Page 2 of The Highlander’s Enchanted Healer (Spellbound Hearts #2)

I was jarred out of my faint and shocked to discover myself entering the courtyard of Freya’s home. Beneath me was a huffing destrier, and behind me, holding me firmly in place, was a man. I glanced back to find Ramsey there.

“Ye’re awake,” my stepbrother said.

I nodded. “Only just now.” I felt disoriented and tired, as if I hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in a sennight.

“What happened?” Ramsey demanded.

“I do nae ken,” I muttered, looking to my left, then right and seeing Murieall, Freya, and Katreine sitting astride horses, same as me.

Ramsey slowed his destrier to join the line of the dozens of other riders around us entering the courtyard.

I didn’t see how we would all fit. The MacLeod courtyard teemed with people, and based on the array of clan flags that fluttered in the wind and all the different plaids, it seemed a search party had been formed to look for Katreine, Murieall, Freya and me.

How long had we been gone? How long had I been trapped in that state between wakefulness and slumber?

Ramsey pulled up on the reins of his horse, slid off, then aided me down.

The crowd around us drew back to give us room, and then a protective circle of Gordon warriors formed around us, so that I could hear the hum of voices in the courtyard, but all I could see were the broad backs of the men sworn once to my da, and now to my stepbrother, to serve and protect the Gordon laird and his family—me.

Ramsey turned to me and looked down. His eyes held worry making them a darker brown than usual, but his mouth pinched with irritation. “Why the devil were ye in the Dark Woods?”

I thought to lie for a moment to avoid a tongue lashing from Ramsey, who acted more like my da now that my da was gone and Ramsey was laird than the stepbrother I used to run through fields with and play pranks with as a child, but I would have to tell Ramsey why had gone there to convince him to let me aid him.

He would agree to my plan. He had to. Ramsey wanted vengeance against the Campbells and to stop Ross Campbell just as much as I did.

“A Summer Walker relayed a tale around the fire by the loch about a man with a crooked spine who went to see Morgana in the Dark Woods,” I said. “He drank from her magical goblet and made a wish for his spine to be straightened, and it was!”

Ramsey looked at me as if I were the most foolish child in the world. He shook his head slowly, muttering, “Ridiculous,” even as his gaze was drawn to something I couldn’t see. I could tell there was something occurring, though, by the murmurs in the crowd.

“What’s happening?” I demanded, rising on my tiptoes to catch a glimpse, but all I saw for my efforts were the broad backs of the Gordon warriors. Being short was such a nuisance. “Ramsey!”

He glanced down at me and shook his head with a look my da would have given me before he was killed.

It was the look that conveyed, I love ye, even though ye are a foolish, silly girl.

I was equally irritated and heart warmed that I was not alone in this world, that when my da and brother had been killed, I still had Ramsey to look out for me.

Even though we were not siblings by blood, I’d thought of him as my brother nearly as soon as his mama had wed my da.

It was because of the ease between us that I did not bother to hold my tongue. “What’s happening?”

“Freya’s da slapped her, some foolish warrior tried to intervene, and he’s being sent to the dungeon.”

The desperate need to aid Freya sent me surging forward, but I was stopped immediately by Ramsey’s hand clamping onto my arm and tugging me back the one step I’d managed to take.

He glared at me. “Ye have made enough foolish choices today. I’ll nae let ye make another.

To the tent with ye, where I command ye to remain until supper, when hopefully MacLeod’s temper will have cooled.

I do nae need another enemy I must battle, Elena. ”

I knew the enemy he already battled was the Campbells, and that’s to whom he was referring, but still my irritation rose.

“My wish when I drank from the goblet was to gain the power to read minds, so I can aid ye—our clan—in destroying the Campbells. I can infiltrate the Campbell castle, read the warrior’s minds, the laird’s mind, gain their plans of attack, and send them to ye. ”

Ramsey gaped at me. “And how would ye enter the Campbell stronghold?” he asked, his tone a mixture of amusement and exasperation. “Do ye think they would just let ye walk through the door?”

