“He had two blades,” Keenan said (33 page)

“Can I bring him here?” she repeated Serena’s question and tapped a finger on her lips. “Well I thought I was,” she said absently. “He doesn’t have my mark to pull him to me like you do.”

“Perhaps he willna die at Culloden,” Keenan’s sister spoke up from the inside edge of the circle. “He could come home.”

Drakkina drilled into the woman with her fierce glare. “Death stalks all the Macleans, I feel it, I know it. Culloden will be a disaster for all of Scotland.”

The woman paled and placed a hand along her throat.

Drakkina’s eyes shifted back to Serena. “He loves you, why would he leave you?”

“He said he had to, had to fight with his men. Had to lead them so Lachlan wouldn’t march them foolishly to their deaths.”

“Culloden is certain death,” Drakkina mumbled darkly, her eyes snapping back to Serena. “And you let him go!”

Tears traced down Serena’s cheeks, and she crumpled to the ground. “I trusted him,” she sniffed. “Trusted the plans I had for our life together. Children, vegetable gardens.” She took two trembling breaths as Elenor came to crouch down, hugging her. “He left anyway.”

“He will return to ye, Serena,” Elenor said.

Serena shook her head. “What if he chooses to die instead, to be the sacrifice? What if he leaves me? What if our love is not enough for him?” Serena sobbed.

Drakkina rubbed deeply lined hands across her face. She had died centuries ago and yet she couldn’t rest, couldn’t go beyond into oblivion. The ancient Wiccan sighed deeply. No, instead she had to save this mess of a world. And even though she couldn’t fully enjoy the pleasures of the earth any longer, she was still tied to it. And she wasn’t willing to give up yet.

Drakkina walked past the two women toward the scrying bowl. She ran her hand across Serena’s bent head. Such suffering. An ache in Drakkina’s chest tightened and she rubbed at it as she continued toward the bowl. Drakkina sniffed the afternoon air. The dark calm before death stunk of anxious men and dirt and hot raging blood. The wind was full of it. “Perhaps he didn’t love you as we thought,” Drakkina mumbled as she dipped her finger into the glassy surface.

Serena stood slowly, straightening to her full height. “He loves me as I love him. I feel it in him still as he struggles,” she said, closing her eyes and turning east toward Culloden.

Drakkina’s finger froze, and she turned sharp eyes to Serena. “You can read him now?” How could it be that Serena could read Keenan Maclean? He was meant to be her soul mate. Her powers shouldn’t work on her soul mate.

Serena shook her head. “No, not read really.” The tears had stopped, replaced by a stronger look, determination perhaps. “But I feel his emotions. We have formed some sort of connection between us.”

“He feels your emotions too?” Drakkina slid away from the table and walked closer. Serena nodded.

“What do you feel now?”

Serena closed her eyes. She took some deep breaths. Tears began to leak out from under her dark lashes. “He feels irritated, angry over foolishness perhaps. Resentment.” She opened her watery eyes. “Determination.”

Drakkina’s mind whirled. “And you say he can feel your emotions too?”

“He has before.”

“Then pull him here! Think that he must come, that he must leave.”

“But I told him to stay at Kylkern. He feels he must go with his men, his clan. That I am safe and he must help save those who aren’t. It is what he does, what he is.” Serena nodded her head as if convincing herself.

Drakkina felt it in her, resolve. Drakkina frowned at her steadfastness, but the thought echoed in her mind. Safe, the Highlander thought her safe. “What if you are unsafe?” Drakkina said.

“But I am safe.” She stared at Drakkina. “I will not lie to him. He trusts me.”

“Serena, you don’t understand. I need you both alive, the whole bloody world needs you both alive.”

Serena faced her. “You’re right Drakkina, I don’t understand all that. I don’t understand how you know that, where you came by that information. I know that the world has a strange way of continuing on and that prophecies are unreliable. I don’t really even know who you are.”

Drakkina’s heart pounded, at least she thought it was her heart, or where her heart should be if she still had one. She flapped her hands out around her. “There’s no time for that, woman! We need to get him away from that battle.”

Elenor stepped before Serena. “Try to call to him, pull him away.”

Serena shook her head and pulled the dagger from its sheath in the folds of her gown. “He left me this,” she said and handed it to Elenor, “and his trusted men. He knows I am not in danger.”

