Released (3 page)

“Unlikely.”  The queen drifted closer, the chill that was a Banshees constant companion intensified at her approach.  “Fae magic only requires intent to employ.  However, two possibilities abide in which a mortal can resist the lethal touch of a Banshee.”

The MacKay women held their collective breaths.  The only sound in their vicinity the rhythmic shattering of insignificant ice drops. 

“And they are?” Katriona prompted when she was certain her mother’s lungs would burst. 

“If a human is blessed by a Deity, or they are one of
An
Dìoladh.
”

“The returned?”  Kamdyn’s rampant curiosity obviously overcame her better judgment.  “What does that mean?”

Katriona’s heart sank.  She knew what it meant because her father, a blacksmith, had loved to tell his two little girls stories and myths around the fire at the end of a long day.  He’d been kicked in the head by an unruly stallion before Kamdyn was born, and their broken-hearted mother had never repeated his lively tales.

“One who has walked in the Otherworld, child, and then returned to their body to live out their days.”

“You mean—someone who’s died?” Kamdyn whispered, her eyes round as an owl’s.

“And then had their life restored to them, yes,” the queen confirmed.  “It is rare among your kind, but occurs from time to time.”

“Is Rory MacKay blessed by a Deity?” Katriona demanded. 

“He is not,” Cliodnah answered.  “Of this I am certain.”

“Then he is one of these—these
An
Dìoladh.”

“That is the only possible explanation.” 

“How
else
can he be killed?”  It was all Katriona cared about.  Her vengeance.  Justice. 

“By no means of the Fae or Sidhe.”  The queen’s words froze the useless heart in Katriona’s chest.  “He may only die by a natural course like any other man.”

“What about my younger daughters?”  Elspeth clutched her hands together as though at prayer, or supplication.  “Their vengeance is denied, but their victims are dead.  May they be released now to their final rest in the Otherworld?”

“It is impossible.”  The condescension in the Faerie’s voice spilled resentment like hot tar in Katriona’s chest.  “If they are unable to exact their vengeance, then their souls are contracted for my use indefinitely.  One of the wronged ones must do the deed.”

“No.”  In horror, Elspeth dropped to her knees.  “What have I done?”

“There is no justice in this!” Katriona hissed.  “We cannot kill someone already dead.” 

Cliodnah made a dismissive gesture, agitating the frost in her atmosphere.  “That does not concern me.  They were alive when you came to me seeking vengeance.  You should have acted quickly and exacted your justice then.”

“Our mother was near to dying!”  Kylah contended.  “We could not leave her.”

“So you stood helplessly by and let your retribution escape you.”  The Faerie queen, ever cold and unaffected, began to fade from view.  “Unless you can find a way to regain your mortality, I’ll return by the Summer Solstice to collect you.”

Katriona’s frustrated cry echoed in the emptiness.  As she watched the last of the frost settle and disappear into the ashes and stone, the sound of Kamden and her mother’s frightened sobs gnawed at the edges of her sanity.  Kylah’s constant, broken silence became more maddening and excruciating than any Banshees shriek. 

She could not linger here another moment. 

What she could do, is lay the blame at the feet of the man who deserved it. 

Rory MacKay might be immune to her magic, but he was not unaffected by it.  He was still mortal.  He could still die. 

And before her soul was claimed by the Faerie queen, Katriona would see him dead by any natural course she could devise.   

Chapter Three

“Ye look like ye’re about to meet the Reaper instead of yer bride.”  Lorne MacKay slapped Rory on the shoulder with a heavy glove.  “Ye’ll like to scare her away by scowling at her so.”     

Rory shook off the trance and adjusted the MacKay badge on his heavy fur cloak.  “Aye well, I’m not of a mind to have a bride just now.  I’ve other things in need of attention.” 

Like Katriona MacKay. 

Squinting through the MacKay banners down the Road of Wrath that stretched along the river Naver and then angled west to Durness, Rory searched for any sign of movement.  The runner had heralded the arrival of Clan Fraser a short while ago, and it seemed all those of Durness, and the surrounding villages of Strathnaver and its men-at-arms stood at the ready to receive him.

