Highland Moon Sifter (a Highland Sorcery novel) (9 page)

It was too much. He was too much. Too immovable. Too predatory. Too…male.

His proximity, his largeness, did all sorts of funny things to her fluttering belly. She felt utterly and transparently female.

“Please,” he said again, his voice low and husky and Bekah’s skin erupted in goose bumps.

And before she could form a coherent thought, Shaw grabbed her around the waist and lifted her against him. “Wrap your legs around me.”

“Wh-what?” She leaned back to look into his face. Wicked. His expression could also turn very very wicked.

He grinned. He knew exactly what effect he had on her, could probably feel it through the thin material of her shirt. Stepping out onto the ledge, he reached to the side and began climbing.

Bekah had no choice but to hang on tight to his neck and she did lock her legs around his waist. “I climbed down just fine, you know.” She’d rather climb up too. Putting her life into someone else’s hands was not fun.

“And yer feet are a bleeding mess for it. Ye’ll slip.”

Spray from the crashing ocean below splashed them. Oh man. She buried her forehead in the crook between his neck and shoulder. His skin smelled of just turned earth and the cool electrical air during an ice storm. If magic and moonlight had a scent, this would be it.

“And do not believe I did not notice how ye favor yer side.”

She frowned. The man noticed everything.

As happy as she was to reach the top without falling to their deaths, she missed the warmth when Shaw set her down. Yeah, that was it, his warmth. It was cold on top of the wind-swept cliff.

She held her bangs out of her eyes and her other hand on his forearm just to steady herself. “Where to now?”

The muscle beneath her hand went rigid. “Toren will know what to do.” His expression turned inward. “’Tis time I face my brother.”

Chapter Ten

“You know, you don’t look so good.”

Shaw glanced down at the lass walking at his side. Bekah. Her name was Bekah. ‘Twas a strong name that fit the strength of her character, fit the life she had endured, and the journey she had taken to right it. Hers had not been an easy path.
Déithe
, the tale she spun of the future. It had been hard to hear, especially his part in it about nearly being the undoing of the entire human race.
 

Yet she was willing to spare him, to give him the chance to make it right. His fellow Scotsmen, the clan chieftains, had not been so ready to hear him out and forgive. Nor had he been eager to forgive himself, he realized. But Bekah, this strange lass from the future who had endured so much, did not see a monster when she looked at him.

‘Twas a rare gift he did not intend to let slip away. He would not let her down as he had let down his family and clan.

She was looking anxiously up at him as they walked side-by-side through the forest, both keenly aware of the monsters that at this very moment could be shadowing them. Monsters of his creation. Fae’s blood, how did he create monsters? He would not know how to go about such a thing.

He’d given her his own boots, though they were much too large. And noisy. The lass could barely walk without stepping out of them.

He grinned. By the rood, she was a stubborn one. And fierce. She had left everyone and everything behind to travel through time and fix the wrong that he himself had bestowed upon future generations. He’d called her right.
Fear-dìon
, his wee defender
.

Billions dead. The grin tipped into a scowl. He would fall onto his sword this instant if he thought ‘twould stop it.

He glanced sidelong at the lass.

She shook the errant white strands out of her face only to have the locks slope across one eye. ‘Twas thought uncomely for a maid to shorn her hair, usually only done as a form of punishment for adultery or witchcraft, yet the short locks suited his wee defender. He found his gaze constantly roving over the exposed curve of her neck, imaging his lips skimming behind her ear, down the slope of her neck to the dip at her shoulder. There, there, and there.

And the way her hair shone silver while in the moonlight, hiding her gaze until a breeze or movement of her head exposed thick-lashed eyes of golden brown. She was an ethereal creature spun of velvet night and starlight, a goddess who should be bathed only in moon glow and thoroughly worshipped upon an altar of earth and lavender.

Shaw’s loins tightened at the fanciful image.

“What are you thinking about?” She stopped walking and stared up at him, her pert little nose scrunched. “I can’t figure out
that
expression.”

Oh, but he’d like to help her
figure
it out…and often.

