The Highlander’s Witch (7 page)

“Come here, baby girl.”

It seemed to take forever for the hound to reach her as Seelie sank to her belly and crawled until her head just reached Skye’s fingertips before collapsing to her side, exhausted.

“Ah,
bein
tu
go.
Yes, you poor, poor, baby girl.” Skye crooned, patting her head with her fingertips, using soothing endearments. “
Truagh
leanabh
.”

In moments, Skye forgot about the rats as her senses began to tingle.

Shifting her body so her shoulder could get through the bars, Skye laid her fingers on the hound’s head.

Centering herself, she concentrated.

“Oh, no.” A tear slipped down her cheek as she realized rabies was forming in the animal’s brain.

Determined not to let that happen, Skye gritted her teeth and nudged the animal.

“I need you closer, Seelie. Please, just a little more.”

The dog whined weakly but didn’t budge.

Tears flowing freely, Skye kept badgering her to move.

Hearing another noise, Skye started.

Looking up in surprise, she saw the male dog stepping around the corner and held her breath as he cautiously approached, sniffing and growling low.

Reaching them, the huge animal sniffed at the prone dog and whined. Seelie opened an eye and whimpered in return.

“Listen.” Skye whispered in Gaelic to the male as she lifted a hand towards him, wincing when it growled at her but determined to try anything she could. “I need to reach Seelie. You need to help.”

Skye let him sniff her, praying the dog’s sixth sense could sense her abilities like Seelie had before.

*     *     *

“What do we have here?”

Skye sleepily turned her head from her sitting position against the bars to see Collin approaching with torch in hand. He was also clean-shaven and looked very handsome with the dirt washed from him.

She looked at the two dogs on the outside of the cage, her hand rested on the male’s head, absently smoothing over the rough curls while Seelie lay in a healing sleep.

“It’s a tea party, can’t you tell?” She answered through a yawn.

Collin stopped in his tracks and stared at her in shock. It took a moment to realize that, although she’d spoken in English, he had not.

She dropped her head in self-disgust and defeat.

“Alright, lass, ye be needin to explain yerself quick.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. Nothing I say will make sense and if it does, my life will be over.

He placed the torch he was holding in the sconce then approached the bars menacingly.

“Ye be a spy?”

Looking him in the eye, she gave a halfhearted smile.

“No spy here. I just happen to know Gaelic.” Shaking her head, she continued. “As long as you speak slowly because what I understand doesn’t seem to be the same dialect as yours.”

He stared at her a long time as if trying to figure something out, frowned, glanced over his shoulder, and then returned to face her.

“I happen to believe ye, lass.”

“You do?” Skye asked disbelievingly.

Collin sighed before kneeling on one knee.

“Aye. Me mother-by-the-law believes in ye an me Annie swears ye have magical hands. Besides, these mangy beasties go nowhere near anyone but the Laird, an yet here they be, allowin ye to pet them like lap dogs.” He shook his head. “These beasties would no if ye be a bad sort.”

Skye swallowed when he mentioned magical but he seemed to brush it off as if he didn’t mean it literally.

“Please, Collin. I don’t belong here. Is there some way I can be taken back to where you found me?”

He frowned as if he’d discovered what he said might have been wrong. “Why?”

“I just know that if I can get back to where you found me, I can get home.”

He crouched down in front of her. “Where be home, lass?”

She sighed and turned away, wrapping her arms around her bent legs. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why canna ye tell?”

“Because no matter how much I would like to believe nothing will happen if I did tell you, I could be wrong.”

“I be sorry, lass, I doona ken of what ye speak.”

“I know.” A tear slid down her cheek.

“Och, doona cry.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not really a crier. I just never felt so . . . lost.”

“Aye, a terrible feelin that can be.” He rubbed his face. “Maybe I can get a letter to yer clan?”

Skye snorted. “No thanks.”

“I be tryin to help but ye keep hinderin me ideas.”

She looked at the man and tried to read his shadowed face.

“I know and I thank you for the help, really, but there is nothing you can do.” She sighed, turning her body away from him and slumping further against the bars.

Collin nodded. “Except to return ye to that place we found ye.”

“That would be ideal.” She said watching the corners nervously for rats.

“Returnin ye is no up it me.”

“Let me guess, it’s up to the council.”

“Nay, tis up to me.”

They both turned to see Aiden standing in the passageway.

Heart pounding in her chest, Skye slowly stood, braving the hardened look and the set lines of his angry face, like a determined angel of war.

“What else have ye lied about?”

Her chin went up. “I have tried my hardest to not lie.”

“By withholdin information.” He curtly responded.

Skye pursed her lips together and refused to comment.

Stepping forward, Aiden placed a hand on Collin’s shoulder.

“Ye tried. Now it be my turn.”

Skye gasped as she looked at the telltale blush on Collin’s face.

Turning away from both, not caring that Collin left her alone with Aiden, she tried to deal with the feeling of betrayal even though she knew the reason for it.

“I want answers.”

“I want to go home.” She replied angrily, turning to glare at him. “Who do you think will get what they want first?”

Aiden seemed to notice Seelie for the first time. He frowned as he knelt beside her and checked on her breathing and examined the chewed rope he used to keep her tied in his study.

