Gallowglass

by Jennifer Allis Provost

Robert turned me around, and held me so tightly I could hardly breathe. “Tell me ye flung the coffee in his face.”

  I laughed shortly. “I wish I had. I left the coffee and bagels on the floor next to his office door, and I ran. I was a coward.”

  Robert tilted up my face. “Karina, love, there is nothing cowardly about ye. Ye ha’ the heart o’ a lioness, o’ that I am certain,” he said as he bent to kiss me. When we parted, he smoothed back my hair. “Did ye e’er confront the scoundrel?”

  “No. Right after that everything happened with Chris and Olivia, then this research grant came out of nowhere. Since summer classes were over, and Chris and I both really needed to get away, I accepted the grant. And, you pretty much know the rest.” Chris and I had arrived in Scotland less than three weeks after I’d signed the grant paperwork.

  “He bedded ye, but he ne’er e’en tried to speak wi’ ye again?” Robert demanded.

  “He did,” I replied. “He called and sent messages. I never returned them.”

  “And yet ye kept the stone.”

  “Good thing I did, being that it freed you.” I took a deep breath, and realized that a dull weight had been lifted from my heart. Even though telling Robert about my stupid fling with Jared had been number one on my Things Not To Do list, I’d apparently needed some sort of catharsis. I’d needed to say out loud that Jared was a jerk, tell someone how horribly he’d treated me. I should have talked about it sooner, but I’d been so embarrassed about the whole situation. Now that I had, I hoped could leave him in the past and move on with my life.

  I’d rather see a million more fairy monsters than Jared’s smug face when I returned to Carson.

  I opened the bathroom door, leaving my robe hanging on its hook next to the shower. Why bother covering myself in front of a man that now knew my every detail? Unencumbered, I entered the kitchen and was greeted by the heavenly scent of coffee. Automatic coffee makers were possibly the world’s greatest invention, right up there with the wheel and microwave popcorn. I poured myself a cup, and turned toward Robert. He’d decided to hang out naked too. Nice. “Why did you ask me all of that?”

  He shrugged. “Curiosity, mainly. And I was needin’ to know if there was a lad across the sea that would challenge me for your heart.”

  “No chance in hell of that happening.”

  Robert took the mug from my hand, and set it on the counter. “Good. I do no’ like to share,” he said as he drew me into his arms. After he held me for a few moments, he asked, “Tell me, love, have ye any regrets?”

  I snorted. “About Jared? Tons.”

  “Not about the boy.”

  I was about to ask Robert what sort of regrets he was referring to, when I remembered who he’d been before he was a gallowglass. “Is this the first time you’ve had sex when you weren’t married?”

  Robert laughed through his nose. “No’ hardly.”

  I leaned back and looked at him. “But, you were a minister. I thought you found sex with anyone other than your wife wrong.”

  “Aye, I was just that, a minister, not a saint. And what I told ye was that I need a pretty heart far more than a pretty face.” Robert widened his stance so we were almost at eye level, and pressed his forehead to mine. “Karina me love, ye have a beautiful heart and mind, the most perfect compliments to your lovely form. The only regret I have is no’ lovin’ ye sooner.”

  “Oh.” I wound my arms around his neck, twisting my fingers into his damp hair. “I guess I have that regret, too. But that’s the only one,” I added.

  Robert grinned. “I’m glad to hear that. But, I must correct you on one other matter.”

  “And what matter would that be?”

  “Ye said we ‘had sex’, such a cold, clinical term.” Robert grazed his thumb across my cheek, while his other hand glided down my back, coming to rest on my bottom. “We, Karina me heart, did nothin’ short o’ makin’ love.”

  “Did we?” I traced the muscles of his arm, stroking the hills and valleys. “Maybe you should show me what you mean, so I’m certain I understand.”

  He laughed, the throaty sound awakening all sorts of sensory receptors across my skin. “That I shall do, love.”

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Karina

  A good while later, our rumbling bellies drove Robert and I out of bed and back to the kitchen. We’d even gotten dressed—couldn’t be naked all the time—though we’d only put on what we’d originally gone to bed in. I had, however, remembered to layer a tank top beneath my gray sweater.

