by Hazel Hunter
You’ve done well, she thought to them, and projected a memory of a sheltered niche she’d noticed near her village. Go on with you, before the voles take it for their pups.
The pair shook out their feathers and waddled off, eager to begin building the nest for their young. Catriona remained where she was and watched the highlander emerge from the spring.
Gods, but he was a massive, beautiful beast. He stood tall and broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with dark, bronze hair that spilled over his shoulders. More dark hair pelted the bulging muscles of his torso. From the firm curves of his buttocks to the strong yoke of his upper shoulders, long, wide swaths of muscle padded his back, and swelled even bigger and heavier in his upper arms and thighs. She’d already seen him balance a huge log on one shoulder and carry it off, and wondered how many years he had labored to grow so powerful and confident.
Something about the highlander called to her, as she had not felt since her childhood. It had been so long ago she might be mistaken, but the man seemed to have other, hidden power, as if he were druid kind, like her.
Why would a druid work like an ox when he could use magic to ease his burdens? a little voice said inside her head. She sighed. You see what you wish, not what ’tis there.
Would the highlander be shocked to know she had been watching him for weeks? Or that just now, if she took three steps, she’d appear in front of him like a wraith made flesh? Would he run away shrieking like the other infrequent intruders that came to Everbay? Or would he attack her, beat her, or worse?
Because she couldn’t answer those questions, Catriona stayed safely behind the barrier. Nor could she make a sound whenever the man came near her side of the island. The bespelled wall of magic that protected her and the village only prevented them from being seen. She’d had to leave several times since the highlander had come to Everbay, and each time she returned she found him still there.
He arrived every three or fiveday to work on his cottage, which he’d nearly finished. While he was away she’d done things to discourage his staying: scattering his tools, stealing his bedding, and knocking down his first attempt at building walls. It hadn’t put him off, but watching how hard he worked to build better walls the second time left her feeling a curious mixture of pleasure and guilt.
The highlander knew little of island life, but he did not give up.
When he finished dressing the man headed back for his cottage, and Catriona paced him for the length of the glen. The barrier protecting her presence didn’t extend into the forest, so she was obliged to stop at the tree line and watch the highlander from there until he disappeared from sight. Sometimes she considered waiting until he was asleep before she crossed through the spell boundary to see what progress he’d made on his house. Afraid of those unanswered questions, she sent the ducks or some of her other animal friends to spy on him.
Catriona didn’t think having ducks and voles and deer as friends seemed odd, but she had been born with the ability to wordlessly communicate with them. Far more primitive in their thinking, animals mostly dwelled on their never-ending struggle to eat, breed and care for their young. They had more instincts than emotions, so they couldn’t understand why she would sometimes curl up on her parent’s old bed and weep for hours. All of the animals on the island regarded her as harmless if a little strange. The eiders had been quite happy to keep watch over the highlander while they looked for their nest, but with the female about to lay Catriona had to stop sending them after the man.
I should leave Everbay for good. Ennis and Senga keep telling me ’tis too dangerous for me to dwell here alone, even with the barrier.
A twinge of guilt made her hunch her shoulders. She hadn’t yet told her family about the highlander.
The scent of wood smoke lured Catriona to the very edge of the barrier, where she peered through the trees in vain. Pulling her dark cloak over her head, she stepped through and emerged on the highlander’s side of the island. She quickly hid herself behind a tree, and waited while she listened for his heavy footsteps. When no sound came she darted to the next tree, and the next, until she saw his cottage.
Five arches of timber formed peaks over the rectangle of double stone walls, each braced in place. She smelled the fish he cooked even before she spied a seaweed-wrapped bundle on a flat stone in the center of the low ring of flames. He often brought with him strings of big sea cod which he always deftly cleaned, and sometimes stuffed with herbs and wild mushrooms. That and the darkening of his skin and small wounds on his hands and arms made her think he might be working at the docks, or on a fishing boat from the big island.
