Seduction Of A Highland Warrior

by Welfonder Sue-Ellen

  “It was then that Drangar appeared, eh?” Ewan nudged Alasdair with his elbow.

  Thankfully Malcolm didn’t notice.

  “Aye, so he did.” The old warrior stood straighter, his chest swelling. “Came out of nowhere he did. One moment I was alone, glaring down a band of bloodthirsty Camerons with naught but a dirk to have at them with, and the next, there was Drangar the Strong, looming before me in all his battle glory.”

  Alasdair pulled a hand down over his chin. “He would’ve been impressive.”

  “That he was.” Malcolm nodded. “His eyes blazed like hot coals and the long sword that hung at his waist screamed when he whipped it free as the first Cameron darted forward and drew blood, slashing my arm.”

  As he always did at this point, Malcolm rolled back his sleeve, displaying the thin slivery scar halfway between his elbow and wrist.

  “It was then that Drangar raised his blade. The fury on his face was terrible.” He gave Alasdair a quick glance, as if he expected him to naesay him. “He stepped before me, guarding me when my leg buckled and I went down on one knee. He kept his sword aloft, holding it high above his head as if to strike any Cameron who dared to take advantage of an injured foe.”

  “But they didn’t.” Ewan grinned, leaving the window to pour a measure of ale. “Ran like all good cowards do, eh?” He tossed back the ale and then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Camerons were aye—”

  “Camerons are now our staunchest allies.” Alasdair shot his cousin a warning look.

  “Aye, right.” Ewan shrugged. “So long as the wind blows fairly.”

  Alasdair ignored him.

  Camerons, at least, could be trusted. Kendrew and his Mackintosh Berserkers were an entirely different kettle of fish. A pack of unpredictable wild men who loved bloodletting more than peace and order, they kept their wits in the well-sharpened blades of their war axes.

  “I did see Drangar that day.” Malcolm reclaimed his stool, the set of his jaw showing he wouldn’t argue his claim. “Of course”—he stretched his arms over his head, cracking his knuckles—“if he hadn’t come, I would’ve beaten the Camerons on my own.

  “I couldn’t do that once he’d appeared.” He lowered his arms, slapped his hands on his knees. “One must aye respect an elder.”

  “To be sure.” Ewan grinned.

  “Indeed.” Alasdair turned back to the window, fighting his own smile.

  It was good that Malcolm didn’t see himself as aged. And it was equally fine that his oft-told tale took Alasdair’s own thoughts in another direction. Namely away from Marjory as he’d last seen her in the wood at the Harvest Fair, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed by the cold. How she hadn’t resisted when he’d deepened their kiss, even welcoming the sweep of his tongue into her mouth. He absolutely refused to recall her nipples. Aye, he should thank his uncle for putting other images in his head. Myths and fables that wouldn’t steal his sleep and make him crazy.

  Except—his eyes rounded—there was something moving on the foreshore.

  “Look there, a rider!” He gripped the window ledge and leaned forward, his gaze on the lone horseman silhouetted against the dark bulk of the cliffs.

  The man was bent low across the horse’s neck, his plaid billowing out behind him as man and steed raced along the strand, making straight for Blackshore’s soon-to-be-submerged causeway.

  “Thon’s a fool—or else his arse is on fire.” Ewan nudged Alasdair aside, craning his neck to peer round the tower wall when the rider thundered onto the causeway, sending his horse splashing into the rising water.

  “Nae, thon lad is Gowan.” Malcolm spoke from behind them, demonstrating that his eyesight was still sharper than any other man’s.

  “Gowan’s on watch no’ far from the Warriors.” Alasdair shook his head. “He’s up there with Wattie. They’re our best spearmen and most trustworthy guards. Neither one would leave his post—”

  The blare of a horn signaled that the rider was indeed one of the lookouts.

  “There’ll be trouble.” Alasdair flashed a look at Ewan and Malcolm as they left the solar, Alasdair striding ahead to reach the hall door. He threw it open to see Gowan spur his horse the last few yards through the tossing waves and into the arched gatehouse. Riding into the walled courtyard, the guard reined in just feet from the hall’s low steps.

