Chapter Fourteen
Maybe she shouldn’t have followed Drummond into the storm. He’d be furious when she caught up with him and Murdoch. But she still felt in her heart and soul that they shouldn’t separate. Somehow, she just knew their enemies would use any space between them to their advantage.
Evie squinted through the gray whiteness of the falling snow, glancing around to ensure Jadrack, Jarrah, and Farbis were still close. At least it wasn’t ice and sleet anymore. Snow made for a more solid footing.
After a heated argument about why Evie shouldn’t do what she was about to do, Morganna had finally agreed to stay behind to keep a watchful eye on the council—and the ousted Glengarten—and try to discover the identity of the Fae spy.
While the council had accepted Drummond as the new chief and understood all that it meant, Glengarten had not handled his dismissal well.
It had taken the threat of banishment or permanent residence in the dungeons to close his mouth.
But Evie still didn’t trust him. She might have only recently met the man, but instinct told her that the weasel wouldn’t give up his prize piece of cheese without a fight.
Mercury tossed his head and snorted, making it unmistakably clear that he did not like the weather.
While the unicorn’s silvery-white horn was still hidden to everyone else, Evie easily saw his true form, and she would cherish that memory forever.
Surprisingly, his usually sleek coat of pearlescent white had turned as thick and shaggy as a bear’s.
She was glad. At least he was dressed for the storm.
“There!” Jadrack shouted, pointing at a pair of shadowy forms in the distance.
Bracing herself for what was sure to be an unpleasant meeting, Evie squared her shoulders and turned Mercury in that direction. “Let’s do this,” she said, trying to bolster her confidence. She didn’t like conflict, but this had to be done. It just felt right. “Drummond!”
He turned to look at her, and even at a distance, she could see his disbelief and fury building.
Bundled in a fur mantle, his black hair loose and whipping in the wind, he reminded her of an angry, untamable beast—both exhilarating and frightening.
He even bared his teeth, and she’d lay odds that if she were closer, she’d hear him growl.
“I told ye to stay at the keep,” he said when she reached him. “Was I not clear, wife?”
“And I told you I was coming with you because we needed to stay together.” She maintained a calm demeanor, hoping that calmness would be infectious. “How much farther?”
“Ye will turn around and go back.” He jutted his chin at Jadrack. “Return Lady Evie to the keep and ensure she stays put, even if that requires locking her in her bedchamber.”
Refusing to rise to the bait and fire back an angry retort, Evie urged Mercury closer to Drummond’s mount, which retreated a pace as the mighty unicorn advanced.
“There’s one thing you’d better learn about me.
I will not be treated like a child and sent to my room.
Like it or not, I’m here, and here I intend to stay. At your side. To protect you.”
Eyes squinted against the pelting snow, he bared his teeth again and kept his glare locked on her companions. “Jadrack! Did ye hear my order?”
Scratching his head, Jadrack nodded. “Aye, m’lord.
I heard ye, but ye do realize ye are not my chief, my lordship, or my mate, aye?
When I do as ye ask, ’tis because I am inclined to do so.
Not because ye ordered it.” He arched a brow at Evie.
“This one here believes verra strongly that the two of ye are more powerful when ye are physically together, and I’m thinking there might be some truth in that.
” He scratched his beard, making Evie wonder if the dragon’s human form made him itch like a cheap wool sweater.
“For a man afraid his mate is going to speak the severing oath and leave, I’m thinking ye should be thankful she wishes to stay at yer side. ”
Evie bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. Jadrack made a good argument.
“I want her safe!” Drummond bellowed in a growling roar that vibrated across the snowy mountainside.
“You shouldn’t shout.” Evie eyed the higher elevation that resembled a cake layered with entirely too much heavy white frosting. “You could start an avalanche and bury us.”
He bowed his head and remained silent for so long that she decided he must be saying a really intense prayer.
“Drummond.” She nudged Mercury closer, guiding the unicorn to sidle up next to her unhappy Highlander. She stretched, caught hold of his sleeve, and tugged. “I’m not doing this to defy you. I’m doing it to protect you.”
He lifted his head and locked eyes with her. The pure, unadulterated anger in them shocked her. “It is not yer place to protect me. It is I who protects ye.”
“We should protect each other. Not fight about who protects whom.” She didn’t much like this side of his world or him.
