The Edinburgh Seer Complete Trilogy

by Alisha Klapheke

“They’re just two very different people,” Aini said. “Hopefully their shared interest in this rebellion will bridge the distance.”

  “Like the recent study that showed how agrin and acetylcholine surprisingly work together to develop our synaptic connections…” Thane trailed off as Aini gave him a look. “You know,” he said, sounding casual which only made Aini want to laugh and punch him a little, “like our muscle cells and motor neurons and all that.”

  “All that. Yeah.”

  “I’m not the only nerd here, Organization Queen.”

  She patted his back. “Truth.” They moved away from the dancing and toward the armory.

  Menzies stood talking to Senga. All the faces that had stood out in the fighting and arguing were here except maybe Callum. He was probably off doing some of that organization she should’ve been overseeing.

  Aini drank in the sight of Thane walking in front of her. The flash of his leg and boot below the edge of his kilt. The broad lines of his back. The quick, mischievous smile he threw her over his muscled shoulder.

  Yeah. She could wait on the organization for an hour or three.

  Candles in the room where they’d shown off the larger chunk of the Coronation Stone flickered in sconces beside the arrays of swords and axes.

  “Will you come up to my rooms with me?” Thane asked, his voice a little rough.

  A thrill went through Aini. “Yes.”

  A stairwell hid behind the armory. Aini let Thane lead her further from the noise of the celebrating. The stairs brought them to a small room papered in silken black and green stripes. A massive four poster bed boasted a Campbell tartan canopy and a twisted, dark wood frame.

  “Is this really your room?” Sometimes Aini forgot how Thane had grown up. Then she saw things like this. “This bed could eat mine.”

  A spark lit his eyes. “It’s nice to have plenty of room.”

  Aini’s mouth dropped open and her knees were suddenly about as sturdy as a bowl of pudding.

  He held out a hand. “Did I say the wrong thing?” He looked genuinely worried.

  “No. No.” She cleared her throat and put a hand on one of her burning cheeks. “I just wasn’t expecting that.” She laughed, enjoying the fact that everyone else was very, very far away.

  As he stood there, looking delicious, Aini gave up any thought of clever talk.

  She pretty much attacked him.

  They fell onto the bed and Aini froze for a second, her chest on his. She reached out and brushed a fingertip over his eyebrow, then down his temple where his pulse tapped quickly. Something was pressing into her.

  “Ah,” he whispered, wiggling hands beneath her and making her gasp. “It’s my sporran.” He pulled off the small bag and threw it to the floor.

  “Might want to be a little more careful with that, seeing as your most powerful weapon is sitting inside.”

  His gaze flamed hot across her body. “I have other weapons, hen.”

  Aini swallowed. His hair was wild. She realized she was straddling him with very little clothing separating them. She met his eyes and saw what she needed to see—permission to keep up her attack.

  Her mouth found his jawline. The soft stubble on his skin pricked her lips lightly. His large hands smoothed their way down her back, then drifted over her hips before latching on with a strong grip that made her head swim wonderfully. She started unbuttoning his shirt, taking moments here and there to run fingers over his warm skin. He made a growling sort of noise, and before she knew it, she was on her back, his hips pinning her down delightfully. He raised himself up and looked down. One of her legs was between his, the kilt swinging and tickling her leg through her stockings.

  She reached forward and set a hand on his thigh, daring herself to go further. His chest rose and fell like he’d sprinted miles after eating altered caramels. He seemed barely able to hold himself still. His fingers shook, and she couldn’t help but love that she had that effect on him. The candles along the wall flickered and snapped, sending shadows across the striped silk walls.

  Thane put his hand over hers and scooted her fingers a little higher. Raising an eyebrow, he grinned wickedly. “Go on then, aye. If you want…”

  Then a knife appeared at Thane’s throat.

  Chapter 21

  Boom

  The staccato of gunfire broke across the house, shattering a window not far from the saloon. Bran slowly set his whisky glass on the table as men and women shouted and went for weapons hidden inside their fine clothes. Senga hurried in from the hallway beyond. A piece of her silver hair had broken free and curved under her chin.

