Insolent: The Moray Druids #1 (Highland Historical) (8 page)

Morgana’s acceptance was a warm pillar of sun after a century of storm clouds. Bael felt it flow through him with a surge of light and power unlike anything he’d ever imagined.

Locked in the de Moray’s dungeon, he’d listened to the storm raging outside and wished he was out in it, so it could clean away the bereft agony of being separated from his mate.

A mate he’d told he didn’t want. A mate he’d made promise to have her brother kill him.

Instead, she’d accepted him, with barely a kind word spoken between them.

Why?

Testing the reinforced chains with his new strength, they felt more flimsy to him. Breakable.

Ha
. Let the Druid King try to keep him from his mate,
now
.

A great crash reverberated through the castle, and a cold wash of dread vibrated in his bones.

Morgana, she was dying. He could feel it in the dimming of his soul.

How cruel could the fates be to lead him to her and then allow her to be taken? He wouldn’t allow it. Not this time. He strained against his bonds, sweat breaking out over his skin though he felt colder than the glaciers of his homeland.

This was his fault. He’d allowed
himself
to be taken. He’d spent moments of unmeasured bliss in Morgana’s arms and then slinked away to the dungeon to face his end rather than risk her possible rejection of him. He was such a fool. He should have fought for her.

He’d fight for her now. Fight for the life she’d infused within him, regardless of his resistance to it.

With a roar born of rage, he tensed against the chains, then strained, cording his muscles and calling forth his beast.

For the first time without the invocation of blood, the world faded to shades of grey. Every sound differentiated into an echo, every sight detailed with the precision of a blade. His beast surged within him and so did a new and powerful magic.

The chains shattered.

Though Bael knew nothing of the layout of the keep, he was spurred into action by the inexorable link he’d just formed with his mate. He stormed up stairs and through the halls of the castle, passing tapestries and busts that must have dated back to the Roman times. Libraries, chambers, a solarium, some of which hid cowering castle staff, but none of which contained the woman he yearned for.

His
woman.

It shocked him that he allowed the people to live. That his Berserker beast didn’t claim the blood that was generally his due.

Was it because of his mate? Because of her acceptance?

Morgana. Where was she
?

A hiss and whistle of wind drafted though one hall, and as he followed it, it built to a scream. Voices echoed off the stones.

Bael heard his mate, his sweet, yet strong-willed woman, her voice filled with defiance, and then fear.

With no thought for tactics or strategy, he burst into the throne room intent on killing whomever was not Morgana and sorting it all out later.

He was behind his mate who’d sunk to her knees, struggling for life. Three witches turned to look at him in eerie unison. They were his enemies. They’d hurt Morgana. He’d kill them all with his bare hands.

He knew what they saw as he moved. A blur. A rush of air. And then the woman who reached her arms toward Morgana was crashing through the window casement, shattering the wood, and collapsing, broken, to the ground outside.

The sinister girl who’d taunted him from the flames was flesh and bone this time, and she made a satisfying crunch against the wall when he flung her with a swing of his fist.

He took a moment to check on his mate, his heart lifting to see her clutching her chest and gasping in huge lungs full of life-giving air.

That moment cost him.

The crone, screeching with shock and outrage threw out her hands and Bael was lifted from the stone floor, mid-lunge, as though his heavy frame weighed no more than a whisper by a wind funnel that whipped his hair painfully against his face and shoulders. He flailed about, desperate limbs trying to find purchase, but there was nothing but the most intangible and salient element surrounding him.

“I will end you,” he roared.

“I will end
everything
,” the crone hissed.

“Not today.” With a flick of Malcolm’s wrist, a discarded stone half the size and twice the weight of the old woman dislodged from the throne room floor. “Yer healer is gone, Badb. Will ye survive this?”

As Malcolm spoke, the girl struggled to her feet from where she’d crumpled against the wall in a pile of thin bones and pain. Blood poured from a crushed eye-socket. One arm hung limp from a shoulder that barely existed anymore, but she circled toward the Grimoire with a dragging limp and a maniacal sneer.

