Spell of the Highlander

by Karen Marie Moning

  “I know, love, I know,” he said roughly.

  He wasted no more time. He took her. Cupping her face between his big hands, he kissed her, sliding his hot velvety tongue deep. Threading his fingers into her silky curls, he cradled her head delicately, tipping her at just the right angle.

  Jessi melted against him. You were my wife, he’d said. I loved you until the end of time. Jessica MacKeltar, he’d called her, as if he really had married her in another life.

  She’d wanted such words. She’d neither expected nor been prepared for them. The moment he’d said them, she’d realized that it would have been kinder if he’d not said them at all. If he’d let her think him a callous prick, let her hate him.

  But his words would keep her from ever being able to hate him. They’d ripped her open, ruthlessly exposing her heart. Her anger had dropped away as if it had never been, leaving only a desperation akin to his: to have whatever she could have of him, for so long as she could have it. Because she felt it too. As if they were supposed to have made a direct hit, to have had a full, long, crazy, wild, passion-filled, child-strewn life together, but somehow they’d come at each other from the wrong angle, and missed what could have/would have/should have been.

  If she thought about it, it would tear her into little pieces. She refused to drown in sorrow. She would drown instead in the exquisiteness of this moment. There would be time for grief later. Too much time. A freaking lifetime.

  But now, her man was kissing her. Now, his powerful hands were hot on her bare skin, slipping beneath her sweater. Now, he was gripping her by the waist, and lifting her against him.

  She wrapped her legs around him and locked her ankles behind his back, as he backed her into the wall, kissing her passionately.

  She had now.

  And she wasn’t going to waste a single precious moment of it.

  Gwen smiled over her shoulder at Drustan as he followed her to the door.

  Shortly after their ninth-century ancestor had risen without a word and stalked from the room with Jessi, Gwen had realized it was nearly dinnertime. And a good thing, too, as she’d completely forgotten lunch in all the fuss today and her stomach was growling hungrily.

  But upon Cian’s departure, Dageus and Drustan had promptly gotten into a heated discussion about him. It had taken her a good ten minutes to regain their attention and propose they move their conversation to the dining room.

  Now, opening the door, she began to step out into the corridor.

  “Oh, my,” she said faintly.

  She retreated right back into the library and gently closed the door. “Um, why don’t we just, um, stay here in the library for a little while. Who wants to play Pente?” she said brightly. “I’m not as hungry as I thought I was.” She turned and butted nose to ribs with Drustan.

  He caught her by the shoulders. “Why, lass? Is aught amiss? What’s out there?” Drustan stepped back, staring down at her, perplexed.

  “Nothing, nothing at all.”

  He raised a dark, slanted brow. “Well, then, let’s be off—”

  “Oh no, not just yet.” She beamed up at him. Backing herself flush to the door, she draped herself casually against it. “Let’s stay here. Another half hour or so should, be, er, just about right.” She blinked, looking uncertain. “I hope.”

  Drustan cocked his head, studied her a moment, then began to reach behind her for the doorknob.

  Gwen sighed. “Don’t, Drustan. We can’t leave just yet. Cian and Jessi are out there.”

  “‘Out there’?” Drustan said blankly, stopping midreach. “So? Will we not fit past them in the corridor?”

  “I’m sure we could if we tried. I’m not sure we’d want to,” Gwen said meaningfully.

  He regarded her expectantly.

  She tried again. “You know, they’re out there.”

  Drustan continued to regard her expectantly.

  “Oh, Gwen,” Chloe cooed excitedly, “do you mean out there?”

  Gwen nodded.

  “Ha!” Chloe exclaimed. “I knew that woman wasn’t stupid.”

  “Wait a minute. They’re out there?” Dageus said disbelievingly. “The two of them are out there in the corridor? I put over a hundred rooms in this castle, and they’re bloody out there in the bloody corridor as if they couldn’t find a door to a chamber? ’Tis not as if I concealed them—there’s only one every few bloody paces or so. Is it so much effort to turn a doorknob?”

