Chapter One #2
“Let’s get people back inside,” Rory said, knocking Cyrus’s arm, and they strode outside, leaving Sara to oversee the servants, who were righting chairs. “We need to get this wedding finished so that the alliance is strong.”
Outside the double doors, Cyrus scanned the crowd of people dressed in their best plaids and gowns, but the woman in the green cloak had fled. “Who are ye?” he murmured—and he swore to find out.
…
Laria Macqueen clutched Cleas under her cloak and strode away from Staffin Village toward the loch as her breathing slowed.
Once she reached the outskirts, she broke into a run.
“Hold on,” she whispered to the squirming otter.
She wouldn’t have some zealous villager catch Cleas to skin for the bride, so she clutched her and ran for a mile before the otter released her musk in annoyance.
“Daingead.” Laria wrinkled her nose, more than happy to let go of her friend. “You’re heavy, and you stink,” she said, setting the sleek brown mammal on the bank of Loch Sheanta as she caught her breath.
The small lake was surrounded by vegetation and trees with one side edged by a rock wall, which her grandmother swore was cleaved by a giant long ago.
On rare occasions, pilgrims came to walk the perimeter sunwise three times before splashing into it to heal their ailments.
Otherwise, the location was so remote that the serenity was rarely broken.
The water, which came from a sacred spring, was so clear that the bottom could be seen far below the surface.
It was often bitterly cold, but Laria loved its embrace and swam nearly every day, even taking a short dip in winter.
She wove deftly between the prickly blackberry brambles to the rock face bordering the loch, where she shucked the heavy cloak, folding it.
Then she plucked the ties of her bodice and petticoat, letting the layers fall off.
Her smock followed, and then she was completely naked.
Her cloak and stays folded and hidden, Laria sniffed her petticoats.
The musk had just permeated her bodice, so she took it with her as she stepped to the edge of the pool.
She dropped the bodice in to let the water work on the smell, although Cleas’s scent grabbed hold and took much scrubbing to let go.
Taking a full inhale, she shot off the bank, slicing into the cold water.
It never failed to strip away her anxious thoughts as it did the dust and sweat on her body.
When she surfaced, she inhaled with a practiced evenness and then began to swim.
She would stroke until the cold felt merely cool, and the worries that plagued her were washed out of her. At least for a while.
No one had seen her stride out of the village.
Would Grace Mackinnon receive her message?
Would she believe it? Laria certainly would, but Laria had grown up with Iain Macqueen and his horrid brother, Wallace.
She knew the sins behind their handsome faces, their black hearts, and Laria was glad one had perished.
She surfaced, the coolness of the water finding its way into all her grooves and crevices.
As the water cleared from her ears, she paused.
Her strong legs undulated underwater to keep her still, her head above the surface.
Horse hooves thudding. The charger neighed as it followed the path toward the water’s edge.
“Laria Macqueen.” The gruff voice made her skin prickle. “Come out of the water and face yer crimes.” It was Jasper Whitt, her cousin’s lusty henchman, who threatened women with his jack and brutal strength.
Laria took a deep breath of air and slipped under the surface.
But the clear water wouldn’t hide her. She kicked hard and fast, her hands pointed before her as she swam toward the rock face that descended into the loch.
Her fingers felt the rough granite as she pulled herself down deeper until she found the opening, pulling herself under and through.
She kicked hard against the current where another spring fed into the loch and surfaced in a small cave that opened out of the water.
Laria hung onto the rough ledge, taking in large pulls of air, before pushing herself up to sit on the flat rock.
Cleas surfaced in the cave, then dived to turn flips just below the water.
“Stay in here,” Laria whispered, trying to catch the tumbling otter. She pulled in air that came through a few fissures where daylight entered above. Sticking a finger in her ear, Laria wiggled it to clear it of water and listened.
The otter swam out of the cave, surfacing somewhere on the loch.
“Bloody hell,” Jasper said. “Ye’re a foking selkie.”
She rolled her eyes inside the cave in an effort to calm her frantically beating heart. ’Twas good that Jasper had a superstitious mind. If he was foolish enough to think she’d turned into Cleas, he wouldn’t find her in the cave.
Jasper cursed again. “Daingead. ’Tis just that otter of yers.
” She heard him walking along the shore.
“Laria!” The harsh voice made the chill bumps already on her arms spread across her whole body, and she hugged herself in silence.
“Iain knows ’twas ye disrupting his wedding.
” He paused, as if waiting for her to expose herself.
A thump right over her head told her that Jasper was walking around the loch, hoping to see her in the water.
He didn’t know about this underwater cave that she’d followed Cleas into one hot summer day.
“And the ten roasted chickens disappearing right before the wedding feast. Ye did that, too, ye and yer band of misfit thieves.”
He knew she was there, but he couldn’t reach her in the cave unless he was willing to swim down deep. Erskine, the leader of their group, had told her that Jasper couldn’t swim. By Mother Mary’s tears, let it be true.
Laria stood up on the ledge inside her cave, facing the fissure. “What do you want, Jasper?”
Footfalls. “Where are ye?”
“In the sacred spring.”
“Water witch,” he called.
“Vicious brute,” she called back.
“Come out of the loch.”
She’d rather fall upon a beehive than find herself in Jasper’s hands. “What do you want, besides throwing wild accusations at me?”
“Iain won’t stand for yer antics anymore. He’s now aligned with the most powerful clan on Skye.”
Daingead! Grace must still be marrying her cousin. Foolish woman. Though Laria had also been fooled by Iain when she and her grandmother had come to live at Tuath Tower in Staffin Village at Iain’s mother’s invitation. Laria had soon learned how viciousness could live under a false smile.
“Iain’s alliance has nothing to do with me.”
Jasper moved to the fissure, and Laria could see him blocking the sun leaking through the crack in the granite. “If you want to see yer people make it through this coming winter with supplies and shelter, ye’re going to do what we say ye’ll do, Laria.”
She swallowed, hearing the threat in his tone.
Iain was as brutal as Jasper, just quieter about it.
The two of them would cut Laria’s troop off and possibly sneak in during the night to massacre them.
They’d killed before, and she couldn’t let that happen.
Not to the souls depending on her to keep them as safe as they could be while living in exile.
Mother Mary’s tears. She exhaled slowly as her eyes shut. “What must I do?”