Highlander's Lionheart (Beasts 0f The Highlands Book 1)

by Alisa Adams

  “Hold! These are our men. They mean us no harm!” Godet cried urgently.

  “I told ye we were being watched, that I felt eyes watching us!” Ceena said.

  “Aye, ‘twas no bogle but the Ross men!” Ina added with delight.

  “Hush, girls. Not now,” Godet said.

  Gordon came forward to stand beside her and looked down at her. Her face was beaming with relief and happiness at seeing her clansmen and former soldiers.

  “Lady Godet, I must say we feared for ye when we saw ye with these warriors. Are ye ladies all right?” Robbie asked with another glance at Ina and then a menacing look at the giant warrior hovering protectively by Godet’s side.

  “Aye, Robbie. This is Laird Gordon MacDonell,” she said introducing him to Gordon and then pointing to Tristan. “That is his brother Tristan.”

  Tristan had come to stand beside Ceena. She elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

  Robbie looked at the huge MacDonell warriors. “’Tis glad I am that we are on the same side,” he remarked, scratching his beard with a smile as he noticed Ceena’s shove to the big warrior standing beside her.

  Gordon stared at the Ross men. They were fit and strong-looking. None of them were as big as the MacDonells, but they were thickly built and looked ready to battle. In fact, Robbie and the other Ross warrior had given them a good fight there in the woods. They were fast and lithe.

  “Have ye seen a group come through the woods?” Gordon asked him. “One woman riding with them?”

  “It’s Flori, Robbie, they took her,” Godet explained, “it looks like she came through here with Mungan’s men.”

  “Aye, Laird,” Robbie answered, looking at Gordon. “With a giant lion of a man protecting her. To be sure they came through earlier in the twilight.”

  “Was she all right?” Godet asked.

  “Oh, aye. They stopped for a rest like. One of Mungan’s mauchit men tried to grab Lady Flori but the giant blond lion picked him up and threw him as easy as ye please over the horses into the brambles away and across from their clearing. ‘Twas a sight to see, I tell ye!”

  Ina said, “Och, yes, he is like a giant lion, isnae he? Protecting our Flori.” Ina sighed wistfully. Liam growled low in his throat at that and rolled his eyes. Ina didn’t look at him but just made a quiet shushing noise and patted his arm.

  “Did Mungan’s men retaliate for Loughlin throwing one of their men?” Gordon asked curtly.

  Robbie stared at the ground, then looked at Gordon. “Aye, Laird they did.”

  “What happened Robbie?” Godet asked fearfully.

  “They jumped him, tried to get him to the ground. Piled on top of him, they did, but he just kept throwing them off. Then one got the idea to hold a knife to Lady Flori’s throat. That stopped him cold. They tied his hands together behind his back.”

  “Are they on the move or camped somewhere?” Gordon asked.

  “On the move. Though they did camp for the night. Tis too hard to move through the Bogle Wood at night,” Robbie answered. “They set Lady Flori back atop her horse and they had to let yer Loughlin ride with her.” He chuckled. “Even with his hands tied behind his back, he was a force to be reckoned with, putting up such a ruckus when one of Mungan’s men was going to ride with the lady. She was having none of that and went into a fit of hysterics, she did. She kept kicking at any man trying to get up on the horse behind her, she went wild, screaming her bloody head off. They finally just let Loughlin ride with her to shut her up. They tied his hands in front around Lady Flori’s waist. I think they figured he’d stay quiet if he was tied that way.”

  Godet looked at her sisters. Ceena grimly nodded her head at her.

  “Ye and yer men dinnae move in to get her when ye saw it was Lady Flori?” Tristan asked.

  “’Twas only me that saw them when I was out on patrol. When I came back to alert the other men, they told me that ye had entered our woods. I figured that Lady Flori was in good hands with yer Loughlin. It was obvious he was protecting her. I thought that Lady Ina and Lady Godet and Lady Ceena were in the same danger with more of Mungan’s men. I saw Lady Ceena bite yer finger,” Robbie explained looking at Tristan accusingly.

  Tristan just gave him a big crooked grin and a raised eyebrow.

  “If I meant him harm, he’d be dead by now, ye know that Robbie,” Ceena said with a grin. Tristan grunted at that. When she looked over and frowned at him, he gave her an innocent stare and batted his eyelashes at her.

