Page 136 of Enchantment of a Highlander

He was limping toward her now.

She wanted to feel him so badly, all of her ached.

“You have enough light in you,” she said with the last of every bit of energy in her. “To make me love again.”

There.

She had said it.

Death pulled at her before she could revel in the touch of his hand on her skin. It sucked her toward a black from which she’d never emerge.

She would be dead, but Alec would live. He would repair his land and live to be a great laird. His people would love him.

Something flickered in her thoughts, fast and flashing in the final breath she managed to inhale.

Fiona.

This was how much Fiona had felt, to sacrifice her own life so readily.

Celia’s heart squeezed final tears down her cheeks to think of how much the older woman must have loved her.

She’d died so Celia could live.

And for those few beautiful days at Duart Castle with Wynda and Duncan and Alec, for those few beautiful days, Celia had lived.

Fiona’s sacrifice hadn’t been for naught.

Chapter Forty-One

Alec had lost her again.

He stared at Celia’s limp body. Her hair plastered against the whiteness of her skin.

He’d been too late.

MacDougall’s guards filed from the castle, their swords unsheathed.

He had lost Celia. His light.

The wood under his feet was warm, but the flames had been smothered by the rain. He staggered over the uneven surface and pressed his body against the slackness of hers before slicing his blade through the ropes binding her hands.

She fell against him, limp and unmoving.

The guards drew closer.

She said he’d had enough light to make her love again. But she had been his light against everything dark and awful.

He lifted her into his arms and turned his back on the approaching soldiers. She was such insubstantial weight in his arms, the way she always had been. But too still.

Too damn still.

This time he did not blink away the hot wetness from his eyes. This time he let the pain in his chest crumple him to the ground with his love in his arms.

Movement in the tree line snagged his attention.

Another army appeared and ran toward him.

But he did not rise. He curled his arms around Celia, as if somehow he might still afford her his protection.