Chapter 22 #2
Instead, I squeezed her shoulder gently, thumb rubbing circles into the tense muscles there.
“You did,” I said quietly. “You were brave as hell.”
Her shoulder trembled under my hand. For a second, I thought she might lean back into me.
Then Archie cleared his throat, the sound cutting across the room like a bell.
“All right,” he said. “We need to talk about what just crawled out of our loch.”
“Let’s go to Grasshopper. I can’t handle this much trauma without food. And neither can all of you,” Lia ordered.
We reconvened in the castle’s restaurant once Faelan had finished with Zara and assured everyone she’d live, provided she stayed off the leg for a few days and Luch made sure that Faelan had downed a specialty tea to help with her strength.
Zara leaned back and closed her eyes on the couch, Mitch cuddled at her side.
“I’ll stay here with the lass. You lot go on,” Hilda said, already unfolding a throw blanket to tuck over Zara.
The rest of us filed into the restaurant, in varying states of exhaustion, shock, and mud. The big room glowed with gentle light, and the women went around lighting candles, and pulling tables together.
Archie stood at the head of the long table, his face still masked in concern. Sophie leaned against the opposite end, Lachlan at her back, arms crossed.
I took a seat halfway down, Liora beside me. I made sure our knees touched. She didn’t move away, and I took that as a small miracle and didn’t push for more.
“All right,” Archie said again, voice grave. “Who wants to start?”
Silence stretched.
Then Zara—who I’d thought was asleep—croaked from the doorway where she’d appeared, blanket around her shoulders, and Mitch guiding her path. “I’ll go,” she said. “Seeing as I was daft enough to get dragged out there in the first place.”
“Z—you should be resting,” Liora protested, frustration crossing her face.
“I couldn’t stop her,” Hilda said breathlessly from behind her.
“Sit down.” Lachlan stepped forward and helped Zara to a chair, while Liora all but vibrated with worry next to me.
Lia zipped into the room, bowls of soup in her hands.
“Soup first. You all need your strength.” I blinked as a blur of motion zipped past me and a bowl of steaming soup appeared in front of me. What the hell had that been?
“And whisky,” Lachlan added, disappearing and returning with a bottle. Another blur of motion and glasses appeared at the table.
“What is going on?” I whispered to Liora and a soft smile came to her lips.
“Brice. He’s Lia’s kitchen broonie.”
“Right, of course. Why not?” After seeing a dragon rise out of the loch, nothing else would likely shake me at this point.
Was there anything that would ever be as terrifying?
We all tucked into the soup in silence, Lia hovering over the table, bringing out baskets of bread, plates of cheese, massive amounts of food until Munroe slung an arm around her waist and pulled her onto his lap, demanding she eat as well.
“I’m sorry. I need to feed people. It’s my love language,” Lia said.
“But you need strength too,” Munroe said, and Lia relented, tucking into her soup as well.
“I think I need to explain. And apologize,” Zara said, and the table all turned to her. She looked incredibly small, her face white with exhaustion, her eyes huge in her face. My chest tightened.
“I heard them,” Zara continued, quietly. “The Kelpies. Not with my ears. In my head. Whispering. Pushing images. They’ve been … louder, lately. I don’t think I realized just what it was at first, but I did tonight. Over the past few weeks, I started to understand what I was seeing.”
Faelan’s brows drew together. “Zara, why didn’t you tell me? You know you could come to me.”
Beside me, Liora’s hand tightened on her soup spoon. Helpless not to, I reached out and traced soothing circles on her back.
“I was going to.” Zara grimaced. “I went out to the loch with Mitch to see if I could get a clearer sense of what they wanted before I rang anyone. Next thing I knew, the ground’s gone from under me and I’m in that bloody gully with a broken leg and the Kelpies shrieking at my back.”
Sophie swore under her breath. “They pulled you.”
“Aye.” Zara’s hand dug into the fur at the back of Mitch’s neck where he’d put his head on her lap. “It wasn’t an accident. Something wanted me down there. Close. I could … talk to them better.” Her lips pressed into a thin line. “They’re angry.”
“Lovely.” Orla shuddered. “Just what we need.”
Zara nodded slowly. “And there was something else under them. I thought it was just the loch itself, at first. Then it started to move.”
A low murmur rippled around the table.
“The dragon,” Willow said.
