The Dark Highlander

“Are you presenting a formal plea for his life, Amadan?” Aoibheal purred, her iridescent gaze shimmering with sudden intensity.

She’d spoken part of his true name. A subtle warning. Adam stared off into the distance for time uncounted. Dageus MacKeltar meant nothing to him. Yet he had a relentless fascination with mortals, indeed, spent most of his time among them in some form, to some degree. Yes, his race had power, but mortals had another kind of power, an entirely unpredictable one: Love. And once, long ago—almost unheard of among his kind—with a mortal woman, he’d felt it.

Had sired a half-mortal son.

Though he’d long endeavored to, he’d not forgotten those brief years with Morganna. Morganna who’d refused his offer of immortality.

He glanced at his queen. She would exact a price should he lodge a formal plea for a mortal’s life.

It would be a heinous price.

Then again, he thought, with a shrug of immortal ennui, eternity had been placid of late. “Yes, my queen,” he said, tossing his hair back and smiling coolly when the court gasped collectively. “I am.”

The queen’s smile was as terrifying as it was beautiful. “I shall name your price when the Keltar’s test has been met.”

“And I shall bide your law, given this boon: Should the Keltar best the sect of the Draghar, the thirteen will be reclaimed and destroyed.”

“You would barter with me?” A faint note of incredulity laced her voice.

“I barter for the peace of both our races. Lay them to rest. Four thousand years was long enough.”

What could only be called a very human smirk crossed the queen’s delicate features. “They wanted immortality. I merely gave it to them.” She cocked her head. “Shall we wager upon the outcome?”

“Yes, I wager he’ll lose,” Adam said rapid-fire. There it was, what he’d been waiting for. The queen was the most powerful creature of their race.

And hated to lose. Though she would not raise a hand to help him, at least now, she would not raise her hand to harm him.

“Oh, you’ll pay, Amadan. For that, you’ll pay dearly.”

Of that, he had no doubt.

• 17 •

“Stop peering at me like that,” Dageus hissed.

“What?” Silvan bristled. “I’m not allowed to look at my own son?”

“You’re looking at me as if you’re expecting me to sprout wings, a forked tail, and cloven hooves.” No matter that he was feeling as if he might. Since the moment he’d come through the stones, since the moment the thirteen had found their voices, he’d known that the battle betwixt them had moved into a new and much more dangerous arena. The ancients within him had been fed pure power when he’d opened the bridge through time.

With an immense effort of will, he shuttered, closed, tightened himself and projected pretense that all was well and fine. Using magic to conceal his darkness was an egregious error and he knew it, feeding precisely that which he endeavored to hide, but he had to do it. He dare not let Silvan see him clearly at the moment. He needed to search the Keltar library and if Silvan felt him now, God only knew what he’d do. Certainly not wave him into the inner sanctum of Keltar lore.

Silvan looked startled. “Is shape-shifting one of their arts?” he inquired, evincing utter fascination.

Typical Silvan, Dageus thought darkly, curiosity exceeding caution. He’d worried a time or two that Silvan might one day be tempted to dabble in black arts himself, out of naught more than driving curiosity. His father and Chloe shared that, an insatiable need to know.

“Nay. And you’re still doing it,” Dageus said coldly.

“I’m merely curious about the extent of your power.” Silvan sniffed, affecting an unassuming expression. With such piercing intellect in his gaze, it was far from convincing.

“Well doona be. And doona be poking at it.” Och, aye, the ancients inside him were growing more aggressive. Sensing Silvan’s power, they were trying to reach for it. For him. Silvan was far richer fodder than Drustan; he’d always had a stronger center than his sons.

His father was also adept at the art of deep-listening that Dageus had never managed to perfect, a meditative regard that peeled away lies, exposing the bare bones of truth. ’Twas why the hopelessness he’d glimpsed in his da’s gaze the eve he’d fled had fashed him so. He’d been afraid Silvan had seen something he himself couldn’t see, and wouldn’t want to.

And it was why, now, he was using all his will both to keep them in, and his father out.