Highland Fire (Guardians of the Stone) Read online

  Her betrothed.

  Painted with intricate blue markings wherever his flesh was bared, he watched her approach with canny eyes. She could tell their color even at this distance for they were unnaturally green. The man towered over everyone who stood near him, his shoulders wide and brown—and bare, despite of the lateness of the summer. His claymore, a massive weapon meant to cleave men in two, was sheathed within his belt. His boots were laced and his legs were bare as well, revealing thighs that were as strapping as oaks.

  Her heartbeat sped to a painful cadence as her mount halted along with her troupe.

  She hadn’t even realized they had stopped until her companions slid to the ground to face their welcome party. Even Aveline dismounted while Lìli sat frozen in her saddle, swallowing convulsively, unable to rouse herself to move.

  Aidan knew without having to be told which was to be his bride.

  Despite that she wasn’t the only woman to arrive with the little troupe, he could not have mistaken Lìleas MacLaren. The other woman appeared pale in comparison.

  Seated primly atop her white speckled mare, she was a vision in violet, with chestnut hair and eyes the color of bluebells. Her creamy skin was pale but flawless and he ceded that the tales he’d heard of her were all too true. Confessing to her beauty, he bent to whisper into Una’s ear. “She’s as lovely as they claim.”

  The old woman cackled low, leaning upon her walking stick for support. She gave Aidan a knowing glance. “’Twas easy enough to foresee simply by looking at her minny, but dinna e’er say I canna wield a curse!” She nodded proudly, and looked back at the girl, thrusting out her chin as she added a caution, “Her first husband cocked up his toes precisely as foretold, so dinna go losin’ your head o’er the winsome lass.”

  Una had been with them for as long as Aidan had memory. Her hair had never been anything but white and her skin reminded him of the stones they used to build their cairns. She seemed ancient, with her one good eye. Not even the meaning of her name was quite certain, for some called her the great white witch, and others called her The One. Still others whispered—especially when she abandoned them every year on Beltane—that she was Cailleach Bheur herself, the blue-faced mother of winter who protected them from the fury of the Highland winters, striking up corries wherever she willed them. Where she actually went every summer, Aidan hardly knew. She claimed she wandered the Highlands after the snows ebbed and the winds mellowed, plying her trade amongst the neighboring tribes. But she always returned to them late in the summer, bringing with her a sense of belonging as old as time. She was the Mother of their clan, their healer, their elder, and the longest living Keeper. She was also the only mother Aidan had ever known.

  Aidan laughed, reassuring the old woman, “Dinna worry aboot that, Una.”

  “Aye?” Lael challenged. “See that ye dinna, brother mine, for I have eyes in my face, and can see verra well the way ye are ogling her!”

  In unison, all his siblings turned to glower at him, and Aidan scowled back at each in turn. In truth, he didn’t believe in the curse, but neither would he go losing’ his head over a winsome face. Curses and jests aside, there was enough at stake here that he wouldn’t take chances with his kin. She was the enemy’s daughter. That was something he was bound never to forget. In fact, that was precisely why she was here today—that, and the simple fact that Una seemed to believe the girl was the answer to all their ills.

  The little troupe reined in before him, and Aidan observed his bride a moment. Looking much as though she would swoon in the saddle, she simply sat looking petrified, her gaze focused directly upon him. By the sins of sluag, he had seen standing stones with far more life than she was displaying at the moment. For all her beauty, she could have been a bloody totem!

  So she would sacrifice herself to the pagan king, would she?

  He smiled grimly and when it seemed she would never dismount, Una craned her neck up to look at him, her wrinkled face set in lines of disapproval. “Put that child out of her misery,” she hissed.

  As he watched, his bride allowed her cloak to slide down her back, revealing a tight-fitting English gown that was constricting enough to shove her breasts halfway to her chin. He crossed his arms. “She hardly seems a child to me,” Aidan complained.

  “Aye? And what aboot Catrìona?” Una countered. “Is Cat a woman or child?”

