Highlander Enchanted(3)

Dawn was one of the two times preferred by his mother’s people. The second – twilight, when seillie sorcery was strongest. The weather always changed faster during these two times as well, in response to the influence of his magic. By the time he reached the path the two on horseback had traveled, clouds had overtaken the blue sky completely.

He scouted a quick route behind the trespassers, venturing no farther than a league before turning back. He did not expect to find a wagon filled with gold and yet, he had hoped to find more than he did. The days before he had to choose between wedding a woman he had never met, and seeing his clan thrown out of their home, were waning. He needed gold before the harvest moon, or he would be forced to wed. If so many lives did not depend upon him, he would never consider marriage, not after how much the Crusades had changed him.

Death had become a daily rite in the Holy Lands, until one day, he felt nothing – and became nothing more than a beast who did not care who fell beneath his sword. He had left the Light Court and treaded into the unseillie waters to save his cousins and men, a path that could never be reversed. It left him scarred, dark, and distrusting of himself, for he was no longer the same man he had once been.

He certainly did not trust himself with a non-seillie wife, who would be more vulnerable to the darkness in him, and he dared not expose a clan of pure men to the seillies hiding in their midst. If the Christian armies of the world had converged on the Saracens, what would they do to learn the seillies, and their magic, were more than legend? He risked the lives of his clan by exposing them to men and a religion that allowed for no other god but one.

But with no home, there would be no MacLachlainn kin who survived the harsh Highland winter. The seillie would perish.

Dread was heavy in his gullet, and he admitted secretly he did not see a way for him to save his kin from every danger facing them. This left him troubled, which caused it to rain harder than usual in late Highland summer.

Cade turned his horse and trotted down the path towards the raid party. There was a time when he was not burdened by such reflection, when he thought no further than of how he was going to live through the day.

He ordered the dark clouds gathering above the forest to hold their rain. His mood was ill, and he, too, wished for a few days of sunlight but doubted they would see them before winter.

As he neared the bend in the road, Brian hurried to meet him, a smile upon his face. The youngest of the three of them, he alone had not lost his love of laughing during their ordeals, and his blue eyes gleamed with warmth.

“If ye come to tell me Father Adam set hisself upon ‘em again, I doona wanna hear it,” Cade said.

“Nay. This will beguile even you, Cade.” Brian drew alongside him. “A noble wench demands t’see the leader of our band of swill-drunk reavers.”

Cade raised his eyebrows. “Did she call us such?”

“It wasna what she said but how.”

“I canna stand nobles.”

“The lass is English.”

“English? Here?” Cade’s brow furrowed. “She’s far from home.”

“Yea.”

“Remove her belongings and bid her farewell. I doona want English in my hold.”

“Nay, Cade. Ye must see her.”

Cade bit back a response. His mood grew graver by the day, and it was not his cousin’s fault. An English noblewoman, however, would not be spared his anger. He held no love for the English after his interactions with them in the Crusades.

They reached the ring his men had formed around the horse and traveler. Cade dismounted, somewhat irritated to see no one had bothered to tie the form at the center or strip the horse of trappings that could be sold for a few coppers. All he could tell about the noblewoman from behind was that she had narrow shoulders, a well-made cloak and auburn hair coiled in a bun.

“I thought there were two,” he said to Niall, pausing beside his cousin.

“Yea. One fled when she saw our banner.”

“Why did ye not-”

“Are you the lord over these men?”

He looked up at the soft voice and froze. The woman before him was beautiful in an ethereal way: perfect of features, from almond-shaped blue eyes surrounded by long eyelashes to clear skin, high cheekbones and plump lips that were naturally rose in color. There was an exotic tint to her face he was unable to pin down, a sense of vulnerable beauty similar to that of his mother’s kin. The seillie women were said to lure men into traps with their beauty alone. He had never believed it possible for a woman not of seillie birth to possess such beauty.

Young and slight of frame, she bore the haughty carriage of nobility. Her gaze was direct, unusually so for an Englishwoman, though perhaps it was her rank that gave her the sense of equal footing with men. An instinct stirred within him, one of warning. Despite her riveting looks, this woman reeked of danger.

He studied her, unable to understand what bothered him, aside from the memory of his two unpleasant interactions with English ladies. “Yea. I’m their laird,” he said and folded his arms across his chest.

“Do you intend to escort me to my journey’s end or to take me hostage?” she asked boldly.

“Hostage,” he replied, amused.

“Very well. I am prepared.” She clutched a satchel to her chest.

“Tell him who ye are, lass,” Niall said. He was trying hard not to smile.