by Hazel Hunter
Before Galan retired for the night, he tore off his robes and left them on the floor. Tomorrow he would buy garments more suited to what he had become: a hunter of hunters.
And when he found the Mag Raith, he would have all the prey he’d ever desire.
Chapter Thirty-One
Domnall couldn’t believe his ears or his eyes. The sound of Jenna’s voice echoed through the great hall, clear as a bell. A light breeze rushed through the doors and arches, dancing around the man standing frozen over her. He watched the burns on her face and neck begin to shrink and disappear. She was healing. It was everything impossible.
Jenna opened her eyes to look back at him, and they seemed as bright and beautiful as ever. As she tried to sit up, he fell down beside her, and she had to grab him to keep him from toppling over.
“Hey.” She laughed as he hauled her against him. “What happened? How did I get back in here?”
“I carried you. The Sluath…the lightning…oh, lass.” He kissed her mouth and her brow and held her tightly.
“Now I can’t breathe,” she said, her voice muffled by his tunic. “Domnall, what’s going on?”
His voice shook as he drew back and told her everything. How they had escaped the Sluath, the love they had shared, the terrible choice they had made to escape and survive. By the time he explained what the demon had done Jenna’s hands clutched him just as tightly.
“But I don’t feel any burns,” she said as she touched her face and neck. “Maybe I wasn’t hurt that badly. I’m sure I was asleep and dreaming, not dead.”
“Your heart stopped. But now you heal as we do.” Domnall caressed her unmarked cheek. “I think you’ve become like us, lass.”
“I died and turned into an immortal? Seems a bit extreme, but okay.” Her gaze shifted, and she tugged up his sleeve. “Look what happened to your ink.”
When he glanced down and saw it had turned to a gleaming gold, he lifted the back of her tunic to expose her ink. The glyphs marking her spine had changed to the same brilliant color.
A shocked cry startled them both as Mael staggered in, his eyes huge.
Jenna waved at him. “It’s okay. I’m not dead anymore.”
The tracker approached her as he might a wounded animal, his hands trembling and his mouth still sagging open. “I cannae believe it.” He regarded Domnall. “How did you this?”
“’Twas no’ my doing.” But even as the words left him, he recalled his strange compulsion to carry his lady inside the ruins. “I think ’twas Dun Chaill.”
“The castle brought the lass back from the dead?” That came from Edane, who led Broden and Kiaran into the hall. They moved to form a loose circle around Jenna and Domnall. “I dinnae think it could, Chieftain.”
“It sent after us an army of iron warriors. It tried to drown us by waterfall. Aye, and mayhap it stole one hundred years of our lives before it handed us to the Sluath.” He moved his shoulders. “I shallnae check the teeth of such a horse.”
“We must go quickly,” Kiaran said, and when everyone looked at him he added, “The Sluath shall come for us here now.”
“’Twas only the one demon,” Mael countered. “It’s burnt to ash. Mayhap ’twas some manner of scout, sent to search for us.”
Before Domnall could reply Jenna said, “We can’t leave Dun Chaill yet.” She climbed off his lap, accepting Mael’s hand as she stood. “When I was, ah, dead, more of my memories came back to me.” She looked at Domnall. “You took me to the sky bridge.”
“Aye,” Domnall said. “I remember it. ’Tis how we escaped. The underworld and this world, the two are connected by a kind of storm. The Sluath use it to move back and forth, and also through time.” He dimly recalled the cloaked demon. “Someone helped free us.”
“We have to find a way to cut the connection,” Jenna said, the words coming faster. “We have to seal off the underworld. That way the Sluath won’t ever again be able to take people and make them slaves.”
Mael nodded. “And how do we that, lass?”
“I don’t know, but it’s here, somewhere here, in Dun Chaill.” She gestured around them. “We were supposed to come here and search for it.” She hesitated but then plunged on. “It wasn’t just the Mag Raith and me. I remember other slaves escaping with us. There are more coming.”