Everyone went quiet again.
The image of that massive, scaled head rearing from the water flickered behind my eyes. I clenched my jaw. The memory was bound to haunt my dreams.
“Aye,” Zara whispered. “I didn’t see it the way you lot did, not with my eyes. But I felt it. Its … mind.” She swallowed. “Old. Furious. Bound. By something.”
Archie looked like someone had punched him. Hilda turned to him, a dismayed expression on her face.
“What was that thing?” Willow asked from near the far end of the table, eyes huge. “Please tell me someone knows.”
All eyes turned, almost as one, to Agnes.
She stiffened. “What?” she demanded, clutching Calvin, Willow’s cat, tightly against her chest.
“You’re the folklore expert,” Shona said gently. “If anyone would know…”
Agnes chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment, gaze slightly unfocused, as she thought about it.
“If we’re going with traditional mythology,” she said finally. “It’s not like a Nessie derivative. What we saw tonight…”—she exhaled—“I’d say, in all honesty? Was probably a Beithir.”
The word seemed to suck some of the warmth out of the room.
Sophie straightened. Archie swore under his breath. Hilda closed her eyes briefly, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer.
Liora glanced at me, eyes wide. I had no idea what a Beithir was, but the reaction alone was enough to make my skin crawl.
“A what now?” Finlay asked, echoing my thoughts.
“A Beithir,” Agnes repeated, voice steadier now, slipping into lecture rhythm.
“They’re one of the great serpents of Scottish lore.
Sometimes called lightning serpents. They’re …
not dragons in the fire-breathing, winged sense.
More like colossal, venomous water-and-storm creatures.
Born when lightning strikes the earth and doesn’t release properly. ”
Willow blinked. “So it’s a weather glitch with fangs.”
“An incredibly dangerous weather glitch with fangs,” Agnes corrected. “The old tales say they’re the largest and most deadly of all Scottish serpents. They rarely appear, and when they do, it’s usually an omen of … well, nothing good. Catastrophic storms. Great battles. Floods. That sort of thing.”
My stomach dropped. “Grand.”
“They aren’t meant to be real,” Archie said quietly. “That’s just folklore.”
“They aren’t,” Agnes agreed. “But then there are a lot of things in Loren Brae that aren’t meant to be real.” Agnes gestured to where two gnomes were making out in the corner.
“Gnorman!” Shona hissed, slapping a hand to her forehead. “Get your hands off Gnora. Now is not the time.”
Despite everything, I had to bite back a laugh as the wee gnome turned and glared at the interruption.
“Och, lass. It’s those near-death experiences. They just get the blood surging, don’t they?” The wee gnome shocked me by growling back at her.
“Take it outside then,” Shona said, rolling her eyes. Gnora giggled and sauntered off and Gnorman took chase, the two gnomes racing from the restaurant while giggling.
I had no words.
None at all.
I was still processing the dragon. And the wulver.
“I would have to look through some of our personal records. From the Order.” Agnes sat back in her chair and closed her eyes as she thought. “But the last recorded Beithir sighting was centuries ago, and that was just in myths … but if something—or someone—has bound one to the loch…”
“The Kelpies,” Zara whispered. “They said they had a guardian.”
“Aye.” Agnes grimaced. “That would fit.”
Kaia frowned. “Can you kill it?”
Agnes hesitated.
“The stories say the only way to truly kill a Beithir is to cut off its head and make sure the body and head are never reunited. If they touch again, it comes back to life.” She spread her hands.
“Which is … not exactly practical in the middle of a loch against something the size of a bloody train.”
“Right,” Thane muttered, reaching over to pull Kaia’s hand into his lap. “So we don’t kill it. We … what? Send it to sleep?”
“You can also lure it out. Block its path back to its home. It will die without water, right?” Orla leaned forward. “I remember a story like this.”
“Aye, that’s also an option, I believe.” Agnes sighed, her shoulders slumping.
“Or,” Lia offered dryly, “we all move to Spain.”
A tiny ripple of laughter went around the room, too thin to really catch, but better than nothing.
Archie rubbed a hand over his face. “The important thing is, we know what we’re dealing with now. Sort of.”
“It’s more than we had yesterday,” Hilda said firmly. “And tonight, you lot”—she jabbed her finger toward Sophie and the others—“pushed a Beithir back into its den. That’s no small feat.”
