“Cease, mortal,” Adam’s voice whispered on the breeze.

The Hawk laughed.

“You find this amusing? You think to incite my wrath and live to laugh about it? Are you truly such a madman? For you are not my match.”

The Hawk was still smiling when he said softly, “I was more than your match when it came to Adrienne.”

“Face your executioner, pretty bird.” Adam stepped menacingly out of the dense Highland mist.

The two men regarded each other savagely.

Adam stepped closer.

So did the Hawk. “Fair battle, fickle fae. Unless you’re too afraid.”

“This is what you called me for? A fistfight?”

“Take a mortal form, Adam. Fight me to the death.”

“We don’t die.” Adam sneered.

“Then fight me to the draw. Fight me fair.”

They circled each other warily, muscled frames abristle with unleashed hostility. The violence that had simmered since the moment these two men had met escalated to a roiling boil. It was a relief to the Hawk to have it out, to have it done with. And oh, get his hands on that bastard smithy at last!

“Fair battle is all I’ve ever done.”

“You lie, fool. You cheated at every turn.”

“I’ve never cheated!”

“Well, don’t cheat now,” Hawk warned as they faced off. “Bare-handed. Man to man, you are my match in size. Are you in strength, agility, and cunning? I think not.”

Adam shrugged indolently. “You will rue the day you were born, pretty bird. I’ve already beaten you and taken your wife, but this day, I will seal your fate. This day I will destroy Dalkeith, until nothing but granite crumbs blow over the cliff’s edge to meet the hungry sea. Your bones will be among them, Hawk.”

Hawk threw his dark head back and laughed.

Shrouded in the heavy mist, the court of the Tuatha De Danaan watched the fight.

“The Hawk is winning!”

Silvery sigh. “So much man.”

“See him move! Fast as a panther, deadly as a python.”

“Think not of him, he is safe from all of us now. So I have commanded,” the Queen snapped on a frigid gust of air.

A long silence.

“Will the fool play fair?” queried Aine, the quiet, mousy fairy.

The Queen sighed. “Has he ever?”

Adrienne clutched Marie’s hand and gasped aloud as she felt the soft kick in her womb. Somehow it felt as if the Hawk were near and needed her strength and love. As if something magical hovered, almost tangible enough to grasp with her slender fingers. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and willed her heart across the chasms of time.

Adam snarled. “Enough of this mortal idiocy. It’s time to end this once and for all.” He was bleeding, his lip cut and nose shattered. Adam used his immortal strength to fling the Hawk to the ground at his feet. A sword appeared in Adam’s hand, and he laid the blade against the mortal’s throat. “Compact be damned,” Adam muttered, balancing the razor-sharp edge flush to the Hawk’s jugular. He cocked a brow and taunted the fallen mortal. “You know, for a moment there, I was worried you might have managed to learn something about my race, the kind of thing we don’t like mortals to know. But it seems I was right about you all along, and my worry was for naught. You are truly thick-witted. You really thought you could best me in a fistfight?” Adam shook his head and tsk-tsked. “Hardly. It takes more than that to defeat my kind. Oh, and by the by, prepare to die, mortal.”

But his threat elicited nary a quiver from the legend at his feet. Instead the Hawk arrogantly wrapped his hand around the blade and looked deep into Adam’s eyes. The intensity of the mortal’s gaze latched on to Adam’s and held with a strength all its own.

Adam tensed, and a flicker of uncertainty flashed across his face.

Hawk smiled. “Amadan Dubh, I compel you thusly …”

Adam froze and his jaw dropped, belying a very human expression of astonishment. The sword melted from his hand as the words of the ancient ritual of binding mired him tightly. “You can’t do this!” Adam spit out.

But the Hawk could, and did.

Adam growled low in his throat. It was not a human sound at all.

Twenty minutes later, Adam was gaping in disbelief. The Hawk had actually unrolled a parchment scroll from his sporran and was reading a very long, very specific list of demands.

“… and you will never come near Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea again …”

Adam shuddered. “Are you almost done, pretty bird?”