Highland Fire (Guardians of the Stone) Read online

  Aye… but giving Lìleas MacLaren to Aidan could work… he might, in fact, accept the girl, if only as a manner to control her father.

  Vengeance was a powerful motive.

  So was a mother’s love.

  He looked toward Rogan MacLaren. The man was hard enough to do what needed to be done when came the time. In truth, he thought MacLaren would relish the duty. David doubted he would even have to issue the command. All would transpire as it should, and David need never again consider his part in this ignoble deed, for everything would be concluded without his knowledge.

  Caimbeul sat, looking smug, as certain as he was that he held the only viable answer at hand. The gleam in his eye was a hint of the gold payment he envisioned.

  “Very well,” David relented, seeing no other way. “Offer Lìleas MacLaren to Aidan dún Scoti as a bride.”

  Chapter Two

  Two goshawks soared high above the castle, skirting past each other like jousters at a match. Lìli thought perhaps they had followed the hunters who had returned this morning. The laird of Keppenach had not been present to join them on the hunt, but she knew he had also returned from wherever he had gone for the simple fact that the laughter about the keep had ceased abruptly and the mood turned grim to match its laird’s.

  Never mind, for Lìli took her pleasures wherever she could find them. Today she had thoroughly enjoyed tending the herbs in her garden—alone, save for the company of her son.

  “Look, Ma! Look what I found!”

  Lìli peered back at the child who came scurrying after her from the garden path, hands cupped together and outstretched. At five, Kellen was the image of his Da. Unfortunately he was also the image of his Da’s brother. He reached her side, lifting up his prize to show her what he had discovered buried beneath the earth. “D’ ye know what it is?” he asked a little breathlessly. “Do ye, Ma?”

  Lìli stooped to better see the etching on the flat, smooth stone. The design was in the shape of a rounded shield, knotted in quarters to symbolize the four corners of the earth. There were many such artifacts to be found in these parts, for Keppenach sat beneath the Am Monadh Ruadh—The Red Hills—where the Painted Ones had lived long before them. “It is a talisman of protection,” she said. “’Twill keep ye safe where’er ye go.”

  His little brows furrowed. “A talsman?”

  “A charm,” Lìli explained, noting the confusion in her son’s expression. His sweet brown eyes were deep and dark, burdened in a way no child’s should ever be. “Like the cross your Da wore aboot his neck.”

  His face fell into a little frown that looked so much like his father’s it made her heart ache. “But my Da died,” he said plaintively. “So it didna work.”

  Lìli felt a fierce pang over his words. Not the least for which, one day her son would grow up to learn that everyone else blamed her for her husband’s untimely death. Or rather, they blamed the curse that had been bestowed upon her as a child—that same odious curse she had once dared to hope was naught more than blather. Only now she had a dead husband to belie her doubts.

  Her son made to throw away the stone. “Nay!” she said at once. “Keep it, Kellen.”

  He stopped before tossing it, his eyes filling with alarm at having upset his mother. He was such a good boy, so full of affection—too full of worry.

  “In this life we may use all the good will the world lends us. Never take for granted even the smallest of favors, my son.”

  His little face screwed. “But it’s just a rock, Mama.”

  Lìli tilted a patient look at her son. “All things are what you make them, son.” He peered up at her under furrowed brows, unconvinced. “Remember that naught ever comes to us by accident, naught is preordained.” She didn’t want her son growing up believing that his destiny lay in the hands of lesser men, or in the words of a foolish prophecy. “Our fates lie in our own hands.” She eyed the ancient carving. “Like that stone.”

  He drew his hand back, examining the stone once more, inspecting it closer, his dark eyes full of skepticism.

  “Keep it for another day,” she bade him. “You may find you need it.”

  His little shoulders conceded defeat. “Verra well,” he relented, and then he smiled a little crookedly. “I’ll save it in my treasure box so no one will find it!”

  Lìli smiled. His treasure box, a small wooden receptacle that had once belonged to his father, was where he hid all things he valued most. She patted him upon the head. “Good lad,” she said. “You are wise... even wiser than your Da.”

