Donna Grant: Dangerous Highlander

“We’ll help,” Quinn said.

“We cannot let him reach the bottom with Cara.”

Ramsey walked up beside him, his skin a dark bronze. He leaned over the tower, his claws scraping the stones. “I’ll get down there just in case he does.”

“I’ll go with him,” Hayden said.

Logan stepped forward. “I can stay up here if he decides to come back up.”

“And I’ll go this way,” Galen said, and pointed to the left where the cliffs met the castle. “In case he decides to try running across Scotland.”

Lucan gave a quick nod, then turned to Quinn.

Quinn smiled. “You aren’t going without me.”

Lucan wasted no time in climbing over the tower. He started descending toward Cara, praying with each beat of his heart that she survived. If she didn’t, he would storm Deirdre’s mountain himself and destroy the evil bitch.

He climbed quickly, and despite Fallon’s valiant try, the Warrior was able to still move down the cliff because of Cara. Whenever Fallon reached for Cara, the Warrior would kick his leg, sending Cara careening in the wind.

Lucan crawled to the other side of the Warrior while Quinn stayed above him. “Give me my woman,” Lucan demanded.

The Warrior laughed. “She was never yours, MacLeod. She’s a Druid and therefore belongs to Deirdre.”

“I’ll see Deirdre in Hell first.”

“No doubt.”

Lucan stretched his hand toward Cara. “Grab it.”

She reached for him, but the Warrior gave a vicious jerk of his leg, making Cara cling to him instead of taking Lucan’s hand.

Fury erupted in Lucan. He wanted to rip the Warrior’s heart out and toss it into the sea below. Anything to get him away from Lucan’s woman.

Her fingers slipped, but she caught herself on the Warrior’s boot. Her mahogany eyes held Lucan’s. They both knew she wouldn’t be able to take his hand. The Warrior wouldn’t let Lucan or his brothers close enough to get her.

She tried to grab hold of the rocks herself so she could let go of the Warrior, but he growled and moved down the cliff. Lucan glanced at his brothers. Fallon’s eyes held such gloom that it made Lucan want to rail at the heavens.

“Lucan!” Cara shouted.

He moved down as close to her as he could. His blood pounded in his ears, his chest tight as if someone squeezed the air from his lungs.

“Remember the day we first met?” she asked.

He nodded, confused. And then he realized what she planned. Lucan looked down at the sea that crashed into the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. He gave her a small nod and jumped to the bottom where he saw Ramsey and Hayden. There was no time to tell Fallon and Quinn, but by Quinn’s smile he had heard Cara.

Lucan had just planted his feet on the rocks, the water ebbing and flowing over his boots, when he looked up to see Cara let go of the Warrior’s leg.

The Warrior bellowed, and Fallon and Quinn leapt atop him, eager to kill him. Lucan focused his attention on Cara, waiting for her to fall into his arms just as she had the day they first met.

“By the saints,” Hayden whispered from behind Lucan.

That’s when Lucan heard the flap of wings. “Nay!” he yelled when the flying creature tried to grab Cara as she fell. Cara slapped at its hands, preventing the creature from taking her.

Lucan caught Cara in his arms and hugged her against him. Her hands gripped his tunic, her body trembling as fiercely as his heart.

“Duck,” Ramsey warned.

Lucan went down on his haunches with Cara still in his arms. He glanced up to see the creature was a Warrior. A Warrior with wings.

Instead of flying off as they expected, it turned and went after Fallon and Quinn. Lucan shouted a warning a moment before the flying Warrior latched onto Quinn and tossed him away from the cliff.

As Quinn fell into the water Lucan heard a splash behind him, but his gaze was on the flying Warrior who managed to free the other from Fallon’s grasp.

The two Warriors flew off into the night, leaving silence behind them. Lucan looked down into Cara’s face and gave her a quick, heated kiss.

“I thought I had lost you.” He had never known such fear and never wanted to again.

She nodded. “You nearly did.”

Water splashed on them as Quinn was helped from the sea by Ramsey and Hayden. “What in holy hell was that thing?” Quinn asked.

Lucan sighed and rose to his feet. “A Warrior.”

“With wings,” Hayden added. “I’ve never seen the like.”

Quinn snorted. “Well, I’d never seen one with horns before you.”

Lucan ignored the talk behind him and watched while Fallon climbed down to them.

“Are they gone?” Cara asked.

Lucan shrugged. “I don’t know. We need to get to the castle to find out.”

Fallon jumped the last part of the cliff and landed beside Lucan. “Is she hurt?”

“Nay,” Lucan answered. “Fallon—”

“Don’t. I did what had to be done. I doona regret it.”

Cara reached out and touched Fallon’s arm. “Thank you.”

There was much more Lucan wanted—and needed—to say, but it could wait until he and Fallon were alone. “We need to get back to the castle.”

Cara groaned as she looked at the cliff. Lucan kissed her forehead. “It will be easier going up.”

Since she had been unconscious the last time she had fallen in his arms, she didn’t know just how easy. Lucan navigated the jagged rocks and boulders until they moved to the right side of the castle.

“Hold on,” he whispered just before he jumped.

Cara latched onto his neck and gave a shriek as he jumped to the top of the cliff and onto the grass. He smiled down at her as the others joined him.

“Thank the saints I wasn’t awake the first time you did that,” she whispered.

Lucan lowered her feet to the ground. “Let’s go see the castle.”

“Did the Warriors leave?” she asked.

“I think so.”

“Why did they go?”

He wished he knew.

Cara stared at the bodies of the wyrran that littered the great hall floor. She gripped the back of a chair since her legs still shook. Her idea of Lucan catching her had been hasty, and the fall . . . She shuddered at the memory. The fall had been horrendous, and the terror had sucked the breath from her body.

She hadn’t been able to see below her. She had trusted Lucan to catch her. And he had. Though the flying Warrior had nearly gotten her instead.

When she had felt its hands clasp on her arms, she had fought it with everything she had. She hadn’t escaped one Warrior to be taken by another. Not when Lucan was waiting to catch her.

If the darkness had scared her before, it terrified her now that she knew exactly what hid in it. Yet with Lucan by her side, she would face those terrors and vanquish them. After all, he could control the darkness and shadows.

Everyone but Quinn had reverted back to their human forms as they began to clear away the dead. She was still amazed that Fallon had let out his god to help save her. There was nothing she could ever do to repay him, especially when she knew how much it frightened him to let out the god.

Quinn’s jerky movements caught her eye. The glances he threw her and Lucan worried her. Quinn was acting stranger than normal, almost as if he couldn’t decide on something that weighed heavily in his mind. She started toward him to ask when Lucan stopped her.

“You’re wounded. You need to rest,” he said. “We’ll get rid of the bodies.”

She swallowed and looked at Quinn around Lucan’s shoulder. “I can help.”

“You’re bleeding, Cara. Please. For me?”

There was no way she could deny Lucan. He turned the chair so that it faced the great hall and she could watch them. She sank into the chair and let him clean the wounds on her back and leg. When he finished she leaned her head against the back of the chair. It was her intention to keep an eye on Quinn and maybe call him over to her, but he left the castle before she could.