Highland Pull (Highland Destiny 2) (19 page)

Liam looked up at the ceiling, as if expecting to find some answers there. He’d been restless, out of sorts since he’d returned from New Orleans. It was time to focus. His father had big plans, and he needed to be sharp if he was to carry them out. Before his trip to America, he’d spent nearly every waking hour and many of his dreaming ones consumed with thoughts of Elena MacGailtry. Stupid bitch. He still couldn’t believe she’d shot him. No matter, he would have her soon, of that he was certain. Even now, he was convinced she must be his destiny. Weeks earlier, while he’d been recovering, from the buckshot, Liam had told his father about the hold Elena had over him, an obsession that started with a kiss at Beltane. Worthington senior had realized at once that she was something more than one of the scattered Druid descendants. Elena must also be part Fae. As
diluted as the line must be after thousands of years, it still left Elena with a powerful ability to draw men to her. This went a long way toward explaining Liam’s obsession with her. Worthington wanted to see if he could channel Elena’s power for his own dark uses. Liam knew what his father wanted and he didn’t care, he simply felt he must possess her.

It was time to plan her capture and seduction. She wouldn’t have gone far, he would find her at the farm. Once she was his, the Worthington’s would not only once again possess the Gailtry farm, they would discover the truth of the secrets hidden there.

****

Elena was shown into the doctor’s office and sat on the examination table. The paper crackled beneath her, and her feet dangled loosely because the nurse forgot to pull out the little stepping shelf. Dr. Gabhran MacLachlan entered the room, filling the space with far more than size alone.

“Elena, good to see you again,” he said gravely, as he said every week.

“Doctor, why am I here?” she asked, as she asked every week.

He stared at her, disappointment etched his familiar face.

She stared, filled with an awful sense of déjà vu, of impending disaster.

Gabhran stood. “Well, I’ll see you next week,” he said and he left the office.

Elena was deeply disturbed; she couldn’t understand why he kept insisting she return. It was always a he-said, she-said, he-stared, she-stared encounter. She was so lost in
thought, it took her a moment to realize something was very wrong when she stepped from the office building where the doctor practiced medicine.

Before her appointment, it had been a sunny
afternoon, people were shopping, talking on cell phones, cars buzzed by unnervingly close on the narrow street. It was a bustling street, in a quaint section of town. She had been reaching for her purse to call Faolan to tell him she was finished at the doctor, but her purse wasn’t on her arm where she’d expected it. At the same moment that she noticed her purse was missing, she realized so were the sounds of the busy street. Her head snapped up and she looked. Okay, this was weird.

The busy Edinburgh
street was no longer there, instead, she looked out into a fairy tale landscape. There was a castle with genuine turrets, and banners hanging, and a tall walls surrounding a huge courtyard. Behind her, men on horseback were crossing the fields, and guards walked the parapets and tops of the walls. Some of the guards had long swords strapped to their sides, and others had bows slung over their shoulders and quivers of arrows on their backs.

She whipped around desperate to get back inside, and found
the doctor was in front of her, blocking her way, only he had changed dramatically. Dressed as a medieval warrior, wearing a kilt, shirtless, leather bands crisscrossing his chest, leather boots. He was looking at something over Elena’s shoulder, his eyes wide, and his mouth forming words, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

Elena turned her head to see what Gabhran was looking at and she saw that the sky had darkened into night. A towering dark figure that looked like a spirit hovered before them, dressed in wispy black robes made of smoke and cold winds.

Then Elena was floating above the ground, far above both Gabhran and the spirit. She was filled with sadness, as she watched in horror. Arrows pierced the air, and Gabhran fell forward, arms flung wide, as though he were trying to reach something. He yelled something once more just before he collapsed in a bloody heap, unnaturally still.

*

Elena woke from her dream with a scream, and Faolan was by her side in an instant, soothing her, wiping the tears she’d cried in her sleep. Her heart was hammering in her chest, pulse racing, further sleep that night would be elusive. The last two nights when she’d awakened from the dream, they had stayed in bed, holding each other, trying to chase away the images with loving of their own. The last two nights she’d wakened just before Gabhran had been shot with the arrows.

