by Donna Grant
“I couldn’t sleep. I decided to make myself useful.” Isla continued to mix the pudding and did her best to look away from Hayden.
“I have a feeling my stomach will thank you,” Fallon said. “But you needn’t have done all this.”
Isla didn’t bother to answer him. She kept her focus on the pudding and making sure she eliminated all the lumps so it would be as smooth as her father’s used to be.
The women began to gather items for the morning meal, their conversation filling the quiet. Isla didn’t need to look up to know Hayden and Fallon were still in the kitchen. Nor did she need to check to see if Hayden’s eyes were on her. She felt his hot gaze as surely as she felt the heat from the ovens.
Larena suddenly laughed and said, “Galen is going to be sorry he missed this.”
Isla set aside the bowl and went to check the pastries. A glance into the ovens confirmed they were indeed ready. She removed them and set the steamy sweets out to cool.
Hayden walked up beside her. She looked at the pastries seeing the many mistakes she had made, mistakes her father would have scolded her for. Next time she would do better.
“They look and smell tasty,” Hayden said. “When can I try one?”
“Let them cool first. They’re too hot.”
His nearness did crazy things to her body. She almost reached out to touch him, to stroke the hard sinew and bronzed skin. Isla managed to stop herself at the last moment and fisted her hands.
“You didn’t have to sleep in the tower,” he murmured. “My chamber was yours to use.”
Isla swallowed, glad her back was to the others. “It wasn’t right of me to take your chamber when there was another place for me to stay.”
“The tower suits you, I think.”
She looked at him then and found it difficult to breathe. His black eyes were on her, desire smoldering in their depths, the same desire she had seen in his eyes the previous night when he had nearly kissed her. “Does it?”
“Aye. It gives you the distance you need from others.”
“What makes you think that?”
He lifted a massive shoulder. “It’s not difficult to discern. You kept to yourself in Cairn Toul. It only makes sense that you would want your privacy here as well.”
“You think you know me?”
He leaned down so that his mouth was next to her ear. “I think I know you better than most.”
Hayden turned on his heel and left the kitchen without another word. Isla let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. Without Hayden in the kitchen, she was able to relax and once more focus on the pudding.
She went back to the work table and the pudding. She needed to shift her attention to other things besides Hayden and what he did to her.
Yet she found herself missing his dark gaze, his silent stares, and commanding manner. She missed his scent of woods and spices. In any other setting he would be a leader in his own right.
Thinking of him made her recall his appearance in her chamber. Why had he come? Was it to scare her? Talk to her? Or kiss her?
Isla wanted to ask him, but she was too afraid of the answer. It was better if she forgot about the near kiss. Besides, Hayden was the wrong man for her to be attracted to. He was wrong in so many ways.
Why then do you want his kiss?
Isla sighed, because there was no easy answer. It was true she wanted his kiss. She wanted … too much. There were things that could never be hers, and the quicker she realized that the better for everyone. Especially herself.
By the time she set aside the pudding, she was exhausted, but in a pleasant way. It felt appropriate to be baking once more and immersed in the kitchens. She wasn’t sure how anything would taste, but it was a start.
The morning meal was more jovial than the previous evening, but even Isla could tell something bothered the MacLeod brothers.
Sonya was quiet, withdrawn, and that’s when Isla realized they were worried about Broc.
“Broc should have returned by now,” Ramsey said.
Isla looked from Ramsey to Hayden then to the head of the table where the MacLeods watched her. “What is the one place Deirdre feels safe, powerful?”
“Cairn Toul,” Quinn answered.
Isla nodded. “I’m sure that is where she’s at. She needs to build her army once again. She will gather any wyrran left alive there.”
Lucan gathered Cara’s hand in his and asked Isla, “I couldn’t sleep last night and was thinking about Deirdre. Is there anyone else she can turn to for aid?”
Isla inwardly cringed at the thought of Dunmore. A man who craved power and immortality, he was always willing to do whatever Deirdre asked of him. “There is a man, a human man who Deirdre used in hunting Druids.”
