There, exactly where he wanted her now.
Until a particularly roguish wave smacked into the rocks near where he stood, dousing him head to toe with cold briny water.
“Damn it all to hell!” He shook back his hair and knuckled his eyes.
When he looked again, Catriona was gone.
Even so, he scowled darkly at the spot where she’d stood.
He wouldn’t be surprised if she was watching him still, peeking at him through some nefarious hidey-hole in Blackstone’s curtain walling.
Such would be like her.
Sure of it, he whirled around and began the long trek back to his corner of the glen. If he hurried, he could still pay a call on the Makers of Dreams before the afternoon gloom drew in, making the steep and rocky path to their high moor too treacherous even for one well-used the journey.
But first he had to put Catriona from his mind.
To that end, he cast one last look at the deserted strand. Hoping that she was watching him from some unseen spy hole – just so she’d see how swiftly he’d forgotten her – he quickened his step, doing his best to stride manfully despite the wet clamminess of his plaid and the annoying squish-squashing of his shoes.
He was certain he could feel her stare and the knowledge buoyed him.
His brisk pace would annoy her.
And if she was offended, she might keep well away from him in the future.
A man could hope.
Not that he’d find it difficult to resist her. He’d ignored the charms of many women when an attraction proved ill advised. And for all her beauty and spirit, Catriona was no different from other females.
No different at all.
He knew that beyond a doubt.
It was just a pity that his heart disagreed.
Chapter 5
Hours later, James stood near one of the corries high above Castle Haven and knew again that he shouldn’t have left his bed that morn. Cloud and mist swirled around him, biting wind chilled him, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that the soaring, rock-faced walls of the gorge were closing in on him. Frowning, he peered into the abyss. Deep, narrow, and treacherous, the boulder-strewn defile should’ve opened into the vast stretch of heathery gloom that was the almost inaccessible world of the Makers of Dreams.
Instead, the far end of the ravine tailed away into an impenetrable tumble of jagged, ageless stone.
He scrunched his eyes, hoping he’d missed something. That shadows or mist somehow hid a gap through the rocks. But there was none. Not even a crack wide enough to provide wriggle room to a half-starved mouse.
A flea wouldn’t fare better.
He stepped closer to the edge of the ravine and scowled at the spill of rocks. He’d rarely seen a more impassable barrier. If he were a fearful man, he’d suspect that ill luck was following him like a curse. Why else would he not be able to put the MacDonald she-devil from his mind? Even now, with much more serious matters plaguing him, he couldn’t stop wanting to strip off her clothes and drag his hands over every voluptuous inch of her. His desire to kiss those inches was worse. He especially ached to taste her darker, most mysterious places. It was a raging, inexorable need that heated him and made his heart pound as hard as if he’d just tossed aside every fool boulder blocking his path.
As it was, he glared at the rocks and took a deep breath of the cold, stone-scented air.
Even so….
Disappointment cut like the sharp edge of a sword.
Not wanting to admit defeat, he braced his arm on an outcrop of quartz-shot granite and looked back over the trackless ground he’d covered to reach these heights. He’d been so sure that he’d headed in the right direction, confident that each corrie – this was the fourth to defeat him – was the one that accessed Gorm and Grizel’s high moorland.
But he’d erred.
He had yet to find the hidden pass.
And the towering outcrop beside him was just that: a jumble of broken stone and not, as he’d hoped, the monolith known as the Bowing Stone. That hoary monument where, in ancient days, pagan men had circled three times and then dropped one knee, begging good fortune and an abundant harvest. Men no longer sought the mercy of the Old Ones for a bountiful crop, but the Bowing Stone remained the only true marker for those seeking counsel with the Makers of Dreams.
Those of Cameron blood.
If one such reached the Bowing Stone, the path to the half-mythic pair stood open.
Unfortunately, the standing stone and even the corrie could shift location, depending on Gorm and Grizel’s willingness to welcome visitors to their enchanted realm. Strange mists often appeared out of nowhere, sent by the ancients to guard their privacy when they wished to be left alone.
