Dark Victory. Brenda Joyce

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Dark Victory - Brenda  Joyce

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Friday at midnight.

      Warning 1—Maclean is unpredictable and extremely dangerous. He has no loyalties and no friends. He has not ties to his family. He has proven many times that he has nothing to lose, not even his own life.

      Warning 2—Proceed with the assumption that Maclean has every possible power and will use them against all forces of good and evil to attain his own ends.

      *CDA agent or employee ** a Master or otherwise affiliated with the Brotherhood ***evil in any form

      Sam

      Sam Rose was a vigilante Slayer before becoming an agent at HCU. Her only personal life involved vigilante activities with her sister Tabitha and cousin Brie, both currently classified as MIT, as well as a friend, Allie Monroe, who currently resides in Carrick, Scotland. There is some question as to Agent Rose’s objectivity in her current assignment; records indicate several previous and hostile interactions with Maclean in Scotland last year. However, Agent Rose has yet to fail to accomplish her mission. Agent Rose’s loyalty to CDA is unquestionable.

      Note—Agent Rose has an active sexual life. There are no relationships, however. Involvement with Maclean is suspected and must be monitored.

      *CDA agent or employee **A Master or otherwise affiliated with the Brotherhood ***evil in any form

      Last Updated-July 19th, 2009

      Read the complete stories in Brenda Joyce’s The Masters of Time Series:

      Dark Embrace—Aidan and Brie

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      Dark Victory—Guy and Tabitha

      Dark Lover—Ian and Sam

       (available August 2009)

      PROLOGUE

      The Future

       June 19, 1550

       Near Melvaig, Scotland

      HE DID NOT KNOW what caused him to awaken.

      Guy Macleod sat bolt upright in his bed, his wife’s fury engulfing him. Horror began. Tabitha was rarely angry, but now her rage knew no bounds. He went completely still so that his extraordinary senses could locate her. She was supposed to be in Edinburgh, her sister’s guest. Immediately he knew she was not there—and that she was in great danger.

      He would die for her without blinking. He never panicked, but now he fought to stay calm, searching for her.

      And that was when he felt the familiar evil.

      Black and vast, filled with hatred and malevolence, they’d lived with this evil for two-hundred-and-fifty years. Criosaidh had powerful black magic. Tabitha had equally powerful white power. But Criosaidh had been stalking his wife with growing determination, as if impatient, and with a new boldness recently. Tabitha had scoffed at Guy’s concerns. Now, maybe too late, he knew he’d been right.

      He leaped from the bed, his gaze veering to the southern chamber window as he shrugged a leine over his muscular and battle-scarred body. The night sky was still and blue-black, glittering with a billion stars. His stare intensified. His senses sharpened. For one moment, even though Criosaidh’s stronghold at Melvaig was almost a day’s journey away by horse, he thought the night sky there was on fire. It was so oddly bright in the south. But that was impossible.

      Or was it?

      Tabitha’s power over fire continually amazed him. He had no more doubt now; Tabitha was at Melvaig—and so was Criosaidh.

      His alarm vanished, his fear died. He stepped into his boots, leaping as he did so.

      He had mastered the art of the leap through time and space centuries ago and he landed upright, dazed but battle ready, in Melvaig’s large central courtyard. The sky above was on fire.

      Incredulous, he saw huge balls of fire falling into the bailey. Men, women and children were running for the castle’s front gates, screaming in terror and trying to escape the inferno. For one moment, he wondered if the sun was breaking apart and falling in blazing pieces to the ground, even though he knew better. His gaze shifted. Above the entire stronghold was Melvaig’s tall central tower—and it was an inferno.

      Even though stone could not burn, chunks of the gray slabs were falling from the tower, the rocks ablaze, sizzling as they slammed down, only to burn holes into the bailey ground.

      Tabitha screamed.

      Criosaidh roared in answering rage.

      The tower swayed in the fiery night and more blazing stone blocks sheered from it, crashing to the earth below.

      They were at war.

      He did not have the Sight, but suddenly he experienced the strange feeling his wife so often referred to—déjà vu. He felt as if he were reliving this terrible moment, although he knew he was not.

      Only one witch would survive this night.

      “Tabitha!” he roared, and bounded to the tower door, leaping to the uppermost floor. As he reached the landing, the heat from the fire inside the tower chamber blasted him, burning his face, chest and hands. He saw the fire scorching a solid wall across half of the tower room. His wife was trapped against the far wall by the flames, which were dangerously close to her velvet skirts.

      Horror briefly paralyzed him.

      Criosaidh stood on the fire wall’s other side, where the rest of the chamber was untouched by the flames. “You are too late, Macleod. Tonight she dies…at last.”

      He had never come undone in battle, not once in almost four centuries. The heat had caused him to crouch; he straightened and flung all of his power at her, enraged as never before. “Ye die,” he roared, but she had wrapped herself in a protective spell, and his power fell harmlessly away from her. As it hit the floor and was diverted to the walls behind her, rock and stone cracked apart.

      Macleod looked at his beautiful wife, who was never afraid in a crisis. As their gazes met, he heard her as clearly as ever.

      I have known this day would come…You’ve known it, too.

      She thought she would be defeated? “No!” he roared at her, blasting Criosaidh again. His life had been an endless cycle of blood and death, his heart had been stone, until she had come to him two-and-a-half centuries ago, bringing joy and happiness with her. Tabitha had saved his life.

      Criosaidh smiled as his power was diverted by her spell, again.

      “Command the fire,” Macleod shouted at Tabitha.

      “I am trying,” she cried. “She has new powers!” Tabitha closed her eyes, visibly straining. And suddenly the fire wall shifted and moved back toward Criosaidh.

      Criosaidh hissed in displeasure. Macleod stood very still. His power could not move fire, but long ago he had learned how to use his mind to help Tabitha cast her magic. Now he slipped inside her with his mind. The union always made them stronger—evil had never defeated them when they became

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