Highlander's Passion (The Matheson Brothers Book 2) (13 page)

“You are soul bound, and there is no hope greater than that of the mated bond. I have faith you will find a way to extinguish your fire again since you’ve already done so.” She turned her by the shoulders and pinched her cheeks. “Which means you must. Now, ’tis time to live your life to the fullest, no matter where that journey might take you. Let’s be away.”

“Thank you, Julia. I love you.” Her heart full, she slid her matching slippers on and followed her sister out the door. They walked down the winding stairs and entered the great hall abuzz with warriors attired in their clan plaids. Kenneth sat at the dais, although Gilleoin, Aunt Sorcha and Nessa still remained at the village and would until they’d convinced the leaders of the need for all within the village to seek refuge during the coming battle, one that would rise in mere days. June the eleventh approached with speed.

“Do you see Isla?” Hand to her brow, Julia peered about on the tips of her toes. Warriors sat at trestle tables with steaming bowls of oats and fresh loaves of bread before them. They ate with gusto and much chatter and din. “Oh, there she is. At the front door.”

Isla, her hand resting within the bend of Iain’s elbow, walked outside with her mate, Kirk right behind them. Both Finlay’s brothers were dressed in black leather pants and dark tunics under padded cotuns, their claymores glinting at their sides. With the coming battle looming, all had to be prepared for the MacKenzie’s strike and they appeared ready for training.

“We’ll catch them up.” Julia grasped her hand and tugged her along after her.

Outside in the bailey, the warriors trained in their kilts, dust pluming at their feet and steel ringing loud as they struck each other. A tall burly warrior stomped to the center of the group in thick fur boots with a gong in hand. He called for the change and several warriors swapped out with men on the sidelines before the battling once again resumed.

Iain halted at the center well draped in ivy, kissed Isla’s cheek then strode with Kirk to the training area. The two warmed up, twirling their blades in a precise figure eight. Then they tapped their swords together and fought, swiftly and with immense strength.

“Isla!” Julia waved out and they both hurried across and joined her at the well.

“Good morning to you two.” Isla hugged Julia and her, a welcoming smile on her face.

“We have much to speak to you about.” In a flurry, Arabel recited all that happened between her and Finlay while Isla listened with wide eyes and a rising smile.

“That is the best news.” The wind lifted, fluttered Isla’s sapphire skirts and the white ribbon at the top of her cinched bodice. “What you’ve told me also explains why Iain sensed a great deal of contentment coming from Finlay last night, ecstatic contentment. Kirk got a blast of it too, and I sat quietly with hope in my heart that things might have changed for you both. It does sound as if the realignment of the elements occurred during the storm, and I love that it extinguished your fire. There’s hope, always hope to keep us strong.”

“Aye, but I left without waking Finlay this morn, and there willnae be a chance he’ll remember me, or our joining.”

“I agree, and unfortunately I can’t reverse what I’ve compelled. All his memories of his time with you are gone. I also can’t tamper with his thought processes and try to reinstall them, or else he’ll begin to believe he’s gone mad. There is a fine line to what I can and can’t do.” Isla’s gaze softened. “He’s your mate, Arabel, and I can never compel that truth from him, that is why, deep in his heart, he completed the bond with you the first moment he could. Doing so rages through our shifter men, their desire to tie their chosen one to them all that rides them. Did you successfully create the merged link of the mind?”

“We did, and if you are in agreement, I would like you to remove the compulsion from Finlay and his brothers, provided Finlay too desires it.”

“He might be angry at the lengths we took to keep you from him, but he’ll never turn you away. You’re not alone, and never will be. You have an entire clan, your sister and me, and the ‘power of three’ on your side. There is no limit to what we’ll be able do to help you find all the answers you seek.” She glanced toward the gates and raised a brow. “Oh, and it appears the time for some of those answers has now arrived.”

Fury lined Finlay’s brow as he marched toward his brothers, his wrinkled white tunic un-tucked and flapping over his tan rawhide pants, his brown leather vest slung over one shoulder. The stubble razzing his jaw was thick and dark, his black hair a wind-tossed mess and a mass of emotions swirling within the golden depths of his eyes. He tossed his vest to the ground and heaved his sword from its side scabbard, his rage evident as he slammed his blade into Iain’s.