  Annoyed by the question, Aidan frowned at the old woman, for he knew very well what she was trying to say. His sister Cat was a wedded woman now, though he would forever see her as a babe. Aye, Cat may have a right to choose the course of her life, but if her new husband did not treat her with as much reverence as she deserved, Aidan vowed to fly down the mountain and carve the blood eagle from his breast.

  Bloody damned Scots.

  “Aw, but Una,” Lael protested beneath her breath, coming to Aidan's defense. “We’re simply havin’ a wee bit o’ fun.”

  Aidan cast a glance at his sister—at the bold blue lines she had once again drawn above her brows—paint that made her look as fearsome as any man. Her black hair, so like his own, was pulled back severely into one thick plait, and then plastered back at her temples and forehead with a thin coat of blue paste to keep the strays from her face.

  “The paint is itching,” the youngest of his sister’s complained. “We’ve been wearing it far too long!” And she bent to scratch her thigh.

  In answer, Lael elbowed Sorcha, unbalancing her. “Ye should wear it more oft to remind ye from whence ye came!”

  Sorcha hopped to regain her bearings, frowning up at Lael.

  “True,” said Una. “But this is cruel, and if ye would wear the paint, wear it to honor the gods. For this, they wadna approve.”

  “What gods?” his brother taunted, all whilst Aidan’s bride sat waiting atop her nervous palfrey. Arms crossed, Keane nettled the old woman simply because he could. Aidan knew his little brother cared little about the state of his soul. At his age he worshipped only what lay betwixt a woman’s thighs. Aidan had long since outgrown that youthful bent, and no longer cared to sow his seeds in a garden he didn’t wish to tend.

  The second eldest of Aidan’s sisters remained silent. Cailin missed Cat, he knew, and for that he blamed David of Scotia. Unfortunately for the lovely lass seated so stiffly upon her palfrey, at the moment he also blamed David’s emissary. And yet if he took her to be his wife, he was bound to give her everything due her as his bride... everything except his heart.

  If he didn’t kill her first.

  She had yet to dismount, he noticed, and before Una could think to elbow him yet again, he abandoned his siblings to "put his bride out of her misery" and bid her welcome. Enough was enough, he decided. Una was right. It was past time to put an end to their charade, amusing though it might have been.

  But as he approached, her eyes widened—as though he were wearing his bollocks on his chin—and seeing the horror etched upon her face, he wished he’d left his claymore in his chamber, along with his paint. Inasmuch as it was rumored they walked around bare-assed in winter slathered in war paint, it was not true. The woad was simply a tribute to their ancestors, meant for one of two things—neither of which was appropriate at the instant.

  He made his way down the pier, startled to find he had a skip to his step.

  Resisting the urge to peer back at Lael, he slowed his pace, hardly pleased to be showing such exuberance over meeting his outlander bride—especially one who likely had treachery in mind.

  Lìli had the sudden urge to flee.

  The closer the dún Scoti came, the bigger he appeared, until he loomed at her side like a pagan stone rising from the depths of the earth.

  His hair, black as sin, fell just below his shoulders. Braided on both sides so as to keep it from his face, it was otherwise straight and clean, revealing chiseled, high cheeks and a frown that seemed carved in stone.

  Stilling the beat of her heart, she offered her hand politely so that he might help her dismount, and wa
s startled when he ignored it, reaching out to pluck her unceremoniously from her mount. She swallowed her protest as he set her down upon the ground. The beast had lifted her as effortlessly as though she were but a child!

  “Fàilte a mo dhachaidh,” he said in the old tongue. Welcome to my home.

  Lìli had learned a bit of the old language from the midwife who had come to tend her during Kellen’s birth. “Tapadh leat,” she replied. Thank you.

  One brow arched, but she saw a gleam of appreciation in his eyes. “A bheil gàidhlig agaibh?” You speak the old tongue?

  “Tha, rud beag,” she answered. A little.

  Lìli was acutely aware that all eyes were fixed upon her now, but she held Aidan’s gaze. His green eyes assessed her shrewdly.

  Whatever else he might be, he was not the least bit dull-witted, of that she was certain, for she spied keen intelligence in the cool depths of his eyes.

