“No,” she said louder when she saw Charon grit his teeth in pain.
Whatever was inside her flowed easily, fiercely through every part of her until she felt as if she were glowing from it. From a great distance, she swore she heard the low beat of drums … and chanting.
But none of that mattered. Freeing Charon did.
Charon writhed with agony, his face mottled with pain.
It was the last straw.
“No!” she screamed, and threw out her arms.
Light flew from her hands, blinding her. Elation swept through her at the amazing sensations that took her. The release of whatever had been pent up inside her was astonishing, surprising.
Glorious.
When she blinked open her eyes she discovered the cabin obliterated and everyone sprawled on the ground. Unmoving.
Laura looked down at her hands and felt the same pulsing begin again, stronger this time. She lowered her arms and started toward Charon when Jason groaned.
Charon was on his back, the copper skin, horns, and claws no longer visible. He was the man she had always known, but his chest wasn’t moving with breath.
It seemed impossible that the man who had always been there for her was dead. Laura’s knees threatened to buckle as tears clouded her eyes. He’d faced Wallace so she could get away.
He’d planned to keep Wallace occupied and sacrifice himself. For her.
Laura didn’t understand what happened to her in the cabin, but she did know she was the one who wrecked the cabin and killed Charon.
The tears wouldn’t stop, and the anger that had driven that odd feeling inside her was gone. Once more she was the scared little girl who spent her life hiding from the world. She reached out a hand to touch Charon when Jason’s arm moved.
Laura whirled around and ran. She had to get as far from the cabin as she could. Charon was gone, but Jason wasn’t. And Jason had promised he would make her suffer.
All Laura could hope for was that Phelan found her like Charon had said.
She crashed through the forest, not caring how much noise she made while she put distance between her and the Druids.
Jason sat up and touched his aching forehead. When he looked at his fingers he found blood. “I’m tired of fucking bleeding,” he declared as he climbed to his feet.
He looked around, unable to believe what his eyes saw. It looked as though a bomb had gone off inside the cabin. Nothing was left.
“Jason,” Mindy said as she reached for him from her position on the ground.
He helped her to her feet and looked at Charon. At least one Warrior was dead.
“What the hell happened?” Jason demanded.
Dale flung boards off himself as his pale green skin faded away. “It was a mie. Charon had a Druid with him.”
“The girl? Laura?” Mindy asked with a snort.
Dale shrugged. “I doona know.”
“Find this mie,” Jason ordered. “Whoever she is, she’s in these woods. I want her brought to me.”
Dale hesitated, and Jason lifted a hand to send a blast of magic at him, only to have nothing. Jason lowered his arm, pretending as if he’d changed his mind.
He had no magic all of a sudden, but the others couldn’t know that.
“Why do you wait, Dale?” Mindy demanded.
Dale meet Jason’s gaze. “I can no’ feel the mie’s magic anymore.”
Jason didn’t like what he was hearing. Could this Druid’s magic be able to disrupt other Druids’ magic and Warriors’ powers?
The idea left him reeling, but it was something he needed to consider. Unless the mie had some spell that halted others’ magic for a time.
Jason began to turn when he saw Dale move away boards from the cabin to reveal Aisley. He had suspected for a while that Dale had some kind of attachment to Aisley, and this proved it.
Dale helped Aisley to her feet, but Jason realized then that not all his Druids were moving.
“See who’s dead and who’s alive,” he demanded.
A few minutes later, and the count of dead had reached four. “Find this mie,” he commanded. “Now!”
The remaining Druids, along with Dale, fanned out into the forest.
Jason held out his hand to Mindy. “Shall we go find us a Druid?”
“I do so want a new toy,” she said with a grin.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Aiden rubbed his eyes and fought to stay awake. The dinner he and Britt had planned fell through the moment she got immersed in her work.
She hadn’t told him why she was so excited, only that one of her tests had shown a breakthrough.
So, instead of dinner and small talk, they had takeout and the radio. Aiden had never been away from MacLeod Castle for so long.
Though he expected to feel free from being away for such an extended time, he found he missed it. All of it. Not just his parents and the others, but the castle and the magic.