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He snatched at the first excuse he thought of. “She’s unwell.”
“I don’t like her.”
Cam’s hard gaze fixed unwavering on his sister. “Excuse me?”
She held her ground, but Cam noted how her hand tightened on Brodie’s arm. “Mrs. Kennett-Holmes. I don’t like her.”
“She’s not for you—or me—to like or not like. What’s important is that Uncle Josh likes her.”
She lifted her chin. A hint of the Sinclair stubbornness in the jut of her jaw, the flash in her blue eyes. “He thinks he knows what’s best for you, Cam. He thinks he knows what’s best for everyone.” Her gaze flicked to Brodie, then embarrassed as if she’d revealed too much, she dropped her gaze to her slippers. “He doesn’t know anything.”
Mage energy ripped through Morgan, frying every nerve, crushing her skull as if he cracked an egg. She dropped to her knees. Clutched her head as if she could keep her brains from oozing out. Glanced up in time to see him diving for the weapon.
Throwing herself forward, she fought to reach it first. Her fingers barely touched the cold knob of the hilt before he kicked it from her grasp. The metal clang as it spun end over end into the drawing room, echoing through her pounding head.
Dragging a dagger from its sheath, her attacker aimed it at her exposed back.
She spun. And spun again. Avoiding the downward plunge. The fire in her wounded arm. Coming to her feet with the quickness of a cat.
Closing her eyes, she whispered forth a new attack. Felt the invisible bonds reach for him. Hold him fast.
Then with deliberate slowness—in part to concentrate on the binding spell, in part to keep her wobbly head on her shoulders—she bent to retrieve the sword. Her hand curling around the hilt bringing instant reassurance. It wasn’t her weapon. But it was a weapon. And with it, the tables turned. Instant control.
She approached—close enough his mage energy enveloped her like a poison cloud. Close enough to let him see the depth of her power as an Amhas-draoi and know he’d been bested.
“Where’s Doran?” she demanded, capturing his gaze. Refusing to let him break the contact.
“Fuck you.” His breathing came fast as he struggled. His fists clenched, and Morgan knew if he managed to get them around her neck, she’d be dead in seconds.
“Is that any way to talk to a lady?”
“You’re nothing more than that Duinedon colonel’s whore.”
She didn’t take the bait, though his words slid beneath her well-armored exterior. Pinched the place in her that wondered if that wasn’t just what she’d become. A well-armed mistress. “I’ll ask you again—where’s Doran?”
A cruel smile lit his eyes; his face went hard. And he made the move she’d anticipated yet underestimated.
Had Doran been giving bloody lessons?
The man not only held power, he knew just how to wield it effectively. The binding spell unraveled and with it her hold on the situation. He sprang, his hands going for her throat.
With only one arm, she could do little to hold him off. Instinct brought her own hand up in defense, the sword extended. With momentum behind him there was no time to stop or even slow. The blade’s point drove into him. Through him.
The wet sucking plunge of the weapon roared in Morgan’s ears, the actions spinning out into slow motion so that the changing expressions on his face—shock, pain, terror, and the slow gray of death—imprinted themselves on her brain. An instant forever memory to haunt her nights for years to come.
He fell sideways. Gravity wrenching the embedded sword from her grip.
He clawed the curtains, the chair. Reached for her as if she could hold off death. Pull him back from the oblivion awaiting him.
And in the moment when life left him, the rage, the hate, the venom poisoning his soul fell away and left a man. Scared. Pitiful. Wanting only the comfort of not dying alone.
Had he deserved such a death? Had Doran lied to him? Tricked him into believing his cause was just? If she’d been better skilled, could she have avoided taking his life? The questions whirled through her tender brain. Unanswerable. But imperative.
Morgan stood, chest heaving, shaking, incapable of looking away from the sprawled figure, bleeding his life into the carpet.
Her mind cleared as if a giant hand had wiped it clean. She swallowed over and over. Tried taking a deep br
eath, her nose and mouth filling with the acrid metal tang of blood and sweat and excrement. Her stomach clenched, making her heave.
