Page 151 of Dark Lover

Fury rose up. There was distant laughter now.

Moray was playing with him again, as he’d done for sixty-six years.

Sam was in trouble. He felt it in his heart. He felt it in his soul. He didn’t have time to play Moray’s cat and mouse game. His mind sharpened and he struggled to find the reality that was his Loch Awe home. His father and Brie, Macleod and Tabby, were somewhere just beyond his grasp, his vision. He looked down the hall at all the doors, trying to see his salon, his entry hall. And he saw Sam.

She was lying on the floor in a back hallway, in a pool of her own blood.

It was visual telepathy.

He started to run down the hall. The walls shifted. He saw painted walls and masterpieces. Then they were concrete again, filled with steel doors. “Sam!”

The walls kept shifting. Ahead a pair of windows emerged, the sun shining through them, Loch Awe beyond.

Ian ran harder down the hall, past the steel doors, toward those two windows. He had to get back to the real world.

The floor tilted. Concrete became fine, hand-dyed wool.

He skidded on a plank wood floor, past his Portuguese library desk. A wall of books faced him. He spun around. He was in his library. He ran across the room, to the door.

Sam lay on the floor in the hall.

He knelt, horrified. She could not die.

She was limp and nearly lifeless in his arms.

It was impossible! Sam Rose was undefeatable. She was the most magnificent, most courageous woman he knew! “Ye can’t die!”

He held her, his heart frantic. He could not live without her.

He loved this woman.

Booted steps sounded and he heard Tabby scream. Aidan knelt beside him. “Let me heal her.”

Ian looked up at his father. “Save her. Please.”

“He can’t save her.” Moray laughed at them.

As one, Ian and Aidan turned. Tabby sank down to her knees and started chanting. Macleod said softly, his expression ruthless, “Ye canna leap, deamhan.”

Ian and Aidan slowly stood. Ian had never wanted to kill anyone more. “Save Sam,” he told his father. “He’s mine.”

Moray’s eyes widened.

“What’s wrong, Father?” Aidan taunted. “Afraid?”

“My soul is immortal,” Moray snarled, “as is my power!” Black power blazed.

Ian was already blasting him and Macleod and Aidan struck a scant instant later. Black and white power collided and screamed. Moray struck again, crouching now. The two great waves of power hit each other again. Moray’s power blazed directly at Ian, past the clashing energies in the room.

As the black power blazed at him, Ian tensed for the blow. To his shock, it hit an invisible wall and ricocheted away. Tabby’s protection spell. Power was striking power between the men, and Ian flung everything he had at Moray. And to his surprise, he saw the silver wave sizzling into his grandfather’s chest.

Moray transformed into Hemmer once again. Ian straightened as Hemmer gasped, seizing himself and looking down at his bloody chest. Aidan and Macleod struck as one.

Hemmer looked up. His eyes remained Moray’s—and they were filled with fury and hatred. “I am immortal,” he rasped.

Ian struck again. Although Moray’s eyes blazed red, Hemmer was eerily pale and slowly collapsing. He struck one more time. Suddenly brown eyes emerged in his face, filled with the shock of the dying before turning sightless. His body sparking red and black, Hemmer hit the floor.

Black power rushed out of him with a physical roar, swirling about the room.