  His dark eyes twinkled and a tiny, sad smile emerged upon his lips. She loved him fiercely in that moment, with a love that was pure and true. One day, she would see him free of his uncle’s influence.

  “Lìli!” a familiar voice rang out.

  Speak of the devil.

  Recognizing the laird’s voice, her son stiffened visibly. Lìli touched him upon the head, tempering her reaction for his sake. She pushed him gently away. “Go,” she urged him. “Await me in the garden.” He stood firmly rooted to the spot, but Lìli could not bear for him to witness even one more unkind word from his uncle's cruel mouth. “Go now!” she demanded.

  “Yes, mama,” he said, but shuffled his feet, hesitant to leave her.

  She could hear Rogan’s boot steps nearing, his footfall heavy with purpose. “Kellen,” she pleaded quietly.

  Reluctantly, Kellen turned away, crushing his newly found talisman within his tiny fist, and it seemed to Lìli that as he walked away he bowed his head and prayed over it. He looked back at her only once, with the greatest turmoil in his gaze, and her heartache deepened. This was no place for a child to live—not in the shadow of so much bitterness.

  When Lìli was satisfied her son would not return, she turned at last to face her tormentor—the man who bore the same blood as her husband, the same blood as her son. “Rogan,” she said in greeting. But that was all the pleasantry she could muster.

  He held his arms outstretched, asking for an embrace that she had never once deigned to give. The thought of touching him, even for the space of a hug, turned her stomach foul. When she did not fling herself into his arms, his gaze unshuttered, revealing the full measure of rancor behind the dark mirrors of his eyes. “I need to speak with you,” he said, his tone clipped. “Shall we walk in the garden?”

  Lìli shook her head. “Nay, not the garden! I only just came from there.” She glanced over her shoulder quickly to be certain her son did not linger. “Mayhap the courtyard?” she suggested a little less emphatically.

  “You spend far too much time tending weeds,” he chastised, as he peered over her shoulder at her son’s retreating back. His black eyes gleamed with something Lìli could not name—an emotion she had never spied in anyone’s eyes save his.

  His soul was black.

  “Whatever suits you,” he relented, and then he turned and started toward the courtyard, expecting Lìli to follow—which she did, of course, even knowing his mood was far too cheery. Instinctively, she understood it boded ill. Not once did he peer back at her or slow his pace, though he must have heard her scrambling to keep up. “It has been four years now since my brother’s death,” he said.

  “Indeed,” she replied.

  Four years. Two months. Twenty days—every instant full of harrow.

  At once her shoulders tightened, fearing the familiar discourse. Six times in four years Rogan had asked her to wed him—and that did not include all the drunken demands she share his bed without virtue of matrimony. Unlike his brother, the man bore not the least tenderness in his manner. He was as crude and cold as the Highlands in winter. At least now he had a mistress to keep him warm at night, but he clearly valued the girl not at all. Poor Aveline. Her father was a bit of a fool if he thought Rogan would come to have any affection for the lass. He would use her up and toss her away, like everything else he owned. The only reason he wanted Lìli so desperately was simply because he could not have her.

  Rogan s
topped abruptly and turned to appraise her in that familiar way that made her skin twitch. He studied her from her slippered feet to her breasts, and only belatedly met her gaze... as though it were an afterthought. Placing his hands behind his back, he rocked backward on his heels, puffing his chest—a stance that betrayed the arrogance within. “As well ye know, I canna continue to support both you and your son without recompense.”

  Lìli swallowed, and averted her gaze.

  Here now it began... yet again.

  From the ramparts, a few curious onlookers peered down at them, watching, though she knew they would turn askance to save themselves the guilt of doing nothing if he raised his hand. No one defied Rogan MacLaren. He ruled his demesne without question and for most it was simply easier to ignore what they did not want to hear or see. Unfortunately, Lìli did not share that same predisposition. What she wouldn’t give to be away from here, but it seemed her father had washed his hands of her—and her son—knowing that everything attached to Keppenach now belonged to Stuart’s vile brother, including her dowry, meager as it had been.

