Page 3 of Outlaw Ever After (Highland Handfasts #3)

“The second is a brushing past of hearts that yearn to win.”

– A Song of Samhain Nights

“Three targets struck true. With a scythe no less!” cried the official. “We have a winner!”

An adoring roar deafened the crowd as Alexander pried his war scythe from the center of the target.

He punched it in the air with victory, his arm torqued.

He turned in a slow revolution, his messy strawberry tresses knotted high on his head and his woven beard soaked with rivulets of sweat rolling down his face.

“Will no man give me worthy competition?” he boomed, his jest a deep timbre.

Laughter erupted. Ladies tittered behind their hands.

The prize was lobbed to him. Alexander snagged the purse from the air with ink-stained fingers and tossed it for good measure. The jingle was hearty. Good

. He needed to replenish his funds after paying for his final year at King’s College, Aberdeen. The salary he earned as Laird Tormund MacLeod’s loyal guardsman and bookkeeper wasn’t enough, and since MacLeod was barely making ends meet, Alexander didn’t have the heart to ask for more.

Now, newly certified in law with an expertise in contracts, he awaited news of his employ request. If he got it, Tormund MacLeod, like a brother to him, had promised to honor Alex’s decision to leave his sword behind in favor of the quill.

Only the MacLeods knew how he lived life with one foot always stamping down a past that itched to be heard.

And working in royal contracts might be just the way to win back what had once been stolen from him. Not with weapons: with wit

.

Tormund and his surrogate uncle Niall didn’t disparage him for the decision.

“A fine prize for throwing a wee dèideag

,” Niall taunted, calling Alexander’s scythe a toy.

Alex stalked forward and opened the purse to shake out five gold coins. He slung an arm around Niall as the losing contestants groused. “…he should be disqualified. It’s a bloody spear throw, nay scythe throw…”

“Technically, ’twas a projectile throw.” Alex shrugged.

“Projectile is in the name,” the man fumed. “Spear is implied since a man can nay throw an arrow.”

“ Implied

is nay necessarily canon

, good men, when there is room for inferences to be made.

” He waggled his brow, knowing it would only aggravate their bruised prides, then pretended his hands were each end of a scale measuring weights.

“In other words, spear…scythe… Seven pounds or half a stone… Same thing.” Then he let the palm holding the coin purse drop the weight and he flashed his grin. “Or mayhap my scythe was superior.”

The men cursed him and lumbered off as Niall groaned. “Hell to outwit in yer law debates, ye no doubt were.”

Lumbering across the pitch, Alex wiped his sweat upon his forearm. He rolled out his shoulders and swiped up his satchel and tunic, which he slapped over his bare shoulder and back strap.

More lasses fawned as Alex flashed a grin, biting the coins for authenticity. If the variety of sheep’s eyes being cast his way were an indication, he’d nay sleep lonely tonight.

Niall shook his head.

“What?” Alex arched a brow. “It’s nay my fault I’m easy upon a feminine eye. Why shouldna I use it to my advantage?”

“Ye behave like a green lad who’s just discovered his maypole, Reaper,” Niall taunted, using the warrior name he’d dubbed himself years ago.

Yet warrior name or no, he knew it had never been Uncle Niall’s wish for any of his nephews, surrogate or blood, to live a warrior’s life. It was thanks to Niall MacLeod that he’d been adopted into the Macleods and given a second chance to make something of himself.

Alex laughed, slapped him on the back, and dropped the coins back into the purse. “Ye’re just jealous of my stamina, old man.”

Niall shoved his hand away, then tousled his hair as if he were still that uncertain lad on the brink of starvation, scrawny and feral and bloodied, whom Niall had scraped off the shores of Kinloss, kicking, screaming, lashing out—

“Everything’s in prime shape, laddie. Prime

shape,” jested Niall. “A man ages like fine whisky and ye’re still a sharp and bitter gin.”

“Then ye should make use of yer prime. What are ye, a monk?”

Humorous, coming from him. His studies had consumed him for months and it had been since before his final term that he’d taken a tavern wench face down for a rut.

Niall’s eyes crinkled in wistfulness, silver peppering the dark hair at his temples.

