Donna Grant: Untamed Highlander

He forced his attention back to Sonya. “I think the wound is on her back.”

“Then lay her on her stomach,” Sonya said as she pushed up the sleeves of her gown.

“I’ll help,” said Lucan’s wife, Cara.

Hayden glanced down at Cara. They’d had their differences, and in some ways still did since Cara carried drough blood in her veins. She might never have undergone the ritual, but it was enough that Hayden had wanted to see her dead.

It was only out of respect for the MacLeods that Hayden left Cara alone. Still, it rankled him to have her near. Evil bred evil, it was just a matter of time before it took Cara.

The next thing Hayden knew, the other two women of the castle, Marcail and Larena, were also there. All but Larena were Druids. Larena was the only female Warrior, and she had the distinction of being Fallon’s wife.

Matter of fact, the only female who wasn’t mated to a MacLeod was Sonya, and Hayden had seen the way Broc watched the Druid when he thought no one was looking.

“I need her gown cut,” Sonya said.

Hayden didn’t hesitate to allow a red claw to lengthen from his fingertip. He sliced the woman’s gown with one swipe, and when the gown fell open to reveal the female’s back, the entire hall sucked in a breath. Hayden’s gut clenched and his blood turned to ice.

“Holy hell,” Quinn murmured and rubbed a hand over his mouth.

There were no words as Hayden stared at the scars that crisscrossed the slender back of the woman on the table. Whoever this female was, she had suffered greatly and horrifically. And often. If he felt protective of her before, it was nothing compared to what arose in him then.

He would find who did this to her, find them and make them suffer as they had made her suffer. Then he would kill them.

However, it was the wound on her shoulder which drew Hayden’s gaze. “What happened to her?”

Sonya leaned close and poked at the bleeding injury. “Looks like a blade of some sort. I need to clean it to be sure what happened, but from what I can see I think the weapon pierced her skin, and then was dragged from her shoulder down her back to her shoulder blade.”

In an instant a bowl of water was placed next to Sonya. She wrung out a cloth and began to clean the woman’s wound. Agonizing moments later, Sonya lifted her head, her lips compressed in a tight line.

“There’s magic involved in this wound. I cannot tell if it caused the wound or only made it fester.”

Lucan and Fallon moved to stand on either side of Quinn, who was at the woman’s feet. Broc had also shifted closer to Sonya. It was then Hayden looked around the hall and noticed every Warrior at MacLeod Castle now ogled the female.

Hayden’s gaze swung to Quinn to find the youngest MacLeod watching him with sharp, pale green eyes. Before he could ask Quinn why he was staring, the woman let out a low moan full of suffering and agony.

Sonya stilled. A heartbeat later she tossed down the cloth and lifted her hands over the woman’s wound, palm down, fingers splayed. Sonya’s eyes closed, and Hayden could feel her magic fill the hall as she began to heal the wound.

Cara and Marcail soon joined their magic with Sonya’s, but nothing they did seemed to assist the healing. The woman let out a scream and tried to jerk from the table.

Hayden held her down, careful not to touch her wound, but the more magic the Druids used, the worse the woman became. Frustration welled up within Hayden while he watched helplessly as the woman suffered.

“What are you doing to her?” he demanded of Sonya.

The Druid’s amber eyes snapped open to glare at him. Sonya reached over and took Cara’s and Marcail’s arms and lowered them. As soon as they did the woman stopped her movements and laid still and quiet.

It was like she had died. Yet Hayden could still see the breath leaving her body, could still see the blood flow from the wound.

“Something isn’t right,” Sonya said.

Marcail shook her head, her rows of tiny, sable braids on the crown of her head moving against her cheek. “It was almost as if she fought against our magic.”

“What could possibly do that?” Cara asked. Her mahogany eyes sought out Sonya, but Sonya didn’t answer.

Instead, Sonya moved aside the tangled mass of ebony locks from the woman’s neck. With slow movements, she tugged at the thin leather strap until she found what she was looking for.

Hayden took one look at the Demon’s Kiss dangling from Sonya’s fingers and felt the same betrayal and fury he had on the night of his family’s murder.

“Easy, Hayden,” Quinn said.

Hayden swiveled his head to the MacLeods. An icy feeling of dread consumed him as he looked at the brothers. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew who she was, what she is?”

“Aye,” Quinn answered. “Before you condemn Isla, know that Deirdre kept her sister and niece prisoners in Cairn Toul.”

But all Hayden could think about was the Demon’s Kiss around Isla’s neck. It was but a small silver vial. However, it held the first drops of a Druid’s blood after they completed the ritual of a drough to serve diabhul .

A drough . The very thing Hayden had scoured Scotland to kill.

Druids were born with pure magic, magic which was all that was good and right. But there were some who wanted more magic than a mie had. Those Druids turned against all the good inside them and become droughs.

Hayden glanced down at Isla, the woman he had been willing to vow to protect. Her face was turned toward him with scratches on her cheek and forehead. How could he have ever wanted to shield her?

“She’s drough. ” Hayden spat the word as if it was the vilest thing he had ever encountered, and next to Deirdre, it was.

Droughs deserved only death. Anything so immoral shouldn’t be allowed to walk the earth.

Broc folded his arms across his chest. “You doona know Isla, Hayden.”

“I know all I need to know.”

“Enough!” Fallon bellowed before a full blown argument could ensue. “Sonya, can you use Isla’s Demon’s Kiss to heal her wound? I’d like to speak with her.”

Hayden fisted his hands in an effort not to jerk the vial out of Sonya’s hands and toss it away forever. The blood in the vial could heal a drough of its wounds instantly, or kill a Warrior. There was something about a drough ’s blood that was poison to a Warrior.

As if Sonya knew what he was thinking, she clutched the vial in her hand and stared at him. Hayden didn’t want to harm Sonya, so he could only watch as she uncorked the vial and tilted the small silver bottle over Isla’s wound.

Only nothing came out.

“It’s empty.” Sonya lifted her eyes first to Quinn, and then looked at Broc. “There’s nothing left.”

Lucan ran a hand down his face and blew out a harsh breath. “Look at her scars. I say she had cause to use her Demon’s Kiss many times before.”

“There’s not that much in the vials,” Cara said, fingering her own Demon’s Kiss around her neck.

Hayden had to remind himself Cara wasn’t a drough, that it was her mother’s necklace she wore. The element which had sent him killing all droughs after his family’s murder raged within him again. There was a drough on the table and another with drough blood around her neck. He could kill them both in a matter of moments.

But if he did he’d lose the first home he’d had since his own. He’d lose the men he called friends, brothers. He lowered his eyes to Isla’s midnight locks and tried to calm the anger raging through him.

“Heal her, Sonya,” Fallon ordered. “Regardless that she served Deirdre and is a drough , I willna allow her to die in my castle.”