Chapter 24
Ablizzard swept over the Hebrides like a thick cloak, burying the world beneath white.
Flakes whipped across the skies, driving everyone indoors.
Calum shivered as Fraser’s skiff cut through icy waves, its sail crusted with frozen spray.
No one noticed them slip away; the storm was their ally, carrying them unseen toward the mission he and Freya had devised.
At last they were moving—free—and if fortune favored them, this plan might change everything and reunite his team.
Freya hunched against the snow, Bog curled in her lap. Calum watched her, caught by the fire in her eyes, praying he had not erred in trusting her with a mission that could mean uprising—or treason.
She lowered her fur wrap, lifting her voice above the wind. “Is that Sanaigmore?”
“Aye.” He steered the skiff toward land, dreading the plunge into the glacial sea to drag it ashore.
She shivered, pulling Bog closer. “A desolate place, is it no’?”
“The hills are lovely green, when they’re not buried.”
“I would miss the trees.”
Another breaker slapped the bow, spraying them. He shook his head. “That was the thing I missed most about home. So many of these isles are bare of them.”
Her voice rose through the wind. “What was it like?”
“What was what like?”
“Beginning a new life outside Jura.” She ruffled Bog’s wiry head and kissed between his ears.
No one had ever asked him that. “You’ve been telling my stories all these years. Do you no’ ken?”
“I read the dispatches, the reports. I followed your story, but I wondered what it felt like—leaving Jura, knowing you couldnae return. Was it difficult? Wonderful? I suppose I wondered what I was missing out on.”
He stuffed his hands under his arms for warmth. “Guard work. Drills. Same thing every day.”
“So… I missed nothing.”
He almost left it at that, but her question gnawed at him.
Memories surfaced: the shameful nights he wept in Duart, the small kindnesses that steadied him, the first time he saw a friend cut down in battle and felt a savagery he hadn’t known lived inside him.
The loneliness of being different, and yet the relief of freely practicing his faith.
Part of both worlds, belonging to neither.
In truth, he still felt as lost as he did then.
“It was like waking up with no sense of who I was at all.”
Her head snapped up, one green eye drawing him in, the blue piercing.
“My father’s rejection—it was like living in a world without color.
My whole life I’d lived for Da, for the clan.
Suddenly I didnae know what I liked, or what I hated.
Did I eat lentils and fish because I wanted them, or because Da said they’d make me strong?
Did I speak, dress, and act as myself, or only as Jura expected?
The only thing I knew as mine was my faith.
It’s the only thing that’s ever felt real to me. ”
He cleared his throat. “When I reached Duart, the guard took one look at me—half-naked, freshly marked with the wolfhound—and called me Balor.1 They’d never seen hair shaved and knotted, a hound’s bone in it. Without your coin to pay the toll, I’d have been turned away. You saved me.”
Snow dotted the long strands of golden hair peeking from her hood. Her foxlike gaze held him—vulnerable, attentive, as if she truly understood. He had never studied a woman with such painstaking care.
When he didn’t go on, she brushed a snowflake from her cheek. “I thought the MacLean guards were more restrained than that. All that talk of virtue and honor. Hypocrites.” She grinned. “Maybe that’s the MacSorley in me.”
“This one wasnae a MacLean but a MacDonald—fostering from Ardtornish.”
Her brows creased. “You dinnae mean…Rory?”
“Aye.”
She burst into laughter, covering her face. “Rory challenged you?”
“Aye.”
“That must’ve ended quickly.”
“It did.”
“Poor laddie.”
His smile faded. “He never forgot the humiliation. From then on he mocked me, rallied others to it. Doc and Iain were my only friends—at first.”
“What did you do?”
He rowed them closer to the slip. “What could I do? Bought clothes like theirs. Gauntlets to hide my hands, a cap until my hair grew, a beard to cover my neck.” He chuckled at the memory. “Took years for that to come in properly.”