Every word she said rang true to him, but Domnall put his hands on her shoulders. “You’re certain?”
She smiled at him. “Oh, yes.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Returning to find the hunters building a more permanent camp gratified Cul almost as much as smelling the death of one of the demons in the air. He noticed the iron warriors, now standing immobile outside the outer wall, and the damage they’d done to the trees. Dun Chaill had unleashed but a tiny part of its wrath on the intruders, and yet they had survived. It would be amusing to see how much longer they could.
He’d give them a moon, perhaps two, before they sprang a trap they couldn’t defeat.
Cul retreated through the tunnels to the lower levels, and stored away the foods he had taken from Wachvale before he went to one of the listening tubes. He had placed that particular one to hear anything that approached the outside of the ruins, but it also allowed him to eavesdrop on his unwelcome guests. He took a moment to breathe in the scent of their fire on the cool air of the night, and then put the tube up to his misshapen ear.
“I think we can rebuild part of the upper level,” the female was saying. “The towers are probably too unstable, but all the interior support walls in the great hall, the armory, and the granary are intact.”
She’s changed, Cul thought, sniffing the air that came through the tube. He felt glad for the little female. She had more spine that all five of the men put together.
“What of the trees occupying them, Jenna?” the archer asked her. “Do we build around their roots and trunks?”
Jenna. Cul let her name roll through his thoughts, enjoying the elegance of it.
“I think we should leave them where they are,” she told him. “They’re part of the castle now, and we can incorporate– We can find different uses for them.”
“I dinnae wish to sleep in them,” the bad-tempered trapper grumbled. “Keeping watch from a tree blind, ’tis wretched enough.”
On and on they talked, making their plans without any true notion of what Dun Chaill was. Cul found it tedious, until the one they called chieftain said something that proved they were not quite as foolish as he’d assumed.
“We’ll gather all the iron swords and daggers, and carry at least two with us,” he said to his men. “If the Sluath attack again, we’ll end as many as we can.”
They know how to kill them.
Cul usually hated the guttural sound of his own laughter, but this revelation made him indulge in it for a long, long time.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Far beyond the mortal realm, Prince Iolar drummed his fingers against his cheek as Danar droned on about the scouts they had sent out to search for the rebels. The only satisfying moment of the day had come with Aedth’s summons, and the profusion of delectably evil mortals awaiting him. He’d fed so well at the village he wouldn’t have to again for weeks. He wouldn’t wait that long, however.
As prince he had to keep up his strength.
“Jaeg went off to the south,” Danar was saying. “But he didn’t return with the others. He may have sheltered for the night for a promising cull.”
“Why would he?” Iolar smothered a yawn. “He’s been collecting so many new slaves lately he’s run out of cages for them. He hasn’t even finished marking them all.”
Danar ducked his head. “I’ll summon him as soon as the stream reforms.”
“Use a portal, go back and find him.” Iolar flicked his claws at the big deanhan, who hastily retreated.
The underworld had neither night nor day, but the Sluath had long ago adapted to living without the visible passage of time. After hearing the latest reports Iolar
would usually spend several hours alone with his treasure. Reveling in its many delights kept him from over-indulging in other, less beneficial pursuits. Only the rebels had taken his treasure from him when they’d fled. Without knowing the exact moment his treasure had been swept off to the mortal realm, Iolar had little hope of recovering it.
He snapped his fingers, cutting his own flesh, and licked the bead of black blood from his skin as two of his personal guards presented themselves.
“Bring me a male and a female,” he told them. “Not too old, and check first to see that they’re not addled.”
“Do you wish them clothed, naked, bloodied or fresh?” one of the guards asked.
“Clothed and fresh,” he said. “I’m in the mood for some sport. Oh, and be sure they’ve not been claimed yet.”
As the prince expected the male lasted far longer than the female, and even tried to protect her from him. The entertainment they offered, however, soon palled. Unable to abide the monotony, he sent them to be tormented to death.
