The men from Castle MacGahan were not nearly so close as Bridget hoped. He’d been listening for them to no avail for quite some time. Them and the other party of riders Torquil had sent out.
“By the time they could reach the sword, it might well be too late.” He breathed deeply before forcing himself to confess his darkest distress. “How can I make you understand, Bridget? I need to go after it myself. It was within my reach and I let it escape me. How am I to go forward, knowing that?”
Beside him, Bridget jerked on her reins, stopping her horse to turn a powerful glare in his direction.
“You go forward exactly as I have. Do you think yer the only one to carry regrets on yer shoulders? I not only allowed the sword to slip through my fingers, I missed the opportunity to kill the Beast who owns it. Twice.”
“That’s different.” She’d had no way of knowing what the sword—or Torquil, for that matter—was capable of. And when she’d tried to kill him, she’d very nearly ended up dead herself.
“Different?And exactly how is my failure any different from yers?” she ranted, holding up a hand to silence him before he could answer, anger flashing in her eyes. “No. Dinna you even bother to answer that. I’ll hear no more from that bucket of cold slop you men are determined to serve me.”
She’d completely misunderstood him, but there was no reining her in now.
“Here’s the way I see our predicament, O’Donar. We could turn around and follow the sword and wait for you to die along the way. But since I’m no willing to drag yer sorry dead arse back to Castle MacGahan, that’s no going to happen. So that leaves us with only two viable choices. We can continue in this direction and hope to find help before you keel over, or I can go after the sword and you can continue on without me. You choose.”
Let her go back to confront Mathew and the inevitable reinforcements Torquil would send to reclaim the weapon? Never. The fact that she was right made his options no less bitter to swallow.
“Presented as such, I can see I have no choice at all.”
“And about damned time you realized that, too.”
With a jerk to her reins, Bridget set her animal in motion and he followed suit. His only hope lay in a small band of men supposedly heading in their direction.
He tilted his head, straining to hear far into the distance, praying that if he did hear riders it would be the men from MacGahan, and not those Torquil had sent.
There was no band of riders within his hearing, but something else lay ahead of them. A familiar tinkling sound he recognized immediately.
By Hela! Even approaching his end, he couldn’t escape the damned Fae.
Ten
AARGH!”
Torquil covered his eyes and stumbled away from the fireplace, gasping for air. There were few things he disliked more than being in a mortal’s psyche at the moment of death. It was a disorienting jolt like no other.
“So close,” he moaned, sagging into the nearest chair.
His sword had been there in the clearing, almost within his reach. He’d seen it with his own two eyes. Rather, he’d seen it through the guardsman’s eyes.
The scrolls must have been there, too. If not for the big warrior, he would have had them all.
There was something familiar about the big man, as if he’d seen him before. No doubt he and Torquil had crossed paths at some point before Fenrir had taken full control of this body’s consciousness.
What had happened to his foolish guardsman, anyway? He’d watched through the man’s eyes as his companions had been cut down. He’d seen the big warrior drop to his knees and the youth wielding his sword run away. He’d felt his guardsman’s gleeful anticipation as the fool prepared to take the big man’s head.
And then, without warning, a blinding flash of light and intense pain, followed by the all-consuming darkness of death, had driven him from the man’s mind.
Foolish, careless mortal. He had allowed himself to be so consumed by his own plans, he’d forgotten to watch for what others might be planning.
Torquil sighed, rubbing his fingers against his eyes to clear his vision. He had long known these pathetic beings were incompetent. It was for that reason he had sent more than one hunting party.
As soon as this weak body he inhabited recovered from the experience, he would seek out one of the others. It was the only way for him to direct their progress in securing the treasures. Without them, and the jewels to control them, his freedom, his very existence, was in danger.
Eleven
SOMEONE’S COMING!”
Relief jolted through Brie’s chest as she stared down the path. At last they’d found someone, even though it wasn’t her brother’s party, as she’d hoped. She leaned forward in her saddle, straining to see who approached them. “Is that...?”