Once more his mood dampened. ‘Twas likely any future years he had could be counted on one hand, possibly less. The forest opened before them. The gray stone walls of MacTavis Keep perched on the edge of a small burn overlooking the sweep of the dark ocean. Torchlight danced within the long arched windows of the small keep and around the walls of the yard.

“You’re sure your brother’s here? It doesn’t look that defensible. Especially against a witch.”

It wasn’t. Although the MacTavis warriors would make a good attempt if it came to it. Even now he sensed several men watching them from the forest. They’d been shadowed for the last few moments, for which he was grateful as it would keep the monsters from getting too close. Shaw shot Bekah an appraising look. “Toren remains on the move. He’s been uniting the clan chieftains to go against Aldreth. Against me. He’s only recently returned from the lowlands.”

“Then how do you know he’s here?”

How indeed? “Aldreth sees every movement and ripple upon the land, especially as it concerns my brother.” Toren and his magic had slipped through the witch’s grasp three years ago—and Shaw had paid the price for that within her dungeon.

He wondered sometimes if Aldreth still harbored hope that Toren would come back to her.

“Oh. So do you think he’ll listen to us? Or is he the shoot first, ask questions later type?”

Shaw grinned at her strange way of phrasing things. ”He’ll want answers after he—“

An arrow slammed into the ground fractions to the right of his smallest bare toe.

“—shoots first,” Bekah finished the sentence and instantly shifted behind him, facing outward toward the trees to take up a defensive position at his back.

Warmth welled in his chest that she put herself between him and a perceived threat. He vaguely remembered a time when others had always been there to stand with him. Several warriors drifted out of the shadows, moving to encircle them.

“What do ye here,
striapach
?” Haddon spat.

Shaw crossed his arms over his chest in indifference to the MacTavis Chieftain’s second in command.

“I have come to confer with my brother.”

“Confer?” Thick red brows knitted over a pock-pitted nose and the warrior pointed the top of his dirk toward Shaw. “You dinnae get to
confer
with anyone here, least of all the High Sorcerer.”

“Um…” Bekah peeked around his bicep to look up at him. “Are we going to fight? Because you’ll probably want your boots back first.”

Twelve sets of incredulous eyes latched onto the lass.

“Nay,” Shaw gritted. “I do not need my boots.”

“’Cause, you know, they’re so big, they’ll probably make me trip, but you’d be better off with them in case there’s a fight.”

“We are not going to fight.” It would take little effort for him to knock them all on their arses on his worse day—and that’s without unleashing a bolt of magic on them. Or he could simply open a space rift, disappear and reappear behind any one of them. But being that this apparently was his worse day, he remained still. On a better day, he’d be able to disappear and come out within the keep right next to Toren for that matter. Unfortunately attempting it now while at merely a quarter of his usual strength, would put Bekah at risk too since he would be taking her along with him. He would not leave her here.

Aside from his weakness of the moment, ‘twas not the manner in which he wanted to greet Toren after so long. He needed to offer himself up in peace.

He dropped his hands to his sides. “I mean no harm here, but I will see my brother.”

“Betrayers have no brothers.” A gruff warrior with stone beading braided into his gray beard planted the end of his longbow upon the ground. The surrounding warriors growled their agreement.

Haddon lifted his hand, silencing the grumbling. “Ye say ye wish to confer?”

Shaw jerked his chin in a tight nod.

“I doubt the High Sorcerer has any use for the lies trickling off yer forked tongue,
diabhal
.”

“But you’ll ask the High Sorcerer himself, right?” Bekah interjected. “I mean, what if he does want to see his brother and you’re the yahoo who doesn’t let that happen? Huh? So guessing not a lot of gray matter in that huge Scottish head then.”

Haddon‘s eyes bulged out and his mouth dropped unhinged. By his dumbfounded expression he knew he’d been insulted, he just didn’t know how. Haddon glanced about at his fellows for assistance, but their perplexed looks offered no help.

Shaw stifled the grin from settling into his features. The wee lass had them by rights.

Haddon shifted from one foot to the other. “Maoil, go inquire of the Sorcerer what he would have us do with the betrayer.”

A young warrior with the light features of the MacTavis bobbed his head and ran off toward the keep.

