Page 30 of The Highlander’s Fallen Angel (Brotherhood of Solway Moss #2)

“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”

Friedrich Nietzsche – German Philosopher, 1844–1900

The scream came from Tierney’s open mouth before she could stop it. The last thing she wanted was to distract Kenan as he deflected Ranulf’s sword. But the arm that snaked around her middle wasn’t gentle as it yanked her up against another man.

“That’s it,” the man said in her ear. “Get my brother to turn around so Ranulf can finish him.”

Gilbert Macdonald hauled her backward. His fingers curled into her side, bruising her. She tried to keep her feet under her as he dragged her toward the door of the kitchen that led to the neglected gardens.

Tierney wasn’t going without a fight. She’d fought when she’d been matrimonially chained to Wallace. She’d fought to keep her daughter safe when Wallace only wanted a son. She’d fought her father with threats and readiness to take Maggie and flee when he’d signed the betrothal contract without her consent. And she’d fought Ranulf and his clan when they’d come for Scorrybreac, devising a plan to abduct the chief of a powerful clan who was known to be kind.

I am a warrior.

Her arms flailed out, reaching for anything. Unfortunately, there was no baking going on in the empty castle, and much of the kitchen had been removed for cleaning. Tierney sunk her nails into Gilbert’s forearm. He grunted but didn’t lessen his hold.

He got her to the door, and she reached to the sides to capture the doorframe, stopping their exit.

“Foking bitch, let go!”

Before her, Kenan parried Ranulf’s thrusts expertly, never turning his head toward her. She didn’t want him to break his concentration. He’d be killed, and she’d never forgive herself. No, she needed to take care of Gilbert on her own, a man twice her weight and five times her strength.

A breeze whooshed from the interior doorway through the kitchen to the open back door, pushing against her as if Morag’s mother goddess wished to help Gilbert take her.

A child of the wind and sky. Your element is air. Morag’s words had seemed poetic and fantastical. But if there was truth in it…

Tierney pulled against Gilbert’s backward thrust, her hands holding tight to the doorframe, as the wind blew in her face. Having lost her slippers, she braced her bare feet on the sides of the doorway. Using all her might, she suddenly reversed direction, rearing backward.

Crack! The back of her head slammed into Gilbert’s face, and her momentum, added to his tenacious pull to get her outside, made him fall backward. They crashed together onto his back.

Tierney wasted no time in rolling off him when his arm loosened, even though her head ached from the impact.

Gilbert groaned. “Bloody foking hell.”

She didn’t wait to see how badly he was hurt, and she wouldn’t run. Barefoot through untended briars and weeds wouldn’t help her outrun a trained warrior. This was likely her only chance to stop him.

Scrambling in the dirt, her fingers locked on the edge of a rock. It was good enough for David against Goliath and heavier than bread dough. Gilbert’s hand grabbed her ankle.

“Ooof!” She fell over his chest. Without anything but instinct to survive, she lifted the rock with both hands before he could catch her arms, and swung down with all her might, gravity her fellow warrior.

Crack! The rock slammed into the front of Gilbert’s head. He grunted, and his arms dropped to the side.

Blood poured from Gilbert’s nose and a cut on his forehead where the rock had hit. His skull seemed whole, but he wasn’t moving.

Tierney scrambled back from him, her dress dragging in the dirt. She ripped off the back ivory train that was speckled with blood from Gilbert’s nose and ran back into the kitchen.

“Keep fighting!” she yelled. “I’m well.” She ran to the hearth, grabbing a poker that remained there, and stood with her back against the wall.

Kenan kept his gaze on Ranulf, and Ranulf used his force and skill against him. They were both excellent swordsmen, but Ranulf didn’t have her in his corner.

Without making a sound to distract Kenan, she leaned down to pick up a piece of something charred, perhaps a nut. Moving to the side, she hurled it at Ranulf’s forehead.

Plunk! It hit him right between the eyes. He blinked, his snarl pinching into a grimace, and he slowed his attack in confusion. It was the opening that Kenan needed. With a two-handed grip, he ducked slightly and sliced his sword, his well-muscled body turning with a powerful follow-through. The blade slid right across Ranulf’s middle.