  He smiled suddenly, his teeth flashing a brilliant white, and then he turned to one of his men standing nearby. “Disarm them,” he demanded at once.

  “But we assure you…” Rogan stepped forward, “We come in peace.”

  Aidan’s smile deepened. “Then ye have no need of weapons here,” he said in the Scots tongue, and turned to Lìli, dismissing Rogan, “You must be weary?”

  “Quite,” she confessed.

  He raised his hand and flicked his wrist to dismiss the crowd that had gathered. And just like that they all went, like rats racing from the shadow of a torch. Peering over his shoulder, he bade the small group of onlookers standing upon the pier to come forward. They did so at once, if reluctantly it seemed.

  Lìli joined her trembling hands before her as he introduced them one by one, three sisters and a brother.

  The bright blue smears on the eldest sister’s face were hideous—painted without the least care for adornment—as though she had prepared herself for battle instead of meeting her brother’s bride. Her green eyes—so similar to Aidan’s glittered with far less welcome—if that were possible. Her black hair, slathered away from her face with blue paste, gave her a severe appearance that was only emphasized by the gleam of the enormous knife she had tucked into her belt—and another in her boot. Her clothes were simple—a clean, rough-hewn tunic of unstained linen. Leather straps crossed her breasts, as though to keep all her womanly parts in one place while she fought. Both her sisters were dressed the same, except that while they too had paint on their bodies, Cailin and Sorcha wore braids in their hair and no paint upon their faces.

  The youngest of the lot, Sorcha, was the only one who did not share their dark countenance. With hair the color of Lìli’s and eyes that were as blue as a bellflowers, she peered up at Lìli with a question in her eyes.

  Standing beside the child, the crone was as wrinkled as a withered prune with bright white and wiry hair, as though she had been caught in the fiercest of windstorms. She wore a faded black patch over one eye. “Ceud mìle fàilte!” she exclaimed. A thousand welcomes!

  “Mòran taing.”Many thanks.

  The elder gave her a nod and an odd smile and Lìli turned her attention to the sisters, greeting them each in turn, avoiding Aidan’s gaze as she addressed his siblings. One was absent, she realized, for the girl had wed a Highlander somewhere near Chreagach Mhor. Lìli had overheard Rogan recounting the story to Aveline with no small amount of disgust.

  “Welcome,” offered the one called Lael, but she didn’t make any effort to embrace Lìli. That was well and good, Lìli decided, for she didn’t need blue stains on one of the few gowns she’d brought north.

  “Fáilte,” said the one called Cailin. The lass’ deep red hair flowed about her face like a radiant flame, and her bright green eyes flashed with something like resentment. She was lovely as a rose, probably just as prickly. Not a one of them seemed very pleased to meet her and the feeling was mutual.

  The youngest sister lifted her chin, looking sullen, though her gaze lacked the animosity her sisters shared. The girl bent to crudely scratch her blue-painted thighs and then her arms and then finally she thrust a finger inside her leather boot, scratching there as well, giving her eldest brother a narrow-eyed glare.

  “If you should need tae piss,” the brother offered, standing with arms crossed and refusing to come forward another inch. “I can show ye where tae go, lest ye find yourself with an arse full of nettles.”

  Lìli blinked at the mention of her private ministrations, but held her aplomb and gave the lad an uncertain smile as the old woman thumped him hard upside the head with the end of her staff. The sound was not unlike the smack of hammer against a stone wall, but the lad merely gave the old woman a sideways glance.

  It seemed to Lìli that she and Lael were of an age—which only made her wonder how old Aidan was. She made the mistake of sparing an upward glance at the laird of Dubhtolargg. He was frowning down at her, his dark brows furrowing in disapproval. “I expected you to bring a son,” he said.

  But it was the wrong thing to say as far as Lìli was concerned. She felt horrid enough for having abandoned Kellen. “Why, my lord?” she asked pleasantly, but with an edge to her words, “So your brother can teach him where to piss as well?”

  He smiled thinly and the old woman cackled, popping the laird’s brother once more upon the pate of his head. Lìli frowned. By the rood, these were strange folk.