“Give Nemain the Grimoire, Druid King, or watch your sister and her Berserker die in a storm of flames,” the crone threatened.

“Bael,” Morgana gasped, struggling to her own unsteady feet. “Release my mate.” She turned on the crone.

Their eyes met, and for a moment, Bael ceased his struggles. She’d accepted him. Not to his face, not in the darkness where no one but he could hear. But to her King. To her family. Even to her enemies.

They were likely over before they began. Malcolm would crush the fire witch, and this crone would crush Bael. He could already feel her taking his breath. But he’d die with the knowledge that he’d been enough.

Enough for
her
.

Chaos erupted in a flurry of simultaneous action.

The wounded girl dove for the Grimoire, snatching it from the altar.

In a shocking move, Malcolm hurled the stone at Badb, ignoring the fire witch and freeing Bael.

The crone didn’t have time to deflect the stone, so on a scream, she jerked her entire form and a circle of gale-force wind erupted from her body, throwing everyone back against the walls of the throne room. It wasn’t enough to completely redirect the stone, and it glanced off her body with a bone-crunching sound.

By the time Bael gained his footing, her robes were snagging on the shattered window as she flew into the stormy night.

Which left Nemain clutching the book.

Morgana stumbled forward, desperately reaching trembling arms toward the witch. “You’ll burn in hell for this.”

The girl flashed a triumphant smile, made all the more sinister by the blood coloring the spaces of her teeth. “You first,” she hissed, as the fire in the hearth flared around her, turning half the throne room into a furnace.

Morgana pulled the rain inside once more, but by the time the flames extinguished, there was nothing left of the girl but a scorch mark on the flagstones.

“Nay!” Morgana lurched towards the door, the black path of char leading out into the night. She staggered as though her legs were unready to carry her yet, and Bael had her in his arms before she fell.

“We must go after her!” Morgana screamed.

The King was merely surveying his throne room, rolling his wide shoulders looking nothing more than a trifle bemused and relieved.

Morgana leaned heavily into Bael, who could feel her vigor returning with every beat of her strengthening heart.

“What is the matter with you?” She demanded of her brother. “How can you just stand there? Malcolm, they have the Grimoire!”

He turned to her, a half-smile twitching across his otherwise stoic features. “Do they?”

Bael frowned as Morgana tensed. “Colm, what did you do?”

Inspecting his singed robes, he asked. “What is a book but earth and skin?”

“
Malcolm
.”

“Alchemy, my dear sister, can create any number of deceptions, not the least of which, is forgery.”

“Malcolm Duncan Connor de Moray,” Morgana’s voice gained strength, and she pulled herself from Bael’s supporting arms. “
Where
is the Doomsday Grimoire?”

The King gave a very boyish shrug. “Kenna has it.”

“Kenna,” she breathed, holding a disbelieving hand to her forehead. “Oh, thank the Goddess, where is she?”

A troubled frown replaced the sparkle in Malcolm’s eyes. “I wasna lying when I said I doona know. But I know she is safe, and so is the Grimoire.” He took off his crown and placed it on the empty altar adding, “For now, at any rate.”

Morgana wasn’t done with her brother, and Bael found himself thanking the Gods he’d never been the recipient of the wrath glowing on her features. He’d remember that look for the future, and mark it as a signal to retreat.

“Then,
how
could you let them go?” she cried, pushing her strapping brother in the chest to no effect. “They killed our parents. Stole your birthright. Separated us. Don’t you want to take your vengeance?”

Malcolm grabbed his sister’s wrists, subduing her. “Ye canna comprehend how badly I want vengeance,” he said in a voice filled with secrets, and eyes haunted with darkness. “But what ye doona understand, sister, is that revenge doesna happen in the market place, or the throne room, slinging insults and elements at each other.
True
vengeance is shadow and silence. It is patience. It is flawless calculation and perfect timing.”

“You’re hurting me,” Morgana whispered. “Malcolm let go.”

Bael made a threatening noise. Brother or no, he’d crush the man if he didn’t unhand his mate
immediately
.

