Page 24 of Love Beyond Time (Morna’s Legacy #1)

The trip to get the horses had been shorter than expected, but Eoin had been right.

He needed to calm down, and getting away from the castle for a day or so with Kip helped tremendously.

He had been drinking too much, and he was certain it had impacted his feelings about Blaire.

She wasn’t someone else, someone trying to harm his brother.

She was simply as lost as he was, trying to deal with her new marriage in the best way that she knew how.

It was time that he do the same, and with his mind set on doing just that, he smiled and pointed so that Kip would look out over the horizon where they could see Conall Castle off in the distance, bathed in moonlight.

He was feeling better than he had in ages, and he knew the last time he felt this good was before his father’s tragic death. Perhaps Blaire’s hold on him was not as strong as he thought. He only needed time to heal from the changes of the last few months.

The stables were only a short distance away, and it startled him that instead of picking up their pace in their anticipation of getting home, both horses reared up on their hind legs and tried to turn in the other direction.

Both men steadied their horses, and Arran reached down to soothe Sheila as Kip did the same to Griffin.

Arran scanned the distance between themselves and the stables, looking for something that would have caused the horses to start. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw what could only be Angus, charging in their direction.

“Ach. Angus! I doona know how else to keep him in the stables. If he knows we’ve taken other horses out, he willna stay put. I expect he’s been loose since we left.”

“Kip, he looks frightened. I know he’s wild, but I’ve never seen him behave so.”

Angus didn’t slow his pace as he reached the two men, instead charging in wide circles around them, whining and making noise.

“It’s no too far to the stables from here. Let’s leave the horses here and take a look first. Aye?”

Kip was already dismounting Griffin and walking him over to the nearest tree to secure him as Arran nodded in agreement, easily swinging himself down from Sheila as he patted the side of her neck. “It’s alright, sweetheart. Ye stay here with Griffin and Angus, and I’ll come back for ye shortly.”

Fear lodged securely in Arran’s gut. With each step closer, his fear grew. “Something isna right, Kip. I fear someone’s been in the stables.” He turned to see the old man slowing his pace, his face still and pale.

“Aye, I believe ye are right, son. I smell blood, lots of it. I doona know if I can make meself see. Would ye mind going on yer own? I’ll stay right here.”

Kip’s words did nothing to soothe Arran’s fear.

He’d never known the old man to back away from anything, but as he saw the distraught expression on his old friend’s face, he knew that whatever he was about to see was terrible.

Kip loved nothing in the world more than his horses, except perhaps Mary, and Arran could feel it in his bones that it would be best to spare Kip from whatever awaited him beyond the stable doors.

He reached out and placed both hands on Kip’s shoulders.

“Aye. O’ course. I’m sure tis fine, but I’ll go and see by meself. Ye stay here and keep an eye on the others.” He nudged his head toward the top of the hill where Sheila, Griffin, and Angus, along with the other four horses they’d acquired, stayed tied to the trunk of a tree.

He turned and made his way to the side entrance of the stable. With each step the smell of blood became stronger, causing his stomach to churn uncomfortably.

Arran stepped inside the dark center walkway of the stables, grabbing the lighted flame from outside the entrance to set light to the first lantern in a long row that hung outside each stall door.

An awful squishing sound echoed as his feet made contact with the cold, wet liquid that covered the ground.

Hesitantly he walked from lantern to lantern, slowly illuminating the horror that filled each stall.

Every horse was dead. He knew it even before he gathered the courage to peek over into one of the stalls.

It was too quiet, and there was too much blood for that not to be the case.

Once he did look, he had to grab onto the blood-soaked post to his right just to keep himself steady.

The sight of the decapitated horse, its head lying separate but close to the rest of its body, sent the contents of his stomach retching out onto the wooden floor.

He didn’t need to see the others right now.

He knew it was all the same, and he would be forced to view the massacre later when he cleaned up the remains.

He would do it himself to ensure that Kip didn’t make his way into the stable.

It would be hard enough for the old stable master to deal with the death of his horses.

There was no reason that he should ever have to see what had become of his beloved animals.

Somberly he made his way back to Kip, his face showing what he could hardly bring his voice to say. “I’m so verra sorry, Kip.”

“Ye canna mean it. What happened to them? I need to see, Arran. Perhaps ye are wrong.” The old man staggered forward, trying to force himself to make his way toward the stables.

“Nay, I’m no wrong. They were slaughtered, Kip. All of them. Now, we must clean up the mess and then find who did it. But, I willna be letting ye lay yer eyes upon a bit of it.”

Kip sobbed as he took another step toward the stables.

