Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
A month after the raid on the slave camp Tair sent for a druid who had been staying at Dun Maor. He didn’t tell her why, but it was so unlike him to ask an outsider to come to the island that Lucy immediately grew suspicious.
“Druid people hate the dark Fae, so why would this man help you?” she asked. “And why do you need help anyway?”
“You shall see when he arrives,” was all the laird would say.
Lucy retreated to the gardens to do some weeding, which was better than punching her fiancé in front of his men.
She had just finished clearing out a bed of spiky chives when a short, slender man came in through the inner bailey gate.
He appeared very young, like an adolescent, and had a sweet face with large, beautiful eyes.
The embroidered robe he wore looked as if it had been made out of dark blue silk, which she knew to be outrageously expensive in this time.
As she stood he stopped to bow, before continuing on into the stronghold.
After washing up at a rain barrel Lucy went in and found the druid talking to Tair in the great hall.
“If you’ll bid your vassals to leave us,” the young man said, “I shall then test the lady and answer you.”
Test the lady? Lucy thought, worried now. “Am I the one he’s testing?”
“Aye, wench. Dinnae toy with her, lad,” Tair warned before he shouted for the maids and sculleries to get out, which they did.
“You could be a little nicer,” Lucy murmured to him before she met Kiamh’s innocuous gaze. Something about him seemed a bit sad, although she couldn’t say why. “Right, then, they’re gone. What is this test you want to do?”
The young man reached out to her. “I’ve but to hold your hands in mine, my lady.”
She took hold of him, jumping a little at how cold his touch was. “We should get you some brew so you can warm up.”
“I’m ever chilled, my lady.” Kiamh released her, and held out his hands palm-up as he turned to the laird. “Forgive me, my lord, but I cannae bring your lady before the druid council. Your kind, they’re no’ welcomed by those who rule the magic folk.”
“My kind?” she echoed. “Do you mean women?”
“I speak of immortal kind.” When Tair made an impatient sound, he smiled at him. “If you dinnae believe me, you may prove such with a small cut.”
“He has to cut me?” she demanded, but the laird had already come to her and took hold of her wrist. He used his dagger to slice a shallow cut across her palm.
“Ow, that bloody hurt.” She snatched her hand away, but when she went to press her sleeve against the wound she saw the cut closing. “Bollocks. It’s already healing.”
“You must stay the night, Druid,” Tair said to Kiamh. “If you’ll keep the lady’s secret, I shall gift you as much gold as you may carry.”
“Serving the MacAlen I’ve no need of gold, my lord. I shall gladly say naught of your lady to anyone. Only ken you must take care no’ to allow mortals to discover her boon. They shallnae treat her kindly.” Kiamh bowed to them and then left.
Tair grabbed a goblet of whiskey and drank from it before he seized her hand and poured the rest over the cut. That erased her blood and showed her unmarked palm, now entirely healed.
With a satisfied grunt he brought her hand to his mouth and licked the traces of whisky from her skin .
“You did this to me,” Lucy muttered, half-heartedly trying to jerk free of his hold. “You and your half-evil blood.”
“You didnae drink nor bathe in my blood,” he countered, tugging her close and folding his big arms around her. “I’ll wager ’twas that facking rag.”
She rubbed her brow against the wall of muscle that made up his chest. “The old herbalist said that cluet can only grant wishes if you’re touching it. Every time I go to grab the thing it bogs off.”
“Mayhap your lady màthair only seemed mortal?” When she glared up at him he kissed the tip of her nose. “’Tis of no consequence to me how you attained immortality. ’Tis the fact that you’re as the clan—as me. We shall ever and always live together, mo bhana-bhuidseach òir .”
She gave him a wan smile. “At least we have that much now.”
M oving through the shadowy passages of Gealladh that night required no stealth, for the clansmen paid Kiamh no heed.
He didn’t look like a threat, and his reputation as a poor slave rescued by the MacAlen had already been firmly established.
He’d been a source of gossip for everyone in the highlands, something that he’d quietly encouraged.
The other captives had been reunited with their families, but Kiamh claimed he had no memory of his tribe or where they dwelled.
The fact that he appeared to have been tortured garnered him much sympathy.