“Barely,” Sophie said, jaw tight. “If it had come any closer—”
“But it didn’t,” Hilda said. “You held the line. All of you. With very little warning and some of us injured. I’d say that’s not nothing.”
“What worries me,” Archie said quietly, “is why now. Why is this escalating?”
The question hung heavy.
Beside me, Liora shifted and lifted her head to look at Agnes, who met her gaze and gave a subtle shake of her head.
It was imperceptible, but I caught it.
“They’ve made bargains,” Zara said, and the table went still, caught on her words.
“It isn’t that the Stone is using them or forcing them into protecting the island.
It was a bargain struck. I couldn’t quite get a read on what’s changed, but there’s something else at play here.
It’s like they want to be recognized … as a part of Loren Brae.
Not against it? I don’t know.” Zara fluttered her hands in front of her face, clearly frustrated at not being able to read more of the Kelpies.
“Well, that’s new,” Orla said, her expression thoughtful. “Bargains made. And perhaps broken. Agnes—”
“Already making a note of it.” Agnes was typing furiously into her phone.
Archie straightened, shoulders squaring. “All right. We know three things we didn’t know this morning. One, the Kelpies are organized and have a bloody serpent on call. Two, Zara can communicate with them somehow and, three, when push comes to shove, the Order can stand against them.”
He jabbed a finger at us. “I saw you lot on that shore. You were bloody magnificent. Uncoordinated, but magnificent. If you can do that on the fly, imagine what you could do with a plan.”
Hilda nodded, eyes fierce. “You’re stronger together than any of you are apart. That’s your advantage. The Kelpies are bound by duty and rage. You’re bound by choice. By oaths. By love.” She wrinkled her nose. “And, apparently, by a growing number of familiars.”
Clyde bellowed, and we all waited a moment, but he didn’t jump out of the wall.
“Phew,” Lia said. “I really don’t think I can take another—”
Clyde leapt down from the ceiling, crashing across the table, and raced across the restaurant as all the dogs jumped up and took chase.
“Damn it, Clyde,” Lia shouted, her hand at her heart. “I will never get used to that. Never.”
“Do you need the toilet—”
“No, thank you very much. I’m fine.” Lia sniffed, shooting Munroe a glare.
“Well, I have a right to be concerned. You’re sitting on my lap, aren’t you?”
The whole table laughed, the tension having broken, and I eased closer to Liora, wanting her to look at me and tell me she was okay.
That we were okay.
Sophie pushed up from the end of the table, dirk sheathed now, expression resolute.
“Archie’s right,” she said. “Tonight was … well, it was horrible. It could’ve been much worse.
We’re not going to pretend it isn’t scary.
Or that there isn’t a very real chance of things getting worse before they get better.
But we’re not doing this alone. Not any of us.
” Her gaze found mine, then Liora’s, then Zara’s.
“If the Kelpies think picking off one of us will make the rest fall, they’ve badly miscalculated. ”
Lachlan slid his hand into hers. “They come for one of us, they get all of us.”
“Aye,” Thane said quietly, Kaia’s fingers twined with his. “That’s how this works.”
Beside me, Liora let out a breath that sounded like something loosening inside her. I took the risk and slid my hand under the table, curling my fingers around hers.
She didn’t pull away.
Her grip was cool and a little shaky, but she held on.
“For better or worse,” I said quietly, mostly to her but loud enough that the nearest few could hear, “I think we’ve found our people.”
Her eyes lifted to mine, blue and deep and full of a fear that hadn’t quite receded—but there was something else there too.
Hope. Just the tiniest spark of it.
“Ceud mìle fàilte, then,” she whispered back. “One hundred thousand welcomes.”
I squeezed her hand.
Outside the windows, the loch lay quiet under the night, pretending to be nothing more than water and reflection. Inside the castle, battered and bruised and covered in mud, we sat shoulder to shoulder around worn wooden tables—humans, witches, familiars, ghosts and all. United.
Whatever monsters waited in the depths, whatever bargains had been struck before our time, whatever lightning serpents uncoiled beneath the surface …
We’d face them.
I was in this now, and I would do whatever I could to keep Liora, and Loren Brae, safe. And I truly believed, as I looked around this room filled with magickals, that we could do it.
Together.