Faolan gathered her in his arms, and although they were both naked, he carried her to the fly bridge of their yacht, and settled her on his lap. Holding her close, they sat quietly, looking at the blanket of stars, covering the black velvet sky, both of them seeking to calm their hearts. They had anchored for the night in a quiet
alcove, there were no buildings in sight, no other boats in the vicinity. They were completely alone.

The still of the night was ruffled by a gentle breeze skimming the top of the water, creating gentle swells against the hull of the boat.

“Was it the same dream again, love?”

Elena shuddered, despite his strong arms holding her. “Yes, only this time, I think Gabhran died,” she whispered.

He tightened his arms, and she snuggled against his chest, wanting to be held closer still.

Then the breeze picked up, blew stronger just for a minute, and she heard the doctor’s anguished voice carrying into the night, “Miranda.”

“Gabhran,” the wind sighed in reply, then all was still again.

Elena froze; she knew she was no longer dreaming, and yet she
had
heard the voices. Slowly she turned her face up to Faolan’s, only to find him looking out at the eastern horizon, his gaze very far away.

Finally, with a bone weary sigh, Faolan looked down and met Elena’s gaze. “I suppose this means our honeymoon is over. The only question that remains, is whether we head west to the island or east to the farm?”

****

Brigid was a Druid seer, mother of the last remaining Gailtry of the Druid line, and over three hundred and fifty years old. It had been she who had prophesied of a time when Druids would again be needed on this earth, an Epoch of
Druidry. Brigid knew that prophecies were not future events marked in stone, rather they were visions of events likely to occur, should the stars and people involved stay aligned.

Tonight’s vision was different than those she’d had before, for this particular prophecy was not complete, it continued to visit her in stages, it seemed nothing was staying aligned.

Brigid knew that events were occurring in different dimensions of time, and the past events were having their effect on the future, as they should. Somehow, the current events were influencing the past, as well. She sensed a fine hand at work.

She thought over the last time she had shared the prophecy with others.
“It has been revealed that man as dark Druid will shift the balance of power on Earth and mankind will suffer greatly. A child who was lost twiceover, of nature and light, joins one who was hidden, a child of the night.

“Others are lost, some will be found
. Which path to follow? Light can exist in darkness, darkness can never exist in the light. The past revealed. The journey for darkness and light, from Beltane to Beltane has begun, they are called for great purpose.”

She was sure the dark Druid was Worthington, and Faolan was the hidden child of the night. He had been cursed into his shape shifter wolf form at the full moon for hundreds of years, and his real heritage as the Gailtry had been kept hidden to protect the Druid line.

Which meant Elena was the child of nature and light. Brigid understood that much. Nature being a reference to Druid and light a reference to the Tuatha Dé Danaan. Elena was just starting to learn about her connections to both worlds, and no one had any idea exactly how powerful she could be, once trained. Brigid had spent a lot of time trying to figure out the lost twiceover part, and had yet to understand the parts about the light in the darkness. Was darkness trapped within a person of light? Or was a person of light trapped in the darkness?

She needed more information. Once again, she began the trance that might open the window on the future.

****

What have I done?
Marie had told Randi to stay with Gabhran, yet now the very essence of either of them remained elusive. She’d tried reading the cards. She used her crystals; she tried meditation. There was nothing but an emptiness in the space they used to fill. It was as if Gav and Randi had been surgically removed from this dimension in time, without even leaving a scar. No one was looking for either of them, no one besides herself seemed to even remember they had existed. Yet, when Alysone had disappeared, everyone believed something had happened to the young woman. The police had been called—there was at least some notice she had vanished.

Marie believed that something could be changed in the past and it would have an effect on current and future events. She couldn’t explain it. It was just that whole
Star Trek
space-time continuum thing. Time was just not as linear as everyone believed, it was somehow occurring in different dimensions simultaneously. And somehow…was it possible the circumstances surrounding the shifting of a person from one time to the next were dependent on the people involved?

Something or someone was changing events in the past and it was changing the present, and someone was changing things in the present, and it was affecting things in the past. The question was whether it was the same person causing all these changes or if more than one force was involved. Good Lord, that type of circular thinking made her sound like a Druid!