Danar came to him as soon as he returned from the mortal realm, and the moment Iolar saw his face he knew what news he brought.
“Jaeg is gone,” the prince said. As the deamhan nodded, Iolar surged to his feet. “Killed by the hands of mortals? How can this be? Who killed him?”
“I cannot tell you, but when I tasted his death,” the big demon said, “it burned of iron.”
Iolar was no longer bored. “Iron,” he said through clenched teeth. His narrowed eyes glanced around the room. “Then it seems we have a traitor amongst us.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Jenna sat back against Domnall’s chest and watched the last of the campfire flames flickering low. The rest of the men had gone off to sleep, but she felt like running a few laps around the ruins. If all this energy was a side effect of the immortality, which she still wasn’t sure she believed, then she’d definitely keep it.
“Getting struck by lightning should feel awful, but I’m great. I’m not even tired,” she told her lover. “Maybe I should run around waving a sword in every thunderstorm.”
He rested his chin on the top of her head. “Then I shall take back my vow no’ to beat you.”
“Too late for that.” A smug smile tilted her lips. “You’ve fallen in love with me twice, and the second time you didn’t remember a thing about me. If that’s not meant to be, then it has to involve magic. Resign yourself to the fact that you’re putty in my hands, Chieftain.”
“’Tis likely why I agreed to stay here,” he said, sounding grumpy now.
“We just have to be careful, and clear all the spaces for traps before we start rebuilding and moving in.” She turned around to face him, excitement brightening her eyes. “This could become our home, Domnall. We could have a life here.”
“Many lives.” He kissed her brow. “As long as you stay with me, my lady, you may have whatever you wish, within reason.” He looked into her eyes. “But leave the iron swords and thunderstorms to us.”
Jenna laughed. “There’s something else I should mention about us escaping the underworld. I’m not sure I should tell the men because, well, it took you and me thirteen centuries to find each other. I’ll let you make that decision.”
He frowned. “What did you recall?”
“The other slaves who escaped with us.” She glanced out at the sleeping hunters. “They were all female.”
Domnall sighed. “Dinnae tell me they were with my men as you and I were.”
“I don’t remember that much,” she admitted. “But they were all willing to fight the Sluath, and they’re all coming here, to Dun Chaill.” She snuggled against him. “So that’s everything I know. We’ll just have to see who turns up.”
“’Tis one more thing I must tell you, lass,” Domnall said gently, and leaned down to whisper it in her ear.
Jenna smacked his arm lightly. “I know you can move faster than sound, but honestly. There’s no way horses can fly.”
Sneak Peek
Mael (Immortal Highlander, Clan Mag Raith Book 2)
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
Temptation, Mael mag Raith realized that morning, made a man wholly dolt-headed.
The unusually warm spring in Scotland had festooned Dun Chaill in flowery vines and ample shade from the flourishing trees. Moss now so thickly carpeted the forest surrounding the castle ruins it had begun creeping up the tumble-down stonework. Daily washed by lavish morning dew, the air smelled like a coddled maiden, soft and sweetly fragrant.
After laboring for weeks to make habitable the intact portion of Dun Chaill’s keepe, Mael had quickly agreed to help his chieftain reclaim the kitchen garden. While he had no skill with planting, all of the men had tired of foraging in the sprawling forests. Soon they would need more to add to their limited food sources. The prospect of working outdoors had cheered him as well, for how hard could it prove?
What he should have done, Mael thought as he stood buried to the hips in greenery gone wild, was first have a look at the bourach.
“’Tis hopeless, Chieftain,” Mael said, grimacing as he pried a spiky thistle from his sleeve. “I say we burn and plant anew.”
“You’ll tell Jenna she cannae have fresh strewings until the solstice,” Domnall mag Raith said as he waded through a white-spangled snarl of hawthorn and meadowsweet. Standing almost as tall and broad as the tracker, the chieftain looked just as incongruous. “Then bid Edane seek elsewhere wood sorrel for his tonics, and Broden sweet berries for his snares.”