  A muscle leapt in Drustan’s jaw, his eyes narrowed. “Lass, are you telling me that Cian and Jessica are tooping in that corridor? Is that why you closed that door?”

  Blushing, she nodded.

  “You saw this? Nay, that was a stupid question. Of course you did. What, exactly, did you see, lass?”

  “Me? Oh, nothing.” She folded her arms over her chest and stared off at a point somewhere east of his elbow.

  “Gwendolyn?” He crossed his arms and waited.

  “Okay, so maybe I saw a little,” Gwen admitted, “but he has her up against the wall and all I saw was his butt, and I closed my eyes the minute I saw it.”

  “You saw my ancestor’s arse?” Drustan said frostily. “His bare arse? Had the man any clothing on at all?” He began reaching past her again, for the doorknob.

  She waved his hand away. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Drustan, you saw him when he left. All he had on to begin with was his plaid. What do you think?”

  Drustan’s nostrils flared. “I think the man’s a blethering savage.”

  “Aye,” Dageus agreed.

  “Oh, you two should talk,” Chloe said, laughing. “And Dageus, need I remind you of some of the places you and I—”

  “Case argued and won, lass,” he said hastily.

  “I hardly saw a thing,” Gwen assured Drustan. “It’s not like I held the door open and stared or anything, even though he is a MacKeltar.” She blinked. “And he certainly was every inch a MacK—” She broke off hastily, looking abashed, and feigned a sudden fascination with her cuticles. “What I meant was just that you MacKeltars are a fine-looking lot of men, Drustan, and he is related to you, actually, he precedes you in the gene pool, which might explain . . . Oh, dear, I should probably just shut up now, shouldn’t I?” She pressed her lips together.

  “That seals it,” Drustan said calmly. “I’m going to have to kill the man.”

  It was Dageus who put things back into perspective. “You doona mean that, Drustan, nor could you if you did. So long as he’s bound to the mirror he can’t be killed. But doona fash yourself. The poor bastard will be dead in a fortnight anyway and he’ll ne’er toop his mate in our corridor again.”

  Drustan winced and a bleak expression entered his eyes. He stared down at Gwen a moment, then gathered her gently in his arms and held her.

  Dageus pulled his wife close, as well, remembering a time when he’d not believed he had much more time with his mate himself.

  Half an hour later, it was a somber foursome that peeped cautiously out into the corridor before attempting to go to dinner again.

  Jessi awoke late at night, alone, in a bedchamber.

  She and Cian had eventually become cognizant of where they were—and just how public it was—and had stumbled from the corridor into a nearby bedchamber.

  She stirred in the great big, down-filled, canopied bed, nestled in a warm mound of velvety blankets. She pushed a hand through her wrecked curls; she didn’t need to see a mirror to know she had major bed-head. At the edges of her consciousness a terrible reality knocked, seeking entrance to her thoughts, but she refused to grant it an audience. Now was now. Later would come soon enough.

  She smiled. She’d fallen asleep in bed with her Highlander’s strong arms wrapped around her, spooning her backside to his front side, with one of his powerful legs draped over hers.

  A perfect memory, she committed it to a special corner of her mind where each moment she had with him would be immortalized. These memories she would make with him now would hav
e to last her a lifetime.

  She pushed herself up and slipped from the bed, dropping barefoot onto the floor. She dressed swiftly and hurried for the door, wanting to be with him every possible moment.

  But when she ducked her head into the dimly-lit library—the castle had been put to bed along with its occupants hours ago—the mirror wasn’t where she’d last seen it, and a stab of blind panic made her chest feel dangerously tight.

  “We moved it, lass,” a soft voice cut through the darkness.

  She jumped, peering into the dim room. By the soft red glow of the embers of a dying fire, she could make out a man’s shape in an armchair near the hearth. Stacks of books surrounded him on both sides and he was paging through another.

  “Drustan? Dageus?” By voice alone she couldn’t tell them apart.

  “‘Tis Dageus, lass. Why can’t I deep-read you, Jessica?”

