Midnight's Promise (2 page)

Malcolm took a deep breath and slowly released it. She was a
mie
, a Druid who used the natural magic they were born with.

There hadn’t been a drop of the cloying, sickening feel of black magic used by the
droughs,
Druids who gave their souls to Satan in order to use the more powerful magic.

Once the Druid was inside Tesco’s, Malcolm was going to walk away. Except he couldn’t. He remained where he was for the next fifteen minutes waiting for another glimpse of her beauty, for another wash of her magic until she strolled out of the store.

She kept her gaze on the ground. As she neared him, she tucked her hair behind her ear and glanced in his direction. For the briefest of seconds their gazes met, clashed. Held.

Malcolm became lost in the clear blue of her eyes. There was no guile, deceit, no duplicity. Just wonderfully pure, beautiful magic—and a stunning woman.

He waited until she was back in her royal-blue Renault and drove away before he moved. Malcolm wasn’t sure what happened with the Druid, or why he couldn’t seem to walk away from her.

It wasn’t just her loveliness or her magic that entrapped him. It was … her. The complete package. He wanted to pursue her, to learn more of her.

But his feet didn’t follow. It would’ve been easy too. Her magic was different than any other Druid’s he’d ever encountered.

He glanced into the window of Tesco’s and saw his reflection. The mangled man he spied with long, wild hair wasn’t fit company for anyone. Malcolm turned his mind away from the Druid to the forest where he should have stayed.

It wasn’t until the sounds of Aviemore faded, replaced by noises of the forest as he let the trees surround him that he relaxed. It was always his curiosity of mortals that pulled him away.

And it was the mortals who sent him back.

His god, Daal, thundered for another feel of the Druid’s magic. It would be easy to find her. Her magic was unique and too easy to follow. That in itself gave him pause.

His mobile gave a quick vibration to alert him of a text. Malcolm pulled it out of his back pocket and saw it was from Phelan.

Malcolm had assumed Phelan was like him—a loner. Everyone knew Phelan’s only friend was Charon. Yet, to Malcolm’s surprise, Phelan had called him weeks ago. At first Malcolm thought it was regarding the business of the
drough
they hunted—Jason Wallace—but it turned out to be much more than that.

He almost didn’t answer the text, but Malcolm knew Phelan would keep on until he responded. It’d been this way since Phelan and Aisley’s wedding. Phelan was still pissed that he hadn’t lingered for the ceremony.

Malcolm quickly typed, “I’m fine,” and hit send.

He snorted when Phelan sent another message asking him to meet with him, Aisley, Charon, and Laura in Ferness.

They were getting as bad as Larena, checking in on him. Though he didn’t try to hide what he was becoming, he’d believed everyone was too busy to notice. Obviously he’d been wrong.

“Another time,” he replied and returned his phone to his pocket.

Malcolm stayed off the well-worn trails through the forest. He preferred the untamed landscape and whatever animal he might encounter.

It was while he meandered through the trees that he allowed the memories of his old life to surface. He had been raised to be laird of his clan. It had been his destiny.

How was he to know his bloodline carried a primeval god dragged up from his prison in Hell by
droughs
? As much as that angered him, he couldn’t blame the Celts for asking the
droughs
for help so many centuries ago when Rome had tried to take them.

The Celts held Rome off as long as they could, but the Romans hadn’t given up easily. So many families sacrificed loved ones in their bid to remain free of Rome’s rule.

The Celtic tribal leaders knew they were on the verge of losing. When the
mies
had no answer, they turned to the
droughs
.

The
droughs
used their black magic to unleash ancient gods into the best warriors of each family who volunteered. Those men, fearless and already seasoned in battle, became something otherworldly. They suddenly possessed unimaginable speed, strength, and power.

But they also changed appearance. Each god favored a certain power and color. When the god was in control, the men’s skin changed hue. Long, dangerous claws extended from their fingers and fangs from their teeth.