  Robert stretched out on the couch while I reheated the coffee and took an inventory of the kitchen: we had bread, cheese, butter and jam, two jars of olives, and a bunch of grapes. There would definitely be grocery shopping in my future. After I had most of the food arranged on one of the larger plates, and poured the coffee, I delivered everything to the living room and settled on the couch next to Robert.

  “Is it the key to your heart? Is that what will unlock your collar?” I asked without preamble. Robert’s gaze slid toward me, but he wasn’t annoyed. Based on his lazy, sated grin, he was in a mood to reveal everything.

  “No, because a heart must be freely given,” Robert replied. “One canna just lock it away.” He bit into some bread, and I crossed my legs under me and watched him chew. One did not remain in the same academic program for as long as I had without learning patience. Finally, Robert said, “My soul.”

  “Your—oh!” I put down my coffee mug as Robert set down his bread, and slid my leg across his hip so I sat facing him on his lap. “Your soul,” I murmured, fingering the end of the silver chain that dangled from the collar. The broken link that I’d first noticed after Robert had applied the fairy ointment to my eyes was still there, tenaciously clinging to its mate.

  “Aye. ‘Tis how she bound me in the first place.” Robert settled his hands against the nape of my neck, resting his forehead on mine. “Which is why ye will no’ seek a way to free me. My heart, I canna risk ye losin’ your soul as well.”

  I stared into his icy blue eyes, forcing a smile while my stomach roiled. I wanted to argue with him, but he was right. I didn’t want to risk my soul. I just wanted Robert’s back.

  “Did it change you?” I asked. “Losing it?”

  “It made me capable of killing,” he replied. “And no’ just killing for farm and family, but for the sake of it alone.”

  “What do you mean, killing for family?” I adored my brother, drunken sot that he was, but I couldn’t imagine committing murder for him.

  “My youth was different than yours. We raised livestock, chickens and sheep, and me brothers and I shared in the butchering. I’ve been killing things for as long as I can remember.”

  “But then she made you kill for her,” I prompted when he fell silent.

  “Aye. That she did, and while I canna say for certain, I believe that had I ne’er encountered her, I would have stopped at chickens and the like.” Robert raised his gaze to mine. “Please, Karina, I do no’ want ye to end up like me. Leave it be.”

  My stomach still churned, so I slid off of Robert’s hips and wedged myself between his leg and the armrest, and grabbed a piece of bread. Coffee on an empty stomach hadn’t been my best idea, and reheated coffee at that. “I don’t like sharing, either,” I grumbled.

  “She only has a part o’ me soul,” Robert quipped. “The remainder is all yours, love. No’ to mention the whole o’ me physical form,” he added, with a wink.

  Just because I held the majority didn’t mean that I was the winner. Before I could impress upon Robert that I wanted all of him, even the invisible bits, my brother came crashing through the front door.

  “Don’t you two look cozy,” Chris sneered, dropping his bags next to the door.

  “Hello to you too,” I retorted. “There’s coffee.”

  “Thank fricken’ God,” Chris grumbled, then he caught Robert’s eye. “No offense, padre.”

  “None taken,” Robert said evenly. “I
trust St. Andrews was to your liking.”

  “Sure was,” Chris said between gulps of coffee. “I might have worked out a job there.”

  If I’d been standing, I would have fallen. “Like, a permanent job?”

  “Yeah. I would be teaching Elizabethan literature alongside Ethan.”

  Chris turned his back to Robert and me, and started rummaging through the cabinets. Chris’s words had shocked me, so much so that I couldn’t even tell him that pretty much all of the food was already out on the coffee table. Instead, I slumped against Robert’s chest, my head spinning. If Chris could stay in Scotland, did that mean I could, too?

  I could definitely finish up my degree in the UK; there were lots of schools here, not to mention some of the best universities in the world. I could complete my thesis on supernatural phenomenon as it related to bedrock composition in the place where my theory had been born. Instead of cramming my research into a few short weeks, I could spend months or even years perfecting my arguments. And I could stay with Robert.

