Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Being gracious to Ava proved difficult for Harper.
Thanks to Rory she’d just experienced what had to be the most epic first kiss of all time, and she wanted to go for another ten or twenty, and definitely some touching.
She’d even be open to losing her v-card once and for all, if he was in the same mood.
Judging by the pretty terrifying erection he’d pressed against her, he definitely was.
The laird’s wife must have realized what was going on when she’d walked in, so why had she interrupted them?
I bet it has nothing to do with something growing other-than-fruit in the gardens.
Kissing was only the prelude to what they needed to do, and the rest was going to be amazing.
Harper just knew it. So why was the armorer setting her aside and going over to Ava now?
Why was he ducking his head like he’d been caught cheating on the woman?
Really, she was married, and not to him, so why were they both being weird about it?
Something is going on between them, and I have no part in it. That made Harper equal parts angry and worried. Or she wants to use me, too, and is trying to lure me after him.
“I shall go directly,” Rory murmured to Ava, and even bowed. “Would you keep Mistress Ensley company while I do?”
Being left alone with Ava landed at rock bottom of Harper’s to-do list.
“Oh, heck, no. Mistress Ensley is a paranormal expert, so she’s coming along for the ride.” She stepped between them and took hold of Rory’s hand. “Should we go out through the lists, or stay inside and peek out a window in the kitchens?”
“We best stay inside until we’ve got a strategy,” Ava said, giving their joined hands a narrow look.
Harper gave her a bland smile. Yes, he’s holding onto me. He likes me. Deal with it.
Rory led them through the passages to another set of windows without slats.
The slits, which Harper knew were purposely built narrow to provide archers with lookouts while preventing attackers from shooting back at them, overlooked a lush forest of trees where there had been raised garden beds only a few hours ago.
The trees had black bark and dark green and brown leaves on branches that looked somewhat spindly and twisted.
“Wowser.” Annoyed as she was, Harper couldn’t help being startled by the sight. “What made the instant woods pop up?”
“We’re not sure,” the laird’s wife told her. “From the signs it might have been the remains of the faceless attackers that sank into the ground, and the failing enchantment not realizing they shouldn’t be rejuvenated.”
The enchantment can’t seem to make up its mind. Harper noticed something on the branches of the one nearest the stronghold. “What are those little black things on them, bugs?”
“Insects can’t live inside the spell trap,” Ava said. “The black things are tiny heads. They have hair and ears but no faces.”
That made her jaw drop. “The trees are growing new monsters from the sludge of the melted ones?”
“’Tis the damaged magic of the spell trap,” Rory murmured after peering through the window slit. “It means to replace the faceless men—likely the MacBren’s slain mercenaries—by creating trees on which they grow like fruit.”
Harper suppressed a shudder. “This spell trap needs to see a therapist.”
“There are hundreds of the budding creatures. How are we going to stop them from growing to full size?” Ava asked the armorer.
Rory gave her an uncertain look. “’Tis melia magic, my lady. I dinnae ken.”
“Maybe we should just water them.” Harper thought for a moment and then added, “Do that to just one bud first, I mean, and see if it melts. Or trim it off. Oh, that is not a good visual.” She saw Rory head for a nearby door. “Wait, I didn’t mean you should try it.”
“Maybe you can help him,” Ava said, sounding worried.
Harper hurried after the armorer, but as soon as she stepped outside the air in the gardens nearly made her gag, it had grown so cloyingly, sickly sweet.
The stench reminded her of an entire field of rotting flowers.
She breathed through her mouth, which made it bearable as she caught up with Rory.
He pulled the dagger from his belt sheath as he approached the nearest tree, which set all of Harpers internal alarms to clanging.
“Don’t do that,” she said, putting her hand on his forearm. “I’m wrong, it’s wrong. I don’t know why, but I think cutting the tree would be bad.” And where the heck was that coming from, anyway? “It could make things worse for us.”
To her surprise he placed his dagger back in its sheath and studied the tiny head clusters swelling on the branches.
“Water shallnae harm them until they’re fully grown and fallen to the ground,” Rory murmured to her. “These creatures, they’re created with melia magic. Only the same may destroy them.”
