Page 117 of Dark Victory

He had never known so much fear. Worse, it was déjà vu—somehow, he had already been through this, but his memory escaped him. The only thing he was certain of was that she needed him as never before. For he somehow knew that only one witch would survive this night.

“Tabitha!” he roared, and he bounded to the tower door, leaping to the uppermost floor. As he reached the landing, the heat from the fire inside the tower chamber blasted him, burning his face, chest and hands. He saw the fire scorching a solid wall across half of the tower room, and his wife, trapped against the far wall by it, the flames dangerously close to her velvet skirts.

His horror briefly paralyzed him.

Criosaidh stood on the fire wall’s other side, where the rest of the chamber was untouched by the flames. She turned arrogantly to him. “You are too late, Macleod. Tonight she dies…and your life as you know it is over.” She laughed.

The heat had caused him to crouch. He straightened, shocked. In that moment, as Tabitha’s gaze met his, he knew he was looking not at his wife but at the woman he had fallen in love with two-and-a-half centuries ago. Tabitha had crossed time!

The woman in so much jeopardy was achingly innocent and so terribly young. She’d come from their past, from their first days together. She was inexperienced, no match for Criosaidh now.

“Macleod!” she cried desperately.

He choked. She hadn’t called him by his clan name in centuries.

And she knew he was from her future, because her eyes were wide and shocked.

He hardened. If she died in that fire, the life they had spent together, the life they had built across two-and-a-half centuries, the children and grandchildren they had begotten and raised, would all be destroyed.

And it was what Criosaidh wanted.

Yet in the back of his mind, he had an acute awareness of having tried to save her this way once—and of having failed.

Too much was at stake. Worse, he needed to remember, but the gods always made certain to erase life-altering memories. He had resolved his differences with them over time, but sometimes their ways still angered him.

He blasted Criosaidh with his power, at once furious and determined, but she had wrapped herself in a protective spell and his power fell harmlessly away from her. Now, as it hit the floor and was diverted to the walls behind her, as rock and stone cracked apart, it remained so damned familiar.

He looked at Tabitha, refusing to panic. He’d forgotten how young she’d once been, but she was as beautiful and brave as ever. He was aware that she was using her powers, even before the fire wall shifted and moved back toward Criosaidh. He tried to join his mind with hers as he always did when they battled evil, and he felt her surprise as his power touched and enabled hers. Their eyes met again. It was her first time—it felt like the first time for him, too.

Can ye hear me? Let me aid ye now.

I can hear you…I will not die today, Macleod. I won’t!

And he fell in love with her all over again. He felt a hundred and eleven years old, the age he’d been when he’d first seen her in the flesh in New York.

“Fire be hungry, fire be quick. Get the Macleod bitch,” Criosaidh said, breaking the moment of union.

Even as she spoke, he knew and he roared “No!” while blasting the black witch again. This time, taken unaware, she gasped in pain and was driven back into the untouched wall, but it didn’t matter.

Tabitha went still as the flames circled her dangerously.

He ran to Criosaidh and seized her with his bare hands. “Stop the fire or die!”

She sneered at him and vanished.

Tabitha screamed.

In horror, he turned and saw her blue velvet gown on fire. And then she was engulfed in the flames.

Tabitha’s frightened amber gaze met his and it was all he could see of her now. But he heard her.

I love you…

He knew these were her last, dying words.

She could not die, not when she was only twenty-nine! It would change their lives, their history, and it would destroy their greatest creation—their children and grandchildren!

And he could not, would not, live without her!