  I looked up, examining Robert’s profile, wondering if he wanted me to stay in Scotland with him. We’d never finished the discussion we’d begun at dinner last night, when I’d freaked out and told Robert that my grant funds would be tapped out in a few weeks, and that despite the fact that he could look after himself quite well there was now an “us” to consider. Then again, maybe our marathon lovemaking session had been my answer.

  Despite how strongly I felt for Robert, in the back of my mind I’d just assumed that once my grant ended I would tell him goodbye, return home, continue my studies, and avoid Jared at all costs. Of course, avoiding Jared would mean either switching schools, or taking a leave of absence and hoping he graduated in the meantime, and got a permanent teaching position somewhere other than Carson University. Assuming that he even could graduate without his dumb girl doing all of his work for him.

  Yeah, I’d rather stay in Scotland.

  “When will you know if you have the job?” I asked Chris, my eyes never leaving Robert.

  “It’s pretty much a done deal,” Chris replied. “I just need to work out a few loose ends.”

  I nodded, wondering what loose ends I had. “Robert,” I murmured, but he didn’t look at me. “Robert, what do you think of Chris’s news?” Since Robert kept on ignoring me, I followed his gaze. He was staring at weird mark Chris’s neck.

  “What’s that on your neck?” I asked. The mark in question was a shiny whitish spot, about the size of a thumbprint, peeking out of his collar.

  Chris rubbed at his neck, then he buttered a slice of bread. “No idea,” he said. He wolfed down the bread, finished off his coffee, and stretched. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  Once he was in the bathroom, and we heard the water running, I turned back to Robert. “That was…weird.”

  Robert nodded. “Ye saw the mark on his neck?”

  “I did. It looked like an old scar, but I don’t remember him having one there.”

  “’Twas no scar.” Robert turned to me then, his eyes hard. “’Twas the mark of a fey kiss. Your brother was no with academics the past few days, likely he was not at St. Andrews at all. He was cavorting with the Good People.”

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Karina

  After Chris finished his shower he emerged from the bathroom, announced that he was exhausted, and disappeared into his room. That was just as well, since I didn’t have the slightest idea of how I was going to approach my brother about his extracurricular activities with the Good People.

  After I’d stared at Chris’s closed door for a solid minute, I asked Robert, “Do you think he knows he was with a bunch of fairies? They could have glamoured themselves around him.”

  “The question is no does he ken, but does he care,” Robert replied. I shook my head; I was not about to let the Good People have my brother. Chris and I didn’t always see eye to eye, but he was all the family I had left. He was my family, dammit, and I wasn’t going to let the fairies have him.

  Spying Chris’s briefcase where he’d dropped it near the front door, I grabbed it and placed it on the kitchen counter, and then I swore loudly enough for Robert to rush to my side. The briefcase had one of those combination locks, and I had no idea what it could be.

  “This…this is a problem,” I muttered, running my thumb over the little dials. “What would he have used as the code?”

  Robert snorted. “It canna be too complicated. The man is not exactly an enigma, ye ken.”

  On a hunch, I dialed in Olivia’s birthdate. When that didn’t release the clasps, I cleared the numbers and set the dials to June twenty fifth, Chris and Olivia’s planned wedding date. The lock popped open, and I smiled.

  “He may not be an enigma, but he is a hopeless romantic,” I said as I rifled through Chris’s paperwork.

  “What are ye searching for?” Robert asked. “Evidence of a sort?”

  “Of a sort.” I found Chris’s appointment book, and flipped it open to the contact sheet; for a man with a cell phone that cost more than a car, he was such a Luddite. Having found the information I needed, I grabbed my own cell phone. Hands shaking, I punched in the top number on the sheet, then I activated the speakerphone feature and set it on the counter.

  “What the bloody hell is that?” Robert demanded upon hearing it ring.

  “You’ve seen my phone before,” I reminded him. Before Robert could freak out any further, the line was answered.

  “’Ello?” said a rough voice.

