A Laird to Hold by Angeline Fortin (free children's ebooks online .TXT) 📕

“That would be the easy way, Milt. If you fight me, I’ll still get what I need. The thing is, the way I extract the information would be needlessly painful for you and your loved ones,” she said coldly.

Milt sighed deeply and looked into Grainne’s cold gray eyes as he slowly nodded his head. “I kind of figured that would be the case,” he said, suddenly looking very tired. “The thing is, there ain’t no one else for you to threaten since I’m the last, lonely survivor of our little group of runaways. One way or the other, we’ve all met with an untimely end, except for me.”

“Sorry to hear that, Milt. I was hoping to bring you all back home with me,” she said.

He nodded and said, “We thought we knew everything back in the day. We ran off from our friends and family just so we could be free to live any old way we wanted to.”

“We have that in common, Milt. I broke away from my people way before you ever thought about it. I won’t say it wasn’t painful, in many ways, but it was totally worth it in the end.”

He nodded and said, “I wish I could say the same thing, Grainne. For the most part, my life has been full of sorrow and regret since I walked away from Rundimahair. Eamon and Ashling warned us that the consequences of leaving would be grim and permanent. The thing is that we just didn’t want to listen. There were times when I hated Eamon but darned if he wasn’t right about consequences. He didn’t do anything to try to punish us when we left, we ended up punishing each other.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way for you, Milt. Come join with us and let me show you just how great life can be again,” she said softly.

He stared into her demanding gray eyes for a long time before he said, “And all I have to do to join your eternal, joy-filled life is to betray everyone in Rundimahair. Believe it or not, I still got family there.”

“The same family that cast you away for daring to disagree with the almighty Eamon?” she asked.

“That’s how I thought of it at the time, but the truth is that me and my rebellious friends just wanted to do everything our way and we didn’t much care if that hurt anyone else. They didn’t cast me away. It was me who did the casting,” Milt said.

“You can have a new family now, Milt. A family that understands not everyone has to be forced to think the same way.”

“Where were you forty years ago when I might have believed you?” he said sadly. “The truth is, I don’t much feel like a rebel anymore. I’d give anything to go back home and live out my days in peace there.”

“But you can’t go home, Milt. You’ve got one choice and that is to come with me,” she said, her impatience beginning to show.

“Thought you might say something along those lines eventually, Grainne. I appreciate the offer, but the truth is I left myself one other choice.”

Grainne abandoned any pretense of kindness or patience and said, “I don’t have all day to debate philosophy. You’re coming with me now, one way or another.”

“There’s the old witch I remember from the old days. You left because you wanted to be in charge of everything and everybody,” Milt said.

“I still do, Milt! Now, are you coming the easy way or the hard way?”

“I think I’ll choose my way, Grainne. I wish I could say it was nice seeing you again,” Milt said, smiling, as red smoke began puffing from his eyes, ears and mouth.

It took her a moment to accept what she was witnessing before she screamed, “No you don’t, Milt!”

She quickly engulfed him in what appeared to be a sheet of clear plastic. Whatever she was planning was going to be too little too late.

Milt laid back onto the bunk and smiled through the pain. Grainne saw his eyes melt away first, and then his entire face began to disintegrate. It looked like he’d dunked his head in acid, but Grainne knew what she was witnessing. Milt had built in a self-destruct fail safe for the day he might be captured by Grainne or some of her warriors.

He may not have made many good choices in his long life, but this one made up for a lot of the bad ones. Milt willingly suffered an agonizing death to be sure he’d never divulge the location of Rundimahair. He kept his final promise to never betray his estranged family.

“You ignorant fool!” Grainne shouted at the top of her voice. “I could have given you everything you ever wanted.”

As the rest of his human body disintegrated before her eyes, she let her anger loose. Hurricane-force winds, coupled with massive strikes of gray lightning, erupted in an outward spiral.

The entire jail, along with the buildings on either side, were blasted into rubble. All electrical power was blacked out for a mile in any direction.

Grainne stood in the epicenter of the destruction she’d unleashed, still seething at being denied her greatest desire. Milt had the location of Rundimahair in his ancient mind, but had chosen an excruciatingly painful death rather than share it with her.

As she rose up out of the rubble, she wondered again how Eamon and Ashling were able to instill such incredible loyalty in their people. Even those who rebelled and left Rundimahair ultimately remained fiercely loyal to them.

While she streaked through space toward home, she realized that recruiting them to her side was a waste of time. The only way to win was to destroy them all–down to the last man, woman, and child. Only then would she find the peace she longed for and the absolute power she so desperately craved.

* * *

Training continued at a hurried