Celtic Moon (28 page)

S
OPHIE TRIED TO MOVE, TO TURN, BUT FELT RESISTANCE
biting into her wrists. Her head hurt. Why did her head hurt? And where was she? She tried to open her eyes but her lids felt heavy, as if she’d taken an entire bottle of sleeping pills and only had an hour’s worth of sleep.

And then bits of memory poked at her subconscious. The children. Joshua. Elen. Her mother.

Her breath hitched in her throat.
Oh, God, Mum . . .

Her heart pounded against her chest in a vicious onslaught of awareness. Sophie recalled every horrific detail, right until that last moment when the Guardian had hit her from behind.

They must have taken her. But where?

Her legs were numb, unresponsive. That was the first sensation that pressed through her panicked haze.

They must have drugged her.

With what? And what was that god-awful smell? The scent of iron, rot and mildew coated her throat, triggered a gag. She fought against the cobwebs that muddled her thoughts with some success. Awareness came to her in flashes; a continuous drip echoed off the walls, something soft by her calf, cold air and high ceilings, dirt under her sneakers. She was in a room that echoed sound and seeped moisture, a room with a dirt floor that reeked of dampness and death. A basement?

The warmth at her leg moved. Something wet pressed against her arm, followed by a soft whine, then a tug on her sleeve. Tucker? They had allowed Tucker to follow, to stay?

Movement came from her right, a warning.

“I know you are awake.” It was a man’s voice, deep and refined, devoid of any discernible accent.

Adrenaline rushed through her veins and fought against the poison that inhibited her response. She tried to speak but her words came out garbled. After several attempts, she managed to say, “What did you give me?”

“You will not ask questions, human.”

Willing her eyes to open, Sophie began to glimpse her surroundings through her drugged fog. Gas lanterns provided the only light. Iron restraints, polished to shine like treasured toys, hung off stone walls. Crude furniture filled the room, half tables with holes, steel chairs with vise grips for arms and legs. Something scurried through an arched doorway to an inner chamber.

The face behind the voice came into semi-focus, pallid and shrunken. Wearing a dark suit, he stood hunched over a staff carved from knotted wood, using it more for balance than anything magical. A white haze covered silver eyes, much like the Guardian Rhun, though not as stark, not as completely immersed in evil. There was intelligence in his gaze, awareness.

And anger, a deep anger that bled from his pores as he looked to Tucker, then her. “The hound protects you. Why?” When she didn’t immediately respond, he slammed down his staff; the thud of wood on packed earth resonated off the walls. “Answer me, human!”

Tucker gave a deep, rumbling growl, his shoulders down, his gaze primed on the Guardian.

“I am your master,” the Guardian informed Tucker, who responded with a snarl, moving forward, teeth bared in warning.

The man flinched as if betrayed. Without further comment, he backed out of the room. The door closed with a groan of heavy wood held by old hinges. The sound of scraping metal followed. Muffled voices raised in anger filtered through the door.

She was locked in, tied to a chair. Her eyes drifted closed, still drugged, still heavy. She couldn’t keep them open no matter how hard she tried.

God help me,
she prayed as the darkness claimed her once more.

 * * * 

“H
USH, PLEASE HUSH,
I
WILL NOT HURT YOUR
mistress.”

The feminine voice pulled Sophie awake, soft but with a frantic edge of urgency. She became aware of Tucker’s low growl and a tug at her wrists. Pain shot up her arm and she flinched.

Her senses were suddenly sharp, no longer muddled.
Good,
she thought. Whatever the hell they had given her must be wearing off.

“Call off the hound,” the woman whispered from behind. “I’m here to help you.”

Not questioning this stranger, not yet, not until her arms were free, Sophie swallowed, cleared her throat. “Tucker, heel.”

When Tucker sauntered to her side, the woman said with quiet surprise, “So, it’s true. The hound protects you.”

“Where am I?”

