Midnight's Seduction (2 page)

“Starving. How long did I sleep?”

“Just through the night. Dawn broke an hour ago.”

Saffron glanced down at her clothes from the day before and grimaced. “Let me change first.”

“We’ll be waiting.” With one last smile, Cara was gone.

Saffron walked to the chest and opened a drawer. She looked at the socks inside, all white, and all folded neatly so she would know what she grabbed. She took a set, determined to buy every color imaginable now that she could see again.

She hurriedly pulled the socks over her icy feet and jerked off her jeans and sweatshirt. She smiled as she thought of how offended her mother would be to see her not only in jeans, but a sweatshirt as well.

Her smile grew as she dug out another pair of jeans and a soft yellow sweater. She took a look at her clothes and noticed they were all solid colors that could easily intermingle with each other so she wouldn’t mix anything up.

All the clothes she had were given to her by the other Druids in the castle. Nothing in the drawers was hers alone, except for her panties and bras. Reaghan had brought a bag full of lingerie to her, and to Saffron’s delight, they were all lacy and sexy. And all different colors.

There was so much she needed to take care of. First and foremost, she needed to call her lawyer. If what Gwynn had told Saffron the other day was true and her mother was trying to claim her legally dead, then her mother and the son of a bitch that was her stepfather would get all her money. Money her father had refused to give her mother.

“Over my dead body, Mother,” Saffron said as she stuffed her feet into black boots.

She ran a brush through her hair, unable to look at herself in the mirror. One thing at a time. It was going to take much more courage than she had right now to see herself in the mirror after three years.

Saffron walked out of her chamber and turned right. She paused a moment, listening to the sound of voices below her in the great hall. The castle was huge, but her hearing had improved when her eyesight had been taken.

There was laughter and conversation. Meals in the castle were almost always an entertaining affair. There were so many couples in the castle, from the three MacLeod brothers, Fallon, Lucan, and Quinn, and their wives, Larena, Cara, and Marcail, to Hayden and Isla, Galen and Reaghan, Broc and Sonya, Logan and Gwynn, and now Ian and Dani.

She wasn’t the only single person at the castle, however. There was Marcail and Quinn’s son, Aiden. Fiona, and her grown son Braden, and the newest Druid to the castle, Kirstin. Then there were the other Warriors, Ramsey, Arran, and Camdyn.

Saffron ignored the way her heart raced when she thought of Camdyn. She had sensed a gnawing inside Camdyn, a viselike grip on him that refused to relent. Yet, when he dealt with her, he was always gentle, if not silent.

What did he look like? She rubbed the pads of her fingers over her thumb as she remembered the silky, cool texture of his hair against her palm when he had caught her from falling the last time she’d had a vision.

Camdyn always seemed to be near her. Even when he didn’t say anything, she knew he was there. And oddly, that comforted her. Everyone looked out for her at the castle, but with Camdyn it was different. He had a different undertone in his voice when he spoke to her, and there was a distinctive gentleness mixed with power when he touched her.

She’d touched his face once. It had been the only way to know what he looked like with her eyesight gone. Her palms still felt the prickle of his whiskered cheek, the sharp angles of his face, and the full, wide lips.

He hadn’t known what she’d done because she’d been quick, but the need to know him had been tantalizing. She’d gotten a peek at his face using her hands, and it had been enough for her to mentally draw an image of him.

And it was a glorious image.

The question now, however, was whether he would live up to what her mind had created.

Something akin to excitement ran through her at the idea of seeing everyone for the first time. She was at the stairs leading to the great hall when she realized she wished she had washed her hair and maybe put on a bit of makeup first.

“Saffron!”

Her head swung in the direction of the voice as a woman with long silver-blond hair jumped up from her spot at the table and raced over to her.

Saffron recognized the cadence of the walk and couldn’t help but smile as Danielle Buchanan’s arms wrapped around her. She returned Dani’s embrace and squeezed, realizing then that she had missed Dani and Ian’s wedding the night before.

“It worked,” Dani whispered.

For the first time since waking, Saffron found herself blinking back tears. “Yes. You did it, Dani. Your magic let me see again.”

