Highlander’s Curse

by Melissa Mayhue

  It was also where he and Abby would face their greatest danger, both as he attempted to ascertain the MacDougalls’ exact location and to warn his king and his kinsmen of the impending danger.

  Those precious moments had flowed by swiftly, like spring runoff from the highest peaks. They had passed all too quickly, leaving him with only the sweet flavor of their memory. Even now, Abby bent to pack her folded belongings back into the bundle she’d tie behind her saddle.

  “What do you think yer doing with those wee weapons, my lady? They’re to wear for yer protection, no to carry in yer bundle where they’re of no use to you.”

  Abby huffed out her breath and held up one of the knives Ellie had given her for the journey. “Honestly, Colin. Look at this thing. What do you possibly see me doing with this? I’m no warrior. I don’t even know how to use it.”

  “Is that so, wife?” He smiled at her disheveled appearance, remembering how it had been his touch that had brought down the neatly tied-up hair not half an hour past. “I seem to remember yer putting one no larger than that to good use in a moment of need, do I no?” Her bravery in attacking the Nuadian had impressed him more than any other woman’s.

  “Fine. But I’m telling you right now, if I end up stabbing myself with one of these things, I’m going to be really pissed with you and your sister-in-law.” She tied the belt with the longer knife around her waist and shoved the smaller of the two into her bodice. “There. Happy?”

  “It will do for now. I’ll be happier at this day’s end when you allow me the pleasure of retrieving that trinket from its hallowed resting place.”

  He would be happier when this day had passed and he knew she’d had no need for the weapons. For now, he could but take joy at the flustered blush his words brought to her cheeks as he took her bundle from her hands and secured it to her saddle before lifting her up onto her mount.

  He allowed his hand to linger on her waist for longer than necessary before trailing his fingers to her thigh.

  If only there were more time.

  “Wait a minute. I need your oath, Colin.” Abby fit her soft hands on either side of his face, her eyes dark with concern. “Promise me you’ll be careful no matter what happens today. Give me your sworn oath that you won’t do anything to risk your life in any way.”

  He’d warned her that their journey would change this day. He hadn’t wanted to frighten her, but it was important that she be on her guard as much as he would be. The miles of empty countryside were behind them. Ahead they’d face the roaming bands of English and their toady sympathizers, the traitors who dared call themselves Scots though they rode in support of Edward.

  “I’ll do everything in my power to see to yer safety and mine, this I swear to you, my love.” It would have to do. He could not swear he’d take no risks. Were Abby to be in danger, he’d offer up his life without a second thought to save hers. He had no doubt, however, that this was not what she wanted to hear, so he left those words unspoken.

  His declaration seemed to satisfy her. That, or she knew him too well to press for better. Either way, she bent to kiss his forehead before taking up her reins, staring out toward the forest.

  “Which way to your friends this morning?”

  It was the question she’d asked him each day at the start of their journey since he’d told her how he used his gift to locate the Soul aura surrounding his kinsmen to track them. It had become something of their own private little ritual.

  With one last sideways glance at Abby’s lovely profile, he closed his eyes and lowered his defenses, opening himself to the onslaught of the other world of Faerie Magic, allowing his senses to seek the visions he needed to follow this day.

  Nothing.

  The sheer vast emptiness hit him like a physical assault. It wasn’t simply the blank comfort of no souls nearby; this was different. This was as if there were no people left in the world for him to find.

  Frantically, his mind hunted for the signature auras associated with Dair and Simeon.

  Nothing. Not them, not the armies they traveled with, and no one in between.

  He concentrated, blocking out everything around him, searching. Not even Flynn’s black soul showed itself to him.

  His chest tightened and his heart pounded. What had happened to all of them? Either they no longer lived or. . .

  He opened his eyes and stared toward Abby, searching the air around her for her now-familiar golden aura.

  Nothing.

  After nearly a decade of agony, now that he’d come to depend on the Faerie Queen’s horrible curse, now that he actually needed it, it was gone.

  Proof positive that he’d found his Soulmate.

  * * *

  As if her nerves weren’t already shot to hell this morning after Colin’s little speech about their having reached the dangerous part of this trip, now he was sitting there like some statue, frozen in time.

  “Well? Which way?”

  He opened his eyes and turned his face to her, but he wasn’t really looking at her. It was as if he were looking through her, around her, but not seeing her.

  “Colin?”

  He blinked. Once, twice, his face crumpling into a vision of horror. Whatever had happened to him had to be hideous beyond anything they’d experienced so far for him to allow her to see so much unbridled emotion. His mask was completely shattered.

  “Oh, my God, Colin! What’s wrong?” She pulled her horse as close to his as possible, grabbing for the hand he held clenched around his reins.

  “It’s left me.” His voice sounded so desolate, like a lost child. “I canna feel them. I canna feel any of them.”

  “Your friends’ Souls? What do you mean you can’t feel them? I thought you were cursed with it. That the Faerie Queen had cursed you to feel everyone’s pain forever.”