“I’d rather beg the Gods smite me.” Mael eyed a patch of sky. “Why didnae I remain in the hall to muck out the hearths? ’Tis humble work, and yet can be finished well before the snows arrive. This?” He shook his head.
“’Tis no’ so bad. ’Twill need but taming and tending.” Domnall surveyed the uncultivated growth around them. “We should ken the range of what may be saved.”
“I’ll trodge to the back.” Mael peered over a snarled spread of purple blooms before glancing down at the hundreds of pods they’d sprouted. “’Twould seem we willnae want for seed, but I reckon I’d rather eat dirt.”
The chieftain grunted. “’Tis good horse fodder, vetch.” He reached down and plucked a blushing rose from the undergrowth, a rare smile lighting up his tough features. “We must save some flowers for my lady.”
Pushing through the tall grasses until he cleared them, Mael tried to stave off the familiar stab of envy. Since mating with Jenna Cameron, Domnall’s nature had vastly changed. He no longer retreated into icy indifference and bleak silences. While they all labored in various ways to improve their situation, the chieftain had worked tirelessly to transform the abandoned stronghold. He meant to make it a true home for his wife and his men. Mael had no doubt that all of it sprang from the deep, abiding love Domnall had found with Jenna.
’Tis their reward for all they’ve endured, this life they build.
Mael had no illusions about his own future. He’d inherited his sire’s massive build and outlandish strength, and looked every inch a brute. While some females regarded his size as proof of his virility, none could gaze upon him without a shiver. The lasses of his tribe thought him the same as defender Fargus mag Raith, who had nightly vented his endless rage on his mate and bairns.
Unlike his sire Mael had always been of a mild, thoughtful temperament. Indeed, he’d often thought it a punishment from the Gods for pairing his cherishing nature with such a fearsome appearance.
Beyond the vetch he found wild carrots and turnips paving the ground with lacy cups and broad fronds of green. The plentiful roots would add flavor to their pottages, and even feed the mounts when grazing grew thin in the cold season. Yet when Mael lifted his gaze he saw they had crept out from under an unkempt hedge of juniper that stretched in an enormous curve that seemed to have no end. Even more puzzling, behind it he could see the top of a wych elm hedge and another of blackthorn growing behind it.
“Chieftain,” he called to Dom
nall as he looked down the long wall of spiky leaves and berries. “We’ve more than we reckoned back here.”
#
“It looks to me like an overgrown hedge maze,” Jenna Cameron said that night as they gathered in the hall for the evening meal. She passed a platter of oatcakes to her mate before she saw the blank looks the rest of the men were giving her. “That’s a garden labyrinth made from shrubs or small trees trimmed to serve as walls. But they date back only as far as the Renaissance—ah, the mid-sixteenth century—so I’m probably wrong.”
Mael didn’t doubt her, but something about the carefully planted hedges set his teeth on edge. “And if you’re no’, lass?”
“’Twas likely meant to catch and end the unwary, like every other facking thing in this place,” said Broden, his handsome face set in its habitual scowl. “No matter what ’tis, we should burn it.”
Gleaming red braids bobbed as their archer, Edane, nodded. “Aye, spread flames in the midst of all that deadfall and blowdown. We’ll clear at least the forest and the ruins before the smoke summons the Sluath to descend on us.”
“Let them come.” The trapper drove his eating dagger into the top of the trestle table. “We ken how to kill them now.”
Kiaran dragged a hand through his red-gold mane, making the kestrel on his shoulder fly off to join the other trained raptors perched in the rafters. “We’re five against a horde of demons. Aye, surely we’ll prevail.”
“Enough,” Domnall said before the men could start arguing in earnest. He met Mael’s gaze. “As seneschal the grounds as well as the stronghold shall be your domain. What say you?”
The tracker felt a little startled to be given the position as well as the say, but it seemed sensible. Since boyhood he’d shared the work of his máthair and sisters, and had the nature best suited to managing this unruly household.