CHAPTER

TWO

Orkney Islands
Ring of Brodgar standing stones

Camdyn MacKenna stood in the silence of the coming dawn with fellow Warriors Arran and Fallon. Lucan, with his ability to command darkness and shadows, was patrolling the area to see if Deirdre was already there.

They were spread around the area, hunkered down and waiting on the windswept expanse of land with only the stones to shield them. To Camdyn’s exasperation he found his thoughts wandering. But not just to any time. To a time when he had been happy.

A time with Allison.

He squeezed his eyes closed as he thought of his wife, of her smiling hazel eyes. Of the life they had shared together.

A life she hadn’t turned away from despite the god inside him. She had known he was a Warrior. She had known of his power to manipulate the earth, his incredible speed and enhanced senses. And his immortality.

Despite it all, she had stayed with him.

His Allison.

Camdyn opened his eyes and focused on the ring of standing stones that were most likely as ancient as the gods inside the Warriors. No one knew where the standing stones had come from, or why they had been built.

The Celts had used them, revered them. The stones were seen all over Britain, their origins a mystery. Few realized it was the magic contained within them that drew people.

But a Warrior knew. A Warrior had the ability to sense magic—good and evil. Camdyn dug the heel of his black boot into the earth, thankful the magic he felt wasn’t doused in evil as a
drough’
s magic was.

Droughs.
How he hated them. Or one in particular. Deirdre.

Just thinking about her made the bile rise in his stomach. He’d had a good life before Deirdre had found him and unbound his god, turning him into the monster he was.

Camdyn had survived her cursed mountain and managed to escape. He’d found refuge in the deep forests and the mountains. Until he had come across Allison. She had been like a light in the darkness.

As soon as Camdyn saw her he knew she was the one for him. She hadn’t batted an eye when he told her how the Celts of old had allowed the
droughs
to call up primeval gods locked in Hell. The strongest warriors in each family stepped forward and allowed those gods into their bodies, creating the first Warriors.

It was those first Warriors who rid Britain of Rome. But it came at a price—the death of many Celts before the
droughs
and
mies
combined their magic to bind the gods inside the men since they couldn’t make the gods leave.

The gods traveled through the bloodline of these warriors, waiting for a day when they could have control once again. Deirdre gave them that wish when she found the hidden scroll and learned the MacLeods held a god.

Three brothers, in fact, shared one of the most powerful gods between them. Once Deirdre unbound their god, she set about finding the rest.

Camdyn snorted, the claws of his god lengthening from his fingers as hatred rolled inside him. He drew in a long, deep breath until he had himself back under control and his claws had disappeared.

Allison had believed every word of his tale, but even then it had taken Camdyn nearly five years before he allowed her to see what he changed into when he called up his god. The times before, he would make sure he was far from her and their cottage before he changed.

Yet, not even his transition could make her cower in fear. Camdyn had rarely left her. He’d stayed by her side, living the life they had been granted.

And when she began to age, he saw the sadness in her eyes.

A shift in the air drew Camdyn’s gaze to the left and his thoughts to the present. He turned his head to find Arran watching him closely. Arran had already called up his god, and his white skin, claws, and eyes stood still in the darkness.

Arran cocked his head to the side, a silent question.

Camdyn gave a quick shake of his head before he looked back at the stones. They had come to make sure they were alone, because somewhere below the stones rested Deirdre’s twin sister, Laria.

The answer to ending Deirdre’s life once and for all.

Moments ticked by before a cloud of darkness began to dissipate and Lucan MacLeod stepped out and looked at each of them.

“Well?” Fallon, the eldest MacLeod and leader of the Warriors at their castle, asked.

Lucan lifted a brow. “I doona sense Deirdre or any of her wyrran.”

Camdyn spat at the mention of the wyrran. They were Deirdre’s pets, created by her to be commanded only by her. They were small in stature, hairless and thin, but deadly with their talons on their hands and feet. Their yellow eyes were sinister looking, but it was their mouthful of teeth that their lips couldn’t fit over that made them truly ugly.

“I agree,” Lucan muttered to Camdyn.