  He’d told her the whole story. He’d described the day it had happened in such detail, she’d felt as if she’d seen the entire event through his eyes, experiencing it along with him.

  “Only by joining with your own Soulmate will you cease to feel the horror and pain of the great wanting.”

  She recognized the words even as he spoke them. They were the ones the Faerie Queen had given him as a way out of the curse. Just before she’d snatched back all hope by informing him his match didn’t exist in this lifetime.

  “Because I’m your Soulmate,” she said slowly, the realization weighing down on her. “Because I existed in the twenty-first century, not here. And we would never have been together had I not. . .”

  “Had you not wished for me at your side,” he finished for her, his eyes haunted with the knowledge that his gift was gone forever. “It is gone because of our joining.”

  Colin scrubbed his hands over his face, all expression wiped away when he finished, his mask back in place, firmly shutting her out. That lack of emotion frightened her almost as much as the horror she’d seen in his eyes only moments before.

  “I don’t understand why you’d lose your gift now. We had sex before. Sort of. What was different this time?” She watched him closely waiting for some sign of how he felt about this.

  Only the rhythmic clenching of his jaw muscle gave away the fact that he had any emotions at all.

  “Dinna you ken it’s no about the joining of our bodies. It’s about the joining of our Souls.”

  The joining of Souls. As in, he was definitely The One.

  “There’s naught to be done about it now. We’ll travel southeast until we reach the area where the road to Oban crosses our path. Once there, our best choice will be to follow the road to the west and hope we can find where John of Lorn lies in wait for my king.”

  Doing that might guarantee they’d find the enemy all right, but that in itself seemed risky as hell. If she’d thought his plan to change the future was crazy, this was off the charts.

  “And how is that supposed to help your kinsmen? I thought your plan was to warn them, to keep them from walking into that ambush in the first pl
ace. Instead, what I’m hearing you say is that you’re planning on jumping into the fray with them. How’s that supposed to do anything but get you killed right along with them?”

  When Colin turned to face her, the emotion had returned. His eyes were so haunted and brimming with pain, she almost wished he still wore the mask.

  “What would you have me do? From the beginning my choice was to find them first. But I dinna ken the way they will approach, and only the general area of where they will encounter battle. I’ve no way to tell if my kinsmen yet live. It’s gone from me. Can you no understand what I’m telling you? I’ve no way to save them. By the Fates, woman, I’ve no even a way to track the danger that follows us.”

  “What danger?”

  He turned his eyes from her, staring off into the distance, his lower jaw working as if he ground his teeth.

  “You were right that night. Flynn is here. Somehow he managed to follow us. I’ve been keeping track of where he is, making sure we stayed far enough ahead to avoid him.”

  “Once again, this is probably the sort of thing you should be sharing with me.” She chose her words carefully. “These are the kinds of things I really need to know.”

  “Now you do, and what’s to be gained?” The mask had slipped once again, his raw emotion on display. “Naught but one more worry on yer head along with the knowledge that I have no more ability to track the demon than I do to find my kinsmen.”

  And that was her fault. Guilt washed over her in a torrent. She’d brought this hideous pain to the man she loved. She’d stripped his abilities from him now just as she’d stripped him from his world in the first place.

  She’d messed this up good and proper, so it was up to her to set things right.

  “I can’t do anything about Jonathan, but maybe I can help with your kinsmen. I can find them for you.”

  Colin shook his head, turning away from her to stare into the distance. “It’s no use, Abby. You told me yerself that yer gift disna work with finding people. Only things.”

  “True, but surely your guys have things, right? Some token or something special they always carry with them? A wallet, a necklace, a special weapon. Something. Think.” He had to remember something. It was their best hope.

  “They carry only what we all carry. Swords, knives. Dair carries a bow and a quill of arrows.”

  Too general. “What we all carry isn’t good enough. Not unless there’s something special and different about one of those weapons. I need something you can describe for me that I can visualize. Something I can use to find just that one person who—”

  “Dair wears a band of braided leather on his wrist, decorated with a small silver cross. His twin sister made it for him and he never takes it from his wrist.”

  “Okay. That’s good. Really good. Give me a minute.”

  At least a minute. She’d never before attempted to search for something farther away than the other rooms in her house.

  Fighting the self-doubt, Abby cleared her mind of everything except an image of the wristband Colin had described. She sent the delicate tendrils of fluorescent green energy out from her mind in every direction, curling and creeping across the countryside faster than she’d ever seen them move before.

  There was nothing, not in any direction. She waited, concentrating on the energy as all of the tendrils receded, slithering back into her mind, shrinking, withering, disappearing. She’d failed him. There was nothing.

  Wait!

  All the slithering green tendrils had returned save one. One lone wisp of energy remained; straining forward like a leashed dog, it beckoned to her, a shining beacon in the dark mist.

  “I’ve found the wristband.”

  “He lives?”

  Abby wanted with all her heart to say yes, to soothe the apprehension she heard in the question. But she could not lie to him.

  “I don’t know that for sure. I only know the wristband is somewhere in that direction.” She lifted her hand and pointed out the direction she saw in her mind.