Haddon rolled his shoulders in an attempt to regain the higher ground he was sinking on. “If ye’re truly here peaceably, ye’ll offer no resistance to binding yer hands.” The warrior stretched an arm out to the side and Eber Horsetooth placed a coil of rope in his waiting palm.

In answer, Shaw placed his wrists together and stretched out his arms.

Haddon made quick work of tying Shaw’s wrists and as a final touch, he removed a thin chain from around his neck and twined it around the rope.

Iron. The superstitious dolt believed a wee bit of iron could undo his magic. If his magic stemmed from the ether or the absent Fae, mayhap that might weaken it, but his magic was born of moonlight and darkness where iron had no power.

A fluff of cloud rolled across the sky.

Haddon stepped back as soon as he completed binding Shaw as though touching the Moon Sifter somehow tainted him. “Now we wait to see if Toren Limont can be bothered to speak with one such as you.”

“As reassurance that he’ll mind his manners with our Sorcerer…” Eber edged toward him. “I say we take his
galladh
within the yard for safekeeping.” His thick hand reached out to clamp onto Bekah’s arm, but the lass was quick and not to be taken so easily. Spinning out of Horsetooth‘s grasp, she dodged left, crouched and swept her leg out behind him, tripping the old warrior over to thud flat on his back.

Which would have been quite amusing if Haddon hadn’t plowed into her injured side, taking her to the ground.

“Do not touch her!” Full of rage, Shaw lunged forward, shoving Haddon off with his bound hands, while what little was left of his exhausted magic tingled beneath his skin, lighting in an aura of silver glow before spluttering out at the same time two more warriors threw themselves against him, knocking Shaw back onto his arse.

Stunned silence choked off all sound and movement.

On her hands and knees, Bekah’s eyes shimmered in apology, blurring as Shaw’s vision wavered in a bout of nausea. ‘Twas an inopportune time to expose his weakness.

“The iron has taken his magic,” Horsetooth whispered.

The warriors gathered closer around him, their bravery growing in his obvious weakness and distress.
 

“We’ve well and truly caught the Betrayer.” Haddon smirked in triumph, his roughened features blurring even as the forest listed sideways.

“No, don’t,” he heard Bekah cry at the same moment a blunt pain slammed into the back of his head and a blackness rimmed in swinging axes dripping blood raised up to swallow him whole.

Chapter Eleven

Shaw swam up to consciousness in stages. Bekah’s voice pierced in and out through a layer of fleece around his brain, reaming someone out as shrilly as a banshee swooping in low over her unfortunate prey. “…dare call him that…have no idea what he’s…sacrifi…save your asses…” He floated back under the swell of ashy haze.

When he next awoke ‘twas to another worried feminine voice.

“He’s dying. I can feel what’s been done to him, but I can’t unravel it.”

He knew that voice, the exotic lilt, though he hadn’t heard it in years, did not know what had happened to her after his capture on the hill above his village. He’d assumed Toren had sent her back to her own time.

Energy tingled inside him, a light searching touch of gentle mist. Healing magic, though naught was being healed. If it were, there would be pain.

“What can be done for him?” Even half-conscious, his brother’s implacable tone still managed to fill Shaw with confidence.

He had missed Toren.

“Send him back to the witch.” Hopelessness skated along Charity’s undertones.

“No.”

Shaw clawed to the surface of wakefulness.

“He’s waking.” Relief settled inside Charity’s voice.

 
He opened his gaze to two blurry faces looking down at him.

A warm calloused hand slipped beneath the nape of his neck and Toren leaned closer. “You, my brother, are an asinine fool. Is there any truth in that tale the fairy lass spun?”

“Of course it’s the truth,” Charity answered for him. “How could she know anything of Col and Lenore, or even of Seattle if it wasn’t? Please, you can tell by the way she talks she isn’t from around here.”

Toren straightened to face the angry Healer. “Her speech is as yours.”

“Exactly.”

Shaw lifted his head, and then promptly slumped back down, weak as a mewling kitten.

“How could she possibly make any of that up?”

“That part,” Toren crossed his arms over his ribcage and looked back down at Shaw, “I want to hear from my brother. Is what she says true? Ye’ve remained with the witch solely to help Col and Edeen?”

