Highland Moon Sifter (a Highland Sorcery novel)

by Autrey, Clover

  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.

  Without benches in the corner of the garden, Toren lowered them to sit on the ground, arranging Shaw to lean against him.

  Bekah crouched down, the green pool of skirt fluffing around her and partially covering his legs. Someone had at least thought to provide her with clothing, though she had already sliced a split up the front of her skirt to expose knees. Practical to the core, she couldn’t be hampered fighting monsters or warriors by proper clothing. They should have just given the lass a warrior’s kilt.

  The image amused him. She also wore two dirks stashed in her belt, likely taken off Oisin and Greagoir, which they were not likely to get back. Having their weapons taken by a slip of a lass was enough to dent any warrior’s pride, let alone tucking tail to ask for it back.

  Following the curve of her pretty knees to the soft hide boots, Shaw frowned. “Yer feet.”

  “Have been healed.” Charity strode, more like waddled, toward them with that same goblet he had yet to take a sip from. “The wounds in her shoulder and hip too. Good thing as they were on the verge of infection. I’ve been quite busy while you perfected your Sleeping Beauty routine.”

  Shaw squinted up at her, unable to decipher a half of what she said. Too weary to make the attempt, he took the offered water she handed down to him, even as she pressed a hand to her back, trying to relieve the pressure, and looked around for a place to sit that wasn’t so far down it would be impossible for her to get back up.

  “Charity.” Toren’s tone housed a gentle quality Shaw had never heard from his brother. “Go to our chamber and lie down. Ye’ve been on your feet all evening.”

  “But I want to know what’s going on.”

  “I will tell you everything.”

  “There’s no way I can sleep now.” A yawn drew out the last word.

  “I willna have yer health at risk. Ye’ve already done too much.” Caving beneath the narrowing of her eyes, Toren nudged Shaw to lean against Bekah and got up, strode out of the garden and returned several moments later, carrying a high-backed chair with several embroidered pillows in its lap, which he plunked down and ordered, “Sit.”

  And without waiting for her to do so, he swept her from her feet and planted her into its seat.

  Charity’s lips pressed together in suppressed humor to which Toren rolled his eyes skyward and crossed his arms over his chest.

  Shaw drank the last of the water and set the goblet down, feeling much better as the moon restored wh
at had been taken earlier in the day to save the stolen babes who now resided within Aldreth’s barren womb.

  What the moon replenished would not be enough, not with how his magic was bound to the witch. He could not remain here much longer. Pressing his palms on the soft dirt, he started to shift up. “I need to get back to Aldreth.”

  “No way.” Bekah pressed on his shoulder at the same time Toren leaped forward also to keep him there.

  “Nay, yer time with the witch is at an end.”

  Charity watched from her chair, saying nothing, a knowing sadness in her eyes.

  “You’re not strong enough yet,” Bekah chided.

  “I willna get my strength back without the witch.”

  “He’s right,” Charity spoke up. “I felt it inside him. Their magic is intertwined in such a way that she feeds off his, while returning back to him…” A small line puckered the skin above her nose. “What magic streams back to him from her, what once was fully his is diluted and tainted with…” She shook her head. “I’m not sure what it is.”

  Madness, Shaw left the curse unspoken.

  “He needs it though, his essence has become accustomed to it—like a drug—without it…”

  “He will die.” Toren’s featured turned flat. “Without the witch my brother will die. Is that what ye are telling me?”

  “Can he be weaned off it? Even better, cold turkey?” Bekah asked, worried pitching her voice higher.

  “Turkeys?” Toren frowned, then waved it off. “There has to be another way. Shaw is not going back to that.”

  Shaw jerked his head at the fierceness in Toren’s statement. Toren knew better than anybody what Aldreth was capable of. “There’s naught to be done for it.”

  Toren knelt on one knee in front of him. “There must be.”

  His hand rested on his shoulder, their age-old conveyance of affection and Shaw nearly crumbled with the solid weight of it. “Because of the lass, we know where to find Col. We can bring our youngest home and bring back this vampire to awaken Edeen. Mayhap find another dragon in our time to raise her from her slumber. Together, with the four of us together, we will have enough magic between us, blood magic, to break this bond ye have with the witch. Tell me that will work?” He looked over his shoulder to Charity.