Mary Reed McCall (2 page)

D
uncan’s senses exploded, his emotions coiling into shock as he peered over the rocky ledge. The woman chose death over relinquishing the
Ealach
? Waves surged, and white foam rolled with crushing force against the narrow band of jagged rocks lining the beach. There was no sign of her.

The salty air burned his nostrils as he stalked the precipice, and he felt a grinding sensation in his stomach.
Those eyes.
Those wide, haunted eyes. He couldn’t erase the image of them from his mind. He told himself it was just the aftermath of battle. But the sensation snaked at his gut, relentless, harping.

Curse her. She was a reckless harridan, a witless shrew…

A frightened, helpless female.

He fought the swell of guilt twisting his belly. She’d resisted, damn it. And she was the enemy. Morgana’s sister. The thought stilled his uneasiness, settling ice into
his veins once more. He had to regroup. His mission here was unfinished.

Swinging astride Glendragon, he rode onto the battlefield. The day was won, but chaos stilled reigned, and it took time to find Kinnon. His cousin sat with several other warriors on the bluff, his tunic stripped from his torso to tend a wound to his shoulder. Blood seeped from between his fingers, and he looked up in surprise, wincing when Duncan pushed his hand away to tie a makeshift bandage with a strip torn from his shirt.

“This should hold for an hour or two. Come. We’ve work to do.”

Kinnon frowned and ran his hand through his sweat-dampened hair. Even matted from battle, strands of it shone white-blond in the sun that had burned away the morning mist. “God’s head, cousin, do you never rest?”

“Nay,” Duncan muttered, quelling his impatience with action. He grasped Kinnon’s good arm and pulled him to his feet. “Now find Gil, Ewen and Hamish, and meet me at the base of the bluff. I’ll explain when we get there.” He tossed Glendragon’s reins to a soldier and began to stalk across the field, pausing only long enough to half turn and growl, “Hurry.”

There was no time to waste. For sure as the English were bastards, he and his men had a long day of searching ahead of them. And he didn’t intend to give up his quest until he had his prize in hand.

Warmth radiated up her palm to the rest of her body. Cautiously, Aileana opened her eyelids a crack. The sun glistened, fat and yellow in the robin-egg sky, so beautiful that for a moment she forgot what had brought her to this place. Then memory slammed home, making her breath catch and her head throb.

The Ealach
.

A tingle against her fingers made her hand clench, and she felt the amulet’s reassuring weight. Thank God she’d managed to hold onto it. It had saved her, sure. Just thinking about her bold action on the battlefield made her feel like swooning again.

Struggling to a sitting position, Aileana pushed the damp weight of her hair from her face and stared at the
Ealach
. Its intricate gold setting remained unharmed but for the wet of the ocean, and the opalescent surface of its stone winked back at her with a thousand colored lights. It seemed to know something, though she remembered little after the sensation of falling through the air and into the cold embrace of the water.

She should be dead.

But she was alive, and she had to move quickly to protect herself and the
Ealach
from the marauding MacRaes. Aileana toyed with the idea that they would think she’d perished in the fall, but she couldn’t take any chances.

A thrill of fear ran down her back at the expression she remembered seeing in the MacRae leader’s cold gray eyes. He’d used his gaze to pin her, his aura of unyielding power magnified by the jagged scar that ran down the length of what otherwise would have been a face of almost flawless masculine beauty. He’d seemed an unholy, avenging angel, his shoulder-length, golden hair swirling wildly around his face.

Shuddering, she shook her head and stood as she slipped the
Ealach
’s chain around her neck. The pendant nestled between her breasts for only a moment before a dizzying swirl of images spun her into a vision of the amulet’s last resting place. Screams of agony and moans of death…

Father
. Turbulent emotion swelled in her heart. In her mind’s eye she saw him lying there, mangled, his dignity stripped away as surely as his lifeblood soaked the ground beneath his body. He’d been snatched away before his time, before she’d been able to make him see that she wasn’t like Morgana. That she could be worthy of his love and pride.

Her jaw clenched with a fierce, welcoming burn. She pressed the amulet close, feeling the metal heat upon her skin. One thing was certain; the MacRae devil could rot in hell before she’d let him steal back what Father and her clansmen had died to protect.