Ranulf doubled over, dropping to his knees, his sword clattering to the stone floor. Kenan didn’t even wait for him to topple before spinning around. “Tierney.” He dropped his own sword, rushing through the kitchen to her.

She dropped the iron poker, and he was on her, pulling her into his arms. “I thought…I thought they’d taken ye.”

All the muscles in her body gave way with relief. “There was a moment I thought they would.”

He pulled away, his hands reaching to brush the tumbled curls back from her face. His gaze slid over her. “Where are ye injured?”

“Bruises only.”

“She’s here!” someone yelled from the kitchen entrance.

Cyrus and Rory, swords drawn, rushed inside.

“Gilbert’s unconscious just outside the door,” Tierney said as Kenan continued to hold her, scanning her for injuries of which she might not be aware.

“Ye have blood on ye,” he said.

“’Tis Gilbert’s.”

“Tapadh le Dia.” He exhaled with relief, his forehead leaning into hers.

“Ranulf’s dead,” Rory said.

“Gilbert’s not looking too good, but he’s breathing,” Cyrus said, leaning over him.

“I broke his nose with my head and then hit him with a rock,” Tierney said.

Kenan stroked her cheek. “He didn’t stand a chance, him trying to take ye.” He wrapped her in his arms, and she pulled in his strength as he held her.

“I’m sorry,” she said against his chest. “He’s your brother.”

“He’s an enemy first if he was trying to hurt ye,” Kenan said.

“They’re in here!” Tierney recognized her father’s voice and then her mother’s gasp as they entered the kitchen battlefield.

Cyrus’s face appeared over Kenan’s shoulder. “Ye all right, lass?”

“I believe so.”

Rory appeared over the other shoulder. “Thank God. Kenan’s a sensible man, but if ye’d come to harm, peace in Scotland would have been a fading possibility.”

“She’s well?” Douglas asked, coming up beside her with her mother. “Tier, are ye well?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Are ye still getting married?”

…

“I need some air,” Tierney said as she and Kenan exited the door onto the roof of Dunscaith Castle. The clouds raced across a blue sky that peeked out as they passed. She inhaled the breeze, ridding her nose of the smell of blood and dirt.

Kenan walked beside her, letting her lead them to the wall. She could see the crowd up on the meadow, their wedding guests. Rory and Cyrus were jogging up the hill to alert everyone about the delay.

Delay? No, ’twas an attack, one that could have seen them both dead.

She trembled slightly. “Ye’er cold,” Kenan said and yanked one of the blankets off his glider. He shook it and draped it over her shoulders.

She watched as two groups of men jogged away from the wedding spectators, half running to the dock where a rowboat must sit that led to a ship sitting somewhere off the coast. The other group ran for the castle.

“They probably didn’t come alone,” she said.

“My men are doing a search of the village. We will ferret out the bastards.”

“How did they know we were marrying today?”

Kenan huffed. “Perhaps from our request for Father Bright. He was near Eilean Donan when I sent a rider in search of him. I paid to have the banns waived, but word still travels.”

Ranulf was dead, Gilbert in custody. She should relax, but her shoulders were still stiff and high. Tierney concentrated on breathing in and out, letting the cool air calm her as she hugged her own arms.

Kenan pulled her gently against his side. “Today is not the day.”

She studied the rugged outline of his profile as he watched the warriors disperse to search for Mathesons below.

He turned his face to her, his eyes searching. “Blood shouldn’t be spilled on a wedding day.”

“No,” she answered, remembering the tale of Sara’s first wedding to Rory’s brother. “And my gown is stained and torn, my hair a vermin nest, and I’ve lost my flower crown and slippers.”

He shook his head, never leaving her gaze. “I don’t care about any of that. I’d marry ye covered in dung.”

A small smile tugged on her lips. “I wouldn’t marry you covered in dung.”

He grinned. “I’m less choosey.”

She sniffed a little laugh and looked back out at the field where clusters of people waited to see if the wedding would take place. “They will be disappointed.”

“They will understand,” he said. “We can marry on the morrow.”

The familiar tightening pulsed through her middle, the one that made her breath come faster, her lips parting to suck in air. She thought she’d banished her worry about binding herself to another man. She trusted Kenan. He’d never hurt her and accepted her for who she was.

