Healing the Highlander (3 page)

Another bellow of rage from Hugh shook her from the grasp of her haunting memories. Her grandfather

had broken free from the men who'd held him, but he made it no farther than two or three paces before they retook him, forcing him down to the ground, his face pressed into the damp earth.

"Lock him away," Richard directed the men who hold his father, turning his back and heading toward the keep.

"Richard!" Margery had pushed herself up to stand, one hand protectively laid on Leah's shoulder. "What's gone wrong with you? You canna continue to—"

"Enough!" her son roared, startling her to silence. "I'm trying to be a good son, Mother. Don't make me lock you away with your husband."

Leah remained on her knees, her body shaking so hard she doubted for the moment her legs' ability to hold her weight. Fear sloshed in her stomach like sour wine.

How could this be happening to her again? She'd run seven hundred years into the past to escape the horrible, evil Fae who'd sworn to turn her into nothing more than a brood mare. She'd turned her back on her family and her heritage, seeking shelter in the midst of mortals only to find herself once again faced with the same threat.

"Let's get you inside, lass." Margery held out a hand to help her to her feet.

Leah clasped the older woman's fingers as she rose to stand, all the while keeping her eyes fixed on the ground. Disgust at her own cowardice warred with her dread of seeing the disappointment she feared she'd find swimming in Margery's eyes. Or worse yet, pity.

It had been Margery who'd sat at her bedside, consoling her through the years of nightmares as she'd gradually worked herself free from the terrors of her past. Margery who'd held her in her arms, sharing her strength and love as if she were her grandmother by blood. Of all the people in her world, Margery would be the one to instantly recognize what fear possessed her now.

"Try no to fash yerself over Richard's plans. We'll think of something. Trust me that I'll no allow you to be used in such a way."

Tears threatened at Margery's words, glassing over Leah's vision even as holding them back burned at her throat.

Weak, pitiful coward!

After all these people had given her, all they had done for her over the years, now that they were in trouble, she should be strong for them. Instead, it was still her in need of comfort, her being led back to the keep as if she were the only victim here.

Her cowardice, her weakness, disgusted her, even as it washed over her in great drowning waves.

She couldn't face going through this all over again.

TWO

It felt as if rivulets of fire ate their way through his leg.

Andrew MacAlister shifted his weight on the horse he rode, trying to find some modicum of relief from the constant pain that plagued him as he made his way across the bailey to the stable. After two days on horseback and a week in Inverness—a week away from the grueling daily sword practices that kept his pathetically damaged muscles limber—he feared for his ability to stand when he dismounted.

With a little luck, the stable would be empty.

"I see you've made it back at last."

Damnation. His brother Colin led his own horse from the back of the stable toward the door. As usual, the only luck he could count on consistently was bad luck.

"And you? Yer leaving, are you?" Drew asked the question, though from the pack on Colin's mount, the answer was as obvious as the black mood hanging over his younger brother. Still, conversation gave him a reason to remain seated.

"Aye," Colin growled in response, jerking at his reins much harder than necessary. "Our stubborn new sister refuses to lend the smallest aid. Since she will no share what she knows, I go to seek my own answers."

Ellie. Andrew felt a grin spreading in spite of his personal discomfort. Their older brother's new wife was indeed a stubborn woman. Her determination to do what she thought was right was one of the qualities he admired in her.

"I see nothing to spark yer amusement in this, brother. Times are dark and the proper foreknowledge could make the difference in what happens to all of us."

"Ah." So that was it. "We all agreed when Ellie became part of the family that we'd no ask those questions of her, did we no? There's a danger in learning that which we're no supposed to."

Ellie had been sent into their lives last year. Swept from her home, seven hundred years in the future, she had been brought to this time and place by Faerie Magic to find the one man meant for her, their brother Caden. As descendants of the Fae themselves, all the MacAlisters accepted the oddities in their world as well as the responsibility being a Fae descendant carried with it.

"Ha!" Colin snorted as he lifted himself up onto his mount. "In more ways than you ken, brother. For now, though, there's a more immediate danger than to fash ourselves over the possibility of altering history. In case you've no noticed in yer travels, Comyn has negotiated our freedom away to the English king and Wallace is forced into hiding with a price on his head. We're at a crossroads in our struggle, and still that irritating woman will no even tell me whether or no Wallace will again lead us to victory over the English or if all hope for Scotland is lost."

Ever the warrior, his brother. Though, without a doubt, he'd be at Colin's side if he weren't a worthless shell of a man, and likely he'd be every bit as frustrated.

"She's no idea, she claims. She's no a student of history so how can she tell that which I ask." Colin shook his head, his skepticism evident. "So I'm off to find the answers on my own."

"Where are you away to?"

"North. To the glen."

If Drew had been standing on his own two feet, the surprise of Colin's answer might have toppled him over. The Faerie Glen!

"None of Mother's stories ever told of the Fae having shown themselves to any but the MacKiernan women, and damn few of them. What hope do you have in going there?"

A line of tension worked in Colin's jaw, his eyes darkening with his emotion. "Perhaps no more than I had with Ellie, but I canna be at peace with the answers I have now so I've no choice but to see if our ancestors will respond to my pleas. Even the prince himself should be concerned for the survival of his descendants."

Prince Pol? The name had been handed down through the generations as the Faerie who was their ancestor, but Drew's read on the ancient story wasn't of a man who cared what happened to anyone. Some unknown millennia ago he'd given his blessing and curse in a fit of anger before retreating behind the curtain of the worlds, never to be seen again.

