Chapter 33
33
Keyanna
I watch in horror as Brodie and Lachlan reach a standoff—Brodie’s knife is so close to Lachlan’s stomach that it would take only the tiniest movement for it to run him through. Panic claws at my chest as I try to think of what to do, how to help, but I’m frozen in place, having seemed to have forgotten how to move.
I call for Lachlan again and again, but he ignores me as he continues to grip Brodie by the wrist, keeping him from stabbing him but also not actually removing himself from harm’s way. They say something to each other, something I don’t make out, and I see Lachlan lean in closer, the knife at his belly practically touching him now.
I let out a scream when Brodie bucks up suddenly, taking Lachlan off guard and managing to flip him so that Lachlan is now the one pinned down, and my limbs remember how to work as the fear of actually seeing Lachlan run through with that wicked-looking knife courses through me.
I spin on my heel and sprint in the other direction, trying to find something familiar to let me know what I’m looking for. At first, all the headstones look the same, but once I find the barbed wire fence that Lachlan helped me under only a few weeks ago, I’m able to backtrack from there, finally standing in front of what we’ve all been searching for. All this time.
And it’s been right here under our noses.
I don’t have time to take in the intricately carved bust of a horse, the detailing in the headstone obvious even in its weathered state—but I can’t help running my fingers over the name that’s nearly rubbed off, remembering it from the last time I was here.
The T is clearly visible, and even though the rest of the name is still almost impossible to read—I know it now. He’d been here all along.
Tavish MacKay.
I reach for the ancient-looking leather strap that rests on the horse head, properly adorned as if you could urge the animal to get up and go even now. I’m gentle as I remove it, knowing it now for what it is, and even holding it in my hands—it’s kind of hard to believe. It looks so worn, so plain…it looks nothing at all like some all-powerful artifact.
But I don’t have time to dwell on that.
I hold it up high over my head as I run back to the clearing where Lachlan is still snarling under Brodie’s weight, fighting back against the gravity of Brodie’s knife as he tries to drive it downward right into Lachlan’s chest. The organ in my chest lurches at the sight. I watch in horror as he puts all his body weight into it, Lachlan only just managing to shove Brodie’s hand away so that the knife pierces Lachlan in the shoulder instead of through the heart.
Lachlan’s cry of pain guts me, the immediate blooming of red on his sweater forcing my mouth open.
“Brodie!” I yell, holding the bridle higher. “Stop it! This is what you want!”
He blinks at me when he notices what I’m holding; his arms relax a fraction even as his knife remains lodged in Lachlan’s shoulder, and I hold out the bridle in offering.
“Don’t hurt him anymore,” I tell Brodie, “and you can have it.”
Brodie’s eyes narrow as if this is some sort of trick, but with Lachlan still hissing in pain beneath him, his sweater becoming more and more drenched with his blood by the second—he seems to let down his guard. He tugs the knife free without any finesse, earning another pained grunt from Lachlan, who he ignores as he rises to his feet, stepping away from him.
“S’good choice,” Brodie tells me, pointing the knife my way defensively. I have to actively not look at it, the sight of Lachlan’s blood making me feel sick. “Now hand it over, Key. I don’t want to hurt you. You did nothing wrong. You’re a victim here, don’t you see?” He gestures back at Lachlan’s prone form. “ He’s the monster.”
I nod slowly, not daring to answer; the crazed look in Brodie’s eyes doesn’t spark the desire to try and reason with him. I hold out the bridle with only slightly shaking hands, my gut twisting as he takes it gingerly. His lips curl in a maniacal grin as he stares down at it, his hand that holds the knife dropping to his side as he appraises the leather with his thumb.
I’m already moving around him to go to Lachlan, desperate to try and heal his wound, but am taken off guard when Brodie kicks out his leg, tripping me and forcing me down to the ground. I grunt in pain as I collide with the solid earth, hearing Brodie tsk above me.
“You’re still choosing to be ignorant, then?” He grips the bridle in one hand, shaking his head disappointedly. “I really did like you, you know. It’s a shame.”
He wipes Lachlan’s blood on the leg of his pants unceremoniously, turning back to Lachlan with a murderous intent in his eyes. I don’t even let him make it a step before I reach out and grab for his ankle, holding it as tightly as I can to try to stop him from going.
He looks down at me, amusement playing out over his features. “You don’t know when to give up. Do you?”
I close my eyes, blocking out his voice, trying to concentrate. He says something else, something with that same condescending tone, but I keep my hands around his ankle, drawing on that energy, filling that well inside as I give all my focus to one single purpose. I feel it when it happens, the heat rushing down my arms and through my hands until the burning is a physical thing, and then I smile to myself even as Brodie continues to bluster above me.
And that’s when his pant leg bursts into flames.