  “Aye, Lady Ceena, ‘tis true I realize that,” Robbie replied and laughed. He then looked at Gordon with a serious, stern expression. “Laird MacDonell? Are ye treating our Lady Godet well then?” His chin was raised firmly at the big Laird who towered over him.

  “Ye have my word I will protect Lady Godet with my own life.”

  “That is guid. I figured it was such. I heard ye call her yer neach-gaoil. Is she then?” Robbie asked boldly and fearlessly though Gordon looked fiercely down at him.

  “She is,” Gordon stated firmly and curtly. “Come, introduce me to yer men,” he said and walked away before Robbie could ask him anything more about his intentions. Robbie had no choice but to follow the big laird.

  Ina sighed her dramatic sigh. “Och, that is so sweet. I must have missed that. ‘Tis a fairy tale like I predicted. Ye are his sweetheart, his beloved, his warrior who rides and fights so fiercely beside him. ‘Tis a match made in the heavens above it is,” Ina said with her hands clasped at her breasts.

  Godet nudged her with her shoulder and whispered, “Is that what neach-gaoil means?”

  “Yes,” said Ina in a whisper. “He called ye his sweetheart, his beloved.”

  “Oh…” Godet said on a soft surprised sigh. As she turned away from Ina, Ina heard her say, “But it cannae come to anything…”

  Gordon gave the command to mount up. Twelve of Robbie’s men that had no injuries from Mungan joined them, moving through the forest on foot. The others melted back into the forest. Robbie knew they would be near if they were needed.

  Godet rode beside Ceena and Ina. They were flanked on all sides by either Gordon’s men or Robbie and his men.

  “Ye heard Robbie say they tied Loughlin’s hands in front of him,” said Ceena, “with Flori sitting in front of him on the horse and his arms around her? That puts his tied hands near the front of her belly. ‘Tis perfect.”

  Robbie looked up at her as he walked along beside them. “Why is that perfect my lady?”

  “It puts his hands right about where her belt is,” Ceena explained with satisfaction. Tristan looked sharply over at Ceena.

  “Aye,” Godet said with a smile.

  “Her dirks…” Tristan stated, looking between the two sisters with a small, knowing smile.

  “Aye, she’ll have had his hands cut free within moments, I wager,” Godet concluded with a soft laugh.

  Gordon looked back at Godet and grinned. “Loughlin wouldn’t need a dirk, much less the help of anyone to get his hands untied, but it will speed up the process. Yer sister is in good hands,” he noted with a brisk nod.

  “Loughlin is in good hands with me sister,” Godet retorted back to him with a grin of her own.

  Gordon just winked at her, turned around, and continued leading the way through the woods that were bathed in the morning twilight as the sun slowly rose.

  “Contrary man,” Godet whispered to herself.

  “I am starting to believe that all men are contrary,” Ina said in a huff. “Liam will ye please leave off from knocking Robbie down?”

  Godet and Ceena looked over to the side of Ina to see Liam riding right beside her. Robbie was trying to get in between Liam’s horse and Ina. Liam turned and frowned fiercely at Ina.

  “I dinnae like the way that mon keeps lookin’ at ye,” he said in his baritone voice.

  “Robbie is a friend, Liam, he is used to guarding us,” Ina explained.

  “Ye have no need of his protection, ye have me noo,” he said, his Scotts burr
becoming rougher as he spoke. “He’s naught but a gallus, cocky, glaikit mon. An eejit,” he grumbled without looking at her.

  “He is not bold nor cheeky nor foolish nor an idiot Liam. That is not very nice of ye,” Ina scolded him delicately.

  Liam mumbled something under his breath.

  “Ye will apologize, Liam,” Ina insisted pertly. “Dinnae dither aboot it, go on now.”

  Liam looked mutinously back at Robbie, who glared right back at him. He nodded once to Robbie. “I apologize to ye fer calling ye an eejit,” he ground out.

  Robbie slowed his pace so that he fell back behind Ina. He looked longingly after the beautiful, golden, delicate girl then saw Liam’s snarling face staring at him again. Robbie snarled back at him before looking away.

