Highlander Enchanted(7)
“Methinks yer wife is escaping,” Niall observed.
“Were that I had a wife.” Cade resisted the urge to unsheathe his sword and hack the young tree nearest him to pieces. It had taken him too long to learn to live among his kin after the Crusades, and to do so, he had to suppress the beastly nature and sorcery that had become necessary to survive in the Holy Lands. Something about this woman cracked open the gate he worked hard to build between the warrior’s instinct for reaction and the chieftain’s need to plan.
Instead of attacking the nearest tree, he rested a palm against it. The spirit of the forest spoke to the seillie side of him, calming and easing his anger. In the sands of the Crusades, he had had no forest to comfort him. He did not understand what the Englishmen wanted, but he was grateful they were in his homeland rather than in a strange country where he had no right to defend.
His arm dropped from the tree, his darkness contained.
The English noblewoman claiming to be his betrothed – a woman chased by knights and the stealer of horses – should not beguile him this way. He had taken pity on her out of admiration for her courage and wonderment of her beauty. His hand twitched from where he had touched her. The memory of her form was branded on his chest, warm, tingling, as if she possessed seillie magic and cast an enchantment that left his blood boiling and his mind in tatters.
She is coming, the forest had told him. It was not chance that brought her to his home.
“Damned English,” Cade growled at last. “I doona need a wife. I doona want the English near my lands, and I doona intend t’let an English imposter steal my horse!”
“Yea,” Niall agreed.
Cade’s gaze fell to the horse Isabel had left. The old mare had a sagging back and head. She was nibbling on a bush. “I canna ride that!”
“She followed the path leading to the main road. Perhaps they will turn south once they ‘ave ‘er. Let the English handle the English,” Niall advised.
“Since when have the English been content with the English?” Cade grumbled. “Ye trust ‘em on our lands?”
“Nay.”
“And I wanna ken why I have a wife.”
“If she’s wealthy, ye don’t need to marry the MacDonald lass,” Niall said.
Cade privately doubted a woman of wealth would show up in his forest in this state. He kept the thought quiet, unable to pinpoint why he wanted to pursue the woman with a face of an angel and the secrets of an ungodly spirit.
For my horse. It was as good a reason as any, and if there really were two noblemen among those strangers in his forest, there was a chance there was gold as well.
“Ye ‘ave that berserker look upon your face,” Niall said, chuckling. “Ye want to go after her.”
“After them and their gold,” Cade replied.
“And Isabel?”
Cade glanced at him without speaking. His trust had been violated and his property stolen. One instance was all he needed to put a sword through a man. Two?
He had never considered the possibility that anyone would cross him twice and bring English knights to his quiet forest. By all rights and customs, her death was called for.
Except … the forest had been awaiting her arrival, and her single look stirred the seillie magic deep in his blood while her touch calmed it.
“I havena yet decided,” he said.
“Verra well. Take my horse and go after her. I will fetch Brian on the nag.” Niall dismounted and passed Cade the reins. “She canna go far. The bridge is out.”
“Ah, ‘tis rare when I am pleased by that.” Cade mounted, content to know the woman would not escape him, and he would soon be unleashing his anger upon English knights. “Come quick, cousin, lest Black Cade emerge.” He did not wait for a response but dug his heels into the horse and loosened its reins so it could run.
He gave chase, unable to recall when he had been thus affected by the urge to hunt down his prey since tracking Saracens in the Holy Lands. His stomach turned and his blood bolted faster than the destrier. The cunning he was forced to shunt in the Highlands mixed with his anger.
He had almost forgotten the thrill of pursuit and incensed battle. Skirmishing over land was constant in the Highlands. The sole reason his people had a home was because a laird named Duncan MacGomery decided to invade and steal the lands of his neighbors, then lease the keeps he did not need to poor lairds like Cade.
Even so, Cade’s seillie kin were not warriors. He was no longer able to release the depths of his fury as he had grown accustomed to in the Holy Lands. The unseillie fire burning within him had been caged for too long. As brutal as the battles between clans often became, he had forced restraint upon himself when he sold his sword for the silver and grain to feed his kin, forbidding himself from harming the old, young and women and taking only what his clan needed to survive on raids.
This day, he had a chance to release his pent up frustration, and he relished the brief freedom he had sorely missed.
Chapter Five
Isabel let the horse guide her through the forest. With no sense of where she was, her goal was to escape the men pursuing first and then find her way to the keep where Black Cade was said to reside. The beast appeared to know the path, and she bent over its neck to avoid the slap of low hanging branches. Its muscles bunched and released smoothly between her legs, its gait steady and appearance one of great beauty for an animal. As an avid horsewoman, she understood the price of such an animal was such that the man she took it from was likely to do what he must to recover the destrier.