Chapter 2 #2
The storm came from the anger boiling up inside him.
Thanks to his mixed blood he’d suffered a weakness since birth that made his moods affect the weather.
From fogs when he was melancholy, blizzards when he grew lonely, or storms and whirlwinds when his temper frayed, his every emotion changed the conditions in the highlands.
He endeavored to remain indifferent under any circumstances, but the dark Fae queen’s demands had made that impossible.
Now he’d been fool enough to enter into a bargain with her that he could not lose, else the world pay the ultimate price.
Facking Fae.
Whether dark or light, the immortal otherworlders had always imposed themselves on mortal kind.
Tair’s sire Rune had taken Brenna as his lover without once realizing what it would mean when she bore his half-mortal son.
Now he would have to settle his sire’s debt, one that had nothing to do with him or his clan, just to keep everyone alive and safe.
The crystal in his fist grew brighter, as if empowered by his dark thoughts.
Would it call back that immortal wretch to laugh over his rage?
We’ve almost a year until the winter solstice. We’ll find the cursed thing.
Tair took in air and imagined sitting in a green meadow in the sunlight.
As he did his emotions settled and the glow of the queen’s gem diminished.
He’d never parlayed with the Fae, but at least it would be the final time he had to serve the vicious monarch, thanks to this wench and her shrewd thinking.
At least he could say as much to her. “My thanks for your counsel, Mistress.”
“It’s nothing,” she said, her voice tight. “You’re hurting me.”
Tair looked down to see her pale face, and loosened the arm he’d clamped around her. “Why didnae you say?”
“I just did.” She let out a breath and pressed her hand against her ribs, brushing his fingers.
He didn’t take his arm away, for holding her long body against his made him desire to do much more.
Lucy was all softness and warmth and fetching shape, as if the Gods had fashioned her as a boon only for him.
Her pale golden skin smelled so clean and sweet he wondered if she had rubbed herself with wild strawberry blooms. Her shining light gold hair yet clung to his arm as if spun for a princess’s goffered veil, silkier even than that costly shawl that had been blown away by the opening of the rift.
Handling her so boldly made him wish to do so much more .
Yet who was she, this dream of a woman? Why had she dropped from the sky?
The outlandish, mannish garments she wore along with her odd manner of speaking suggested she’d come from a very different, faraway place.
Had she run away from a cruel master who had forced her to dress like a man?
Had she no kin to care for and protect her?
Was her helplessness why his dark blood surged hot and heavy in his veins now?
Would she turn him into a beast before he could stop himself?
“I don’t understand any of this,” she said as she glanced around them, her pretty face taut with distress.
He’d been so ensnared by her hair and curves that he hadn’t noticed the color of her eyes.
They resembled pale green highland marble set in fine gold scrollwork.
He had seen eyes of the same color before now, but could not recall who shared them.
Lucy had already proven herself canny, but now he saw the intelligence she possessed as she looked over him.
She seemed to be pondering something, which she confirmed with her next words.
“This is a very realistic hallucination, or I’ve gone completely bonkers,” she said under her breath, as if speaking only to herself.
“It was mid-morning when it started, but it’s almost night now here.
When they find me, they’ll give me something to snap me out of it.
Some kind of jab, I’m sure. All I have to do is wait. ”
He frowned, annoyed by the fact that now he didn’t understand what she meant. The words she used troubled him as well. “You dinnae believe you’re dreaming, or in Narnia, or whatever more you said.”
“Maybe I’ve gone loopy. Loony. I don’t know.
I was given the option to come here or die horribly.
Since I very much like breathing, not really a choice.
” Her shoulders drooped, which aggravated him even more.
“Let’s say this is real, and so was what I saw in the future.
Can I go back to my world before that queen of the monsters destroys this one?
If I can, can I go to a different place, like Alaska? ”
Tair fathomed a little of what she’d asked him.
He knew Fae sometimes took mortals against their will to Elphyne, but they never fared well there.
