Page 3
Scottish Highlands
1375
–Broderick–
THE LAST THING I expected when I returned home from fighting hundreds of years in my past on behalf of my Irish friends and their fated mates was to find my cousin, Lucas, in charge of our clan when I had left that task to my brother, Tavish. Lucas’s strengths lie in fighting and daring to do things most would not rather than leading. Too impulsive by far, he often acted without thinking and made rash decisions before considering the consequences.
Something made more than clear when I entered my castle’s courtyard to find him saddling up alongside several other warriors, determined to confront the Sutherlands who were reportedly causing trouble at our northern border. I was grateful he wasn’t already gone and hadn’t shifted to his dragon along with the others. They were forbidden to shift without my orders, but God knows how easily they might have been swayed by my cousin because he had a way with words.
He could convince anyone to do just about anything, no matter how foolish.
I had not been gone all that long, but it would have been nice to return to find things as I had left them. Even so, I greeted everyone with a warm smile before turning a grim look my cousin’s way.
“Who saw the Sutherlands, and again, why is Tavish not here leading our people as I’d asked him to?”
“He and Sloan were called away by the king.”
Despite the look I shot him, Lucas hesitated on his horse as if he meant to ride off anyway, but he heeded my warning, sighed, and swung down.
“It seems there is more trouble at the Sassenach border than usual.”
He clasped my arm, hand to elbow in greeting, and nodded.
“’Tis good to see ye again, m’laird.”
“And ye.”
Although I disliked overriding my cousin’s orders in front of others, he gave me no choice. I needed more details before confronting the Sutherlands, of all people. We had found a tepid yet strained peace between our clans several years ago, so I knew better than to act rashly until I had more information. I gestured at the men Lucas nearly rode out with.
“Dismount, but stand at the ready.”
“Aye, m’laird,”
they replied dutifully as I started up the stairs to my castle’s front door and spoke telepathically to Lucas in the way of our inner dragons.
“Come, cousin. Now.”
He undoubtedly caught the stern tone of my internal voice and knew I wasn’t pleased. His actions could have started a clan war we didn’t need, and I said as much the moment we were alone in my war chamber. Those in the future would more than likely call it a study, but we MacLeods used it to discuss strategy and battles. Also, things like how to keep our clan’s greatest secret from the rest of Scotland, outside of a select few, including our allied clans, the Hamiltons, and MacLomains.
After all, dragons like us and the Sutherlands were nothing but a myth, and for history's sake, we needed to keep it that way.
“Ye should have sent my second-in-command, and ye bloody well know it, cousin,”
I said the moment the door shut behind us. Scowling at him, I poured myself a much-needed whisky.
“Yer place was here, seeing after our people lest there was a raid on the castle. ‘Tis the role of a laird when all but one of us are gone.”
By all, I meant me, my brother, and two cousins, including Lucas. Outside of my parents, who spent more time in their lair than at the castle these days, we were the most powerful MacLeod dragons, so there was a chain of command.
“I wouldnae have been gone long, and seeing me would have frightened the bloody bastards off for good,”
Lucas countered, pouring himself whisky, too.
“One look and—”
“What?”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Ye would have flared your dragon eyes at them and risked anyone not of dragon blood finally seeing we were bloodthirsty beasts? Seeing we were the monsters they always thought us to be?”
Cocking my head, I arched my brows.
“And how do ye think that would have gone?”
Before he could respond with a denial or some other excuse for his rash behavior, I gazed out the window at the vibrant swaths of autumn colors rioting across the lush forests of my homeland and continued speaking.
“Tell me what ye heard about the Sutherlands.”
Though glad to be home, I remained crestfallen over what I’d left behind in Ireland. It had taken a great deal of effort to keep my emotions hidden when I departed, leaving the woman I loved with her fated mate.
“Go on, then,”
I prompted, downing my whisky and trying to focus on anything but her when Lucas hesitated, clearly weighing his words to justify what he had been about to do.
My inner beast hadn’t sensed any strife when I arrived home, so I needed to hear this information myself in order to trust it.
“They were hunting on our land.”
Lucas’s dragon eyes flared with frustration, telling me he would have certainly revealed what we were, no matter who had been present, if he thought it might run them off for good. It didn't seem to occur to him that even though, like us, not all Sutherlands were half dragon, enough of them were that seeing dragon eyes likely wouldn’t faze them at all. Much less terrify them.
“’Tis said they were causing trouble in our northern village as well,”
Lucas went on.
“Stirring things up with lasses at the tavern.”
While clansmen stirring up lasses in taverns wasn’t all that unusual, the fact that they were Sutherlands was.
“Who carried these rumors to us?”
“Kenneth MacLomain.”
Lucas gave me a look.
“So 'tis safe to say 'twas not a rumor but fact.”
I didn’t need to ask why our cousin was this far north of MacLomain Castle. He was a wanderer by nature and visited often, claiming he enjoyed the feistiness of our female dragons.
I frowned and scanned the courtyard below.
“Where is he now?”
I hadn’t sensed him in the castle or on our land, which was unusual. Granted, he was a wizard who could occasionally avoid my detection, but rarely. Even so, this bit of news not only solidified the rumor but made me all the more relieved I had come home when I did because Kenneth would have handled the situation, meaning Lucas had been heading that way not to intimidate the Sutherlands but likely to chase them down.
