Promise of a Highlander

by Baker, Katy

  "Ye canna run from me!" he shouted into the mist. "I know yer kind! I know the rules by which ye are governed! I bind ye, Fae! I bind ye by the promise of blood! Ye will give me my bargain!"

  He could see nothing but impenetrable mist but he knew the Fae was close. He could feel its presence: the burning malevolence, the centuries old hatred. It hung in the air around him like cloying smoke. For a second his determination faltered. Why would he want to bind himself to such a creature?

  Because it is the only way to make restitution, he answered himself. Even if it damns me in the process.

  Suddenly the mist parted and the standing stone reared ahead of him. Its face tilted towards him, looking like a gaping hole cut into nothingness.

  "Ye wish to give me yer life?" whispered the voice of the Fae. "Then come forward. Place yer hand on the stone. I will take yer life in payment."

  Ross walked forward. The monolith grew in his vision until he could see nothing else, as though the rest of the world had vanished. Slowly he raised his hand and pressed it against the stone’s rough surface.

  Memory engulfed him. Once again he stood on the cliff top. Once again he made the decision that destroyed his life.

  "No," he whispered. "I dinna wish to see this again."

  "But ye must,” answered the whispering voice of the Fae. “For this is the reason ye wish to make yer bargain is it not? This is the reason ye are willing to abandon yer family, yer duty, yer destiny and give yer life into my keeping? Watch, son of the MacAuley. Live it."

  And Ross did.

  LIA STUMBLED TO A HALT. Before her, the mist suddenly parted to reveal the standing stone bursting from the ground several meters away. Ross stood in front of it. His hand was pressed against its rough face and he stared at the pitted surface as though he could see something there.

  "Ross!"

  He didn’t react to her shout. He didn't seem to hear her at all.

  A rumble suddenly shook the ground, reverberating up through her feet and making her stagger. What the—? Then, as the rumbling subsided, a great cracking sound split the air, followed by the spine-tingling sound of grating stone.

  The standing stone began to topple.

  I will take yer life.

  A jolt of pure terror went through Lia. She watched, frozen with horror as the stone began falling towards Ross. He didn’t see it. He didn’t hear it. He stood, transfixed, watching something only he could see. He would be crushed.

  "No!"

  Lia took off, running towards him. She leapt the last few feet, crashing into Ross and sending them both tumbling across the ground just as the standing stone came smashing down. It was so close, the edge of the stone scraped her arm. Then she was rolling, tumbling, and the world became a mess of dust and noise and confusion.

  Then something smashed into her head and everything went black.

  A SHOUT PENETRATED the haze of terror-filled memory that engulfed him. Ross recognized that voice. He'd heard it before somewhere, hadn’t he? But it slipped away, devoured by the images that played across his mind. A windswept cliff. Raised voices. Fury coursing through his veins. Raising his hand to strike...

  “No!” A scream cut through his daze and he blinked.

  He recognized that voice. Lia?

  The images fractured like glass. He came to his senses just in time to see the standing stone falling towards him. He had a fraction of a second to realize he was going to die before a body slammed into him, taking them tumbling across the hillside.

  The stone thudded into the ground—into the space he'd occupied only a moment before—and shattered into fragments, filling the air with dust and sending debris tumbling out in all directions. Ross threw up his hand as tiny shards of stone pelted his face.

  A sudden howl of rage and frustration filled the air, so loud that it flattened Ross to the ground. For a moment he could see and hear nothing. Then the howl faded, like a cry on the wind, leaving Ross alone with the sound of his own ragged breathing.

  The mist dissipated, fading as quickly as torn cobwebs, to reveal a cloudless blue sky. Sunlight bathed the hilltop. Ross shook his head, clearing his thoughts. Where was Lia? Oh Lord, where was she?

  He staggered to his feet, looking around wildly. He spotted her lying on her back several paces further down the slope. Her eyes were closed, her skin pale.

  "Lia!"

