Midnight's Captive (Dark Warriors)
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Authors: Donna Grant
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For my readers.
Thank you for going on this
incredible journey with me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always my thanks go first to my brilliant editor, Monique Patterson. I’m so very blessed to be working with such a wonderful person and talented editor. Thanks for all you do!
To Holly Blanck and everyone at St. Martin’s who helped get this book ready, thank you.
To my remarkable agent, Louise Fury. You always know what to say and when to say it. Thank you.
A special note to my assistant, Melissa Bradley. Thanks for everything you do. You make my life easier, and for that, I owe you so very much. Thanks for the laughs, the long talks, the ideas, and just for being such an amazing person. Love ya!
To my kiddos, parents, and brother—thanks for picking up the slack, knowing when I’m in deadline that I might be a tad absent-minded, and for not minding having to repeat things.
And to my husband, Steve, my real-life hero. Thank you for the love you’ve given me, for the laughter you brought into my life, our beautiful children, and the happily-ever-after life I always dreamed of. I love you, Sexy!
CONTENTS
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St. Martin’s Paperbacks Titles by Donna Grant
CHAPTER ONE
Ferness, Scotland
May 2013
Charon slowed his car as he pulled off the main road into a strategically hidden drive. He eased his charcoal gray CL65 AMG Mercedes cautiously over the dirt road until he came to the rock-lined parking area behind the pub he owned.
He put the car in park and shut off the engine. For several minutes Charon sat silently, contemplating the previous hours.
The game had changed.
Again.
Charon released a long breath as he rubbed through the hole in his shirt where he’d been injured. During the entire drive from MacLeod Castle to his little corner of Scotland, he’d thought over the encounter that took place at Wallace Mansion.
So many times he’d battled evil, but always he and the other Warriors came out on top. With every battle, however, it seemed the danger continued to escalate.
As did the chances of their deaths.
For over six hundred years, he’d lived without fear of death. He was a Warrior. With a primeval god inside him that not only gave him immortality, but power as well, there wasn’t much that could harm him.
Anyone could take a Warrior’s head and end their life. If they ever discovered who was a Warrior. And if they could best a Warrior in combat.
Charon and the others kept what they were a safely guarded secret. Still, that didn’t stop the unease that plagued him ever since discovering a new evil had taken over.
Jason Wallace.
“How many more?” he murmured to himself. “Were Deirdre and Declan no’ enough to fight and vanquish?”
In his heart, Charon knew there couldn’t be good without evil, but he was tired of fighting, weary of always looking over his shoulder, wondering when the next strike would come.
It was made worse because he’d had four centuries of peace. All because Declan had brought Deirdre forward in time.
Charon, like the rest at MacLeod Castle, had worried about when Deirdre would finally show up and unleash her evil once more. The MacLeods had even sent Warriors forward into the future as well, with the help of the Druids.
Charon hadn’t been one to travel through time, and for him those four centuries had been paradise. Pure, unadulterated bliss.
It was easy to push aside the monster he’d become while locked in Deirdre’s prison deep in her mountain of Cairn Toul. He even managed to get through several days at a time without calling to mind what Deirdre forced him to do to his father.
In the end, however, Charon had to face the fact that he was still the same monster.
Better clothes, money, and owning most of the small town of Ferness hadn’t changed anything. They were a shell to cover the man he really was. A brute. A beast.
A fiend.
Charon pulled his key from the ignition and opened the car door. He stepped out of the Mercedes and inhaled the fresh, clean air around him.
He’d taken a chance in returning to Ferness after escaping Deirdre’s prison, but it was his home. Too many decades had passed for anyone to remember him when he came wandering up those centuries ago, but it wouldn’t have mattered if they did.
There was nowhere else he’d wanted to go. It hadn’t taken long to begin transforming Ferness into a prospering town. He lived among the mortals without them ever knowing anything.
Until a year ago when Ian Kerr walked into Ferness with his Druid, Danielle. Charon had known trouble would follow, but there was no way he could turn away a fellow Warrior.
And just as he expected, trouble had come. He hadn’t hesitated in transforming into a Warrior to protect his people and help Ian defend Dani.
