Page 137 of Enchantment of a Highlander

She was dead.

His mind whispered this, but his heart could not believe it.

Arrows loosed from the retinue who’d emerged from the trees and the grunts of injury sounded behind Alec.

He waited for the bite of a blade, for an arrow to pierce his own heart, for the pain of this loss to end.

But it did not come.

The two forces crashed together in a cacophony of shouts and clattering weapons.

“Celia.” A familiar voice sounded above Alec.

He looked up to see Duncan. He looked every bit a warrior with his kilt slung around his hips and a sword clutched in his fist. Tears glittered in his familiar green eyes.

“Is she…” the boy asked without asking.

Alec swallowed, unable to even speak his answer.

Duncan pursed his lips and nodded. His chin quivered, but he spoke anyway. “I know why ye turned her in, why ye knocked me senseless, aye?” He put his hand on Alec’s shoulder with more strength than he thought the boy capable of. “Ye couldna save her, but ye can avenge her.”

He indicated the battle waging behind him. Shouts and cries and metal on metal sounded from the mass.

Duncan grabbed Alec’s blade from the ground where he must have dropped it at some point. The boy held it out to him, hilt first. “For Celia.”

Alec eased her from his arms so she rested on the ground like an angel, her hair fanned around her. The rain had stopped and she lay untouched. Peaceful.

Alec grabbed the blade and squeezed the hilt with all the force of his grief. “For Celia.”

He nodded to the boy and together they charged into the fray of battle with her name on their lips and her memory in their hearts.

And Alec fought, not with darkness, but with light.

Celia’s final gift to him.

• • •

Within minutes of Alec joining the fight, the battle ended with MacDougall’s men surrendering their blades. With no one left to pay them, there was no motivation.

Immediately Alec returned to where Celia lay undisturbed. A tight ball of red fur lay curled at her side. Ruadh.

Alec was not the only one who knew the crushing impact of her loss.

He stared down at her, looking peaceful save where a vicious ring of purple-red bruise showed on her slender neck.

The battle had not assuaged the savage ache in his chest.

His people would be safe now, free from attacks from the “outlaws” working for MacDougall.

He could restore his inheritance in peace.

But without her it would never be home.

“She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever met,” Duncan said quietly beside him. “And also the most caring. I’d have died were it no for her.”

Niall appeared and made the sign of the cross. “She saved my daughter once from the plague. May God rest her good soul.”

Alec looked at the other man. He hadn’t expected to ever see him again, let alone in battle.