Warrior’s Redemption (6 page)

A deep breath to settle her nerves and she tried again.

“Fifteen years. I know that’s probably not even a blink of an eye for you, but it’s three-quarters of my life. Devoted to you. Believing in you no matter what anyone thought of me for it. Believing that you have some higher purpose for me. Knowing that I don’t belong here and waiting for you to show me exactly where it is that I do belong. But now . . .”

Again she faltered. Now, what? What did she want, truly want, from the Fae?

“I’m ready. For whatever that purpose is. I’m tired
of waiting. Tired of watching the world pass me by. I’m tired of always being on the outside looking in. Please. I wish you would help me find the path to where I’m supposed to be. I just want to be where I belong. With people I can belong to.”

Dani waited, the sound of blood pounding in her ears louder even than the semis pulling off the road outside.

Hair tickled at her face as if stirred by an errant breeze, followed by a light tinkling of the delicate chimes hanging by the door.

Her eyes snapped open in time to see the flame on her candle flicker and go out, leaving her bathed in a soft green glow of light.

That wasn’t right. The lights had been on in the room. Regular, normal lights, not a single green bulb among them.

The errant breeze had morphed into an insistent wind, whipping the ends of her hair against her skin like little lashes.

She found herself unable to move, frozen to the spot while a million multicolored lights streamed across the room toward her. Over her, around her, through her, they filled her vision, lifting her up like a rag doll. She fought for her next breath as if the weight of the world sucked the air from her lungs. Her eyes fluttered shut as the sensation of her body hurtling through space overwhelmed her senses. And over it all, as impossible as it seemed, she could swear the last thing she heard was a woman’s voice.

You had but to ask, daughter. So you wish it, so it will be.

C
ASTLE
M
AC
G
AHAN
, S
COTLAND

1294

H
AVING A LUMP
the size of a horse roiling around in his stomach was no way to begin the morning. Or perhaps it was the pressure on his chest that bothered him more. Like the whole of the world pressed in on him, cloaking him in a vague sense of foreboding, as if his honor and indeed his entire future rested on the most urgent action he must take.

If only he knew what that action might be.

Malcolm pinched the skin between his brows, applying pressure to the bone beneath, seeking physical relief from the worries that plagued him. Likely it was no more than the fitful night he’d spent, tossing and turning, tormented by dreams no man should be forced to endure. Dreams of others suffering because he hadn’t taken action to save them. Dreams of failure.

“Shadows and nothing more,” he growled, jerking his hand from his face and straightening his shoulders. “Meaningless.”

If only his denial could lift the heavy mood he wore this day. With forced determination, he strode into the great hall, ignoring the voice in the back of his head urging him to make for his destrier and ride.

“Good morning, my laird.” Patrick sat at the small table he favored away from the dais, his back to the wall near one of the great fireplaces. “Rest well, did you?”

Malcolm snorted his response, noting the dark circles under his brother’s eyes. “No better than you, from the looks of it.”

Patrick shrugged, lifting a hand to signal for a serving girl. “At least I had a good reason to have missed my sleep. Join me?”

With a nod, Malcolm slid onto the bench next to his brother, also facing out to look over the room. Too many years as a warrior to feel comfort in exposing his back, even in his own castle. Perhaps especially in his own castle.

“What ails you this morning, Colm? You’ve the look of a hunted animal about you.”

Malcolm held his tongue as a young maid arrived at their table to deposit two large servings of porridge, waiting until she was well away from them.

“Naught but bad dreams,” he muttered around a mouthful of the thick porridge. Hardly heroic for a grown man, a clan laird at that, to admit to being troubled by dreams as if he were but a wee bairn. “Though ‘hunted animal’ is a fair description of how I feel. It’s as if I’ve a need to run. A need to set off for the forest to find . . .”

He let his words die in the air, filling his mouth with another bite to prevent himself from talking. He sounded like a man gone daft.

“To find what?” Patrick stared at him, his own food untouched.