A new energy flowed through Aileana’s limbs, spurring her on in her task. Ignoring the ache in her legs, she clambered up the bank. Tufts of hardy grass sprouted among the rocks, and she glimpsed splashes of purple as well. A violent shiver shook her. Wrapping her arms round herself, she peered into the intense blue of the sky. It spread above her, wide and open.

The countryside was beautiful, just as she remembered from her days of childhood freedom. But where would she go? She had to hide the
Ealach
; that much was certain.

Struggling to regain her sense of direction, she squinted and surveyed the landscape. The area seemed familiar. If instinct served, she wasn’t far from an ancient rowan grove that Morgana had shown her long ago. She’d been just a little girl who’d idolized her older sister, then. It had been shortly before the crisis, before Morgana had stumbled into the temptations of sorcery—a time when they’d often found time to wrap cold partridge and bread in cloths and carry it out to eat in the shelter of the rowan trees.

If she could find the grove again, she could dig a recess there to hide the
Ealach
.

Then, once the amulet was safe, she’d search out one of the clans friendly to her people, to the east of Dulhmeny. But she’d have to find them soon. For summer or no, the gusting winds shook the trees like an old woman’s bones.

Aye, she needed to hide the
Ealach
and gain refuge with another clan before nightfall, or she knew that the MacRaes would soon be adding her lifeless body to their bloody list of dead.

Duncan cursed under his breath as he knelt to examine the prints below him. A female’s step, small and light. His men had scoured the beach, looking for her body washed up to shore, but it seemed she had eluded him again. This was all that remained, her footprints leading up the beach and into the woodland.

The MacDonell woman was alive.

A spark of relief lit in Duncan’s chest, but he extinguished it with brutal force. She held what was his, and he didn’t relish the cat and mouse game she played with him. He stood, grasping a handful of sand, and flung it into the lapping maw of the ocean.

“Kinnon, take your men through the wood from the northern point. Hamish, approach from the south. I’ll be taking Gil, Ewen, and the others to follow her trail from here. We need to flush her from her hiding place.”

The men nodded, their faces solemn. The air crackled with tension, as if each warrior sensed the importance of this hunt to his chieftain. Everyone began to disperse, and Kinnon directed his men to retrieve their horses. Then he came toward Duncan.

“Perhaps it would be better for me to be coming with you, cousin. You’ve the look of the Tower in your eyes right now, and it wouldn’t serve for you to be too rough with the woman, be she a MacDonell or no.”

Duncan pulled his gaze up to Kinnon’s face, reading the worry couched there. He didn’t blame him. They were of an age, and Kinnon knew him well. Truth be known, he was the only person that Duncan would consider trusting with his life.

After Morgana had ravaged their clan in the attack, Kinnon had approached their overlord, the MacKenzie Chief, for help. The MacKenzie had refused, wanting to keep the peace, and so Kinnon had moved on his own, pulling together enough surviving MacRae clansmen to try to free Duncan from the English. But he’d only been captured himself for his pains.

The English bastards had imprisoned Kinnon at York, and by the time he’d gained his release, it had been too late to do Duncan any good. Kinnon had had to focus his attention on rebuilding the clan, on trying to make it strong and whole again. Eventually, Queen Elizabeth had taken the throne and released all of her Scottish prisoners, Duncan among them. He’d returned home only months ago to find his clan still struggling to regain their fortunes and their pride, but alive and safe, thanks to Kinnon.

Unblinking, his cousin pressed his point. “What say you, Duncan? I can appoint one of the men to lead my group so that I can ride with you.”

Duncan shook his head. “Never fear. I’ll not be harming the woman…” He paused to check Glendragon’s bridle before glancing at his cousin again, “…unless she refuses to give me the amulet.”

Kinnon blanched. The wind ruffled through his sun-bright hair, making him look younger, and he moved as if to stop him. “Hold, now, Duncan. You know I cannot let you do something you’ll be regretting later.”