  “It’s Nathair’s men,” she said to him. “I know it.”

  “How?” Bran joined her at the saloon’s door as another volley of shots pounded the stone walls outside. “Why aren’t they coming in? What do they want?”

  “It’s him. And a small group he recently brought together for the jobs that matter most, he says. A new group of sycophants he picked up in the roughest parts of Glasgow and Birmingham. They’re petty gang thugs who think they’ll get the best spots when he pushes the king from Scotland. They aren’t loyal to any clan. Only to him. They’re outside our politics, really, and I have no idea what he’s ordered them to accomplish here now.”

  “He could’ve been in here with all of us dead by now considering he wiggled past the guard already without us knowing.” It didn’t make any sense.

  “Aye.” Senga’s gaze tore across the room. “Where is my son?”

  “With Aini. Upstairs.” Bran gave Senga a knowing look and she almost smiled, but she knew as well as Bran that they were in serious danger.

  Vera, a few of her rebels, and two of Callum’s men spoke together in a corner. Vera was pointing toward the back of the house.

  “I’ll see what I can do to find Thane and Aini. To secure them,” Bran said to Senga.

  “I’ll arm everyone here.” Senga slipped back out of the room with her trusted butler in tow.

  “Vera,” Bran called. She looked up at him, eyes wild. Neve and Myles gathered beside them. “We need to find Thane and Aini.”

  “Mac,” she called to a man turning tables over to block the entrance. The man hurried over and she spoke quickly in his ear. With a nod, he ran off.

  Bran wanted more than anything to go warn his best mate himself, but he had other duties at the moment. At least Thane and Aini were in an interior room. “I have three explosive devices armed and ready in the back of the truck out there,” Bran said. “Right beside their gunners.”

  “What are they doing? It’s Nathair, isn’t it?” Neve turned toward the door.

  “Senga thinks so,” Bran said, stomach clenching with dread. “Whoever it is, they deserve some boom, I’d say.”

  “Agreed.” Myles nodded and squeezed his hands into fists at his sides.

  Senga returned and began handing out revolvers and rifles and night sticks.

  “When do you think I should put them off—” Bran’s question was cut by a loud crash coming from the front steps and a rain of bullets into what sounded like the upper story windows.

  “Now is good, right? How about now?” Myles grimaced.

  Bran pulled three tiny switch boxes from his interior jacket pocket. “Sounds good to me.” They’d have to time this right though. They couldn’t hit their own people and they had to take down as many of Nathair’s group as possible. “I’m going to need some eyes on the scene out there.”

  They followed him through the house and into the dining room beside the front entrance hall.

  “Don’t turn the lights on,” Bran said to Myles who had a hand on the dial.

  Myles slowly removed his fingers from the light switch.

  Shapes moved in the moonlight outside a broken window. A man shouted at the house, but his words were drowned by his own handgun firing, bright white in the near darkness.

  “They’re not close enough to the truck,” Bran said.

  “But you have three high explos
ives?” Vera pulled the curtain aside a fraction and peered south. “How strong?”

  “They’ll blow the back of the truck apart and take anyone within, say, ten feet.”

  “I have this,” Neve said, holding up one of those caramels Thane had made. “I…I can eat one. Maybe run out there and draw them toward the truck?”

  “Nope.” Myles crossed his arms and shook his head.

  “I appreciate your courage, Neve,” Vera said, “but we don’t need a suicide mission on this. Ideas, Bran?”

  Bran pursed his lips, thinking. “Maybe if they believe we need something in there, they’ll investigate it. Do you have a walkie?”

  Vera handed him one of the small ones the Dionadair always used. If he spoke into it in a place Nathair’s men would overhear him, if he handled it right, he might push them into checking the truck out, then kaboom, and hopefully Thane would escape what Bran feared would be his end.

  In the room opposite this one, wind blew the fine, black curtains, fluttering them like giant corbie wings. “Has your Mac sent word back about Thane and Aini?” Bran asked.

