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?”
“Fatherrrrrr!” It shrieked this time and the other Sift who had been advancing edged back. “What have you done!” Enraged, it grabbed Shaw by the shoulders and threw him, then ran after him, but stopped, panting, pulling it together. As if a monster could pull it together. But it did, somehow it did.
Bekah stayed motionless. Shaw climbed to his feet, took a step, and his legs went out from under him, crashing back to the ground.
The beast ran toward him, to harm or help, Bekah couldn’t say in its state. The hilt bobbed grotesquely in its gut.
And then at once, the Sift stopped again. Its head swiveled back to her, its breath chuffing the air. Oh crap.
Shaw’s gaze jerked to her, his meaning clear. Run.
&nb
sp; Roaring, he dove for the beast, grabbing the hilt of his embedded knife and tore it free, flinging trails of gray stringy blood across the air. The beast shrieked, raising its claws to strike…
And the other beast flew at Bekah. Rolling, she dodged it and got to her feet, slashing at it with her knife. The beast’s lips rolled back in a parody of a smile. “Unmakerrrr.” Its muscles coiled, preparing to leap.
There was nothing left to do but run, so she did, hightailing it out of there. She’d try to lose it in the denser part of the trees, hopefully draw it, them, away from Shaw. They didn’t want to kill him anyway. She hated leaving Shaw, but to help him, she needed the beasts’ fury focused on her, not on him.
The foliage slapped across her arms. When had she gone from wanting to take his life to trying to save him?
~~~
He looked for her but she was simply gone, vanished into the forest, the two furious beasts ranging after her, leaving him behind, though even that had been a close thing. The creature drew back from slicing through his throat moments away. He’d searched until he could no longer stand without holding himself up by a tree. He had to get back to the castle, back to Aldreth to replenish with her ill-gotten magic before he could resume his search.
The lass was crafty and intelligent. She’d be all right. She had to be all right, though the worry wormed through his stomach. Except she was hurt too. Sometime before he met her, those beasts had gotten their claws into her side and shoulder. She needed his help more than she let on.
He made it through the massive doors of the black castle. The guards eyed him warily, but offered no assistance.
Aldreth. He had to find Aldreth, the closer the better though he despised her very presence.
Their magic was entwined in thick twisted cords. If there was any light left to his, he couldn’t find it. Darkness consumed them all.
The slick oily feel of her magic seeped into the walls and he followed it unerringly to her. He found her in her quarters, standing at the wide window, had probably been watching his return. Her white gown fluffed around her when she turned to face him, light, flowing fabric that concealed the weight of insanity. He felt the fragility of her mind bleed into him even with the flow of magic replenishing his strength.
They balanced each other in the worse manner. He kept her sane, while she kept him alive.
There were moments he yearned to walk away and let himself die, yet the devastation Aldreth would wreak upon the villagers, rood, upon all Scotland should the fragile hold on her sanity snap…he heaved out a wary breath.
He sighed under the strengthening effect flowing into her. He needed this, needed to replenish so he could go back out and find the lass. Déithe, he didn’t even know her name.
Aldreth glided to him. “Ye were gone too long.” Her fingers grazed along his forehead to smooth back his sweaty hair.
“There are strange beats in the forest.” A partial truth. “Some of your conjuring?”
“I have no need of beasts to protect my woods.” Her tone was haughty yet her eyes betrayed her doubt and confusion at her inability to recall if she had conjured any beasts on an incoherent whim or rampage. “They did not harm you?” She began to unfashion the thick belt cinching his kilt.
“No.”
Her dark blue eyes flicked up. “I would never create something to harm you, ye believe this?”
“Aye.” He strangled on the bitterness filling his throat. She believed she loved him, mayhap she did in her way. He stiffened as she bunched the bottom of his soiled shirt up, her hands brushing his skin as she pulled it up over his shoulders and then his head before discarding it. Her gaze lingered on the puckered scars on his chest, faded remnants of her lash.
She smoothed a palm over the stab wound on his shoulder, her favorite, inflicted by her own hand when he’d been at his weakest, then down to the older slashes above his hip, the only scars retained not of her making. These scars had come from his younger brother the frightening day Col, barely five, had experienced his first transformation. But a child himself, Shaw had guided Col into changing into something familiar to him, not expecting his brother would choose to turn into a lynx that had immediately clawed Shaw until the youngster got himself together. He had not let the Healers know of the injuries as it would have shamed his brother’s loss of control.
Aldreth lifted his arm and ran her fingers lightly over the bleeding scratches the monsters in the woods had given him. She did not like it when anything marred him not of her doing. A dark brow rose in question.
“The beasts,” he answered her unspoken question. “They need to be taken care of before they hurt one of the villagers.”
Aldreth shook her head, uninterested.
He let his arm slide under her fingers to catch her hand. “Aldreth, you promised the villagers no harm would come to them.”
Her eyes blazed in annoyance. “I promised I would not harm them. These beasts—“ she waved her free hand. “—are not of my making.”