  Jessi shrugged. “I think it’s because I was injured when I was young and I have a metal plate in my head. When Cian uses his Voice-spell on other people, it feels itchy inside my skull.”

  He was silent a moment, then snorted with laughter. “Och, ’tis too perfect. ’Tis also exactly what it feels like—a smooth, cold, hard barrier. It must shield you from magyck somehow. You said ‘other people.’ Has he ever tried to use Voice on you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It doesn’t work.”

  Dageus gave another soft laugh. “Despite how bloody powerful he is, Cian can’t deep-listen to you, either, can he?”

  “I don’t think so. He told me none of his magyck works on me.”

  “Good,” he said slowly. “That’s very good.”

  She thought that an odd thing to say and began to press, but he spoke again swiftly. “Are you all right, Jessica?”

  She shrugged again. What could she possibly say? I’m both happier and more alive than I’ve ever been and I feel like I’m dying, too? And I suspect before this is over, I’ll wish I was. She said instead, “Where is the mirror?”

  “We moved it to the great hall at his request. When I built this castle I buried four wardstones beneath the entry: east, west, north, and south. They are massive stones and I spelled them myself. He sensed their potency and asked that the mirror be hung on the landing of the stairs. ’Twill grant him the greatest protection. He is determined Lucan not be able to reach the Dark Glass.” He paused, and she had the sense Dageus was not pleased with his ancestor. “He will have his vengeance, lass, no matter the cost.”

  She already knew that and was in no mood to discuss it. There was a bitter stew bubbling inside her, but she was not yet ready to ladle deep down into it. She would taste the richness first. She nodded briskly. “Thank you.” She slipped from the library.

  Twenty minutes later, Jessi had what she needed.

  While she spread the comforters and throws and pillows at the base of the mirror on the wide expanse of landing in the great hall, Cian stood framed in the mirror, watching her every move. When she was cozily scrunched into the blankets, curled on her side, facing the mirror, she smiled drowsily up at him.

  “Good night, Cian.”

  “Good night, Jessica. Dream sweet, lass.”

  “You too.”

  He was kind enough to not remind her that he neither slept nor dreamed while in the minor.

  And Jessica made a sleepy entry in a mental diary.

  Memory/Day Fourteen: We said good night tonight like a married couple who’d been together for years and years.

  So what if he was in a mirror and she was sleeping on the floor.

  It was still a fine memory.

  25

  Days sped by on winged feet.

  Jessi’d always thought that was such a cliché: time speeding by on winged feet; time flies when you’re having fun; or as Cian had once put it so simply—time is of the veriest essence.

  Yes, it was.

  Suddenly all the clichés in the world were true. Each and every one made perfect sense to her. Those love songs on the radio that had once made her roll her eyes and tune the dial to Godsmack instead now reduced her to sappy sentimentality in moments. She’d even caught herself humming the maudlin melody of a country-music song the other day and she’d never liked country music.

  Last year she’d read The Stranger by Albert Camus in French for extra foreign-language credits. Not her cup of tea, though it had given her food for thought, including the existential contention that death made brothers of all men.

  Jessi now knew the truth was that love made brothers—and sisters—of all people. As different as they were, love was that common, defining ground, making everyone the same giddy, delirious fools for it in a thousand and one ways.

  Like countless women before her, from tender teens to wise seniors welcoming a second wind, Jessi began keeping a diary to forever capture her memories.

  Memory/Day Thirteen: Today we kissed in all one hundred and fifty-seven rooms in the castle (including closets, utility rooms and bathrooms!).

  Memory/Day Twelve: We had a midnight picnic of smoked salmon and cheeses and three bottles of wine (my aching head!) on the castle grounds beneath a star-drenched sky and, while everyone else slept, we swam nude in the garden fountain and made love on all three tiers.

  Memory/Day Eleven: We chased the cooks from the kitchen and made chocolate-chip pancakes with raspberry jam and whipped cream.

  What they’d done with that raspberry jam and whipped cream had had very little to do with eating. The pancakes, that was.