Tonight as his fish cooked the highlander sat with his back propped against a pine. Braced against his thighs lay a square of thin wood, on which he had placed a piece of parchment. He had something in his hand that he moved slowly back and forth over it, his brows drawn together over his storm cloud-colored eyes.
Whatever he did, it was not making him happy. His mouth had tightened so much it looked like a flat gash.
At last he put down the blackened bit of wood he’d been using, and stared at the parchment. “You’re an idiot, Gav. Let her go.”
Catriona jumped a little at the sound of his voice. Deep and soft, it stroked her very bones from within as it passed through her. Did he speak of himself? What sort of name was Gav, Norse? He looked proper Scottish to her. Why did he speak of holding a woman when he was alone here? She watched him turn the parchment to study it in the firelight. She gasped when he swore and flung it away. The parchment floated through the air to land only a few feet away from her.
In the bright moonlight she could see the fine drawing, which showed the face and shoulders of a woman. She had a pretty smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and a hard line to her jaw that spoke of determination. The highlander had captured something so bleak in the sketch that Catriona felt an answering despair in her heart.
Had the lovely, hard-eyed woman lost everything? Was that why she looked as Catriona sometimes felt, as if she might go mad with grief?
She froze as the highlander strode over and snatched up the drawing. Not daring to breathe, she peered into his face. This close she could see that his eyes were the color of moonstones, but something in them made her stomach clench. She felt as if she should know him. There was something familiar about the bitterness in his eyes. But why? She’d never met anyone who looked like him.
The highlander took one last, long look at the portrait, and then crumpled it up as he walked back and tossed it into the fire. He never once glanced at Catriona.
While he stood with his back toward her she carefully crept away and returned to safety on the other side of the barrier. It had been beyond foolish to follow the man into the woods, and she should thank the gods that she’d escaped unscathed. She had to stop behaving so recklessly and do what she had come to the island to do.
Catriona walked back to the village, which had stood empty since her childhood. From its edge, she could spy the ocean and much of the land around. Though there were other places on the island she might stay, it was always to the village she returned. She spent every summer here planting new flowers, tidying up the cottages and visiting with the creatures that had taken shelter inside the barrier for the year. During the solstice she performed the remembrance ritual to honor her family, and pray for their return from the well of stars. Yet more than twenty years had passed since they’d died now. She came back every time hopeful that she would find Tavish and Isela waiting in new forms, her reborn parents ready to shower her with love again.
Mayhap the island is cursed, Catriona thought as she looked around the village.
Since the Moon Wake people had been slaughtered, not a single druid had ever come to live on Everbay.
Chapter Three
DEEP INSIDE THE basalt caverns of the Ninth Legion’s subterranean stronghold on the Isle of Staffa, Quintus Seneca woke in darkness. Without thinking he reached for the woman of his dreams, the sweetly submis
sive lowland dairy maid who had enchanted him from the moment he had enthralled her. He would make love with Fenella Ivar as he drank from her veins, and begin his night with those two gratifying pleasures. Only when his cold hand touched empty linens did his folly disperse.
Fenella would never be with him anywhere but in his dreams.
Although she had died a year ago, her loss remained an open wound. His poor love had died twice, in fact: once when Quintus had turned her undead after a lethal attack, and a second time during a battle with their immortal enemies, the McDonnel Clan. The fault for both of her deaths lay on him, and no weight he had ever carried in life had felt as crushing.
She had saved his life, and he had repaid her by sending her to her final death.
The door to his bed chamber opened, and a plump figure slipped inside. His second undead female creation, Bryn Mulligan, had brought a goblet of fresh blood. A former village whore who possessed none of Fenella’s grace or beauty, she had still provided a welcome distraction these last months. Quintus had not turned her to serve as his new lover, but he sometimes still used her when his needs became pressing.
“Fair evening to you, Tribune.” She stopped at a respectful distance and bobbed in a deep curtsey. “Prefect Strabo awaits you in the outer hall.”