But her heart still raced at the idea. Sara had called it trauma. Morag said it would fade in time. Right now, Tierney just wanted to run away, but she didn’t want to leave Kenan, couldn’t imagine leaving him.

“What if this is an omen, Kenan?” She looked at him with a gentle shake of her head. “What if we shouldn’t marry?” She splayed her hands out to her blood-speckled gown. “I vowed never to wed again, and look what’s happened right before I was about to replace that vow with a new one.”

She felt tears in her eyes and wondered if they would have come as she stood on that hill with Father Bright asking for her pledge, asking her to break her vow. “I…can’t marry you.”

They stood in silence, the wind the only sound reaching up four stories from the ground.

She waited for Kenan’s reaction. Anger would be appropriate, but she didn’t fear him.

Disappointment, sadness, betrayal. They might all be displayed on his face. She inhaled and turned to him.

He’d been staring out at the village and mass of people beyond, but he turned to face her. The curve of a smile still lingered on his lips, and he took her fisted hand. He slowly opened each of her fingers so they could weave together with his own.

“Then we won’t marry.”

Her breath stalled, and panic made her eyes open wider. “You will send me away.” The thought tore through her. “I didn’t mean…” Her mouth opened, and tears swelled out of her eyes. “I don’t want to lose you, Kenan.”

Kenan captured both her cheeks in his hands, cradling her face as he bent in. His thumbs brushed away the tears, but more fell. Was she emotional because of the attacks below? She’d never given in to tears so unstoppable.

“I will never send ye away, Tierney. Ye are part of me, and I am part of ye. We will live together and love each other, but we do not need a priest to bless us before family and friends.”

Her heart clenched on the word “love.” Did he love her? “But we won’t be truly united. The clans will think badly of us, that we are sinful and the alliance between Macdonalds and MacNicols is weak.”

“I don’t care what others think.” He shook his head without breaking eye contact. “After what ye’ve lived through, ye need freedom in order to trust me enough to give me yer heart, so I will never take yer freedom away.”

She stared up into his stormy blue eyes and saw the truth in his words. “You want my heart?”

The corner of his mouth hitched up. “Ye already have mine. I love ye, Tierney. Marrying me or not marrying me won’t change that. And if ye feel free and happy not being married, then that is what I want.”

He loves me . She inhaled, the ache in her middle lessening. “I love you, too.”

His grin spread into a large smile, and she saw his shoulders relax. “And ye’ll stay with me even if we don’t get married?”

Her smile grew to match his. “I promise.”

“Even if times get tough or we fight?” he asked, looking serious again. “Ye will stay and talk things out with me?”

She nodded. “I won’t leave. I start fights all the time, and only half by accident.”

He chuckled. “I will stay, too, even if I’m angry or we disagree. To work it out.”

She leaned into him, lifting her lips to his, and he kissed her. There on the roof, before only the sky and God, they pledged to stay together. Had he just tricked her into marrying him? She didn’t care, because he understood her need to be free, and he loved her as much as she loved him.

The wind swirled around them, gentle but insistent, and she felt the hair lift and tug around her face. They broke the kiss, and she tucked a strand behind her ear. “Your aunt said I am a child of the sky and air.”

“Does that mean ye’d like to fly?”

She glanced behind them at the glider. “One day, with you.”

Kenan looked between her and the wings and then went to them, dragging the blankets off. “Life is too short not to fly when given the chance.” He smiled at her. “Help me drag this over.”

Tierney’s eyes opened wide. “You’re going to fly? Now?”

“Nay.” He smiled broadly. “We are.”

“I’m not dressed to fly.”

“Take off as much as ye can and still be decent.” He grinned. “Ye don’t want to make Doris and Edith swoon.”

Tierney began untying the heavy outer petticoat. “They’d be more likely to slice you, thinking you were trying to kill me.” The petticoat dropped to the slated roof. Reaching under the inner petticoat, she yanked down the extra layers that added bulk to keep the heavy skirts out from her legs. She was left in a simple petticoat and her bodice over her smock and stays. She shook out her hair, releasing the rest of the updo, pins falling around her.

“The best I can do.”