A slight hesitation. “You’re in the White Mountains, territory of the Guardian Math.” Another tug, followed by a sigh. “Hold still.”

With a snap of leather on metal, Sophie felt the binding give and her wrists loosen. Disabled with disuse, her arms fell to her sides, numb and powerless. She flexed her fingers, turned her wrists, grinding her teeth against the burning sensation of blood returning to her extremities.

The woman walked around to face Sophie with a swish of dark skirts. She was curved, not athletic like Siân and Taran, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths of nervousness. She was smaller than most Guardians, at least the ones that Sophie had seen, with wolf eyes the color of purple pansies, striated with streaks of blue and burgundy. Her hair hung to her waist like burnished brass in the flickering light. She looked no older than her early twenties but that meant nothing.

“Who are you?” Sophie asked.

“My name is Rosa. My husband is Math. You met him earlier although you may not remember.”

“I remember.” The age difference, as much as the betrayal, took her by surprise. “Why are you helping me?”

Rosa lifted her chin. “I have a message for you to give to Dylan.”

Wary, Sophie managed to keep her voice neutral. “What is your message?”

“Tell Dylan I know of the gathering. Tell him I will be in his territory sometime before Beltane, and that I am coming in peace and without my husband’s knowledge. Tell him I have a proposal. Will you do this?”

She didn’t ask how Rosa had known of the gathering, not wanting to indicate there had been one. “I will give Dylan your message.”

“One more thing,” Rosa added. “Tell him he owes me.”

“For what?”

A calculating smile turned her lips. “For saving your life.”

Sophie only nodded, choosing not to argue with a woman offering freedom. The price of that freedom could be negotiated when she was home with her family. Grabbing the arm of the chair for balance, she hauled herself into a standing position, working the muscles in her legs until her circulation returned. A dark stain drew her gaze to the arched doorway. The stench, she realized, emanated from the inner chamber beyond. “What’s in that room?”

Rosa followed the direction of Sophie’s gaze. “Siân came to Math for sanctuary.” She did not refer to Math as her husband, or her mate, or with any form of affinity whatsoever.

“What are you saying?”

“Siân spent too many years with a kind leader. She forgot our ways . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Sickened, Sophie turned. “Is Siân in that room?”

“Don’t—” Rosa grabbed her arm when she took a step toward the chamber. “There’s naught you can do for her now. Siân’s dead.”

She glared down at her arm. “Dead?”

Rosa dropped her hand. “I heard she handled Math’s interrogation with honor and strength.”

“His interrogation? You mean torture!”

“Lower your voice,” Rosa hissed, pointing to the inner chamber, silent and pleading. “Or we will both follow Siân’s fate.”

Sophie swallowed her reply in silence, survival instincts overpowering her conscience. Taking a deep breath and almost gagging on the stench, she gave a sharp nod for Rosa to continue.

“Let Dylan know I don’t believe Siân spoke of the gathering. I know Math well.”
Too well
, her tone suggested. “He would have acted differently had he known.” She went on to say, “It wasn’t until the end that Siân told them of Elen. And from the rumors circling our halls of what Elen did to Minka . . .” A smile of respect turned her lips. “It may have been Siân’s final vengeance on us.”

Perhaps it was, for Sophie had seen the way the villagers had treated Elen in the basement; they feared her, and for good reason. “I will let Dylan know.”

With a nod, she unlocked the chamber door and motioned for Sophie to follow. “Come.”

A man stood outside, pointing to a maze of hallways lit by torches, his face knotted with scars. A jeweled patch covered his left eye; his right eye scanned Sophie with blatant contempt. “Is it true your son is a shifter?” he asked.

His voice tagged a memory, no longer muffled but still familiar. It was the voice from outside the door when Math had visited earlier. The guard, it seemed, was more loyal to Rosa than to her husband. There was dissension in this household.

Good.

“Yes,” Sophie said. Lying was pointless now.

His one eye, dark gray surrounded by scarred flesh, lifted over Sophie’s shoulder to where Rosa stood. “Then you are no longer the last.”

