Dangerous Highlander

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Cara stared at the bodies of the wyrran that littered the great hall floor. She gripped the back of a chair since her legs still shook. Her idea of Lucan catching her had been hasty, and the fall . . . She shuddered at the memory. The fall had been horrendous, and the terror had sucked the breath from her body.

She hadn’t been able to see below her. She had trusted Lucan to catch her. And he had. Though the flying Warrior had nearly gotten her instead.

When she had felt its hands clasp on her arms, she had fought it with everything she had. She hadn’t escaped one Warrior to be taken by another. Not when Lucan was waiting to catch her.

If the darkness had scared her before, it terrified her now that she knew exactly what hid in it. Yet with Lucan by her side, she would face those terrors and vanquish them. After all, he could control the darkness and shadows.

Everyone but Quinn had reverted back to their human forms as they began to clear away the dead. She was still amazed that Fallon had let out his god to help save her. There was nothing she could ever do to repay him, especially when she knew how much it frightened him to let out the god.

Quinn’s jerky movements caught her eye. The glances he threw her and Lucan worried her. Quinn was acting stranger than normal, almost as if he couldn’t decide on something that weighed heavily in his mind. She started toward him to ask when Lucan stopped her.

“You’re wounded. You need to rest,” he said. “We’ll get rid of the bodies.”

She swallowed and looked at Quinn around Lucan’s shoulder. “I can help.”

“You’re bleeding, Cara. Please. For me?”

There was no way she could deny Lucan. He turned the chair so that it faced the great hall and she could watch them. She sank into the chair and let him clean the wounds on her back and leg. When he finished she leaned her head against the back of the chair. It was her intention to keep an eye on Quinn and maybe call him over to her, but he left the castle before she could.

The longer she sat, the more difficult it became to focus her eyes. Now that the ordeal was over and she realized that Deirdre had failed, Cara’s body felt drained and lifeless. She closed her eyes intending only to rest.

* * *

Quinn dumped the four wyrran he had into the pile started away from the castle. Just as with the first attack, they would burn the bodies. He turned and looked at the castle. His home.

He was glad Deirdre had failed to capture Cara, but if he was honest with himself, he couldn’t stand to watch her and Lucan together for another moment. It brought home the fact that Quinn didn’t know what love was and likely never would. It also reminded him of his failure as a husband and father.

Time away was what he needed. Fallon had unleashed his god, something he hadn’t done since Deirdre had first awoken the monsters inside them. Fallon had set aside the wine and faced his greatest fears.

Quinn clenched his hands into fists. His rage was out of control and growing by the day. He knew he needed to control it, but he didn’t want to. It consumed him, sustained him.

He knew what he had to do. If he told Lucan and Fallon, they would only try to talk him out of it. He was the one who knew what was best for him. It was time the others realized that as well.

With one last look at his home, the only thing that remained of his clan and a life before he became a monster, Quinn turned and ran into the darkness.