  “No.” She followed him to the room across the hall, Myles and Neve on her heels.

  Bran held the walkie to his mouth to begin his acting. It took nothing to make his voice sound strained. “It’s in the truck. We have to get in there before they do. We can’t move forward without it.”

  There was no guarantee the men outside the broken window would hear him and take the bait. He could hear feet on the drive and the occasional shout of orders to move. Another walkie talkie was loud with white noise, but Bran couldn’t catch any snippets of conversation. There was too much other racket.

  “Yes,” Bran said into the walkie, louder now. “We need inside the Dionadair truck. Now.”

  Vera gasped. She knew as well as he did that mentioning the presence of the rebels would end any chance they might still have had for surprise.

  He gripped Vera’s arm.

  Myles and Neve cocked guns and held them ready for anyone who might come through the door.

  “I think they’re here for Thane and Aini,” Bran said, realizing this was the truth and that he’d really known it from the first moment.

  Vera pulled away and flew out of the room, obviously heading for Thane and Aini and those she’d sent after them. “Mac! Greta!”

  Outside, three men crept toward the truck. It wasn’t all of them, but it was better than none.

  Bran flipped all three switches. Three red lights bloomed in his hands. “Myles. Neve.” He gave each of them a detonator, keeping an eye on Nathair’s men. One man threw the back of the truck open. “Hit the button exactly when I hit mine. All right?” They nodded. “Now.”

  All three pressed their detonators, and with a blast to make ears ring, the night was day for a few seconds of horror. The truck belched flame and smoke as it leaped from the drive. The explosion sent all three of Nathair’s men into the grass where they lay knocked clean out. They were lucky they weren’t dead. An engine revved in the muffled aftershock of noise in Bran’s ears.

  Someone was leaving.

  He tore out of the room, beelining for Thane’s bedroom. Why hadn’t he gone himself when he’d first heard the shots?

  If Nathair had done what Bran feared, Bran would never, ever forgive himself for this mistake. Palms soaked, heart driving into his mouth, praying, praying, praying, he raced past the Dionadair, Campbells, and Gowries and into the darkness of Inveraray’s secret passages.

  Chapter 22

  Deadly Dreams

  From Heaven to Hell. In a blink.

  Cold metal bit into Thane’s throat and he heard his father’s rasping voice at his ear. “Stop rutting and listen to me, just for a moment?”

  Thane silently berated himself. Why had he thrown his sporran to the floor? “How did you find me, Nathair?”

  “This is my house, boy.”

  Aini’s face paled. She tugged her skirt down. Thane stepped off the bed and marched backward, the edge of the knife pushing him. He was dizzy and couldn’t seem to get his feet under him properly.

  “We have an army here,” Aini snapped, hair over one side of her face and cheeks bright pink. “Even if you kill both of us, you’ll never get out of here alive.” She eyed the door, probably wondering what was happening in the saloon right now.

  Nathair stopped. “That army down there is mine, you traitorous witch.”

  Thane turned and took the sting of the knife.

  “Aye,” Nathair hissed. “I do know what she is. And you too. Dreamer. Seer.” He snorted and let the knife release a stream of hot blood down Thane’s neck.

  Thane felt no pain. Only panic. His heart was in his mouth because Aini was here and so was this beast of a man who’d killed so many like her so many times in so many ways.

  “It is a bit of a mess though. I’ll give you that, my son.” He said the last word like it put the taste of poison on his tongue.

  Then Thane’s most recent Dream flooded his mind. The mountain of loose rock and how his foot slipped, the faraway ground looming, shimmering, dizzying. He saw again Aini’s blood red dress and heard the old king Kenneth MacAlpin’s words.

  Choose. We will see what kind of king you’ll be.

  This was the choice.

  Would he fall like he had in the Dream? His throat tightened and bobbed against the sharp metal edge of his father’s weapon.

  “If you let her go, if you leave those downstairs alone, I’ll go with you willingly.”

  He could almost see Aini’s face dissolving as he fell away, off the mountain in his Dream.

  Her eyes blazed. “You’re not doing this, Thane.”