“I am the last unmated
female
shifter. It won’t change the Council’s plans.” Tucker sauntered past Sophie and rubbed his nose inside Rosa’s palm before moving toward the hallway. Rosa jumped, her wary gaze following the hound.

“What do they have planned for you?” Sophie found herself asking, even though it was none of her business.

Unsurprisingly, Rosa ignored her question. “Can you run?”

A sardonic smile tugged her lips. “Yeah, I can run.”

“Take a left at every doorway. There will be a tunnel that opens behind our burial grounds. You’ll be surrounded by rivers. Go north until the rivers meet. There is a shallow point where you can cross. I’ll do what I can to distract Math but you must hurry.” Her eyes darkened to an inhuman color of burgundy mixed with blue that reflected purple in the surrounding torchlight. A wolf resided not too far under the surface of this woman’s skin. Those otherworldly eyes landed on Sophie, threatening yet desperate. “And remember our agreement.”

 * * * 

S
OPHIE EMERGED FROM THE NARROW DIRT TUNNEL AND
took her first breath of clean air. Immediately, she scanned her surroundings for movement and found none, then smoothed a hand over her hair and face to remove cobwebs from her climb. It was dark, the moon a mere haze in the sky, blurred by clouds. Grave tombs stood like sentries in the night, casting shadows on the ground and concealing the secret exit.

It reminded her of the graveyards in New Orleans, rows of dank stone structures covered in mold, with the dead resting in their afterlife above ground. It was an unusual sight in a northern town, and even more unusual for a commune of immortal Celts. She could only assume the water level in this particular area must be quite high, or something other than the dead resided in those tombs.

And she didn’t intend to stay and find out what. Tucker emerged like a white apparition from the narrow exit, his stance alert, silently scanning the darkness. Without pause, she listened for the sound of running water and tracked the nearest river upstream. Once she gained some distance, she began to run. Tucker kept in cadence with her strides.

Trees stood tall yet weakened, their roots exposed due to an eroded forest floor. Soon, one river merged with another, two sources of water that forked around Rosa’s secluded parcel of land. Just beyond the point where the two rivers merged, there was, as Rosa had promised, a trail of exposed rocks. The water flowed in steady currents but seemed shallow enough to cross.

Pausing by the river’s edge, Sophie spared a glance at the hound. “I hope you can keep up, Tuck.” A disgruntled canine huff reached her ears as she plunged forward. The water seeped through her jeans and found her skin, so cold it stole her breath. Tucker kept pace through the fast-moving currents, but just as they reached the other side, he looked to the woods and issued a soft whine.

A flash of blue, too vivid to be natural, caught her eye then disappeared.

Her heart sank. Mind racing, adrenaline pumping, she scanned the darkness and found a fallen log, rotted on one side. Low brush, thick and tangled, grew along the shoreline. She began to wade toward the covering.

Tucker barked and she cringed. She dared not speak to chastise him. But then a voice, a familiar voice she would recognize in every dream, over any man, and for the rest of her life, echoed from the forest.

She almost crumpled with relief.

“Tucker,” Dylan said. “Is that you? Where’s Sophie? Can you bring me to Sophie?”

With a cry, Sophie crawled her way out of the water, stumbling to gain purchase on dry land, and ran toward the sound of her husband’s voice. Dylan halted for a second when she came crashing through the brush, but then let out a growl and met her halfway.

“Sophie . . .” His hands were in her hair, patting her down, and then around her waist, lifting until her feet left the ground. She wrapped her legs around him, buried her face in the warmth of his neck and began to sob.

“Is Joshua okay?” She asked through broken breaths, almost unable to bear the answer.

“He’s safe, my love.” Dylan nuzzled her neck, then sought her lips in a desperate kiss that bared his soul as he shuddered in response. “He’s home, waiting for us.”

Relief made her sag in his arms, but once the tears came they wouldn’t stop. “My mother . . .”