Anita Clenney - Embrace the Highland Warrior

Shay fell back as if she had been hit. Alexander. It couldn’t be. What about her dream of Michael?

“Here I am, nearly a thousand years old… duped by humans. Now, tell me where you’ve hidden my book, and I’ll consider killing only you, not your entire clan.”

Shay looked at his immaculate disguise and wanted to rip his face off. He’d killed her mother and father and stolen her life. He would not get Cody or the clan. “If I give you the book, you will kill the whole clan,” she spat out.

He looked surprised, then spun at the screeching sounds coming from the woods. Men burst from the trees, moving so fast she couldn’t see their feet. Vampires. Shay backed away while Malek and his demons were distracted, and she bumped into something hard.

“The party’s just starting,” the vampire hissed behind her. Shay turned and drove her butcher knife into his heart before he could close his mouth.

He fell to dust, and another vampire cried out, “Rod!”

***

Bree hurried along the passage where she had seen Shay in the vision. She had to stop her. Damn these visions. This one had come too late. Faelan and several of the others had gone to the dungeon to question the vampire. There hadn’t been time to warn them. She had to stop Shay before she got outside the walls. He was waiting. She opened the door for the tunnel and heard a sound behind her. She turned, and her flashlight illuminated two garish figures. Bree yelped, and the figures screamed.

“Oh my God.” Matilda clutched her chest. She wore a lime green jogging suit that almost glowed in the dark. Her red hair stuck up like porcupine quills. Nina had on gray, her hair in pink foam curlers.

“What are you doing here?” Bree asked frantically. She had to hurry.

“We followed Shay,” Nina said. “She came to my room. I think she was saying good-bye. I don’t know what she’s up to, but I’m scared. We heard the door to the secret passage shut when we got to her room. Matilda couldn’t remember how to open it. By the time we got inside, Shay was already gone.”

“I know where she’s going,” Bree said, “but you need to go back, get the men. I’ll go after her.”

“I’m not going back until I have Shay,” Nina said, puffing out her chest.

“And I’m not going back alone,” Matilda said, stepping closer to her cousin, waving her flashlight at the floors and walls, her eyes wide.

“Well, come on then. We have to catch her before she gets outside.”

They hurried through the narrow tunnel and finally reached the end. “She’s already out.” Bree’s head pounded with fear.

Matilda poked her head outside. “I think I see something.”

“Wait.” Bree grabbed Matilda’s arm. “You can’t go out there. It’s too dangerous.”

Matilda went anyway. “There are two men here. I think they’re dead,” she said.

Bree and Nina hurried over to Matilda. Bree didn’t recognize the warriors. They must be new ones who arrived from Ireland or France. “Does anyone have a phone? We have to call Faelan.” They needed help, but she couldn’t risk calling out to the guards.

“I do,” Matilda said.

They heard a scream, and Bree shot ahead, not waiting to see if Nina and Matilda followed.

***

Faelan’s cell phone rang. The number was unknown. He stepped back from the warriors surrounding the vampire’s cell. He was chained to the wall by hands, neck, and feet. Only his eyes moved, red, angry, flashing fire, and occasionally when they fell on Faelan, confusion. He’d refused to answer any questions.

“Hello?”

“Faelan, this is Matilda. Come quick. We’re on the demon’s trail.”

“What demon?”

“What’s his name, Bree?” Matilda asked, and Faelan could hear his bride’s frantic reply. “Malek.”

“Holy—quiet,” he bellowed at the warriors, and everyone, even the vampire, gaped at him. Faelan clutched the phone against his ear. “Where are you, Matilda?”

“Outside the secret tunnel. Malek has Shay. There are vampires and demons, too, and they’re all fighting. I have to go now. We’re going to try to rescue Shay.”

“Oh God,” he said, locking eyes with Ronan. “Malek has Shay. Bree, Nina, and Matilda are trying to rescue her. If that’s not bad enough, a bunch of vampires and demons are fighting.”

If Coira had been in the dungeon, she would have washed all their mouths out with soap. The warriors left two guards to watch the vampire, and the rest hurried upstairs. They grabbed weapons and yelled out instructions, deciding that ten warriors would follow the tunnel and ten would go through the woods. “Be careful. You can’t use your talisman, or we’re all likely to die,” Faelan said. His heart was in his throat. All he had lost, and now this. How could he live if he lost Bree?

***

Shay looked at the vampires circling her. At least twenty, fangs extended, eyes red. They were angry. The others were fighting with the demons in a nightmare of howls and screams.

“She just killed Rod,” the one with spiked hair said. “I say we drain her and tell the master we couldn’t find her.”

A brown-haired vampire shook his head. “You want to be the one to tell him she’s dead?”

What could she do against twenty vampires? She killed one at the cabin and one here, but she was only human. She had to do it. If she died, Cody would face Malek alone. She gripped her butcher knife and focused, allowing her senses to sharpen, calm to descend, and then she leaped, catching the spike-haired vampire off guard. From the corner of her eye she saw Bree rushing at them, moving as fast as the vampires. Nina and Matilda stopped, staring in shock at the scene.

“Kill her,” one of the vampires said, charging Bree.

No! Not her sister. Shay ran at the closest vampire and drove her knife into its heart. It crumbled into dust. Several feet away, Bree was doing the same. The sisters shared a glance, turned, and continued to fight. The vampires were at a disadvantage. They couldn’t kill her, for fear of their master, but they needed to keep her from killing them.

“Capture her,” the brown-haired one said.

Shay and Bree stood back to back as the vampires circled.

“Wait until they get closer,” Shay told Bree. “Then attack.”

***

After leaving Beauly Priory, Cody drove back to the castle and parked in the trees where the cameras wouldn’t see him. He slipped through the woods to the fence. He sent four young warriors guarding the most secluded boundary of the fence deeper in the woods to stand guard. They didn’t question him. Cody’s sword and gun were hidden in his boot, making him look weaponless. He knew Malek would come. Cody sat down to wait. He had to do it for Shay.

Cody’s talisman warmed against his chest. The mark on his neck tingled as the sounds of fighting drifted to him. He jumped up and ran toward the hisses and yells. His nose registered the odors a second before he saw the chaos. Vampires and demons fighting, gnashing with their claws and teeth. In the middle of the fray, Shay and Bree stood back to back. A group of vampires circled Shay and Bree. Cold tentacles moved like fingers along Cody’s spine. Bree held a dagger that Cody recognized as one of Faelan’s, and Shay gripped a butcher knife. Cody raised his sword and crept forward. If he could take out the ones on the fringes and work inward, he would have a better chance of saving Shay and Bree.

“Now,” Shay said. She and Bree launched themselves at the vampires, moving in high speed the way Shay had done at the cabin. Several times he wondered if he imagined it. He hadn’t. The women plowed through the vampires, plunging dagger and knife into their hearts. He supposed they aimed for the heart. He couldn’t see the vampires’ bodies, they moved so fast, but it appeared Shay and Bree could.