Drakkina focused on the blade. “Peril, real life peril. He’d feel it. By the Earth Mother, let him trust it,” Drakkina whispered the prayer and walked toward Elenor.

Drakkina concentrated on the bits of energy comprising her form, turning them translucent until she was nothing more than a mist. She wafted over to the Highlander’s sister. With one surge, Drakkina invaded the particles that held together Elenor’s body. Between the infinitesimally minute spaces Drakkina squeezed her being until she completely joined with the stunned woman. Elenor’s consciousness gagged against the intrusion, but Drakkina blocked it out, focusing her energy on moving Elenor’s limbs like a puppeteer.

Had Serena seen her squeeze into Elenor? Could she read her intent? Elenor still held the dagger. Drakkina raised it high.

“Forgive me,” she said through Elenor’s tight voice as she plunged the silver blade downward just as Serena turned toward her. The blade sliced into the flesh above Serena’s right breast. Down through muscle, between bone until the hilt lay flat against her skin.

Chapter 17

Keenan watched Lachlan slump down against a boulder in the misting rain. Keenan raised his arm, a signal to his men to halt their march. They had made it to the moor, but darkness was beginning to fall, and Lachlan didn’t seem like he planned to stand again soon. His brother looked up at the gray gloom around them.

“Caochan!” Lachlan cursed into the rain.

“Take yer rest men,” Keenan called. “Disperse rations.” The Maclean warriors pulled the supply wagon near a copse of scraggly trees. Rus unloaded wrapped cheese, cured meats, and bannocks. Keenan sat down next to his miserable brother and handed him a lump of cheese and strips of venison.

“Ye ken, Lachlan, we doona have to continue with this foolishness,” Keenan said chewing hard on the tough edge of the meat.

Lachlan stared out across the vastness of Culloden Moor. Off in the distance smoke snaked up through the tree line. Those would be King George’s men, under the command of the vicious Duke of Cumberland. Scouts reported nearly nine thousand English, Irish, and supportive Scots, just like Keenan had seen on King George’s map.

“I doona care what Murray and the Prince think, I’ve met Cumberland. There’s no way he’s letting his troops drink themselves into oblivion in honor of his birthday; not before the start of a battle,” Keenan said and swallowed down some cheese. Lord George Murray, the commander over Prince Charles Stuart’s army, had convinced the Bonnie Prince that they should cross the moor during the night and attack the drunken English troops.

The troop of two hundred Macleans had traveled for a day and a half to reach the muddy hills of peat and bog across from Cumberland’s massive troops. There were Scots spread out around the perimeter of the moor, waiting for the signal from the Stuart prince and Lord Murray. They had arrived hours ago to a haphazard band of close to five thousand Scots, no provisions, no organization. Keenan chewed his bannock. At least his men had food and blankets. Most of the other troops were becoming weak from hunger, cold and exhaustion.

In Lachlan’s silence, Keenan’s thoughts drifted to Serena. He had promised to be with her again. What a foolish thing. No man could promise what he could not control.

Deep in his gut, Keenan felt his nerves tightening. Fear? Never before had he worried over the start of a battle, but never before had he actually cared about living through one.

“Ye love her.” Bouncing sleet muffled Lachlan’s voice.

Keenan threw his blanket over both of their heads so that they sat in a small cave together, upper arms touching.

“Aye, I love her.”

Lachlan nodded his head knocking the covering. He turned his eyes toward Keenan. “When?”

Keenan remembered her cool fingers as they traced his scar the night they met and then the kiss on the moor. Keenan met Lachlan’s eyes. “Before I knew who she was.”

Lachlan peered intently at him. He turned back to the darkening moor. “If King George walked up to us right now,” Lachlan said, “to strike me down.” He wiped the freezing water that ran down from his eyebrows with his hand. “Would ye step before me, Keenan? Would ye defend me, Little Brother?”

“Aye, I would,” Keenan answered without hesitation.

Lachlan’s eyes measured his words. “Why?”

Why? It was a valid question. Why not let Lachlan die so he could become the brother who lived? He already had the witch, why not abandon Lachlan now to the prophecy as he had been abandoned by most everyone since birth.

Keenan rubbed his dirty hands along his own wet, mud smeared face. “Because ye are my brother. Even if I doona believe in yer prince, Lachlan, I do understand what loyalty is.”