This wasn’t a question Shaw wanted to answer while flat on his back. Twisting to his side, he pushed up on an elbow, and felt the table they’d laid him out on spin. Nay, he squinted, ‘twas himself spinning. Toren took his other arm and drew him up to sit, not letting go as it was apparent he was about to cant back over if left on his own. He hated being so weak in front of his estranged sibling.

“Shaw?” Toren prompted and Shaw’s reticence was answer enough. Vision clearing by increments, he glanced around the small chamber for Bekah, his stomach knotting at her absence. “
Déithe
.” The grip tightened.

“Gremlin’s arse. Why did you not come to me? We could have done this together.”

Shaw’s head jerked. “Together? How could we? I broke. Toren, she broke me.” His tone was breaking too, any composure while admitting his shame to his older brother dissolved. “I broke. I gave Aldreth my magic. And before that, I led our clan to the Shadowrood, removing the Fae’s magic from the world. Ye warned me not to do that and I would not listen.

“’Twas all my doing, my failure and my responsibility to make right.” Unable to meet Toren’s gaze, he stared at his hands.

The stillness of a shadowed graveyard settled into the corners of the room.

What would happen now? He was drained of magic and energy. Weak. Yet if that was not so, he would still leave his fate in his brother’s hands. He deserved no less. He deserved no mercy. The things he had done…

The warm palm sliding to cup the back of his neck was the last thing he expected.

Nor was Toren’s forehead lowering to rest upon his own.

“
Déithe
Shaw, I missed you,
Mo dheartháir óg
.”

As simply as calling him little brother, forgiveness was extended. Shaw’s inhalation stuck in his chest and his heart started pounding.

A ragged sob welled up from deep within the pit of his stomach and his fingers curled into the rough fabric of Toren’s shirt, even as he felt himself hauled in closer to his brother’s embrace, into his brother’s balm.

He wasn’t worthy of this, he knew that, but no longer had the courage or pride to withdraw from what his brother offered.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. “I will do anything to take it all back.”

Toren merely pulled him tighter, his voice gruff with emotion against Shaw’s hair. “We will make this right. Together.”

Chapter Twelve

“Where’s Bekah?” Shaw wanted nothing more than to lie back on the table and sleep for a hundred years.

“A few doors down cursing out every last Highlander and their mothers. I’m surprised all her banging on walls and kicking over furniture didn’t wake you.” Coming toward him from across the room, Charity slowly came into focus and Shaw blinked. “Drink this.” She pressed a goblet of water into his hand, but his focus remained lower on her stomach.

“Ye’re with child?”

Grinning, Charity patted her swollen belly. “That would be the probable assumption.”

Shaw’s gaze went from Charity to Toren, his brows rising. He was going to be an uncle? He was going to be an uncle!

Then a portion of the night’s events sailed back to him, Aldreth’s palm upon the young mother’s stomach, the pulse and slick oily feel of tainted spellcasting magic.

Toren’s hand on his arm steadied him. “What is it?”

“Aldreth…” He held the contents of his churning stomach down. Barely. “She’s…she’s attempted to conceive these past years.” Shame tasted like warm ashes in his mouth. He looked away, leaving whom the witch had attempted to conceive with unspoken. He kept his eyes firmly locked on the pleats of his black kilt, rather than see the knowledge of that truth reflected back to him in their eyes.

Mercifully, Toren gave no comment. Shaw hurried to brook the silence. “She discovered a way. Tonight, she took another’s
bairns
.”

Charity gasped, instinctively placing her hands over her stomach.

“She stole newborns?” The outrage in Toren’s tenor drew Shaw’s gaze upward. “We must rescue the children at once.”

Shaw shook his head. “From the womb. I do not know how, but she took the infants from the mother’s womb and placed them within her own.”

“No way,” Charity breathed. “And the mother…what happened to the mother?”

“I carried her to the village.”

Stepping back a pace, Toren scrubbed a hand down his face. “’Tis why ye allowed yerself to become so weakened.” He nodded, some interminable truth manifesting within his features. “Ye have been doing what ye could all these years for us, and have been naught but cursed by us.”

“With fair reason.” Shaw slumped farther. By the rood, he was weary.

“I need to go to her,” Charity announced.