This time it was his turn to shrug. “I canna say.” That was part of the nameless anxiety that gnawed at his gut. “I dreamed of a ring of standing stones, but I’ve no memory of where. Of a woman’s voice, but no her words. Of an urgent need to act, to be somewhere in particular, somewhere other than here, but I canna tell why or what it is I’m to do.”

He opened his fingers, allowing the bread he’d used to scoop his porridge to fall to the table. The food had no taste this morning, dropping as it did onto the huge bubble of unease gurgling about in the pit of his stomach.

“Do you think it possible—”

Whatever Patrick might have thought to suggest was cut short by the arrival in the great hall of Elesyria.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

Malcolm found himself fighting the urge to beat a hasty retreat as the woman stormed toward the spot where he sat, stopping at last in front of him. Hands on her hips, she repeated the question she’d hurled at him from across the room.

“What are you doing here?”

Beside him, Patrick lapsed into a comfortable slouch, his back tipped against the wall behind them. “It is his hall, Elf. Who has a better right to be here than he does?”

Her eyes narrowed, the glitter of her irritation turned fully on Patrick. “I’m not questioning his rights, Northman. Only his good sense.”

The glare moved from his brother to him, and once again Malcolm fought down the urge to make good his escape.

“Well? Was the Goddess herself not clear enough in her instructions?”

Instructions from a Goddess? Malcolm shook his head. Elf, Faerie, whatever this woman chose to call herself, she was clearly brainsick.

As if she could read his thoughts in his expression, she threw her hands into the air, casting her eyes upward. “You see? You see what I’m forced to deal with?” On an exaggerated huff of breath, she dropped onto the bench across from him, pinning him with a look.

“Do you mean to tell me there’s nothing more important you feel you should be doing this fine morning than sitting here shoving that sticky mess into your mouth?” She wiggled her finger toward the food in front of him, her gaze never leaving his face. “Nowhere else you feel you need to be?”

Malcolm schooled his expression, careful to avoid any hint of what he had shared with his brother only moments earlier. He’d rather roll in a muck heap than admit to this woman that he did indeed feel exactly as if he should be someplace else. It was without question none of her business. Not in the least. She’d be the last person walking the earth to whom he would—

“Suppose for a moment that’s exactly how he feels
after a night of tormented dreams. What would you make of that, my lady?”

Unbelievably, from beside him, his brother gave voice to the very words he would have kept secret.

“Dreams, you say? You really don’t understand, do you?” Elesyria sighed, shaking her head as if in disbelief. “Very well. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps communication from the Goddess was impeded by the same forces that prevented my touching you.”

Again with the Goddess. This farce had gone on long enough.

Malcolm shoved against the bench with the backs of his legs as he pushed himself to stand. “I’ve a long day ahead of me and no time for any more of yer nonsense. Either of you.”

With as much dignity as he could muster, he nodded to each of them in turn and headed for the door.

He almost made it.

“She’ll die if you don’t find her, you know. Out in this weather. Unprotected. She’s but an innocent, sent here because of you. It’s your conscience that will have to bear the burden of her death.”

Elesyria’s prediction froze his feet to the floor as surely as if the stones beneath him had turned to ice.

“What say you? Who’s this woman of whom you speak?” He forced the words past a tongue gone thick and dry, turning slowly as he spoke to stare at the witch who claimed to be his mother-in-law. “I have no knowledge of any woman. And certainly no responsibility for her.”

She shrugged her shoulders, a perfectly fabricated look of innocence spreading over her features. “I know not who she is, only that the Goddess was to send her here because of you. Perhaps as a test? Though I suppose it matters not, since she has little chance of survival out there.” She fluttered her hand vaguely in the direction of the wall. “I do wonder, though, how long she might hang on. Suffering. In the cold. Lost. With no food or water. No protection. No—”

“Enough!” Malcolm roared, unable to listen to any more of her guilt-baiting.