  “Norse longships, lord!” Gowan swung down from his panting beast. “Two of them, and huge. I’d say twenty-four oars each, maybe more.” Coming forward, he stopped before Alasdair and bent forward, bracing his hands on his thighs. “Came from different directions, they did. We thought they’d clash, fighting each other. But they raised oars at the last minute and flashed up side by side before tearing off alone again.

  “One went south”—he paused, taking a long, deep draw of air—“and the other shot inshore, passing our loch’s entry but skirting the coast, more than suspicious.”

  Alasdair waited until the guardsman straightened and then slung an arm around his shoulders, drawing him into the warmth of the hall. He nodded to Ewan, indicating he fetch Gowan a mug of ale.

  “Longships are aye about in these waters.” Alasdair led Gowan to a bench, settling him at a table near the fire. A few women were still about in the hall and he didn’t want to alarm them. “Our own galleys often ply the coast, as do those of Hebridean chieftains and a few from the scattered Norse enclaves still in the Outer Isles. They could’ve been from anywhere.” Alasdair didn’t believe it.

  The way Gowan shook his head proved him right. “Nae, I dinnae think so.” He was adamant. “Not these longships. They were up to no good, sure as I’m sitting here.”

  “Were they armed, arrayed for battle?” Alasdair frowned, again seeing the big, scar-faced Norseman who’d been at the joy women’s encampment.

  He’d known the man was trouble.

  “Nae, that wasn’t it.” Gowan nodded thanks when Ewan brought him a cup of ale. “The ships were black.”

  “Black?” Alasdair looked at him.

  “Aye.” Gowan drained the ale in one long gulp and then tossed aside the cup and dragged the back of his hand across his lips. “The devils must’ve painted pitch on their hulls and even the oar blades. Far as we could tell, the sails were black as well. And”—he shook his head, his brow creasing—“so were the men in the ships, every last one o’ them. We saw their black mail and cloaks by the light o’ the moon, no mistaking. Even their helmets were dark.”

  “Black Vikings?” Malcolm folded his arms, his voice doubtful. “Such fiends haven’t been seen hereabouts in years, not since Clan MacConacher banished them some”—he paused, scratching his beard—“fifty years or more ago, it must’ve been. The Black Vikings sank the Merry Dancer, a merchant cog that was carrying a daughter of the House of MacKenzie. The great Duncan MacKenzie’s eldest girl, I believe.”

  He looked around, seeming satisfied when a few men nodded, showing they remembered. “Darroc MacConacher found the lass washed ashore on his isle and saved her, even making her his bride. His vengeance on the Black Vikings who rammed her ship is legend. Bards still sing the tale.

  “The MacConacher made sure the last Black Viking was swept into the bowels of hell. Those who didn’t perish beneath his sword or meet a watery grave were forced to flee to Brattahlid in distant Greenland, a frozen wasteland beyond the Ocean Called Dark, as the Vikings call those northern seas.” Malcolm spoke with authority. “I remember MacConacher’s wrath. He vowed to rid these waters of Black Vikings, and did. That I say you,” Malcolm lifted his voice, making sure everyone heard him.

  “I ken what I saw.” Gowan stood his ground. “Wattie will tell you the same when he comes down from Drangar Point in the morn.”

  “Humph.” Malcolm set his mouth in a hard, tight line, saying no more. He also curled his hand around the finely tooled leather belt slung low about his hips, where his sword would’ve been if he’d worn one.

  Alasdair’s frown deepened. Vikings weren’t welc
ome in these waters. Not with Kendrew offering Marjory’s hand to any Norse warlord willing to bid on her.

  Shoving back his hair, he strode away from Gowan and the men who’d gathered round him, badgering him with questions.

  He couldn’t think with their babble in his ears.

  He did hear Gowan mention Drangar.

  Whipping back around, Alasdair closed the space between them in three swift strides. “Dinnae tell me you saw Drangar. If you do”—his voice was low, deadly earnest—“I’ll wonder if you and Wattie were into your cups rather than keeping watch.”

