He didn’t need to elaborate for me to understand what he meant, but I tried not to overthink it as Dugal escorted me to the center of the courtyard, stepped back, and waited, watching me with lustful zest, every inch a predator.
“We’re right here with you, sis,”Aspen said into my mind, sensing my fear.“Every step of the way.”
“Yes, we are,”Hazel agreed.
“All three of us,”Willow echoed.
“Ye mean all four of us,”Lilias added, surprising us when she spoke telepathically, given she hadn’t up until now. Yet something told me she typically erred on the side of caution lest Dugal or Elspet sensed it. Right now, they were far too distracted by what I was about to do.
“We’re all here with ye, my mate,”Tavish said, supportive despite the tension and fear I heard in his inner voice.“Every last MacLeod. And me, my love. Always.”
While I wanted to look his way and gaze into his eyes one last time before my world changed forever, I knew better than to look anywhere but at Dugal, or else I would undeniably pay for it later.
So, gathering my courage, I inhaled deeply and did what I had come here to do without wasting any more time. I shifted into my dragon and braced for the worst.
Yet none of us expected what happened next.
Chapter Twenty-Two
–Tavish–
WHILE BEYOND EAGER to get to Sutherland Castle, I loathed every minute of seeing Ellie in Sutherland colors, however stunning she was with her hair flowing around her shoulders once more. She looked like an angel as she descended the great hall stairs, and I was by no means the only one who took notice. Not the only one to outright stare because we couldn’t help ourselves.
Unfortunately, Dugal did too in a far more disrespectful, possessive, lustful way, and it made me want to cut him down.
“Stay strong,”Broderick counseled telepathically when I clenched my fists and ground my jaw.“Ye must, brother. For her, if nothing else.”
That’s about the only thing that held me at bay because even though Ellie put on a brave face, I felt how frightened she was. Felt her heart racing as Dugal escorted her into the courtyard so all could witness her at last, fulfilling the pact.
And she did.
She found the courage and shifted for all to see, and her shimmering white dragon was as beautiful as ever, invoking several gasps of awe throughout the crowd. Not just because of her lovely beast, either, but because, damningly enough, the pink gem was still very much there and as whole as ever.
“Ye see,” Elspet declared for all to hear. “My son’s destined witch and descendant of our most powerful sorcerer has been found amongst the MacLeods just as the pact claimed she would be. And just like the pact claimed, she wears the gem over her heart.” She looked triumphantly at Dugal, making clear his mistress would always take priority over his wife. Always be more important. “Shift, my son and laird of this castle. Shift and finally look into the eyes of yer fated mate.”
I had never been more tense or alarmed than when Dugal embraced his inner beast and shifted into a dragon easily twice her size. And he was just as sinister as his human half when he locked eyes with Ellie’s dragon, a ruthless predator no female dragon or human should ever be subjected to.
Terrified for her, I couldn’t stop myself from trying to shift so I could protect her, but alarmingly enough, it was impossible. All I could do was suffer the unbearable sensation of my inner beast writhing beneath the surface, desperate to break free.
“Elspet’s blocking us from being able to shift,”I cursed, going for my sword, but Broderick clamped a hand down on my shoulder.
“Nay, brother, dinnae, something is happening,”he said.“Look at Dugal.”
Shockingly enough, he was right. Somethingwashappening, and it was impossible to know what, as Dugal’s dragon seemed to stagger as it gazed into Ellie’s eyes.
“What’s happening here?”Ellie asked me, grateful we still had a telepathic link.“Is he supposed to be doing that?”
“Nay, I dinnae think so,”I replied as Dugal’s great dragon flailed, flapping his wings as he staggered even more, trying to take flight to escape whatever was happening to him.
“Is someone else doing that to him?”she wondered, her dragon stepping back in confusion.“Because I’m not.”
Drawing my sword alongside my kin and the king’s men, we stood at arms around King Robert, unsure of what we were witnessing. All we knew was we couldn’t shift.
“But I can and have,”Ellie reminded, positioning herself between Dugal’s flailing dragon and us, so she could protect the king, if need be, because something was seriously wrong. Not just because Dugal was a formidable, dangerous dragon, but because his mother was even worse. And she only grew more and more upset as she tried to get through to her son, but he seemed unable to hear her.
It only got stranger from there when he shifted back, seemingly against his will, and fell to his knees as the courtyard took on the enchanted otherworldly appearance of the Morrow.
“It’s not the Morrow, though,”Sloan said.