“Nay, laddie. No one compares— compared

to my Bess. When ye meet a good

woman, whose soul seems bound to yers,” he gnashed out, smiling distantly with olden grief, “she ruins ye. Makes ye feel like a king even when ye have naught but scraps to offer. Loves ye for who ye are, nay for the sum of yer mistakes or victories. I’ll nay sully her memory by bedding with another.

Mayhap someday ye’ll realize that and learn to fight for what truly matters. ”

Alex’s smile faltered. He’d been working to fight for what truly mattered for four and ten years, and it hadn’t

been a woman.

A messenger wearing the royal blazon ran to him. Bowed his head perfunctorily.

“Are ye Alexander Stewart?”

Alex furrowed his brow. The only man who knew his legal name and knew he’d be attending was the Archbishop of St. Andrew. Everyone else called him Reaper. “Aye, that I am.”

“His Grace, the Archbishop of St. Andrew, has reviewed your records from King’s College. He sends word.”

Alex’s pulse kicked up. The employ he’d applied for nigh a month ago.

With the festival funded by the Crown, the Archbishop was here to oversee the expenses.

Alex had made his presence known. But it had been two days since the start of festivities and the Archbishop had been due to decide already who would be his Deputy Comptroller.

Alex had begun to think he’d been passed over for a decorated nobleman’s son.

The messenger held forth a scroll, sealed with the insignia of the Lord High Treasurer, still bowing his head as if Alex were some nobleman himself. Hardly. Even when he’d once been one’s son, it had been but a barony, and a bestowed title at that, not a pedigree.

“His Grace the Archbishop believes a savage Highlander is an asset, sir.” The messenger retreated into the throngs, his remark ringing in Alex’s ears.

Alex broke the seal and unraveled the ribbon. The scroll unfurled.

“What’s it say, lad?” Niall asked, illiterate of Latin. “Come, then?”

Alex chuckled at his uncle’s alacrity, attempting to master the nerves in his hands. He’d overcome much in life, but going to university had been a dream come true. Employed by the Crown? A miracle only his parents

could have envisioned for him— his parents

? Where were thoughts of them coming from?

Upon review of Alexander Stewart’s exemplary marks at King’s College, in addition to his practical experience managing the ledgers of Stornoway Castle for the MacLeods of the Hebrides,

The Lord High Treasurer, His Grace James Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrew, formally appoints Alexander Stewart Esq. to the role of Deputy Comptroller of Alba, tasked with management of royal contracts, charters, tax assessments, and associated monies.

Charters. Damnation. Retribution might finally be in his grasp.

“Ho, laddie, ye did it!” Niall backhanded his shoulder, then jostled him jovially.

He chuckled and smacked Niall with the parchments, but Niall threw his arm around Alex and thumped him proudly.

“Keep reading, ye eejit,” Niall groused, beaming from ear to ear like a proud da, craning over Alex’s shoulder to keep looking at the parchment.

Alex skimmed the remainder. “I’m to be summoned to deliver my acceptance.”

“Weel done, lad. Yer sire would have been proud of ye.”

Silence dropped like a stone.

Visions of that skull, mounted on that pike so long ago, danced through his thoughts—

He shoved the grisly images back under the waves of time, for they’d plague him if he let them float to the surface.

“Drink with me.” Alex recovered, tossing the purse of his winnings and catching it, dangling it in Niall’s face as if tempting a dog with a treat. “I’m buying—”

“Lullaby sweet bairn of mine…”

He froze.

That melody. Faint. And the soft tinging of…a lyre?

A gentle, feminine melody filtered through the din of festival goers like creeping fog curling through the Cairngorms.

Memories, silent for years… whispered

.

Like a fool, he strained to hear more through the din of vendors, children playing, laughing celebrants, and cheers rising from the wrestling ring, stock animals bleating—

“Sleeping gently in the pine…”

Soft and high, clear and pure… His eyes darted to and fro as gooseflesh pebbled his arms. The sound once more was swallowed in the din, pieces of melody a mirage, not enough to feel real, too vivid to be fake.

Was it a curious coincidence? This song traveling through the years? The same day that he’d received this letter from the Lord High Treasurer? In the same moment that Niall had referenced his sire? No one ever

did.

He’d know the lullaby anywhere, despite not hearing it since he was a boy.

Lughnasadh is a time for olden mischief, when the wheel of time turns the seasons toward Samhain

, he could hear Jossy say. Joslyn?

Christ, thoughts of her, too?