The king blinked a few times, and seemed to return to himself, glancing at the lethal warning etched on Bael’s face. The Druid let go of his sister’s wrists, but Bael had the impression it wasn’t because he was afraid of her new Berserker mate, but because it was what he should have done.

Bael knew little of the Pictish Druid King. But if nothing else, he loved his sister.

Malcolm swept an assessing glance at Bael, pausing at the manacles still encircling his wrists and dangling with broken chains. “How did ye escape my chains?” he asked with only mild curiosity. “Not that I’m not grateful that ye did.”

Bael reached for Morgana, and couldn’t deny the astonished pride he felt when she melted into his arms. “Your sister accepted me,” was all he said by way of explanation.

Malcolm nodded, as though he understood the implication. Then made a sound of only half-mocking disgust. “If ye’re going to be here with my sister, I suppose I doona have to tell ye that if she sheds one tear over ye I’ll trap ye alive in a hollow tree and sit by and listen to ye starve to death while dozens of tiny insects feast on yer flesh.”

Bael could respect the threat. “And I suppose I don’t have to tell you that, though I respect that you rule this land, I do not kneel when a King asks me to kneel.”

“A good King never has to ask.” It was neither acceptance nor threat. But something in-between. “Though, I’d appreciate yer help with the battles yet to come. The Wyrd sisters are injured, but they aren’a defeated. Not yet.”

Bael nodded, wondering how two such men would survive each other for the sake of one tiny Druid woman. He looked down into his mate’s shimmering blue eyes. Smudges of exhaustion darkened the skin beneath them, and she could only summon a wan smile.

She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid his eyes on.

“You truly accept me?” he asked, unable to help giving her one last chance to send him away.

She reached up to his rough cheek. “You’ve endured a century of loneliness. Perhaps you’ll allow me to fill the next century with family and all that comes with it. All the high-handed opinions, the
irritation
, and the disagreements.” She glanced at her brother, but then her gaze softened. “All the pride, the strength, and support in your moments of weakness.”

Her eyes were misty when they met his again. “I can’t believe you’ve lived so long without it all. And it’s a gift I want to give to you. As your mate. As your wife.”

“Aren’t I supposed to propose to you?”

She snorted. “This is no proposition. We’re
getting
married, whether you want to or not.”

“May the Goddess grant ye strength,” Malcolm grumbled, curling a disgusted lip.

Bael grinned. No one had ever dared talk to him like she did. He loved it.

“I’m falling in l—”

She pressed a finger against his lips. “Those are words better suited to when I’m not recovering from near-apocalyptic experience.” She lifted on her tiptoes to press her lips against his. “And also for when we’re alone, because
someone
will ruin the moment.” She cast a glare at her brother, who looked offended for a second and then shrugged with a nonchalant nod before returning to his imposing throne.

“Besides, I can feel what you feel,” she continued. “So you don’t have to say it, though it is nice to hear from time to time.” She tucked her body against his, drawing him gently toward a darkened hallway that Bael hoped led to her chamber. “I’ll have few words to give back to you,” she murmured into his ear. “Though words are not the primary vocation I’d have for those lips of yours.”

“Oh?” Intrigue and heat speared through him, along with a softer, more tender emotion. An unhurried glow that was wholly unfamiliar and paradoxically thrilling. Was this love?

“Yes,” Morgana was saying, answering both his spoken and silent question. “I do not think that words will be the basis of our relationship.”

“Thank the Gods,” Bael said honestly. For he was more a man of action than words, and it seemed that was fine with her. A singular woman, his mate. If she already knew what he felt, he didn’t have to find words he didn’t possess to convey the depth of his emotion. Some men would find that an imposition, Bael found it a great relief.

“No more talk of dying then,” she said seriously.

Bael paused and pulled her into his arms, pressing a kiss to her hairline. “I’ll spend the rest of my long life fighting to stay by your side,” he vowed into her eyes.

He couldn’t believe his good fortune. She’d dragged his dying body out of a river and breathed life not only into his lungs, but into his heart. He had a purpose to fulfill. A life to live. A mate to worship. And battles left to fight.

And to a Berserker,
that
was a world very worth saving.