What if the things she said were possible? There had been a woman central to his troubled dreams. He remembered that much. Could it be that this Faerie had conjured someone? Someone she’d stranded in the wilderness to meet some horrible fate? But why would she . . .

Revenge!
The word lanced through his heart on a shaft of guilt. Revenge for the part he played in her daughter’s fate. Revenge for his having failed to keep Isabella safe.

“Where do I find her?” He all but choked on the question.

Her lips thinned, all veneer of innocence gone. “I have no idea. It was you the Goddess chose to share that information with. Not me. Only you know the answer to that question.”

His stomach lurched even as his breath caught in his chest, the morning’s helpless distress rolling back over him full force. He could not stand by and allow
another innocent woman’s death. And yet, his dreams had been a jumble of unintelligible scenes and sounds. He had no way of knowing where she might be . . . if she even existed.

“You spoke of a ring of stones. I have seen such a place on my rides. A half day’s journey north of here.”

Malcolm jerked his gaze up, his attention riveted by his brother’s claim. “You could find this spot again?” Patrick wandered on occasion, exploring the land for days at a time.

“Aye. I believe I can. If you think it’s possible . . .”

Patrick’s words hung in the silence between them, a siren call he had but to answer.

“It is possible,” Elesyria broke the silence. “A stone circle has power to us. I would deem it more than possible, in fact. I would deem it probable.”

It was settled then.

“We ride.”

Without a word, Patrick was at his side, keeping pace as they ran from the keep to ready their mounts.

His only concern now was whether or not he could reach this mystery woman in time.

H
OURS ON HORSEBACK
had brought them well into the mountains and still Malcolm had found no sign of any ring of stones similar to what he’d seen in his dreams. His patience wore thin, his spirits as damp as the fine cold mist that stung his skin.

He wiped the moisture from his face, refusing to allow himself to brood over how much they could have used this weather a few months past. Instead he focused on their current quest.

“Are you sure we—”

“Yes,” Patrick cut in, “just over this ridge, in the valley below.

Malcolm nodded, instinctively tightening his thighs against his mount’s sides. The big horse’s steps quickened over the rough terrain, moving faster as if keeping pace with the growing sense of urgency bearing pressure in his chest.

At the top of the ridge he pulled up the reins. Below him, the valley lay shrouded in a gray blanket of fine rain, all but obscuring a copse of trees off to his right.

“The stone circle lies at the very heart of the grove. If we’re
to believe the Elf, we should find her there.” Patrick pulled his horse to a stop soundlessly beside him.

If
they were to believe. And how could he not? How could he ignore the nameless worry clawing at the back of his throat like a living creature?

A slight pressure with his heels and his horse sprang forward, taking the downward slope as quickly as possible.

It seemed an eternity cutting down the distance between them and their destination, but at last they made their way through the close-growing trees, to the opening at the very heart of the copse.

There, in the center of a stone ring, on a strangely green clump of vegetation, lay a crumpled body.

“By Freya,” Malcolm hissed, sliding down from his mount and hitting the ground at a run. He remembered this place from his dream now, reality sharpening the hazy dream vision into clear focus.

She lay curled on the ground, wet hair the color of an autumn field splayed across her face.

It was only as he reached her side and knelt next to her that the enormity of her being here struck him. He’d dreamed it. He’d ridden all this way to find her. And yet, somehow, he’d half expected to find the ring of stones empty.

Expected or hoped?

With a shaking hand, he gently swept the hair from her face and ran one finger down her cheek.

By the Gods, she was lovely!

“She lives?” Patrick stood beside him, his eyes scanning the forest.

Aware of his brother’s attention, Malcolm willed his hands to steady as he slipped his fingers to the side of her throat.

The beat beneath his touch was strong and regular.

“She does.”

“Then best we keep her that way by getting her out of here and back to Castle MacGahan. She’s trouble enough without our adding more to it.”

Acknowledging the wisdom of Patrick’s words with only a nod of his head, he bent again over the woman. He thrust his arms under her shoulders and knees and rose to his feet, lifting her, cradling her close to his chest.