"Is that right?" Her expression was guarded. "It wouldn't have anything to do with faeries, would it?"
"See, I knew you were good." Julia grinned. "So, when I first got here, I met Galen in the woods trying to stab a man to death. I've reason to believe that that man was a Sidhe, and I'm trying to figure out what's going on."
Elena looked a little taken aback. "This is dangerous, Julia –"
"I'm not going to go charging into the woods looking for him," she said impatiently. "I'm not an idiot. I just want to gather as much information as I can about the Sidhe."
"And you think I'm the woman to talk to." Elena sighed.
"Well, nobody else on the Watch will talk to me," she said irritably.
Galen, it seemed, had seen to that – she'd attempted to get friendly with a few of the men of the Watch over the last few days, to talk with them about their Fae-hunting exploits, but every time she'd raised the subject, their faces had closed over and they'd pointedly changed the subject. At first, she'd suspected it was just policy not to talk about the Fae… but then one of the younger men had looked up at Galen when she'd started talking to him, and she'd seen the grouchy Galen shake his head sharply. That had been enough to prove her suspicions – he'd told the men not to talk to her. Ridiculous. What an absolute... she took a deep breath, feeling her anger begin to take over her again. She'd already had several warnings from her friends at the castle that they weren't going to listen to many more of her Galen rants. Best to forget that he existed… difficult as that may be, with him lurking around the castle like a vengeful shadow, interfering in her investigations…
Elena sighed, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm not technically a member of the Watch."
"Why not?" Julia said, frowning. "You help Brendan with all his work, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, and he's grateful," Elena said with a quick smile. "And he did suggest I join the Watch officially. I considered it, but… well, there are a lot of vows and oaths that I didn't know about. More than I'm happy to consider it but not join if I'm honest."
"What kind of oaths?"
"Secret ones, I'm afraid." Elena's eyes gleamed with amusement at the expression on Julia's face. "You're not a fan of secrets, are you?"
"I just like knowing things," she pouted, drawing a rare laugh from Elena. Sometimes she thought the woman was completely made of stone… then her face would light up like that and she'd remember that the detective was a human of flesh and blood after all. "So – you're not an official Watch member, so no vows of secrecy. Perfect."
Elena chuckled, shaking her head – it was clear she was admitting defeat. "And just what do you want to know?"
Julia grinned. "Everything."
Chapter 19
"Everything. Alright," Elena said drily. "Shouldn't take long."
"I'm just trying to work out what was going on with this man, that's all," she said with a shrug of her shoulders. "He just… didn't seem dangerous, so I want to know why Galen was trying to kill him."
"They often don't seem dangerous," Elena said softly, her eyes far away.
Julia caught her breath, knowing she needed to tread carefully around this topic. She'd asked around about Elena, about why she was so quiet, why she seemed to be carrying such a weight on her shoulders. From what she'd been able to learn from Anna and Nancy, both of whom had been at the castle when Elena had arrived fresh from the future, she'd been through a lot. A woman had come ashore with her – a strange woman with fiery red hair, a woman who Elena struck up a friendship with in secret… a woman who turned out to be some kind of Unseelie Fae monster, a woman who killed several men in the village and in the guard, and who very nearly turned Elena's head entirely and took her away with her to rule over the country together…
Or something like that. The pieces of the story were fragmented, unreliable, often contradicting each other… she had a suspicion that even Elena didn't fully know what had happened. The Fae were masters of trickery and illusion, of altering and adjusting memory to suit them… and when they were Unseelie, those powers could be used for great evil, it seemed. Julia had felt a chill run down her spine when Anna had explained all this, thinking of the way she'd completely forgotten what had happened between the loud sound on the trail and turning up in the Loch. Had that been the Sidhe, taking away her memories of what they'd done to her? It felt strange… she knew they'd healed her, knew they'd saved her life, but still… why take her memories, if everything they had done was so good?
Elena had been quiet for a long time, but Julia knew better than to prompt her – she'd be just as likely to clam up, fobbing her off with some excuse about needing to get to work and leaving her there with her lunch. So, she waited for her to speak again, those gray eyes full of a difficult to gauge emotion.
"They're weak to iron," she said softly. "That's the main thing. Iron and fire both do untold damage. Iron prevents their magic from working, keeps them at a distance, weakens and damages them. An iron blade can kill a Fae quicker than anything."
She thought back to the struggle she'd witnessed between the Sidhe and Galen, the long, wicked dark blade he'd been clutching in one hand. The man had struggled mightily to avoid it, that was for sure… it must have been an iron blade. "Okay," she said thoughtfully. But she had no interest in harming or warding off the man she'd seen… "Iron and fire, right. Do you know… anything else? Maeve mentioned something about Courts, about different political organizations…"
But Elena just shook her head. "Nobody knows much about the political structure on the other side of the Burgh," she said with a shake of her head. "Only that there are many more groups beyond the handful of Seelie Sidhe who rule this Burgh. There are others out there, I'm sure… other areas to rule over. Other Burghs, probably… gateways into this world and others."
