Chapter Four
Elise felt a moment of utter panic. As the ground fell away before her, she was certain she was going to die.
But the feeling passed almost immediately, to be replaced by a heady rush, like the sensation of being on a rollercoaster.
In the next instant, this disappeared too and suddenly she crashed into cold, dark water and came up spluttering, gasping for air.
She couldn’t see a thing. All around her was nothing but cloying darkness. Yet from the way her coughing echoed back to her, she guessed she was in a stone chamber of some kind.
Stretching out a hand, she found a stone ledge not far away and she clasped it tightly, pulling herself over to it. The ledge seemed to circle the water like the lip of a well.
“Lir!” she shouted into the darkness. “Where are you?”
No answer came back. With a grunt, Elise got her elbows onto the stone rim and heaved herself up.
She wriggled and slithered her way out of the water in a most inelegant fashion and then lay on her back, staring up in the darkness and hoping that her sight would adjust. It didn’t.
The darkness remained impenetrable, as though a thick blanket had been thrown over her eyes.
Wherever she was, it was cold and wet, with the sound of dripping water nearby and a sighing noise a little farther off. The sea?
With a groan she struggled into a sitting position. “Lir?”
Still no answer.
“Excellent,” she muttered. “Just absolutely wonderful.”
She needed light. Taking a deep breath, she sent her awareness spiraling deep inside herself and called forth her spellweaving magic.
As always, it burst upon her in an explosion of force that tore a gasp from her throat.
She gritted her teeth and fought it into submission.
When she had it under control, she wove it into a spell she knew well and a globe of light appeared, bobbing just over her left shoulder.
It was enough to illuminate her surroundings, and as she took in where she was, she let forth a string of colorful curses. It was a cave. A dank, wet, dark cave with a rock pool in the center from which she had emerged.
There was no sign of Lir.
Elise growled deep in her throat. So, Lir had dumped her here and then done a runner. Fabulous.
“Lir!” she yelled, her voice bouncing off the dripping stone walls. “Where the bloody hell are you? This is not funny! If you don’t come back right now, I’m going straight back into that pool and straight home! Are you listening? I’m not kidding!”
She had agreed to come back in time to help Jamie Donald and the people of Islay face some threat that only a spellweaver could face.
Fine. She had not agreed to be dumped alone in a cave with no clue where she was or how to get out!
She should have followed her first instinct and told Lir exactly where she could shove her request.
Climbing to her feet, she strode to the rock pool and stood on the lip. In the illumination from her light globe, she could see that the pool was deep. Very deep. If she jumped back in, would she be able to make the magic work to take her home? She didn’t know but she was damned well going to try.
“I mean it!” she yelled to the empty air. “I’m not here to play games, Lir! Either you get back here and explain what the hell you think you’re playing at or I’m going home right now! What will it be?”
Her words echoed back to her before fading into silence.
“Right. Fine. Have it your way!”
She balanced on the pool’s edge and took a deep breath, readying herself to jump. But then she heard a sound coming from the opposite side of the cave.
She turned in that direction. In the light from her globe, she saw an opening on that side, one she hadn’t noticed before. A tunnel! And coming along that tunnel was the sound of footsteps.
Finally! About bloody time!
“Where have you been?” she demanded, striding towards the tunnel entrance. “I thought you’d abandoned me. I—”
Her words trailed off as a figure stepped into the cave. But it wasn’t Lir.
It was a man.
Recognition sent a shock right through her. Wavy white-blond hair that hung to his shoulders. Green eyes like sea glass. And a scowl that could crack dinner plates.
An instant later, the scowl turned into an expression of shock and the man’s mouth dropped open.
“Elise MacFinnan!” he exclaimed at the exact same moment she blurted, “Jamie Donald!”
Then in unison, their voices mingling in the echoing cave, they both demanded at the same time, “What are you doing here?”
*
Jamie couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d walked into this cave and found a trio of Irish leprechauns doing a jig. What he had found was a wet, bedraggled Elise MacFinnan staring at him as though she was just as shocked as he.
Was he dreaming? Had he fallen and whacked his head? When Lir had sent him here to find someone who could aid them against the pirates, he’d expected to find a warrior, not a woman from the future who had been haunting his dreams.
“What am I doing here?” Elise said incredulously. “What are you doing here? I have to admit, I did expect a slightly warmer welcome.” A smile curled her full lips. “You look like you’ve sat on a spike.”
Jamie blinked, opening and closing his mouth a few times, trying to work up enough saliva to speak. “I…I…” It was all he could manage.
Elise raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing from your landed fish expression, that you weren’t expecting me?”
Jamie struggled to pull his jumbled thoughts together. He swallowed a few times. “Nay, lass. I wasnae expecting ye. I didnae know what I was expecting. When Lir sent me here—”
“Wait!” She held up a hand. “Lir sent you here?” Then she laughed, shaking her head.
“Of course, she did! I should have known! She’s the one who brought me here and then promptly disappeared on me.
” She crossed her arms. “I’m going to have some serious words with that goddess the next time I see her. ”
Jamie was still struggling to process all of this. Elise MacFinnan in a cave on Islay? Really?
