Beyond the Highland Myst(104)

"You lie, fool. You cheated at every turn."

"I've never cheated!"

"Well, don't cheat now," Hawk warned as they faced off. "Bare-handed. Man to man, you are my match in size. Are you in strength, agility, and cunning? I think not."

Adam shrugged indolently. "You will rue the day you were born, pretty bird. I've already beaten you and taken your wife, but this day, I will seal your fate. This day I will destroy Dalkeith, until nothing but granite crumbs blow over the cliff's edge to meet the hungry sea. Your bones will be among them, Hawk."

Hawk threw his dark head back and laughed.

* * * * *

Shrouded in the heavy mist, the court of the Tuatha De Danaan watched the fight.

"The Hawk is winning!"

Silvery sigh. "So much man."

"See him move! Fast as a panther, deadly as a python."

"Think not of him, he is safe from all of us now. So I have commanded," the Queen snapped on a frigid gust of air.

A long silence.

"Will the fool play fair?" queried Aine, the quit, mousy fairy.

The Queen sighed. "Has he ever?"

* * * * *

Adrienne clutched Marie's hand and gasped aloud as she felt the soft kick in her womb. Somehow it felt as if the Hawk were near and needed her strength and love. As if something magical hovered, almost tangible enough to grasp with her slender fingers. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and willed her heart across the chasms of time.

* * * * *

Adam snarled. "Enough of this mortal idiocy. It's time to end this once and for all." He was bleeding, his lip cut and nose shattered. Adam used his immortal strength to fling the Hawk to the ground at his feet. A sword appeared in Adam's hand, and he laid the blade against the mortal's throat. "Compact be damned," Adam muttered, balancing the razor-sharp edge flush to the Hawk's jugular. He cocked a brow and taunted the fallen mortal. "You know, for a moment there, I was worried you might have managed to learn something about my race, the kind of thing we don't like mortals to know. But it seems I was right about you all along, and my worry was for naught. You are truly thick-witted. You really thought you could best me in a fistfight?" Adam shook his head and tsk-tsked. "Hardly. It takes more than that to defeat my kind. Oh, and by the by, prepare to die, mortal."

But his threat elicited nary a quiver from the legend at his feet. Instead the Hawk arrogantly wrapped his hand around the blade and looked deep into Adam's eyes. The intensity of the mortal's gaze latched on to Adam's and held with a strength all its own.

Adam tensed, and a flicker of uncertainty flashed across his face.

Hawk smiled. "Amadan Dubh, I compel you thusly…"

Adam froze and his jaw dropped, belying a very human expression of astonishment. The sword melted from his hand as the words of the ancient ritual of binding mired him tightly. "You can't do this!" Adam spit out.

But the Hawk could, and did.

Adam growled low in his throat. It was not a human sound at all.

Twenty minutes later, Adam was gaping in disbelief. The Hawk had actually unrolled a parchment scroll from his sporran and was reading a very long, very specific list of demands.

"… and you will never come near Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea again…"

Adam shuddered. "Are you almost done, pretty bird?"

The Hawk continued without interruption, unrolling his scroll farther.

"Did you write a goddamn book? You can't do it like this," Adam said through gritted teeth. "You get one command. You can't read that whole thing."

Hawk almost laughed aloud. The trickery would begin now. Any loophole the fickle fairy could find he would try to use. But the Hawk hadn't left any loopholes. He kept reading.

"I said give it up, you infantile, mewling mass of mortality. It won't work."

"… and you will never…" Hawk continued.

Adam snarled and raged, his icy face turning whiter. "I will curse your children, your children's children; I will curse Adrienne and all her children…" Adam dangled evilly.

Hawk stiffened and paused. His eyes flew to Adam's.

Adam stifled a snicker of glee, certain that the Hawk would slip and break his command.

Hawk's lips drew back in a fierce snarl,"… and you will never seek to lay a curse upon my family, my seed, myself, or the family, seed, or self of anyone I command you to forsake or any Douglas commands you to forsake… including Adrienne; with Douglas being expressly defined as any relative by direct blood tie, marriage, or adoption, seed being defined as progeny, children adopted or otherwise obtained, you will not harm any animal belonging to…"

Adam paced a stunted space of earth, fear now evident in his every step.

"… obedience being defined as… and when you return