The Dark Highlander

Page 118

Silvan stared at her, trying to commit every detail of her to memory.
“Your son is free, Keltar.”
Silvan’s heart leapt. “Dageus triumphed over the Draghar? Did he succeed in reimprisoning them?”
“In a manner of speaking. Suffice to say, he proved himself.”
“And he lives?” Silvan pressed. “Is he with Chloe?”
“I gave him back to the woman who chose him as her consort. He can never return to this century. Already time has been altered more than is wise.”
Silvan’s mouth opened and closed several times as he tried to decide what to say. Nothing remotely intelligent occurred to him, so finally he settled for a simple, “Thank you for coming to tell me this.” He was utterly flummoxed that the queen of the legendary race had bothered to come tell him.
“I didn’t come to tell you this. You appeared weak upon awakening. I thought to increase your strength with glad tidings. We have work to do.”
“We do?” His eyes widened.
“There is the small matter of a broken Compact. Broken in this century on the Keltar side. It must be resealed, here and now.”
“Ah,” he said.
“So you did take the knife from my neck,” Chloe said, sniffling and wiping her eyes with a tissue. He’d told her everything: how the sect of the Draghar had drugged him with a potion that had made it impossible for him to control the use of magic, how he’d realized when they’d brought her in that he had only one choice left.
As she and Drustan had both suspected, Dageus had been honorable to the last—he’d tried to kill himself. “You were going to die and leave me,” she hissed, thumping his chest with her fist. “I could almost hate you for that.” She sighed gustily, knowing she loved him for it too. His honor was an integral part of him, and she wouldn’t have him any other way.
“Believe me, lass, ’twas the most difficult thing I’ve ever forced myself to do. Bidding you farewell nigh ripped my heart to pieces. But the alternative was releasing something that might ultimately destroy—not only the world—but you as well. Think you I didn’t suffer a thousand deaths fearing what the Draghar might do to you if I failed to die before they took me over? Verily, I never want to endure such fears again.” He ran his hands up her arms, swept them into her hair and kissed her hard and demanding, his tongue gliding deep.
When they were both breathless, she said, “So what happened then?” She traced her fingers over his face, savoring the feel of his rough, unshaven jaw, the softness of his sinfully sensual lips. And oh—the sight of those clear, golden tiger-eyes with no shadows!
He told her that he’d used magic to rob her of vision and hearing so she wouldn’t be forced to watch him change and die. A mere moment after he drove the knife into his heart, a man and a woman—of sorts—had appeared. The Tuatha Dé Danaan themselves.
“The Tuatha Dé came? You actually met them?” Chloe nearly shouted.
“Aye.” Dageus smiled at the expression of insatiable curiosity on her face. He suspected he’d be forced to repeat this portion of his story dozens of times over the next fortnight, so she could be certain she hadn’t missed a single detail. “They did something to the fallen sect members that made them disappear. I’ve no idea where they went. My chains fell away and the next thing I knew, they’d taken me somewhere … else. I was dimly aware that I was lying on a beach near an ocean in a place that was … unlike any other place I’ve ever been. The colors around me were so brilliant—”
“What about them?” Chloe exclaimed impatiently. “What were the Tuatha Dé like?”
“Not human, for a certainty. I suspect they truly doona look like us at all, though they choose to appear in a similar fashion. They are much as the legends describe them: tall, willowy, mesmerizing to behold. Verily, they are difficult to look at directly. Had I not been bleeding and so weak, like as not, their appearance would have fashed me far more than it did. They were immensely powerful. I could feel it in the air around them. I’d thought the ancient Druids possessed of great power, but they were mere dust motes compared to the Tuatha Dé.”
“And? What happened?”
“They healed me.” Dageus then explained what they’d done and why.
The woman had identified herself as the queen of the Tuatha Dé. She’d said that, though he’d broken his oath and used the stones for personal motive, he’d absolved himself by being willing to take his own life to prevent the Prophecy from being fulfilled. She’d said that by his actions, he’d proved himself worthy of the Keltar name, and hence was being given a second chance.