Julia was beginning to see why Maeve had said she was worried about never returning to this time and place if she ever visited the Fae again. It sounded like quite the rabbit hole to disappear down… and she grinned to herself at that analogy. Wasn't Alice in Wonderland's rabbit hole basically just a portal to the Fae?
"I don't have much else to tell you." Elena shrugged after a while. "Fire and iron. Oh, and they're stronger at night – many don't even bother coming out during the day, they're so weakened by the sunlight."
"Is that why the Watch only patrol at night?" She'd been curious about that – she'd overheard many of the guards complaining about their patrols, but she never saw groups of men leaving the castle until sunset was long past.
"That's right," Elena said, nodding. "Though Brendan's been considering mounting some daytime patrols lately. When Unseelie Fae get strong enough to be attacking during the day… well, things are getting serious." She sighed, rubbing her forehead, for a moment looking utterly exhausted. "And these recent attacks, I'm afraid, are reaching that point."
Julia nodded, biting her lip – she felt a little guilty for being so interested in this one particular man, especially when she knew what was going on out there. Accidents and mysterious disappearances, injuries with no known cause – men of the Watch either coming back to the castle nursing wounds that took weeks to heal, or not coming back to the castle at all… just like Galen's brother Eamon. But how did the green-eyed man play into all this? She'd caught him with Galen just after the dawn… that mean Galen had likely been on patrol when he'd come across him. Just what had he done to deserve an attempt on his life? He hadn't been armed, hadn't seemed to have anything dangerous on him at all, aside from his fine silks…
Elena excused herself a little later, and Julia thanked her warmly for all her insight into the Sidhe. But she couldn't help worrying, as she turned back to the cold remains of her lunch. Elena was part of the Watch and had had personal experience with the Sidhe… she, of all people, ought to know a lot about them. But all she was able to tell Julia was how to harm them, how to kill them, what their weaknesses were. Nothing else – nothing about who they were, what they wanted, whether or not it w
as possible that the fight that morning had all been a big misunderstanding.
Julia was beginning to worry that the Watch was a little more fanatical than she'd suspected. And what did that mean for the green-eyed man if he was still out there? Were they keeping him from returning home through the Burgh with their patrols, threatening him with their iron weapons and flaming torches, keeping him trapped in his weakened state during the day and then patrolling at night to try to kill him? What if they succeeded? What if he was actually a good person? It hadn't looked as though Galen had given him the opportunity to explain himself…
She headed upstairs after lunch, feeling troubled. But to her surprise, when she reached the staircase, she ran straight into Galen Grant. She blinked up at him, a little surprised to see him awake and mobile during the day – from what she understood, he'd been pulling pretty consistent night shifts lately, and avoiding her to boot. But here he was, his scowling face just as she remembered it. And to her acute, acute dismay… yes, he was just as handsome as she remembered, too. Her treacherous heart skipped a beat and she felt anger flare up to disguise the attraction she felt to him.
The truth was – and she hated to even acknowledge it in the privacy of her own mind – that despite her best efforts, she'd developed something of a crush on Galen. The other women knew it, she could tell – the amused looks on their faces when she ranted about what an ass he was, the subtle implications that Galen, not any other Grant, was the one the Sidhe had destined her to fall in love with… but she wasn't having any of it. It was just a stupid, kneejerk reaction of her own romance-deprived brain to someone actually taking the time to look out for her, to try to protect her… albeit in the most insulting, condescending way possible. Her most recent ex wouldn't have slowed his step on the street to stop her from being mugged, she knew that in her bones, so Galen's protectiveness, misguided as it was, was kind of a compliment.
God, that was pathetic. It made her angry just to think about how weak she was. But she couldn't control her feelings, could she? That had been the conclusion she'd drawn. She'd just wait out this stupid crush – it was bound to die sooner or later – and then she could get on with her life. Feelings couldn't be changed, but actions could – and she was determined for her actions to show more self-respect than her stupid, treacherous feelings did.
"Galen," she said coolly, crossing her arms over her chest and pinning him with her most disinterested stare. "It's been a while."
But Galen wasn't interested in small talk. "I've heard you've been asking around about the Sidhe," he said flatly. And the look in his eyes told her that this was going to be an unpleasant conversation.
She'd been doing so well at avoiding those lately.
Chapter 20
Julia fought to maintain her composure. "Is that so?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Nice of you to keep tabs on me. Is there something wrong with asking questions?"
"You know full well what you're playing with," Galen growled, his own arms crossed across his chest and making him look a great deal broader and more powerful than she did. Still, she knew he wouldn't use his physical strength against her. His sharp tongue, on the other hand… "Asking stupid questions that don't concern you –"
"They're not stupid questions," she snapped. "I was snatched from my home by mysterious beings from another world and dropped here in medieval Scotland. If that happened to you, maybe you wouldn't give a shit about who exactly it was that destroyed your whole life and handed you a new one. But I, for one, am interested."
"That's not why you're asking," Galen snapped. "You're asking about that man you saw me fighting."
"You seem to know a lot about what I'm thinking and feeling for a person who hasn't spoken a word to me in a week," Julia snapped, her temper flaring. "What do you want, Galen?"
