Page 26 of Proven By The Highlander (Highlander Forever #15)
CHAPTER 26
I t wasn’t so bad, Leanne told herself over and over, her chattering teeth doing their level best to change her mind about that particular position. At the very least, it wasn’t so bad now that she was actually submerged in the water, shoes and all. She’d suggested taking her cloak off, but Caelan had shaken his head — where would she leave it? It would be spotted by the men up above them. She couldn’t hear them up there at all… but that didn’t mean they weren’t up there, of course, searching for them. Certainly, the occasional glow of torchlight had shone out beyond the cliff’s edge… at least, she imagined it had.
They had submerged themselves in the water about ten feet from where they’d been standing when they’d seen the search party coming. There was a place where the rocks were all broken up and dark in color, which Caelan hoped would disguise both of them, especially with the hoods of their cloaks pulled up over their heads. In disguise as a rock, Leanne thought faintly, clinging to the wet rocks with both hands and trying not to remember how awful the chest infection had been that had laid her out the last time she’d gone on a moonlit swim like this one. At least it wasn’t quite as late as it had been… though the wind that whipped across the Loch was a lot chillier down at this level, and when she was soaked through besides…
They stayed as quiet as they could, listening hard for the men up above them on the clifftop. Occasionally, the distant sound of voices reached them, and Caelan would wince and lower himself even deeper into the water. She was genuinely worried he’d drown before the men left… and who could tell when that would be?
“What if they find the camp?” she whispered to him, hoping that the gentle sloshing of the waves would be enough to cover her voice.
He grimaced and shook his head. “Then they’ll likely lay in wait for us there,” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the splooshing of the water.
“How will we know if they’re doing that?”
“We won’t.”
“So — we can’t go back there, is that what you’re saying?”
He nodded, and what she could make out of his expression was grim. Leanne sighed, feeling suddenly a lot less positive about this experience than she had been a scant hour ago. At least she was fully clothed and soaked through, she reassured herself sullenly. Being in her pajamas in the Loch again would have been altogether too much.
The minutes crept by, and clouds continued to skate by across the sky, raising and lowering the amount of moonlight there was to see by. Leanne found herself studying the rocks around them, and it wasn’t long before she noticed something curious. Closer to the foot of the cliffs, there were a couple of rocks that had seemed solid, as though they went straight down into the water… but from this angle, she could see that that wasn’t the case. The rocks formed a kind of overhang instead, and she could see a space beneath them. Could it be that there was enough space under there to stand while still breathing fresh air? If they could get under there, they’d be a lot less likely to be discovered by the men up above… especially if they decided to come down and search for them at water level, as Caelan had worried they might.
With a series of nods and whispers, she communicated her idea to him… and though he was very wary about moving, he could clearly see the benefits of her plan. So, slowly but carefully, they began to move through the water, shifting around the rocks as they went, Caelan shooting occasional glances up at the clifftop to make sure nobody was looking down at them. Quietly, Leanne didn’t think there was much risk of that. Even if someone had been looking down here, what would they see? Two dark dots in a sea of darkness, moving very slowly amidst a great dark body of water that was also moving. Hardly a source of great suspicion. Still, better safe than sorry.
To her delight, when they reached the overhang, it became clear that she’d been right — there was ample space for them both to stand underneath it, with the pocket of air she’d glimpsed extending right back. But that wasn’t all. A little further along, she could see that the stone ceiling of the little overhang rose out of sight. Moving more confidently now that they were definitely out of sight, she took a few steps along the cave floor, her eyes widening as she realized that the floor, too, sloped gently upwards.
But that didn’t prepare her for what she saw when she ducked her head under the final low rocky ceiling. She’d been right in her assumption that the cave extended back beyond what she could see — it even rose out of the water, and she could see a dimly lit tunnel extending well back into the rock. But that wasn’t what made her cover her mouth with her hand to stifle a scream, causing a loud splash in the quiet tunnel. No, what made her scream was the simple fact that the tunnel wasn’t unoccupied. There, sitting at the top of the rise of the tunnel where it bent and twisted in some unknown direction into the rock… was a slight, pale female figure.
“Caelan,” she whispered, reaching out behind her — sure enough, she felt her hand make contact with his under the water. The figure blinked a pair of pale eyes at her, then turned wordlessly and hurried away down the corridor and out of sight. She turned to look at Caelan, whose face was pale with shock. “You saw that, right?”
He nodded, not taking his eyes off the bend in the corridor. The two of them waded cautiously forward, following the slope of the tunnel upward until they were both standing on dry land again. Water poured from both of them, and Leanne shivered a little, though the air in the cave was pleasantly warm compared to the chilly night outside, as though warmed by a fire or something. Could that be the case…? As she wondered that, she realized with a shock that she could see, too. They were deep underground here, and night had fallen long ago regardless. That meant a source of light somewhere nearby.
She looked up at Caelan, torn. On the one hand, they could be walking into danger that she had no way of even understanding, let alone fighting. On the other hand… what choice did they have? Wade back into the freezing water and wait for the search party to be done going through Caelan’s things, then hope like hell they could get away before they caught them? Caelan seemed to be thinking along the same lines, and when she gestured wordlessly toward the other end of the tunnel, he gave her a short nod. First, though, he reached down to his belt, and unsheathed the blade there. It made her feel a little safer… but it worried her, too. The figure at the other end of the corridor could have rushed down and attacked her, but instead had simply turned and walked away. It felt wrong to follow her with weapons drawn. Caelan seemed to read some of her hesitation on her face, and with a soft exhalation, he sheathed the blade again.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Let’s go see who that was, shall we?”
And with that dubious war cry, she and Caelan stepped side by side into the unknown.