“I ken.” He put out a hand for mine.
We entwined our fingers. The sun was rising in the sky, heat warming my back, the scent of the field grass baking in the sun.
“I do know you’re always putting my security first. I know that. I also know you’re under a lot of impossible situations, and for the last months you’ve kept me so safe I think I kind of forgot that I have to work on it too. I forgot to keep my guard up. I forgot to check in with the security and to be cautious around Lady Mairead, but—”
“You have just had a bairn, Isla is verra wee.”
“She is. But it doesn’t mean I’m not supposed to be a terrible arse anymore, some might say I need to be a bigger terrible arse.”
“Ye daena hae tae be. I will protect ye. I would lay down my life for ye, again and again.”
I gave him a pitying look. “Do you hear yourself? Lay down your life for me? Please don’t. I need you. I need you so much. I want to live on into a crotchety, irritated, old age with you. I want to retire into an old folks home with you... complaining about our grandkids not bringing cookies often enough, putting together puzzles, and going to water-aerobics classes together.”
He chuckled. “Like the home Madame Barb lived in? We could hae the sing-a-long nights with the ice cream socials?”
“Exactly. We have to get old together to have those, please don’t die. Isla and Archie need you. Don’t lay down your life for us, we need to stop thinking about trading the one for the other — we are a team, right?”
“Aye.”
“When you go into battle do you think about it that way: ‘I will die so my brother will live’? No, you want to live too. You want everyone to live. You go into battle trying to kill the enemy instead of choosing who will die for the cause, right?”
I searched his face for the answer. “I mean, I’m not a military strategist, but I think we need to start taking the fight to them, before they come to us. Like, why the fuck is Bella still alive?”
“I told ye, tis difficult.”
“True, I get that, but why is Roderick still alive?”
“Dost ye ken what kind of man goes around killin’ those that might want him dead? Tis a dangerous man, an evil man. A man of honesty daena kill first. I think ye are askin’ me tae become a judge and executioner.”
“Well, you are a king, I think it goes with the job.”
We looked down at our hands. “I’m not really saying you need to go kill all these people, just that you and I need to get smarter. We need to stop these fights before they get to the point where you’re thinking it’s either Kaitlyn or me — like, what was it I said before you came here?”
“Ye told me tae nae be a hero.” He joked, “As if I could nae be a hero.”
“I meant this, protecting the castle with our friends, protecting me with your life. What about protecting all of us with your motherfucking army? How about that for once?”
“I wanted tae keep the eighteenth century from seein’ our full might. Twould be confusin’ and could alter the time—”
“Aw, Magnus, that ship has sailed — have you looked around? People are wearing Uggs. Most of your family was here during the battle on the walls. It might cause issues for them to see your tanks, but what’s the alternative? To not arm ourselves? We need to go get your army before something else happens.”
“Lady Mairead told ye my kingdom was in trouble as well?”
“She did, she said for you to come on the agreed-upon date.”
Magnus nodded. “I canna leave ye and the bairn here in the castle while I go.”
“This is true, but you could send Quentin. He will go. Let’s be smart. Let’s win this thing.” I grinned, “Now aren’t you glad I sent a message to Lady Mairead that we were in trouble?”
“Aye, perhaps she might send m’army, there is a chance Lady Mairead will do the right thing. There is also a chance she has a’ready done the wrong thing.”
“How will we know?”
“I need tae get ye tae a safe house and then—”
There came the sound of galloping horses from the woods beyond the stables. A cloud of dust rose into the sky.
“Would ye go inside, Kaitlyn? I will see what they are about.”
Two- Kaitlyn
In the courtyard, I pushed through the crowds to the stairs. In one moment I had gone from having a discussion with Magnus to panicking from being without Isla for so long. What had I been thinking? An old lady grabbed my sleeve, wanting my attention — “I can’t, my baby.” I pushed past as a random baby in the distance began wailing, causing milk to leak from my breasts. Ugh.
