Page 77 of Dark Rival

She knelt over another wounded man, ignoring Royce’s expletive. He clasped her shoulder. She said quickly, “Please don’t interfere. I can do this.”

“I dinna think so.” But he released her, his face tight and grim.

Allie tried to find her power. It seemed weak and far away and almost nonexistent, like the illusion of an oasis in the desert.

Shit, she thought. The man lying prone in the dirt was conscious and he was regarding her with wide, hopeful but pain-filled eyes. She sucked up all her determination, all her strength. She found the white light flickering inside her and seized it, somehow. It felt so elusive now.

She pushed it at the man, who had been stabbed many times. He gasped as her warm healing power washed over him.

But bathing him in her light wasn’t going to heal him. She needed to flood those wounds, Allie thought grimly. She trembled and on all fours, reached deeper than she would have ever believed possible. The white light was there. She pulled it out, hurting physically now, as if someone was pulling her organs out of her body while she lived and breathed and watched. Sweat blinded her. She wanted to moan—she did. Then she summoned up all her strength and flooded the man with healing light.

The ground spun. The day turned ominously gray. She felt Royce’s hands on her as she fell forward into the dirt.

As he lifted her into his arms there was so much relief and even more exhaustion—and then blackness claimed her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ROYCE GAZED DOWN at the tiny woman in his arms and felt his fear escalate wildly. She had become as pale as linen before it was dyed. She didn’t even appear to be breathing. “MacNeil!” he cried and he heard the desperation in his tone.

The Abbot remained kneeling over the last of the wounded. “Take her in. I’ll be up shortly,” the Master said, not looking up.

Claire touched his arm, commiseration in her eyes. “Follow me.”

Royce nodded, his stomach twisted into painful knots. Ailios was the bravest person he had ever seen, man or woman, and she could not die now. She could not have given her own life to save the others. Terrified, he followed Claire into the hall and up the stairs of Malcolm’s tower, Ailios as light as a small child in his arms—and as still as a corpse. Claire shoved open a door to a small, pleasant bedchamber and he laid Ailios on the bed. She didn’t stir.

He sat beside her, seizing her hands. He was horrified because they were so cold, and he placed his cheek close to her nose, aware of his racing heartbeat, his rampant fear. At first, he felt nothing, and his fear became terror. Ailios could not be dead.

And then he felt her faint, shallow breath on his face. Relief made it impossible to speak clearly. “She’s barely breathing,” he said thickly. How could this be happening? He had brought her to Dunroch to protect her. It had been his best judgment that Dunroch would be a safe haven for her, with Malcolm to defend her. Instead the deamhanain had followed them there. Moffat had dared to violate Dunroch and he had almost seized her.

He should have never brought her to Dunroch; he should have never thought to hand her over to Malcolm. MacNeil had chosen him for a reason.

“She is selfless,” Claire said, interrupting his panicked, racing thoughts.

“Aye, she never thinks o’ herself.” She had tried to heal too many of the wounded, but that was what Ailios would do, for he knew her now. If another battle came, she would act no differently. But only a true goddess could heal so many of the sick and dying. She wasn’t a goddess. If she could not control her need to heal, someone had to do it for her. This was the fifteenth century, where battles were common, a weekly event.

Surely it wasn’t written that she would die now, this way.

She was going to be his lover in the future!

“How ill is she?” he asked Claire without turning to look at her. He kept Ailios’s hands clasped tightly against his chest. They remained as cold as the water in the ocean below Dunroch.

“I can feel her life.”

Did Claire take him for a fool? Furious, he looked at her. “Aye, what’s left of it! How much life is left? Or has she killed herself?” he demanded. His heart raced in agitation. What could he do to help her? He had never felt so powerless.

“I don’t know,” Claire whispered, ashen. “She’s so weak.”

MacNeil strode in, his bold red and black plaid swinging against his muscular thighs. “I dinna think to meet Elasaid’s daughter this way,” he said grimly.

In common circumstance, MacNeil was a man of smiles, wisdom and wit. He was only deadly serious when the situation was dire. He was deadly serious now.

Royce stood so the Master could sit beside Ailios. “She would die to save even the most common life,” he said harshly.

MacNeil stroked Ailios’s thick dark hair away from her cheeks. “Such a small woman for such a great Healer,” he murmured. “Aye, like her mother, she will give to others until the death.”

Royce felt like striking the other man. “She willna die. She is small—an’ mine.”

MacNeil did not bother to glance at him, his gaze remaining on Ailios. He cupped her cheek. Royce fell silent, because he could actually see the Master sending her a white light. A moment later he saw her chest rise and fall visibly; two small spots of pink color appeared on her cheeks. Her lashes fluttered but her eyes didn’t open. And for the first time in his life, Royce felt faint. Relief overwhelmed him.