Lachlan stared, but slowly his face relaxed until the hint of a grin crept along his lips. He looked back out to the slowing rain. “This is miserable business.”

“Aye, bloody miserable business,” Keenan agreed. The rain and sleet ebbed.

Keenan threw off the blanket and stood to shake the water from his hair. He would check on the horses. Brodick and Gavin’s horse had disappeared earlier that day, and they would need every beast in this brawl.

Keenan straightened out his large frame, stretching his back when suddenly white-hot pain shot through his chest. He doubled over with a huffing sound and fell against Lachlan.

Lachlan struggled under his mass.

“Keenan?”

Keenan grabbed the right side of his chest.

“We’re under attack!” Lachlan yelled. Men scrambled everywhere, grabbing swords and shields as they ran toward the brothers.

Keenan held his chest, but no blood poured from him. It wasn’t his own pain he felt searing through his chest. His face paled. It was Serena’s.

Keenan caught his breath. “Nay, halt! There is no attack here.” The men gathered around them, torches glowing in the gloom. Keenan pulled his tunic low, showing his already scarred pec to be unmarred by any new wound.

“But ye crumpled like ye’d been hit,” Lachlan insisted.

Keenan leaned forward against his own knees trying not to fall under the crush of feelings thundering through him. Shock, pain. Never before had he felt such a connection with Serena. Resentment, remorse. Each dark color of emotion bled over him, coating him in her unfiltered anguish. Sorrow and finally acceptance. It was the last emotion that gave him the strength to move.

“Na’ me, Lachlan,” Keenan said, breathing hard against emotions. “Serena. She’s been stabbed, here,” he said rubbing his still aching pectoral.

“How do ye ken this?”

“We doona ken how it works, just that we are connected somehow,” Keenan shook his head, his eyes traveling to the tethered horses.

“Are ye going?” Rus called out as the large group of men watched.

Keenan barely noticed Brodick and Gavin climbing together on another horse as Ewan and Thomas took Ewan’s mount. Keenan looked back at Lachlan, standing there alone, against a backdrop of Culloden Moor. What a bloody horrible choice to make, between his clan and Serena. Guilt pulled at him, at his honor before the eyes of his men. These were men he’d trained, men who depended upon him. How could he leave them to his brother’s leadership?

Keenan came close to Lachlan. “I tell ye brother, this scheme is doomed. Like I said, the Stuart prince’s strategy will na’ work. We doona need Serena’s warning to ken the outcome of this. Come away now. We will pick a different battle with the English.”

Lachlan shook his head. “I canna leave,” his words were low, only for Keenan. “It is the first time I’ve felt their respect,” he said glancing past Keenan’s shoulder toward the expectant men. “I canna play the coward anymore, Keenan. It will kill me.”

“But ye will die here.”

Lachlan smiled grimly. “Perhaps, but it is also the first time I will truly live.”

“But the men. Think of their lives.”

“I will put Rus in charge of our strategy.” Lachlan nodded. “Ye trust him.”

“But, Serena’s warnings…”

“Ye’ve told me them. I remember. I will tell them all and let them protect themselves as best they can from what she saw. Or they can go.”

“They willna go,” Keenan said shaking his head. The pain in his chest felt so fresh that he looked down to see if blood pooled between his feet. But there was only mud and trampled grass beneath him. “Lachlan, they willna go without ye.”

“Perhaps,” Lachlan grabbed Keenan’s shoulders in his hands and shook him slightly. “But ye, Brother, ye must go. If she dies, so does the prophecy and our chance for peace. Ye must keep our witch alive.”

“Lachlan…Brother…”

“Nay, Keenan.” He nodded, using his father’s favorite utterance. “'Tis yer duty.” Lachlan’s eyes warmed with a hint of a smile. “Ye are already with her, not here, not on this bloody moor. Yer heart was never for Da’s cause because ye doona respect the Prince. Finally yer heart is for something. Ye love her, Keenan.” Lachlan raised his voice so all could hear. “Go to her, save our witch, Keenan. Without her alive we have no chance for peace. Ye must go to save our clan. I know ye will do yer duty.”

Keenan stared into his brother’s eyes and then nodded. He must go. He must reach Serena, not for the prophecy, but for himself and for her.

****

Air wheezed out of Serena’s stunned lips. Drakkina drew away from Elenor’s body, rematerializing next to Serena.