I wore a tartan wrapped around my shirt, no bodice, the fabric thick and loose. The wrap hid the milk running down my front, but I was a freaking mess by the time I made it to the nursery where Emma was with all the kids.
Isla had just awoken. I pulled her into my arms, sat down, managed to get a breast into her mouth and a feeling of relief washed over me. I leaned my head back against the tapestry. Phew.
I had gotten distracted — arguing with my husband about war tactics, too far away from the baby. This was what I needed to do, this, nurse this baby, trying to be comfortable in the wooden chair. Archie came over to perch on my lap and cuddle beside Isla. “Good morning, sweet Archie, what are you doing?”
“I bang Ben.”
“Uh oh, did you make sure Ben was okay?”
He looked up at me with sweet wide eyes, “Aye.”
“Good, you have to make sure your friends are okay if you hurt them, do your best. Tell them you love them.”
“Go tell Ben I love him.” He climbed off my lap to run across the room.
Emma and I smiled at each other. I asked, keeping my voice low so we wouldn’t be overheard, “How are you? What are you thinking about all of this?”
“This, my friend, is insane. It’s just like I imagined, like being on the film set of Outlander, but there’s also no backstage. Why aren’t the actors and actresses sitting in chairs drinking out of Starbucks cups, scrolling through their feeds?” Our gaze traveled to the other side of the room, where two women were dragging a lumpy bag with a big dark stain in the middle, off a small wooden bed, banging it with a broom, then flopping it over, and draping a wool blanket across it. She added, “Yeah, this is hard to get used to.”
“There is so much to see and without being able to Google it, sometimes I don’t know what the hell I’m seeing. Like what was that, did they just make that bed?” I chuckled. “And wait until you see the kitchen. The kitchen is going to blow Zach’s mind. Speaking of, is he off with James and Quentin?”
“Yes, apparently they’re doing manly things with horses and swords and maybe some sweet little cows.”
We laughed.
Hayley rushed in. “So this is where you are, the nursery? Blech, I expect so much better for you. No offense, Ben.” She picked him up on her hip. “How you doing, you doing good?”
He wiggled down, racing away, arms out like an airplane, swooping around following Archie. Weaving in and out and around the many women here to wrangle the children, the many many many children.
Hayley watched the chaos of the room, then grabbed the back of a heavy chair and dragged it across the stone to our circle. “This is a shit ton of kids, is this really necessary? Children in a castle?”
“What do you think would be in a castle then?”
She shook her head sadly. “I don’t know, orgies?”
We all laughed.
“I came to tell you that Magnus went with Fraoch and the boys to check the woods for bad guys. It’s really a chance to go off with the men and I don’t get to go, I have to stay here with the women.” She scowled.
“We are the better group in the long run, who else is going to listen to long nitty-gritty stories about your honeymoon?”
“I will get to that, but first, why are you here, holding a baby in a drafty castle instead of in your cushy mansion in Florida?” She peeled back the blan
ket to peek at Isla’s face.
“Isn’t she cute?”
“Yeah... except for that whole big head thing, but I guess Magnus has a big head. You have to expect it of his children.”
“She has a perfectly sized head and you know it.”
“Of course she does, plus there are hats.”
“So do you want to hear about what the fuck happened to me?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“So first, Lady Mairead came to the house, she wanted to see Isla and she seemed overcome when she did.”
“What the what — overcome?” Hayley made a retching face. “Over come?”
“I don’t think you know what the word means. It means to be emotional.”
“Oh, I thought it was something sexy.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Well, I’m mostly speaking Gaelic right now anyway. What do I know? So she wasn’t over-comed, she was overcome.”
“Yeah, misty-eyed.”
“Oh sure, that makes more sense.” She asked Emma, “Did you see it?”
“No, I was in the back room, listening over the baby monitor. Truthfully though, she sounded moved.”
