Chapter Five
“What in the name of all that is holy?” Drummond urged his mount back a few paces as a black cloud filled with lightning boiled a few feet above the sidhe hill. The rest of the sky turned as inky as the darkest night, even though it was midday, and only moments ago, the sun had shone brightly.
“We should not be here,” Murdoch said, struggling to control his terrified mount.
“No.” Drummond kept his gaze locked on the cloud alive with lightning.
“Here is exactly where we are meant to be.” He felt it in his gut more surely than he had ever felt anything before.
She was coming, Mockingbird was coming, and he’d sworn to the voice and the powers above that he never ran from anything.
His horse reared and pawed at the air, slicing it with its hooves.
The howling winds swallowed the animal’s frightened screams. Drummond held on.
If he lost his seat, the beast would surely bolt, and he’d be walking his arse across the Highlands.
The mossy hillside became a sea of lush grasses that stretched taller before his very eyes.
“We must leave,” Murdoch shouted over the storm.
Drummond ignored him. No, Mockingbird needed him.
He would remain until she arrived. He’d promised to protect her.
It didn’t matter that he had no idea to whom he’d made that promise; all he knew was that he fully intended to keep his word.
Mockingbird would be safe. He needed to meet this woman more than he had ever needed anything in a very long while.
Blinding streaks of lightning shot out of the cloud and splintered the blackness of the heavens.
Thunder shook the earth, then an unholy silence fell across the land, and the wind disappeared.
The horses immediately calmed as if ordered to do so by a higher power.
Something moved inside the clumps of grasses at the hill’s summit.
Drummond squinted at the form in the darkness, trying to make it out. Then the faintest moan came from those shadows, and his heart leapt. Mockingbird. He leapt from the saddle and charged up the hillside.
“Drummond!” Murdoch shouted. “No! ’Tis surely a trap.”
He ignored him. It was her. Curled in the grass like a wee fawn cowering from the storm. He knelt close, but didn’t touch her. Not yet. He didn’t wish to frighten her.
“Mockingbird?” he whispered, leaning over her.
Her eyes were closed. She shuddered, then hugged herself into a tighter ball of helplessness that demanded he scoop her up and hold her close.
“I have ye, lass. Dinna fash yerself. All will be well.”
She groaned, then shivered again as though it were already the dead of winter, and she was nigh on freezing.
He yanked his woolen brat from around his shoulders and cloaked her in its folds. “I have ye,” he told her again as he rose with her in his arms and descended the hillside. “Murdoch—’tis her.”
The man pointed at the ever-brightening sky. “The storm brought her to ye. Look how it clears now that she’s here.”
Drummond spared the horizon a glance, then returned his focus to the maiden that the gods or the Fae or whoever had seen fit to give him. “Hold her whilst I get into the saddle, then hand her up to me, ye ken?”
“Aye.” Murdoch took her from him.
An unreasonable surge of jealousy burned through Drummond like a fiery brand. “Dinna hold her so close.”
Murdoch backed up a step, arching both brows in surprise before shifting to hold her at arm’s length. As soon as Drummond settled in the saddle, he handed her up to him, then offered a smug bow. “There ye are, m’lord.”
Murdoch only called him m’lord when he was vexed, and Drummond supposed he shouldn’t have snarled at the man. It wasn’t as though he’d tried to maul the lovely maiden. But he couldn’t help it. Jealousy had taken him over. “Dinna be an arse, Murdoch—and forgive me. I dinna ken what came over me.”
With a snort, Murdoch went to his mount, launched himself into the saddle, and urged the beast to head homeward.
Drummond tightened his cloak around his precious passenger, lashing her snugly against his body. Her soft warmth seeped into him. Her scent—the sweetness of honey, of a rain-swept glen filled with heather—wrapped delicate tendrils around him. It pulled him in and possessed him.
“Mockingbird,” he whispered again without even realizing it.
She curled closer, fisting her hands in his jacket and holding tight. “I hope you’re an EMT. I think I’m dying.”
What the devil was an EMT? He shook away the wondering. It didn’t matter. “Ye’ll not be dying. I shall not allow it.”
“Everything hurts, and if I open my eyes, I’m going to throw up.”
Throw up? She had to be one of the Fae. She didn’t speak like anyone he’d ever known, and her clothing…
He swallowed hard. The way her breeks hugged her fine arse gave him a rising that raged to be acknowledged.
What could she throw when she didn’t appear to possess anything other than the clothes on her back?
