Now, staring down at his ancient enemy holding his woman captive, something inside him changed.

He no longer cared if Lucan lived or died. All that mattered was getting the bastard’s hands off his wife long enough to save her. Nothing else. Just that his woman live. That she see another dawn, be granted another day. She was his light, his truth, his highest aspiration.

Love for her filled him so completely that, in the space between one heartbeat and the next, eleven centuries of hatred and lust for vengeance were burned out of him as if they’d never been.

Trevayne was no longer his problem. Only Jessica was.

A quiet resolve, an unexpected serenity filled him, unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

“I would have bargained with the devil for you, too, lass,” he said softly. “I’d have done anything too. I love you, Jessica. You are my one true mate, lass. Never forget that.”

“Back in the glass, Highlander,” Lucan snarled. “Or she dies. I mean it! Now!”

“You want to pass the tithe through, Lucan? Fine. Be my guest. I won’t stop you.”

In one smooth, fluid motion, he turned, lifted the mirror from the wall, spun about, and tossed it into the air, casting it end over end, out and over fifty-odd stairs, down to the hard marble floor below.

“Catch.”

For the second time in her life, events unfolded for Jessi as if in slow motion.

With Cian’s admission that she was his one true mate ringing in her ears, she watched the only thing that could keep him alive plummet to virtually certain destruction.

She knew why he’d done it. To save her. Trevayne could not both hold her and go after the mirror. Cian had forced him to choose.

Her husband knew his ancient enemy well. Of course he’d go after the mirror. Survive now, live to kill another day.

The rope slackened around her neck as Lucan released the handles and lunged forward.

She tugged the garrote from her throat and dropped it to the floor, watching, heart pounding.

If, by some miracle, Lucan managed to actually catch the man-sized looking glass, she wouldn’t be surprised if the ancient mirror shattered merely from the impact of him stopping its fall.

Eyes huge, she tipped her head back and up. Cian stood at the top of the stairs, staring down at her. Love blazed in his eyes so fiercely, so intensely, that it took her breath away.

She stared at him, drinking him in. She knew she’d never make it up the stairs in time to touch him. To hold him. To kiss him just one last time.

Lucan was almost beneath the glass.

Almost.

She caught her breath and held it. Miracles sometimes happened. Maybe he’d reach it, shove the tithe through, and they’d all live to fight another day.

Mere inches from Lucan’s outstretched hands, the mirror crashed to the floor. One corner of the ornate golden frame struck marble with the sharp report of a gunshot.

The Dark Glass shattered into thousands of silvery, tinkling pieces.

To Jessi, it seemed as if the entire universe froze but for those glittering shards of silver cascading across the floor.

Her husband’s life lay in those pieces.

When the clock began chiming the midnight hour, her pent breath exploded from her lungs on a soft sob.

One. Two.

She raised her gaze from the floor, stared up at Cian. The Dark Glass was broken now, beyond repair. The tithe could never be paid again. She’d lost him.

Three. Four.

Dimly she was aware of Lucan, frozen, looking all-too-humanly bewildered, standing next to the twisted frame, in the midst of the shattered glass.

Five. Six.

She felt the same. Bewildered. Disbelieving. Devastated. She’d begun the day with so much hope, only to end it with none.

Dimly she was aware that the other MacKeltar had, at some point, joined Dageus behind the balustrade and everyone seemed rooted to the ground, transfixed by the scene before them.

Seven. Eight.

There was a silent request in her husband’s eyes. She knew what it was.

She’d promised not to watch him die. To remember him as her man, not a prisoner of Dark Magycks.

Nine.

It was a promise she’d always meant to keep. Just not this way. Dear God, just not this way. “I love you, Cian,” she cried.

Ten. Eleven.

Her promise kept was all she had left to give him.

Tears spilled down her cheeks when she squeezed her eyes shut.

Twelve.

28

It was Lucan’s laughter—after the twelfth chime—that made her eyes snap open again.

Jessi gaped blankly at the dark sorcerer who was still, mystifyingly, standing there.