  “I ken your tongue is cursed as well,” the laird remarked, his green eyes glinting and Lìli hitched her chin a little higher, noting that she came no higher than his mid chest. But what she lacked in height, she had been given in spirit and if he thought for one instant he could intimidate her with his presence alone, he was sorely mistaken.

  “That should come as no surprise to you, my lord as ‘twas your folk who cursed me after all.” She said it very sweetly, but with an underlying bitterness that would have escaped only the deaf.

  The old woman cackled again, striking the laird's brother yet another time. Lìli might have laughed in horror but she felt a sudden painful tug on her arm.

  As Aidan watched, one of his bride's companions jerked her backward by the arm, whispering something into her ear and suddenly, she blanched, her face falling as she lifted her shoulders and turned once more to face him.

  An unexpected wave of fury reared up within him and he fought the desire to trounce the man where he stood. His hand had only been upon her for an instant; he had already released her, but from that instant forward Aidan didn’t like the man.

  Intensely.

  Even more, he didn’t like the way he felt—suddenly protective over the Scots wench. The feeling was wholly unwelcome, considering the circumstances.

  The daughter of his enemy was his enemy as well, he reminded himself.

  But she could not meet his gaze now. “I-I am sorry, my lord. You have the right of it. I am indeed weary,” she confessed. “It seems the days of travel have soured my mood.”

  Her words did not match the fire he had spied in her eyes an instant before—a fire that intrigued him despite that he knew it meant they would not deal well.

  Evidently, there was something the lass feared far more than she feared him, and he had a feeling it had to do with her absent son. He tucked the suspicion away to ponder later.

  She held his gaze, the violet pools glistening with unshed tears. They seemed to plead with him somehow, but she said not another word.

  Confusion warred with anger.

  Mo chreach! He had been prepared to loathe his bartered bride. He had been prepared to dismiss her. But he was not prepared for the unanticipated wave of possessive fury he now felt over the treatment he'd observed. She’d looked both mournful and desperate in the same instant and it was a look that confused him beyond measure.

  She is your enemy.

  Suddenly he found himself angry, for despite that he knew what they were capable of, these feckless Scots, he clearly had not learned from the past, for here she was—along with her entourage—a danger to his clan simpl
y by their presence.

  Damn Una. This was her doing, he reasoned, for she had advised him to this end. All those years ago, she had been the one to curse Lìleas MacLaren, and now the old woman claimed she was to be the salvation of their clan. It made little sense to Aidan, and yet that was all Una would say. Unfortunately, merely the sight of Lìleas now reopened wounds he had thought long ago healed. Ach, but it had taken him more than thirteen years to banish the memories of that day from his mind. He peered at the old woman at his side.

  Una seemed to read his thoughts and gave him a nod.

  But Aidan was suddenly blinded by rage. A tiny muscle ticked at his jaw, betraying his emotions, and he realized that if he remained where he stood an instant longer he would betray far more than was prudent.

  “See that my bride wants for naught,” he demanded of his sisters, and then he spun on his heels and walked away, vowing to steel his heart against the Scots witch.

  She was not here for love, he reminded himself—neither did he intend to give it.

  Chapter Four

  Taking his cue from his elder sibling, Aidan’s brother took one last measure of their troop—and of Lìli—and with a lifted brow that was an identical match to his brother’s, he turned and followed Aidan. Abandoning her to the women of his clan, her betrothed marched down the long pier toward the strange building on the water. Not once did he peer back at her, but it was clear by his stride that he was hardly pleased.

  Uncertain what had upset him so thoroughly, Lìli watched the brothers go, and somehow knowing Rogan would blame her wayward tongue for this, she refrained from meeting his gaze. Although were it not for her son, she would die a thousand deaths to speak her mind.

  “Dinna mind him,” the old woman said at her side, elbowing Lìli none too gently. “He’s a cantankerous auld sack o’ wind!”

  Lìli blinked at the declaration. And despite that the laird’s dismissal stung, the grin on the old lady's withered face brought a reluctant smile to her lips, for it struck her as quite absurd that the elder, who appeared to be no less than one hundred if she were a single day, would call the laird of Dubhtolargg old.