Bren watched with a knowing smile as Drust’s fists clenched at his sides and his whole body tensed as if for battle.
“Och brother, I think ye have yer answer. Listen to me now. If ye dinna go back for her now, ye’ll regret it for the rest of yer life.”
“Bren I… I pledged myself to the Order… I took a vow.”
“Aye, I ken”, Bren scoffed. “And I told ye that no hot blooded Mac Coinnach should be taking a vow like that! Celibacy? Ridiculous. It goes against Nature. How can a man concentrate on fighting when his balls are aching? I’ll get you out of the vow, dinna worry. Perhaps I’ll send our younger brother to take your place”, he said with a smirk.
Drust nearly laughed out loud at that. Eian was perhaps theleastcelibate man he’d ever known. He likely wouldn’t last an hour with the Order.
“Where is Eian? I didna see him when I rode in.”
“I sent him on a wee mission, to keep him out of trouble for a bit… but back to the lass ye left behind. If she is your soul mate, as we suspect, ye will never be a whole man without her. But with her… believe me when I tell ye, with her ye will ken the kind of happiness ye never dreamed of.”
Drust frowned. “I never said I thought she was my soulmate…”
“But ye mustsuspectshe is…. As do I.Dirc said…”
“No!” Drust held up his hand. “Dinna tell me what Dirc said. I dinna want to ken.” He shrugged helplessly, then rubbed his hands over his face. He felt as if he was about to jump over the edge of a cliff. “Aye, I suspected”, he finally admitted. To himself, as well as Bren. “I’ve denied it from the first; I never thought… I never thought I wouldhavea mate. I certainly wasna looking for one.”
“Perhaps ye didna, but as I said, I was talking with Dirc last night,” Bren began.
Drust winced. It was always trouble when Dirc and Bren got together. Or Dirc and anyone, for that matter.
He sighed. “All right then, what did the bloody sorcerer say?”
Bren grinned impishly. “It involves ye, brother.”
“I already dinna like the sound of that”, Drust told him. Creagmor’s resident sorcerer and sometimes healer had a penchant for stirring things up, in more ways than one.
Bren cuffed his brother playfully in the ear. “Ye will, eventually. I was talking with Dirc, and he mentioned some research he’s been doing, about the Dragon Ring. We want to be certain it can never be used against us again.”
Emotion flashed across Bren’s face, and Drust was again reminded of how Bren had so nearly lost everything.
“He came across more documents in the old library a few weeks ago. Verra interesting documents, ones that were hidden under the floor where they had apparently been forgotten for a verra long time. They speak of the ring, and of much more.”
Drust unconsciously tensed at the mention of the ring. Although it had brought Bren’s mate to him, it had also nearly been the cause of his own death when it had fallen into Mored’s hands. Though he had been more than willing to sacrifice himself to see his brother happy and to see the Mac Coinnach line live on, that he had survived the battle with Mored still surprised him. He shook off the memory.
“The ring is still safe?”
“Aye”, Bren said with an enigmatic smile. “But there might be more to its power than we thought, and more to the prophecy as well. The document we had before didna tell the whole story, after all. There is more. We think the ring is meant to bring all three of us our mates. Three brothers… three women, three sons. The rule of three. Magic.”
Drust felt his heart nearly stop in his chest, then begin to pound. If what Bren was saying proved true, then Willa was his.Truly his. The fates had given her to him to love and protect. Hadtrustedher to him. And once given this incredible gift, he had promptly left her completely alone in a cottage in the mountains, unprotected except by Maura’s wards. Wards that were adequate, but certainly not impenetrable. Sudden, all-consuming panic seized him and he stood, knocking back the chair.
“I have to go!”
Chapter 14
Drust neared the little valley that he had left only days ago.
It felt like a lifetime.
He had had the whole long ride back to think about what Bren had told him. What if it really was noaccidentof fate that Willa had found him and nursed him back to health? He had not really let himself think about how impossible the odds were thatanyonehad found him up there, let aloneher. The one woman in all his life that he could not stay away from, that he had secretly wanted topossess,had found him in the hidden entrance to a mountain cave, just in time tomiraculouslysave his life. Certainly quite the coincidence… or not.
And if she really was his soul mate… no wonder it had felt like he was being cleaved in two when he had left her behind. It had taken every last bit of his self-control to ride away from her that day. He almost turned back a dozen times. He had thought himself weak and foolish, and he had been… foolish, anyway. He had never wanted a wife, but he sure as hell wanted Willa. The very thought of taking her, claiming her as his forever, made his blood race. The thought of any other man touching her drew from him a violent rage. The searing power of a mere kiss had left him forever changed, forever wanting. The woman had made him feel the cold and empty places inside his soul and damned if she didn’t hold the promise to fill them all.
Would she accept him? He would not give her a choice. He would keep her. He wouldwedher, and bring her back to Creagmor as his wife. Only first, he would have to find out who she was and who she was hiding from. So he could kill them.
As he reached the top of the last rise before the valley where the cottage lay, everything suddenly began to swim and shimmer, and he heard a scream in his mind. A woman’s scream.Terror.Rage.A struggle, then hoof beats receding into darkness. Only emptiness left behind.His gut clenched.A vision. He knew he was picking up on the residual imprint of something that had already happened. Very recently. Willa, God no!I’m already too late…