The direct look he gave her made Harper take a step back. “Hold on, there, my sledge hammer loving friend. I’m not a melia or magical, remember?”
“You’ve their power inside you,” he whispered. “You’ve but to try.”
Now she suspected why Ava had wanted her to come out here. The laird’s wife was testing her. Maybe Rory was in on it, too. Well, that wasn’t going to happen, because she did not have an ounce of magic inside her–
“Hey.” Harper flinched as the armorer took hold of her arm and brought her hand to the branch. “Come on, it won’t work.”
He ignored her as he held her hand against the tree.
Why was he forcing her to do this? The gruesome sensation of tiny heads swelling against her palm disgusted her, especially when they began bursting like overripe fruit.
She finally jerked her wrist out of his hold as all the head clusters on the tree began bursting, spattering both of them with black goo.
“Not me, guy,” she assured him. “They did that exploding by themselves. Me, I wouldn’t even guess at how to cast a spell, much less try.”
“They reacted to the power within you, lass,” he countered. “’Tis likely light melia magic, which may overcome the dark side of such.”
He thought she was more powerful than this place?
Or someone else does, Harper thought, glancing over at the window slits.
She could see Ava now, watching both of them.
Hope I passed your test, because I’m not taking any more.
She really wanted to wipe the goo off her palm, so much so that she was tempted to smear it on his tunic, only that wouldn’t be very nice.
He already had enough of the crap on him, too.
“Look, ah, I don’t care about what’s inside me,” she finally told him. “I can’t do anything with the force or whatever. I just want to go wash my hands and change my clothes.”
“You may, after you slay the rest.” Rory nodded at the other trees. “You’ve only to touch each tree once, and ’twill end all the creatures.”
Boy, was he backing the wrong horse. “You hope.”
The armorer touched her cheek. “Do thus for me, my lady.”
You mean, do it for Lady Ava, your substitute big sister/mom/controlling manipulative guard dog.
Harper wanted to tell him that she wasn’t a monster executioner, and she certainly didn’t want or need that kind of karma coming back to bite her in the butt.
Yet now she could see the head clusters on the other trees growing larger and sprouting shoulders and arms. If they all developed to full size and detached themselves, they’d overrun the castle before the McKeran men could stop them.
The faceless things would attack the clan’s vassals and outsiders, and if the enchantment decided not to heal them a lot of people were going to die.
She might be one of them—unless she did what Ava had sent her out here to do.
That score she would definitely have to settle later.
“Please note that I hate this and I’m doing it only under duress,” Harper told Rory as she marched over to the next tree, and seized another cluster.
It took less than ten minutes for her to destroy the crop of budding monsters, and then the trees themselves began to shrink down into the soil.
She tried to shake the black residue off her hands, but it clung to her like tar; even wiping her hands on the grass didn’t work.
Ava came out with Tasgall just as the last sign that anything had happened in the gardens disappeared from sight, and gave Harper a grateful smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Sure, you’re happy you didn’t get icky black goop all over your hands, Lady Avoiding the Dirty Work, Harper thought. But you don’t like that I could do this. Maybe I could help your boy a lot more than you think.
“My thanks, Mistress,” the laird said as he performed a deep bow.
She guessed him doing that for her was a big deal, but she wasn’t in the mood now. She also needed not to look at his wife, because if she did she’d probably punch her in the nose.
“You’re welcome.” Harper needed to find some scalding hot water and soap, right this minute. “Excuse me, I have to wash all the things I just killed off my hands.”
Rory followed her into the stronghold, but as soon as they were out of earshot from the laird and his wife she turned on him. All the anger that flooded her came from realizing how she’d just been manipulated—and that she strongly suspected her dreamy highlander had known that from the start.
“I can clean up by myself,” she told him, and pointed in the other direction. “You go that way.”
He stopped as he looked into her eyes. “Forgive me,” he whispered, and gave her a sorrowful look before he walked away.
Watching him go tore at her, but she resisted the impulse to chase after him.
“I am not the bad guy,” Harper told herself firmly. “The victim here is not blaming herself. They’re the bad guys. Especially Mrs. Ex-FBI.”