Midnight's Temptation

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Trepidation and restlessness settled in Phelan’s chest after his phone call with Fallon. Phelan gunned the Ducati as he drove faster, hoping that somehow the speed would dissolve the worry over Charon from his chest.

He put on the brake as he came up behind a car. Phelan saw the Slow Now sign, but the driver didn’t heed it as they reached the almost 90-degree turn.

They were either locals or tourists. The sudden brakes flaring and the car’s skidding of tires told Phelan they were tourists.

He had to come to a stop and waited for them to take the turn at a turtle’s pace. Phelan glanced ahead and saw he had a small portion of road in which to go around them.

It wasn’t something he would chance in a car, but he wasn’t in a car. He was on the Ducati.

Phelan revved the motorbike and squealed his tires before he raced around them. He easily cleared them and got back into his lane right before he saw the Yield sign as he came to the one-lane stone bridge.

He often heard tourists complain about the bridges, but few of them realized they had been built when people used carriages. The bridges were wide enough for one carriage to cross at a time.

When Phelan had gone another ten miles he pulled off the main road onto a dirt road. As soon as he found a good spot, he pulled into the grass and shut off the motorbike.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t sense Druid magic from his bike, but sometimes being on the Ducati when he was searching for someone made things more difficult. It was better if he did his search on foot.

Phelan put the kickstand down and got off the bike. He removed the helmet and placed it on the seat. Just as he turned he spotted a pine marten on a nearby log.

The animal made him think of Charon and how one night they’d had too much to drink and raced to see who could be the first to catch one of the quick-footed animals.

Needless to say, neither came up with the prize.

“Damn you, Charon.”

Phelan ran a hand down his face and sighed. He ran over Fallon’s conversation again. Something was wrong with Larena, and she suspected it had to do with the drough blood in the X90 bullets that had been used to kill her.

The same blood that had nearly taken Charon’s life.

Or so Charon said.

Phelan recalled all too well being in the backseat of the car as they drove away from Wallace’s mansion after the battle. Charon’s limp body was covered in blood from the knife wound.

They had gone to Wallace’s to help Arran get Ronnie back after she was captured. They hadn’t expected Wallace to have droughs working for him. Droughs were notorious for doing things alone, but Wallace thought differently.

The droughs did their work and stopped their attack. For the most part. Charon and Phelan had gone undetected by the droughs and turned the tide back in their favor.

Yet, Charon stepped in front of a dagger dipped in drough blood meant for Arran.

All the Warriors’ powers were affected by something at the mansion. Fallon couldn’t jump them back to the castle. They had no choice but to pile into the car and drive back.

Every Warrior in the car had given their blood to Charon, but nothing had helped. Phelan still remembered the helplessness he felt when, for the first time, his blood failed to heal.

He long suspected the power in his blood had nothing to do with the god inside him. If that was true, then it should’ve healed Charon instantly. But it hadn’t. The blood of the Warriors helped to slow the drough blood inside him, but it didn’t stop it.

Halfway back to the castle their powers returned and Fallon took Charon. Phelan had waited anxiously to know Charon had recovered with the help of the Druids.

What Charon failed to mention was that the pain of the wound continued to bother him. It had never happened before. It reinforced everyone’s suspicion that Wallace had done something to the drough blood to make it stronger somehow.

The droughs they fought continued to get more powerful and attack in new, unconventional ways. How could the Warriors keep up? They were constantly one step behind. At that rate, the droughs would win the war.

Phelan’s thoughts turned to Aisley. The mere mention of her in a world of evil and darkness made his stomach hurt. She was meant for so much more.

He had always wanted to kill Wallace, but now he had a very specific reason. Aisley.

Was this how Charon and the others with mates felt? The anxiety, fear, and dread was swallowing him whole. He wanted to find Wallace, but at the same time he wanted to be with Aisley to protect her.

He couldn’t be in both places.

“Fuck,” Phelan growled angrily.

What a damned predicament. He took a deep breath and looked around him. Clutters of trees dotted the ground, and in between was tall grass swaying in the wind.

Droplets of water fell from the leaves above him from the storm the night before. He slowly moved his gaze around him. There were few places Wallace could hide in this area, and with Phelan’s enhanced vision, he didn’t need to go search every grove of trees.

When he was satisfied he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary or feel drough magic, he climbed on the Ducati and got back on the road.

There were hours of searching ahead of him.

He could only hope Aisley was at the cottage when he returned.

* * *

Aisley had to tamp down the magic that surged through her. It was instinct for a Druid to call upon her magic in a crisis. It had taken her seeing the gray-skinned creatures’ frenzied attack on Jason as he used his magic that stopped hers cold.

