Soft laughter.And how will you stop me?
Cailean clamped his teeth down on the dagger and dived. Beneath the waves he entered a strange world of twisting kelp and dappled sunlight. The seals, intrigued by his presence, swam closer, their liquid eyes full of curiosity. He ignored them.
Some twenty feet below him lay the seabed, covered with rounded boulders, waving kelp, and beds of sea grass. But his eyes were immediately drawn to something else. Flickering lights in pearlescent blue and green shimmered across the seabed, like the lights seen in the northern sky in winter.
Stormlights.
They were enchantingly beautiful, flashing in a myriad of hues like a butterfly’s wing. He found himself watching them, unable to look away. He began to understand how Rose had been so mesmerized the other day.
Soft laughter again. It seemed to echo from all around him.You are stronger than most. There aren’t many who can resist. It will be interesting to destroy you.
Cailean ignored the voice. Instead, his eyes scanned the sea floor. There! Amidst the waving kelp he spotted something, a crack that split the seabed. It branched and twisted like a jagged piece of lightning, and it was from this crack that the stormlight was spilling.
The god’s prison.
Lungs screaming for air, Cailen took the knife from between his teeth and clasped it in one hand. Blood magic was needed, Maggie had told him. A sacrifice. Well, so be it. He was descended from the people who first worshipped the goddess. He had to hope that connection would be enough. That his blood would be enough. He had nothing else.
He pressed the blade against his wrist, feeling the sharp edge part his skin.
Then suddenly something grabbed him by the wrist, yanking away the hand holding the knife. A voice called from above, a voice that washed over him like a summer breeze.
“Cailean!”
The force around his wrist pulled, there was a surge of power, and suddenly he was being yanked upward. He lost his grip on his knife, and it went sinking out of reach. He broke the surface and gasped in a great, whooping breath.
It took a moment for him to get his bearings and when he did, he spotted a familiar figure standing on the headland, staring at him with wide, fear-filled eyes.
Rose.
The sight of her nearly stopped his heart. Something surged within him, a sensation that filled him from head to toe, a feeling that banished all the fear and doubt he’d been feeling and replaced it with a quiet joy.
Rose. His Rose.
But he let none of his feelings show in his voice.
“What are ye doing here?” he roared.
“What’s it bloody well look like?” she roared back. “Stopping you from doing something monumentally idiotic. Now get the hell over here!”
Cailean hesitated. He’d come here to seal the prison with his blood. If he went to Rose now, he knew she’d stop him. He could not allow that. He could not let anyone, even Rose MacFinnan, divert him from this path. Yet what choice did he have? He’d dropped his knife and the rest of his weapons lay on the beach where he’d discarded them.
With a growl of frustrated exasperation, he began swimming towards her. He reached the rocks and clambered up. Rose grabbed his arm and helped to pull him the rest of the way.
He straightened and faced her. She looked disheveled, with her hair in disarray and her clothes spattered with mud. But even so, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
But all he said was, “Ye shouldnae be here.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Ishouldn’t be here?Youshouldn’t have locked me up!”
He winced. “Aye, maybe not, but I couldnae think of any other way to stop ye from following me.”
“Damn right I would have followed you! Cailean, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Were you really going to… going to…” She didn’t finish the sentence. She pressed one hand over her mouth and blinked rapidly as though fighting back tears. “Damn you,” she whispered. “How could you do that to me?”
Cailean’s heart broke at the sight of her anguish. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. But this was the only way he could see to save his daughter. Didn’t she, of all people, understand that?
“I’m sorry,” he replied softly. “I’m sorry it has to be this way. I wish it could be different. I wish I had more time to spend with ye. But I have to save my daughter. I have to save my people. If my blood is the way to doing that, then so be it.”
“Not your blood! Dear God, Cailean, not yours! What were you thinking? Don’t you know what it would do to Catriona and your people if they lost you? Don’t you know what it would do to me?”
