Darkest Highlander by Donna Grant

and now stood at the entrance of the chamber as the wyrran half dragged, half carried the woman into the room. Deirdre merely watched as her wyrran tossed the mie onto the table and fastened the straps to her wrists and ankles.
    Once the wyrran finished, Deirdre patted them on the head and stepped to the table. She looked down at the mie . She was young with sandy-blond hair and plain brown eyes.
    “What are you going to do to me?” the Druid asked.
    Deirdre smiled and ran the tip of one long fingernail along the mie’s cheek. “I’m going to drain your blood. Slowly, painfully. Then I’m going to take your magic.”
    The Druid actually laughed through her tears.
    Deirdre’s rage spiked until she studied the Druid. There was magic within the mie , but it was so slight, there was no use trying to obtain it.
    “You claim to be a Druid when you have so little magic? How dare you?” Deirdre demanded.
    The young mie sniffed and blinked through her tears. Deirdre saw the courage and silently applauded her, though it would do the Druid little good.
    “None from Loch Awe have much magic. You will get nothing from us.”
    Deirdre didn’t like being denied. Anything. She wouldn’t be deprived of the magic she required. “Oh, I will get your magic, you foolish mie . I will get it, but you will suffer unimaginable agony in the process.”
    As soon as the words left Deirdre’s mouth, she lifted her hands over the Druid’s prone body. The mie screamed as Deirdre’s vengeful black magic lashed out.
    This was the ceremonial chamber, the place where Deirdre would cut the Druids so their blood could pool in the valleys carved into the stone before filling the four goblets placed at each corner.
    But she was too full of fury for a ceremony. She wanted blood, and the screams of the mie helped to soothe her wrath.
    Deirdre used her magic to control her hair and brought it up to use as a weapon. Again and again her hair slashed across the mie ’s skin like a blade, leaving trails of blood in its wake.
    By the time the Druid stopped screaming, Deirdre’s white hair was coated dark red.
    A smile played upon Deirdre’s lips as she closed her eyes and began the ancient chant taught to her by her mother, a chant which called forth the black magic and diabhul , Satan.
    Deirdre opened her eyes to see the dark smoke surround the mie and snuff out the last bit of life in her body as it claimed her soul.
    “I am yours!” Deirdre screamed as she plunged a dagger through the smoke into the mie’s stomach.
    The smoke vanished, but the ritual wasn’t over. Deirdre went from corner to corner and lifted the goblets to her lips so she could drain them of the mie’s blood.
    Within the blood held the Druid’s meager magic, but it was still magic and it would strengthen Deirdre.
    As the magic mixed with hers, the wind began to howl around her, whipping her skirts about her legs and lifting the long white strands of her hair about her. She felt her power grow, felt her magic building as it always did when she took the magic of another Druid.
    Even the little crumb of magic she had just taken bolstered her. By the time she was finished with the Druids in her dungeons, she would be ready for her vengeance.
    “Get me another Druid, Dunmore,” she called, and began to unbuckle the straps holding the dead mie .
    She rolled the woman off the table and waited impatiently for the next Druid. Druid after Druid died on the sacrificial table to help strengthen her. Deirdre listened to none of their crying and pleas for mercy.
    Until the last Druid was brought into the chamber.
    “Please,” the mie begged.
    Deirdre stared at the older woman. Deep grooves of age and the hardship of life lined the woman’s sagging skin. Her hair was gray and wiry as it stuck out at odd angles from her braid, which had come loose.
    “Please what?” Deirdre demanded. “Do you think I will spare you as I did your friends?”
    The woman glanced at the dead bodies and