  But not all of the memories were good. She couldn’t hide in some of the memories. Some of them slapped her in the face with truth.

  Memory/Day Ten: Lucan Trevayne came today.

  Lucan stood at the line of demarcation between Keltar-warded land and Trevayne-warded land, staring up at the castle. He toed arrogantly up to it, though he didn’t care for the feeling at all. The Keltar’s power hummed in the earth beneath his feet, trying to push past the invisible boundary, butting up against his own wards.

  It had taken him all night and the efforts of a dozen well-trained men to secure this portion of land, enough for him to accomplish his aims. By the light of a pale moon, while the castle slept, they’d spelled the soil, from the sleek black limousine readied behind him for a swift departure, up to the circle of estate Cian had claimed for himself.

  Now he stood approximately two hundred yards from the castle proper, waiting. The Highlander hadn’t wasted time and resources warding more than the immediate grounds, nor had there been any reason to. Lucan was effectively barred from the castle by this meager yet insurmountable perimeter, as Cian had known he would be.

  So long as he did not cross that boundary, Cian couldn’t use sorcery on him. So long as Cian did not cross it, Lucan couldn’t use sorcery on him, either. As they were both immortal and self-healing, they couldn’t harm each other with anything else. They’d mastered long ago the exact wards that neutralized the other’s power. This was the only way reclusive sorcerers were ever willing to meet, toe-to-toe on neutralized ground. Cian would not cross the line, nor would Lucan, unless a temper could be provoked, and they were both too smart for that.

  Though he was immortal and could not be physically slain, he could be bespelled. If he were fool enough to stray onto Cian’s warded ground, the Highlander could trap him and cocoon him in a mystic stasis, as helpless as a fly in a thick, sticky spider’s web.

  Eventually, Lucan might figure out how to break free, but he had very little time left to take chances with. And he’d never been willing to wager on the outcome of a battle of spells between him and the Highlander.

  The situation at this second Castle Keltar was far worse than he’d imagined. He could feel the potency of two Keltar Druids in this new castle, about whom he knew nothing but for this—their power was as old as their names. They were strong. Not like Cian. But also not like any other Druid he’d ever encountered.

  He’d arrived yesterday afternoon and swiftly gotten the lay of the land: There was
no way he was going to be able to get inside that castle without help.

  Which was why they’d spent the night warding, why he was standing here now.

  His wits would have to serve him again, as they had so well eleven hundred and thirty-three years ago.

  “Trevayne.” Cian’s nostrils flared as he spat the word.

  “Keltar,” Lucan spat it back, as though the vilest of viles had passed across his tongue—a tongue so heavily tattooed it was blackened with dye.

  That tongue had spoken such sordid spells and lies that it should have rotted from the dark sorcerer’s mouth, as his soul had rotted from his body so long ago.

  “You don’t look ready to die to me,” Lucan taunted.

  Cian laughed softly. “I’ve been ready to die for over a thousand years, Trevayne.”

  “Really? I have pictures of your woman. She looks like quite the fuck. I’m going to find out once the tithe is paid.”

  “The tithe will never be paid, Trevayne.”

  “You’re going to watch us together, Highlander. I’ll push her up against your mirror and—”

  Cian turned around and began walking back toward the castle. “You waste my time, Trevayne.”

  “Why did you come out, then, Keltar?”

  Cian turned around, walked back to the line and toed it. He stood so close that their noses nearly touched. The width of a hair kept them separate and safe from each other, no more.

  Lucan saw movement behind the Highlander. The woman had just stepped out onto the top stair of the elaborate stone entryway. Precisely as he’d hoped.

  “To look into your eyes, Lucan,” Cian said softly, “and see death there. And I saw it.”

  He turned sharply again, heading for the castle. He looked up at the entrance. “Go back inside the castle, Jessica. Now,” he called sharply, seeing her on the stairs.

  “What does she think of all this, Keltar?” Lucan called after him, making his voice loud enough to carry clearly to her ears, as well. “Is she as eager for vengeance as you?”