Arran moved toward Lucan from his hiding place, the white skin of his god disappearing once more. “Has the ground been disturbed?”

“Nay,” Camdyn answered. Since his power was to command the earth, he could also tell when it had been dislocated and how. “Nothing has touched the stones, especially inside the circle, in quite some time.”

“Camdyn’s right,” Lucan said.

Fallon crossed his arms over his thick chest as he looked at the stones. “The magic is heady here.”

The other three nodded silently.

Camdyn rubbed his hands together. “Finally, after two hundred and fifty years, I’m going to help end Deirdre.”

“Six hundred and fifty,” Arran corrected with a grin. “Remember, we allowed the Druids to toss us into the future.”

How could Camdyn keep forgetting he lost four centuries of his life? Not that he minded. He was getting used to this modern world fairly well, and with the aid of his god he’d learned to understand their language swiftly.

“Aye,” Camdyn said.

Lucan moved to stand by his brother Fallon. “Regardless, it’s about to end.”

“It almost seems too good to be true,” Fallon said softly.

The four of them stood together as the sun crested the horizon, lighting the Ring of Brodgar in its golden glow.

Camdyn had to admit the sight was glorious. The stones themselves stood in a huge circular pattern on a thin strip of land on an eastern-sloping plateau separating two lochs.

Twenty-seven stones remained upright in the circle, and even more interesting was the area where the stones themselves were. It was as if it had been hollowed out. No weeds or wildflowers grew where the stones were. The grass was greener, leaving a distinct circle that could be seen from any angle.

There was no doubt in Camdyn’s mind it was magic.

The shadows began to fade as the sun continued its ascent into the sky, and even though Camdyn knew how dangerous it was to stand in the open with Deirdre likely to appear any moment, he couldn’t make himself leave.

There was something so appealing, so … comforting about the stones that made him crave to stay.

Camdyn looked at Arran, Lucan, and Fallon, and one by one, the Warriors pulled their gazes from the stones.

“It’s time to return to the castle and tell the others what we’ve learned,” Fallon said.

Arran grinned, his eyes flashing with excitement. “And get ready for a battle.”

Camdyn didn’t have time to say anything as Fallon put his hand on his shoulder, and in the time it took him to blink, they were standing in the bailey of MacLeod Castle. Fallon called it jumping; its more modern term was teleporting, and Camdyn rather liked the speed with which they could travel.

“Lucan!” Cara shouted and raced to her husband as they walked into the castle.

Fallon hurried to his wife, and lone female Warrior, Larena, and wrapped his arms around her. Camdyn and Arran continued past them to the two long tables that had been put together.

As Camdyn walked by his fellow Warriors, he noticed just how many had found their women. He, Ramsey, and Arran were the only Warriors left without mates at the castle.

At least they weren’t the only single men. There was Aiden, Quinn’s son, and Braden.

That thought had no sooner gone through his mind than he felt a wave of forceful, brilliant, and all too pleasing magic move over him.

Camdyn didn’t need to look up to know it was Saffron. Her magic had had a distinct feel for him ever since he lifted her in his arms in Declan’s prison.

He found his gaze rising to the top of the stairs where Saffron stood in a pale yellow sweater and jeans that fit her long lean legs to perfection. Her walnut-colored hair hung freely about her face as her eyes moved leisurely over the hall.

He released a breath he hadn’t known he held. When Danielle raced to Saffron, and Saffron’s eyes followed her, Camdyn knew Declan’s spell to blind Saffron was truly gone.

Everyone worried that the spell wouldn’t release Saffron, but the simple fact that no nightmares had plagued her the previous night, as they had in the past, told Camdyn she would be all right.

He’d been the one to go to her every night and calm her, though she never knew of it. No one did, and that’s how he wanted it kept.

Camdyn had been unable to stay away from her this past night, however. He’d checked in on her several times. And each time she had been sleeping peacefully.

Still, it was good to see for himself that Declan’s spell was truly gone.

He kept silent, trying to hear what Saffron and Dani said to each other, but everyone was so excited to see Saffron that they began talking at once.