  “What you think won’t change what was.” Gowan spat into the floor rushes. “Why do you think I rode so fast to get here? No’ because the two Viking ships flashed round to attack our coast, be sure. It was because old Drangar swooped at us from the mist, his long black cloak flying behind him like a shroud and his spear shooting flames from his spearhead. His eyes shone, too. Red as coals, they were.” He shuddered, rubbing his arms as if chilled. “And his scowl—”

  “Was no more than the rainclouds sweeping in from the sea. The shooting flames will have been lightning. There was thunder earlier.” Alasdair looked up at the smoke-blackened rafters, praying for patience. “And Wattie? Was he no’ too frightened to stay on the cliffs alone?”

  Gowan touched an iron charm that hung around his neck. “We drew straws to see who’d stay up at the Warriors, watching to see if the Black Vikings returned. Wattie lost.”

  “Humph.” Alasdair went to one of the hall’s arrow slits, looked out at the weird mist still curling across the loch’s gleaming surface.

  He’d seen the alarm on the faces of some of his younger warriors when Gowan burst into the hall, ranting about heathen Vikings and then, almost in the same breath, announcing the clan ghost was shrieking along the cliffs. If he didn’t squelch such blether swiftly, his most promising fighters would be reduced to quivering women.

  “Drangar is a legend, no more.” He raised his voice, not hiding his annoyance. “The next man who claims he’s seen a bogle shall scour the cesspit until it shines brighter than his arse.”

  “Aye, lord,” his men answered as one.

  The silence that followed held more than a few grumbles.

  Alasdair pretended not to hear.

  Highlanders were a superstitious lot. Much to his regret, MacDonalds held an unpleasant penchant for trusting in charms, omens, and myth. The magic of the amber in his sword’s pommel was different, of course. Mist-Chaser was an exceptional blade.

  Still, it was the strength of his sword arm that gave Mist-Chaser her true power.

  And perhaps the blood that sometimes covered his arms to the shoulders after a good day’s warring.

  A foe’s blood was known to strengthen a sword.

  Such truths existed.

  Bogles and Black Vikings…

  The first was discounted easily. The second almost as quickly, as bards far and wide still sang the praises of Darroc MacConacher for chasing the Black Vikings from the Hebridean Sea. And after he’d wed Arabella MacKenzie, harnessing his own fierce reputation to the fame of the maid’s much-vaunted father, the Black Stag of Kintail, no Black Viking wanting to keep his head would dare near Scotland.

  Not even after fifty-some years.

  Unless…

  A chill swept Alasdair. What if the black-painted longships hadn’t been Black Vikings at all? He could imagine some men taking such measures if they didn’t wish to be seen. Kendrew and his men were known for smearing soot and peat muck onto their skin and their weapons when they crept up on unsuspecting strongholds. They loved surprising their enemies in nighttime raids. Everyone in the Glen of Many Legends knew it. Kendrew boasted of his skill at such attacks.

  Alasdair rubbed the back of his neck, thinking.

  Kendrew could employ such a ruse to attack Blackshore, putting the blame on Vikings. It would be just the sort of underhanded ploy he’d use to rid himself of Alasdair.

  He had the means to commit such a perfidy.

  There was a narrow inlet known as the Dreagan’s Claw cut deep into the northernmost bounds of Mackintosh territory. A bleak, stone-walled access said to have been carved in distant times when a dreagan’s foot slipped, one of his claws rending a tear in the earth. The inlet was barely wide enough for an oared ship to enter. Nor did it lead anywhere, ending soon enough in a rim of fallen rock beneath Nought’s steepest, most impassible cliffs.

  To Alasdair’s knowledge, the Mackintoshes ignored the inlet, deeming it useless as submerged rocks, huge and jagged, clogged the dark, uninviting waters. Nor did the Mackintoshes possess galleys.

  Or did they?

  Nothing Kendrew did surprised Alasdair.

  His gut warned that the black-painted longships had nothing to do with the Black Viking raiders of old and everything to do with the Mackintosh.

  Indeed, he was sure of it.

  He could smell the scoundrel’s trickery on the wind. He did not see another furtive movement in the mist across the loch, a stirring now accompanied by a faint bluish glow. Turning away before his tired eyes fancied a shape in an innocuous shaft of moonlight, he headed back to his solar.

