Chapter 1
North of Loch Lomond, Highlands of Scotland
“Keirah!” Lord Karlson Kollungr bellowed.
If only she could sprout wings to fly, she would.
Her steps blazed away from his violent summons through the forested terrain.
Infernal rain! She rubbed her wool-clad forearm across her lashes before darting a look behind to the inky surroundings.
The Northman wasn’t visible. So, if she couldn’t see him, Kollungr wasn’t looking at her. RUN!
The treescape beyond, was it left or right for the denser foliage?
Racing like a rabbit from a Northern falcon, her feet charged right.
Stay to the right till the next lightning bolt shows the best path south toward Stirling, to King Alexander.
The King of Scots needs to know of the foreshadow; it will change Scotland forever.
Hiking the drenched skirts over her knees, her stride widened.
A stitch tried to form within her ribs. Ah, raging hell, ignore it!
She couldn’t be recaptured. Move. Move. MOVE! The king must know!
Kollungr declared, “You belong to me, Keirah!” No, I don’t.
Faster, Keirah, move faster.
“Keirah!” He was gaining!
Her heart was ready to burst from her chest before her foot caught into a trench.
No! Her clumsy nature was not going to trip her up again!
Too late. Ugh! As she collapsed onto the slop, the red shield in her left hand crashed in a puddle.
Slap! Muddied water burst across her cheek.
It would be the Northman’s palm if she didn’t hide by biting her lip to keep from crying out.
A smear of blood took her taste as a grim reward for her efforts.
She set her jaw. Up! Move it lassie, don’t be retaken by the Northern devils!
Scrambling onto her feet, appearing more a foal trying to find its legs than lass, she bounded ahead, hearing the chorus of curses behind her. Her breath hissed with gasps. Kollungr, alongside his wolfpack of four Northmen whom King H?konsson had ordered to re-capture her, was closing!
A flash hit the sky above the woodland’s labyrinth.
It’s right. She darted faster; the weight from the red-painted shield would soon meet its purpose in distracting the Northmen.
How odd is it to be carrying a shield? Very!
She’d never raised a weapon in all her forced years serving the Northmen.
No; they wanted her docile for her abilities with second sight, being a fate-seer, and wouldn’t risk her raising a dagger nor bow nor sword against them.
She was finally free and never going back!
The grove to the right, focus – aye, it had denser growth by the mammoth yew trees.
Stump! Leap! Her feet sailed over the top.
The plan again? Release the shield left; it should catch the Northmen’s eyes, and then charge the opposite direction from them. Solid. Solid plan. Do not mess it up!
“I saw her, Lord Kollungr,” Sv?rn yelled, trailing in the far distance. “Keirah, you will be found!” Never-ever, Northmen.
Had a dagger just pierced her side? Nae, ’twas the infernal stitch, but it would be Sv?rn’s dagger if he caught her.
She barreled ahead. Release the shield. Swiftly she ripped out her left arm.
Augh, cramp! The leather strap released, and the pine shield tore like a lash across the landscape while she veered farther right into the giant’s grove.
This is a single chance! If taken, they would force her to hunt more of her own countrymen.
“Keirah! You will suffer for this!” Kollungr vowed. Raging hell, he, he is closing!
Another strike overhead released a shake to the ground as if it would swallow her up. Branch! Jump over! A whimper tore her lips, fear shook her bones, as the branches snagged at her skirts, slowing her.
Sv?rn called out, eagerly. “There! The shield is there!”
No! They had found it too quickly! A matter of moments, and the pack would be upon her. She squinted her eyes. There, duck right at the next trunk wider than a stallion’s stride.
Never would she stop seeking King Alexander; he must know what the fates had revealed.
Her teeth ground as she charged ahead blindly.
A fresh gasp took her lips. Why had the tree limb dragging across her upper arm sprung to life and ripped her inside a hollowed-out trunk?
A woodland beast! Her feet tripped and she would have fallen on her face, but the creature righted her straightaway before him.