He leapt into the frigid water with an oath, hauling the skiff onto the shore. Bog bounded past, leaping through the drifts. Freya rose and took his outstretched hand. He meant to release her once she stood on dry land, but she held on, her small gloved fingers swallowed by his grip.
“You shouldnae be ashamed of what you are.”
He clutched her hand, uneasy. “And what am I?”
“Juran.”
He snorted. “Am I? The clan cast me out. The king’s cast me out.”
Their words faded into the hush of the hills, but movement among the boulders ahead caught his eye. A figure stepped out, and then several more—MacKay guard, swords drawn, eyes cold and resolute. He’d been to Sanaigmore a few times before, but had forgotten the covert way they conducted patrols.
The guard looked him over, voice sharp as steel. “State your business.”
Calum drew Freya closer. The MacKays had borne more attacks than any clan since the Wolf began his conquest, and he knew their suspicion of strangers.
“Bjorn and Anna MacLean of Jura. We seek Chieftain Angus MacKay on trade, in service to Chieftain Ragnall MacSorley of Somerled’s line.”
The guard, tall and broad-shouldered, eyed them with doubt. “You come to trade in a winter storm?” His gaze slid over Freya, lingering on her mouth with obvious lust. “Though it seems you’ve brought fire enough to warm more than snow.”
Calum stepped forward, voice hard. “Careful where your eyes wander. They may not find their way back.”
“We meant the lass no harm.”
Bog growled low. Freya’s hand tightened on Calum’s, warning him to hold, as she slipped into a silken laugh.
Her fingers traced the badge pinned to the guard’s chest, lingering just long enough to make Calum want to send his fist through the man’s gleaming teeth.
“Pay no mind to my husband—he’s more bark than bite.
Though…” Her gaze slid toward Calum, lashes dipping, voice a velvet purr.
“…I admit, the bite is impressive.” She let the words hang before turning back to the guard, eyes bright with mischief.
“Tell me, what better time to speak of a timber trade than in the coldest days? Jura’s shores are heavy with it.
Yours…” Her gaze wandered, slow and deliberate, to the barren hills beyond. “…are bare.”
The guard softened, sheathing his sword. “That’s all you had to say. How long will you stay?”
Freya smiled as if their arrival were chance. “We’d meant only the day, but the snow may keep us longer. Is there an inn nearby? One you might recommend?”
The man’s face lit. “Ardnave, north of here. The beds are most comfortable. I’d show you myself if I were free.”
Like hell you would. Calum glowered. She was weaving her tale too well. He tried to steady the dark spike of jealousy twisting through him. It was for the mission, for him. He had nearly mastered his expression when she looked at the guard—and winked.
He snatched her hand, yanking her back to his side. “Are we free to go?”
The guard stepped aside with the others. “Aye. Keep to the roads. Wander, and our watchmen will see you off our land.”
Calum nodded curtly, dragging Freya with him.
She chuckled as they climbed the next hill. “Did you see that? What a fool. Amazing what a bit of flattery can do with a man so—” She stopped at his sharp look. “What’s the matter with ye?”
“Nothing.”
“Have I upset you?”
Irritation built in his chest. “Nay. Just noting how effective you are at telling a story.”
“And I see why Rory stood no chance at Duart’s gate. You may hide what you look like, but you cannae hide what you are.”
He stopped short, anger flaring. “You cannae understand what it is to be hated for how you look. What you are.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh I cannae? Freya the Foul, remember? My father dressed me as a lad, shaved my head, disguised me. Worse, the person I am was hidden from everyone because they couldnae get past it.”
He grunted, unwilling to concede she had a point. “I can never remove these marks, no matter how much I want to. I hate them.”
“Why would you want to?
By the saints. “I just do.”
“They’re only marks. Your father bore the same, and he was one of the most respected men in the Isles.”
“They’re heathen marks, a reminder of my cowardice the day I received them.”