He could still remember the way his men had gaped at him for a moment before diving into the battle. No one had spoken about seeing him or Ian change into their Warrior forms.
Maybe that was for the best. His men who had survived that awful night stayed by his side, which was all he could really ask for.
Charon gazed at the building before him. The inn dated back to the twelfth century, and had held up well, thanks to his constant care. The first floor had been transformed into a pub. Above that on the second floor was his office, and on the third floor, his home.
The inn wasn’t his only acquisition. He’d bought several properties around town, but his major investment was land. He owned hundreds of acres around Ferness. It kept people from settling, but its beauty brought in tourists by the busload, which equaled profits to everyone in the small Highland town.
Charon put his hand in a pocket of his jeans and drew out the small bullet he’d recovered from the battle. The slug itself was nothing special, but the red liquid in the small see-through chamber was the unique part.
The liquid was blood, but not just any blood. It was
drough
blood. One drop from the blood of Druids who gave their soul to Satan to practice black magic could kill a Warrior.
That was bad enough. Declan Wallace first used the X90 bullets a year ago. They wreaked unimaginable damage, keeping the Warriors from getting close to their enemies, where they could use their strength, speed, and deadly claws.
With the death of Declan, Charon had assumed knowledge of the X90s would fade into oblivion. But somehow Jason Wallace, Declan’s cousin, had not only managed to manufacture the X90s again, but also made them more powerful.
It wasn’t just the X90s, as Charon himself had learned. He’d taken the blade meant for Arran. The instant the dagger tore through his skin, he’d felt the sting of
drough
blood.
There had been an inferno inside him that ate away at his bones and shredded his insides. The soul-crushing, gut-wrenching agony had been too much to bear. He’d known he was going to die.
Many times he’d craved death, but as it sat staring at him, Charon realized he wasn’t ready to die. He wanted to live, if for no other reason than to kill Jason Wallace.
Charon looked down at the cut in his ruined navy pullover and flattened his lips. It was the other Warriors, the ones he’d kept his distance from who had saved him.
No one knew how or why another Warrior’s blood could counteract
drough
blood, but it did. They used their blood to help him hang on to life until they could reach MacLeod Castle and Sonya, a Druid who had amazing healing magic that could help him.
He owed her a debt that could never be repaid. Just as he owed Phelan, Arran, and the others for saving him.
Charon wasn’t the only one disturbed by the turn of events with the
drough
blood. Phelan’s blood, that could heal anything and anyone of any affliction, had no effect on Charon’s wound.
He’d seen Phelan’s worried frown. But Phelan departed MacLeod Castle before Charon had a chance to speak with him. Neither felt they belonged with the Warriors at the castle, which had formed a tight friendship between them.
It was an odd friendship, one neither Warrior could have seen coming, but they were bound together. And not just because they were immortal.
Charon knew Phelan would eventually show up to discuss what might have gone wrong when Charon hadn’t been healed by his blood. He wanted answers to give to Phelan, but what could he say when the power of the gods within them couldn’t help?
He ran a hand down his face and turned away from his building. There was too much on his mind for him to face those within. Especially Laura with her pale green eyes, eyes that pierced him to his very soul.
Charon walked down the hill, following the path he’d worn over the years. It meandered through the thick forest, dozens of other paths branching off along the way. He had many trails he’d used over the centuries, but there was only one place he wanted to be right now.
He came to the sixth fork in the path and turned left. Another three hundred yards and he halted, his gaze taking in the valley below him. It lay nearly untouched by time. Beautiful and serene.
The trees stretched high into the sky, their thick limbs heavy with leaves. Even now he could hear them rustle as a breeze swept through the dense foliage. The sun broke through the clouds, its rays shining brightly on the small loch. The water dazzled like golden fairy wings with the reflection of light.
This was his haven, his sanctuary.
The one place he could let down his guard and allow the horrors of the world he lived in to show.
* * *
Laura Black watched Charon from the offices on the second story. She’d rushed to the window when she heard his car pull up. The instant the tires crunched on the gravel, she’d known it was him.
Even as she knew she shouldn’t, she stared. Through the windshield she could make out his strong jaw and the chocolate-colored locks of his hair that fell just past his chin.