During the latter part of the afternoon, while Chloe and Gwen had packed for their trip to London—the trip that was never going to happen—he’d gone down to the dungeon and interrogated the man from the sect of the Draghar himself. He’d used magic to ruthlessly strip the information from his mind, but as Drustan had assured him, although the man knew there was some way to re-imprison the thirteen and prevent the transformation, he did not know the specifics of it.

That a way definitely existed was enough to fill Dageus with a heady exhilaration, and a seething impatience to see it done now.

The four of them gathered for dinner in the great hall, and shortly thereafter, he swept Chloe back up to bed, where he made love to her until she collapsed, replete in his arms.

He’d held her then, savoring the feel of her in his arms for nearly another hour before he’d finally left their bed.

And now, as he stepped out into the night, he was ready. It was time to face the enemy and finish things for once and for all.

Alone.

He would never permit any of the people he loved to take this risk with him. ’Twas he who’d created the mess and ’twould be he who fixed it. He was at his best solitary, unencumbered—the Gaulish Ghost again, a sleek, dark wraith, scarce visible to the human eye—with no need to watch over his shoulder to protect someone else.

He hadn’t saved Drustan for Gwen once, only to lose one or both of them now. And he would never lose Chloe.

He knew they would be furious, but with luck, it would be over before they even awakened, or at worst, shortly thereafter. He needed it this way, needed to know they were safe in the castle, so he could keep his mind focused on his goal with no distractions.

He would penetrate the Draghar sect’s headquarters, search their records, locate Simon Barton-Drew’s address, hunt him down, and peel from his mind the information he needed. The thought that he might, in a short time, be free of the exhausting battle he’d been waging for so long was hard for him to comprehend. The idea that, by morning, he might be able to return to Chloe, naught more than a Druid and a man, seemed a dream too good to be true.

But it wasn’t. According to Trevor—and a mind so ruthlessly violated was incapable of lying—Simon Barton-Drew knew how to return the ancient ones to that prison from whence they’d come.