“Dunmore,” Marcail said, her voice laced with malice. “The brute who hunted me.”
Isla watched Marcail fiddle with the gold bands binding the many small braids. “Marcail is correct. Dunmore came to Deirdre when he was but a young lad. He had seen the wyrran, had seen one of the Warriors turn, and he followed them back to Cairn Toul.”
“And Deirdre didn’t kill him?” Lucan asked. “I cannot imagine a lad would have been beneficial to her.”
Isla shrugged and looked down at the table. “Deirdre isn’t as complicated a person as you think she is. She wants power, and she wants to be adored.”
Fallon blew a harsh breath. “So when Dunmore came to her, he bowed before her as if she was a goddess?”
“In a manner,” Isla said and turned her face to Fallon. “He did exactly as she wanted. She brought him into the fold. At first he set about doing small things for her.”
“Such as?” Quinn asked.
“Stealing. Murdering. Anything to prove his loyalty. It didn’t take long before she would send him out with the wyrran to track down Druids. Dunmore was put in charge of those wyrran. Eventually, he became one of her most trusted.”
Larena frowned. “Deirdre is all about magic. I still don’t understand why a human man would appeal to her. Whether he worshipped her or not, he could only serve her for a few years.”
“Maybe you’re looking at it the wrong way,” Hayden said. “Maybe this Dunmore was kept because he would be able to provide Deirdre with something.”
“Like what?” Lucan asked. “What could he possibly do that a Warrior or even her wyrran could not?”
Ramsey leaned forward then. “Interact with others. She liked her Warriors to stay in their Warrior form. They couldn’t walk into a village and talk to anyone.”
Isla couldn’t believe she had never thought of that. Of course Dunmore had always irritated her, so she’d stayed away from him as much as she could. “I think you’re correct, Ramsey.”
“I do, too,” Hayden agreed. “It makes sense.”
Fallon turned to Isla. “Did she ever send you into villages?”
“Nay.” Isla licked her lips and tried not to fidget. “She had other things for me.”
Arran spoke up from down the table. “How long are we going to wait before we go looking for Broc?”
“If he isn’t back in a few days, I doubt there will be anything to look for,” Isla said. “If Deirdre detects him, she will do anything in her power to capture him. Her anger will be fierce, and he’ll be the first who feels her wrath.”
Lucan swiped a hand down his face lined with worry and focused his gaze on her. “How long do you think we have before she attacks?”
“As I said before, I really don’t know. She’ll need a Druid’s blood to help regain her lost power. If she hasn’t already sent Dunmore after a Druid, she will soon.”
The door to the castle suddenly opened and Broc strode inside. He looked exhausted, but none the worse for wear. He smiled at them and started toward the tables.
“Are those long faces for me?” he asked.
Ramsey rose and shook his head. “God’s teeth, Broc. What took you so long?”
Broc held up a hand as others began to ask questions. He took a
seat at the table and nodded to Larena, who handed him a goblet of water. He downed the entire goblet and wiped his mouth before he looked around the table. “Deirdre is at her mountain.”
“As Isla suspected,” Fallon said. “What else? Are there wyrran?”
Broc curled his lip. “The little bastards never seem to go away. There are more than I expected. They’ve been cleaning the mountain, but more disturbing than the wyrran is that Dunmore has returned.”
Isla fisted her hands in her lap. She had hoped she’d been wrong, but it seems she knew Deirdre much better than she wanted.
“Again, just as Isla suspected.” Fallon leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers over his stomach. “Let me guess. They’ve gone after a Druid.”
Broc nodded. “They have no idea where to find one, so they may be searching for a while.”
Isla listened as Broc recounted everything he had heard regarding Dunmore’s speech to the wyrran. If anyone could have gained entrance into the mountain without being detected, it was Broc. He was a formidable enemy, and she was glad he was aligned with the MacLeods.