  “Alas, Lìli, what am I to do? I have offered endless opportunities to gi’ ye a proper title, and ye have refused. ’Tis time for me to get myself a wife and a child of my own.”

  Aveline?

  Surprised, Lìli’s gaze returned to Rogan’s face. But his look was smug, and it gave her a shudder. Rogan was handsome—she would give him that much. But his eyes, deep set and dark, were like pits of burned-out coals. If they had ever been alight with emotion, the light was long expired now. Lìli wondered what had happened to make him so terribly cold.

  “It leaves me in quite a quandary, ye see, since I canna have ye here once she arrives.”

  Ach, it was not Aveline.

  Alas, but Lìli’s next thought was to pity the poor woman, whoever she might be. Aveline should consider herself fortunate, after all.

  He smirked. “It seems no one of substance will have ye—and who could blame a mon?”

  Lìli’s heart began to beat a little faster. Her mind stammered over possibilities. Would he cast her away now? Where precisely did that leave her and her son? Mayhap she could go to a nunnery? But what of Kellen?

  “Take heart, there is a solution,” he suggested. “One that will allow ye to make amends with your father and return honor to his name.”

  His eyes gleamed maliciously and Lìli blinked, uncertain what to say, for in truth she had done nothing to bring dishonor upon her father's name. She had been a good wife to Stuart, despite the brevity of their marriage. If, in fact, the curse was real, the mountain folk had cursed her for her father’s sins—not her own.

  He could hardly have read her mind, and yet it seemed he had. “Ye do wish to honor your father, do ye not?”

  Nothing about his smile was reassuring.

  Anxiously, Lìli glanced over her shoulder, searching for her son, hoping Kellen was nowhere near, for if she refused whatever offer Rogan was about to make, his temper would surely loose the rafters. She breathed a sigh of relief that her son was nowhere to be seen and lifted her chin a little defiantly as she faced Rogan once more. “Tell me, Rogan, what would you propose?”

  Rogan took his time answering, as though savoring her discomfort, and then he said at last, “I know of only one man who will have ye as yet...”

  Lìli squared her shoulders, refusing to be baited. Anything would be better than this, she determined. Anything. “And who might that be?”

  “Aidan dún Scoti.”

  The response erupted from her lips without thought. “Nay!” She took a self-defensive step backward, her heart constricting painfully.

  Rogan simply stood there, watching the emotions play across her face, enjoying her distress, judging by the smirk that turned his lips.

  Aidan dún Scoti was a savage! Tales of him and his uncouth mountain folk were fodder for children’s nightmares. His tribesmen were hardly evolved from the Pechts and Northmen who had once travailed the untamable north. Only men who were as wild and unforgiving as those rugged hills themselves could survive so long so deep in the Mounth. And they would exile her there without mercy!

  Lìli’s jaw worked angrily. “I said nay! I willna allow my son to be punished this way, Rogan. He doesna deserve this treatment.” She softened her voice for Kellen’s sake, hoping to appeal to Rogan’s better nature. “He is your nephew! You canna exile him to such a savage place.”

  Rogan feigned offense, his expression practiced, like that of an actor’s. None of his emotions ever reached his eyes. “Why, my dear, I would never allow my nephew to suffer the indignities of the barbarous north.”

  Lìli straightened her back, clenching her fist at her sides, surprised by his response. “What, then, prithee?”

  “Ye alone will go.”

  “What do ye mean, me alone?”

  High above them, a hawk shrieked. The sound reverberated within Lìli’s skull.

  “Just that, o’ course. Ye’ll go and wed the brute, do your duty to help unite the clans, and leave your son in my loving care.”

  There was nothing that was kind or loving about Rogan MacLaren. He was, in truth, one of the cruelest men Lìli had ever known. “I will appeal this to King David!” she threatened.

  He laughed in her face. “Come now… who d’ ye think ordered me to offer ye to dún Scoti in the first place, daft woman?”