She should never have denied her mate. The time for her reckoning had arrived.

* * * *

So many intense and fierce emotions barreled through Finlay. He’d awoken in a cavern on a ledge overhanging a cool freshwater pool some miles from the castle, all alone and with only slivers of memory to mark the time. He’d been chasing a woman with long blond locks that swayed to her waist and vivid red skirts. She was nameless, faceless, yet everything about her called to him, on the deepest level. She was also the same unknown woman who’d haunted his dreams over the past few days. He ached, so deep in his soul he could barely breathe through the pain, and his heart, it felt as if it had been torn in two, as if he’d never be whole again.

“Whoa.” Iain backed up a step. “What’s going on?”

“I need help.” He swung again, striking Iain’s blade hard and fast a second time. “I can’t bear the weight of this loss thundering through me a moment more. I can’t find her.”

“You mean your mate?” Kirk jumped in and met Finlay’s next strike. “Yet I sensed only contentment coming from you last night, and an overwhelming amount of it.”

“If I was content, that emotion has well and truly gone. This morning I awoke inside a cavern deep within the cliffs at the cove, and I have no idea why I did. There was also no sign of anyone but me, yet I’m certain I was with someone. I’m running out of time and she needs me, just as badly as I need her.”

“
Finlay, I’m so sorry.
”

He stumbled to his knees, grasped his head.

“Are you all right?” Iain fell to one knee beside him, Kirk dropping down on his other side.

His searched his mind, found the pathway those sweet words had been delivered along. “I don’t believe it,” he whispered to his brothers. “There’s a telepathic link between me and another.”

“You’ve completed the bond?” Wild confusion lit Iain’s face, likely the same wild confusion racing across his own. “How could you not remember joining with your mate?”

“
C-come to the chief’s solar, Finlay.
” Her voice flowed through, all shaky and pained. “
I-I promise to explain everything where we’ll be afforded more privacy.
”

“
Who are you?
” He found his footing and stood. “Chief’s solar,” he said to Iain and Kirk and took off, his brothers hot on his heels. He pounded into the great hall, skidded around the corner and flew into the side antechamber bereft of its chief but instead holding Isla and Julia standing either side of Julia’s sister who sat in a padded chair. He strode toward her. “Arabel, isn’t it? You’re the fire-wielder? Is it you who just spoke to me?”

“Aye, I did.” She bunched her hands in her lap and twisted her fingers within the silvery-blue folds of her skirts.

“How”—he seized the arms of her wooden chair and scraped it closer, bringing them nose to nose—“did you manage to do that?”

“Finlay, calm down.” Kirk shut the door, pulled out a chair and plunked it behind him. Kirk gripped his shoulders and urged him down. “No looming over the poor lass.”

Iain eyed Isla and the two clearly spoke, although along their merged link and by the look on Iain’s face, he wasn’t happy with whatever he’d just discovered.

Scrubbing a hand over his heavily whiskered jaw, Finlay faced the women he’d created a merged link with. Arabel trembled, her head bowed and her gaze on her whitened knuckles. Aye, he needed to take more care. She was scared and he’d caused her to be so.

Slowly, he leaned forward and covered one of her hands with his. She was cold, and for one who wielded fire, she shouldn’t be. That he knew to the depths of his soul. He pulled back an inch, lost the contact he needed but assuaged the fear taking hold of him instead. “What is going on?”

“I’ve done you a grave wrong.” She lifted her gaze and those beautiful eyes of hers glimmered with tears. One trickled free, trailed down her soft cheek and splashed her gown.

He touched the salty drop with one finger and shook his head. Hell, he’d made his mate cry and that was the last thing he wanted to do. “Please, don’t cry.”

“I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.” More tears, and as each one fell, they hit him like he’d taken a spear to his gut. “When emotions of grief or loss rise, so too does my cold-fire. It makes me cold.”

“Then fix your cold-fire, right now.” Her talk of it set him completely on edge, although he knew not why. “Hurry.”

“Of course.” She closed her eyes and remained quiet. Long minutes passed before her cheeks finally flushed and she ceased trembling. When she lifted her lashes, she looked into his eyes and he almost drowned within the watery blue depths lit by sparks of gold around the edges.

