Unwanted (22 page)

It had happened before.

A swift murmur crept through the infantry as restless men watched the scene with growing agitation.
 
“Are you saying we could have searched for mates all this time?” One of them asked.
 

“You promised us easy plunder.
 
You did not say the Gaels were mated,” another growled.
 

The murmurs of descent became louder.

“I don’t believe you do speak for the Goddess.”
 
The first dark-haired Berserker advanced on Magnus.
 
“I’ll not risk my hide to a mated Berserker for a charlatan and a liar.”

Magnus’ eyes caught and held
Rhona’s
and what she read in them stopped her breath and slowed time to an absolute crawl.
 

“You will,” Magnus vowed.
 
“You’ll have no choice.”

He plunged the blade into her stomach, the bite of pain more intense than any other penetration she’d endured in the past.
 
Rhona
could feel it tearing through her insides and knew that there would be no surviving this time.

She didn’t even cry out, so complete was her shock.
 
Looking down, she watched with a detached fascination as a wreath of red bloomed at the front of her white robe when the dagger wrenched out.
 

A cry rose above the roaring in her ears.
 
It was raw and tortured and low, shaking the timbers of the longboat with the depth of its strength.

Magnus’s head rolled into her line of vision on the deck beneath her feet.
 
His eyes were no longer blue, but the black of a Berserker as they stared sightlessly up at her.
 

Someone was yelling her name through a distant and muted pandemonium.
 

Rhona
looked up to note that she was now the only one left on the boat whose eyes held any color.
 

Or did they?
 
Everything seemed to dim.
 
Shadows crept into the periphery of her vision and she searched desperately for Finn.
 
He was nowhere to be found in the chaos of fighting, raging Berserkers.

Her bonds were suddenly broken and strong arms caught her before she collapsed atop Magnus’s headless body.
 

“I’m here, lass.”
 

Rhona
was disappointed to hear Roderick’s strong brogue.
 
She just wanted Finn’s cool, deep voice to escort her into the afterlife.
 

And didn’t that make her a fool?

“I’m dying,” she informed him.

“I know,” his voice sounded grave.
 
“
Doona
succumb to the darkness.
 
Hold on for me as long as ye can.”
 
He sliced through the torso of an approaching attacker as though he swatted at a fly before propping her against the pillar and assessing the damage to her stomach.

Rhona
nodded and turned her head toward the bedlam at the stern of the ship.
 
Finn was surrounded by maybe ten Berserkers.
 
His white-gold hair became increasingly saturated with blood as he used his familiar sword and axe as though they were appendages.
 
His fierce black eyes promised death before his weapons delivered upon the vow.
 
 

There was a beauty in this, she thought as she found Connor cutting a bloody swath through his own opponents.
 
A particular grace and speed accompanied the awe-inspiring strength they possessed.
 
They wrought destruction like a dance, choreographed in the moment and organic in its execution.
 

Rhona
focused on the fading brilliant crimson of the blood Finn shed with precision and prejudice.
 
An ominous cold seeped into her limbs, counteracting the warmth she could feel from Roderick’s healing touch.
 
She knew that when Finn’s golden brilliance was overcome by shadow, there’d be no hope left for her.
 

She would die wanting him, and unwanted by him.

Finn should have reveled in the death he wrought.
 
For the first time in his life, he channeled the epic amounts of strength and rage surging through him.
 
He was aware.
 
In control.
 
Time was no longer an impediment to his movement.
 
He flowed through it like water through a fisherman’s net.
 
Scarcely displaced, fluid, and inescapable to those caught in his wake.
 
He melded with the beast inside him to create a creature of indescribable precision.

And both parts of him howled in agony.
 

Rhona
.
 
His mate.
 
He could smell her blood.
 
And so could every other frenzied Berserker on the longboat.
 
She was still alive, and every instinct overtaking each man screamed to finish her.
 
 

He would kill anyone who tried.
 

Finn could feel the vibration of her vital life’s energy dissipating as though a part of himself hemorrhaged onto the pitch floors of the ship.
 
Drawing the enemy away from her precious body, he paid in blood and pain each time her still form drew his focus from the battle.

His axe imbedded in someone’s throat.

I called her a whore.

He wrenched his sword from the sternum of one man and hacked at the torso of another.
 

I denied her in front of everyone.

A sharp bite of pain sliced his shoulder as a blade found purchase.
 
He pivoted and relieved the sword arm from the man’s body before likewise taking his head.

Rhona
had to know he was trying to save her life by denying her importance to him.
 
But the tear that had escaped her eye imprinted upon his memory with painful clarity.