Such were the ways of Highland magic.
And it would seem he was presently out of favor with those who wielded such powers.
It also seemed he’d been followed.
Not trusting his eyes, he peered through the mist at the slender, dark-haired figure slipping through the sea of rock and heather below him. A beautiful maid, she stepped lightly, her raven tresses streaming behind her like a glistening river of blackest silk. She didn’t wear a cloak and her gown floated about her like a thin, gossamer cloud.
James narrowed his gaze on the girl, all thoughts of the Makers of Dreams vanishing as he watched her move past a cluster of bog myrtle and yellow-blooming whin. Mist cloaked her, making it difficult to see her face, but he still recognized her.
She was Isobel.
His sister.
Pushing away from the outcrop, he scanned the dense heather and jumbled rocks surrounding her. She wasn’t too far from a stretch of birch and rowans where anyone could lurk in shadow. Almost as close was a steeply rising knoll covered with tall Caledonian pines, their massive girth and dark, twisted limbs offering an even better hiding place.
A prickling at his nape told him someone else agreed.
He might not see anyone, but he could feel the menace of another man’s presence. And he knew the varlet’s gaze was on Isobel.
“Damnation!” He sprinted down the hill, leaping over rocks and plunging through heather and bracken, trying all the while not to lose sight of his sister.
He saw no one else.
But he was sure someone was watching him.
Worse, he was now certain – well, almost – that the stare he felt wasn’t from anyone this side of the living. Dreagans came to mind. But he pushed the notion aside, furious he’d considered the beasties.
There was no such thing as a dreagan.
But it would seem the glen was turning into a haven for errant sisters.
Even so, dread clawed at him. And it grew with every beat of his heart. His blood was freezing, cold chills turning his skin to ice.
“Isobel!” He ran faster, his feet sliding on the slick, boggy ground. “I’m no’ fashed!” he yelled, hoping she couldn’t tell he was seething. “Wait, lass! Where are you going?”
She did stop then, turning to face him through the icy gray fog stretching between them. At a distance, her face looked pale and cold, and although he couldn’t tell for sure, he had the impression her eyes were huge and filled with sadness. Even the mist around her seemed to darken as their gazes met and held. Wind whipped the glossy black strands of her hair across her face, but rather than brush them aside, she lifted an arm to point at him.
He kept on, and then cursed when his foot slammed into a rock he hadn’t seen. He shot a glare at the offending boulder, craftily hidden in a clump of heather. When he glanced up again, Isobel was darting behind a rowan tree that glowed with berries as red as blood.
“Foolish chit!” He limped to halt, glowering at the rowan.
His foot throbbed maddeningly. He could feel it swelling inside his shoe, wincing at the tongues of flame shooting up his leg.
He suspected he’d broken a toe.
And if he had – he gritted his teeth, determined to ignore the fiery pain – he’d place the blam
e on Isobel. No matter that she was the last person he’d expect to behave so strangely. His sister was the heart of Clan Cameron. She soothed all ills and always kept a cool and gracious mien. Just now he didn’t know her. And although he loved her dearly – and never in all their days had ever once spoken harshly to her – he was soon going to give her a scolding that would set her ears to ringing for a hundred years.
He might even follow his advice to Alasdair and lock her in her bedchamber.
At the least, it would be a long time before he trusted her again.
She was worse than Catriona.
Flitting about in the coldest, darkest part of the glen where even he took care to tread with caution. And – he could scarce believe what he’d seen – she’d worn such thin-soled slippers that her feet would have frozen even if she’d been standing before a roaring fire in the great hall.
Down there, on the chill and boggy ground-
“Guidsakes!” His eyes flew wide when she reappeared from behind the red-berried rowan and he could see the whole of the moor right through her!
He blinked, sure he was mistaken.
Sadly, he wasn’t.