“Are you feeling better?”

“A little.” She gulped. “Finlay, when you first discovered we were mated, you were so determined to complete the bond even though doing so would have ended in your death. In the past two centuries only six fire-wielders have been born afore me with the skill of fire and all have perished following the death of their loved one. There is no intimacy permitted with one who wields fire.”

“Yet we’ve clearly been intimate and I survived such a joining. What happened at the cove?”

“Yesterday, I ran there and you chased me. You wouldnae give up the fight and when the storm hit, we took shelter in the cavern. Fire came in the form of lightning, water in the form of rain, air in the form of the fierce wind that rose, and the earth, well we were deep inside the cavern when the storm unleashed itself. My fire was exhausted and I couldnae raise even a glimmer of heat. The four elements had come back into realignment.”

“Fire, water, air and earth.” He mumbled the words, although they roared inside his mind, as if he’d spoken them many times before. “Has your fire been out of control since our arrival in this time?” The knowledge flittered at the edges of his mind, wispy and frail but still there.

“That’s right. During the storm we completed the bond, when we knew ’twas safe to do so.” She lit her fingers and flames danced on her fingertips. “Now the realignment has occurred, I no longer release heat for no reason, but I shall always be susceptible to losing control during moments of intimacy. That I can never control.”

“I see.” He reached for her hands and she doused her fire and threaded her fingers through his.

“You’ve told me many times that we are each other’s match, that we wouldnae have been mated otherwise. I believe, but in reaching this point, I took many precautions. To ensure your safety, I asked Isla to compel you and your brothers. She wouldn’t to begin with, no’ until I forced your hand and you too asked her to do so. I was to be no one to you, no more than another woman who resided here within this keep. No one of interest or importance. No one to draw too much of your curiosity. And should we have met, each instance would have been as if the first and all other times forgotten.”

“Well, that explains a damn lot. No wonder I can’t remember you, except you took a grave risk by your actions. Those who are mated work best together, not apart as you’ve forced us to be.” Frustration had reared and wouldn’t abate. She’d chosen to leave him, when mated pairs never did.

“There is more.” She slid her fingers from his and eased his shirt collar to one side. “You and your brothers cannae see it, but there is a mark here, one I placed on you a few days ago, a mark I—well, I bit you again during our joining.”

“You had all three of us compelled?” She’d gone to dire lengths. He swept her silky blond hair back from her neck and exposed two marks, one on each side of her neck, both gracing her creamy flesh. His marks. His claim. On his woman. Only he never remembered giving them to her. “I can see your marks.”

“You bit me last eve for the first time. You had no’ done so afore.” She cleared her throat, her cheeks flushing an even rosier hue.

“I want my memories back, to know everything that’s transpired between us.” He looked deep into her eyes and his pulse raced. She was the one who’d stolen his heart, and the one without question, who he’d hand it back to again and again. “And I mean desperately.”

“Isla cannae return lost memories, only remove her compelling command and ensure you dinnae lose any more.” She settled back in her chair, creating a distance—albeit a small one—he didn’t care for, not one little bit. “’Tis up to you though if you wish for her to do so. I forced your agreement the first time, and I shall no’ do so again.”

“Of course I wish the compelling command gone.” His mate clearly liked to take matters into her own hands, but he wouldn’t allow it a moment longer. Suspicion though shimmered through him. “Why wouldn’t I wish it?”

Arabel glanced at Isla and his brother’s mate dragged in a deep breath and stepped forward. “I’m aware of what’s been recorded in history, and the very last known fire-wielder to have ever lived, passed away during the battle at the village on June the eleventh. Which means you could still very well lose Arabel on that day, whether you wish it or not.”

Isla’s words sent a shockwave of cold blazing through his veins. There wasn’t a chance he’d lose his mate, not now he’d finally found her. He’d ensure her safety, keep her right here at the castle where she’d remain well away from any harm. No one was taking his mate from him again, not his woman with her decision to keep his memories from him, or a looming battle he and his brothers intended to change the outcome of. “Remove your compelling command, Isla.” He kept his gaze on Arabel. “I won’t forget my woman, not one more time.”