The rain became an echo, dotting her scratched legs as her skirts struck something solid.
The frigid droplets on her arm were replaced by warmth belonging to the fingers gripping her.
No…no beast. Worse! Northman! If she cried out, perhaps a stray Scot would hear.
Gasping for a deep inhale, she halted. This stranger’s scent was different.
Aye, there was the rotted bark from the interior belonging to the yew trunk, but over this why didn’t her captor have the sour odor belonging to a Northman’s beeswax-coated garments?
No, the hidden stranger smelled the same as pine.
She held her stance. Her fingers trailed up over the coarse wool covering his torso, higher then higher then higher then…
higher? When the hell had giant beasts begun growing in the trees of Scotland?
No, beasts didn’t have fingers giving an unspoken promise: if she pulled away, he would let go.
Her breath came out a sigh, not a scream.
“Sárr?” the stranger’s rich tone questioned.
A…a Scottish brogue. The heat from his breath brushing her ear, she leaned closer when another chilling shiver surged over her.
He was a two-footed Scottish flame. Ahh – warmth so desperately craved ebbed across her flesh.
The Scot must consider her to be from the North as well, giving the word for ‘wounded’ in their language; despite the pounding rain, he obviously had heard the accent belonging to the Northmen.
“Nae,” she whispered back in her native brogue.
Her shoulders lowered some. If the beast meant to force her into some worse fate than those who hunted her, why bother with such an ask?
He grew tenser than her. Why? Perhaps he thought the Northmen were hunting a Scottish lass for a rape in the rain.
No, Scotsman, they want their fate-seer who harbors the element in second sight back as a force upon the battles to come against King Alexander.
Her hands grasped what felt like a rough cloth tunic covering his chest. At her grip, he lowered both his palms firmly to the back of her waist. Raising her gaze, she squinted: only shadows belonging to the impromptu savior.
Darkness reigned supreme until, CRACK! A bolt struck fifty steps from their hideaway.
In but a blink, she saw him. Her eyes narrowed a moment at the flash and deafening crash, which caused her to inadvertently quiver.
He…he was the one from her foreshadow! His hair was dark as a thousand midnights, jaw shadowed by matching bristle, and his eyes bluer than the sky reflecting upon Loch Lomond’s shores.
Oh. My. Scotsman. He was even more dashing in person.
Her fingers tightened into fists onto his woolen. “Aonghus MacCade,” she whispered, in awe from fate’s hand crashing her into his presence.
After hearing his name, Aonghus held his palms tighter on her back. Before either could speak, another voice roared over the pounding tempest.
“Keirah,” Kollungr condemned, “you will not escape me! No matter how far you run, where you hide, rage will feed the creature in me to find you!” Good luck with that.
At the threat, the Scotsman’s left palm lifted from her waist. Aonghus had to be reaching for that big-arse broad axe strapped across his back; the glint off the double-sided blade resting above his collarbone had blinded her almost as much as the bolt.
His warm palm leaving her, cold seeped her bones as her teeth chattered, or was it fear adding to the chatter? Could be either at this point.
Her fingers grasped his wrist after she heard the grate from leather releasing the hilt into his palm. What if Aonghus was preparing in case they were discovered? Made sense. If he was readying to directly engage Kollungr? Nope, not the way to go.
Aonghus didn’t know their dark tactics. They were luring her in threat.
‘They’ had been the pack of four, but she couldn’t be certain if more from Rudri’s ranks led by Sturan were trailing behind.
A lone Highlander, no matter the beastly size, would fall, and she wasn’t going to have his blood on her hands.
Her grip tightened when she felt him start to pull away. He was going to engage Kollungr!
Standing highest on her toes to brush the concealed words against his ear, “Nae,” she whispered, fiercely.
His shoulder-length hair tickled her nose. She crushed her eyes closed. What was louder, her teeth chattering sounding like a hammer on an anvil, or the pounding from her heart filling her ears? Hard to tell.