The world tilted beneath his feet and blood roared in his ears as the see-through beauty drifted to the rocky edge of a burn. Clearly not Isobel, she wrapped her arms around her waist, hugging her middle as she peered down into the stream’s rushing waters.
Then she was gone, vanishing as if she’d never been there.
“Guidsakes!” James stared, flushing hot and cold.
He tried to breathe and couldn’t.
He’d been raised on tall tales about the ghosts said to walk the Glen of Many Legends. His path hadn’t crossed one until this moment. He’d never truly believed the stories, even laughing at those who did. But he couldn’t deny what he’d seen and there could be only one explanation for the mysterious raven-haired beauty.
She could only be Lady Scandia Cameron, a clan ancestress from distant times. She was named after the northern homeland of her Viking mother, a woman given as a war prize to a long-forgotten Cameron champion. Scandia remained in clan memory because she haunted Castle Haven.
When the bards sang of her, their eyes always lit on Isobel, for – although no one could say for sure – it was believed that Scandia had been a great beauty with the same creamy alabaster skin and silky raven’s wing tresses. But that was long ago and mattered no more.
Now she was a gray lady.
And her appearance foretold doom.
* * *
The problem was James wanted nothing to do with disaster. His only concern was the well doing of kith and kin and seeing his clan stride triumphantly from the King’s fast-approaching trial by combat.
He also needed to banish his lust for a headstrong, flame-haired hellion who could shatter his world with the crook of a finger.
Nothing else was of consequence.
Certainly not a see-through woman who’d lived hundreds of years before. She might be known as the Doom of the Camerons, but it remained beneath his dignity to show how deeply her appearance beset him.
It was maddening enough that his toes ached so badly he couldn’t walk without favoring his foot.
And it was a greater annoyance that even after Scandia’s departure, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. There was a curious shivering in the air that persisted in raising the hairs on his nape. Some dim unseen presence, watching him still.
Sure of it, he summoned his fiercest mien and gave the burn a hard stare. Just in case Scandia yet lingered there, eager to plague him.
He wanted nothing to do with her and hoped his scowl made that clear.
Blessedly, she didn’t reappear. Though there was – his heart jumped – the unmistakable patter of cloven hooves on the stony ridge behind him.
He whirled, spotting the deer at once.
The herd was in full view, a good number of hinds and at least six young stags, each one proudly carrying wide-spanned antlers of no less than eight points. James tipped his head back, watching them. They moved carefully, their red-brown coats gleaming softly through the mist as they picked their way along the edge of the high corrie where he’d stood such a short time ago.
Only now the ravine looked different and the mist hovering over the jagged rocks held an eerie luminance that wasn’t there before. Thick and shimmering, the fog poured through the corrie like a rolling sea, glowing from within as if lit by the flames of a thousand candles.
James stared, spellbound.
A strong wind rushed down off the hill then, circling him, and filling his lungs with cold, damp air and the scent of dark, ancient magic. High above him, through layers of shifting, glittery mist, he saw the deer herd freeze and then turn as one to bound away, leaping over a river of stones that sparkled like stars.
And as soon as the last deer bolted out of sight and the clatter of hooves could be heard no more, the very mist drew breath, glimmering brightly before the curtains of fog rolled back to reveal a single standing stone spearing towards the heavens. Shining with the luster of costliest pearls, the monolith hummed, its music soft, old, and sweet, strumming the air.
The stone was covered with beautifully carved runes, curving and fluid, as if each hoary line and symbol beat in rhythm with the living rock.
It was the Bowing Stone.
And beside the monolith stood a magnificent white stag, his peaty-brown eyes all-seeing and wise, and fixed steadily on James.
Laoigh Feigh Ban.
He was the Makers of Dreams’ pet deer. Called Rannoch, after the vast moorland said to be his true home, he was an enchanted creature, possessing untold powers. Clan bards swore his age rivaled that of his venerable masters, Gorm and Grizel, who made no secret that they’d lived since before time was counted.