They were no longer men—but Warriors.

When Rome was defeated, the
droughs
tried to pull the gods out, but the gods refused to relinquish their hold on the men. It was only the combined magic of the
droughs
and
mies
that bound the gods inside the men.

It was then ordered that all spells used in the binding be destroyed, as well as the spell used to unbind the gods. The
mies
complied, but as usual, the treacherous
droughs
didn’t.

While the Warriors returned to men, remembering nothing of their defeat of Rome, the gods were moving through the bloodline to the strongest warrior of each family.

Until the time of a fierce
drough
named Deirdre. She found the scroll detailing how to unbind the gods. She also found a name—MacLeod. That’s where she began to build her army to take over the world.

The MacLeods, however, didn’t go quietly. The three brothers, equal in everything, shared a god, and they fought Deirdre. When they got free they returned to what was left of their castle.

Malcolm sat and leaned against a tree. The MacLeods. He remembered when he was just a lad and first witnessed Larena shift into her Warrior form. He’d been amazed and captivated.

Larena was his cousin from a century earlier who had her goddess unbound to protect a scroll that held all the names of the first Warriors.

They were two lonely people who became friends. When Malcolm was old enough, he vowed to help Larena keep hidden from Deirdre. He never expected that promise would lead them to the MacLeods and Larena’s mate—Fallon.

Malcolm liked Fallon MacLeod instantly. Fallon was a good man who was a perfect match for Larena in every way. MacLeod Castle became a haven for Warriors and Druids who stood against Deirdre.

Malcolm dropped his head back against the tree and grimaced. How he’d eagerly gone to the castle, excited to see a place so full of magic. Only he’d nearly been killed. That’s when the castle became a reminder of what Malcolm’s life could have been. The sadness of what it was, was a daily reminder.

Without the use of his right arm, Malcolm was inadequate in battle. The fact he wasn’t a Warrior relegated him to remain behind. With the women. Where they, as Druids, would protect him.

It’d been too much for a man who was reared to protect others. Malcolm began to despise everyone in the castle. It wasn’t fair or rational, but those had been his feelings.

Then he became a Warrior. He went from fighting against evil to fighting for it.

He wanted to say that was when his soul died, but Malcolm knew that happened when he, as a man with only one good arm, couldn’t find his place in the world.

“A shitty world it is too,” he murmured. “And still no place for me.”

CHAPTER
TWO

Evangeline Walker parked her Renault and sat in the car outside the rented house. She had just forty-eight hours before her two-week lease was up.

She moved every few weeks. Maybe she was being paranoid in thinking there were people searching for her, but she knew what she’d seen when she discovered someone had hacked into her Web site. A site that spoke of the Warriors and Druids.

Most of the pages had been left alone, but whoever had hacked the site made sure to dig up her information from the page talking about the necklace.

She touched the piece of jewelry hidden beneath her shirt. It wasn’t just any necklace, but a magical one. It had been kept in a secret vault in Edinburgh Castle by the king for years until he had it—along with dozens of other magical items—moved to London.

Those items were separated into three shipments. Two traveled by land, and one by sea. One of the shipments journeying by land never made it to London. Instead, the contents were buried beneath the ground in a temple meant to keep them hidden for eternity.

“All but one item,” Evie said.

She licked her lips and grabbed her things before exiting the car. The groceries and her purse were dumped on the counter when she entered the house.

Evie looked around and felt her soul sigh in resignation. It was plain and neutral in every sense of the word. Perfect for a rental, but it had no style, no flair.

This constant moving was taking a toll on her. She hated it. Then there was Brian. There was only so much moving around she could do because there was no way she was leaving her brother behind.

She pulled the frozen dinner out of the bag and set it on the counter. It looked as horrible as it had in the store, but the money was running low and beggars couldn’t be choosy.

“Bugger it.”