A veteran centurion, and one of the few survivors of their last clash with the McDonnels, Titus Strabo had taken Fenella’s place as Quintus’s prefect. He dutifully reported every night on the progress he was making with replacing the troops lost in battle. In most ways he had become an acceptable second in command, although he had little imagination, and sometimes spoke with a surliness that grated.
“Very well,” Quintus said. He would not hurry himself to attend to Strabo, whom he resented for surviving when Fenella had perished. “Bring that blood to me.” When she did he drained the goblet, and then inspected her smiling face. “What have you to tell me of your efforts, my dear?”
“Another ten female mortals have been turned, milord.” Bryn cast her gaze down with her customary deference. “Once I have instructed them, with your permission they shall be placed to service the garrison.”
He nodded, pleased that she sought his approval for her plans. The women she was teaching to work as whores would soon be ready to leave Staffa and be placed where they could enthrall large numbers of male mortals. Once enslaved the men would be used in various ways to protect and serve the Ninth. The strongest would be sent to Staffa to be turned and join the legion.
Quintus rose and dressed before he had Bryn fetch Strabo. His prefect presented himself in the hooded black cloak he’d worn over his uniform since being wounded. It billowed around him as he knelt and saluted with a forearm across his chest.
“Your vanity annoys me, Strabo.”
“Apologies, Tribune.” The prefect stood and tugged back the hood, revealing his scarred face.
Simply looking at the man further soured Quintus’s mood. One half of Strabo’s head still showed his weathered, rugged features, close-cropped hair and bullish neck as they had been. Burns from the battle had left the other side bald, darkened and twisted. Streaks of shiny scars extended around the blob that remained of his ear and disappeared under the edge of his chest plate. The contractions of his flesh as he’d healed pulled one side of his mouth up like an unending sneer.
Looking away from his prefect’s ghastly visage would have been a sign of weakness, however, so Quintus kept his gaze steady on the unmarked half of his face. “What have you to report?”
Like every other night the news proved unremarkable. Strabo had dispersed the newest recruits to complete their training, and adjusted the ranks of two cohorts to accommodate them. Fresh thralls had been delivered by one of their black ships from the lowlands. No sign of the McDonnel clan had been seen by any of the scant patrols on the mainland.
“You must send more search teams to the highlands,” Quintus told the prefect. “Have them begin at the ridges closest to the sea and work inland from there.”
“Had I the men to spare, I would, Tribune,” Strabo said, his ruined mouth struggling to shape some of the words. “The first cohort is barely a hundred men, and none with tracking experience. The second you sent to the lowlands to continue gathering blood thralls.” He flicked his fingers at his scarred cheek. “I and two others are all that is left of the third, and the rest–”
“–have perished,” Quintus finished for him. “As I am well aware, Prefect. Your training methods are proving too leisurely. Cut their blood rations to half, and double the drills.”
Strabo’s remaining brow arched above the narrow black crescent of his eye. “Tribune, to starve the newly-turned is to invite frenzy.”
“Then post guards to protect the stronghold thralls, you idiot,” Quintus snapped. “Or must I do your work as well as instruct you on how to manage it?”
“Not at all, my lord.” Strabo bowed. “I shall see to it directly.” He glanced at Bryn. “My lady.”
Once the prefect departed Quintus regarded his whore mistress. “He shows more respect to you than me.”
“He is bitter over his deformities,” she said, startling him with the shrewd observation. “And I dinnae flinch away from him as the new mortal females do.”
“Has he a bed slave?” When she shook her head, Quintus felt a little less annoyed. “Go to his chamber tonight and tend to him. Perhaps you can leech some of his ill temper before I lose mine and relieve him of his scorched head.”
Bryn’s cheeks plumped with her smile. “As you command, milord.”