  “What makes you think I’d do that?” Nathair asked.

  “Because,” Thane said, “Rodric told me you wanted a show. And you could put on such a great one with me as Heir and Dreamer and asking for mercy at your feet.”

  This was the only way Aini and the others might just have a chance to escape with their lives.

  Aini’s fists loosened and she held out a hand, tears shining on her cheeks. “I won’t just go. Not without you.”

  “You will.”

  “You’ll do exactly as I say, lass.” Nathair put the knife against Thane’s ear and drew a line of lancing pain from lobe to temple. “If you want this fool to live.”

  “You’re the fool,” she said to Nathair.

  “Aini, please.” Thane would beg. He would do anything to get her out of this room. “Just go. Stay quiet. It’ll be all right. I love you, hen. I do. And this is the only way I save you. It’s too late for me. I should’ve known. I am a Campbell and I’ll always be trapped by my family name.” Tears burned the edges of his eyes. He’d never see her again after this. Or if he did, he’d be under Nathair’s control and he’d be her enemy. “Please just flee Scotland. Go back to the colonies. Anywhere. This rebellion was doomed from the start.” He had actually believed they’d be successful. Why did he keep tricking himself? His father was right. He was a fool.

  She snorted and crossed her shaking arms. “I’m not going along with this, Nathair. Absolutely not. You’ll kill us regardless so I might as well make life difficult for you.” She locked eyes with Thane. What was she doing?

  She opened her mouth and screamed.

  The door swung open. Callum walked in and Aini’s mouth clamped shut. Thane sighed. They were saved.

  Callum lowered a hunting rifle at Aini.

  Thane frowned. What was the man doing?

  The initials CG were etched into Callum’s gun barrel, elegant and proud. “Shut it, lassie,” Callum said, “before things grow far worse than you ever could’ve imagined.”

  But Callum was on their side. “Uncle? What is this?”

  Aini’s face showed a war between confusion and rage as she took a step back.

  Callum kept his gaze on her, but spoke to Thane. “I wanted to support you, young Thane. I wasn’t lying to you.”

  No. NO. This could not be ha
ppening.

  “But your father has a way of persuading people to do what he needs them to do.”

  Thane’s anger was a fist around his chest, keeping him from taking a breath. “Father. What did you do?”

  “Callum is a good man,” Nathair said. “He is most concerned about the well-being of the people of Perthshire. I simply let him know that it wouldn’t go well with them if he made a wrong choice in this little…disturbance.”

  “This is a rebellion.” Aini was the embodiment of righteous anger.

  Thane regarded Callum like he was some strange creature he’d never seen. “So you told him where I would be. You set up the empty hallway. Did you kill the guards we had set on the stairs?”

  A flicker of unease crossed Callum’s face. “No. I gave them a chore and it was all very peaceful. I’m not the enemy here.”

  Aini stepped closer to the gun and made Thane’s legs go limp. Nathair caught him under the arm roughly.

  “You’re the worst kind of enemy,” she said. “You betrayed us!”

  “My people are my only family now.” Grief gave Callum’s words weight. Thane was forced to believe his uncle truly hadn’t wanted to do this, to report Thane’s whereabouts to Nathair and make this turn possible. The fact just made Thane’s hatred of his father grow deeper, darker.

  “I don’t think she’s going to let you make this choice, son,” Nathair said.

  She had to. “Aini, please.” He poured all his love into his pleading. “Go. I can’t stand the thought that the world wouldn’t have you anymore. I can’t…” Tears broke free of his eyes and joined the warm blood on his throat. He didn’t care that his nightmare of a father was listening and sneering. This was about Aini’s life. The life of the woman who shoved the heavy cloak of evil away to see the good hiding deep inside Thane’s shattered soul. “If you live on, the best part of me will too.”

  A sob choked Aini. She drew a hand across her cheek.

  Callum kept the gun on her, but his face had gone white.

  “Enough.” Nathair dragged Thane out the door. “You make sure she stays quiet until we’re gone and I’ll keep to my end of the bargain, Callum.”