There was a globe of light hovering over Elise’s shoulder, some unnatural conjuration that reminded Jamie that this woman might look like some ordinary woman but was far from it. She was a MacFinnan spellweaver, one of a long line of women with near-legendary status in the Isles.
But right now she was shivering in her wet clothing, which reminded Jamie that although she might be spellweaver, she was still a human woman who had just traveled a very, very long way to get here.
He cleared his throat, then unclipped the brooch holding his cloak to his shoulder and pulled the heavy garment off.
“Here.” He swung it around her shoulders, and she clasped it gratefully around her.
“Thanks.”
“I dinna understand,” he said, stepping back and shaking his head. “Lir sent me here so I could find somebody to help Islay.”
Elise waggled her hands. “Ta-da! Here I am. Sorry if you’re disappointed.”
Disappointed? Was she serious? She clearly had no idea of how she’d haunted his thoughts for the past year or the way the sight of her sent a strange warmth right through him.
She looked damp and miserable, but her beauty was still enough to steal his breath, with her dark, pink-tipped hair and those large, luminous eyes of hers.
Oh aye, he was far from disappointed.
But he also had to ask himself what Lir thought Elise MacFinnan could do to help them against pirates.
She was a spellweaver, aye, but she was still only one woman, and Islay’s problems didn’t concern magic; they concerned military might.
Unless Elise had brought an army with her, he didn’t see how she was going to be able to make a difference.
But he didn’t want to think about that right now. He didn’t want to think about anything but the woman in front of him. He nodded to the tunnel. “Come on. Let’s get ye somewhere warm and dry.”
She rolled her eyes. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He led her back through the passage, Elise’s globe bobbing along at her shoulder and lighting the way. The tunnel was high and wide enough for them to walk side by side and they fell into an easy pace, neither speaking, the only sound their footsteps on the damp stone floor.
The end of the tunnel came into a view, a wide, bright portal that opened out on the beach. As they emerged, Elise extinguished her light globe and stopped abruptly, looking around. She pulled Jamie’s cloak tighter around her shoulders.
“Oh my,” she muttered. “I’m really here, aren’t I? This isn’t one of those weird dreams I get when I’ve had too much caffeine?”
Jamie smiled faintly. “Nay, lass. It’s no dream. Welcome to Islay.” He swept out an arm to encompass the beach, the sea, the land that stretched in undulating green and purple hills into the distance.
“Islay,” Elise said as though trying the name out on her tongue. “Rose and Jenna are never going to believe this.”
Jamie snorted. “I’m not sure I can believe this. After yer sister’s wedding, I never thought I’d see ye again, lass.”
Elise turned to look at him. Those eyes. Dark brown like tilled earth, but with gold flecks around the irises. They had enchanted him the first time he’d met her and were doing the same now.
“That’s me. Keep turning up like a bad penny, eh?”
Jamie felt the almost irresistible urge to reach out and run his finger down her cheek.
“My laird!”
He snatched back his hand and spun to see Albie approaching. He was flanked by more of Jamie’s men and they all had their weapons drawn.
“I thought I told ye to hold position!” Jamie snapped.
Albie was not cowed. “Aye, but ye didnae say ye would be gone so long. When ye didnae return we feared the worst.” His gaze flicked to Elise and then back to Jamie. “But it seems ye were in no bother after all.”
Jamie narrowed his eyes. Albie had a knowing grin on his face and Jamie didn’t like what it implied. “Watch yer tone. Ye will show respect or answer to me.”
Catching their laird’s mood, the men’s grins faded and they shifted awkwardly.
“My apologies, laird,” Albie said.
Jamie cleared his throat, letting it pass. “Lads, I’d like to introduce ye to Elise MacFinnan. She’s come a long way to offer us her services. She’s a MacFinnan spellweaver.”
There were rumbles of surprise. The men glanced at each other and Jamie saw both awe and fear flash across their faces.
Albie was the first to recover. He stepped forward and offered Elise a bow that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the royal court at Edinburgh. “Welcome to Islay, my lady. We are honored.”
Elise blinked in surprise. “Er…thanks. But there’s no need to bow or call me ‘my lady.’ Elise will do.”
Albie straightened. “As ye wish.” He glanced at Jamie, clearly wondering how Elise had gotten here and exactly what was going on, but Jamie didn’t elaborate.
“Mount up,” he ordered. “We’re returning to the castle.”
They walked back to where they’d left the horses, and as they moved his men fell into a protective ring around him and Elise.
“Can ye ride?” Jamie asked her as they reached the line of stamping, impatient animals.
“Um. Sort of. I used to ride when I was younger. Then I discovered boys and alcohol and the pony trekking fell by the wayside.”
Jamie didn’t much like the idea of Elise and boys.
The men fell over themselves offering up their horses, so Jamie instructed Elise to take Donal’s horse—a docile gelding named Smokey—while Donal doubled up with Muir.
Jamie swung up onto his own mount, settled his weight in the saddle, then glanced over at Elise.
She didn’t look entirely comfortable on Smokey’s back and was gripping the reins a little too tightly.
“Ready?” he asked her.
“As I’ll ever be,” she muttered.
“Then let’s go.” The men nudged their mounts into motion, and they began the trek home.