Wild Highland Magic (The Celtic Legends Series Book 3)(22)

“No.”

His midnight-sky eyes settled on her with an intensity that made her blood rush. When she had made the decision to approach the dolmen stones, she knew that the noise would overwhelm her, but she’d also expected that the borrowed power would make it easier for her to focus on the one man whose thoughts she wanted to penetrate above all others. Instead, tremors shuddered through her, weakening her more every moment she lingered. For people like her, approaching these heights could be dangerous. Daring to touch a sacred stone could mean derangement, disappearance, or even death.

“Cairenn!” Seamus’s excitement broke through her shattered thoughts. “There’s a funny boat out there. It’s got a carving at the bow.”

“I can’t see it, Seamus.”

That was a lie. She could see the boat through Seamus’s mind as well as the minds of the men standing on the shore waiting its approach, but her attention was elsewhere. She thought she could sense something in Lachlan, but it was like trying to grab hold of a sea-slick fish in the dark with fumbling hands.

“Come and look!” Seamus’s bright excitement blinded her like a candle held too close to her eyes. “Tell me what it is!”

She said, “A moment, Seamus—”

“It looks like a dragon!”

The darkness of Lachlan’s mind gave a fraction, like the bowing of a sail in the wind. She sensed his essence billowing around her as she searched deeper—

“No,” Seamus shouted. “It’s a sea-serpent, curled up—”

“It’s a galley,” she interrupted, trying to dim Seamus’s excitement so she could concentrate. “Men are rowing.”

A jolt shot through Lachlan and she realized her mistake. Lachlan raised his head to follow Seamus’s gaze. Then Lachlan saw what Seamus saw, and what she herself saw through the eyes of others: A galley of the kind that came from the Western Isles.

But what Lachlan couldn’t know, as he released her to get a better look, was that her father had lured this ship to Inishmaan on the pretext of providing medicine for one of the ailing sailors. Her father had tempted these men to these shores, so that the ship, when it left, might carry Lachlan with it.

“Seamus,” Lachlan barked. “Take Cairenn home.”

***


Lachlan knew she was following him. He heard her soft footfall and Seamus’s galloping one behind him, but he had other concerns on his mind. Urgency drew him down the path toward the shore, to where the galley approached.

But did it bring friends, or enemies?

He stumbled his way downhill, ignoring the way his shoulder pulled and twanged, ignoring weariness from exertion, drawing on what grit was left in him. He paused on the path long before he reached the thatched-roofed storehouses and the one alehouse. Dozens of nut-brown coracles lay pulled up on the strand or upturned above the waterline, attended by groups of fishermen. Squinting against the sun glancing off the water, he watched the galley drop anchor beyond the reef. A coracle rowed out to meet it. He took cover in the shadow of thatch as the pilot boat made its return.

When the little boat dug its keel through the mud, Lachlan saw a familiar figure rise from within. Cairenn’s father stepped on the gunwale and leapt to the shore. He paused to speak to a man who followed him out of the coracle, a man wearing a tartan with the O’Neill colors.

Uneasiness gripped him and he ducked out of sight. The O’Neills were cousins to his people, but Lachlan didn’t recognize this man. Even if he could identify him, he wouldn’t know whether he could trust him. Even with his father’s help, Lachlan had never been able to pinpoint the enemies within his own clan, so who was to say that this O’Neill wasn’t a friend of the assassins whose knife had found its way into his back?

Lachlan pressed behind the building as he heard striding steps approaching. When Conor’s dark figure swept by, Lachlan made sure the doctor was alone and then stepped into the path behind him. The doctor whirled and his hand went to the knife-hilt of his belt.

Lachlan raised a brow. “Expecting trouble on your own island?”

“Old habits die hard.” The doctor released his grip and looked him over. “The shoulder heals?”

“Well enough to heft a knife.” Lachlan tilted his head toward the shore. “What business do you have with an O’Neill?”

“Your business, Lachlan of Loch Fyfe.”

Had Lachlan been stronger, more wary, maybe he could have hidden his surprise. But Lachlan saw from the doctor’s face that his own reaction had swept away the last of the man’s doubts.

Lachlan said, “You’ve been busy in Galway.”

“The Derry men are talkative in their cups.” The doctor stepped up to him, lowering his voice. “Much has happened in Scotland since you left.”

The doctor placed a heavy hand on Lachlan’s good shoulder.

“Lachlan,” he said. “Your father is dead.”





CHAPTER NINE


Cairenn knew the feelings that passed through a mind when bad news was delivered—the denial, the shock, the anger—but she could not read Lachlan’s thoughts as her father delivered the tidings of Lachlan’s father’s death. All she could do was watch that beautiful face from where she stood on a ridge of the hillside path. From this distance, she saw him shake his head once, twice. She saw his brows lower as if he didn’t understand the words. Then his face went as still as stone.