Kenan stood, staring at her, and she blinked as a clear patch in the sky released a ray of sun upon her.

He walked back to her. “Ye look like an angel, Tierney.”

“You know I’m no angel.”

“A gloriously wicked, fallen angel, then.”

She tipped her head to the side, her lips curved. “Better.”

He took her hand, and they hurried to the glider. “I worked with the builders to create this launch space,” he said, unlatching a wide, wrought-iron fence. He walked it inward and hooked it open through a ring built into the stone wall, leaving a flat stone surface of about ten feet in length with two steps leading up to it.

Kenan lifted the glider, sliding it into place on the edge of the castle. Tierney lifted her skirt and ran up to it, looking over the side. Her heart sped but not from fear. She remembered the feel of the wind under the wings when she’d tried to steal the glider before. How freeing and incredible it felt to be lifted. And the knowledge that this handsome, kind warrior loved her enough to not marry her filled her with brilliant light.

“I’ll strap in first, and then ye can climb in,” Kenan said.

“There’s room for us both?”

He grinned. “I made it adjustable. Ye’ll be strapped to my back.”

She laughed, her heart so light she might float up without Kenan’s glider. He loved her. He understood her need for freedom, and he accepted it.

He put out his hand, and she placed hers in it. The warmth filtered down through her. She was loved. She was free, and she was ready for adventure next to this amazing man.

…

Wind whipped through Kenan’s hair, and he couldn’t stop smiling. Below them, the houses and people looked smaller. Pressed against his back with leather straps binding them together, Tierney laughed, the sweet notes being carried in the rush of wind around them as they soared, the great wings catching the invisible currents.

“I’m turning us. Don’t worry about us tipping,” he said. He turned the horizontal control stick he held between his hands, and the wings tipped. He felt her arms squeeze tighter around him, but falling off him was impossible with the three straps secure.

The breeze off the sea caught easily under the wide, light wings, and they turned.

“Hooo raaaa!” Tierney yelled, the joy obvious in her tone.

Below, people pointed and ran under them. Children cheered, leaping in excitement at the spectacle as he and Tierney swooped in a gentle arch over the tree line to head back over the moor. Kenan had studied enough of da Vinci’s notes to make the wind currents work to lift them back up anytime they began to descend.

They circled the moor above Dunscaith Castle. From up there, he could even see the ship anchored off the coast, waiting for Ranulf and Gilbert. How long would they wait before finally leaving? Because neither would be returning.

Ranulf was dead and Gilbert injured and arrested.

But those were thoughts for another time. Right now, he was light as a leaf caught in the early fall breeze.

“I love you!” Tierney yelled out.

“I love ye, too!” he called back.

…

Eight Months Later – 9 May 1545

The Moor Above Dunscaith Castle

“What?” Kenan yelled the word as he dropped his training sword. “We still have three weeks. Aunt Morag said three weeks.”

Cora threw her hands in the air, dashing after him. “The bairn’s coming early. Only God knows the exact timing.”

Kenan didn’t wait for the woman, his breath coming in gusts as he charged toward the castle. Tierney was as ripe as an overrisen yeast bun, and he’d left her sleeping this morn in their large bed. She’d tossed through the night, trying to find a comfortable position, so he’d left her undisturbed when he rose to go to the training field with his warriors.

Had she actually been laboring through the night?

“All is well!” Cora yelled out to concerned villagers as they ran through the streets. “Lady Tierney is having her bairn.”

Was it Kenan’s imagination that people sighed in relief over the end of Tierney’s prickly mood? Just the other day, she’d yelled at her horse for being too tall for her to mount in her condition. Fleet didn’t look hurt by her comments, but Tierney burst into tears, hugging the horse’s neck. ’Twas the constant discomfort of her size, curtailing her ability to fly with Kenan, that brought out her irritation at mundane things. Besides himself, only Morag, Cora, and Maggie stayed by her side, immune to her outbursts.

Kenan ran through the open gates. With Murdoc Matheson’s letter of alliance arriving, Gilbert’s exile, and the continued convalescence of Cyrus’s father, the gates remained open more than closed these days. The burned shell of Dunscaith was almost scrubbed free and rebuilt. But Kenan’s focus was not on the colorful tapestries hanging on the walls of the Great Hall when he ran inside, nearly tripping on a thick rug when he halted. His focus was on a dour-looking Father Bright, standing before the burning hearth where he held his hands out to capture the warmth.