  There was no such thing as mist shapes drifting along the lochshore. As for black-painted longships, they were a matter he’d address.

  It was just a shame that doing so would mean journeying to Nought.

  In the same moment Alasdair entered his solar, the mist stirred on the far side of the loch as an otherworldly being peered across the water at Blackshore. The being—a ghost, many would call her—knitted her brow as she drifted closer to the loch’s edge.

  Stopping there, she hitched her filmy skirts, not wanting her hems dampened.

  Once, she’d been known as Seona.

  But her name no longer held significance.

  Those who would’ve—or should’ve—cared for her were no more, their mortal bones fallen to dust as fine as, if not finer than, her own.

  What did matter was that she existed in some form still. Not a very substantial one, all things considered. But she did possess the ability to focus her gaze on the torch-lit window arch that had given her a glimpse of Alasdair. He’d been in a foul temper, she was sure.

  And as little happened in her world, curiosity prickled all through her.

  She’d have enjoyed a better look at him.

  He’d stared her way long enough, after all.

  Not that he’d seen her. Like all mortal men who saw what they believed and nothing more, he’d have noted only a shimmering in the night mist. If he’d been caught off guard, he might’ve spotted her tall, slim form limned by the silvery glow that always surrounded her.

  Those who did see her often mistook her for moonlight.

  Even so, she took pride in her appearance. She might not have possessed enough beauty to keep the love of the man who broke her heart centuries ago, but she’d always taken care to move with grace, listen with interest, acquiesce when need be, and praise always.

  It hadn’t been enough.

  She’d been set aside, abandoned before she’d had a fair chance to prove her worthiness.

  Now…

  She shivered, rubbing her wispy arms against the chill wind that threatened to whoosh her farther along the strand from where she now hovered, much too near the seaweed-draped rocks that had brought her such grief in life.

  She enjoyed flitting about them now.

  It was almost a challenge.

  As if returning to the scene of her greatest heartache could erase her sorrow, yet when she manifested at the rocks, nothing bad ever happened.

  She didn’t hear haunting songs beckoning from the sea.

  If any seals tumbled in the waves, they stayed where they were, only looking at her with innocent curiosity and never recrimination. They rolled in the surf, their dark dome-shaped heads bobbing as they watched her. They didn’t torment and chastise her.

  And why should they?

  She had lost, not them. />
  So she came here again and again, reclaiming the narrow stretch of shingled strand and showing the loch-kissed rocks of doom that she still had her pride.

  She was Drangar the Strong’s lady.

  His rejection of her, and even her ultimate demise, couldn’t change that.

  Once, she’d believed they’d belonged together.

  He’d dropped to one knee before her, after all. Looking deep into her eyes—eyes he’d admired for their unusual smoky-gray color—he’d vowed unending devotion and love. Then he’d stood, pulling her into his arms and swearing he’d never gaze at another if only she’d be his.

  She’d given herself willingly.

  Letting him have her on this very strand, so near to the rocks of doom.

  Then…

  She drew a long breath, more from habit than necessity, and took her gaze from Blackshore’s mighty walls. She flittered nearer to the rocks, not caring that now, at high tide, only their jagged, black-glistening tips peeked above the water.

  Of the broad, tangle-covered ledges where fair Selkie maids might perch, preen, and lure a mortal man was nothing to be seen.

  Yet she knew the ledges were there.

  So she did the only thing her pride allowed her to do and tapped into her precious energy to make sure that her long black hair still held the sheen of those long-ago years. She also glanced down at her insubstantial form, grateful that the luminosity that marked her as otherworldly also flattered her smooth, pale skin.

  Her soft silver-blue gown and her cloak of dove gray could’ve been spun of moonbeams and star shine. The ethereal raiments allowed her to slip about like the shadow she supposed she was.

  One thing she wasn’t, was a sigher.

  She hadn’t been the sort to bemoan her tragedies in her true life.

  And she wasn’t about to start wailing now.

  She didn’t even spend time at the Sighing Stones. It peeved her too much that the women of Clan Donald had given the stone circle such a name.

  She knew better.

  It was beneath her dignity to even think about the place. This foreshore was where she belonged and it didn’t matter if the clan knew she walked here or not.