She could hear the blood rushing through her veins, feel it pulsing down her arm and into her hand, smell the halo of ozone that suddenly wafted around her.

Her belly churned. Her back felt on fire, the intense heat shooting through her middle. A sharp pain stabbed down the length of her left arm. Her lungs and ribs felt crushed.

She could feel her flesh burning, almost smell it.

A hand touched her shoulder, and a voice whispered beside her ear. “Send it into him, Mercedes,” Father Daar instructed from a great distance. “Push, girl. Send the energy to Morgan.”

Sadie concentrated on moving the heat. She held her palm fiercely against Morgan’s side, pushing the knot of wood into his wound. Fire shot through her body. Her muscles trembled. Sadie fought not to lose consciousness, to keep the energy flowing to Morgan.

And slowly, ever so slowly, his heartbeat grew stronger.

And that madeher stronger.

Sadie focused her thoughts. She pictured Morgan being healthy in her mind’s eye, saw him laughing, glowing with the fire of passion as he made love to her. She saw him swimming naked in the lake, felt his patience even when he was angry with her. And she heard him calling hergràineag in a tone that was anything but endearing.

And Sadie sent him her love.

The green light that had faded in the destructive storm suddenly flashed and throbbed around her, sparking to a brilliant white before settling back into the gentle and steady glow of winter spruce.

“I had a dream,” came Morgan’s whispered voice.

Sadie pulled the sleeve of her shirt over her right hand and brushed the hair from his face as she smiled down at him.

“Did you see your mother and father?” she asked softly.

“My mum,” he answered. “Da wasn’t there.”

Because he’s here,Sadie thought to herself, peeking at the wolf who now had his nose tucked firmly against Morgan’s arm.

“I’m so sleepy, wife,” Morgan muttered, closing his eyes.

“Then sleep, husband,” she whispered, stroking his chest in comforting circles. “And know that I love you.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Daar sat on a rock in the middleof the destroyed and deserted grotto and glared at the rubble created by Morgan’s desperate attempt to save his wife’s life.

It seemed all the magic was not gone. He could still feel something quietly humming, energizing the air. The wizard kicked the splinters of cherrywood at his feet. A small branch from one of the trees that had grown here must have escaped the destruction. He just couldn’t find the damned source of the hum.

With a weary sigh, Daar sat down on one of the smaller rocks and stared at the dig marks Morgan had made. When the warrior had awakened from his sleep and had been told that Mercedes had run away, Morgan hadn’t flown into a rage as they’d all been expecting. No, he’d simply gotten up, stared at the destruction he’d wrought, and asked what had happened to Eric Hellman.

Greylen had silently pointed to the pile of rubble that had once been the cliff at the far end of what had once been the pool. Morgan had walked over, pushed a few rocks out of the way, and started digging until he had amassed a small pile of gold nuggets. He’d tied the nuggets up in his shirt and then climbed the rubble, using his considerable strength to finish the destruction. Morgan had rained a final avalanche of boulders down over Hellman’s grave, then dusted off his hands and walked away.

Daar continued to search for that small hint of magic that seemed to have survived. He needed a new staff, and it would be nice if he could find a branch from this place. The cherrywood growing here had soaked up the magical energy from the waters that had flowed from the high mountain lake. This was blessed wood, and a cane from here would be much easier to train.

Daar wanted one now more than ever. He didn’t care to be powerless when it came to dealing with the MacKeages. For mere mortals, they were proving themselves powerful enough in their own right.

Faol suddenly stepped into sight, trotting over to one of the small remaining puddles.

He took a drink, lazily lapping at the water for several minutes, before he lifted his head and stared at Daar.

“Duncan, ya old warmonger,” Daar said, not unkindly. “Your sons have found themselves good lives here. There’s no need for ya still to be hanging around.”

Faol rumbled a growl from his chest and turned and started climbing over the rubble.

The wolf briefly disappeared from sight. He reappeared just off to Daar’s right, holding a two-foot-long stick in his mouth.

With a shout of surprise, Daar jumped to his feet. “That’s my old staff!” he yelped, quickly scrambling over the rubble to reach the wolf. “The half Grey threw away two years ago. Give that to me!”

Faol trotted toward the valley.

“Hey! Get back here, you damn dog!” Daar shouted, awkwardly following him. “That’s my staff!”

His tail wagging like a banner of victory, Faol picked up his pace and continued down the winding and now dry streambed, Daar’s staff held in his mouth like a prize of war.

The aging wizard ran until he was out of breath and couldn’t go on, bending over with his hands on his knees, tiredly panting, overjoyed to know his old staff had shot free of the waterfall before it had closed, and frustrated that it was still out of his reach.

A howl came to Daar then, climbing up the side of the valley toward him in maddening echoes of triumph.

Daar sat down on a nearby log, pulling his white collar from his frock and undoing three buttons. God’s teeth, but he was reaching the end of his patience. He kept losing his magic.

He shook his weary head in dismay. He’d had that old staff with him for more than fourteen hundred years, a gift from his mentor when Daar had been a young man of seventy-nine. And in only two years the MacKeages had managed to destroy not only it but the new staff he’d been training for Greylen and Grace’s unborn daughter, Winter.

All that remained of his magic was now being carried away by a mean-spirited wolf.

And just what was Daar going to tell Grey’s seventh daughter, Winter, when she came to him a grown woman ready to become a wizard?

Daar stood up finally, having caught most of his breath back. He needed that two-foot piece of his old staff. Faol couldn’t actually take it with him when he went back to wherever he came from. Spirits crossed over; material things did not.

With a disheartened sigh filled with self-pity, Daar stopped chasing the wolf and started walking instead in the direction of Michael MacBain’s home. Perhaps it was time he got better acquainted with MacBain and his young son while he searched for his old staff, which he was determined to find. Until then, he was staying the hell away from the MacKeages.

It took Sadie two hours to make itto the logging camp, and for every step of the way, she wished she had the old priest’s cane. Not for its magic but for the help it would give her to walk.

She had sneaked away from the MacKeages and Father Daar like a thief, not wanting to face Greylen’s wrath any longer—and definitely too cowardly to face Morgan when he woke up.

The beautiful gorge he’d tried so hard to protect was completely destroyed, thanks to her. He’d revealed its location and its magic in order to save her life and then had destroyed it saving her life a second time.

And she had nothing to give him in return. She didn’t even have her beauty anymore, which he had so greatly enjoyed yesterday when they’d spent the afternoon making love.

Even the gold was out of reach now.

But for that she was glad.

Morgan was right. Gold made people do terrible things. It turned them into murderers.

Sadie unzipped the fly on the tent to pulled out her sleeping bag, which she tied to the pack Eric had left discarded on the ground. The pack, the sleeping bag, and the food would allow Sadie to survive for the next few days, until she could decide what to do.