What if she dies believing I did not want her?

That wasn’t going to happen.
 
If her soul left this world, he would break down the gates to
Nèamh
to find her.
 
And if she wasn’t there, he’d storm Valhalla, then Elysium, and finally
Tir
na
nOg
.
 
He’d kill every mortal that defied their love.
 
He’d defy any God or Goddess who blocked his path to her.

Just like he cut down these men who should have been his brethren.

If someone broke away from his horde of attackers, Connor blocked the path to
Rhona’s
body and sent the raging assailant to the afterlife.
 
Roderick knelt with her, his hands working healing magic and Finn ached to be beside her.
 

He barely dodged a hammer that would have shattered every one of his ribs.
 
He kicked the familiar, dark-haired
beserker
over the side of the ship.
 
Though the man let out a roar of outraged shock, he would likely survive the drop.

A torn part of Finn wept for every Berserker who fell before him.

We should have been more than this.

The Goddess had created them for a purpose.
 
Berserkers roamed the northlands since before time had been recorded.
 
The temple was ancient and sacred and what had Magnus morphed them into?
 
A pack of unstoppable mercenaries with no particular divine objective.
 
His own private army to wield and control as easily as any weapon.

Finn wanted to kill him again.

His hatred of Magnus fueled his fury, and after a few swift strikes of his sword, there was no one left standing to fight.
 

Flinging his bloodied weapons to the ground, Finn lurched in
Rhona’s
direction, not recognizing the raw sound that filled the air as his own.
 
He dropped to his knees beside her.

She was still.
 
Too still.
 
The shallow breaths she took barely lifted her chest.
 
The red stain on her white robe glowed in Finn’s vision, taunting him with a consuming impotence.
 
 

“Bring her back!” Finn growled, his Berserker lending a dual note to the demand.

“I’m trying,” Roderick said gently.
 
His eyes were grim and full of compassion as they met Finn’s.
 
“But there are limits to what I can do.”

“No.”
 
Finn refused to accept it.
 
“No. No.
No!
”
 
He clutched at her robes, her body, dragging her limp form desperately against him as if the heat of his rage could warm limbs turned icy by the loss of blood.

His vision blurred and swam.
 
His throat stung before closing as if to tell him he would not draw breath if she didn’t.
 
Which was acceptable to him.
 
What would be the point?

“I’m sorry,” he rasped, his voice harsh with unshed emotion and agonizing pain.
 
“Forgive me,
Rhona
.
 
I’m so sorry.”
 
He chanted his regret like a prayer, rocking her in his arms as she had rocked Iain.
 
Hoping against fate and heaven that her soul remained to hear him.

***

 
“I’m sorry,” Finn whispered for what had to be the thousandth time in two days.
 
He’d stopped expecting a response from her pale, still form.
 
He sat where he’d been since the battle, at her side.
 
He ate little.
 
Slept even less.
 
Terrified that if he stepped away from her, her soul would disappear before he returned.
 

He grimaced again as the last words he’d spoken in front of her screamed at him in the silence.
 
They were blasphemies.
 
A desperate attempt to marginalize her importance in the eyes of his enemy.
 

Roderick had tried again and again to heal her, but she still hadn’t awakened.
 
Her wound had closed and the bleeding stopped, but no one knew the extent of irrevocable damage done on the inside.
 

The entire castle held its collective breath, waiting for
Rhona’s
condition to take any kind of final turn.
 

Watching the steady rise and fall of her chest, Finn felt a desperate vibration in his own heart, and a ragged sob escaped when he opened his mouth.

He thought of the hellish battle on the longboat.
 
The satisfaction of killing Magnus wiped away by his horror at failing to reach her before the knife had pierced her precious skin.
 
Only a handful of Berserkers had survived the day, having been pitched off the boat in the heat of battle.
 
They’d left when the tide came to claim the ship and were to spread the word that Finn, Connor, and Roderick were coming to the temple once winter passed.
 

The plan should have pleased Finn, but he hadn’t spared it a second thought.
 
What use was a future if
Rhona
didn’t share it with him?
 
A part of him had died the moment he’d seen her lashed to the ship.
 
The rest of him would follow if she didn’t recover.

“I won’t survive losing you,” he admitted.
 
“I can’t go back to being the cold-hearted man I was before.
 
Not after I’ve had a taste of your warmth.

“I understand if you can’t forgive me for what I said.
 
But think of Iain.”
 
The babe was being looked after by a new mother who was called into the keep from the village.
 
“He needs you.
 
I can’t raise him on my own.
 
It’ll be disastrous.