Thinking of Cairn Toul made Isla remember Phelan. She wanted to ask Broc about him, but didn’t want everyone to know. Once Cara brought Broc a plate of food, the other women rose to clean the table.
Isla hesitated. When only Quinn, Broc, Ramsey, and Hayden remained she knew she had to ask. She wished Hayden would leave, though. She didn’t like him to know any more of her misdeeds, but there was no way around it.
“Broc, I need to speak with you about something.”
He nodded and shoved a huge bite of bread in his mouth.
Isla’s stomach wound into tight, hard knots. She was nervous, nervous about all of them discovering this dark secret of hers, but she had to know the answer. “Do you remember the doorway in the mountain that Deirdre forbade anyone enter?”
Broc paused in his chewing, his soft brown eyes regarding her. He swallowed and nodded. “I went there when the attack began. I heard something or someone roaring down there.”
“There was nothing there when you went.”
He set aside his food and regarded her with hard eyes. “What was down there, Isla?”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “A Warrior by the name of Phelan Stewart.”
“What?” Broc placed his hands flat on the table, his gaze narrowed and dangerous.
Isla could see the other Warriors staring at her. Their presence only made this situation more uncomfortable, but she had already begun. She would end this. “Deirdre had him chained down there for … decades.”
“How did he come to be there?” Quinn asked.
It became difficult to breathe. It always did when Isla thought of Phelan and what she had done to him. “I brought him there when he was just a small child.”
FIFTEEN
Hayden never expected those words out of Isla’s mouth. Even as they revolted him, one look at her angst-ridden face and he knew she regretted it.
“What happened?” he asked when no one else would.
She glanced at him, her ice-blue eyes wide and full of remorse. She seemed surprised he spoke. “Lavena had seen a vision of a great Warrior from the Stewart clan, one who could help Deirdre do amazing things.”
Quinn leaned his forearms on the table. “What kind of things?”
Isla lifted a slim shoulder in a shrug. “Lavena never said. The other part of her vision, however, was one of her most clear. She described Phelan perfectly, as well as where he would be and his age. Deirdre thought it would be an ideal opportunity to raise the boy as she thought he should be.”
“So that when she unbound his god he would pledge himself to her?” Ramsey finished.
Hayden fisted his hands. He hadn’t spent near the time in Deirdre’s mountain as some of the others, but even that small amount of time had left him with scars upon his soul that would never mend. He couldn’t imagine a young boy being brought there.
His gaze swung to Isla. What would make a woman, one who supposedly fought against the evil inside her, bring a young boy into Deirdre’s care?
It didn’t take long for him to find the answer. “Deirdre threatened your niece, didn’t she?”
Isla looked away, but not before he saw the answer in her eyes. She nodded and blinked rapidly. “I had no choice but to find Phelan. Deirdre knew it would be folly to send Dunmore and the wyrran. She needed Phelan to come to her of his own free will.”
“Isla,” Broc said when she paused.
She blinked and looked around, as if she had been deep in her memories. “I had to trick Phelan to get him to leave his family. Deirdre had yet to turn Grania evil, and I thought I had a chance to gain her freedom. Phelan trusted me, and I delivered him into misery.”
“Holy hell,” Quinn murmured and rose to pace in front of the table. “What happened to him? If he was chained up, I gather he didn’t trust Deirdre?”
Isla shook her head. She looked so desolate that Hayden found he wanted to go to her, to pull her against him and shelter her.
“Phelan blamed me,” Isla said. “And rightly so. He fought Deirdre repeatedly. Nothing she did to him would break him. She starved him, beat him, and at one point killed him only to bring him back to life. And every time he refused to join her. She kept him separate from everyone, especially other Warriors. I was the only one besides Deirdre who ever saw him.”
Broc put his elbows on the table and leaned his forehead on his hands. “When did she unbind his god?”
“When he was eighteen summers. I’d brought him to the mountain when he was only a lad of five,” Isla explained.
