Page 63 of Dark Victory

Sam felt a knife go through her stomach. She gasped, “I should have known—a witch from hell.” She flung her power at her.

Kristin was struck so hard she slammed against the kitchen counter.

Although her stomach still hurt, enough that she was afraid she might be bleeding, Sam smiled. “You can’t mess with a Rose.” She struck her again and Kristin cried out, going down to her knees. Then Sam advanced. “What has Tabby ever done to you?” she demanded, standing over her. “Why are you hunting her?”

Kristin closed her eyes and began chanting silently. Sam tensed, fully aware that Kristin was trying to cast a spell on her. She steeled herself against it. If Kristin was as powerful as her mother or grandmother had been, she might be toast. “Answer me, bitch!”

Kristin opened her eyes, which glowed eerily again, like incandescent opal. “Where is your sister, Sam?”

“She’s at Blayde, in Scotland.” Sam was horrified—she’d just told Kristin where her sister was!

Worse, she was confused. Suddenly she didn’t know what she wanted from Kristin, or why she was filled with so much urgency. And the moment she became aware of her confusion, she knew she had been mesmerized.

She had to fight the spell. She hadn’t told Kristin the year in which she could find Tabby.

“Is she there now, in the present? Or did she go into the past?” Kristin asked, approaching.

Sam struggled against the witch’s hypnotic eyes, knowing she must not answer, but replied helplessly, “She’s in the past.”

“What year, exactly?”

“1298.” Crap, Sam thought, as she spoke. Kristin had dark power and she was after Tabby, and Sam had just told her where to find her. But she’d get out of this spell and go back in time, somehow. She’d protect her sister, to hell with Macleod.

Kristin smiled and said, “Don’t move, darling, not yet.” She turned and went into the kitchen.

Sam felt as if she was caught up in an invisible vise. She knew she had to act—she had to destroy Kristin—but her will would not obey her mind.

Kristin returned, holding a butcher knife. “Take the knife, Sam.”

Sam knew what Kristin intended. I am a Rose, she thought, furious, and suddenly she lifted her hand and to her relief, her power blazed. The knife was struck from Kristin’s hand.

“Bitch get down, in so much pain,” Kristin hissed.

The invisible knife stabbed through her, but Sam strode forward, fighting the pain. Kristin paled and turned, rushing for the door. Sam picked up the knife, gasping in pain as she did so. Kristin murmured in a strange language Sam had heard before. Shocked, she held her abdomen with one hand, the knife in the other.

She was chanting in the ancient tongue of the demons.

Kristin seized the moment and ran out of the loft.

Sam breathed hard, slowly sliding down the wall to the floor, and eventually, the pain lessened. How did the witch know a language that only the oldest, most ancient demons still used?

“ARE YE HURT?” Macleod repeated, his gaze piercing.

Tabby inhaled and started to get up. He put his arm around her, helping her to her feet. “I’m fine.” She was still shaken. He had been at her side in another crisis and she was glad. Of course, there was no way of knowing whether she would have been attacked again if she’d remained in New York, where she was supposed to be.

But it was hard to hold a grudge now. She smiled wanly. “You appeared in the nick of time.”

“I was leavin’ the tower an’ I felt the evil, Tabitha.” He was subdued, too. “It dinna follow us.”

Tabby felt her insides lurch with dread. “Okay, you may be right…may being the operative word.”

“I am right. Do ye wish to sit down?”

His face had that hard warrior expression now, and she felt his impatience. He wanted to fight the evil spirit. She just knew it. “I’m okay. I feel a bit battered and I might even be bruised, but I’ll live.”

His face tightened impossibly. “Evil dared to breach my walls!” He erupted, and the walls shook. Small pieces of stone and mortar fell from the ceiling. Tabby ducked and Macleod pulled her close.

She looked up, instantly aware of him in every possible way. He was courageous, powerful, sexual and a gazillion-percent male. “I think you should control your anger—not that I blame you for it—so the whole wing of this castle doesn’t come down on us.”