  He scrambled to her side and lifted her head into his lap. She didn't stir. A thin trickle of blood seeped down her temple and there was a lump on her head the size of an egg.

  "Lia," he said, shaking her gently. "Lass. Wake up."

  She didn't respond. He put his ear to her chest to listen to her heartbeat and check her breathing. Both were steady. He got his arms under her, and lifted her carefully, cradling her as gently as if she was a child.

  Climbing to his feet, he took a moment to look around. Gone was the mist and the curtains of rain and instead sunshine bathed the hilltop. No clue remained to indicate what had happened here. Nothing to indicate that the Fae had almost taken him, except the tumble of broken rock where the standing stone had been.

  He shuddered. If Lia hadn't saved him...

  He saw no sign of Traveler except a set of hoof prints disappearing back the way they’d come. Ross didn't blame the horse for fleeing. What beast had the courage to stand up to the Fae?

  Carrying Lia carefully, he began picking his way down the hill. The ground was boggy underfoot and forced Ross to pick his way with infinite care so as not to lose his footing and send them both crashing into the mud.

  A beck ran at the base of the hill and Ross turned east along its course, using the mossy bank as a path, trying to put as much distance between them and the Fae hilltop. Only when it was several miles behind, lost in the undulating landscape, did he dare stop.

  He found a sheltered spot on the banks of the beck, hemmed in on either side by thick bushes, and then laid Lia carefully on the ground.

  "Lia?" he whispered. "Lass?"

  When she didn't respond he pressed a hand against her cheek and found her skin was as cold as ice. She was freezing. Quickly, he gathered fallen branches, dumped them in the clearing's center and began striking a fire with the flint and tinder he kept in a pouch at his belt. Eventually a spark struck, but the damp wood gave off more smoke than heat. It wouldn't be enough.

  He knelt over Lia. She looked peaceful, as if merely sleeping, but Ross knew from bitter experience that a head injury like this meant she might never wake up. The thought sent a rush of cold fear right through him.

  No, he told himself. I willnae let her die. I willnae!

  He brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face. Lord, but she was beautiful. Beautiful and brave and unlike any other woman Ross had ever met.

  "Come back," he said gently. "Come back to me, lass."

  He pulled her into his lap, wrapped his cloak around them both and held her tight against him.

  Chapter 9

  Come back to me.

  The words floated to Lia on the wind but were snatched away before she could make sense of them. She had recognized that voice hadn't she?

  "Lia? Are you listening?"

  She fixed her attention on the people seated in front of her. They were in her father's office. It seemed so empty without him in it and her eyes kept straying to his chair, to the spot he had occupied for all of Lia's life. Now it sat empty, a reminder of all she had lost.

  "I'm sorry, what?" She did her best to focus on the people seated around the table but it was difficult to concentrate. Her head hurt and she felt so cold she was sure her bones had frozen.

  Amanda Lake, Lia's attorney, fixed Lia with that hawk-like glare of hers. "I said, the takeover will go through this afternoon at the meeting. I've tried everything I can to stop it but there's nothing we can do. We've lost, Lia."

  Lost. One word to describe so much.

  "But...but...there must be something?" Lia said, battling to make sense of what Amanda was telling her. H
er father had only been dead a month and already everything he'd built was falling apart. How could thirty years of work disintegrate in so short a time?

  "There isn't," Amanda replied. "The company is in too much debt. Bailing out the Portside project took all your father had."

  Lia ducked as though she’d been slapped. Her stomach felt like it had a bowling ball sitting in it. The Portside project. Her project. The project that she had been so confident would make her career, would announce her to the industry and send her father's company right to the top. She almost laughed at the arrogance of it. How could she have thought she could have succeeded where nobody else could?

  She nodded, unable to speak through the guilt choking her throat.

  "Good. Then sign this." Amanda pushed over a document and held out a pen.

  But Lia’s hands were shaking so badly she couldn't sign her name. Damn. When had it gotten so cold in here? So cold that her bones had frozen and her thoughts turned as sluggish as syrup?