  “Ethan? Ethan Jacobsen?” I asked.

  “In the flesh,” he confirmed. “Voice, rather. Who might this be?”

  “It’s Rina Stewart, Chris’s sister.”

  “Sweet little Rina!” Ethan bellowed, earning a laugh from me, and a scowl from Robert. “Still playing with your rocks and bones?”

  “You know it.” Robert’s scowl deepened, so I gave him my back. “So about your little get together with Chris,” I began.

  “About that,” Ethan interrupted. “When is the lunk planning on getting here? I know you’re dragging him all across the countryside, looking for fossils and fairies and such, but this land is not so big. Get out here, already! I have quite the time planned for us.”

  A chill took me, shaking me so hard I wrapped my arms around myself. “That’s what I was calling about,” I said, willing myself to remain calm. “Chris isn’t feeling all that well; he must have caught a cold or something. He’s going to take it easy for a few days, then he’ll make it out to St. Andrews, maybe by next Friday.”

  “Sounds like you caught a bit of something yourself,” Ethan observed. “Get yourself some rest, have a wee dram as the locals call it, and I’ll see you both next weekend.”

  Ethan and I said our goodbyes, then I pushed the end call button. I took a deep breath and gripped the edge of the counter, centering myself before I spoke.

  “Chris did not go to St. Andrews,” I said, rather unnecessarily since Robert had heard Ethan’s and my entire conversation. “He hasn’t even talked to Ethan. He was… I have no idea where he was.” I shook my head. “No, I know exactly where he was. He was with them.”

  Robert placed his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs rubbing the back of my neck, but I needed more. I turned around and buried my face in his chest, willing myself to concentrate on the slow, steady thump of his heartbeat rather than remembering what Ethan had said.

  “There, love,” Robert soothed. He was always soothing me, always helping me. In that moment I decided that I would stay in Scotland, maybe for the rest of my life. There was no way I could give Robert up, not now that he meant so much to me. I just had no idea of how I was going to do it. But before I figured all of that out, I had to help my brother.

  “What do we do now?” I asked. I assumed that Robert would know where Chris had been, and what manner of creatures he’d been with. I imagined that he’d brew up one of his worts, and that by sundown my brother would be safe again. Once again, I was wro
ng.

  “I have no the slightest idea,” he murmured. God. I hate this no lying crap.

  Chapter Thirty

  Karina

  Since there was nothing Robert nor I could do about Chris’s situation, at least not until he woke up, we set our sights on something we could handle: grocery shopping, Scottish style. Like the orderly scholars we were, we proceeded to make a list, and then we emptied our tote bags of the fossils and other treasures from Dob’s Linn. After we’d shaken out the dust and debris we headed out to the Marketgait in the center of Crail. We hadn’t made it too far into town before I realized that our plan might have been overly ambitious.

  Mind you, the groceries themselves weren’t the problem. Since it was Sunday, the open air market had taken over the downtown streets, the very same streets Robert and I had fled through just last night, pursued by the fuath. Then, the streets had been cold and dark and wet, slippery and stinking of death.

  Now, the streets were clean and bright, packed with stalls offering produce, meat, and baked goods; there was even a tent offering ale and whisky, along with the free samples that were something of a national custom. Robert and I had sampled and purchased aplenty, but that wasn’t what was irritating me about this particular outing. The issue arose when Robert, who had repeatedly claimed to have traveled into the world on many, many occasions at Nicnevin’s behest, had to stop and study the ingredient list of every cellophane package and canned good we came across.

  “I’m really starting to doubt that you were ever in the modern world before we met,” I commented, as Robert scrutinized the ingredient list on a canned haggis. “And we are not getting that.”

  “Agreed,” Robert said, replacing the can on the table. “Haggis should be served hot and steamin’ right from the oven, no’ closed up in a wee bit o’ tin.” I shuddered; in my opinion, meals stuffed into sheep stomachs shouldn’t be served at all unless starvation was imminent, and even then I’d prefer a few stale bread crusts. “Now, as to this cock a’ leekie,” he continued, picking up a different can from the display.