He starts to scream as the fire quickly climbs higher up his leg, beating it with both hands in an attempt to put it out. I roll away from him to avoid the flames, his cries echoing around the clearing as he thrashes about in a panic, still smacking at his pant leg. He stumbles backward, teetering off-balance as his feet snag on fallen branches and thick piles of leaves, and he doesn’t see it coming, I think—but I do.
His heels catch on an old log as he tumbles backward, everything seeming to happen in slow motion. His body drops like deadweight, his head cracking against one of the tombstones even as his pants continue to burn. He immediately goes still, and in this moment, I have no idea if he’s alive or dead. I’m honestly not sure if I care, after everything that’s just happened—but then I notice what he’s still holding.
More importantly, I notice that it’s on fire.
The bridle!
I rush to my feet, sprinting toward Brodie’s prone body, stomping out the last of the flames that consume the old leather, then shucking off my jacket and starting to beat the fire that still eats at Brodie’s pants. When it’s all out, and I’m sweating and out of breath and coughing from the smoke—only then do I notice the tragedy of what’s happened.
The bridle is ruined.
I kneel down to try to carefully pry it from Brodie’s grip, watching as it crumbles in several places where the flames have eaten away at the ancient material. I begrudgingly check Brodie for a pulse, finding that the bastard is just knocked out, not dead, and I resist the urge to kick him in the gut for good measure, knowing I have more important things to deal with.
I make quick work of crossing the clearing to fall at Lachlan’s side, blood now fully soaking the sleeve of his sweater. His face is contorted in pain, and I immediately shove my hands under his neckline, not caring about the blood in the slightest as I press my fingers to his wound.
That same warmth from the night on the loch—the night I first found out what he was—collects in my palms, and I can see it clearly now, the glow that comes with it. It comes almost easily. Like a thought made real. It takes several moments for the bleeding to slow, for Lachlan’s face to smooth out and his eyes to flutter open, and when I see those icy blues looking up at me with pure awe and adoration, I do the one thing that seems to be a habit, at this point.
I burst into tears.
Lachlan sits up with a grunt to gather me in his arms, holding me to his chest as he frantically touches me all over, his voice a panicked coo.
“Oi , ” he says lowly. “What is it? Are you hurt? Did he get you? I swear, if he hurt you, I’ll—”
I shake my head against his chest, sobs racking my body. “I’m fine. I’m fine. But it doesn’t matter. I ruined it. I didn’t mean to, I just wanted to save you, but I—”
My words break off into unintelligible babblings as I continue to weep in a way that has to be appalling to watch, but still Lachlan cradles my face in his hands, forcing it up so that I have to look at him.
“Come now,” he murmurs. “Shh. Don’t cry. We can figure it out. You did so good, love. So good.”
This only makes my lip quiver harder, hearing his praise while knowing that I’ve robbed us of any chance to save him, and I sniffle loudly as I offer up the tattered remains of the bridle, holding it out so that he can see the damage done.
“He was holding it,” I choke out. “When he was trying to put the fire out. I didn’t think—I just—”
Lachlan stares down at the ruined scraps of leather in my hand, his mouth parting in surprise as he reaches out to run his fingers over it. I can see the flicker of disappointment there, and I’m seconds away from falling into a fresh wave of tears when he shakes his head, grabbing the bridle from me and tossing it away.
“We don’t need it,” he says resolutely.
I rear back, my brow furrowing even as tears continue to leak from my eyes. “What do you mean we don’t need it ? It’s what we’ve been searching for all this time! How are we supposed to save you without the bridle’s magic?”
He shakes his head again, his palms cradling my cheeks as he drops his head to level his gaze with mine. “We don’t need it,” he says again. “You can do it yourself.”
I balk, my mouth falling open even as confusion racks me. “What? What the hell are you talking about? I can’t do anything. Anything real, that is. They’re just fancy party tricks, remember?”
“Aye, that’s what I said,” he agrees. “But look at all you’ve done! You knew where to find me. You came after me. You saved me.” He snorts. “Hell, it was you who found the journal to begin with. You who figured things out when no one in my family could for centuries . Don’t you get it, Key?”
I frown, sniffling again. “Get what?”
“It’s you,” he says quietly, his smile soft and his eyes softer. “The magic is you .”
He looks so sure when he says it, so goddamned certain that he’s not spouting nonsense as my brain tries to tell me he is, and for a moment, I can only gape at him.
“No,” I splutter finally. “No, I can’t—”
He shuts me up by pressing his mouth to mine.
“You can,” he murmurs against my lips. “I know you can.”
I whip my head to the edge of the clearing, where I can just see the sun starting to sink, and that same panic tries to climb higher into my throat. “We don’t have time,” I exclaim. “It’s almost sundown. We have to get you to the loch. We have to—”
“No,” he says firmly. “I’m not going anywhere, because I know you can finish this. Right here.”