“Nay!” Both men exclaimed at once. Shaw met Toren’s gaze, both understanding the danger should Aldreth realize there was a child of the High Sorcerer in the making.

Frowning, Charity eyed them both narrowly. She placed her hand on Toren’s forearm. “But I’m a Healer. It’s my responsibility.”

“There’s a wise woman in the village. I’ll send a runner with word that should the mother worsen, she is to be brought here. Will that suffice?”

Charity’s face scrunched. “Possibly, but—“

“You have responsibilities here,” Toren reasoned. “my brother…”

“Send two runners with several warriors. The monsters in the forest…”

Two sets of eyes, one rich violet and the other pale blue settled back on him.

Shaw winced. “I need to get outside…moonlight.”

“
Déithe
, I am a fool,” Toren grumbled. “I should have thought.”

“We’re both idiots.” Charity went to Shaw’s side, tucking herself beneath his arm. “Neither of us thought…what?”

Brows knitted, Shaw looked to his brother for aid.

Toren’s bland look conveyed exactly what he thought. “She believes she can do the impossible.” Lugging his large frame up by herself would be that. “Here.” Taking Shaw’s other arm, Toren easily pulled him up against his side, taking all his weight though Charity remained stubbornly at his other side. Surely the lass must have Scot’s blood within her.

Thinking of stubborn lasses…They were midway across the floor when a commotion sounded from the hall and the wooden door opened, banging against the stone wall.

Toren’s arm went rigid along Shaw’s waist, an indication that he might need to take his own weight if Toren needed to defend them.

Mayhap they all needed defending from the fierce lioness who rushed through the doorway. Anger bristled off Bekah with the same intense aura as any magical creature he had ever sensed. She was glorious. He willed his head up instead of lolling to his chest in order to take in the sight of her. The exoticness of her features, sharp angled chin, large heated eyes, only enhanced her beauty.

By the rood…and when her gaze landed on him, taking in his flagging posture between his brother and Charity, something indefinable in those eyes softened, his mouth went dry.

Haddon bounded through the doorway after her, his kilt flapping with how high his knees raised to run in. “Pardons, my Lord. She knocked out both Greagoir and Oisin to escape her chamber.”

“Escape?” Bekah whirled on him, fiery lioness once more. “You said I’m not a prisoner.”

“Ye’re not,” Toren said. “She’s not,” he clarified toward Haddon who was edging toward Bekah and about to get his arm ripped off for his trouble. “’Twas for yer own safe—“

“Yeah, yeah.” Bekah’s eyes narrowed at Haddon. “It was a stupid excuse the first time you said it.”

Pressed to Shaw’s side, laughter vibrated through Charity.

Toren leaned around him to glare down at her.

“Oh, come on.” Charity pushed away, having no effect on Shaw since his entire weight rested with Toren anyway, and went to stand next to Bekah. “She’s right. It was stupid.” She pushed on Haddon‘s arm, facing him toward the door. “You can go now. Everything’s okay and you can quit trying to herd our new friend here. She’s free to go wherever she wants.”

Bekah threw a glare so full of smug indignation up at the man Shaw barely pressed back a laugh.

Haddon looked helplessly over his shoulder to Toren for instructions until Toren nodded and the henpecked warrior gladly took his leave.

Bekah didn’t waste any time. She had herself tucked within the space at Shaw’s side that Charity had vacated. “Are you all right? How do you feel?”

Shaw grinned down at her with what had to be an expression of an idiot. He felt like an idiot but could not bring himself to care while she looked up at him like that.

“Why isn’t he outside? Can’t you see how drained he is?”

Toren’s unveiled groan did set Shaw to laughter. Never in his wildest imaginings had he thought this day would come to this.

“Very amusing,” Toren muttered though the hand at Shaw’s waist lifted to pinch a rib with affection.

They dragged him out the door into the hallway, through another chamber and out into a small enclosed garden and into a corner that was out from beneath the ornamental trees.

The relief was instant. Moon glow fluttered upon his skin like whispering fireflies as though drawn to him. Mayhap it was. He didn’t understand it, didn’t know if anyone, save him, could see how the light intensified as it absorbed into his flesh, or if they could feel the pulsing liquid hum of it sliding soft as dew across the cool night air.