“She’s only sleeping.” She crossed her arms in defiance. “What? Did you think I was a murderer too?”

Aiden kept his shock to himself. Never before had someone stood up to him like this woman did. Except for the brazen ones who wished to share his bed thereby gaining some form of power within his household, most maidens cowered from him.

This lass was either daft or brave. Of the two, he had to find out which, soon.

“The council believes ye to be a spy sent to breach our gates an weaken us to attack.”

“I know.” Seemingly deflated by the facts, she rested her face between the bars, hands clasped on either side. “If I didn’t know me and was in your position, I would have little choice but to believe the same thing.”

Aiden watched as she turned to step away then catch sight of a rat as it scurried across her cell and press her back involuntarily against the bars, recoiling in horror.

He was surprised at the need to touch her, to remove her from the smell this place emitted, but he had his clan to think of.

“I just want to go home.” She whispered, turning to look at him. “I don’t want to harm anyone. I am a
good
person.”

Aiden watched as she turned away, swiping at her eyes before facing him again, her jaw clenched.

“Just take me back to the place you found me.”

“I canna do that.”

“Then give me a horse and directions and I will go myself.” She pleaded.

He crossed his arms in silence, watching her revealing features as she battled with something inside herself.

Realizing it was useless, she let go of the bars she’d grabbed and licked her lips.

He watched her closely, not knowing if she had no clue her emotions showed so easily or if it she was purposely showing an inner struggle.

Skye felt lost, scared that she was losing a battle that would lead to certain death no matter the outcome.

Her shoulders sagged for a moment as she gathered her thoughts before she straightened her spine and stood tall again.

“I am a good person.”

“To whom, lass? To the greedy English who attempt to weaken us so they can take our lands? To the Reivers that kill livestock without reason but the simple pleasure of butcherin? Both of which have killed, crippled, raped, an enslaved our women an children.”

Never taking her eyes from him, although filled with pain, she reached out and touched him.

When he stepped out of her reach, she took a hold of the bars and looked him in the eyes as she spoke.

“I am sorry this happens here. However, this is not how I was raised. To know this kind of fear or to cause fear . . . or pain, or death.”

She refused to think of the heart attack she’d given the man who had tried to rape her, knowing it wasn’t the same thing.

“Pshht lass, tis no sech place.”

“I am not saying it doesn’t happen, Lord Aiden. I am saying I do not live with that as a part of my environment.”

“Tell me where this place is that ye live.”

She looked down, knowing she couldn’t give him the answers he wanted and afraid of burning at the stake if she did.

What would happen if he didn’t believe her? She could well imagine the loony bin in a time and place like this.

Skye shivered at the vivid image that brought about as much as the fear of what could happen if he did believe her.

“Just get me back to where you found me.” She pleaded again.

“I wilna do that.”

Skye searched his eyes and when she found no leniency, she nodded. “Then I am to be a prisoner, kept in this cell until when? I die?”

“I canna ken what the council will decide.”

“You have no say?”

His chest puffed out. “I be Laird.”

As if that said it all, he gingerly scooped up Seelie and walked off.

Watching him walk away and taking both dogs with him made Skye feel more alone than before.

Then she noticed he’d left the torch behind!

“
Sarah!
”

*     *     *

Dammit! She’d been trying for what felt like hours to contact Sarah until the flame dimmed before flickering out.

Sliding down the bars in the near darkness, Skye whimpered in exhaustion.

Lying her throbbing head on her bent knees, Skye wondered if it was her imagination, but she could have sworn she had heard her sister just before the torch had sputtered out.

Her stomach had stopped growling about the same time she heard the servants clearing the dinner table in the other room. They were going to either starve her to death or make her so hungry she would tell them everything.

There was no way she was just going to sit here in failure.

There was a spell that would work. There had to be!

She just had to think of one, make sure it was fireproof and waterproof, and then she’d be home.

Her head snapped up as she heard the scurrying of rats on the other side of the dank, dark cell. Wanting to climb on top of the cot to get off the ground crossed her mind but it was on the other side in the darkness where the rats seemed to like staying so she curled and tucked her toes under her dress, fighting the tremors that racked her body.

Rabid cougars and rats were at the top of her list for creatures that petrified her.

Sometime later, the dim glow at the end of the passage from the fire in the main hall extinguished leaving her in complete darkness.

Shivering involuntarily, Skye tried convincing herself it was from the cold, not fear.

The clicking of tiny nails grew closer only to dart away when she moved as the night dragged on endlessly.

There was a time when she had fallen asleep and her body slouched against the wall, only to wake up to sharp teeth gnawing at her toes. She shrieked and scrambled to her feet, head dizzy at the sudden movement. She tried in vain to see but there was only blackness.

Skye whimpered, feeling her bare feet exposed but too afraid to bring herself closer to the rats by kneeling again. It was too late to climb onto the cot since she couldn’t see her hand on front of her face.

Her imagination went wild, picturing them coming out of every crack in the walls to feed on her.

Why couldn’t she have Sarah’s powers of fire so she could create a flame to keep the rats away?

Whiskers tickled her toe just before she felt little paws balancing on the top of her foot making her screech in horror, thankful when it ran off.