Chapter Six
“‘I am the Lady of the Lake,’ she said, ‘and I am come to tell you that your sword Excalibur awaits you yonder.’”
The rain had ceased during the night. Cyrus had heard it end as he lay half asleep, wondering if Laria might return through the same passageway.
He’d removed the bar on the lower door, so she’d be able to get in if she tried.
It hadn’t worried him that she might return to finish the job of killing him.
If she couldn’t do it with him tied and drugged, she couldn’t slice his throat with his gaze locked on hers.
I have no choice. I’m so sorry. The desperation in her voice had been made even heavier by the tears streaming down her face.
’Twas as if someone had held a blade to her, forcing her to act with violence.
Had they also made her seduce him, made her give her body over to a night of debauchery without her consent?
The thought soured his stomach and made him walk faster through the old-growth forest. He wanted answers.
The tall, wet grass lashed Cyrus’s calves above his boots.
Rory walked next to him, face down, eyes skimming the terrain for any surviving tracks.
They’d found two broken branches and some scuffed moss that had been dislodged from boulders.
A single boot print survived under an overhang, as if Laria had paused there.
Cyrus breathed in the fresh morning air, his gaze flicking between silver-trunked birch trees that still held fast to their yellow leaves.
Mist floated in ghostlike tufts about the glens and meadows they’d traversed, making the cool air chill a man to his bones.
Fall was coming fast, something Laria must not have considered when she decided to take her grandmother away from the safety and warmth of Tuath Tower.
Rory pointed silently ahead where the trees gave way to scrub, and a mountain face rose up on the right. The burble of running water came from beyond the scrub, and they slowed, moving with silent intention.
Cyrus stopped behind a thick patch of blackberry bushes, the berries picked over and sparse.
Young alder trees stood tall, their still-slender trunks barely blocking his view over the clear water of a small loch.
He clasped one as his gaze skimmed over the water.
Mist had settled along the surface, the risen sun glinting off it, making it look more tangible than hovering water droplets.
’Twas almost a veil hiding a magical place, like a legend come to life.
Ripples of a concentric circle expanded outward on the surface. Rory pointed silently at an otter as it turned belly-up, paddling backward, only to dive under again. An otter? There were no doubt numerous otters on Skye, but the coincidence sent prickles up his arms.
Rory spoke low. “Like King Arthur’s mystical loch to Avalon. Hmmm?”
Cyrus scanned the stillness but saw no boat ready to be paddled by apprentice priestesses from the Arthurian legend.
Leaves rustled in a breeze above, but the mist seemed to mute the sound.
A few birds sang to each other in the brambles on the far side.
A splash brought his gaze back to the loch where the otter slapped its tail.
Cyrus almost ducked as the black eyes found him.
The water was so clear when the mist parted that he could see the entire creature swimming along the surface, its face still turned toward them as it paddled.
“I see a path, Cy,” Rory whispered, but Cyrus caught his arm, stilling him.
A woman’s head broke the misty surface. Cyrus froze completely and watched the woman emerge. She was turned away from them, and her wet hair clung to the middle of her back and over her shoulders like a dark cloak.
“What is it, Cleas?” Her soft voice was ethereal but familiar.
The otter dodged underwater, and the woman turned in the mist’s embrace toward him. Cyrus stood still, watching. Perfectly rounded breasts jutted out, the nipples as peaked as when he’d sucked on them two nights ago.
Laria’s large eyes regarded him like a lady from an otherworldly place, neither startled nor expectant, just observing his presence.
She was a nymph, a goddess, and a siren all rolled into one, ready to lure him to pleasure-soaked death.
If one of her slender arms rose, holding a sturdy sword, he wouldn’t be surprised.
But this wasn’t the Lady of the Loch. This was a woman on the run from her clan, a seducer and trickster who’d left him naked and tied to the bed for some reason that had brought tears racing down her cheeks.
No one spoke for long seconds. Would she disappear with the mist burning off the lake? Before that happened, he needed answers. Daingead, he deserved answers.
“Laria Macqueen,” Cyrus said, his voice spreading out across the water. “Why didn’t ye kill me?”
Rory had turned around to preserve Laria’s modesty when she’d stood, exposing herself. She now sank back down in the water up to her neck and pushed backward, farther from the shore. “I’m glad you were found by someone other than Iain or his henchman,” she said.
“How do ye know that?”
“If Iain had found you tied helpless to the bed, he’d have killed you himself.”
The otter’s head appeared in the water between them, its black eyes watchful.
