Shoulder the Skye (Skye Druids #2)(69)
Author: Donna Grant

 

Bronwyn didn’t have to be told twice. She was inside with the engine started in seconds. As she floored the accelerator, something hit the side of the SUV. She slammed on the brakes, causing the vehicle to lunge forward. Then the back passenger door flew open, and Carlyle dove inside.

 

“Drive!” he bellowed.

 

Bronwyn stepped on the gas again as they sped off. “What about Finn and Sabryn?”

 

“They’ll find their way to the manor,” Elias said as he held on to the handle above his head.

 

Bronwyn shook her head. “I should’ve known he’d do something like this.”

 

“He must know Beth is in the house,” Carlyle said.

 

Elias grunted. “He suspects. What better way to find out than when no one is inside?”

 

“I should’ve known,” she said again and drove faster.

 

“Careful!” Carlyle shouted as she jerked the wheel to miss a fallen tree.

 

 

 

 

 

Sydney had never hated someone as much as he did Bronwyn. She had been nothing but a bane to his existence since the beginning. He’d been fooled by her pretty face and adventurous spirit. He should’ve known that she would royally fuck up his life in every way possible.

 

But she wouldn’t take Beth from him.

 

He knew how much Beth loved him. She would never have willingly left, and nothing Bronwyn said could make him believe otherwise. He cared for Beth as much as a man like him could care about anything. But Beth’s real appeal was her magic. With her by his side, he could acquire the things in his life that should’ve been his from the start. The only one standing in his way was Bronwyn.

 

“Break down the fucking door,” Sydney ordered his crew.

 

Lucy stopped and glared at him. “What do you think we’ve been trying to do, Syd?”

 

“Oh, shut up and get back to it,” he said, dismissing her.

 

Jacob bent over at the waist and rested his hands on his knees. “There’s no way we’re getting inside.”

 

“There’s always a way,” Sydney replied.

 

Thomas glanced around. “It might go quicker if you helped instead of just issuing orders.”

 

Sydney turned his head to Thomas. “If you want to return to Inverness alive, you’ll keep your opinions to yourself.” But the way Thomas continued fidgeting nervously caught his attention. “There’s nothing out there.”

 

“There is,” Thomas insisted in an urgent whisper.

 

Sydney put his back to the manor and looked out at the landscape. The grounds could use a bit of work. Just like a woman to let things go. Proof that men were better at running estates—and the world.

 

“There’s nothing out there,” Sydney repeated.

 

About that time, he heard the revving of an engine approaching fast. He smiled and turned toward it. Bronwyn had finally realized where he was. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on her. When he did, he was going to wrap his fingers around her neck and squeeze. Well, after he broke her body and spirit to get Beth’s whereabouts. He would enjoy killing Bronwyn.

 

 

 

 

 

“There’s the bastard,” Elias said.

 

Bronwyn had spotted Sydney even before the headlights hit him. She gripped the steering wheel tightly. The hate inside her spun like a black ball of tar in her stomach, growing bigger and wider. As a mie, she would’ve been terrified of her overwhelming need to hurt Sydney.

 

As a drough, however, she looked forward to it.

 

Sydney had hurt countless people. He had killed her father. He had turned Beth into an uncaring arse. He had to pay.

 

And who better to collect payment than her?

 

Bronwyn slammed on the brakes when she reached the drive, causing the SUV to slide on the gravel and rock violently from side to side. “Carlyle, stay hidden,” she ordered as she threw the vehicle into park and cut off the engine.

 

“Bronwyn,” Elias called.

 

But she was done talking. She had dreaded this battle up until this moment. It had nothing to do with Sydney deceiving her again—she had expected that. The truth was, she had known she would embrace her role in doling out retribution. It was time for the nightmare that was Sydney Russell to end.

 

For good.

 

Bronwyn threw open the door and climbed out of the SUV, locking her gaze on Sydney as she walked to stand in front of the vehicle. Sydney wore his signature cocky smirk, the one that said he didn’t know the meaning of failure. By the time she finished with him, he would. Because the woman he faced wasn’t the same one who had run scared and devastated from Inverness. Grief, bitterness, and rage fueled her now. She was a storm he’d never see coming.

 

“Took you long enough,” Sydney mocked.

 

Bronwyn’s gaze cut to the left as Lucy and Thomas lined up with Sydney. Jacob was on his other side. The fury within urged her, begged her to kill them all right then. She could do it, too. All she had to do was release her magic.

 

Magic she had sought for just such an event. She had been afraid of the additional power, worried about how it would change her. She had even refused to use it for something as simple as fire because she told herself she needed to save it, to hold it until she needed it. It was laughable now that she embraced it fully. The potency of it, the utter dominance, was mindboggling.

 

The dozen different ways she could end the lives before her ran through her mind. She dismissed each of them because she wanted Sydney to suffer horribly, to scream in pain for hours while begging for her to end his life.

 

The creak of the passenger door broke into her thoughts. Bronwyn didn’t need to look to know that Elias had shown himself. She didn’t want him there to witness what she would become. There would be no coming back from the place she was going. She should’ve known that from the beginning, but she’d gotten too caught up in the wonderful feelings Elias gave her.

 

In his arms, she’d forgotten the horrors of the past and the fact that she was a drough. Elias turned her mind away from the blood magic and the payment that loomed over her. She shouldn’t have given in to the pleasure he roused or the temptation of a future that could never be hers. Yet she didn’t regret a single second of it.

 

Elias might by the end of the night, though.

 

 

 

Bronwyn didn’t look at him. There was no future with him. She’d known that from the beginning. She was the one who had been too weak to send him away, to ignore the passion that tempted her like nothing else. Just one more bad decision.