Martha lay dripping wet on the ground. Her hair fanned out from her head, and her arms and legs crooked at odd angles. She stared up into the sky with a fixed, glassy expression. She didn’t blink.
Ivy hurried to her side and fell on her knees next to Martha. She grabbed Martha’s shoulders and shook her. “Oh, Martha! Please get up! You can’t die like this.”
Lachlan heard Ivy’s voice rising to a shriek. He heard the broken anguish wrenching out of her throat, but he could do nothing to help her. He gazed down into Martha’s face. Martha’s eyes shifted a fraction of an inch to her left, and she met his gaze.
Time stopped, and Martha looked up at him through the fountain. Lachlan lowered his hand to her face and stroked her cheek. Ivy sobbed somewhere out of sight. Lachlan could see nothing but Martha’s intent stare searching his soul. She loved him. She always had, and now she would never love him again.
He traced one finger over her forehead to move a stray wisp of hair out of her eyes. He ran his thumb across her lips, and she smiled up at him. All of a sudden, a shock went through her. Her eyes stared, and she stiffened against something inside her. Then she relaxed. She never moved again, and her eyes never left his face.
Ivy’s head fell on Martha’s chest. “Martha! Martha, no! No!”
The sound echoed across the field and against the battered walls of the Tower House. The Highlanders stood still and stared at the scene. Only Kincaid walked toward the still body. He came to a stop behind Ivy. He inspected the face frozen in death. Then he turned around and looked right up at Lachlan’s face.
Lachlan started back. He lost contact with the water, and the image disappeared.
Chapter 19
Ivy sat back on her heels and stared down at Martha. Martha still gazed up into the sky with a mixture of peaceful serenity and determination fixed on her dead face.
Ivy got to her feet. She rubbed her sleeve across her face. “That’s it, then. We better get her inside, along with anyone else that’s wounded.”
Christie came to her side. “There are no other wounded. She saved all our lives.”
“It wasnae her that did it,” Kincaid replied. “It was Lachlan.”
“Lachlan!” Ivy exclaimed. “How could he?”
“It doesnae matter who did it nor how,” Christie replied. “What’s done is done, and the light’s gone. We must get her inside. Arch…”
“I’ll take her,” Ivy snapped.
Before anyone could stop her, she picked up Martha in her arms. How she managed it, she didn’t understand, nor did she care. She alone took responsibility for Martha’s body. That’s the least she could do.
She carried Martha back to what remained of the Tower House. The front door still stood open. Most of the walls remained, but no roof protected the building’s interior from the open sky. Ivy took Martha through the entrance hall to one of the bedrooms.
Ivy laid Martha on the bed. Ivy sat down next to her and took her hand. She still could hardly bring herself to believe Martha was gone. Why did it have to happen to Martha of all people—to the one person here who might be able to do something to stop this horrible war? Why couldn’t this happen to…?
Ivy shook those thoughts out of her mind. She couldn’t wish death on anybody else, not even herself. She would do anything to turn back the clock, to share a few more moments in Martha’s company before Fate snatched that strong, beautiful woman out of her life forever.
While she sat there, Christie came up behind her. He laid his hand on her shoulder. “Come away, lassie. There’s naught ye can do for her now.”
Without thinking, Ivy laid her hand over his on her shoulder. “Can you send word to her family?”
“Aye,” he murmured.
“She was…” Ivy struggled to remember the word Martha used for her own kind. “She was… Atslief.”
“I ken it,” he replied.
“I suppose you all knew a long time ago. She was your cousin, after all.”
“Aye. We kenned it all along. She and her sisters and her brother used to come out here on holiday—no’ here, I mean, but to Duart. Mony’s the time she came out there to visit us. The parents used to spend hours—days, even—locked in the castle talking on everything ye can imagine. All us young ones’d run outside. The Crockets—they’d shift along of us, and we’d all run and play and hunt and fight in the woods for days. Och, they were grand times, they were.”
Ivy turned around to look up into his face. His eyes sparkled remembering it.
He snorted with laughter. “Do ye ken? Lachlan and Martha used to fight worse than any of them. That Martha could throw down with the best of them in her younger days. We’d all of us be running along, having a grand time of it, on the track of some deer to take home for supper. Then, out of nowhere, Martha’d take a running leap and tackle Lachlan to the ground. She wouldnae bother about any of the rest of us. None of us was strong enough to interest her, ye see. She wanted the strongest to test herself against, and she always chose him. The next thing ye ken, they’re tumbling down some ravine and into the mud. Then over and over, they’d wrestle and snarl and bite and scratch, Martha giving as good as she got, and Lachlan working to his utmost just to keep her teeth off him.”
Christie laughed in spite of himself. Just listening to the story lifted Ivy’s spirits from the depths of sorrow. Martha had a good life, and she died defending the land and the people she loved. If only Lachlan was here to see her sacrifice and bid her the good-bye she deserved, Ivy could lay Martha to rest in peace.
As it was, Lachlan would never know what Martha did for the McLeans. She died never having seen the face she loved so much or seeing the grateful appreciation in his eyes. That alone cut Ivy’s heart to ribbons worse than anything.
Christie tugged her hand. “Come away, lass. Leave her be for now.”
Ivy roused herself to look around the room. All the Highlanders came to this room. Kincaid built a fire in the fire place, and everyone found a place for himself on the floor. No one paid any attention to the dead body on the bed or the open sky where the ceiling should have been.