Thinking about Druidry led her to a whole different train of thought. Liam. Marie had used him; his power had helped to restore the magick to the bayou. She’d used him for other things too. Now she wondered whether she was really finished with him. Just like any other addiction, the problem wasn’t quitting, it was staying quit.

Randi ran to Lissa’s room and pounded on the door. When the door opened after only a few seconds, Lissa took one look at Randi’s pale, tear-streaked face and pulled her into an embrace. Randi let every bit of her pent up emotions of the past two months come pouring out, and she sobbed into Lissa’s shoulder. Lissa held her, smoothed her hair and murmured comforting words.

Drawing a shuddering breath, Randi slowly regained control.
Lissa pulled her by the hand and the two women sat crossed legged on the bed, while Randi told Lissa of her dream, of seeing Gabhran on the ground, of hearing him call her name.

“And now, I can’t sense him the way I did yesterday,” she whispered. “I just know something is wrong.”

Randi tried once again to reach into that place in her heart that held the connection with Gabhran. It had been so long since he had held her, since she had felt his gold velvet skin under her hands, since he’d told her how much he loved her.
Dear God, what will I do if he never returns?

“He would not leave you this way,”
Lissa said. Her voice was strong but her hands twisted in the material of her skirt. Randi was reminded that Lissa was in a similar position.

Randi recognized the attempt to bolster her shaky hope for what it was and smiled at
Lissa in gratitude. Then Randi did what she did best, set her own problems aside and thought about Lissa’s predicament. She was single, pregnant, and deeply in love with Alexander. But she was also protecting the father of her child. It wasn’t too far of a leap to connect that the father was Alex. Randi sorted through the evidence. Lissa had a room on the same floor as the Laird, not downstairs with the other staff. An unmarried maid with a room so near an unmarried Lord must have been considered scandalous. She was beautiful, soft-spoken, and well educated. Her room was quite large, furnished in much the same fashion as Randi’s. There were too many vibes Randi was getting, and if Lissa was carrying Alexander’s baby, a male child would be the rightful heir, even if Gabhran lived.

Wiping away all remaining traces of tears and putting on her detective hat, so to speak, Randi began to pace and continued to follow that meandering train of thought. If this was Alysone…and by now, Randi was very sure she was…how in the world did that kind of time travel work? She hadn’t been pregnant in the twenty first century, she’d been hospitalized for nearly a year, no one had described her as pregnant, and she’d had regular blood work, someone would have known.

Alysone disappeared just about eight weeks ago, according to Randi’s memory of time, although she supposed there was no guarantee her memory was correct, either. This Lissa was four or five months pregnant, judging from the size of her, and it had been four months since Alexander had disappeared. So maybe, when you went back in time you weren’t tied to landing in the past on the same day you left the future. Ugh, if she kept this up she would have a huge headache.

Momentarily
side-tracked, Randi wondered how that would work in her own case. Wouldn’t it be ironic if she’d gotten pregnant in the fourteenth century but not lost her virginity until the twenty-first century? Or, what if the date she was inserted into the fourteenth century occurred before she slept with Gabhran in her time? Yes, these were definitely ideas to give a girl a headache.

She was fighting an inner battle. The circumstances in which she and
Lissa found themselves were very similar. There were so many questions she wanted to ask, questions about Alexander, about Gabhran, and definitely questions about Alysone. Oh, and there was also the niggling question about how she was going to get back to her own time and bring everyone with her.

She needed someone to talk with about all of this.
Someone to confide her thoughts and experiences and fears. What she needed was an ally, someone who could help her navigate this century, and someone who might retain memories of another time and place, if memories could work backward as well as forward. Randi needed to take a leap of faith, she needed to trust one person here, to see if she could figure out how to reach Alysone’s memories and maybe discover a way to bring them all home. Unless this was home. 

“
Lissa,” she asked as she sat in a chair by the fire, “has anyone ever called you Alysone?”