"I want you to be sensible. I want you to keep yourself safe. I want you to listen to someone who knows a lot more than you do about the forces you're dealing with –"
"What's wrong with you?" she demanded, utterly taken aback by how entitled he seemed to feel to her respectful attention. "I'm not dealing with any forces, I haven't left the stupid castle grounds and I have no intention to. I know there's bad stuff out there. I'm staying put. And I'm actually asking plenty of people who know better than me about the Sidhe – that's the whole damned point. What do you want from me? You want me to just sit up in my room all day doing needlework? Is that all you think women are capable of?"
"Now you're just being daft," he growled – but Julia had had more than enough of this stupid behavior.
"Galen, I don't give a damn what you think of me," she snapped. "If my behavior's a problem for you, take it up with your Captain or the Laird. I don't answer to you, and I don't care to be in your company a moment longer."
"Fine. Have it your way."
And he stormed past her, his armor clanking as he strode across the entrance hall toward the gates. A handful of servants had been watching the confrontation, wide-eyed, and one of them gave her a brief, bright grin when she looked over to them… but the rest scattered. Julia gritted her teeth, furious with Galen for about a thousand reasons – foremost among them that he'd stormed off first, taking away the satisfaction from her. She headed up the spiral stairs, taking them two at a time, hoping to burn off some of the rage energy by striding up and up and up… but even on the rooftop of the castle, breathing hard, she still felt the same fury burning in her chest.
And still – still! – her stupid brain wouldn't drop the crush she was still nursing. How utterly ridiculous. She tried to stay on the roof for a few minutes, to breathe in the fresh air up here and get control of herself, but it was pointless. Maybe she should head down to the kitchen, see if there were some pots she could scrub, get all her anger at Galen out through good hard work… but when she reached the kitchens, to her dismay the scrubbing stations were all already manned.
Maeve was there, though, and the woman's silver eyes widened a little when they fell on her.
"That obvious, huh?" she half-laughed when Maeve crossed quickly over to her, placing one gentle hand on her forearm.
"What's happened?"
"Oh, just a stupid argument," she said, shaking her head.
Maeve drew her over to a clear counter and gestured firmly toward a stool. Feeling like she'd just stormed home angrily from school and was being soothed by her mother, Julia sat… and grinned a little as Maeve produced a small plate of scones, seemingly from nowhere. They were still steaming from the oven, and they looked utterly perfect – and to make things even better, Maeve produced a little pot of preserved berry jam.
Food helped a great deal – with a mouthful of fluffy scone and the perfectly balanced sweetness and tartness of the berry jam, she felt about a thousand times better than she had on the roof. She took a few deep breaths as she finished the scone, aware of Maeve's curious silver eyes on her.
"I ran into Galen in the entrance hall," she explained finally, gritting her teeth a little at the thought of the man. "We had an argument."
"He's been known to have a few of those," Maeve said drily, that smile still dancing across her face.
"He's insufferable. Ever since I got here he's been jumping down my throat every five seconds – telling me what to do, where to go, even what questions to ask. He's obsessed with me," she said irritably. "I hate it."
Maeve sighed. "The other women who've arrived here… well, several of them have ended up in pretty serious danger, especially during the early weeks of their stay. There are dangers in this place that I think people from your world are oblivious to. He's just being protective."
"He's being insulting," Julia corrected her, shaking her head. "Today he was angry with me just for being interested in the Sidhe – for talking to you, and Elena, and some of the guards about them… not that I found out much from the guards except for how to kill them," she added sourly, shaking her head.
"Men aren't especially good at explaining themselves," Maeve said gently.
"We have to do a little translation work. He's a good man, Julia, under all the… roughness."
"I'm sure he is, but I'm kind of tired of making excuses for men, you know?" She shook her head, taking a little nibble of the second scone… but her appetite had faded as her anger had reclaimed dominance in the middle of her chest. "Why is it my job to bend over backwards figuring out that he's actually trying to be nice? Why am I expected to read his intentions and not his actions every time?"
Maeve tilted her head. "You're not just talking about Galen, here."
"My last boyfriend was… terrible," she said, surprised to hear her talking about him. There was just something about Maeve that made her know she could confide in her. "I spent the whole relationship just desperately hoping that he really did like me, that all his aloof standoffish bullshit was just him being shy… that he was dropping little hints about his real feelings. The truth was, he didn't give a shit about me. He liked having me chase after him, he liked having me so desperate for the bare minimum of affection that I'd do just about anything for very little effort on his part." She sighed, rubbing her head. "It makes me feel stupid, looking back on it now. I don't want to repeat that pattern with anybody."
"I think he's sweet on you, Julia." Maeve shrugged, a soft smile playing about her lips. "Some men have strange ways of showing their feelings…"
"If he actually cared about me he wouldn't be treating me like I was stupid," Julia snapped, surprising herself with her own vehemence. "He wouldn't be speaking to me like I was a child. The only kind of interest I care about is the interest in who I am as a person. And if he actually liked that, he wouldn't be treating me like an annoying pet he has to keep an eye on."
Woken By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance-Highlander Forever Book 7 Page 9