“Quickly, bring her to the stone table,” Drakkina demanded.

Elenor looked down at her shaking hands. “What have I done?”

“You’ve done nothing!” yelled Drakkina as she frantically tried to catch Serena’s wilting body, but the woman’s form fell right through her own. Serena fell onto her side crushing the wildflowers. Serena’s low moan squeezed inside Drakkina’s chest. “What have I done?” Drakkina breathed softly and turned her fury on Elenor.

“Move!” Drakkina ran over to Elenor waving her arms in the air before her face. “Pick her up and place her on the stone table while I call her sister here to save her.”

“Her sister?” Elenor said, her eyes wild.

“Move!”

Elenor snapped into action, heaving Serena up and wrestling her as gingerly as possible onto the stone table.

“I,” she said, “I must keep her on her side. The blade protrudes from her back,” she said on a sob. Elenor pulled her hands away from the wound. Blood, Serena’s blood flowed down her palms, staining the edges of her sleeves at the wrist. “It was her blood she saw, her own blood.”

Drakkina ignored her. “Just make her as comfortable as you can.” Drakkina looked around the stones. “Chiriklò come to me,” she called, and the bluebird screeched loudly as it wove in and out of the stones around the circle. Drakkina knew it had been close, never far from Gilla’s girl. It flew to perch on Serena, chirping and squawking.

“No time to panic. Go to him. Find Keenan Maclean and lead him here over the bridges I’m weaving.” Drakkina closed her eyes and pictured the lands between them, mountains, lochs, moors until she reached Culloden in her mind. She pulled upon the magic thick within her. The power threaded out, bending the miles, folding them into short lengths.

“Go,” she ordered the bird and heard its small wings stretch as it soared toward the east. “Go fast,” she said as she wove a second thread around the first, pinching together the layer of time that lay across the land. Each moment in time was in itself complete, held apart from every other instance in time. But Drakkina’s magic, much like the magic the demons desired, could collapse those layers, shortening time, bringing it together.

With extreme focus, Drakkina tied off the threads, keeping the bends and twists of time and land together into a bridge. It should shorten Keenan’s journey from days to perhaps an hour. If he came. She turned back to Serena.

Elenor cried quietly as she dabbed at Serena’s pale face. She looked up at Drakkina with hatred seeping out with her tears. “Ye’ve murdered her, Demon, witch, whatever monster ye are,” she spat in her direction and turned back to croon over Serena.

“It will bring him here,” Drakkina said defensively. An uneasy tightness formed in Drakkina’s stomach as she looked at Gilla’s eldest, her chest growing red with her blood.

“It will bring him to her corpse.”

“Not with Merewin helping us.” Drakkina turned toward the Northeast and spread her hands wide. She wove another thread with her diminishing powers, a thread back through time. She traced the thread as it moved across time and space to another dragonfly birthmark, on Gilla’s second eldest daughter.

“Merewin I have need of your magic,” Drakkina called into the air. “Merewin, I need you now to save your sister.” The silence twisted in Drakkina. What if she couldn’t call the healer? She should have called her first. “Merewin!”

“Calm yerself old crone,” a sassy female voice answered. “I am here.” Drakkina took in a calming breath and lowered her arms so none would see them shaking. A misty figure stood near the inside edge of the stones. She was faint, much too faint.

Drakkina closed her eyes and focused a portion of her magic on the stones, pulling on their strength from the earth beneath them. The air began to hum as the stones pulled more power up through the earth. The wildflowers wilted, adding their life force to the power. When Drakkina opened her eyes, Merewin stood solid within the circle. Mist moved outside the stones, as if the circle sat apart from the current time, but also within it.

Merewin, tall like her father, slender like her mother, had long wavy brown hair and snapping green eyes. And they narrowed as she took in the scene before her.

“What has happened?”

“She is your sister, Serena,” Drakkina answered as Merewin ran across the circle.

“Crone, I ken who she is. What’s happened?” Merewin shoved Elenor aside and glanced at her bloody hands.

“The woman did not harm her. She can help you where I cannot,” Drakkina said, showing how her hands passed right through the stone table.

Merewin tore strips from Serena’s petticoat and wadded it against the tip of blade sticking out from her back. Serena’s chest rose in short shallow breaths as Merewin laid her ear against her breast.

“A lung is punctured, I hear the wheeze.”