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“Nay.” His throat tightened as he spoke her name. “Sean.”
“Malcolm!” Morgana cried, tears running down her cheeks. “Malcolm don’t do this!”
“I’ll kill you and your consort if you let Kenna die,” Niall threatened through the flames. “Your magic is nothing against my wrath.”
Badb screeched, her powers flaring as she tried desperately to escape his hold. “I am immortal! I serve a master greater and more powerful than any of you! I’ll return and my vengeance will turn the green Highlands into nothing but blood and ashes!”
Malcolm ignored them all, gazes locked with the man who eventually held all the souls in the world in his grasp at one time or another.
“I don’t make deals,” Death said evenly.
“This isn’t a deal,” Malcolm replied. “It’s a threat. One that I don’t make lightly. Give him to me, or I cast with them and force yer hand.”
The time it took for him to draw his next breath felt like an eternity. Through the wall of flame, he could see Kenna twitching, her eyes beginning to flutter closed. His heart bled just as much as her body did, but he knew what would happen to her soul if she were lost.
She’d be taken to the Other World to wait until she was reunited with her mate.
Sean would be locked in a prison that not even Death could breach to set him free.
He couldn’t let that happen.
A silent look passed between the horsemen, and then Death nodded. “Your descendants will pay the price, Druid King,” he predicted, nudging his horse forward and up the stairs of Dun Moray.
Even Malcolm stepped out of his way as the harbinger of the Apocalypse swooped down and scooped up a spitting, cursing Crone before disappearing in a swirl of dark mist.
Bael used the distraction to leap through the flames, singing his dark hair, and beheading Nemain with a speed almost undetectable by the human eye.
Somewhere in the distance, a raven crowed.
And then…
Sean stood in the center of the courtyard, naked and trembling, his face wet with the evidence of grief, and his beautiful eyes wide with disbelieving astonishment.
Malcolm was only dimly aware of the fire disappearing. Of Morgana rushing for Kenna. Of the three remaining Horsemen turning and disappearing into the shadows.
He could see nothing but Sean’s eyes. Those lovely irises such an unnatural shade of blue, they seemed purple. The color of Scottish heather in bloom. The color of Pictish royalty.
The color painted on his heart.
“Malcolm?”
His name on Sean’s lips was the most beautiful melody he’d ever heard. It was better than rustling leaves, waving grasses, or shifting stones.
Sean’s legs gave with a sob as he collapsed to his knees.
Malcolm flew down the steps, and seized his lover. Reminding himself to be gentle as he pulled Sean back to his feet and into his arms. The last time his hands had been on the lad, he’d been punishing.
Never again. He was a better man than that.
“You came for me,” Sean whispered against his neck. “Tell me I’m not dreaming.”
Dreams never felt like this.
“I’d have crawled into hell to come for ye,” he said against Sean’s hair. He left out the part where he’d nearly brought it to this world for him. He didn’t need that weight on his shoulders.
“I like your Druid wars!” Ingmar interrupted, leading a band of battle-weary, but generally good-spirited Vikings into the courtyard. How they’d gotten over his walls, Malcolm could only guess.
The Viking general sent a leer in Sean’s direction. “They always seem to end with explosions and nudity. What could be better?”