She was neither a pet nor a possession to be placed in a cage or on a high shelf out of everyone’s reach.
“I know I have a lot to learn about this time, but you have a lot to learn about me. I’m independent, able to think for myself, and when I want to be coddled, I’ll let you know.
” She tugged on the reins and backed Mercury away, placing more space between them again.
“I’m coming to realize that this fated mate bond might not necessarily guarantee compatibility.
We have a lot to learn about getting along.
How are we supposed to do that if I’m cowering in my bedroom?
” She sat taller, lifting her chin and bracing herself for his rebuttal.
“Just because I was a bit cowardly about this place at first, doesn’t mean I haven’t found my strength now. I’m not going to run and hide.”
“No, ye intend to freeze to death and allow yer feckin’ stubbornness to be the end of us both!”
So, it was going to be that way? Fine. She’d seen Grandmama educate Granddaddy enough times to know how to handle this. “When you’re ready to stop being an intractable ass and actually consider what I’ve said, let me know. Until then, you would do well to be quiet.”
Noticing several dark forms moving slowly through the glen below, she turned Mercury in that direction. “Are we going to help them move the herd to a more sheltered area or just give them supplies?” she asked Murdoch.
The man’s eyes flared wide open. He glanced at Drummond, then looked at her, then eyed Drummond again, all the while working his mouth and wetting his lips as though his voice had left him.
Drummond scowled at him. “If ye answer her, I shall banish ye from the clan.”
“And now you’re bullying your best friend,” Evie said, “the man you said you trusted more than anyone. Have you no shame?”
Glowering at her as if ready to wring her neck, Drummond dismounted and thundered toward her.
Before she realized what was happening, Mercury reeled about, lowered his head, and set his horn aglow, which was aimed directly at Drummond’s heart. The unicorn pawed at the ground, snorting and blowing a final warning.
Drummond didn’t slow. He simply adjusted his stance, accepting the beast’s challenge, and kept charging toward her.
“Don’t kill him!” Evie shouted to the unicorn. “Don’t hurt him!” She pulled on the reins, but the animal ignored her. “Mercury, please!”
It was too late. With a strategic toss of his powerful head, the unicorn sent Drummond tumbling down the hillside through the snow.
“Not good, Mercury.” Evie hurried to dismount, and ran after Drummond. “Are you hurt?” She knelt beside him where he’d landed up against a pile of boulders.
Without opening his eyes, Drummond bared his teeth, then unleashed a roaring bellow. “I’m going to kill that feckin’ beast!”
“No, you’re not.” She rose to her feet and dusted the snow off her furry robes. “Mercury is very protective of me. When you charged at us, he took that as aggression and could’ve gored you, but didn’t. He’s kind of like a guard dog, only he’s a guard unicorn.”
Drummond stared up at her in disbelief. “Why will ye not listen to me?”
“Why won’t you listen to me?”
With a heavy sigh, he shook his head and pushed himself upright to a sitting position. “Because I know best.”
“Not necessarily.” She drew her cloak tighter around her. “You might know this century better than I do, but I know my instincts. Did it ever occur to you that if we combined our superpowers, we could overcome the enemy more easily?”
He cocked an eyebrow at her, looking impossibly more handsome and softening her irritation with him. “Superpowers?”
“Yes. Superpowers. Your knowledge about this century plus my instincts…and guard unicorn.”
After a long moment of glaring up at her, he scrubbed his face with both hands, then dropped them into his lap. “I want ye safe,” he said quietly, his tone defeated. “If anything were to happen to ye…”
She knelt beside him once again. His chivalry touched her heart and made it hard to imagine a life without him. “I feel the same about you. Isn’t that a good thing?”
He reached out and grazed his fingertips across her cheek with a tenderness that almost made her gasp. “Aye, m’love. ’Tis a good thing indeed until it rips ye from me.”
“Wasn’t it you who told me we can’t live in fear?”
His eyes narrowed.
She threw up her hands in surrender. “I’m just saying… What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”
“Riders!” Jarrah shouted down to them. “From the south.”
“And they are not mortal,” Farbis bellowed. “Get yer arses up here!”
“How do they know they are not mortal?” Drummond leapt to his feet, caught hold of Evie’s hand, and helped her flounder up the incline through the ever-deepening snow.