I feel tears gathering again at my eyes, blurring my vision, and fear grips my chest, making me feel cold. “What if I can’t?’ I whisper. “What if I can’t save you? What if I fail ?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he hums, kissing me again gently.
“How can you say that?”
“Because,” he tells me. “It won’t change how much I love you.”
A tiny gasp escapes me, the terror rattling around in my rib cage morphing into a hot pressure that seems to fill me up like water in a bowl, so quickly and so much that I feel overflowing with it.
“You do?”
“Aye,” he chuckles. “Even your awful singing.”
A watery laugh escapes me, and I reach out to hold his wrists even as his hands still cradle my face.
“I love you too.”
I know with certainty at that moment that I absolutely mean it. Of course I love him. What better explanation is there for this all-consuming need I feel to be near him, to make sure that I’m able to for years to come?
“You can do it, love,” he encourages. “I know you can.”
I nod heavily as I lift my hands from his wrists, bringing them to his cheeks to hold him in the same way he’s still holding me. I rest my forehead against his as I will my breathing to slow, taking deep, heavy breaths and blowing them out as I shut my eyes tight.
At first, I don’t know where to begin. I can feel the energy still humming around me, like it knows it’s not done with me yet. I gather it closer like a cloak, pulling it until it covers and surrounds us. I let my mind fill with thoughts of Sorcha, of my family, of all the things that led us here, remembering what she wrote in Tavish’s journal.
—one day one such lass shall walk this world, hold my magic, and be given a chance to forgive. Only should she take it, will my curse be no more.
“You lied to me,” I whisper, remembering what drove me from him in the first place, what caused me to leave him all alone.
He nods slowly, his thumb brushing across my cheek. “Aye, I did,” he answers. “And if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it right.”
I feel a pulsing in the air, a thrumming that I can almost hear— and reach for it in my mind, almost able to imagine the warmth of it under my fingertips. The light continues to die with every second, and yet when I open my eyes, the space around us seems to glow with an otherworldly luminescence.
I imagine a hand resting gently against the crown of my head, a warm, encouraging touch that feels like one I know, even if it isn’t actually there.
Sorcha.
I can feel her here, and emotion swells inside me as a strange melancholy seizes me, realizing I can never know her. That I can never thank her for what she’s given me.
Oddly enough, it almost feels like she might know.
I bring my mouth to Lachlan’s in a barely there kiss, urging that warmth, that light, to pour into him, to rush through every part of him, casting its glow on all the darkest parts of him and leaving only him in their wake.
I smile as a swelling sense of calm rises up in me, and I can feel it, all that’s left to do.
“I forgive you,” I tell him.
He meets me with equal fervor when I kiss him more deeply, his strong arms wrapping around me and molding me to him as that humming energy builds and builds and builds before finally—all is quiet.
It takes me several seconds to stop kissing him, just so happy that he’s here, that he’s okay, but when we finally break apart—I just know. I can feel it.
The curse is no more.
We both turn to watch the last light of the sun sink below the horizon, and when it’s completely gone, leaving us in nothing but the dim rays of the moonlight—I see Lachlan’s eyes swim with tears. A sob escapes him as he crushes me against him once more, burying his face in my throat as his shoulders shake with the weight of his emotion.
“Thank you,” he whispers. “ Thank you. ”
I laugh, the sound of it broken up by my own thick emotion still lodged in my throat. “I guess that party trick came in handy, hm?”
“Aye,” he chuckles brokenly. “I’m glad you decided to save my arse this time instead of setting it on fire.”
I pull back, unable to wipe the beaming grin from my face, but since Lachlan’s is a perfect match for it, I think it’s fine. “I did save you, didn’t I? Again .”
“Aye, you did.”
“Who’s the princess now, huh?”
“Och. I’ll never live that down, will I?”
I lean in, pressing my lips to his cheek. “Not a chance.”
“What do we do about that bastard over there?”
I turn back to glance at Brodie’s still-prone form. “Tie him up?”
“With pleasure,” Lachlan says with a smile.
“And your ancestor’s journal?”
Lachlan grimaces, almost a sneer. “Burn the bloody thing for all I care.”
I don’t know if I agree with that choice, but I guess I understand it.
“This is going to be”—I glance around at the mess of the clearing—“hard to explain.”
“Aye, but we have all night to come up with a story,” Lachlan says, pushing to his feet and offering his hand to help me do the same. “Now that I won’t turn, we have plenty of time to—”
I watch as he goes still, his eyes rounding and his mouth hanging agape.
“What?” I ask. “What is it?”
His wide eyes find mine. “My da. Do you think…?”
“Oh.” My heart rate picks up. “Well. There’s only one way to find out, right?”
He nods, lacing his fingers through mine, and I send up a silent plea.
I squeeze Lachlan’s hand. “He’ll be there,” I tell him. “I can feel it.”
Maybe if I speak it into existence…it will have to come true.