“They can’t be free to roam your forests.” Her forests. “Twas the forest of his Clan, his family…
Her eyes tracked away. “I’ll see to the beasts anon, but beloved, I want to show you something. Come.” She tugged on his hand, her features alight.
A dark foreboding penetrated Shaw’s belly even as he felt reenergized at her presence. The pounding in his head was dulling. His skin felt less cold and clammy.
“I’ve found a way.” She threw a smile back at him while she dragged him out of her chamber and into the cold shadow-filled hallway. “I finally know what to do to please him, to restore the honor to his name.”
Him. Burnes Alduein, first High Sorcerer of Crunfathy who betrayed the Fae and had been stripped of his magic and life, his clan banished. Burnes Alduein, Aldreth’s grandsire.
Shaw stopped in the hallway, though he was still so ill and wary, he might not have the energy to get moving again. He cupped Aldreth’s cheek. As much as he hated her, hated what she had forced him to become, what she had forced him to do to spare his family, he felt for her in this.
“Burnes is long dead. There’s naught to be done to please him. Cease trying and be content, I beg thee.”
“Aye, ye beg me, Shaw Limont. Ye and yer usurper family, Guardians of naught. Guardians of mud for all ye protected magic.” She laughed. “Ye gave it up, sent it back to the Shadowrood like a child straining beneath the weight of a boulder. And now ye are mine, what’s left of yer pitiful magic, your clan and family gone, and ye beg me.”
She pointed at the floor, waiting for him to kneel. Shaw’s heart thudded against his straining ribcage.
Aldreth’s chin snapped up, her eyes tracking about the corridor. “’Tis right, ye do not beg. Even as I had ye in chains, even as my blade flayed skin from yer body, ye didna beg.” Her gaze dropped to the floor and she curled her hands over his and pushed into him, laying her cheek upon his chest. “Forgive me, mo ghràdh. I need you. I need you to love me. I need yer aid. I need ye to help me make it right. Please, Toren, I know what to do.”
Shaw flinched at her calling him by his brother’s name. Tendrils of instability shimmered between them. Mentally, Shaw plucked it from her mind, broken shards of ice, and pulled it into himself, filtering it through his own essence though he felt the drain, weakening him farther. He didn’t know how much longer he would be able to keep her madness at bay. It was taking its toll on them both.
“Come, please.” She drew him with her again. They entered the next chamber, a room for guests, though it had never been used for such. Any unfortunate guests stayed below in darkness and terror.
The room was nearly as large as Aldreth’s and as plush with the large ornate carven bed and thick tapestries and rugs to ward off the chill.
A young woman knelt on the dense rug of bear skin at the foot of the bed, long strands of snarled auburn hair curled over a swollen pregnant belly. She looked to be only a few fortnights from giving birth. A tear stained face lifted, blanching
when she saw them enter. Shaw knew the woman, had seen her among the washerwomen. He knew when she looked upon them she only saw the feared witch of Alduein and the betrayer of the clans.
She pressed back against the end of the bed, sobbing. “Please, I beg ye, do not hurt my bairn.”
Shaw’s blood turned to ice.
Beaming, Aldreth squeezed his hand. “I spied her walking in the meadow. Is she not perfect?”
Shaw nodded, numb, not understanding what Aldreth could possibly want with the young mother.
“She’s lovely. She’ll give me my child and Burnes’s legacy will prevail. We’ll establish the Guardians again, with magic stronger than the dregs left to us from the Fae. ‘Twill be our legacy, Burnes’s legacy. We’ll rule together and naught can thwart us. You’ll see. They’ll all see.”
Despair, not for himself, shot through Shaw’s veins. Aldreth had been trying to get with child for years. She’d tried with him and when that failed, she sought out others, even the lowly mercenaries, she was that desperate for an heir. Yet she’d not been able to conceive. “Nay, Aldreth. No. The child is not yours. The lass carries no magic, the babe has no magic. It cannot be your legacy.”
She smiled up at him as though he were without comprehension. “But it will, when it’s mine. Once I take it into my own flesh and birth it through my own loins, the babe will feed from the magic of my body and then take the milk from my breasts.
“’Twill be my child. And yours…born of our magic, my flesh.” Her head tilted, long glossy hair sweeping across one breast, her eyes glistening with the innocence of a child herself.
The woman curled protectively around her stomach, openly weeping. Aldreth moved toward the lass, long skirts gliding upon the floor until the hem bunched at the rug.
Shaw grabbed her wrist. “Nay, Aldreth. Do not do this. Ye promised the villagers no harm to them.” He pulled in a rough breath. “We’ll try again, you and I.”
He would. He hated her, hated the very touch of her, but to spare a woman and child, he would go to the witch’s bed, not that he had been given the choice in the past. When she tried to conceive with others, it had been a welcome reprieve.
Highland Moon Sifter (a Highland Sorcery novel) Page 4