“What’s wrong?” Niall growled. “Ye look as if ye’ve seen a ghost. Is it one of the Demon’s enemies?” Niall, too, glanced around, body tensing and hand migrating toward his knife, teasing the hilt.

Alex shook away the disorienting sensation.

Notched his chin at a passing lass bedecked in wildflowers, who blushed.

It was Lughnasadh, after all, and the ancient holiday still bore significance, despite priests with their tonsured hair building kirks upon sacred pagan sites or Protestant reverends evangelizing in obscure taverns in their black coats and signet rings.

“Aye, old man. The ghost of yer pale face when ye realized my scythe bested yer spear.”

Niall punched his arm and sheathed his knife as he repeated Alex’s figure of speech. “Ye mean ‘projectile.’ Seven pounds or half a stone.”

Alex laughed and rubbed his shoulder. “Jesu, ye bastard. I need that arm to beat ye again.”

Niall slung a fatherly arm around his shoulders as they walked, but Alex could still

hear the singing like a beckoning. A nagging summons he was helpless to ignore. Who was

this woman, singing to him? Strumming her lyre so softly the resonating chimes sounded like fairy dust on a breeze.

Fairy dust.

He snorted. His parents had always said he had the fanciful imagination of a mischief maker. Little could they have guessed that he’d flourish with that flare arguing law.

His smile fell. Why were

thoughts of them

escaping the reaper’s tombs so suddenly?

But as they neared the tavern tent, the din drowned out all other sound. He could no longer hear his muse.

“I’ll be back in a moment.”

He slapped Niall’s pectoral, then ducked out of the tent as Niall called, “What about buying me drink…”

Alex surveyed the surroundings as he crammed his scroll into his satchel.

He wedged through the fairgoers to the last place he’d heard that voice.

Had she stopped singing? Like a hound, he tracked along the walls of Kilravok Castle that loomed above him like a Highland craig.

Away from the din. He edged along the fields, breezes rustling the seedheads like waves, ruffling his great kilt.

He neared the wood and the contest pitch, when…

“Bright green eyes, rest peacefully, for the world isna what it’s meant to be…”

The music filtered once more through the melee, growing clearer.

He detoured into the trees, a sailor chasing the siren, determined to drown for one more listen.

He padded over brambles as a sense of familiarity washed over him in another wave of gooseflesh he couldn’t explain.

He slipped between tree trunks, ducked beneath boughs, until he landed on a deer path that dipped into a greenwood above a trickling burn.

He wiped his face on his wadded tunic and slung it back over his shoulder, stalking faster.

“Lullaby sweet bairn of mine…”

He stopped, eased closer. Tingles raged over his skin as if a force pulled him. How did this lass know this

song? How had he heard her melody from so far away? “Those fickle fae.”

Jossy’s voice threaded over the years.

He dipped beneath a branch.

The lass glowed in a halo of secluded sunlight overlooking the drop off into Glen Alban where the burn twisted through the land like a silver ribbon. A vision, as if sunlight streaking into a darkened chamber when the shutters were thrown wide.

The late morning sun set aflame a rainbow of auburn, bay, sorrel, and chestnut tresses.

Beneath a wreath of flowers crowning her head, her hair tumbled like a cascade down her back to splash upon the grasses surrounding her.

Her narrow waist and generous bosom were encased in a luxurious sage plume of satin, a kirtle of embroidered silk, and a stomacher dotted with tiny crystals.

A wood nymph.

A fine

noblewoman, even if she sat on the ground with her slippers cast off, toes kneading the grass.

Wear yer boots, son, so ye nay cut yerself to pieces…

rang a distant chiding in his mind as he remembered the feel of loamy soil against his toes, as he and his cousin Aulay had chased each other from stone to stone, across Allt A’ Bhacain’s fairy bridge, making mischief.

Dog roses and Michaelmas daisies fringed the clearing, garnishing her like a centerpiece. Bees and birds flitted among the foliage as if their mistress’s protectors. He breathed her in, so wholesome, as music from her lips spellbound him. The sidh

had lured him here like a stolen child of lore.

And that voice, a sweet enchantress drawing him… home

.

He crept closer, staring at the creature’s plush lips, when she stiffened. Could she sense him? He’d barely made a sound. Only ears accustomed to danger approaching would be so trained.

What dangers had she known?