The Capture of Highland Desire (The Mac Coinnach Brothers) (2 page)

Chapter 2

When at last the spinning sensation in her head finally stopped and she could catch her breath, Allia opened her eyes and looked around warily, knowing immediately that things weren't quite the same as they had been moments before.  The stones were just as they had been, but the grass beneath her feet was a little greener, and the trees surrounding the stone circle were larger, older, and most of them were oak instead of the overgrown mix of rowan, oak and pine she had left behind. 

As she slowly sat up from the sprawled position she had come to rest in, h
er gaze immediately landed on a group of men on horseback waiting not ten yards away, and she gasped with shock at seeing them there, watching her.  They were dressed in plaids and had various swords and daggers sticking out from sheaths strapped to their bodies.  They seemed to have expectant looks on their faces, as if they had been patiently waiting for her.  Well, she supposed she had made it to the right place, then.  But how had they seemed to know exactly when she was coming?  After all, she was a little early, since she hadn’t really seen the point in putting off the inevitable.  There was so much about this world she didn’t understand, and all of it that she did, she had known only through the eyes of a child.  One thing was certain, she had a lot to catch up on.

The
man in the middle and slightly in front of the others she slowly recognized, even though she hadn't seen him since she was ten years old.  He had looked old to her young eyes back then, but now with his black and grey hair and beard, he looked only as if he were in his late fifties.  As she met his eyes, he swung down from his horse and started towards her with a tight smile.  She returned the smile with a broad grin and met him halfway, glad to see him despite her uncertainty.

             
"Uncle Leon!"

             
He reached out and wrapped his arms around her in a somewhat stiff and awkward hug.  "Och, lass, is that really ye?  Yer a child no longer!  Let me look at ye."  He stepped out of the embrace and held her at arm’s length, looking her over from head to toe.  "Ah, ye've grown into a beauty, just as I always kenned ye would.  The verra image of yer mam."

             
"Thank you, Uncle.  I... I wish… I wish I had known her longer.

             
Her uncle's eyes narrowed as she spoke, and he frowned.  "Yer speech is odd, lass, no one will ever believe ye were raised in Scotland."  He turned and began walking towards the others.  "Och, no matter, we'll think up a good story to tell outsiders until ye learn to speak normally again.  Are ye coming with us then, or are ye going to stand there all day?  Lochain castle awaits."

             
Allia stared after him for a moment, perplexed.  They hadn't seen each other in thirteen years and all he was concerned about was the way she talked?  Not ‘how has your life been?’  Or ‘I have so much to tell you’?  Not exactly the homecoming she imagined, but then maybe her uncle had always been this gruff, and she just didn't remember.  It was true that he hadn’t really paid any attention to her as a child, and in fact she had been a little afraid because he was laird and he could order men killed or otherwise punished if he had a mind to.  Besides, things were different here than what she had grown used to, and she’d have to be careful not to make too many comparisons to what was normal in the 21
st
century.  She mentally shook herself and tried to gather her scrambled wits as made her way to the horses.  It was a good thing she’d always been strong, because she had a feeling she was going to need all of that strength in days to come.

“That go
wn is verra plain”, Leon remarked as she came to stand by his side.

She looked down at the dress she had
furtively changed into just before she reached the stone circle.  She had stashed her other clothing and some cash nearby, just in case.  “It’s what Mairi gave me to wear when I came back.”  Mairi, who in her younger years had been an experienced time traveler in her own right, had been sent along with Allia as her guardian, but the stern elderly woman had died more than two years ago now.

“Aye, well ye’ll need more suitable clothing, ye look like a
ll but a commoner in that garb.”

Allia’s mouth was still hanging open in stunned silence as h
er uncle boosted her into the saddle of a pretty bay mare, and then swung up onto his own mount.  When he kicked the stallion forward without further ado, Allia had no choice but to follow.  Although she hadn’t been on a horse in years, she had ridden nearly every day when she was a child and it came back to her quickly, until she found she was just as confident on horseback as she had ever been.  She looked toward the other men riding beside her, but they looked away and wouldn't meet her gaze for more than a second at a time.  After a moment, she gathered her courage and rode up alongside the laird, and the first of her family she had seen in years.  She had spent the past couple of days trying to guess why exactly he had called her back, and she would go crazy if she didn’t know what to expect now that she was here.  The best she could figure was that he had an advantageous marriage lined up for her, but if so, she wanted to know whether or not she had a say in the matter.  And if she didn’t… well, that just wasn’t going to happen.

             
"Uncle?"

             
"Aye, lass?"

             
She swallowed at his imperious tone, suddenly more nervous than she had been at any time since she received that note.  "Why... why am I here?” she asked in a low voice so the others wouldn’t hear.  No need for them to know she was clueless.  “I mean, why now?"

             
She couldn't see his face, but she saw him tense ever so slightly.  "Because it was time.  Are ye no' happy to be home?  I hear it is quite different where ye've been, dirty and noisy, far too many people about.  'Tis much nicer here."

             
"It
is
nice here.” 
I suppose.  At least the scenery is pretty
.  “It's just as I remembered it… but you have to understand, I’ve also had a life of my own in the future, and there are things I will miss while I'm here.  Friends..."