She missed her nice dinners in the city where the food was as enjoyable as the atmosphere. Though she wasn’t the worst cook in the world, it was more difficult to prepare a meal for one than to buy the frozen dinners that had as much taste as her rental.

Evie walked into the bathroom and splashed water on her face. She braced her hands on either side of the sink and looked at herself in the mirror.

She almost didn’t recognize the person staring back at her. Is this what paranoia did? The dark circles beneath her eyes, lines bracketing her mouth, the furrows deepening on her forehead. How would she look in a year, if she made it that long?

“Am I being paranoid? So what if someone wants to know about the necklace. I put the information up there to see if Druids would recognize it.” She rolled her eyes. “Why did I put it up? How stupid could I’ve been?”

She’d known in her gut it was a bad idea, but the need to see if there were other Druids in the world had been too much. Surely she couldn’t be the last.

It had been that need, that curiosity that made her toss aside reasoning and choose to post the details of the necklace. Well,
some
of the details. She left out the fact that it held a spell her family had guarded for generations.

The necklace could be dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. She pulled it out from beneath her shirt and held it in her palm.

It no longer resembled the pendant it had been when it was lost. Now it looked like any Celtic cross, but it had enough spells on it to keep it hidden from anyone searching for magical items.

With a sigh, she dropped the cross so that it bounced against her before she dried her face. The sound of Brian’s special
Doctor Who
ring tone filled the stillness of the house.

Evie rushed into the kitchen and grabbed her purse. She reached for her mobile phone and smiled when she read her little brother’s message of “Checking in.”

It made her feel better if she heard from him every day. There would be no talking between them since Brian had been born without that ability. Sign language and texting were what kept them connected.

“Thank God for texting,” Evie said as she drafted a response.

Each day when his classes ended he would text. As a teenager, he no longer told her all that happened during his day, but occasionally his excitement over a girl would show through his words.

She was looking forward to his winter break so they could spend some time together, but then she worried about where they would go if she still felt the need to stay on the move.

Unfortunately, Brian wasn’t in the mood to talk and returned a curt message. Evie tossed aside her phone and plopped down on the hard cushion of the couch with a sigh that seemed too loud in the quiet house.

She’d had a good job as a software designer. It paid well and gave her flexibility when it came to Brian. Evie thought back to when she learned her mother, who she hadn’t seen since she was five, died and left her custody of a three-year-old half-brother.

At eighteen, the last thing Evie wanted was to be responsible for herself, much less anyone else. But one look at Brian, and she hadn’t been able to turn him away.

Their road had been a rocky one, but somehow they’d managed to muddle through it all. Evie couldn’t imagine her life without him now.

She looked out her window to the views of the Cairngorm Mountains and the mist that settled over the peaks, which was the only saving grace to the rental. The mountains, called
Am Monadh Ruadh
, meaning “the russet-colored mountain range” for the way the pink granite turned russet in the setting sun, were magnificent.

“
Come to usssssss.”

The rocks were calling to her. For as long as she could remember the rocks and stones spoke to her—and she to them. But these were louder, more insistent. They were unrelenting and adamant.

How much longer could she ignore them?

As it was, she’d awakened the previous night to find herself standing outside facing the Cairngorms. Never had she sleepwalked before, but it seemed these stones did something to her.

“What do you want?” she asked them.

“You. Come to usssss, Evangeline.”

“Not now.”

“
Yessssss. We need you. You’ll be safe here. Hidden.”

It didn’t matter how far she was, the stones were louder than any others before. She’d always heard them, but before they’d just whispered her name.

Now they clamored for her to come to them.

“Am I in danger?”

“Come to usssss,”
they insisted.

The same conversation had taken place between them for the last week. Part of her wanted to go. She wished to see these stones and find out what they sought from her. The fact they promised she’d be safe was an added benefit.

Evie scooted down on the sofa until her head lay on the armrest while the stones continued to call for her. She watched the sun sink in the sky and light it a magnificent golden tangerine before she rose and fixed her tasteless frozen dinner.