  Amanda smiled and her eyes were like balls of black onyx. "I will take yer life if ye wish to give it so easily," she said in a voice that sounded like nails being scraped over slate.

  Then suddenly mist filled the office and a terrible will pressed down on her, a will that burned with hatred. The mist wrapped cold fingers around her, caressing her skin and sending bitter cold right through to her bones. She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself but it made no difference. Her teeth chattered, and she shook uncontrollably.

  “Dad!” she cried into the swirling mist. “Dad! Where are you? Please forgive me!”

  For a moment there was utter silence but then a sound echoed through the mist: laughter, low and full of venom. The sound made her hair stand on end.

  “Ah,” said the voice. “So ye are the one she’s chosen. She is a fool. Ye are weak. A failure who betrayed her own family. Ye will fail at this task as ye have failed before. Why bother to fight? Come to me and I will give ye oblivion.”

  In the mist something moved and terror filled Lia.

  She ran.

  She pelted through the mist, searching for a way out but the cold was slowing her blood, stiffening her muscles. Her steps stuttered, her breathing turned ragged and painful, tearing in and out of her lungs like shards of glass.

  “Give it up,” said the voice behind her. “Ye canna save him. He doesnae want to be saved.”

  “No!” she cried. “Leave me alone!”

  Then another voice spoke, one she recognized.

  “Come back to me, lass.”

  Something warm and strong caught hold of her, beating back the cold. Lia grasped onto it and allowed it to pull her through the mist. The dark presence receded behind her and she saw a light flickering.

  Lia cracked her eyes open. She found herself staring into the flames of a campfire. They hissed and crackled against the wet wood, sending up a column of thick smoke but the flames refused to be beaten, stubbornly licking at the damp logs. She felt wonderfully warm, wonderfully safe, and for a moment all she wanted was to lie here, to savor this feeling and let it chase away the clinging threads of her nightmare.

  Arms were holding her. Strong, solid arms and something warm rested against her back.

  “Lia?” said a voice by her ear. Ross’s voice. “Are ye awake, lass?”

  “Yes,” she croaked. A sudden throbbing started in her head and she pressed a hand against her temple. A lump like a goose egg met her questing fingers. “Although I’m beginning to wish I wasn’t. Ow, that hurts.”

  “Ye took quite a whack on the head,” he replied. “Ye have been unconscious for a while.”

  Lia realized she was leaning against him, his hard body the source of the warmth radiating through her.

  Come back to me, lass.

  Could it have been his voice she heard in her dream?

  Ye canna save him. He doesnae want to be saved.

  She bolted upright, looking around. She couldn’t see the hilltop or the standing stone. They were sitting on a riverbank, their campsite screened by bushes.

  “Easy, lass,” Ross said softly. “Ye are safe.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Several miles from where we were. As far as I dared carry ye in yer condition.”

  She turned to look at him. His hair hung in tousled locks and dark circles framed his eyes. He looked exhausted. He’d carried her here?

  She levered herself into a sitting position and sat cross-legged by the fire. She groaned. Holy crap, she had a headache and a half!

  “Here,” he held out a large, folded leaf that had been fashioned into a cup. A dark brown liquid filled it.

  “What’s that?”

  “Willow bark. It will take away the pain. We dinna have the medicines ye have in yer time but it should do the trick just as well.”

  Lia took the cup carefully. She sniffed the liquid then set the cup to her lips and swallowed in one go. It tasted so bitter that Lia bared her teeth, trying to keep it down.

  Ross watched her. “I...owe ye an apology.”

  Lia looked at him, surprised. “An apology? For what?”

  “For what happened up there.”

  Lia passed a hand over her face. She couldn’t even begin to make sense of what she’d seen: Ross staring at the standing stone. The creased face of the wizened old man. The stone falling, falling.

  “What did happen up there?” she asked. “What was that place?”

  The firelight danced in his amber eyes as he looked at her. “A place of the Fae.