“Father Bright?” Kenan’s heart dropped in his tightening chest. “Ye were called?” Was Tierney in peril? The bairn? Did one of them need last rites because things were taking a dangerous turn?

The priest shook his head slowly. “I was called to come. No explanation.”

Cora ran into the Great Hall, huffing, her cheeks red from the early spring cold and exertion. Both men turned to her.

“Ye called the priest?” Kenan asked.

“Yes, Tierney requested Father Bright. The two of you are to come up to the bedchamber together.”

Father Bright passed the sign of the cross before him, concern tightening his face. His lips moved in a little prayer that Kenan wouldn’t accept.

“Nay,” Kenan said, shaking his head. “Tierney was fine last eve. She was eating sweetened scones and jam.”

But Cora was already hurrying to the steps. Father Bright was suddenly next to him, his hand on his shoulder. “Be strong, son.”

Kenan felt weak and ready to explode with violent power at the same time. I can’t lose her. I can’t. I’ll die with—

“Come along.” Father Bright tugged on his arm. “Lady Tierney needs ye by her side.”

“Aye.” Kenan surged ahead of the priest, running up the steps two at a time to reach the door that he’d softly closed that morn, leaving his love sleeping after a night of discomfort. Pausing, he prayed. “Please God, keep us together. Keep me strong for her.” With a full inhale, he opened the door. “Tierney, love.”

The room was full of smells: burning peat in the hearth, lavender, some tangy herbal concoction, and the scent of blood and fluids that he’d smelled before on the battlefield. This was Tierney’s battlefield masked to look like an ordinary bedchamber. A mother’s battlefield to bring forth life and fight to keep her own.

A ribbon of crisp spring freshness wafted in from the two windows that had been opened a crack, allowing the air to move. He strode over to her in the bed where she was propped by a multitude of pillows.

Tierney’s hair was pulled back into a haphazard bun on top of her head. Her face was flushed and damp with sweat, and her chest rose and fell under the smock she was wearing. A thin sheet covered her bent knees.

“Kenan,” she said, her face pinching again as she started to huff.

He sank to his knees next to her, taking her small hand in his two large ones. “Tierney, I’m here.”

“And Father Bright?” she asked, her voice pinched as pain made her whole body tighten.

“I’m here, my child.”

Morag’s head suddenly appeared from under the sheet, causing the priest to gasp softly. “The bairn is almost breaching.”

Tierney grabbed Kenan’s hand. “There’s no time. Father?”

“Aye?” he answered with a tremor in his voice.

Tierney’s eyes were bright with determination, not weakness. Her skin glowed with perspiration and health, not the paleness of one losing too much blood. She spoke to the priest but held Kenan’s gaze. “Marry us. I will not have my bairn born a bastard, not when I love his father with all my heart.”

“Marry?” Kenan said.

A weak smile played over her lips. “Marry me, Kenan Macdonald. Right now.”

In Kenan’s mind, they had married back on the roof before they flew together the first time, but it wasn’t official in society’s eyes. He was pretty sure God considered them pledged to each other.

“Are ye well, then?” he asked. “No last rites for ye or the bairn?”

“Last rites?” Tierney looked at Father Bright. “No. Wedding vows before the church and witnesses.” Her hand floated up to point to Cora and Morag and little Maggie, who seemed suddenly older as she carried clean linens to Morag.

Kenan doubled over, his forehead touching the edge of the bed as relief exploded within him. “Wedding vows. Not last rites.”

Tierney began to blow large exhales, and he lifted his head. Her narrowed eyes stared at him. “Well, what’s your answer, Chief Macdonald? You better decide quickly before your son is born.”

Kenan took her hand, and she squeezed it with so much strength that he felt a bit of the pain wracking her body. “Lass, in my mind, and I’m sure in God’s, we are already married, but absolutely, if that’s what ye want, not for the bairn but for ye.”

She sucked in through her nose, a smile lighting her eyes if not her lips. “Yes. I want to marry you officially, Kenan. I am certain.”