“They do nae ken me!” I protested, realizing I had not thought through my entire plan. How was I going to get into the castle? Who could I pretend to be? “I could pretend to be a woman of, of pleasure!” I tossed out.

Ramsey gave me an exasperated look. “That is an excellent plan,” he snapped.

“Ye would indeed be let into the castle and taken straight to a warrior’s bed.

” The notion of being touched by one of our enemies in an intimate way made me shudder.

Ramsey nodded. “Nae only was yer plan foolish, ye do nae have powers! Ye heard a tale, Elena, nae the truth. Do nae be a fool.”

“I’m nae a fool!” I snapped, clenching my teeth. Like a real brother, Ramsey could rile my temper faster than anyone, especially when he acted as if I were a young child he had to set straight. “Morgana has powers! Her magic goblet is real!”

“I believe the witch has powers, believe me, but I do nae think for one breath that she’s going to share them with ye.”

“She did nae just give me my wish,” I blurted. “I think she cursed me.”

“What do ye mean?”

Morgana’s words about my gift being thorns in in my heart and a burden filled my head and made me break out in a cold sweat.

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly watering and a wave of heat rolling over me as fast as the cold had come.

I felt terrible, as if I might lose my accounts or faint again.

My nostrils flared as Morgana’s other words whispered through my memories.

“She said ‘power draws its own cruel reckoning.’”

“Read my mind, then, if ye have these powers now,” Ramsey demanded.

“Ye do nae believe me?”

“Nae even a little,” he replied.

Determined to prove him wrong, I stared at him and concentrated with all my might on reading his mind, but instead of hearing anything, nausea rolled over me.

I pressed my fingertips to my suddenly aching temples and swallowed to fight the nausea.

Ramsey grabbed me by the elbow as I swayed toward him uncontrollably.

“Come,” he said, his voice gentler than a moment ago, “ye need to lie down. Ye’ve had quite the adventure getting lost in the Dark Woods.”

“We were nae lost,” I muttered.

The men parted to let Ramsey and me through, and the first person I saw was Murieall standing there alone, looking as lost as I felt. I glanced around the courtyard, people dispersing across the space, and I saw Freya being ushered away, as well as Katreine.

“Murieall!” I cried.

She turned toward me, and a look of relief swept over her face. Then, tugging up her skirts, she rushed toward us.

I turned to my stepbrother. “Ramsey, can Murieall accompany me to the tent?”

He narrowed his eyes on me. “I do nae think—”

“Elena!” Murieall interrupted as she reached us. “I was looking for ye! My da got a missive that my mama has woken feeling much better! My wish came true already.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, wondering if Morgana had given her any consequences, as she had given to Freya and me. “Ramsey, please may she join me in the tent? I vow to ye, we will stay out of trouble.”

“I ken well ye will stay out of trouble because I’ll be posting a guard outside yer tent.”

“Ye do nae need to do that!”

“I do,” he growled. “Ye have proven just how foolish ye can be!”

A few moments later, the flap dropped on the tent, leaving me and Murieall alone. “What happened?” I asked.

“Ye fainted after Morgana twisted yer wish.”

“Aye, aye, I ken that much. What happen with ye? And Katreine? And why did nae any of ye wake me? How did we—”

“One question at a time, Elena,” Murieall pleaded and plopped down on my makeshift bed.

I sat down beside her, waiting. Murieall took a deep breath. “We tried to wake ye, but ye would nae rouse. Soon after Morgana turned her ire on me and then Katreine, she disappeared before our eyes, and then the search party arrived.”

“What did she say to ye?”

Murieall nibbled her lip for a long moment before answering. “She said that to spare a life is to take a life, and in my quest to spare my mama, I did nae think of hers, so I will spend my life hearing the voices of those who are gone and wishing I had considered consequences first.”

My eyes grew wide. “Ye will hear the dead?”

Murieall’s eyes locked on mine. “I already do,” she whispered.

And as if she’d just opened a door to a world she should not have, a cold breeze washed over me.