****

Gabhran felt as though he were swimming through a thick, sticky fog, one that held him back, weighed heavy on his arms and made it hard to breathe. He was dimly aware of Ian’s voice as he ordered servants to bring fresh water for Gabhran and a meal for himself. Stephan’s voice counseled Ian to rest in his room, someone would fetch him when necessary. Ian refusing to leave Gav’s side.

Later, he woke again; the room was quieter, darkened. He lay there, trying to recall what had happened. Assassins. The scurvy bastard
Comyn had sent assassins. He remembered the sound of the crossbow, knowing he was too late to save Thomas and William, throwing himself on Ian and Stephan, shielding them, protecting their line, even as he was jeopardizing his own. The bolts pierced his back, then he remembered naught else.

He had never felt so fucking weak.
Christ, I canna lift my head or even make my eyes work when I want them too.
His parched mouth worked to summon help, to beg a drink, to know more about what happened. He managed a weak croak, but Ian was there in mere moments.

“Drink,” Gav whispered.

Ian held the skin filled with wine to his mouth, and Gav drank deeply. When at last he’d had his fill, he slitted his eyes open and tried asking questions, but his mouth wouldn’t form the words.

“I will talk, Gav, you just lay there and listen.
when you’ve had your fill of my words just sleep, ‘tis naught I am not used to from you,” Ian said lightly.

“The
Comyn sent two assassins; they took the oldest Worthingtons first. Stephan and I would have been next. You saved our lives,” he said thickly. With a shake of his head he continued, sparing no details, just as his friend would want it. “You took one bolt just under your collar bone, and though it shouldna have been too serious, ‘twas a bleeder, and nigh impossible to stop.

“The other injury is probably the more painful; the bolt entered your back, just below your
heart. You were lucky it caught a bit of your leather belt and a rib, else you wouldna be here now. The physician wished to let you die, old man, but I assured him Druids were tough. If you have issue with your treatment, ‘twas I that applied the spells and healing powders. ‘Twas also I that applied the element of fire and closed the wound. Forgive me, my friend.”

“Drink,” Gabhran croaked again, and drank of the wine again before closing his eyes for a long moment.

Ian started to rise, but Gabhran made a small motion of his hand to still his friend.

“Dying, need Miranda, need home. Take me. His voice was weak and he
couldna open his eyes.

“I will,” Ian promised. “We will leave on the morrow, a cart plus ten men. ‘Twill
be a three-day ride at best, Gav. You must do your best to hang on.”

****

Stephan cursed Gabhran MacLachlan, the bastard nearly ruined all his careful plans. When he’d heard Ian and MacLachlan were visiting the keep for dinner, he knew it was the best opportunity to put his plan into action. The Comyn was retreating, it wouldn’t be long until his brother would be leaving, and this way he could kill four birds with one stone. His assassins had been summoned, dressed, and outfitted as members of the Comyn’s warriors, and all he had to do was enjoy the evening, filled with anticipation for what was sure to come.

In order for Stephan to inherit the titles and the lands, his father and brothers had to die. It wasn’t enough that they
die, it must appear to be at the hands of an enemy, lest the king’s men grow suspicious. Of even more import, he’d needed to make sure that Druid bastard MacLachlan died, too. None of the Gailtry-trained Druids could think Stephan had a hand in the tragedy that befell his family. He planned to seek his own Druid training once the way was clear.

Stephan had been beside himself all those years ago when the Gailtry Master had visited Worthington Manor and interviewed with a then thirteen-year-old Ian. After the interview, it had been announced that Ian had been selected to apprentice at Druid training with the Gailtry, beginning on his sixteenth birthday.

Stephan was only a year younger than Ian, and had begged to be selected to follow him along the Druid path. The Gailtry had grown quiet, as though he was listening to more than Stephan’s words. Then with a small smile, he’d placed his hand on Stephan’s shoulder, his eyes remote.

“Nay, lad, ‘tis not your destiny, ‘tis not the path I sense you will follow. You are young yet, mayhap I will keep my eye on you, as you grow.” He smiled again, and then turned away.

Stephan often wondered what the Gailtry had meant by those words, would he see if he should change his mind and let Stephan train? Or had he sensed even then the bitterness that grew within the youngest Worthington’s heart?  