The hand still holding her spine became firmer, pinning her arms between them with a silent message: he would grant her wish, but she heard him murmur. “Ssshhhh,” he soothed.
Raging hell, her teeth were going to give them away!
“Keirah!”
Nooooooooo. Lord Kollungr echoed right outside! If another bolt struck, they were found for sure. Clench the damn chatty teeth – no, this didn’t work despite her strongest effort. Her whole body began to shake the same as the leaves on the trees about them.
Aonghus pressed her closer, trying to calm or slow or stop her terror.
A checkered mantle draped around his neck pressed her nose; she thrust her lips against…
ugh, the wool tasted like the rancid slime on a toadstool; her throat tightened, releasing a gag reflex.
What if she lost the few contents from her stomach?
Lord Kollungr certainly could hear that.
Moving her lips over from his infernal mantel she rested her teeth on a warm and salty and secure collarbone, reflected to equal the rest of Aonghus’s monumental size.
Pressing her nose to his neck, a sigh exhaled from her nose at the solution; her teeth held quiet, while his hand on her back grew heavier alongside a low rumble vibrating his broad torso.
“Lord Kollungr,” Sv?rn said, distantly, “she fled this direction, the branches are broken.”
Maybe what they saw had happened when Aonghus ventured to this hidden location? Her teeth had quieted enough that Lord Kollungr didn’t hear her; he barked orders at Sv?rn. The Northern hunters were echoing farther away into the rain. Her shoulders lowered in what felt like the first time in years.
“Lass,” Aonghus murmured, “I am goin’ to take you from here and the pack of them. I shall protect you. Forthwith, you must remain silent, hold my hand all moments, move when I move, and when I pause to drag you close, you do this without question or consideration. Agreed?”
She removed her teeth reluctantly from the salty collarbone to whisper, “Aye.”
“Let us commence,” he said, approvingly.
He kept the axe in his right hand, but the left, his fingers roughened from warfare, lowered to intertwine with hers.
Grabbing her sodden skirts with her free hand, she felt him tug gently; her feet moved on a will of their own to follow this Scotsman.
He would see her safe and, if luck favored her, to King Alexander’s court.
If luck didn’t favor her, she would beg.
The rain turned from sheets to mist when they emerged from the hollow trunk, as he paused.
One swift pull and they were off into the night; she could see his stride shorten to accommodate hers.
The Northman always dragged me if I could not keep up.
The damp ferns smacking her bare knees frantically at the pace they kept took a calmer meaning at his presence.
Her fingers unknowingly tightened around his.
They cleared the yew grove to re-enter the bulky pines.
Was the direction they headed southward?
Aye, south; she had come from the east and the Northmen had gone west, she guessed after the last bellow.
Her shoulders lowered a notch, but her breath caught when Aonghus’s step pivoted suddenly before he had her crushed up against him behind one of the pines. The grizzled bark dug her spine.
“Lord Kollungr was seen charging this direction for Keirah,” hissed a Scottish voice belonging to Sturan MacNaller, Rudri’s distant clansman.
He sounded close – too close. Rudri was a traitor to the Scottish crown, but Sturan was a killer of his own innocent countrymen.
“Get goin’. You must return Lord Kollungr’s jewel, or he will be fierce at being looked at as a fool in King H?konsson’s court.
I will not have my alliance placed at risk for this Scottish wench.
Brother, move!” It was possibly Seumas or Sorley, the evil brothers to Sturan she had never met, who was present.
A splash from footsteps caused her heart to pound in her ears again.
They were on the opposite side of the tree they were hidden behind!
Had her guide known this in the pitch dark?
His cheek brushed her brow with his stubble coarse over her temple; she bit her lip to keep from asking, then gave a whimper when he roughly dragged her into the next sprint southward. Move to keep up lest we are discovered.
Was it minutes or hours? Everything turned to a blur by the footrace, ducking behind makeshift obstacles for concealment whenever a member belonging to the hunting party surfaced, till her Scottish beast stole her into the night.