She stopped, hand on her hip. “Do you think me daft?”
In three months the lass had grown into her voice. She no longer stayed quiet or cowered. He had helped give her that confidence, but in this moment he didn’t like it. “Of course I—”
“I was there that day, MacLean. I saw it.”
“Aye, well, I lived it, MacSorley.”
“And I nearly drowned for it. I saw you strapped to that table, and I saw what was in your eyes—the pain, the conflict, and above all the love you bore your father. There’s nothing in that to be ashamed of.”
He turned, trudging toward Caolghlas, avoiding her gaze.
She hurried beside him, breath quick. “You loved him and you took the mark to honor him, even though it cost your conscience. I saw you sneak to Tarbert. I saw you pray on Sgùrr na Cìche. I knew how much that mark cost you, and it broke my heart because it was so dear—”
“Enough!” The word tore from him, his chest pounding, control slipping.
“I was a coward! I was trying not to cry the whole time because I knew I would never be the man my father was. It shamed me then, and it shames me now. From the moment I came of age I have fallen short of everything he was. Can you no’ see it?
“The only thing I’ve ever had is my faith—and even there I failed. I took the mark and walked back on it. Weak then, weak now. Unable to choose the clan over myself. A man caught between Jura and Christendom, a washout in both.”
He stared down at her, her mismatched eyes wide. Bog whined, and she patted his scruff. “’Tis all well, Bog. Da needed to get that off his chest.”
A second wave of anger burst over him. He yanked her hand and strode off. “I am no’ that mangy dog’s da!”
She let him drag her, unbothered by his sudden flare of temper. “All right, all right.”
They walked in silence through deepening snow until they crested the hill. Wind whipped in freezing gusts. Caolghlas loomed on the horizon, its towers stark against the white.
Doubt struck him like ice, cracking his resolve. If he failed in this mission, would Freya still see him the same? Would he still see himself as a man? Self-preservation urged him to take her home, to keep her from this side of his life, to avoid falling short again.
A warm palm slid over his neck, pulling him back. She moved his beard aside, brushing her finger over the beginning of the wolfhound.
The touch undid him. He wanted to cling to frustration, to nurse his self-pity, but her finger, light as snow, left him defenseless.
Her hand slid behind his ear, tangling in his hair, and he folded into her as docile as Bog.
She was so close, her beauty overwhelming, her presence beside him unshakable.
His voice was rough. “What are you doing, lass?”
“I needed to see it, to remind myself it isnae a magical mark. It’s as I thought.” She pulled him closer, brushing his temple. He felt hunted, caught in her snare. “’Tis just a mark. It holds no power.”
Her hand slid under his fur, untying the laces of his tunic to shift it aside and reveal the wolfhound.
“The man who endured the mark is compelling. I saw no weakness in him when he stood in honesty on what he believed, nor when he vowed an oath to the one true God, nor when he let his father cast him away. I felt the strength of his God that day—a first glimpse of dawning faith, the first sounds of a powerful call. That is why I followed you, Calum. Because I believed in you, and in you alone. To me, that is what this mark will always represent—the day I began to believe. And I still believe. In God, and in you.”
He looked down at the twisting dog upon his chest. For years he’d thought of it only as a blemish, a reminder of weakness. And yet, in her telling, it became something else—a mark of faith, of truth, of strength.
He caught her hand and kissed her fingers. “There’s the Storyteller for you. Always a deeper tale to be told.”
A smile curved her lips as she leaned in and pressed them to the wolfhound’s cheek. Warmth spread across the muscle. “Yes. And the tale is that ye have a Bog stigmaed upon your chest and arm. Adorable, really.”
He yanked his tunic closed and strode after her and Bog. “It’s the hound of war, Freya—not that daft mutt.”
She skipped ahead through the snow, face bright with cheer as she whistled. “Come. Come, Cù Cogaidh—we’ve a clan to reclaim.”