“I doona want to see it, Arran, but I must. I’ve cared for all of those horses since they were born, and I willna disrespect them by leaving someone else to care for the mess of their death.

” Tears rolled down the old man’s cheeks as he dragged his feet toward the side entrance of the stables.

Arran quickly moved to block Kip from taking another step, and doing the only thing he could think of to stop him, punched him square in the face.

“Aye, Kip, ye can let someone else care for them. I’ll be the one to do it now.

” Swinging the unconscious stable master over his shoulders, he turned to make his way up to the castle.

* * *

I had no idea how long we’d been screaming at one another. Half of the words he was screeching in my direction I had no meaning for, and I was equally sure the same could be said for the things I was saying to him.

I was holding nothing back now, screaming in my normal accent, using modern words for which I knew he had no context. I did everything I could just to talk and talk, hoping that he would eventually stop screaming long enough to listen to what I had to say.

It didn’t work.

And as we continued to yell at each other, he continued to try and forcibly remove me from the room.

We played an odd sort of cat-and-mouse game: me dancing out of the path of his reaching hands, him bobbing out of the way so that whatever object I hurled in his direction didn’t bludgeon him in the eye.

He now stood in front of the door, blocking my path to any exit, while I stood on top of his bed reaching for some sort of metal object that sat beside it and chunked it across the room.

He swiftly moved out of the way just as the door opened.

The projectile flew through the open door just above Mary’s head.

“What in God’s name do ye think the two of ye are doing?

Bri, get down from that bed this instant, and for God’s sake, stop throwing things!

Eoin, stop ranting in Gaelic. The lass has no idea what ye are saying.

It’s time we had a talk, all three of us, but I will have no part in it while the two of ye are acting like ye have gone and lost yer minds.

” Mary stared us down from the doorway, an uncomfortable hush settling over the room.

Embarrassed, I slid off the top of the bed and moved to stand beside her.

“I’m sorry Mary. He walked in on me while I was working in the spell room.

I was trying to sound out the name of one of the books, and he saw me in my normal clothes.

I’m pretty sure he saw my tattoo as well.

Then he yanked me up and accused me of being a witch. He won’t listen to me.”

Eoin moved out from behind the door and, with both fists on his hips, looked at me and Mary. “Tattoo? Mark of the devil, ye mean. Why, I’ve never seen such markings in my life. And Mary, did ye just call her Bri? Do ye mean to tell me that ye knew that we were being fooled by this witch?”

Mary left my side as she moved in front of Eoin and slapped him right across the face. I couldn’t stop a grin from spreading across mine, and a giggle escaped my lips at the sight of his reddened face.

“Have ye forgotten just who ye are talking too, Eoin? Aye, I did call her Bri, because that’s the poor lassie’s name.

But she’s no witch. And the only fool around here is ye, ye thick-headed, stubborn arse!

Now ye are going to sit down and no say a word until the lass has finished telling ye everything she knows. Aye?”

Silently he nodded and sat down on the edge of his rumpled bed. I was definitely going to have to take lessons from Mary. She would’ve made one hell of a teacher.

A breathless voice screaming “Mary” from out in the hallway caused us all to file out of the bedchamber. Arran was struggling down the hall, carrying a seemingly unconscious Kip over his shoulders.

“What’s happened?” Mary ran toward Arran, grasping her husband’s arm as it hung limply down Arran’s back.

“It’s alright, Mary. He’s fine. I hit him to keep him from going into the stables. I’ll lay him in my room. Stay with him until I return. No matter what he tells ye, doona let him out of the room. He doesna need to see what’s down there, no matter how much he thinks he needs to.”

Eoin spoke now. “What’s happened in the stables?”

“The horses. They’re dead, brother. All but Griffin, Sheila, and Angus. Someone decapitated them shortly before we arrived back at the keep.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Everyone scattered very quickly. Arran and Eoin moved together to deposit Kip into Arran’s room with Mary following along behind them. Once they’d laid him on the bed to rest they quickly took off toward the stables, leaving me alone in the hallway.

My skin was clammy, and I reached out a hand to fan myself as the full realization of what was going on came to me.

I remembered Mom pointing out a special site for horse burials down away from the ruins where she’d said the Conalls had buried a group of their animals that had been slaughtered.

She believed it had been done to serve as a warning for the darker trouble that was still to come to the Conall clan.

That was why I found myself in seventeenth-century Scotland. I’d spent all this time around the people my mother had spent years trying to learn more about, and it hadn’t crossed my mind until this very moment that I knew how it would end for all of them.

The fire at the wedding had been the first warning, the horses the second.

I’d been sent back in time to help change their fate, and if Mom’s research was correct, everyone I’d come to care about here was set to be dead within a month.