Lorne snorted, scratching his thick, blonde beard with a meaty hand.  “What ‘
other things
?’  The clan wants for Kathryn Fraser’s dowry and Laird Fraser wants Angus’s thousand men.”

“Thousand traitors,” Rory muttered.

“I still think ye should have slaughtered them when ye had the chance.”  Lorne spat on the ground. 

Rory thought of Angus’s twenty or so closest men, butchered single-handedly by Connor MacLauchlan, Laird of the Lachlan clan.  Connor had received the last of Rory’s gold from the deal, and also a wife, Lindsay Ross, who was technically supposed to have been promised to Angus. 

They all found out what happened to a man who stood in between a Berserker and his mate.  The picture of his twin’s crushed and broken body reared in Rory’s mind, and he squelched the complicated emotions surging through him.

“Had I massacred them all, I would have made enemies of a thousand MacKay families.  It wouldna have done anything to foster unity in the clan.  At least indenturing them to Fraser gives them a chance to live and fight for Scotland.  Maybe regain some of the honor they’ve lost.” 

“Aye, ye’ve appeased a thousand families with yer mercy, and still three thousand more MacKays call for justice against them,” Lorne argued. 

“Canna justice and mercy go hand in hand?” Rory asked.  “At least this way, they have a chance to claim their lives, or for their deaths to mean something.  And the money we receive for their swords can be put toward reparations for their crimes against their own people.”  Even as the words left his mouth, Rory wondered if he still believed them.  He’d heard of and ultimately seen some of the atrocities committed by his father and brother and their men, but none had affected him like Katriona’s tale. 

Burned alive.  Her sister violated.  Her mother forced to watch.

How did Angus become so twisted?  Someone he’d shared a womb with.  A life with.  How did they grow to be so different?  And why did any of those who followed his evil brother deserve to live?

Because the MacKay coffers had been drained by his family’s warmongering, and they needed money if they were to survive another harsh winter.  Because the families of those men were
still
MacKays, most of them innocent.

“It seems ye have something else weighing on ye,” Lorne correctly observed. 

Rory sighed and glanced around, meeting the eyes of the watchful Fraser runner who stood only paces away.  He leaned down closer to Lorne.

As wide and thick as a centuries-old tree, Lorne MacKay stood no taller than Rory’s chin.  Though Rory stood eyes taller and a span thicker than most men, he knew better than to ever make Lorne feel the disparity in their stature.

“I’ve a Banshee,” he muttered.

Lorne’s laugh was booming and sudden, startling many of those gathered nearby.  “Did I hear you wrong or did ye say ye had—oof!”

Rory’s swift and sharp elbow to the ribs cut him off.  “I didna tell ye to cry it to the entire clan, ye daft arse.”

“I’m sorry,” Lorne wiped a tear of mirth from his eye.  “It’s just ye’re so serious, I didna expect ye to say something so outrageous.” 

“I’m
not
—” Rory glanced at those of his clan that were now regarding the men with piqued curiosity, and lowered his voice.  “I’m not in jest,” he insisted.  “She came to me last night, after yer younger brother, Baird, left my chamber,”

“That’s impossible.”  Lorne swatted the air in front of his face, still speaking too loud for Rory’s comfort.  “Ye’d not be standing here if ye were speaking the truth.  We’d have found yer shriveled body in yer chambers this morn.”

“That’s just it; she
tried
to kill me, but couldna.”  Rory remembered the look of pure shock on her transparent face.   He felt the sensation of her cool hands on his flesh.  That memory would be with him for all his days.

“Ye had a dream, Laird, a nightmare.  Many a warrior does before his wedding,” Lorne said sagely.  “Marriage is not so hard.  Just remember some flowers, a kiss, and a good long tup rights just about any wrong.”  He shouldered Rory in the arm and pointed toward the sapphire waters of the Kyle.  “There’s the Fraser Vanguard.”

Indeed, a train of wagons surrounded by kilted knights appeared around the Kinloch pass.

“It wasna a dream,” Rory said, his eyes tracking the progress of the Frasers.  “It was Katriona MacKay.  The washerwoman’s eldest daughter.”

“The one who died in the fire last spring?” 