Colin would be better off counting on Mortal help than on the mysterious prince of their family fable.

"Dair and Simeon? Do they ride with you?" The two men, one all but family since childhood, the other family by virtue of his aunt marrying their laird, had become almost inseparable companions to Colin. Warrior blood and honor bound them together.

Drew tried hard not to resent the fact that he could never be one of their number.

"No. This I do alone." Colin reined his horse around, pulling up alongside Drew's mount to face him. "The need to ken the truth of what's to come is my own demon to face."

No one understood personal demons better than Drew. Nodding his acceptance of his brother's decision, he clasped Colin's arm, each man's hand tightening around the other's forearm.

In an attempt to lighten his brother's mood, Drew grinned. "Too bad you dinna think to seek yer answer from True Thomas before his death, aye?"

Colin's face stiffened into the strained mask he seemed to wear so often over the last few years. "Whose answers do you think have stolen away my peace if no the ones I received in the Rhymer's home?"

His brother had consulted the infamous Thomas of Erceldoune? Colin had become one surprise after another.

Rumor had it that Thomas the Rhymer had been taken lover by no less than the Faerie Queen herself, giving him the power to see into the future. No doubt about it, he and Colin needed to find time to have a long talk one day, though, clearly, this was not that day.

"Go in safety, Col. I pray you find that which you seek."

"I wish the same for you, my brother."

Drew watched in silence as Colin rode away, puzzled as to his brother's parting comment.

Colin couldn't know. None of them did.

Drew had carefully cultivated the image his family had of him. That they should all see him as a disappointment, a second son who wasted his time in thoughtless pursuit of pleasure was highly preferable to their learning the truth. No one knew of the countless hours he'd spent searching, the painful experiments he'd endured at the hands of alchemists and those who claimed to be healers, or the vile potions and the disgusting plasters he'd tried.

And no one ever would if he had his way of it.

He'd rather a thousand times over see disappointment in the eyes of his family than pity.

With a long breath, Drew swung his stiffened leg over his horse's back, bracing himself for the fresh wave of pain that would hit when his weight shifted to that limb.

As he'd suspected, no amount of mental preparation could overcome the all-encompassing shock of pain. His leg gave way and he stumbled backward, catching himself against the nearest stall.

The wounds he'd received in the battle to rescue his cousin Mairi and his sister Sallie a decade past should have ended his life. But, thanks to his Faerie blood and the amazing potions his cousin had brought from the future, he hadn't died. Not literally, anyway.

No, his heart beat on, his chest expanded and contracted with every breath, and he awoke to greet each empty day. But the muscles that had been carved through continued to wither away as the years passed. Under his skin, his scarred hideous skin, the meat shrank and twisted, contracting into hard painful knots.

Scar tissue, his new sister Ellie called it.

The daily workouts in the lists helped, but forego the exercise for even a day and he paid for the lapse with an overall stiffening and intensified pain. Already, despite his efforts, the once-injured limb was shortening, requiring great concentration on his part to avoid displaying the awkward limping gait he noticed in himself when he tired.

The scars on his body were hideous, but what they kept him from doing was even worse. The constant pain and growing deformity slowed him, robbed him of his speed, his flexibility, his fighting skills.

Though the injuries had spared his life, they'd resulted in his living as only half a man. His dreams of finding glory and seeking happiness had been stripped from him at the tender age of eighteen. Dreams stolen by the deceitful Fae who'd endangered the lives of his sister and cousin.

Fae he hated with every shred of his being. Vile uncaring creatures who'd taken from him all that mattered.

With his body as it was, he couldn't follow the warrior's path as Colin did, as they'd spent their youth planning to do together. Any hopes of a loving wife and family were gone on the edge of the sword that had carved into his flesh. A man such as he had become couldn't support a wife and family. He spent his days working his body to exhaustion or scouring the land seeking miraculous cures which more and more frequently these days he feared did not exist.

In time, he'd be forced to retire to his bed, a useless lump of meat to be cared for by someone else.

A burden such as that was not something to expect any woman to shoulder.

"Master Drew! I dinna realize you'd returned."

The young stable boy's feet came to a quick halt only a few paces away.

"Aye, James, I'm back, but no for long." Pushing his weight away from the stall, he tossed the reins in his hand to the boy. "Care for him well, lad. We'll be off again on the morrow."

It took all his concentration to avoid favoring his leg as he crossed the distance to the great stairs leading up to the entrance of Dun Ard.

Argeneau, the alchemist he'd spent the last week with in Inverness, had heard of a potion used at the abbey on Iona. A good night's rest and he'd be off once more, chasing the elusive miracle that might allow him to be whole again.

THREE

Was this what Fate had planned for her, no matter how hard she worked to escape it?

Leah huddled in the corner of her darkened room, the unattended fire dying down to embers as she clutched her arms around her legs, her forehead balanced on her knees. Stomach-squeezing fear swirled and melded with hateful memories, growing into a harsh burden too large to fight. The whole of it swarmed thickly around her head and she tightened her arms, as if she could hide from the oppressive weight by shrinking into herself.

The tactic didn't work any better this night than it had when she'd been held captive by the Fae all those years ago. She could not ignore the threat away.

Her wrist tingled and she jerked her head up, her eyes darting to the spot on her arm as if she expected the metal chain that had held her prisoner to be fastened there once again.

"This is crazy," she whispered into the silent room.

It was happening all over again and she was just sitting here, waiting to be a victim once more.