  There are many such places throughout the Highlands. Places built millennia ago by the fairy creatures who founded Alba. Some are forgotten, some abandoned, but all are dangerous places for mortals to walk. I shouldnae have taken ye there. I should have turned Traveler around the moment I realized what it was.”

  “The Fae,” she muttered. “Fairy creatures come to life.”

  But she couldn’t dismiss Ross’s tales as superstition. She couldn’t claim they were just stories to frighten children. Not after what she’d seen.

  She pulled Ross’s cloak tighter about her shoulders. “What did that thing want with you? It sounded like you knew that creature and it knew you.”

  Ross picked up a twig and began shredding it, tossing the pieces into the fire. He glanced at Lia and then stared at the flames. For a long time he said nothing.

  At last he spoke, his expression grim. “Most of the Fae have naught to do with mortal kind. Our lives are fleeting to them, beneath their notice, but some take an interest in mortal affairs, some for good, some for ill. Irene MacAskill is one such. The old man ye saw on the hilltop is another. I have been searching for him for many years. Why he should choose to appear now...” He shook his head and ran a hand through his copper hair.

  “Why?” Lia asked softly. “Why would you want anything to do with something like that?”

  Irene MacAskill had seemed kindly, but that creature? The memory of his sibilant voice and cruel laughter sent a shiver down Lia’s spine.

  “Because he is known to my family,” Ross said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Because years ago he struck a bargain with my father and uncles. I wished to make a similar bargain.”

  She remembered Ross shouting into the mist offering his life in payment for this bargain, his voice hoarse with desperation and need. Holy crap, what could Ross need so badly that he would consider such a thing?

  “I am not a good man, Lia,” he said hoarsely. “I have done things. Terrible things. And for that I seek redemption. I offered my life in exchange for putting right a terrible, terrible wrong.”

  I will take yer life if ye offer it so easily.

  What could he have done that was so bad he would sell his soul to that creature?

  She shook her head. “But he was never going to give you anything. Surely you see that? All he wanted was to kill you.”

  “Aye,” he agreed. “I see that now. And he would have succeeded had it not been for ye. Thank ye, Lia. For saving m
y life.”

  Their eyes met over the fire. “I guess that makes us even. I never much fancied the thought of being burned as a witch.”

  He let out a soft laugh. “I dinna think ye needed my help there. If I hadnae happened along I reckon those villagers would have discovered they got more than they bargained for. I’m starting to realize that Emelia Shaw is far more formidable than she seems.”

  “Formidable?” Lia replied. “Nobody has ever called me that before! Is there a compliment buried in there somewhere?”

  “Aye. There is.”

  There it was again, that look that almost stopped Lia’s heart. Her pulse quickened, and she felt herself flushing under that intense amber gaze.

  A sound came from beyond the thicket and Ross came instantly alert. He sprung to his feet, head cocked. Then Lia heard it too: the unmistakable clop of hooves.

  Ross drew the knife sheathed at his belt and, indicating for Lia to remain still, crept slowly out of their hiding place. A moment of tense silence passed then Ross burst out laughing.

  “There ye are! I thought ye had abandoned us!”

  He reappeared leading a bedraggled—and to Lia’s mind—a slightly sheepish looking Traveler.

  Lia grinned at the sight of the horse and climbed to her feet. A sudden wave of dizziness washed through her and she put her hand to her forehead. Ross grabbed her elbow to steady her.

  “Easy, lass. Ye will be woozy for a while after a blow like that.”

  He bent to check Traveler’s girth strap then kicked dirt over the fire.

  “Let’s go.”

  Traveler stood placidly as Ross helped Lia to mount. He swung up behind then reached around her to take the reins. Once again she was enclosed in the cage of his arms—the safest place to be, she was beginning to realize.

  Ross clucked softly and prodded the horse into a steady walk. Lulled by the swaying motion of the horse and her own exhaustion, Lia found herself slumping against Ross. Heat flowed into her from his touch and the feel of his solid, reassuring chest was exactly what she needed after the horror of the hilltop.