“Aye,” Rory confirmed, debating on whether or not to reveal the cause of the fire.

Lorne’s eyes narrowed.  “Didna ye always have eyes for her?  And Angus for the sister who was too pretty for her own good, what was her name?  Krista, Kayleigh—”

Rory elbowed his Steward and most trusted friend a second time.  “Kylah, and keep yer voice
down
.  What if she lurks nearby?”

“Yer bleeding serious?”  Lorne’s mouth dropped open and he stared at Rory as though he’d sprouted a tail and started dancing a jig to an English ditty.  “Ye’ve lost yer fucking senses, on today of all days.”  He threw a hand toward the approaching clan.

“If ye doona keep yer bloody voice down, I’m going to run ye through in front of all these people and feed yer corpse to the Frasers for their supper,” Rory threatened through gritted teeth.  He sent what he hoped was an encouraging smile to the dour-faced Fraser runner, who was now regarding them both with suspicion, though Rory was fair certain he couldn’t hear their conversation.

Yet. 

Maybe Lorne should have stayed back in Argyle to aid the MacLauchlans.  Rory scowled at the man.

“Just promise not to let it show that ye’ve cracked until
after
the wedding.”  Lorne ignored his empty threat.

“I’m sorry I mentioned it to ye,” Rory groused.

“Well that makes two of us.”  Lorne answered Rory’s scowl with one of his own.  “Now keep yer daft hidden and woo yer bride’s father.  The contract isna signed as of yet.”

Lorne had a point.  Rory could only focus on one crisis at a time.

Rory went to rest his hand on his sword and found the scabbard empty.  He felt naked without it, but had removed it as a gesture of goodwill to his new in-laws.  He sent his second-in-command a look that spoke volumes as the gilded, well-guarded wagon in the middle creaked to a stop. 

The Fraser colors of vibrant red, green, and the impudent violet of Gallic royalty whipped about in the chilly February wind, its sound as loud as thunder in the crisp, silent morning.  A burly, dark-haired clansman dismounted and rushed to open the latch to the coach’s door and lower the step rail.

A man with the dimensions of a barrel of scotch stepped onto the rail, mightily testing its resilience.  Alistair Jean Roche Fraser, Laird of the Lowland Frasers, surveyed the gathered crowd of a few hundred souls with dark eyes more suited to a mischievous goat rather than the laird of a powerful clan.

His gaze snagged on Rory and his jowls lifted in a quivery smile.  “Laird MacKay!”  His jolly voice echoed across the moors.  “They told me to expect a braw lad, but I didna know you were as tall as an oak!” 

“Laird Fraser.”  Rory stepped forward and clasped the man’s forearm.  It was more solid than expected for a man of sixty-plus years.  “Welcome to Durness.”

“Is it true what I heard, that you
gave
Dun Keep back to Argyll and the MacLauchlans banished ye all the way back here to the edge of the world?”

The man didn’t mince words; he and Lorne would surely get along.  Rory checked his temper.  “Strathnaver is our home and MacKay lands stretch from Caithness all the way through Reay.  We’ve bountiful oceans, plentiful kin, and fertile soil.  My father and brother overreached our boundaries and brought war to our clan when I would have peace in the Highlands.  Angus took Dun Keep from its rightful owners and I merely restored it and any pilfered Argyle lands.

“And as for the MacLauchlan’s, they’re my friends and allies, currently holding yer thousand soldiers in good faith to be delivered upon signing of our contract.”  Rory realized that ‘friend’ might be too strong a word for the relationship he’d forged with the MacLauchlan Berserkers, but in his opinion, this Lowlander with French blood could stay out of their Highland affairs. 

“Did these wild Highlanders treat ye well, Albert?”  Frasier used the French pronunciation, dropping the ‘T’. 

The runner stepped forward, his wide shoulders at odds with his diminutive chin.  “Aye, Laird.”  Something in the icy grey of the runner’s eyes disturbed Rory.  It seemed as though his hospitable treatment somehow disappointed the man.

Fraser nodded in a strong movement, his plentiful chins quivered like the leavings cook scraped from a boiled broth.  “Very well, MacKay, I present to you Kathryn Fraser, soon to be your wife.”