“Then you better do it now,” Morag said. “Before your own bairn is a witness.”

Father Bright began talking behind them as Kenan knelt at the altar of Tierney. She was sweaty, straining, and the most beautiful a woman could look.

“Do ye, Tierney MacNicol, take this man, Kenan Macdonald, chief of the Macdonalds of Sleat, as yer husband? To love, obey, and cherish for as long as ye both shall live?”

“I’ll obey when I agree, but I will love and cherish and always stay truuuuuuue.” She dragged out the last word on her groan.

“I see the head,” Morag called.

Kenan didn’t wait for Father Bright to catch up. “And I, Kenan Macdonald, take ye, Tierney MacNicol, as my lawful wife to love, protect, and cherish for as long as we both live on this earth.”

“I protect him, too,” Tierney yelled through a wave of pain that broke more sweat over her face. Och, but if he could take her pain, he would. She clutched his hand with crippling strength.

“The bairn is on its way out,” Morag said.

“Father Bright?” Tierney yelled so loud that the priest jumped.

“I pronounce ye husband and wife, and all yer children are legitimate.”

“Push, Tierney,” Morag said.

Tierney grabbed the front of Kenan’s tunic, yanking him down to her face for a hard kiss on the lips. As he pulled away, she groaned. The sound changed into a roar when her body contracted, and then her guttural gasp and the sound of fluid announced the release of the bairn.

The breathy cries of their bairn grew louder under the sheet draping her legs. Kenan’s heart swelled with gratitude and pride as he looked at the woman before him, his wife, his angel, his true love. Kenan leaned over Tierney, wiping the damp hair from her face. Her hazel eyes looked brilliant green and damp. “Wife, my beautiful angel.”

She breathed as if finishing a long-distance race. “You lie, husband. There’s nothing beautiful about me right now. And whatever you do, don’t look under that sheet.”

He leaned in and kissed her lips, tasting the salt. “My wife, the warrior, and aye, ’tis beauty and strength and bravery I see before me.”

“’Tis a girl,” Cora yelled, her hands clapping together into a look of thankful prayer. She rose onto her toes.

Kenan’s smile expanded. “A wee lass as strong and passionate as her mama.”

Tierney kept his gaze. “I will raise her to be a chief one day.” There was no question in her voice, but he saw it in her eyes.

He kept his place by her side, holding her hand. “As will I. A Boudica, warrior queen, to guide her clan, if that is her wish.”

The wee Boudica cried with acceptance or just annoyance at being pulled into the cold, bright world. Morag wiped the bairn briskly and cut the cord tying her to Tierney.

“Here now,” Morag said, setting the crying bairn on Tierney’s chest.

Tierney looked down at their daughter with such love that Kenan felt his own swell within him, releasing in one tear that he would probably never acknowledge. “She’s a beautiful warrior, too,” he said.

Thump!

Kenan looked over his shoulder to see Father Bright slump onto his arse on the rug by the bed. The hand clutching his crucifix slid away as he limply fell to his side. Maggie ran over to him while Cora helped wipe the feisty bairn’s mouth with a cloth.

Maggie looked up from her crouched position by the priest. “He’s well but might have a bump.” Rising, she ran back to look at her sister with Kenan and Tierney.

Kenan took in the small circle of his family and beamed, his entire body filling with the lightness of joy. ’Twas a lot like flying.

He kissed the bairn’s head, then the top of Maggie’s head. He lowered gently over Tierney and kissed her. She stared into his eyes, tears swelling out of them, making them look even greener. “I love ye, my fallen angel,” he whispered.

“I love you, too,” she answered, her smile growing, “husband.”

Their kiss blocked out the bustle around them as the bairn was taken to be washed, overseen by Maggie. Nothing else in the world could make him feel more joy than at that moment.

He and Tierney, together in every possible way, forever.

…

Thank you for coming on this journey of building trust between Kenan and Tierney. Without trust and respect, love is hollow and fragile. But to trust, especially after trauma, requires a huge leap of faith.

Make sure to continue the adventure through the Brotherhood of Solway Moss series and the quest to unite the Isle of Skye with Cyrus Mackinnon’s story. Laria is a child of the water and Lady of the Loch.

…