Hayley shivered. “Truthfully, that lady doesn’t need to be moved, she needs to be fed to alligators. And that doesn’t explain why you time-jumped.”
“So the next day...” I moved Isla to nurse the other side. “I was putting Archie to bed, reading him a story, and he said, ‘Mammy come to park.’”
Hayley’s eyes went wide. “Katie, who the fuck is mammy?”
I said, “You can guess — it’s not me. He said she came to the park and was going to take him home.”
“That bitch was on the island?”
I solemnly nodded.
“Did you tell Magnus, did you tell Magnus that he better clean that shit up? That bitch better not be coming around there and—”
“Hayley, yes, I told him. We had a long talk about it just now.”
“So what’s he going to do?”
“I don’t know yet, we’re still at a loss, the security guard was gone, someone was banging on the door, we got scared, and jumped away from Florida to here, last night.”
“Shit, so whoever it was, you’re like, ‘Here’s my house, take it?’”
“Kinda — a lot like that. But Hayley, we had to get the kids out of there.” I sighed. “Also, remember, you and your little dramas here, you had: Magnus, Fraoch, Quentin, James.”
Emma said, “We only had Zachary.”
I said, “Yep, he is not the best protection.”
She shrugged. “He is pretty great with knives. He can shoot. He’s practiced with swords, like he’s not the worst, but he’d definitely rather compete in a cook-off than a battle to the death against evil time-jumpers.”
“Exactly. So we jumped here, it was death defying and terrifying and really like, awful, like I thought I might have hurt the baby, so don’t be judging me about it. Magnus and I argued about it and I am in no mood.”
Emma raised a brow. “You argued? Have you ever argued before?”
“God yes, all the time, have you met him? He can be very stuck in his ways — always thinking he knows everything about—”
I looked at both Hayley and Emma looking back at me. “Fine, we’re both that way, I get it, but I’m not kidding when I said I’m in no mood. I did the best I could. I came here. That’s what I did. Magnus was here.”
Hayley softened. “I’m not questioning why you came, honey. When I hear your stories, about what goes on with your life, I never know how to advise you. I don’t know. I do know this: you’re usually doing the best you can. But... seriously, you need mad skills. You need to be armed. You need more hand-to-hand combat training, more kickboxing or dagger fighting.”
“Magnus used to run me through drills all the time.”
“I bet he did.”
“Very funny. Plus I took a defense class, my first year in college. It actually came in handy once when I used keys in my fist against Magnus’s step-dad. He’s dead now, Lady Mairead should totally be thanking me.”
“Perfect, like more of all of that, you need skills.”
Isla was done nursing, I pulled her off my breast and up to my shoulder and rocked her there. “So, right after I get Isla and Archie down for a nap, when I’m at my most sluggish, needing a nap myself, then — you and I will run through some fighting moves.”
“You’ll be a mom-slash-superhero. Instead of Black Widow, you can be Plaid Slug.”
I rolled my eyes, but laughed too. “I know you’re joking, but you aren’t wrong.”
“So what’s our plan?”
“We need to get Emma’s family out of here, tonight, after the scouts return. Once Magnus and the boys are back, we’ll discuss where to send Emma and Zach and Ben. We might send Beaty with them, perhaps Archie.” I looked across the room at Archie jumping off a chair like he was a bird, a little line of eighteenth century children following his lead. “Or maybe not Archie. In a perfect world he would go where Ben goes, living the toddler life, but he’s the son of a king and his murderous bitch mom is hunting for him, so he needs to stay with me.”
Hayley said, “Again, you need to be better armed.”
“Fuck yeah.” I snuggled against Isla’s face, then tucked her into my arms to sleep.
Emma said, “Lean forward.” She wrapped a long piece of plaid around me and Isla, nestling the baby against my front.
Hayley dug through her satchel, pulling out a motherfucking gigantic gun. “You could carry this one, but it’s my favorite. I do have this handgun.” She pulled out a gun with a holster.