  One of Gordon’s warriors spoke up then. “Were ye three women really going to challenge us if we had attacked yer clansmen back there?” He had laughter in his voice and had elbowed the other warrior beside him.

  Godet, Ceena, and Ina looked at each other and laughed. “Och, yes and we would have won—easily too,” Godet said with a smile. Ceena grinned at the men as she twirled her dirk between her fingers in a rapid blur. She held her horse’s reins in the other hand.

  “Dinnae be a fool and tempt them to start throwing their dirks, men,” Gordon drawled.

  The day wore on as they worked their way through the forest. It was so dense with trees it seemed to cut off all noise. It was naught but shadows with only a sliver of sunlight managing to make its way to the ground here and there. The forest floor was thick with decaying debris from the trees. It was a dark, tangled, and eerie place. But little by little as the day wore on, the woods became greener and thinner and the giant oaks were replaced with pine.

  The forest was opening up more and more. There was only some tall gorse bushes blocking their way. Sunlight shone through in sharp shafts everywhere. There were more rocks in this part of the forest though as tall as their horses and as big as a wagon. As they made their way through this part of the forest, they could see snatches of green through the trees. The salty smell of the ocean drifted to them. They stopped just inside the forest, looking out on rolling hills that led up to a very old, bleached white castle sitting atop the tallest hill. On the farthest side of the castle, the hills fell sharply away to the sea below. The castle perched there, looking like it had been there for hundreds of years, looking out watchfully over the sea. Gulls flew in lazy circles riding the warm winds as they blew up the face of the sea cliff and then down playfully again.

  “Fionnaghall?” Gordon asked Godet. “By the sea?”

  “Aye, ‘tis home,” she said quietly, staring at the place she had called home her whole life. Where Mungan now resided in her beloved parents place.

  “It’s white,” Gordon said with a grunt.

  “Fionnaghall means white shoulders,” Godet replied proudly.

  “Easy to see yer way home in the dark, I suppose?” Tristan chimed in.

  “If ye are foolish enough not to be able to find yer way home,” Ceena said to him straight-faced.

  “Now, that would be a glaikit man,” Ina said, “more likely a blootered, bampot, glaikit man.”

  “Aye, ye would need to be drunk, foolish, or an idiot to not see that white pile of stone sitting at the very top of a hill,” Liam muttered.

  Godet exclaimed, “Gordon! Look there! Almost to the castle, it’s Loughlin and Flori with Mungan’s men!”

  “Sards! I was hoping to get to them before they were brought inside,” Ceena complained in frustration.

  “Ceena,” Godet said, forcing a calm she did not feel. “There are plenty of ways in and out. Flori knows this.”

  “And Loughlin is with her. Dinnae worry,” Gordon said as he watched the group. He noted the open gate to the castle’s inner courtyard. Saw the few men scattered atop the walls and outside the walls. He watched all the movement in and around Fionnaghall. There were only roughly half the crofter’s cottages left. He could tell they were occupied by the smoke curling from the chimneys. The other cottages were burnt timbers or piles of ash on the ground. A few sheep were on the far side of the castle along the hills that looked over and down to the sea.

  “I’ll need to hear about all those ways in and out. Any old entrances that perhaps Mungan doesnae know anything about?” Gordon asked as he continued his study of Fionnaghall with Tristan by his side. The two brothers were taking notice and cataloging every detail of the walls and the movements inside and out. Now and then, they would speak to each other in a low voice, pointing to this or that.

  Godet waited for Gordon and Tristan to stop talking then she said, “’Tis many a way in or out, she’s a crumbling pile of stone, as Flori always said, with odd little passages here and there. I dinnae think Mungan knows of any of them or at least which ones are still safe or useable.”

  “Och, tis more than a crumbling pile of stone,” Ina protested in a sad, wistful voice. “Fionnaghall, why she’s a braw, haimish place.” She paused and sighed. “She was once a beautiful castle of bright white stone shining there on the cliffs above the sea, flags flying in the ocean breezes on her turrets. And what a sight to the ships that sailed past, to see her in all her glory…”

  “Aye,” agreed Ceena, “she is homey and cozy I suppose, though she’s old and in dire need of some help to put those stones back together in places. They’ll end up tumbling down into the sea soon and that would be a shame for the old girl I think. I doubt there’s much left of most of those secret tunnels and passages. They were degrading rapidly. Godet is the only one that still used them.”