“I dinnae know where Kenneth’s off to now.”
Lucas shrugged and grinned, thinking he was in the clear.
“One moment he was here, the next he was gone. Ye know he cannae stay in any place too long. Either way, ye must see now ‘twas wise of me to head for the tavern and make sure things were straight.”
He was right about Kenneth. Unless he found a lass to his liking during his visit, he rarely stayed long before embarking on his next adventure.
“Kenneth aside, ye were dishonest about yer intentions, and ye know it.”
I poured another drink and frowned at him.
“And ye know better than to deny it because our inner beasts are more connected than most. So ‘tis right there in yer mind what both ye and yer dragon intended to do.”
As it were, Lucas was as restless as Kenneth in his own way, often the first to volunteer to handle things outside our clan if it meant meeting new people and seeing new things. He had yet to take a mate, claiming none suited him, so it made no difference if he was away for weeks or months. Outside of skirmishes here and there, either with other clans or at the English border, all had been quiet, so I hadn’t needed him.
“I wouldnae have unleashed my dragon,”
Lucas denied, despite the flare of his eyes even now.
“Not unless…”
Sensing something in my cousin I hadn’t caught until now, I eyed him more closely and prompted him to continue when he trailed off.
“Unless what?”
“I dinnae know.”
He stared out over the countryside as if looking for something or someone, his tone softer now.
“I just sensed it was more than mere drunkenness at the tavern…that they meant harm.”
He shook his head slowly.
“As if they meant to take something from me.”
His gaze drifted my way.
“Something verra important from all of us.”
Lucas might have flaws, but I paid attention when he sensed things out of the norm because, more often than not, there was something to it. I was about to ask what he thought they meant to take when a woman with long, dark hair flashed in my mind. She wore a red dress and seemed to be searching for me or perhaps fleeing. Which one, I couldn’t be sure. A blink later, she was gone, and a flicker of red dancing through the distant forest caught my attention before vanishing.
Trying to catch sight of it again, I narrowed my eyes.
“Did ye see that?”
“Aye.”
Yet Lucas’s gaze was trained on the Viking blade sheathed at my back.
“’Tis an impressive sword. Does it do that often?”
“Do what?”
“Flicker red as if newly forged?”
“Ah, that must have been it.”
I unsheathed the blade and eyed the mystical weapon handed over to me after I helped the Irish. It didn’t surprise me that Lucas hadn’t asked how I ended up with a Viking sword because we were time travelers in our own right, and over the centuries, our kin had occasionally gone to the aid of our Viking ancestors.
“It must have been the setting sun reflecting off it and playing tricks with my eyes.”
Mine were dragon eyes, after all, and tended to see things differently, no matter my form.
Lucas’s brows flew together.
“How so? The blade was at yer back, not in front of ye. ‘Tis…”
Yet again, he trailed off, but this time with good reason, as we both seemed compelled to look from the sword to the forest only to find Kenneth emerging from the tree line on horseback, racing toward our drawbridge.
That was not what snagged our attention, though.
“What is that wrapped up in his arms?”
Lucas narrowed his eyes at what appeared to be a long lock of black hair that had escaped from the plaid blanket.
“Is it a lass?”
It certainly appeared so.
“Let’s go find out.”
Why was she wrapped up like that? And why was Kenneth in such a hurry? Was he being chased?
I scanned the forest as we made our way down the front stairs, signaling the guardsmen on the ramparts to open the gate and raise the portcullises that had just been lowered for the night.
“Close everything behind me right away,”
Kenneth urged into my mind.
“I dinnae want anyone not of clan Macleod to see her.”
Wondering if the Sutherlands were more of a threat than I realized, I tensed and signaled that everything be closed swiftly and for my warriors to take up formation, ready to fight if need be. All those living in huts within the castle walls were ordered to go inside immediately.
“What is it, cousin?”
I asked Kenneth as he swung down with his bundle.
“Who do ye run from, and who do ye bring within our walls?”
“’Tis a lass I dinnae doubt needs our help.”
He pulled back the blanket so I could see what he meant and did well to school my expression. Not because she wore twenty-first-century clothing and was clearly a time traveler, but because of her stark beauty.
Her ebony hair shone like silk, and her skin tone was warm and flawless. She possessed a delicate face, plush lips, and large, thickly lashed, almond-shaped eyes that didn’t need to be open to reveal how lovely she was. Trying to ignore the sweet, exotic scent rolling off her skin, I was compelled to touch her cheek and nearly did, but caught myself and pulled my hand away.
As if sensing my proximity, she stirred in Kenneth’s arms, and her eyelids fluttered open, revealing the most captivating eyes I had ever seen. They were a deep, dark violet with swirls of paler purple in the middle that briefly flickered with fire, telling me what I already knew.
She was half dragon, too.
Clearly groggy, her gaze locked on mine, and she whispered.
“Are you him?”
“Who?”
“Him,”
she whispered.
“Are you my Scot of Yesteryear? The one Storm told me about?”
My chest tightened at that. Not because she seemed to know me. Not really. Rather, I was stunned because she uttered the name of the woman I left behind in Ireland and had loved for longer than I could remember.