“Fuck Hayley, put that away!” She shoved it back in the bag. “Does it even have a safety?”
“Shit yeah, it’s got all the things, fingerprint sensor — you know what, I wouldn’t give you a gun that was going to accidentally go off in your pocket, so give me a little credit. My almost niece and nephews are crawling all over you, you can’t be hurting them. You remember how to shoot, James and Michael took us to the firing range?”
“Yes, we went a lot.”
“Remember the safety lessons?”
“Yeah, James drilled me about it endlessly.”
“Good.” She slid the gun and holster over to me.
“Jeez Hayley, we’re in a nursery.”
“All the men are carrying swords, and they aren’t decorative. No one is batting an eye that I’m passing you a gun. We won’t shoot in here, that would be crazy.”
“When did you get like this?”
“When I time-jumped to the eighteenth century and got taught a lesson by a mob of rape-happy monsters. The safety is on, it’s cool. Let me put it on you, you’ll look cool as hell.”
“To have a baby strapped to my chest and a gun at my hip?”
“Yep, cool as hell — you’ll almost make being a mom look fun.”
“Ugh Hayley, put it in my bag, with the safety on.”
She put the gun in my bag.
Emma said, “So let’s get back to Archie for a minute.”
Archie and Ben were rolling the wooden cars that Hayley had brought making vroom-vroom noises that most of the kids didn’t understand.
“Do you think... not sure how to put this without totally freaking you out — do you think she took Archie away and brought him back? I mean...”
I shuddered at the possibility of Archie not telling me. What would I have done if he had just disappeared?
I waved him over. I put out my arms so he could climb into my lap. “I love you.” I kissed his face all over until he giggled and pushed me away.
He scrambled off my lap. “Go play!”
“Wait,” I held him in front of me. “Tell me something, okay?”
He put on his serious face. He was so wee, but his serious face carried a glimpse of the man he would be someday.
“Did you see your mammy?”
He nodded solemnly, mimicking my face. There was no way to brin
g lightness to the moment. “Did you go somewhere with your mammy? Did you go?”
“I go.”
“I mean, did you go, or will you go? Do you know the difference? Did you go away?”
He put his hands on the sides of my face. “Kay-be no go to park. Isla is baby.” Then he put a big sloppy kiss on my nose and ran off.
I pouted. “I don’t know.”
Emma said, “I don’t think she took him anywhere. Why would she bring him back? Plus, I think he would tell us if something different happened, like he would say storm or something. I think she just told him she was coming to get him to take him.”
“Yeah, I guess so, there wasn’t a storm either. It would have been too hard to get him away and back in a short enough time.”
Hayley watched Archie play for a bit. “What’s Magnus’s take on all of this?”
“He’s all confused up in his head about what to do, but that’s fine, I get it —”
Hayley said, “Truthfully he doesn’t have to worry about it. I’m going to kill that bitch if she touches a hair on that boy’s head. I’m auntie Hayley, I am not to be toyed with.”
“She slept with my husband, get in line behind me.”
Emma said, “This is the weirdest conversation for a nursery ever.”
“Welcome to the dark ages.”
Three - Kaitlyn
Lizbeth entered and joined us. She pulled up a chair beside me and looked adoringly at Isla in my arms. “What a sweet countenance. She must scream terribly tae make up for it or we would never do anything but give birth tae bairn.”
“She does have strong lungs when she’s pissed.”
“Good, then I feel safe around her.”
Hayley shuddered then joked, “You would want another one Lizbeth? Aren’t all of these yours?”
We looked around the room, fewer than twenty children. Lizbeth said, “Och, nae all of them, my youngest is there, my daughter is over there in the corner, and my boy is off causing mischief, I suspect. He is the one tae keep me from having more — so many trials. I am grateful ye brought me the medicinals.”
Son and Throne (Kaitlyn and the Highlander Book 11) Page 2