  “Mungan knows nothing of the secret passages?” Gordon asked Godet.

  “I dinnae think so,” Godet answered, “even if he did and tried to enter one of the passages, some will seem to be passable until ye go quite a ways twisting and turning and then come to a caved in area. Ye have to know the way around the cave-ins or which ones truly are dead ends. And hope yer torch doesnae burn out and ye arenae left lost and blind in the darkness. It took a long time for us to learn them. Some are very dangerous, deadly in fact. I cannae think that he would have had the time to explore them all.”

  “What is it?” he said to her, “there is something ye arnae telling me.” Gordon looked deeply into her shadowed silver eyes.

  “I made markings on the walls,” Godet explained, “to remember the turns and twists and avoid the caved in areas. Some passages turn into tunnels that will lead ye down through the cliffs and open up into caves along the sea face.”

  “Och, the sea caves!” Ina shuddered. “If ye enter one of those at high tide,” she intoned dramatically, “ye will find yourself trying to swim out of a cave with the waves crashing in on ye, pushing ye back, and back further into the darkness of the maze of tunnels, fighting the rising water at high tide in the blackness of the dank caves. The sea water is freezing, cold water that saps the very life out of ye no matter how hard ye try to swim. It just drags ye with it, deeper, deeper, into the dark tunnels ye were trying to escape from or drags ye out to the dark sea. Ye cannae tell which way ye are swimming because it is naught but darkness: up, down, in front of ye, and behind ye. Just cold, bone-chilling cold water and darkness. In the end, ye will eventually end up out in the vast depths, where all the sea creatures will feast on yer waterlogged flesh so there is naught left of ye to be found. Or worse, yer body will rot in one of the dead-end tunnels that the sea washed ye up in, niver to have found yer way out...”

  “Sards…” Liam said as he stared at Ina and then at the cliffs.

  “Aye,” Ceena added quietly, “many a smuggler thought the caves would be a handy place to hide their stolen goods only to find out it had all been washed away by the tides that sweep into the caves.”

  “Let me guess,” said Tristan, “the stolen goods would wash away unless, of course, ye girls moved the stolen goods before the tide got to them?” Ceena just looked at him with a grin and twirled one of her dirks between her fingers. />
  “Ceena!” Godet said sharply. Ceena immediately put her knife away and looked seriously at her older sister. “We need to figure out where Mungan would put Flori.”

  “Aye Godet,” Ceena answered her, sitting up straighter on Whins.

  “I think he put her in her room,” Ina said quietly. She pointed to a window high up in one of the turrets that was not crumbling. “Look, isnae there movement in her room?”

  The girls all held their breaths, watching their sister’s room. Sure enough, Flori came to the window, opening it wide and leaning out as if for a breath of fresh air. Loughlin came to join her. They could see him looking down into the courtyard below and then out to the woods.

  Godet went to urge Bluebell out of the edge of the woods where they had stopped to watch but Gordon stopped her with a touch to her arm. “Hold lassie,” he said quietly. He drew his sword out of its scabbard and held it so that the sun caught the broad side of the blade, he moved it slightly this way and that, trying to catch the sun’s light.

  Loughlin stopped and stilled looking off in their direction. They watched as he flashed something back. “He knows we are here now. He saw my sword flash,” Gordon said as he smoothly put his sword back in its scabbard.

  “But he cannae have a sword? They wouldnae be so foolish as to leave him with a weapon?” said Ceena.

  “Aye but he did flash something back,” Ina said wisely. “I’m supposing it was his cairngorm brooch pin off of the plaid over his shoulder.”

  “Ina, how dae ye know this?” Godet asked wonderingly.

  “Aunt Hexy taught me. She is full of all kinds of knowledge,” Ina said innocently. “She said warriors flash their swords or their tartan brooches to let each other know where they are when they are hunting or lost in the mountains.”

  Liam let out a grunt. Ina looked up at Liam and frowned. He was unsettling her with that fierce scowl on his face. He was staring at her like she was a cup of sweet, delicious Athol brose. She knew the honey and oatmeal drink had plenty of whiskey in it which these MacDonell’s would relish. “Yee cannae be looking at me like that Liam,” she said pertly.