Few men had ever seen Rannoch.
Even James had only glimpsed him on rare occasions. Most recently, when he, Colin, and several other trusted men brought Gorm and Grizel their winter supply of cut wood and peats, an important gift to the ancients who, all knew, kept benevolent watch on the glen.
Then, as now, Rannoch had turned his velvety gaze on James, making him feel as if all creatures, large and small, ever to walk the earth, were looking at him through the stag’s kind and gentle eyes.
James started forward. The wind roared, swooping down from the heights once more, this time bringing the sparkling mist to whirl and spin around him. He kept on, ignoring the pain in his leg, and making for the steep path back up to the corrie, to Rannoch and the Bowing Stone. But then his knee buckled and he stumbled on the slick, wet ground.
“Damnation!” He righted himself and hurried on, determined not to falter again.
Rannoch watched him with interest, edging forward to peer down at him from where – James was certain – he’d braced his arm against the jagged outcrop. But now the jumble of stone was no longer there.
The Bowing Stone had taken its place.
And although Rannoch stood only a few paces from the monolith, still so high up on the mist-draped hill, James could see the magical beast as clearly as if he were right in front of him.
Indeed – his breath caught and his eyes rounded – the Laoigh Feigh Ban was closer than a hand’s breadth. Man and stag stood face to face. So near that Rannoch’s nose almost bumped James. He could even see how the stag’s perked ears quivered with curiosity.
James closed his eyes and shook his head, certain he hadn’t moved. His foot hurt too badly for him to have reached the corrie so quickly.
But when he looked again, that’s where he was.
Rannoch was there as well, eyeing him with a look that held more intelligence than some men.
And somewhere close by, something – perhaps a woman’s skirts? – rustled lightly and an amused-sounding cackle filled the air.
“Begad!” James jumped as the world blurred, dipping and slanting, then turning brilliant white, the star-like flickers of light he’d noticed in the mis
t, now blazing like a sea of dazzling suns.
“Holy saints!” He reeled, his injured foot sliding dangerously on a peat slick. He thrust out his arms, wheeling them for balance when a quick grip caught his wrist, preventing his fall.
“There be no holy men here,” trilled a reedy, old woman voice, “though we do hold them in esteem, whatever!”
“Grizel!” James drew himself up, brushing at his plaid.
“That’s myself, true enough.” The tiny black-garbed woman peered up at him, looking proud. “I’ve been the same for” – her wizened face wreathed in a smile – “ach! Who is to say how many years?”
James glanced at her, noting the freshening scent of cinnamon wafting from her dark, woolen cloak and how carefully she’d looped her scraggly, white braids on either side of her head. Her wrinkled cheeks held a hint of rose, thanks to the day’s chill. And, as always, she wore a half-moon brooch of beaten silver and had taken care that her small black boots were spotlessly clean.
As a cailleach of the highest order, she took pride in her appearance.
James suppressed a smile. He also pretended to peruse her more critically. “Ach, Grizel….” He laid on a tone of appreciation. “‘Tis true that you dinnae look a day more than eighty summers.”
She preened. “Some do be saying the like. Though” – she eyed him shrewdly – “I know fine that you’re not here to ply me with sweet words.”
“That is so.” He nodded. He’d enjoyed bantering with her. But at the moment he had more important things on his mind than stoking the crone’s vanity.
He hooked his thumbs in his sword belt, hoping to uphold his own image.
“How did I get here?” He needed to know, seeing as they were at the far side of the corrie. The opposite end from where Rannoch now grazed beside the Bowing Stone. “I was down near the rowans, at the burn and-”
“Ach!” Grizel’s blue eyes twinkled. “That’s where you were, right enough. But here’s where you are now, eh? And I’ll tell you this” – her thin chest puffed – “you didn’t climb the hill on thon aching foot.”
Sins of a Highland Devil: Highland Warriors Book 1 Page 8
