Redeemed (Heroes of the Highlands) - By Kerrigan Byrne Page 0,46

his forearm. The Fae blade sliced through his leather bracer and found purchase in the sinew there. Daroch cursed, and the wolves howled and snarled their displeasure.

Then he saw his moment. It was but a flash of an overextension on the part of Ly Erg, but using his heightened reflexes; Daroch reached over his body and with a vicious stroke of his sword and relieved Ly Erg of his blade by hacking through both of his hands and shearing them from the bone.

They fell uselessly to the highland grasses and rolled before being swiped by chattering polecats and swept somewhere beneath the earth.

Ly Erg looked at the stumps of his hands for an astounded moment before falling to his knees. The ravens cackled like mad from above, lending a discordant cacophony to the shocked stillness.

Daroch reveled in dark victory. “Never again will yer hands claim the lives of the innocent for yer sick amusement.” He raised his sword above his head, ignoring the trickle of blood down his arm. “And know that when I take yer head this time, it will be the last.”

The Queen’s transcendent Banshee scream ripped through him like a white-hot fire, causing him to go half blind. It felt as though his soul was tattered linen caught in the teeth of two competing hounds, each jerking and ripping in the opposite direction. But he managed to draw the last of his remaining faculties and send his blade through the Fae’s neck with the ease of a glowing-hot iron through candle wax.

One of the wolves caught the rolling head in his teeth before the entire pack fled the dangerous wail of the Banshee, their sensitive ears unable to stand the unnatural pitch.

Daroch dropped to his own knees, holding his ears and feeling the blood leak through his fingers. His teeth locked and a cry of pain ripped from a throat almost clogged with his own blood. He could feel it leaking like tears from his eyes.

He’d underestimated the willingness of the Queen to flout the consequences of the pact, and that might have been the end of him. And maybe Kylah as well.

Kylah’s awe at the defeat of Ly Erg was cut painfully short by her terror for Daroch. Even without his intellectual acumen, she’d known their odds for survival of the day were minimal, but she simply couldn’t allow the Queen’s second to hold her in an idle, unconcerned grasp while she watched the man she loved die on the ground, writhing in agony.

“Do not move and you may yet live,” Cliodnah’s hand-maiden whispered.

Kylah refused to listen. Her life didn’t matter without Daroch. With a mighty Banshee wail of her own to lend her strength, she pulled the dirk out of her sleeve and slashed at the hand-maiden, who jumped back and released her instantly, peering dubiously at the knife’s lethal point.

Once freed, she jerked away and barreled toward the Queen’s turned back. She surprised herself as much as Cliodnah when the dirk slid between the Banshee Queen’s ribs.

Cliodnah’s wail died instantly and her head spun on her shoulders at a frightening and unnatural angle. Turning the rest of her body from Daroch, she caught Kylah’s neck in a lightning-fast grip as her silver irises sparked and snapped overtaking the whites of her eye.

“Though you are one of the immortal ones, as your queen I can kill you in slow, immeasurably torturous increments.” Her voice fractured from one into many, some with a radiant, high-pitched shrill and others as deep as any man’s.

Kylah’s limbs struggled in panic, flailing in the air as Cliodnah crushed her neck and her powerful magic snapped through Kylah’s body more painfully than her flesh had ignited in the forge a year before. Black stars danced in her periphery, but her heart lifted to see Daroch groan and push himself upright.

Their eyes locked and she poured her heart into them even as she felt her life begin to ebb.

“What makes you think you can mean anything to him?” The Queen demanded. “He fucked me for months. For centuries of your time. How could a lowly, damaged highland washerwoman compete with a Faerie Queen?”

A soft hiss preceded a sickly wet sound as the sharpened point of Daroch’s staff punched through Cliodnah’s shoulder and chest, stopping inches from Kylah’s skin.

Daroch stood panting from where he’d hurled it like a javelin, blood drying on his neck and cheeks where it had leaked from his eyes and ears. The effect was terrifying. He looked like some