Soulceress (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 2) (4 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

17th century, Scottish Highlands

“All I knows is, there’s witches here. In this very town.”

“Aye. I heard that red-haired Megan is one. Only a matter of time afore they catch her.”

Warren slouched farther into his seat in the dark little pub and tried to ignore the voices behind him. It was all the same these days—villagers grumbling about witches and ridiculous hysteria about black magic. None of it existed, of course, but it didn’t stop the cruel idiots from buying into the madness that was being imported from Edinburgh and farther south.

He gripped the tankard in his hand and focused on the amber liquid within, having to forcibly repress the desire to stand up and smash it over the heads of the bastards behind him. Their prejudice cost good lives. Had cost the life of his grandmother, a batty old woman, but not a witch. It hadn’t stopped them from putting her on the pyre, though.

“You’ll want to loosen your grip there, lad, before you lose your drink.” The deep voice knocked him out of his foul memories and he looked up to see Bruce.

“About time you got here,” he said, and loosened his grip. He couldn’t do anything to the bastards behind him. Like cockroaches, there were too many of them. Kill those and a dozen more with the same deadly, moronic beliefs would replace them. And he’d be hanged for murder, unable to do what good he could. Because even if he hated the type of bastard sitting behind him, he loved his clan and wouldn’t watch their women burned.

“I’ve got a pregnant woman who needs to make it to the port,” Bruce said under his breath. “Tomorrow night.”

Warren’s lips tightened. A pregnant woman. Bloody hell. Would the horrors never cease?

“From our village?” He didn’t know of any pregnant women being targeted as witches. As part of a covert band of individuals who helped smuggle women to safety once they’d been labeled witches, he should know of her if she were from here.
 

“Nay. From the other side of the mountain. She’s got kin in America. Now that she’s only a trial away from going up on the pyre, she’s decided to join them.”

Warren couldn’t laugh at the dark joke. It hit too close to home. The trial would find her guilty. If his comrades smuggled her to him, he’d get her through the forest and to the port. Safely, if they could stay out of sight of his fellow citizens.
 

The next night arrived moonless and rainy. A terrible night to try to get through the woods. Worse, the pregnant woman, called Avera, looked to be about a day away from giving birth. Wrapped in a dark cloak, she was slender but for the great belly that slowed her walk to a waddle.
 

“Are you sure you can do this? We have miles to go through the forest,” he asked her as the rain pounded down upon them. They stood on the side of the road where his colleagues had delivered her to him.

“I’ve no other choice.”

A rustle from the farm cart behind them drew his attention and another cloaked figure climbed out, apparently done talking to the driver.

“Mother, let me go with you,” the figure said as she approached. Warren caught sight of golden eyes and a strong face. The woman looked too old to be the daughter of the pregnant woman.
 

“Nay.” Avera’s voice was hard. “You won’t survive in the New World. There’s no’ enough power there.”

Warren frowned at the odd turn of phrase.

“How will you survive?” There were tears in the younger woman’s voice.

“I’ve no choice, you know that. You canna protect me. You’ll die trying, and I won’t have that. In a few years, if more of our kind go to the New World and you can survive there, I’ll send for you. But for now, you must look out for yourself without me to burden you.”

The woman reached out to grasp her mother’s arm. “But—”

“No! You’re at risk as it is. This man will protect me. Go home. I’ll send for you.” Her voice brooked no argument.

Still, the younger woman tried. Finally, she huffed and turned to him. In a flash, her face hardened. In a dark voice, she said, “Protect her. Or I will come for you, and you will regret it with every fiber of your being.”

A shiver ran through Warren as the girl turned from him and hugged her mother before climbing back into the farm cart. Lantern light glinted off her face. Her eyes flashed, changing color to pitch black. He didn’t believe in magic, but as he watched the cart rumble down the dark road, the chill wouldn’t leave his bones.
 

He shook it away and looked at the woman who stood cloaked before him. She was his responsibility, a role he took seriously enough without the daughter’s eerie threats.
 

“Come,” he said. “We must make it through the forest by dawn. Are you meeting someone at the port?”

“Nay. I’ll meet the father of my child in the New World.”

“Excellent. I will get you there.”
 

She nodded and they set off toward the port. It was the worst journey he’d made by far, the dark and the wet making the travel rough and miserable. They had to avoid the road, however, or risk facing the witch hunters who had figured out that someone was smuggling suspected witches to the port. They hiked for hours, though it felt like days.

“Fucking rain—we’ll never find them.” The voice carried through the forest, so quiet that Warren wasn’t sure of the words.

“Shite. Avera, you need to hide. Quick, near these rocks.” A chill ran over his skin as he doused their lantern and tried to hide Avera among the rocks. How many were there? Were they looking for this woman?

When she was crouched against the rocks, nearly invisible in the dark, Warren withdrew his sword and hid himself behind a large oak a dozen feet in front of her. He wouldn’t draw their attention, but he’d be ready if they found him.
 

A light appeared in the forest, small but growing larger as the men approached. Five of them. Bloody hell. His breath grew short in his throat, and he had to force himself not to gasp raggedly.
 

“Oy, I think I hear something,” a man said, and Warren stiffened at the proximity of his voice.
 

A sword was pointed at Warren’s throat a moment later. No more hiding. He raised his own blade and the clash of steel echoed through the forest. The battle was fast and hard, and when the lantern dropped from the hand of the smallest man, near dark crashed around them. He couldn’t make out a single face as he felled two opponents, but he felt the slice of their blades and the keen edge of victory when their bodies hit the ground.