The night of the attack, the first bolts from the crossbows found their marks, and his father and eldest brother fell dead where they’d stood. The plan called for the bows to be immediately reloaded and MacLachlan and Ian would have been next, and they would have finished with a quick shot near Stephan’s feet, to make it look as though he’d also been targeted. It was supposed to be fast, so the assassins could escape, and it should have worked. Except MacLachlan was too damned fast.

With the first sound of the crossbows firing, MacLachlan must have recognized it as an assassination attempt, and believed it was aimed at the whole family. Gabhran had thrown himself at Stephan and Ian, slamming into them, driving all three of them to the ground. They all jerked when the arrows hit, and Stephan screamed in rage as he felt a piercing pain in his heart.

He'd called on all the gods to damn Gabhran MacLachlan to a soulless death for all eternity, for causing Stephan to be shot. Then the guards had removed Gabhran’s body and he’d looked down at himself and realized he wasn’t injured. He mentally examined the pain he’d felt, poked at it, felt around inside
himself, and from deep within he felt a new strength growing.

By Danu, some of the Druid’s powers must have escaped his body as he lay on top of them, near death. And those powers had found a more worthy vessel, in Stephan. At last, his destiny would be fulfilled. He would become the most powerful Druid, possess skills to control people and events, draw on spirits to aid him in his righteous quest to restore
Druidry to its proper place in this world. People would bow down before him.

It was only a matter of time before Ian led the guards to carry Gabhran’s body back to the Highlands, and it would be a simple matter to make sure the job started by the assassins was completed.

****

In the far south of England on a deserted shore, away from villages and prying eyes, a man threw a body from a small boat, and there was no regret in his heart for the loss of life. It had been necessary to strip every bit of knowledge from the man’s mind and then kill him. It had also been his only chance of survival.

When Robert had requested that a MacLachlan undertake this role of emissary, none expected danger to come on the first part of the journey, unless England’s King Edward discovered the trip, and there was no fear of that happening. Only a handful of the most trusted men knew.

Nay, ‘twas not thought there would be danger until the return, should he be bringing the Scottish King additional commitments in the form of ambassadors, money, or arms. Yet a mere few days into their journey a ship had begun to trace their path, and it bore no flag, disguising the true nature of its intentions. Much as the mission of Robert’s ship had also been disguised, for they sailed on a simple
five mast ship of a merchant marine.

A member of Robert’s personal guard had been aboard the ship with Alexander, both as personal protection and as an aid to lend credence to the nature of their mission when they were granted audience with the foreign royals. Tristan, as the guard was called, provided the ship’s captain with Robert’s orders to change course, to disguise the true nature of their journey should they suspect they were being followed. The ship turned to the leeward side of a small island that would provide shelter, and the crew prepared to let the other ship pass.

Tristan hustled Alexander to the longboat, along with minimal provisions, and sheltered from view by their own ship, they rowed to the island and took temporary refuge, obliterating any sign of their presence on the rocky shore. Other than the two of them, there was nothing to disclose the nature of the journey, nor was there anything of value aboard. The privateers would soon leave to seek more profitable targets, and Tristan and Alexander would return to the ship.  

From the safety of the caves near the beach, the two men watched in growing horror as the privateers turned their own ship and extended the barrels of the cannons, then let loose a barrage of fire on the unarmed merchant vessel. Explosions and the smell of sulphur filled the air. When the smoke cleared, the ship carrying Alexander was mere pieces of splintered wood, and the masts of the privateers’ ship were but a faint dot on the horizon.

Alexander and Tristan had combed the rocky shore of their small island, gathering driftwood, nets, pieces of sail, and other debris from the ship that might be useful. They found a vat of rum, of all things, still intact, bobbing merrily in an alcove, a case of claymores and dirks nearby. They gathered the bodies that washed ashore, and after waiting a day, believing danger from the privateers would be well passed, they built a funeral pyre. The danger of trying to sail the long boat without maps, provisions, or shelter was too great, unless they could see another ship on the horizon that might lend aid. For now they would set about surviving.