words. “My power is back.”

Moira smiled through her tears. “I knew it would once you fully accepted Glenna for what she was. It’s a good day.”

“Aye, MacNeil is gone,” he said.

She shook her head. “You’ve remembered the prophecy and your part in it as well as holding the Druids’ beliefs once again within your heart.”

“It is a good day,” Glenna said. “Now let Moira see to your back. I won’t have you bloody at our wedding.”

* * * * *

The Shadow gathered his cloak around him. He had been defeated here, but there was still another sister he could reach. He hadn’t been able to learn of her location, but if he knew Frang and Moira they would send someone for her and he would merely follow. But first he needed to see MacNeil. Effie’s death changed things.

A new strategy would have to be formed. If they waited for the other sister to join Moira and Glenna, then it was over for them. But he wouldn’t give up without a fight, and in the end he knew he would win.

People like him were ruthless, and when one was ruthless, they could make things happen. And making Moira love him would be a simple act.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Glenna surveyed the damaged done by the fire from the safety of Conall’s strong arms. “We lost so much.”

“It can be rebuilt. You saved all of us.”

She smiled and rested her head on his shoulder. “I almost couldn’t do it.”

“But you did, and that’s all that matters.”

A shriek sounded before Ailsa charged at them. “You did it,” she called out to Conall.

Glenna smiled as Ailsa wrapped her arms around Conall’s legs. She looked up at Glenna, and said, “He told me he’d bring you home.”

“He’s a laird. Did you expect anything else?”

“Come,” Conall said, and ushered them into the hall where it overflowed with the clan waiting for them.

Cheers erupted when they spotted Glenna in Conall’s arms. She now had everything she had always dreamed of, a man to love her, a daughter, sisters and a clan who accepted her.

“Let me stand,” she told Conall, and he grudgingly set her down.

She faced the clan who had hated her beyond sense but now welcomed her with open arms. They were good people who had been terrorized by the MacNeil. She couldn’t and wouldn’t judge them for their actions.

“I have news,” Conall declared. “Glenna has finally agreed to become my wife.”

Again the hall erupted in deafening cheers. With Conall at her back to help her stand she greeted each member of the clan, her heart swelling with each smile.

* * * * *

“I’m so very happy for you.”

Glenna turned to find Moira behind her. She had stayed within the stones to ready herself. “You knew all along, didn’t you?”

Moira smiled and came to stand beside her. “There is always a chance things won’t work out like they’re supposed to. I was worried that Conall wouldn’t accept you for a Druid. In which case, we would’ve had a problem.”

“Truthfully, I didn’t think he ever would accept me,” Glenna said.

Moira smiled and raised her face to the sun. “It’s time.”

Glenna took a deep breath and followed Moira from the stone circle to the cliff that overlooked MacInnes Castle. Almost the entire clan and all the Druids had come for the event, some on the cliff but others watched from below.