The first brush of the mist touched the tip of her shoes. A feeling of defeat and despair consumed her. It swept over her, swallowed her.

Drowned her.

Aisley closed her eyes and waited for the mist. There was no use running, no point in trying to get away. She was a useless, pointless Druid. She deserved the agony about to befall her.

Phelan’s blue-gray eyes filled with desire flashed in her mind.

She grasped his image and held onto it. The more she concentrated on him, the more she was able to throw off the feelings crushing her.

“No,” she whispered as she jumped to her feet and ran out of the house.

She raced into the forest with no clear thought to where she was going—only that she had to get away. Aisley ran until she couldn’t breathe, and then she ran some more.

A rabbit darted in front of her. She smothered a gasp and leaped over it, only to land awkwardly on her ankle. It brought her to a halt as she collapsed on the ground.

Aisley looked over her shoulder thinking Jason or the monsters would appear at any moment. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes turned to hours, and nothing came for her.

A red squirrel sat on a limb in a nearby hawthorn tree eating a nut and watching her. Blackbirds and finches flew around as if she didn’t exist. The sway of the limbs in the breeze lulled her.

The forest was a comfort she had never known before. She assumed it was being with Phelan, and he did have something to do with it.

Now that she was by herself however, she could feel it. The forest was alive with life. And magic.

Aisley scooted toward a fallen tree and straddled it so that she leaned back against the trunk of another tree. The rough bark of the pine scraped her palms. At her feet were clusters of ferns, a bright green against the brown of the earth and pine needles.

How had she never ventured into a forest alone before? How had she never felt the pull?

She closed her eyes and simply existed. It wasn’t long before she heard a flutter of wings near her. They were too slow for a bird. A butterfly perhaps?

A sound to her left drew her attention. She listened to the scrape of claws on a tree and recognized it was a pine marten. Rabbits called out behind her. Two squirrels chased each other from tree to tree.

Aisley froze as she heard the distant sound of drums. The beat was slow, rhythmic. She focused on it, trying to determine where it was coming from. It didn’t frighten her, because somehow she knew it came from magic.

Her heart began to beat in time with the drums. Aisley had no idea how long she drifted in a strange space of time with the drums. All she knew was that it felt right, as if she should have heard them years ago.

The drums grew louder, and suddenly chanting began. She instantly retreated, but they wouldn’t let her loose. The thousands of voices chanting in words she couldn’t make out urged her to them, beckoned her.

She knew no fear. Only … a strange sense of peace and rightness. She drifted toward the chanting, though she knew it wasn’t really her body. It was more like her conscience, or her soul.

“Aisley,” the thousand voices said in unison.

“Who are you?”

“He’s coming for you. He’s growing stronger.”

“Jason,” she said.

“Yesssss.”

“Can I escape him?”

“Only with the one you trust.”

Aisley knew they referred to Phelan. He was the only one she trusted. “Phelan won’t help me when he learns I’m a drough.”

“Betrayal.”

“Are you telling me I’ll betray someone?”

“Betrayal and death.”

She tried to remain calm. “Is there a way I can kill Jason so that he never returns to the land of the living?”

“You have a choice coming. A choice, Aisley.”

“What choice? Please. Help me with Jason. Let me do this to make up for my bad choices.”

Even as she asked the question the chanting and drums began to grow faint. She tried to follow them, but they were gone as suddenly as they had come.

Aisley opened her eyes and sighed. She wasn’t sure who the voices were, but the magic that had surrounded her didn’t feel evil. If felt pure.

She frowned as her thoughts turned to what their voices had told her. Jason was coming for her. Betrayal and death awaited her. And the only one who could help her escape Jason was Phelan.

It was the choice they spoke of that kept running through her mind. Were the voices telling Phelan she was drough? Or was it something else?

“Bugger. I hate cryptic messages,” she whispered.

Aisley looked down at her watch to see it was nearing four in the afternoon. She couldn’t believe she’d been gone almost eight hours. It was time to get back.

She gingerly stood on her injured ankle. There was only a twinge of pain that dissipated after a minute. With her shoulders squared, she turned in the direction she had come and started back.

Amazingly enough, she managed to reach Phelan’s cabin in an hour without any mishap. Which was a first for her since she had ran blindly into the forest.

She also thought she ran much farther. There was definitely something going on, she just wasn’t sure what.

When she reached the cabin, she paused before she stepped onto the porch. The door still stood wide open from when she’d flung it on her way out.

Aisley swallowed past the lump in her throat and walked into the house. Room by room she searched and found nothing. She ended up in the bedroom where the mist had come.

There, on the mirror hanging on the wall, written in what looked like a mix of blood and dirt was her name.