If Lucy had been abducted by the light or dark Fae, it would explain how she had known to prompt a bargain with the dark queen, too.
That she wanted to return to her time he understood, but to travel to the future was impossible for all but the magic folk, and they would never offer any aid to the MacRune.
“Stay,” he told her. “You should dwell among your own kind, wench.”
He’d move her off the island and send her to work at one of the farms the clan owned, Tair thought as he released her. The moment he took his arm from her she spun around and ran into the trees, which began thrashing their limbs as the wind rose again.
Facking devious wench.
Tair had to take a moment to calm himself a second time before he followed her tracks into the forest. She would soon tire out and realize she was on an island, with no escape.
Then he could capture and deal with her before speaking to Cath and his senior men about the bargain he’d struck with the queen.
How shall I tell them we’ve a year to find a treasure even her best couldnae locate, and if we fail that immortal fiend shall end us all?
No doubt the queen had come to him because of their sire’s prowess.
Most of Tair’s brothers had no memory of Rune or what he had been capable of; they were the result of his careless bedding of countless mortal females during his hunt.
He’d always left them, never to return or meet the sons he’d sired.
The only reason Tair and Cath had any knowledge of the dark Fae assassin was because Rune had taken the war master from his mortal family and made him his apprentice, and Tair’s màthair had provided them both with shelter and food whenever they passed through her town.
I must choose my words carefully, else the prospect shatters the clan.
Seeing Lucy standing at the water’s edge gave Tair pause.
Although the wench was lovelier than a princess, she was an outsider, and would be trouble.
Everything about her appeared wrong, and she seemed to have no idea of the time and place to where she had come.
Not once had she even addressed him properly.
He recalled the silk that had enveloped her when she had fallen from the sky, and how quickly it had vanished when the dark Fae queen had entered the mortal realm.
Had it been the cluet? Tair wondered as he went to stand beside her.
“The loch’s waters, they’re too deep and cold to swim,” he told her. “You cannae leave Gealladh.”
“So I’m stranded here,” Lucy said without looking at him. “In a world I know nothing about, with you.”
Tair lifted his hand to touch her shoulder, but she stepped aside to avoid it. That struck him like a hard clout, and he could not fathom why. “Cease your sulking. ’Tisnae the worst of fates, wench.”
“Obviously not for you. I want off this island.” She turned to face him. “I need to go to Scotland Yard. I mean, whatever you call the authorities here in this time,” she added when he frowned.
Lucy was far too beautiful to be allowed to roam the highlands. If the rumors about the new magistrate were true, sending her to seek his counsel would end very badly for her.
“I’m the law on MacRune land,” Tair told her. “Speak to me.”
“I need someone with more authority than you.” When he didn’t say anything Lucy stamped her foot like a bairn having a tantrum.
“I’m not kidding. You can’t just do whatever you want with me.
I’m a free, independent woman in my world.
I’m under no obligation to help you look for this enchanted shawl.
I want to go home.” She looked up and then skittered backward. “Why are your eyes like that?”
The sun had disappeared behind the clouds, but Tair couldn’t explain why that changed the color of his eyes without revealing more than he wished her to know.
She also had no respect for his position, or she would have dropped to her knees and begged his forgiveness for speaking to him with such insolence.
Yet since she was also in no state to listen to reason.
He had no more time for her, so he had but one thing to do.
Without another word he seized her, flung her over his shoulder and held down her kicking legs with one arm.
Lucy screeched and struggled and pounded his back with her small fists as Tair walked back to the stronghold, where his second in command met him at the gates .
“My lord.” Dorchad glanced at the noisy, writhing ball of fury on his shoulder before regarding him without expression. “You’ve caught another outsider?”
“Aye. Take her.” Tair passed her over to him, although it tore at him to let her go.
Of all that threatened her here, he might be the greatest threat.
As the chieftain tucked her under his big arm, he said, “Dinnae harm her for now, Dorchad. Attend to her as we do all trespassers.” As Lucy stopped struggling to stare at him, he added, “Lock her in the dungeons.”