RIONA COULDN’T BELIEVEshe was reliving the dream she’d had at the beginning of all this, but she was. This time, however, Declán didn’t pull her back from an actual drop but a rhetorical cliff.
How else could it be, given shewasgoing back to Raghnall?
And she was never so certain of that until she shoved Declán back with magic and stepped into the light beyond the cave. More pointedly, stepped into one last memory that filled in all the blanks.
“I will do as ye ask,” she said to her fellow druids when they told her of the prophecy. When they shared what would happen to her beloved Éire. When they told her that she and her love would be reunited to save it as he’d proven himself different in being able to love her. Because he had loved her, and they knew it. Saw the truth behind his actions clearly enough and took his life regardless.
“I will forfeit my life willingly for the cause,” she went on, lowering her head. “To save all that we hold dear.”
While she would have volunteered to forfeit her life for such a thing anyway, it was made all that much easier knowing her love would be waiting for her somewhere out there in another time and place. She would not have to live another moment without him.
“We accept yer offer,” the most powerful of her fellow druidesses said.
Something about her felt familiar.
Too familiar as animals melted out of the woodland and fell in around her, mourning. When they did, Riona saw clearly. Recognized the woman who had been crying beneath the tapestry.
Her judge and jury, her executioner as she flung magical fire at Riona, was none other than her sister Shannon in another life.
She had no time to process that as one kind of pain became another when Raghnall jumped into the flames with her. What should have been a quick ending betwixt her and her fellow druids became warped and tarnished into excruciating pain as he pulled her close and ground into her mind, “Did ye think I would ever let him have ye?” He wrapped around the deepest part of her soul. Drove himself into her mind. Held her too close. So close she knew he would never let her go. “Do not forget this image, mo ghrá, because I will find my way back to ye if ye do not find me first.”
She blinked as the painful memory faded and recognized the irony of it all because shehadsomehow remembered his image. And through that, her gift was born. One thatwouldbring her back to him.
So she stepped out into the light of day, relieved to see him standing there. Waiting. Ready for her every bit as much as she was him.
Or so she let him think.
“Raghnall,” she whispered hoarsely.
He held out his arms to her. “Mo ghrá.”
Silently summoned to make things appear as they should, when she took a step forward, the surrounding trees bent closer, and countless animals melted out of the woodland baring their teeth.
“No,” she cried, racing into his waiting arms. “He isnotto be harmed.”
“I knew ye would come back to me.” He held her close. “I knew ‘twould work in the end. That I just needed patience, and ye would bring so very much back to me.”
Very much being the whole of Declán’s kingdom as well as those of his brothers. It didn't matter if she slept with Declán in the meantime. Raghnall truly believed himself better. The one she would inevitably desire in the end because his arrogance knew no bounds.
“And Ididbring so much back to you.” She cupped his cheek and blinked back what she hoped were believable tears. “Why didn’t you tell me what you had planned so that I could have helped sooner?”
Before he could reply, before he had too much time to think, she pulled his mouth down to hers and kissed him. Long and deeply, just like she had in her sketch.
So deeply that by the time he figured out her intentions, it was too late.
The pendant around her neck had locked him in her embrace so she could drive her dagger straight up into his heart. A dagger born of the four sticks she had gathered and cried over beneath King’s Heart in another life.
When she pulled her lips away, it was to shock on his face. Utter disbelief that he didn’t have her completely under his spell. That warlock or not, he couldn’t withstand an Unnamed One’s blade in his heart.
“It can feel no better than a blade to an innocent horse’s neck,” she murmured, falling to her knees with him. “Or the feel of an ax in a helpless tree.”
She felt his magic trying to spark, but it stood no chance against the power of the blade. No chance against all the wrongs he had done.
“Do not let me go,” he growled. She cushioned his head between her hand and the ground when he sank all the way down. He grasped her arm weakly, the look in his eyes not defiant like it had been in their past life but pleading. “Heal me, druidess.” His breathing grew shallower as his heart slowed. “Save me.”
Where she’d thought nothing of it before, now she knew better.
She wasn’t that innocent little girl anymore, and he certainly wasn’t worth saving. He had killed far too many in both lifetimes and deserved no place in this world. Though she knew this had to happen, there was a sense of accountability and difficulty in knowing she was taking his life.
