Highland Moon Sifter (a Highland Sorcery novel) (5 page)

She pressed the fabric to her chest even though she felt far less exposed than the wretched hope opening the shutters on his face.

“I had not considered…Col, he is alive?”

The quiet plea spoke to her soul. She could at least give him this. She owed him news of his brother before…

“Yes. He’s well.”

He took another step toward her and nearly stumbled. If she hadn’t been watching so closely she might have missed the little totter. She looked closer still, noting the deep brackets of pain around his mouth, the small trickle of sweat along his hairline. Ill?

“I thought…” He breathed out. “All this time…where? Where is he?”

“He’s…” She stopped herself. Moon Sifter. They didn’t know much about what they could do. No one did, they were far too rare. There hadn’t been another born for five centuries before Shaw and none since. Shaw probably didn’t know the extent of his abilities himself, with no one to teach him. Yet Alexander reasoned out that a Moon Sifter’s magic closely resembled that of a High Sorcerer’s and in fact, had often been mistaken as one, until the darkness of their powers overtook the light and they either destroyed themselves or wreaked catastrophe upon their generation.

Shaw had not only unbalanced all magic, allowing the dark to overtake his century, but the darkness had reached far into the future, nearly a millennia into the future, the creatures of his making—the Sifts—had all but annihilated the human race.

That knowledge brought to the fore of her memories shoved away any sympathy she felt for the devastation transparent in his features or his little stumble. She couldn’t tell him where his brother was because with his power, he’d be able to open a time rift and go snatch Col up.

Then she’d have two Highland warriors to contend with because no way would Col allow her to kill his brother.

Well, she’d had brothers too. Brothers in arms and spirit, if not by blood and she’d lost them brutally and bloody.

“Tell me where he is.” The Moon Sifter demanded, a dark impatient scowl covering the deep worry.

She took another step backward, the back of her knees running into the little cot of braided tree limbs. “No.”

“No?” His glare was hot enough to light tinder.

Technically she was at his mercy, outsized and outweaponed. Definitely outmagiced. He probably thought he could do whatever he wanted to get his information, but she wasn’t as easy to crack as that. Let him get close enough and she’d show him a trick or two about martial arts. The bigger they are, the harder—

“Very well.”

Huh?

“When ye’re hungry enough, ye’ll tell anything I want to know.” He went to the door and turned back, his eyes barely closed before thin translucent tendrils of silver light pulsed around him, growing, then expanded outward, covering every wall in a fine misty sheen that suddenly dissipated out of sight.

Grinning, he bowed curtly. “Ye’ll be safe until I return. Naught will come in…” His grin widened. “Naught may pass out.” And with that he was gone, the door thudding closed behind him.

Smug Scotsman!

Bekah raced to the door and tried to jerk it open, but it wouldn’t budge.

He’d trapped her inside with his dark moon magic.

He thought to starve her? Not likely. She’d been hungry before. She could last.

Chapter Seven

He wouldn’t make her go hungry for long. When she became desperate enough to search, she’d find food inside the chests. He was not the brute she’d shaped him to be in her mind, though with his reputation and with what he’d done to his family, he may as well be.

But Col. Col was alive.

He stooped against a tree trunk for support, his strength waning from Aldreth’s bind.

He could not be gone from the witch for any lengthy amount of time without sickening. ‘Twas part of yielding his magic to her, a blending between them.

He was trapped as tidily by her as he had been within her dungeons.

Pushing off the tree, Shaw stumbled like a drunkard through the forest. He had to get back. His essence was draining and once gone, if he died, there would be no one to hold back Aldreth’s ever-increasing insanity.

He hated leaving the lass, even without her knowledge of Col, leaving her adrift with those strange creatures about went against every fiber of his being, nor could he bring her back to the castle, knowing what Aldreth would do to any woman who came near him.

So he’d done what he could, weaving a barrier of moonlight, though it’d taken the last of his reserves to conjure it and would eventually fade. Hopefully not before he could return.

The obstinate lass would tell him the fate of his brother. He’d believed Col dead, sucked into the unnatural rift conjured out of the exploding flare between his and Aldreth’s dueling magics on that ill-fated day upon Crunfathy Hill.

Warmth spread into the cold shard of ice that had been his heart for three years. His younger brother had survived the rift. Col was alive.

And Shaw was getting his younger brother back.

He stumbled again, suddenly ill at ease, glancing through the dark trees for the predators he felt watching him. Those monsters that tried to kill the lass.

And he had left her where he thought she’d be safe in the cottage protected inside his weave of magic.

Yet his magic did nothing to the beasts in the forest before. Because he was weakened? Or because magic simply did not work upon these creatures?

Either way, if his magic did not hold them out then he hadn’t left the lass protected at all. He’d left her trapped.