Grim satisfaction lifted the corners of Duncan’s
mouth, and he slapped his cousin’s back. “Ah, Kinnon MacRae, what would yer own mother be sayin’ about havin’ as gullible a man as ye fer a son?” He savored the feel of the brogue rolling off his tongue. In the Tower he’d been beaten senseless more than once for speaking Gaelic outright. It had incited the guards to a fury, and many of the other Scottish prisoners had learned to confine themselves to English if they spoke at all. But Duncan had refused. It had been the only method of rebellion open to him, and no matter what the physical cost, it had helped to keep his soul free.

Kinnon stood still, stupefied for a moment; then he threw his entire weight against Duncan, knocking him off balance. His chuckle rumbled from deep in his belly. “Sure the evil fairies had a hand in makin’ a worthless wretch like ye, Duncan MacRae. Take yourself off, then. But dinna say you were lackin’ the offer of my help.”

Duncan righted himself and gave a quick nod, more pleased at Kinnon’s concern than he’d ever admit. He took a deep breath of the clean Highland air, filling his lungs, as if its freshness could remove all memory of the Tower’s stench. Looking up, he checked the position of the sun. Just past noon. There was still plenty of time to pick up the scent and hunt down his prey. With a glance at his men, he started up the stony embankment.

Intense pride burned in his breast. He was Duncan MacRae, chieftain of his clan. Kinnon was fiercely loyal to him, as were all of these warriors. They’d risked their futures to come together once again under his leadership. They were counting on him.

And that was all the more reason for using any means necessary to seize the
Ealach
back from the thieving MacDonell wench who’d taken it.

Aileana tried to scrape away the dirt that clumped cool and gritty beneath her nails. Straightening to her knees, she stretched her back for the first time since her escape from the MacRae leader more than two hours ago. Her work here pleased her. No passerby would guess that behind the leaves and moss rested a secret grotto, or that within the shallow cave lay the precious
Ealach
. Wiping her hands on her rumpled clothes, she edged back into the brush, promising herself that she’d return to get the amulet later when she was sure she wasn’t being followed.

She moved quickly from the spot, careful to avoid leaving cracked branches or crushed vegetation. But after several minutes of ducking and hiding, she failed to see any sign that she was nearing an allied clan. Spotting another leafy copse of trees ahead, she decided to creep into the shadows to reconsider her plan.

Bark scratched her as she crouched near a trunk, then she settled onto the soggy earth. Peering through the branches, she could just see a sliver of blue sky above her. When she looked ahead, however, it was as if a magic transformation had taken place in the forest. Sun slanted into a tiny glade less than twenty paces away, beckoning her with warmth. Her heart rolled with a sickening thud. It was an accustomed sensation, just like being back home, gazing from the confinement of her chamber to a freedom she wasn’t permitted to enjoy.

She struggled against the temptation to dart into the little clearing. To just this once dance in the sun or scamper in the leaves. A niggling voice echoed in her head, reminding her that she could do whatever she wanted now. There were no walls to hold her, no barriers now other than those of her own mind. With the
Ealach
concealed, she was free to go where she chose.

But what if it was dangerous?
She chewed her lip, trying to weigh the harm in indulging herself. A swift glance in either direction assured her that nothing was amiss. In truth, she most likely feared for naught. The MacRae devil couldn’t possibly think her alive now.

A flare of excitement shot to the ends of her fingers and toes. She would do it. Ignoring the quaking of her stomach, she scrambled into the clearing and sat in the middle of it, soaking up the sights, sounds and smells of the woodland as if she’d never get enough. For this one, perfect moment she was free! Free to move and explore. To dig in the dirt or lay in the sun. Free and—

Alone
.

A hollow ache bloomed in her with that grim reminder, quelling her enthusiasm. She pulled her knees to her chest. Saints above, what was she thinking? She had nowhere to go, no one to protect her. And it was still possible that she was being followed. Sitting in this clearing left her exposed. Vulnerable.

Aileana threw herself back into the cover of brush at the clearing’s edge. Only then did she allow herself to take a breath. She’d been so foolish! Never again could she forget her circumstances. Father was dead, and Gavin and Robert might well be, too. Who knew if any of her clan had survived?

Heat prickled her eyelids. Her brothers had been the only spot of joy in her life. She couldn’t bear the thought of them lying crumpled and wounded.
Or slain like Father
. Her breath came faster, and the pressure behind her eyes swelled.