Like she knew where to go anyway.
“I am injured, and I need ye.”Even though he tried to sound strong, she felt his weakened state.“Ye must find yer way to me soon, lassie. Very soon.”
Although her limbs still felt heavy, shackled for lack of a better explanation, she felt sadness and anger. Uncharacteristic rage. At Raghnall for doing this to her but more so at Declán for having possibly killed Luna.
“Good,”the voice said.“Use that rage to make yer way to me. Use that so that we might flee before ‘tis too late.”
“You’re going to have to give me a little more to go on,”she replied. “Where are you?”
“’Tis best I not say, lest he overhear,”he said.“Trust yer instincts. Let yer inner druidess guide ye.”
“Seriously?”She frowned.“I’m somewhere in an unfamiliar castle, and you can’t give me something to go on?”
“’Tis not wise. Not until ye’re beyond his clutches.”
“You mean their clutches.”
“At the very least.”
“And you won’t budge on this?”
“Nay.”
She sighed and took stock of her surroundings again. The sounds that came from outside her door.“Men are guarding my room.”
“Then I suggest ye find another way out.”
She went to the first narrow window only to spy a massive drop straight into the ocean. Definitely not going that way. The other window would have offered slightly better prospects had it been a dry night rather than a stormy one. As it were, she’d have to drop onto a thin ledge, then another, and another until it looked like she might be able to scale down to a rocky ledge that may or may not lead to solid ground.
“You’vegotto be kidding me,” she muttered under her breath, both terrified and a tad excited when she should be anything but. She didn't fear heights and had rock climbed before, but this would be tricky. Especially in a dress.
“Then I’ll have to make it less of a dress.” She considered the garment and wished she knew how to use magic because shredding a dress around the bottom to make it shorter was harder than it looked. She also wished she had a druid’s blade like Madison and could just fight those bastards outside her door.
If she knew how to fight, that is.
Fortunately, she managed to tear the dress, albeit sloppily and shorter than she would have liked. Either way, it would be much easier to maneuver in. Next were her odd-looking shoes. She supposed they would be no more dangerous than bare feet. So she kept them on and tied back her hair with a scrap of dress. She had never understood why heroines in action-packed adventure movies left their hair down. That made no sense. Tie it back so you can see what you’re doing.
“God help me,” she grunted as she hoisted herself up on the window ledge. “Or, I guess, in my case, the gods.”
The wind was cold and the rain biting, but it was no worse than climbing in a snowstorm. She hadn’t meant to do that years ago, but it had swept in out of the blue, and she’d had no choice but to keep going. The key? Tune out everything but putting one foot in front of the other.
So she did.
Carefully.
She was grateful for the nooks and crannies she could grab onto as she made her way down to the first ledge. Then as she worked her way to the next and the next. It was slick, but she managed it.
“Almost there,” she whispered, coaching herself along the closer she drew to the bottom. Her hands had grown stiff from the cold, but she kept forcing them to work. Grasp. Keep her alive.
“How nice it would have been to transition to medieval Ireland like you did, Madison,” she muttered at one point. “To enjoy a pleasant evening meeting all the nice castle folk and getting a little buzzed on whiskey cakes.” She chuckled and would have shaken her head if it wouldn’t have thrown off her balance, endangering her progress with only a few steps left to the rock below. “I know I have no one to blame but myself, though.”
Convinced it was all rock when she reached the bottom, she took a step forward only to realize she was about to step off a sheer cliff, just like in her dream. Only this time, when she was yanked back against a hard body, there was a shocking revelation that came with it.