“Throw up what?” he asked a bit louder than he meant to.
“My breakfast, and I don’t mean to be rude, but could you not shout? Everything is so loud. My head feels like it’s about to explode.”
“Forgive me.” He kneed his horse to a faster pace.
Mockingbird needed the healer immediately.
“We will be there soon. Mistress Martha will see to ye.” Some swore the old woman who’d recently arrived at Dubh Tower was a witch.
Drummond didn’t care what she was as long as she healed this dear lady in his arms. “She’ll know of herbs to help ye. ”
“I hope so,” the lass whispered, tightening her hold on his jacket. “I’m Evie, by the way. Evie Waterton.”
“Evie Waterton,” he repeated softly. Mild disappointment set in. He liked the name Mockingbird better. “I thought the gods called ye Mockingbird?”
“Gods?” She pressed her forehead to her fists that were still knotted in his jacket. A shudder rippled through her. “My granddaddy always called me Mockingbird. I’m not sure what God calls me. I don’t guess it matters—as long as He calls me.”
A Christian, then. Not a follower of the auld ways. That confused him even more. How could she not be a follower of the auld ways when she’d come to him through the storm above the sidhe hill? He’d thought for certain she was one of the Fae.
“I’ll have ye to the keep soon,” he told her, unsure what else to say. “Never ye fear. I shall see ye safe. I swore I would, and a MacMuirrow never breaks an oath.”
She didn’t answer, just clapped a hand over her mouth. Her pallor concerned him. All the blood had left her skin, leaving her white as milk. She weakly thumped his chest with her fist. “Could we stop? Just for a minute? Please?”
Even though he disagreed, he reined in his mount. “Ye would be better served to reach the keep as soon as possible. We should push and get there with haste.”
“Is a keep the same thing as a walk-in clinic or hospital?” She covered her face with both hands, rubbing her forehead while taking deep, shuddering breaths.
He couldn’t resist gently combing her silky tresses back through his fingers. “Dubh Tower’s keep is my home. My new healer, Mistress Martha, is there. I dinna ken what a walk-in clinic might be, and I would never take ye to a shelter for the needy. Ye will always have shelter with me.”
The rhythm of her breathing changed, and even with her hands over her eyes, he could tell she was frowning. “A shelter for the needy?” she repeated, the pitch of her voice higher and filled with confusion.
“Aye. A hospital. A shelter for the needy.”
She pushed away from him, trying to upright herself. “Where are Callum and Morganna? Are they following us?” She swallowed hard, making him brace himself for the possibility of her being ill. “Where is my horse?”
“I know of no Callum or Morganna. Nor anything about yer mount. The storm only spat ye out upon the hill. No one else.”
Her lovely face drawn up in a tight squint, she slowly cracked open her eyes and looked at him. Her jaw dropped, parting her luscious lips. What little color she’d regained disappeared again, leaving her whiter than newly fallen snow.
“Holy crap,” she said. Her voice cracked, making her squeak like a wee mousie.
Alarm flashed in her green eyes, warning him to tighten his hold on her just in time.
She exploded with the lively ferocity of a wee Highland wildcat fighting to escape the hounds.
Attempting to free herself, she kicked, twisted to bite him, and even tried butting him with her head like a wee angry goat.
“I don’t know who you think you are, but turn me loose. Set me down. Now!”
“Stop this foolishness afore ye fall and break yer neck!” He gave her a gentle shake. “Stop this, I say. Immediately! I dinna wish ye harmed.”
“Why?” she asked, baring her teeth like a cornered beastie.
“And where did you come from? Why did you disappear last night and not let Morganna see you? Why were you lurking around my cottage trying to scare me? I thought your voice sounded familiar. How did you find out my nickname? How did you know to call me Mockingbird?”
“The why I wish ye to be still is because I swore to protect ye. Keep ye safe. Those other whys, I’ve no idea of what ye’re speaking.
” He eased his hold the slightest bit, hoping it would calm her.
It didn’t. She renewed her fight to free herself with a stronger flurry of kicking and thrashing.
A growl escaped him. He couldn’t help it.
“Stop this right now, or I shall bind ye with ropes and throw ye over my saddle like a sack of grain. Is that the way ye wish to ride across the Highlands? Is it?”
She glared at him with murder in her eyes. “Answer me. Where did you come from last night, and why didn’t you let Morganna see you?”
“As I said, I dinna ken of what ye speak. Last night, I was at Dubh Tower meeting with my clan’s council, and I know of no Morganna.”