Jaw clenched, he spun on his heel to get back to her.

~~~

Bekah prowled the cottage. He’d trapped her inside with a barrier made of moonlight. How powerful a sorcerer he must be to pull that off? Moon Sifter, the shifting luminous silver strands reminded her.

She’d tried to get out through every wall, slanted the little cot on its end and tried to cut a hole through the thatched roof, even tried to dig through the dirt floor. All escape routes were a no go. She was stuck until the Highlander returned.

If he returned.

Bekah tried not to think of that. Besides, how long could a spell last?

A long time, actually, as shown by the spell preserving the Limont sister, the Empath. That spell lasted nearly seven hundred years.

Nervousness fluttered her belly. No way he’d expend that much energy on keeping her here.

No, she just had to either wait him out or wait for the threads of moonlight to dissipate. Maybe when the sun came up?

She sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled the overlarge saffron shirt tighter. His shirt. It smelled like him, which she had to admit was rather nice. A blend of rich soil from the earth and a cool evening breeze. And black. Of course the man would wear black. Then again, she brought the fabric to her nose again. The Sifts wouldn’t kill Shaw. Maybe being clothed in his scent would hide her from the Sifts. It was better than mud.

The breeches he’d given her also had to be his judging by the length. She’d used a small knife he left, huge mistake on his part, and cut off the bottoms which she sliced into strips tied together as a belt to cinch in the breeches.

While she waited, she went to work on wrapping the rest of the strips around her feet. He couldn’t have left her any shoes? She’d looked for some in the chests, but found them mostly empty, except for some dried fruit and meat. So much for pretending to starve her. He’d also left her the water bag.
 

The wounds in her shoulder and hip were throbbing again, although not as fiercely as before. He’d also tended to them, spreading some kind of sticky salve over them.

Her heart melted a little over that. Big bad creator of monsters had taken the time to tend to her wounds. She didn’t get him. He was turning out to be a contradiction to everything history had painted him to be.

She dragged in a breath. She couldn’t think of him like this, not with what she had to do. How was she ever going to do it now after meeting him, after talking to him, and seeing the raw concern he held for his brothers. This train of thought was dangerous. Better jump off now.

So, the Sifts. She’d think about the Sifts.
 
There were two Sifts left. There had to be only two, anymore was unthinkable. She’d killed one and the Sifts had killed the other when it went after Shaw. One favored its left wrist, and the other had some sort of growth protruding off its calf, like a broken bone healed wrong.

When they’d addressed the Moon Sifter as father, he had recoiled, shocked. He had no idea of the horror he had—would—bring into the world. Which meant it hadn’t happened yet. She wasn’t too late in the time progression.

But how would it happen? Would he even know?

Her thoughts skipped to the ragged hope within Shaw’s expression when she told him of Col and her pulse took a little stumble. Her fingers stalled on tying the strips on her foot.

He’d shown so much open love for his sibling, it had felt like falling inside the time rift again. Damn it. She couldn’t keep her thoughts off of him.

She jerked the knot tight and rose to her feet and began pacing. What had she expected? An ugly evil tyrant in a black cloak. twirling an equally evil mustache? A faceless cowled entity? Or better yet, a leather skinned monster with claw-tipped hands? Any of those would be so easy to kill, like she’d killed a dozen Sifts before him.

Yet…

He was only a man.

A man with so much emotion in his eyes it hurt to look into them.

How could she take Shaw’s life?

And when did she start thinking of him as Shaw?

She couldn’t do that, couldn’t start feeling for him or doubting her purpose.

Shaw Limont had to die so that billions would never be slaughtered.

It was that simple, wasn’t it?

Her mindless pacing carried her to the wall where she slammed her hands against the shimmering strands of magic, letting it pulse against her fingers.

His magic, meant to keep her in the cottage, yet not hurt her. She frowned. Even after several attempts at trying to take his life, he had not harmed her in any way, but instead saved her from the Sifts, given her shelter and clothing, tended to her wounds.

She plucked at his magic with a finger and all at once she was falling forward into the wall. She nearly fell through the thatch. The magic and the moonlight were gone as though it never existed.

A chill swept through Bekah. That had happened too fast, not a gradual dissipation.

She reached out again and that’s when a wrecking ball exploded through the opposite wall. Okay, it wasn’t a wrecking ball, but that’s what it felt like, wood and thatch crashing inward, flying like shrapnel across the room. In fact, it was worse. Death, teeth, and unimaginable nightmares clawed their way into the cottage.

Shitshit.
Bekah scrambled off the ground. Since when was she on the ground? And lunged toward the door, yanking it open now that the magic was gone, hurdling out and stumbling to her knees once more before she got her feet under her.

But the Sifts were fast, coming at her in a whirlwind of terror and blood. Rolling to her back, she got the knife out.

And a hard body slammed her into the ground. Not the Sift she expected, but Shaw. His back pressed into her while the monster shoved into him.

“No.” He snarled it. Bekah felt the reverberation through his frame pressed so hard into hers it hurt to breathe.

The Sift hissed. Nostrils flared. “Where is the
unmakerrrr
? What have you done?”

Shaw’s clothes. She was wearing Shaw’s clothes and with them so close together, the Sift’s couldn’t differentiate between them.

The Sift’s tongue lapped out, testing the air. Its gruesome head lowered down into the crook of Shaw’s neck, smelling, seeking. Its ugly, nearly sightless eyes were inches from Bekah’s face, the breath of rotting corpses washed over her.

Then it jerked back, shrieking. The hilt of Shaw’s knife bounced in the leathery rolls of its stomach. The Sift pulled back off of them. Its arm lowered to Shaw as though he would clasp it in his own. “Fatherrrr?”