He was on his knees in the mud when a sharp scream broke out over the clash of swords. Sick fear for Avera welled in him, crushing the dark joy he felt in slaying his enemies. He had to get to her.
 

On a spurt of blind luck, he sank his blade into the gut of the man looming above him. He staggered to his feet, tripped over the body of one of the other soldiers he’d slain, and immediately collided with a fourth.

He gripped his sword more tightly, ignoring the blood that dripped down his arm, and slashed it across the middle of the man in front of him. The hooded figure, more apparition than reality, stumbled but didn’t go down. Damn bastard was tough, but it had been a good night for Warren. Three kills, but he’d make it a fourth and get Avera back and to the port.
 

Warren parried, blocking the other man’s strikes, before sinking his blade into his opponent’s neck. The harsh gurgle of breath was music to his ears as he jerked his blade free. He’d always liked killing these idiots. He was doing the human race a favor.
 

He’d just spun on his heel to race to Avera when pain exploded in his head. The last thing he remembered was falling like a great tree in the forest, filled with fear that he had failed Avera.

When he finally opened his eyes, pale golden sunlight filtered through the trees above and turned the raindrops to glittering diamonds. He groaned and pressed a hand to his head. A lump crusted with dried blood twinged when he touched it.

The memories of the pregnant woman that he’d failed pierced his brain, and he jerked upright, too distraught to curse at the pain in his head. He glanced around frantically, but saw nothing except the bodies of the four men he’d felled last night.
 

There must have been a fifth, or more, who’d taken Avera. He staggered to his feet, intent on tracking them and tearing the heads from their bodies. The sight of one of the fallen men caught his eye and he turned, his breath caught in his throat like a boulder.

The cloak was pulled back from the face, now illuminated by the morning sun. The sight hit Warren like lightning, knocking the foundation of his life out from beneath his feet. He stumbled backward
 

Alan.
He’d killed his own cousin.
 

Warren raised his hand, stared at the blood that coated it. He swallowed hard, stumbled, and looked for the next body. His feet carried him to it, though he wasn’t even sure if his brain consciously gave the command.

When he stared down at the face that had been hidden by the night’s pitch black, a buzzing started up between his ears that drowned out his sense of self.

Donal.
Alan’s brother. Something hot trailed down Warren’s face as he stared at the face of his cousin, the boy who’d been like a brother to him.
 

Dread wedged into every corner of his body as he looked at the other two bodies. They lay close, their crumpled forms near enough to make out their features.

Warren’s knees gave out and the ground rose up to meet him.

Eoin and Gus.
Four brothers. His cousins. He’d killed them. When had they become involved with the witch hunters? His own efforts to save the falsely accused were a secret, but witch hunters were usually not so secretive in their dealings.
 

But he’d killed them, and the dark was no excuse. Pain and regret surged within him, a tidal wave that swamped rational thought and tore a roar from his throat.
 

When he returned to himself, minutes or hours later, he remembered that Avera was still missing. Pregnant and very likely within the grasp of witch hunters.
 

He could barely feel his body as he stood. His cousins deserved a proper burial, no matter that they’d been involved in evil at the time of their death. He deserved just punishment for their murders, no matter what the light had been like when he’d killed them.
 

But first, he had to find Avera. Before it was too late.

It took two days. Two miserable days of combing the three nearby towns—
nearby
meaning something different in the Highlands than it did elsewhere—to stumble upon a scene more grisly than the one he’d left behind in the forest.

The crowd screamed and cheered, a riotous mob of mindless hate swarming a pyre in the middle of the square. His stomach pitched, but far worse was the sight of the woman on the pyre.

Avera. Bound by harsh rope to the post behind her, her black hair whipped in a wind he couldn’t feel. He pushed his way through the crowd, desperate to free her, when her voice rang out over the screams of the mob.

“Release me! Release my daughter! Or you shall all die!” Her shriek was unholy, terrifying in its intensity and volume.
 

Warren was close enough to see her eyes turn black and her hair whip ever faster around her head. He realized then that there was no wind. Whatever force surrounded Avera, it was not natural. The man holding the flaming torch ignored her warning and tossed the brand onto the kindling at the base of her pyre. Three more did the same.
 

He pushed forward through the crowd, determined to free her and her unborn child. She shrieked as the flames grew, and as he neared, he saw that her belly was far smaller than it had been. The wail of a baby drew his attention. To the left of Avera stood a woman cradling an infant.
 

“Your devil’s spawn shall go after you,” cried the man who’d thrown the first torch.
 

Avera’s head whipped toward him then, her eyes pitch-black holes in her skull. “Die!” she shrieked, and the man fell to his knees, clutching his neck. Her head whipped toward another man who had thrown the torch, and she screamed her bloodthirsty call again. He too fell to his knees, clutching his neck.
 

By now, the flames had reached halfway up her body, and Warren was still too far away. She was shrieking, but she’d channeled her pain into cries of “Die!” that she directed at members of the jeering audience until more than a dozen of them were on their knees or fallen altogether.
 

A true witch. Conflict rose in Warren’s heart, but he pushed on all the same, knowing even now that he was too late. She was consumed by the flames, her screams silenced.
 

He reached the pyre finally, a minute from saving her. It had happened so fast. He had no idea if she was good or evil, but she was dead and it didn’t matter.
 

But her child was not.

He charged around the pyre, intent on reaching the babe clutched under the arm of a terrified woman who bent over a fallen man. It was the work of a moment to pull the babe free. One look at the amber eyes of the squalling infant told him it belonged to the witch. The eyes were no normal infant’s blue.