Hayden’s stomach churned as he thought of his fellow Warrior. “How long after his god was unbound did she keep him chained?”
Isla wouldn’t meet his eyes, and her face grew pale. “One hundred and fifty years.”
“Dammit, Isla!” Broc roared as he rose to his feet. “How could you do that to one of us?”
If Hayden thought she would cower and cry, he was wrong. Rage filled her eyes, turning them cold and haunted. She stood slowly, her lips flattened as she glared at Broc.
“Aye, Broc, I regret bringing him there. I did everything I could to make sure he was spared many terrible things.”
Broc’s hands were fisted at his sides, his rage evident in the way his skin flashed from normal to indigo. “Did you bring him food, maybe? Or blankets? Is that what you consider sparing him?”
Hayden and Ramsey stood at the same time as Broc. Hayden wasn’t sure if he should try and stop Broc or Isla from attacking the other, because at the rate things were going, someone was going to give into their rage.
“I brought him food and blankets,” Isla said. “I took his tortures when I could, even angered Deirdre myself on many occasions so she would take her rage out on me instead of him. I was the one who released him during the MacLeods’ attack.”
Hayden was taken aback by her words. Would she never cease to shock him? She did things that continually contradicted her ways as a drough. Maybe she did have control over the evil.
“Why did you tell us all of this?” Hayden asked. “Where is Phelan now?”
Her face was weary as she briefly closed her eyes. “I don’t know where he is. I freed him and told him to run. I told him if he ever needed anything to find the MacLeods, that they could be trusted.”
“Do you think he believed you?”
“I doubt it. There is one more thing. Phelan’s blood was special. It could heal anyone of anything. Deirdre drank his blood regularly to strengthen herself and her powers.” She turned and left the castle before they could ask more.
Hayden wanted to go after her. He was supposed to be following her, after all. But there had been something so heartbreaking, so raw in her voice at the end that he’d been unable to chase after her just yet.
Once the door closed behind her, Broc threw his goblet across the hall and cursed. “I could have helped him. If I’d gotten to him before Isla, I co
uld have brought him here.”
“Nay,” Hayden said. “He doesna trust anyone, and won’t for some time. Nothing you said could have changed that.”
“I agree,” Ramsey added. “Phelan may be lost to all of us now. He might not have turned to Deirdre’s side, but her evil warped him, I’m sure.”
Quinn leaned his hands on Fallon’s chair and shook his head. “To be kept separated from everyone and everything. I cannot imagine the loneliness. He’s out in a world he knows nothing about. He needs us.”
“You’ll never find him,” Hayden said.
Broc lifted a brow in defiance. “I can find him.”
“And we will,” Quinn said. “First, we make sure Dunmore and the wyrran do not find any Druids.”
Ramsey rubbed his hands together, his gray eyes crinkling in the corners. “Ah, a battle. I’m ready for one.”
Hayden was more than ready, but he knew he’d be left behind. This time. Soon enough the battle would come to MacLeod Castle, and he’d unleash every ounce of his hate and wrath onto Deirdre.
Quinn pushed off the chair. “I need to talk to my brothers. How long do you need before you can leave again, Broc?”
“I can leave now,” he answered.
Ramsey chuckled and slapped him on the back. “Aren’t we all ready to leave immediately?”
“Rest,” Quinn said. “You’ll leave soon enough.”
Hayden glanced at Quinn before he left the castle in search of Isla. She wasn’t difficult to find. There were no other small black-haired Druids around.
He stood back and watched as she helped bring out the wreckage from the cottages. Though she didn’t have the strength of a Warrior, she worked just as hard.
After a few moments, Hayden followed her into a cottage.
“Why did you tell us about Phelan?”
She paused as she lifted some debris in her arms. “I’m the reason he was in the mountain.”
“Nay. Deirdre was the cause.”
Isla blew out a breath. “I’m as much to blame, Hayden. I could have refused. I know the chance I took in telling all of you, but I had to. Phelan needs to be found. He needs to know there are good people in the world.”