“Ye were sent to kill me?” Cyrus asked. “But ye fled instead.”
She pressed back into the water. “Would you rather I had completed the deed?”
“Don’t disappear like the bloody Lady of the Loch,” he said.
Rory glanced over his shoulder and turned back to face the loch. “We can outwait ye, lass, and the water is clear enough that we can follow ye around.”
Cyrus didn’t even blink, sure she would disappear. “I want answers, Laria Macqueen. Ye bloody left me tied to a bed, naked and drugged. I deserve answers.”
“Leave her be,” came a voice from on top of the rock ledge. Cyrus pivoted to see the traitor, Reid Hodges, standing there with an arrow trained on him. “Or I’ll shoot ye through.”
Rory’s sword slid free, but Cyrus kept his weapon sheathed.
The thin man on the rock hardly looked strong enough to pull back the bowstring, but his face was a firm mask of determination. Cyrus’s muscles prepared to leap sideways if he released the arrow.
“Reid Hodges,” Rory said, his voice thundering loud enough to make the man jump. Reid re-centered his aim, but it remained on Cyrus. “Put that bow down unless ye want me to run up there and rip yer throat out with my teeth.”
The bulge in Reid’s throat bobbed as if it felt the heat of a predator’s gaze. He kept the arrow aimed down toward Cyrus. “Leave her alone,” he said. “Go back to yer territories south. Iain Macqueen is no ally to ye or anyone.”
“Hodges?” Laria asked, looking at the armed man and then at Rory and Cyrus. “This is Reid Lewis.”
Cyrus watched the man’s arm start to shake and stared him in the eyes. “His name is Reid Hodges, and he’s from the Isle of Lewis.”
“I shortened my name,” Reid said defensively. He also knew Reid Hodges wasn’t trusted by Clans MacLeod and Macdonald. It was safer to be someone else.
“Is yer sister, Winnie Mar, with ye?” Rory asked.
“Nay.” He lowered the bow as if holding it cost him too much strength. “Iain sent her away before yer sister arrived for the wedding.”
“She was Iain’s mistress?” Cyrus asked. “A married woman who left her ailing husband at Dunscaith Castle?”
“Aye,” Reid answered, “but she’s left now. Journeyed south again. And so must ye.” He raised the bow, pulling the string again.
Rory cursed under his breath. “She’s a schemer and murderer.”
“Ye think I don’t know that?” Reid said, his face petulant and condescending. “Her mind has been tainted. She thirsts for power more than anything.” He moved the tip of the arrow as if shooing the two of them away. “Go on now,” he said.
“Don’t shoot them,” Laria called from the center of the loch.
The water was so clear that Cyrus could make out the outline of her beautiful breasts under the surface.
Mist moved in gentle puffs of white, hiding her features and then clearing to frame her.
It made her look ethereal, like a fairy he’d captured for one night in his bedchamber.
He could almost believe she was a kelpie haunting the loch.
“If I kill Cyrus for ye,” Reid said, continuing to hold the weapon nocked and ready, “that will solve everything.”
“What the bloody hell did I do that killing me would solve everything? And what’s wrong that needs solving?” Without answers, Cyrus couldn’t defend himself.
“If ye shoot at Cy or me,” Rory said, brandishing his sword, “I will run ye through and rip yer throat out like I said. ’Tis a foking promise.”
Cyrus kept his gaze on Laria. Her otter turned flips around her, seeming unbothered by the tenuous situation mere yards away.
“If she’s yer wife,” Rory said, nodding to Laria, “Cy didn’t know it.”
Wife? Could the siren who still haunted his thoughts be wed to another? Iain had only mentioned the fisherman who had died.
“Reid,” Laria said, “put the arrow down. We can’t just kill them out here without Iain using it as an excuse to rally his men and theirs to hunt down our group and slaughter us. Would you have Leah’s blood on your hands?”
Iain was right. His cousin was living in the woods. Was she forcing her grandmother to live outside, too? “What group? Why are ye living away from the protection of Tuath Tower and the village?” Cyrus asked.
Laria turned back to study him, not with fear, but with determined interest. The water around her seemed to embrace her, protecting her. The man above lowered his weapon, relief flashing across his features. Unlike his sister, Winnie Mar, Reid did not seem to relish killing.
Laria tipped her head, rather like the otter. “If you let me get out of here to dry and dress, I’ll explain.”
“Do not try to flee,” Cyrus answered.
She swam toward the far edge, her arms moving in wide, confident strokes.