  “Ach, nay!” she exclaimed, and in self-preservation, backed away, ready to flee.

  Rogan reached out and seized her firmly by the arm. “Come,” he demanded, his fingers digging painfully into her flesh. “Let me apprise you of the details of your mission for the king.”

  Dubhtolargg, the Highlands of Scotia

  The journey north had been long and arduous. Aidan was ready for respite. Tired and ready for his bed, he nevertheless wrapped himself in his breacan.

  His sister Lael's tone was fraught with sarcasm. “King David’s runner awaits ye in the hall.”

  “Dinna leave the bastard alone!” Aidan demanded, and cursed beneath his breath as his door closed once more.

  After riding two days over rough terrain, and after dealing with his sister Catrìona’s trials, a messenger from David mac Mhaoil Chaluim was the last thing he expected.

  King David, humph!

  It was entirely laughable that the man would hail himself as the rightful heir to the throne of Scotia, when the Sassenach-loving scoundrel had spent the whole of his youth suckling the teats of English maids. A true Scotsman faced his enemies squarely. They did not hie away when faced with a meager skirmish. And then, after all was said and done, he had lied to the MacKinnon when asked if Catrìona was the runaway he sought. He had stood and bold-faced lied to save himself the trouble of raising his sword.

  Aye, they were enemies now, coward that he was.

  Were it not for the MacKinnon’s presence in the grove where he’d tracked his sister Cat four days hence, he might have ordered all of his twenty warriors to fall upon the arrogant imbecile and hack him down to size. That was the bloody last time he would allow the blackguard under his roof. Had he not learned a thing from his father’s trials? Friends were those he knew and trusted, not those who simply employed the name. But Aidan’s greatest weakness was a bone-deep desire for peace. Even here in the Mounth, he felt political tensions rising, and he feared there might soon come an end to the years of peace since his father’s death.

  Well, at least the fool was wise enough not to show up here in the flesh, because Aidan had trusted him once—never again. What he had gotten for his faith was a stab in the back. Peace was not possible amongst these warmongers. Why the hell they could not simply live and let live he could not comprehend. His clan had purposely kept itself apart from Scotia’s politics, but that was apparently not enough.

  The bastard had come under the guise of friendship and had slipped into his sister’s bedchamber in the dead of the night, then had dragged the poor lass south without Aidan’s knowledge or permission
—intending, he’d said, to give her in wedlock to some bloody border lord. The Reiver lords—all of them—might as well be English, for they were naught but feckless Scots, who gave deference to none. They raided Scots and English alike, stealing everything, including their wives. He wanted to kill David simply for the thought.

  It would have been far smarter for him to run a dagger through his shoulder blades whilst he’d slept, because now as long as Aidan had breath in his lungs, he would never trust that Sassenach lackey again.

  He had only just divested himself of his claymore, but he retrieved it now and re-sheathed it into his belt. Barefoot and bare backed, he might not feel their guest was worth bothering to dress for, but when he showed up with the claymore and little else on his back, his message should be clear.

  He found the man—or rather boy—quivering in his hall. The lad swallowed a massive ball in his throat when he spotted Aidan entering the room. He was alone. No doubt David feared Aidan would run his messenger through and had sent the puniest of the lot so Aidan would pity the poor dolt.

  It worked.

  His sister had left Lachlann, his captain to guard the hall. He gave Lachlann a nod, telling the man without words to leave them. The boy would pose no threat, and his guard’s presence was not helping the lad's composure. However, Aidan’s sense of charity only went so far. He didn’t seat himself at the table, but stood instead, peering down at his guest. “This had better be good to have roused me from my bed,” he warned the boy.

  The messenger craned his neck upward, wide-eyed, shuddering. His gaze slid to Aidan’s arms, to the blue paint he had yet to wash from his flesh—intricate markings that hailed back to their ancestors. Furious with the abduction of his sister, he had painted himself for war in the woad of his ancestors. He smiled thinly when the messenger met his gaze again.