  By way of answer, Colin pulled on his reins, urging his mount in the direction she had shown him.

  If these Faeries really existed, she could only pray they didn’t pick now to let her down.

  Thirty-three

  Do you hear that? What is that noise?”

  Abby had drawn her horse up alongside Colin’s, her brow wrinkled in concern.

  Even if he hadn’t spotted the brightly colored wagons in the distance, the familiar noise of pans rattling against one another assured him there was only one thing it could be.

  “Tinklers.”

  It was clear as the wagons closed the distance between them that their drivers were pushing the rigs as hard as they could.

  “Turn back and save yerselves,” the first man called, pulling hard on his reins to slow his wagon to a stop. “You and yer lady will no want to be caught in what’s to come at the end of this road, lad.”

  “What lies ahead of us, Tinkler?” Colin asked, even though he’d read the stories of the battle that would rage in this area.

  “An army passed our camp in the night. Desperate men on the run. They warned that the English followed.”

  His king knew he was pursued, but he knew not of the men who waited in ambush. An ambush Colin would be too late to prevent if he didn’t hurry.

  “Turn back with yer lady. Yer more than welcome to ride along with us. Unless you’d rather no been seen in our company, that is.”

  “I’ve no hesitation to ride at yer side, good sir.” Tinklers, long thought to have mysterious ties to the Fae, had always been welcome at his family’s home. “But I canna turn back, though I do appreciate yer warning.”

  “Consider my words well, young sir. Men from all sides of the conflict roam the countryside ahead. It’s too dangerous for you and yer lady to—”

  The Tinkler’s insistence was cut short by a woman’s hand to his shoulder as she leaned out from the flap of material covering the opening in the wagon.

  “That’s enough from you, William Faas. These people chase their destiny. Can you no feel it?”

  She turned to face them, her sweet smile seeming to spread a feeling of joy when it lit on him.

  “My home is but a few days’ journey in the direction you travel now. There is safety at Dun Ard and you’ll be welcomed there.” Why he felt compelled to offer these people the protection of his clan eluded him at the moment. He only knew that it was something he should do.

  “We are well familiar with Dun Ard. The lady Rosalyn is one of my best customers.” She smiled again and patted her husband’s shoulder. “We must hurry, William. This is no place for us to be right now. Go forth with our blessings, Master MacAlister.”

  William snapped the reins he held, urging his team of horses onward as his wife disappeared back behind the flap of cloth. “Go with caution, lad,” he called over his shoulder as their wagon pulled away. “Go with faith.”

  Colin waited, Abby at his side, until both the Tinklers’ wagons had passed them by.

  “What did she mean about us chasing our destiny?” Abby’s voice seemed to blend with the musical sound of the Tinklers’ pots.

  He shrugged, at a loss for any logical answer. “They are Tinklers.”

  When he started off this time, he held his mount to a slower pace. They had need to be watchful from here out to avoid any unpleasant surprises.

  Abby followed along at his side, silent after the encounter with the Tinklers. He should say something to reassure her after the dire warnings, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her such a falsehood. William Faas had spoken the truth. Danger did lie in wait, both ahead and behind them.

  The afternoon sun rode midway down the western sky by the time they reached the crossroads.

  They were close now. He might have lost his Faerie abilities, but his warrior senses were as keen as ever. The very air seemed to shimmer with the potential for violence only a great battle could bring.

  Without a word, he t
urned his horse to the west, to follow the path his king’s army would have taken.

  “That’s the wrong way.” Abby sat her mount in the middle of the crossroads, making no move to follow him.

  “Robert’s men travel this direction.” West, to their own peril.

  “That may be true, but even if it is, your friend isn’t with them. He’s this way. Or—” She shrugged, her face seeming to pale as she continued. “His wristband is this direction, anyway.”

  East. Away from where he knew the ambush awaited.

  “Yer sure of this. There can be no mistake?”

  “Absolutely positive. If you want to find the wristband, we have to travel in this direction.”

  She waited for him, moving not a muscle, trust shining in her eyes even as indecision rumbled in his gut, an unfamiliar, worthless emotion he had no use for.

  East to find the wristband Dair always wore, or west to join his king.

  One direction might well be an exercise in futility. The wristband could have fallen from Dair’s arm. Or—and this thought set his stomach to a full churn—the band could still be on his kinsman’s body. His lifeless body.

  The other direction required risking not only his own life but that of his beloved Soulmate as well, and in the end it was possible he’d neither find his kinsmen nor reach his king in time to warn him of what awaited.

  And if he did?

  He could hear Pol’s voice floating through his mind as clearly as if the Faerie Prince stood at his side.

  You cannot change the outcome of history. You may only alter the circumstances.

  Certainly he had the power to ignore the edict, but at what price? If he was successful in his quest, the world, Abby’s world, would be forever changed. Everything she loved and wanted to return to might very well have never existed.

  She might never have existed.

  “Your call, husband. Whatever you decide, that’s what we’ll do.”