             
"Ye must forget about them”, her uncle interrupted with absolute authority.  “This is yer home again now.  It always
was
yer home."  He paused a moment and looked back at her with narrowed eyes.  "What do ye mean by 'friends', lass?  Ye’re a maiden still, are ye no'?  Ye didna break the rules..."

             
"No!"  Allia could feel the heat creeping up the back of her neck.  For god's sake the man was blunt.  "I mean, no, of course not.  I didn't break any of the rules."   She had been given a rather detailed set of rules when she arrived in the other time.  Rules enforced at first by her guardian, and later, well… she had to admit that she had been too afraid to break any of them.  She really didn't know what the consequences would be, and she didn’t really want to find out, especially knowing magic was involved somehow, and knowing she would have to come back here one day.  Among these rules were not talking about where she was from, which she could completely understand, and not losing her virginity while in exile in the future.  She had always assumed that rule was simply because she was expected to marry someone when she returned, and in this time, a bride was supposed to be a virgin on her wedding night.  Was her uncle planning to wed her to someone right away?  The faint beginnings of panic stirred in her chest as she vividly imagined arriving at Lochain and walking straight into her own wedding, waiting groom and all.  Wouldn’t that explain why he was worried about her plain clothing? 
No Allia… don’t go getting worked up when you don’t know anything yet.  Besides, there’s always a way out, you just have to find it… 

Although she had always known she was coming back
here to Lochain, she had gotten used to life in the 21st century.  She had dated men there, even if she hadn't slept with them (although, yes, she'd done pretty much everything
but
go all the way), and things were so different.  Women there had power over their own lives, and didn’t have to answer to the family patriarch in all matters.  How was she supposed to make a life here now, knowing what she knew?  And how was it that in all of thirteen years, she had never really considered these things until just this moment? 
Denial, denial, denial… 
After Mairi had died, and her constant reminders with her, Allia had started to forget and think of herself as one of them...

             
She decided to keep her mouth shut for the rest of the short, mile-long ride.  With all that she had just been through, she was feeling kind of on the edge emotionally and she wasn’t sure she could withstand any more of her uncle’s callous remarks right now without bursting into tears.  She certainly didn’t want anyone thinking of her as a weak, sobbing female, because she was not. 

As the towers of the castle
finally came into sight in the distance, she was struck by the size and beauty of the huge stone fortress. Wow!  A place that you knew only as a child sure looked different when you came back as an adult.  There were so many details she had forgotten… she wondered if she would recognize any of the people that still lived there, or if they had kept her room for her.

Chapter 3

             
Eian pulled himself up out of the narrow cave entrance on his elbows, holding a freshly extinguished torch in one hand, the smell of damp earth and crushed heather filling his nose. 

Nothing
.  There had been absolutely
nothing
in this cave, and it was the third he had searched in these hills in as many days.  He might have gotten through twice that many if the damn things weren’t so hard to find when all he had was some two hundred year old map from the library at Creagmor, and if most of the entrances weren’t completely hidden with clumps of heather and brambles.  Brambles he had to hack through with a dagger before he could even get to the cave itself.  He would stay another week at most, search a few more of the dozens of caves in the area, and then he was going home to let his brother Bren have a piece of his mind. 
Charms in caves my arse, big brother!

             
Dusting off his clothing as best he could, he swung up onto the horse he had left peacefully munching tufts of grass, and headed sullenly back to the village and the inn where he was staying.  After an hour or so of crawling around in that dark and narrow chamber, trying to hold a torch while searching dank corners and crevices where god knew what was living, he was damned hungry. 

A short time later, h
e pulled his stallion to a stop near the dilapidated building and looked at it with a frown.  As the only public accommodations in town, the inn left a lot to be desired.  Still, the bed was clean, the food was edible, and staying here was much safer than camping nearby, where any number of unsavory characters might try to rob him while he slept.  He could defend himself of course, but having to kill and then bury would-be bandits would be a bloody nuisance.  He had considered, at some length, staying at Lochain castle, but by doing so he would draw undue attention to himself which would make it harder to explore the surrounding hills unnoticed.  Which in turn might delay his return home, with or without the bloody charm. 

             
  He slid easily from the back of his prized stallion, Dair, and took him by the halter to lead him to the inn’s stables for the night, wishing he was almost anywhere but here.  The town was rather small, sparsely populated, and had very little to offer in the way of entertainment, or acceptable bed partners, for that matter (even he had some standards, and he certainly never tupped whores, no matter how desperate he might be at the time).  In short, Eian didn’t like to be alone, or bored, or without a woman beneath him, and right now, he was all three.  Maybe he would get lucky and find the right cave tomorrow so he could go home early.  Aye, he though ruefully, and it would also start raining gold coins and frogs before the night was out.

             
With a sigh, he rubbed Dair’s long, soft muzzle and urged him forward with a click of his tongue, but oddly, the great beast wouldn’t budge.  “Come, Dair”, he said, pulling at his halter.  “I have some oats for ye, boy, would ye no’ like that?” 

             
Still the stallion refused to move.  Puzzled, Eian looked around for any sign of danger, or something that might be frightening him.  But Dair was a war horse who had been through several battles and more than his share of minor skirmishes; he wasn’t generally frightened of anything.  Eian frowned and tried again.  “Come, Dair, come on boy, what’s wrong?”  Dair only snorted and tossed his head.