“We have to get out now before he finds us.” Ella pushed herself to go faster. “He gets his power from being inside the mountain. He could be anywhere, do anything to us.”
When she shuddered against him, Tiernan held her tighter. “I can fight him. I must be able to fight him. I will not lose you.”
Ella knew he was thinking about the family curse and finally conceded there might be a reason to suggest that his worry was valid. Life was coming back into her limbs and they were functioning better, plus she was fully awake and feeling stronger. She had to find a way out of this, couldn’t give up now.
“Leonard is able to affect minds—people and animals both,” Ella said, thinking of the horses that had appeared to be sick. “But I’m not convinced that he can go beyond that, and I don’t believe Leonard can affect our minds the way he has others. He wasn’t able to sway Nathan the day my father was killed,” she remembered. “Maybe that’s because Nathan had power of his own. As do we.”
“You have the power.”
“You’re the one who figured out how to find me, Tiernan, so I’m not alone. It’s time that you admitted you’re not without power yourself.”
“Being psychic isn’t the same thing as being able to make things happen,” he argued. “And, by the way, my psychic powers tell me we have company.”
Tiernan spun around and aimed his flashlight. A few yards behind them, Leonard put a hand up to his face to protect his eyes, then tossed his lantern at Tiernan’s arm. Direct hit. Both lights went flying in opposite directions, and Ella could feel Leonard trying to force his will on Tiernan.
Fighting back her fear, Ella mentally sought the plane that remained just out of her reach. She hadn’t felt as if she could use her inherited powers on herself, but she had saved Marisala and she would do everything in her power to save the man she loved!
Tiernan’s body seemed to obey Leonard. He jerked like a marionette as he struggled against getting down on his knees, but he was fighting a losing battle.
Rather than beseeching Father for help, Ella opened her mind and let it race along a higher plane, one Father had taught her to reach so many years ago.
A light wind began whirling around her body and the earth started trembling beneath her feet. Her calling up the elements in her mind felt easier—more natural—to her this time.
Concentrating on a softball-sized piece of loose rock in one corner of the tunnel, she imagined it moving…lifting…flying at Leonard and knocking him off balance.
Just that quickly, the rock hit him in reality.
His concentration broken, Leonard had no choice but to mentally release Tiernan, who went after him physically full force. The men’s bodies exploded back down the tunnel the way they’d just come. Her heart in her throat, Ella went for the discarded lantern, and turning the light on the men, took in an angry McKenna in action. His fists moved so fast, Leonard didn’t have time to duck. Tiernan hit him over and over, driving him farther back in the mine.
Realizing he might be forcing Leonard to a place of even more power, she cried, “No. No! Tiernan, let him be. Let’s get out of here now while we can!”
But Tiernan either didn’t hear her or was ignoring her. And Leonard was suddenly giving as good as he got. Now it was Tiernan who bashed into a tunnel wall, Leonard who went after him, pummeling his face bloody.
Rushing after them, Ella thought fast. How was she going to stop them? Stop Leonard from killing Tiernan and then her? After this, Leonard wasn’t simply going to trust their deaths to the mine—he would put an end to them for sure.
Fear and loathing whirling inside her, Ella felt her skirts flutter around her legs and then rise eerily around her. She felt as if she was electrically charged… her mind spinning out of control.
Before her, Tiernan caught on to Leonard and the men danced down the tunnel together, slipping and bouncing off walls and crashing to the floor and sliding farther away from her. Her gaze whipped beyond them to the mine shaft! Her chest tightened as she imagined Leonard tossing Tiernan down there like so much garbage.
The men separated and backed off and Ella could see that Leonard had a grip on Tiernan’s mind once more. While Tiernan thrashed and made unintelligible sounds, he couldn’t get control of his body, couldn’t get back to his feet. Suddenly his hands shot to his head and his yell of agony echoed down the tunnel, engulfing her.
Fearing Leonard was doing to Tiernan what he had done to Marisala, Ella acted without thinking.
The rock beneath Leonard’s feet quaked, and a soughing wind shot down the tunnel, straight at him.
Leonard tried to summon his own power to fight her, but he wasn’t fast enough. The wind pushed-pushed-pushed at him. Tripping over his own feet, he stumbled farther into the reaches of the mine, toward the waiting arms of the shaft. Ella didn’t let up until he teetered on the precipice.
Leonard screamed as he lost his balance. Arms and legs flailing, he held himself in suspended animation above the opening for a moment.
Ella wouldn’t let go of the vision she’d conjured and, his face a mask of terror, Leonard finally caved and fell. Before her amazed eyes, Ella saw rocks of every shape and size follow. Chunks from all directions flew to the shaft and tumbled in, just as if a magnet had drawn them there.
The mountain that had obsessed him buried Leonard.
Ella gasped and mentally let go.
Now he would be one with the mountain forever.
Chapter Eighteen
Leonard’s death scream echoed along the tunnel walls as Tiernan watched the wound in the rock floor close. An illusion? he wondered. He squeezed his eyes shut and took another look. No, the shaft really was gone and the threat with it.
“Leonard should be happy,” Tiernan said. “Now he’s part of the mountain.”
He looked to Ella who was shaking—whether from fear and stress or from sheer exhaustion, he couldn’t tell. Swiftly moving to her side, he slid his arms around her and held her close to his heart. A cry escaping her, she clung to him as if she couldn’t believe she was touching him.
“We did it, Tiernan! We’re both still alive. You fought for me and you won! You broke the curse!”
He only hoped she was correct. “We both fought for each other. ’Twas you who saved my life.”
“Which only proves we’re meant to be together.”
“So it does….”
His words dissipated in her mouth, because he was kissing her as if his life depended on it. Or rather his happiness. They had bested the curse together, and they could have a future he’d never believed possible.
When he broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to hers, Ella asked, “What now? Who do we tell?
“Tell what?” Tiernan looked to the mine’s floor that was worn as smooth as if there never had been an open shaft. “I see nothing to tell.”
Ella moved to where Leonard had vanished. “I feel nothing. It’s as if he never existed. But the tribe has a right to know the truth. Otherwise, The People will still be looking to me as the one who brought evil back to the rez.”
Realizing she had a point, he took her hand and pulled her away from the death site, toward the outside and the light of day. He had the woman he loved for a moment, but the terror of McKenna history when it came to love still plagued him, and he wasn’t absolutely certain Ella was out of danger yet.