In the vassal’s privy he changed his garments, adding a sheep’s fleece around his middle before covering everything with a cloak. He then walked down a back passage used only by the woodsmen adding splits to the stronghold’s stores.
Fools. Kiamh smirked as he came to the door he needed, and opened it. You see only what I desire you see. He heard the sound of footsteps behind him, and quickly went inside the chamber and bolted the door.
“Mo ghràdh, ” he called out in a deliberately higher, coarser voice. “I’m here as I promised you. Come and kiss me.”
He stood by the door and listened as he heard light footsteps pass by, and then turned around to take in his surroundings.
The small chamber, lit only by some feeble flames dying in the hearth, appeared nearly empty.
Only a jug and basin on the floor beside a rope bed indicated anyone occupied the space.
From the big mound on the bed and the sounds of watery snoring it seemed the stableman was fast asleep .
Kiamh had watched him drinking with the clan earlier, and waited until he’d stumbled off before he followed.
Now he went over and sat beside the mound, drawing back the coverlet to expose a plump bald man with a bulbous nose and wet lips. The thought of this disgusting lump violating anyone made him want to bury a blade in his eye.
“Eejits ever slumber so peacefully.” He leaned over him, breathing in the heavy stink of whiskey coming from the man’s mouth. “You shouldnae drink so much that you cannae fight back, you ken.”
The man didn’t move when Kiamh tugged his chin down, but when he stuffed his mouth with a wad of sacking his bleary eyes fluttered open. By then Kiamh straddled the drunkard, and clamped his strong hands around his pudgy throat.
“Aye, now you’re the one who cannae resist.” He squeezed, smiling as he cut off the bastart’s air. “I’d fack you as well, but I dinnae want to stick my precious cock in your diseased hole. You near cost me everything, you greedy fack.”
Kiamh throttled the stableman until he fell unconscious again. He then removed the sacking from his slack mouth and shoved him over, pressing his head into the ticking as he shifted upward, and brought his full weight onto the back of the man’s head.
The darkness had filled him again, but he no longer cared. Night had filled his heart, and he would never again act a fool to make amends for what had never been his fault.
Kiamh remembered the day he had been dragged from his cottage and marched in front of his silent tribe to the seven elders, who had him lashed with golden mistletoe to the punishment pole.
Rather than flog him, the elders had formed a circle around him, calling on the Gods to cleanse him of pride and greed, and remove the power that had corrupted him.
He countered with his own warding spell, but it had collapsed.
When they finished stripping him of the dark magic he had secretly acquired, they cut him loose and offered him an impossible choice.
“You may live humbly, as servant to the tribe,” one elder had told him. “Never again to practice magic, to take a mate, or to sire bairns. If you refuse to atone for seeking the darkness, then we shall cast you out forever.”
“You’ve no proof I’ve chosen to turn from the light,” he said, furious that he hadn’t been able to stop them. He then went still as two of the younger druids dragged a stained, odorous sack in front of him, and emptied the charred contents onto the ground.
“You sacrificed this beast in the meadow beneath the full moon,” the elder said. “The wee boar didnae deserve a tainted death. Nor does the bairn you watched from your hiding place by the crofter’s cottage.”
“I would never.” He allowed his voice to shake. “I slayed a piglet so I might read the future from its entrails. I saw what shall come for the tribe–”
“Silence.” The elder clouted him with the knob of his walking stick, sending him to his knees. “Such fortellings, they’re dark magic, and forbidden to druid kind. You ken such, and still you pollute yourself with evil.”
Kiamh had given up trying to deceive them, and rose to curse them before he had run into the forest. No one had chased after him, so in the eyes of his tribe, his choice had been made.
He had no more use for them. To convince others that his banishment had been a cruel and unnecessary punishment, however, he needed to carefully fashion how he would be viewed.
No one would believe Kiamh had deliberately allowed the slavers to capture him, of course.
Only a madman would do such—or one who had some regret over his mistakes.
Happily he had chosen a vicious bunch who abused their slaves so much they lost at least one each night to their injuries.
By the time they reached the highlands, Kiamh would have enough bruises and injuries to convince anyone how deeply he had suffered.
Now he’d found a man in a powerful position to help him get what he truly wanted.
Which shall I become? Anyone I desire.