Chapter Four
AT DAWN CATRIONA rose from her pallet and wrapped her old wool blanket around her as she went to the hearth. She knelt down and fed some bits of wood to the banked embers until they woke and flared. Another pile of dried branches brought the flames to dance, and she smiled a little as she warmed her hands. The first time she’d tried to build a fire alone she’d scorched her fingertips and singed her hair. How terrified she’d been on that day, creeping about the island as if Uncle might jump out at her from behind every rock and tree.
Now Catriona had only to contend with a highlander who drew a beautiful woman, only to burn her portrait. That didn’t frighten as much as unsettle her.
A chirp drew her attention to the mossy nest she had fashioned for the little nestling she’d rescued from a tidal pool. The bedraggled chick’s minor wounds from tumbling out of its cliffside nest had healed, and now it was a plump ball of black fluff. Only when the end of its thin beak had begun to show a little orange did she know for certain that it was a baby puffin.
“Fair morning, Jester.” She took down the bowl of fish and limpet mash she’d made last night, and came over to remove the woven-twig basket that kept the bird from wandering off. As he caught some strands of her red-brown hair and tugged, she pinched a bit of the mash. With her fingers she placed it in the hungry chick’s mouth in the same manner his mother might. “Och, you’re a greedy thing. Dinnae gulp it so fast. Aye, that’s the way of it.”
Once she finished feeding the nestling she dressed in the warmth by the hearth. The cold nipped at her skin, making her think fondly of the thick robe she’d left at her other home. She never brought any clothing to the island except what she wore for traveling: a shawl Senga had knit for her, and a gown Catriona had made by hand from old, worn linen. She had many finer garments at home, but she worried she might forget something that would betray not only her presence, but where she now lived away from Everbay.
The one gown Catriona did leave behind had belonged to her mother, and was her most treasured possession. She could still remember gathering woad leaves with Isela to dye the kirtle and long skirts, but not the name of the ritual for which her mother had made them. Something about the light of the shore, and the longest day. Losing her family before growing old enough to enter the sacred circle had left Catriona as ignorant as a newly-weaned bairn. Ennis and Senga had sympathized with her frustration, but they knew nothing of the ways in
which she should have been trained.
“Senga isnae druid kind,” Ennis admitted when Catriona had spoken to him about her lack of knowledge. “I’ve the blood but no’ the learning, nor the lives past to remember. As druids you and I are babes, lass.”
Looking down at the faded, tattered linen she had clumsily repaired so many times, Catriona saw her life. She had been ripped apart, and each time she came back to the island she tried to heal, but something always tore her anew. By her second or third day she woke every morning sobbing, at least until the highlander had come. Catriona had always borne her sorrows alone, for she had never shared the island with another soul. Now each day she rose with anticipation instead of dread, eagerness instead of sorrow.
Wanting attention, Jester made a little clattering sound with its beak, and Catriona went over to sit with her hand over the chick until the warmth of her touch lulled it to sleep.
As she replaced the basket, she wished she had someone to comfort her. The pull the highlander had on her made her feel ashamed, especially for watching him from afar. Perhaps that was the only way she could love, from a distance, watching and wishing. It hurt to be so alone, but then she could never lose what she would never have.
Wrapping herself in Senga’s warm blue shawl, Catriona left the cottage. From every other house in the village creatures watched her with bright, curious eyes. Their thoughts fluttered through hers in images, for they had no words. They all shared a kind of understanding of the world and living things, and recognized her as a friend, but not in the ways of people.
To the voles and hares, she was the gentle hand that fed them grain and roots, and offered them protection from the short-eared owls and sea eagles. To the eiders and gulls, she was a clever fisher and catch-sharer, to be followed whenever she went to the tidal pools. The island’s shy deer liked her best when she ran with the herd up to the slopes. The goats still treated her like the odd, long-legged kid they had thought her as a wee lass. Even the enormous white swans, who came to the island during the winter only long enough to nest, grudgingly accepted her presence at the spring pool.