Page 20 of Proven By The Highlander (Highlander Forever #15)
CHAPTER 20
T he silence stretched out again, even longer. Leanne wasn’t quite sure where to go from here. Hearing his side of it certainly made a lot more sense of the situation — she could understand his grief turning to anger as his Captain gave up the search for his brother’s body. And his fellow men of the Watch continuing to defend the creature he thought had killed his brother… that would chafe at anyone.
“I petitioned Brendan for months to take action against the creature,” he said softly, looking at her across the firelight. “Truly, Leanne, I did. I hate that I broke my oath to the Watch. I’m not a man who deserts my duties. But as a man of the Watch, I swore to protect human beings from Fae creatures that wanted to harm them. And the rest of the Watch has been turning a blind eye to an Unseelie Fae that’s right under their noses. I simply couldn’t continue to serve.”
“You think she’s Unseelie?” Leanne bit her lip.
The stories she’d heard about the malicious Fae creatures who belonged to that Court were frightening. Surely the gentle creature she’d met couldn’t be lumped in with them. But Caelan was nodding.
“The Unseelie Fae… it’s a broader church than some would imagine,” he said.
She could tell this was a subject that interested him. He really was keeping his oath out here, wasn’t he? Miles away from his brothers in arms, living in exile and disgrace, he was nevertheless as committed to his cause as he ever had been. Maybe even more so.
“We see the mischief-makers the most… the malicious creatures, the ones who mean us conscious harm. But there are plenty of Unseelie Fae who lack the intelligence for malice. Like I said, I don’t think the Monster actively schemes to harm humans. I think she’s a wild animal that eats whatever comes across her path.”
“And for that, she deserves to die?” Leanne frowned.
But Caelan’s expression was set. “If there was any other way, I’d opt for that,” he said heavily. “But she lives in the Loch, as you’ve said. It’s not as though we can simply move her somewhere else, where nobody will be at risk from her. She’s always around the Keep, always circling. It’s only a matter of time before someone else gets unlucky and falls prey to her. Putting her down is the only way to ensure that the people of this area are safe from her.” He sighed, rubbing his forehead as the crackling of the fire filled the tense silence. “Anyway, that’s my side of things. Satisfied?”
She gave him a faint smile, but she was deeply troubled by what he’d said. A part of her had been hoping he’d be mad with grief, irrational with fury at the creature who’d killed his brother. Instead, she’d found a calm, methodical man still loyal to his ideals, who’d laid out a very reasonable justification for his conviction that the creature in the Loch needed to be put to death. Right now, if anyone was feeling irrational, it was Leanne. He seemed to sense her discomfiture, and he flashed her a tired smile across the fire.
“Tell you what — it’s been a long night. I brought some fish to a local homestead a few days ago, and the farmer’s lady wife baked me these especially.” He reached into the rucksack beside him and pulled out a bundle of cloth, unwrapping it carefully to reveal a cluster of what looked like rock cakes. Leanne smiled, moving around the fire to join him as her stomach grumbled. In all the excitement of breaking out of the Keep to search for Caelan, she’d completely forgotten to eat dinner.
“Are you sure?” she said softly, hesitating before she took one. “You don’t need to share the last of your food with me.”
Caelan shook his head, smiling down at her, and she felt a fluttering in her stomach that had nothing to do with the adrenaline of their night together. “It’s a rare pleasure to break bread in company at all, let alone the company of a pretty lady with such a big heart.”
The compliment blindsided her, and she felt herself flushing to the roots of her hair again, embarrassed and delighted in equal measure. She mumbled some kind of thanks and took the rock cake, nibbling at it as she turned her eyes to the fire. She could feel his gaze lingering on her still, sense the faint smile on his face. There was a curious tension to the air now that he’d told his tale… a tension that had shifted considerably since she’d first arrived here. A tension that was prickling at her, making her feel like she was holding her breath. A tension that made her wonder whether he’d imagined her staying the night here in the cave with him…
“These are delicious,” she said finally, desperate to break the silence before it grew too much for her to bear.
He nodded agreement, finishing off the rock cake he was eating and dusting the crumbs into the fire. “Aye, she’s a kind lady to think of me. Let’s me know when she sights the Monster, too.” He reached into his rucksack again, drawing out a battered notebook.
Her eyes widened a little at the sight of it. He leafed through the pages, frowning down at it as he squinted in the firelight, and she shifted a little closer to look over his shoulder. Pages upon pages of notes… as well as several detailed maps of the coast of the Loch. He seemed to have marked every sighting of the creature, neatly initialed with the date and time of the sighting as well as details.
“Impressive,” Leanne murmured, tapping on one of the maps. “You drew these by hand?”
“Not much else to do out here,” Caelan admitted, but despite his self-deprecation she could tell the compliment had quietly pleased him.
“Have you mapped the whole Loch?”
“Not even close,” he said, shaking his head. “It’d take years for one man to do that, though I’d imagine I’ve made a solid start. The whole shoreline is fraught with little caves and grottos like this one.”
“And in all that time… you’ve never found any trace of your brother?”
He shook his head, his eyes still fixed on the page as that familiar shadow crept across his face. “No,” he said softly. “Though I’ve never stopped looking.”
Leanne bit her lip. She’d had a thought, quite early in his story, that she’d set aside in the interests of listening closely. But it had come back up again now. No trace of his brother, no sign of his remains or even of the clothing he’d been wearing… one explanation, of course, was that he’d been devoured in his entirety by the monster. But there was another explanation, too — one she was worried about giving voice to. She didn’t want to aggravate Caelan, didn’t want to send him into a rage over such a sensitive subject. But at the same time… what other alternative did she have? How else was she going to talk him out of hunting the Monster?
“Forgive me if this is — an insensitive thing to suggest,” she said softly, looking up at him as she summoned her courage. “But … are you absolutely sure that your brother is dead?”
He looked at her for a long time then, and she was briefly worried that she’d destroyed the fragile accord that the two of them had come to. But finally, he exhaled, and she could see from the look in his eyes that he wasn’t angry with her. Relief moved through her, tempered by concern for him.
“I can’t say I am, lass,” he said softly, and his voice sounded like it was coming from a long way away. “That’s part of what makes it so hard to move on from his loss. But…” He shrugged helplessly. “If he were alive, he’d have reached out to me by now, surely. The two of us were always as close as you can imagine. We were always together, always had one another, we…” He exhaled shakily, and she realized with a start that she could see tears shining in his gray eyes. “I thought I’d feel it, if he ever died,” he said softly, staring into the fire. “I was certain I’d know if his spirit left this world without me. I never felt that, and part of me holds onto the hope that…” He scrubbed at his forehead wearily with the back of his hand. “In answer to your question, Leanne, no. No, I’m not certain he’s dead.”
“Let me help you,” she said, before she could even consider what she was saying. “Let me search with you, Caelan. Surely two sets of eyes are better than one.”
He looked down at her, clearly startled by the offer… and though there was a suspicious cast to his expression, she could see hope there, too, tempered by his caution. “You want to help me,” he said, disbelief in his voice. “You want to help me search every inch of this blasted shoreline for a man who’s most likely long dead?”
“Yes, I do,” she said flatly. “Is that so hard to believe?”
He looked at her for a long moment, something like a smile twitching at the corner of his lips. “You’re a strange woman, Leanne Orbach,” he murmured finally. “You’re too fond of that creature for your own good.”
“Which creature’s that?” she asked, hardly daring to breathe, hoping like hell she was reading the situation right… and before she could talk herself out of it again, she leaned in to close the space between them and pressed her lips to his.