“Can ye read minds?” she asked, her voice hushed and low.

“I tried to read Ramsey’s, but I only felt ill.”

Murieall frowned. “Maybe ye have to be touching the person whose mind ye wish to read?” she offered with a shrug.

“Ye mean, like I need a physical connection to them?”

“Aye, maybe,” she said, holding out her hands. “Try me.”

“Ye’re certain?” I asked, even as I grabbed her hands.

“Aye.”

I closed my eyes to try to block out everything but her thoughts, and I attempted to clear my own thoughts so that all I was thinking about was hearing Murieall’s thoughts.

We sat face-to-face, holding hands, in utter and boring silence for so long that my arms began to ache from holding them up, and frustration rose within me.

“Do ye hear anything?” Murieall asked.

“Nay,” I said, my voice wobbling with unshed tears.

I squeezed my eyes harder, and tears leaked out of them.

I didn’t care if my wish was cursed, I wanted that wish.

I needed to be able to read the Campbell’s minds—most especially the laird who would know all their battle plans—to give us the leverage we needed to destroy them.

I wanted to avenge my da, my brother, and my uncle, and I wanted to stop Ross Campbell from taking more land from my family.

I knew he sought to destroy us, just as I wanted to destroy his clan.

Murieall frowned. “Maybe just say my name over and over in yer head or something.”

I nodded. What did I have to lose?

Murieall. Murieall. Murieall. Murieall.

Suddenly, my head was filled with so many different voices, I gasped at the cacophony of noise and slapped my hands over my ears.

I do nae want to be dead.

I can nae feel my legs.

I’m thirsty. I’m hungry. It’s dark. I miss my mama. I—

As my eyes flew open, I jerked my hands from Murieall’s and her lashes fluttered up. Our gazes locked. “Ye heard?” she asked. The two words trembled, and Murieall touched my arm again.

The world shrank around me instantly. Every movement, every breath, every stray thought of my own disappeared, replaced by the noise in Murieall’s head invading me once again.

A thousand voices clamored for space. Someone thought of home and how her mother used to scold her for being late.

Some poor dead soul panicked about the darkness around them; certain wolves waited in the shadows to pounce them.

A da—Nigel—regretted nae ever telling his son he was proud of him.

I clutched my head with my one free hand, tried to block out the voices, but I could not, so I shrugged Murieall off. Tears began to trickle down her face. “What have we done?” she asked, pain and fear heavy in each word.

I reached out to pat her but decided better of it. I first needed to learn to control my power; I could not allow for any other possibility. Panic radiated off her in pulses. “It’ll pass,” I insisted, for her and myself. But despite my resolve of a moment ago, I feared my words were lies.

“Do ye think it was worth it, Elena?”

I could tell by her tone she was asking herself as much as she was asking me.

“Aye,” I reassured us both, thinking of the Campbells, of my da, brother, and uncle gone from this life.

I thought of the constant attacks on our land and how the Campbells had managed to take some of our land in a few battles they had won.

I would learn to use this power, and I would decimate Ross Campbell and all who followed him.

I would learn how to wield the power I had wanted.

I was already learning, I thought as I looked at Murieall.

Touch was necessary to read minds, and touch could break the connection.

A sense of triumph filled me, even as Murieall looked at me, and asked, “Will ye nae feel bad to read Campbell minds with the purpose of using their private thoughts to destroy them? Kill them?”

I didn’t want to answer, because I didn’t want Mureiall to think me horrid, to look at me differently, like I was horrid.

This was my friend who would not swat a bug stinging her for fear of hurting it.

I opened my mouth to lie, to say of course I would feel bad, but my tongue started to tingle, and I blurted the dark truth of my heart.

“Nay, I will nae feel bad to kill those responsible for murdering my family.”

Murieall’s eyes grew wide as I slapped a disbelieving palm over my mouth. I had not intended to speak that truth. But it had come out of my mouth all on its own without my even realizing it until it was too late. I had a very real fear that this was one of the prices of my so-called gift.