Once she got near the fire, Ivy’s exhaustion overwhelmed her. She slumped down on the hearthstone and gazed into the flames. This was the worst day of her life. She lost Lachlan and Martha in the same day, and she would never get either of them back.
Colin knelt down next to her. He lifted her hands and placed a piping hot bowl of soup in her palms. “Eat this, lassie. You’ll feel better.”
She nodded down at the bowl. “Thank you.”
“Thank ye,” he returned. “I’d no’ be here if it hadnae been for ye. Eat it. Martha made it afore the battle, so we can all enjoy her last gift to us.”
Ivy bent her head over the bowl. She choked the food down as her last act of dedication to Martha. A lump stuck in her throat at every mouthful. Once she finished it, the grief dulled. The food did in fact make her feel better and less like dying of grief.
Her mind cleared, and she turned to Arch sitting next to her. “I have a question for you guys.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“If you all knew about Martha being a shapeshifter, why didn’t you get her to fight the war sooner? She could have defeated all these forces for you and saved countless lives.”
Arch exchanged glances with Clyde sitting on his other side. “Well, I suppose we none of us thought on it afore now. She never said naught about it. She always stopped in the House with the women. She never mentioned fighting until that night in the laundry when ye told Lachlan to give her a weapon.”
“She said she wanted to fight all along,” Ivy recalled, “but she said she never mentioned it until I showed up. She said she never realized she could until she met me.”
“There ye go,” Arch replied. “Ye see, the lassies dinnae act that way around here. I ken it’s a different story in your place, but in our country, the women dinnae step out to fight with the men. We none of us saw a woman fight like that until…well,
until Sadie.”
Christie approached the fire and joined their conversation. “Even Sadie, Lachlan didnae want her to fight. He wanted her to stop with the women and leave the fighting to us. It caused no end of problems atween him and Callum. Callum saw women fighting among his own, with Elle and Hazel and the rest. Lachlan didnae want to believe it, but when the others came out here to help us fight the vampires, he had no choice but to accept it. Then ye told him to give Martha a weapon, and it all sort of came together—for all of us.”
“I guess it’s like that in our world, too,” Ivy mused. “We just don’t see it because our world is so peaceful compared to this one.”
“Ye must want very badly to go back there,” Arch replied. “I dinnae blame ye. We’ll find a way if we have to tame all the minions of Hell.”
Ivy gazed into the fire. Did she want to go back to her own world or not? She ought to want that. She ought to want to get out of this violent hellhole and get back to her family and her friends and her peaceful existence.
“Anyway,” she muttered, “I can’t go back. I’m stuck here.”
“Kincaid might ken a way,” Christie pointed out. “Ye must ask him.”
Ivy smiled and squeezed his hand. “You’re very kind to think of me like that.”
“No reason ye should stop here with this bother going on when ye could leave and be safe and comfortable in your own home,” he added. “I’ll wager there’s no’ a man here that wouldn’t rather go home to a nice place instead of fighting this lot.”
A few others murmured their agreement. Ivy looked around at these hardened warriors. Anybody would think by looking at them that they enjoyed the battle. Now they told her a different story.
Who in their right mind would want to stay in a place like this? Who would want to battle for their lives against unstoppable forces and watch death stalk them, one fight at a time? Who would want to stand by and watch their home destroyed, their Clan and family dispersed and killed, and their country ravaged?
Why did she even ask the question? She ought to march right over to Kincaid and beg him to send her home to America.
She looked around the room. She didn’t see him anywhere, but she wouldn’t ask him, even if she did see him. Why? Wouldn’t her going home take the McLeans one step closer to lifting the curse? Wasn’t that the whole point of this—to send Ivy and Alexis back where they belonged to save these people from the curse?
Okay, so they weren’t fighting the curse just now. They were fighting Aegir, but the same logic applied. If Ivy went home, Aegir wouldn’t attack the McLeans anymore. He would turn his attention to wherever Ivy went. He would come for her there.
And when he found her, what then? He would take her back under the ocean to be his wife. End of story. Lachlan would never know.
Lachlan! The haunting memory of him filled her mind. She didn’t want to leave because she wanted to see him again. She had to see him again. Nothing else mattered.
He kissed her by that pool, and now he was gone. The two things must be related. Whatever he was about to tell her out there caused him to disappear. She understood that now. She couldn’t leave—not yet.
She had to see him again, no matter the cost. She would brave any danger and fight as many battles as it took to see him and help him. If she could destroy one of those monsters defending his home and his family in his absence, she would do it with a glad heart. Martha did it. Now Ivy could do it, too.
Chapter 20
Lachlan stepped back from the fountain and sighed. Nora touched his arm and snapped him out of his trance. “What was that all about? What’s going on down there, and what’s Ivy doing there?”
“This is what I came here to find,” he murmured. “It’s my own home. They’re fighting to defend my castle, my Clan lands.”
“That?” Nora asked. “What did you have to come here for to see your own home? Why did you have to leave it to see it through that fountain?”
“I dinnae ken that,” he replied, “but I must go back. They need me.”
“Did you come all this way just to see that?” Nora shrugged. “It doesn’t seem like much.”
“Aye.” Lachlan rubbed his chin. “It doesnae. It does seem there’s something else here I’m meant to find.”
“What could that be?” she asked. “You don’t belong here. That’s obvious.”
Lachlan looked around. She was right, and yet, she was wrong. He didn’t belong here, but he had to come. He had to find something here, something related to that fountain and the battle and Martha dying—all of it.
He wanted to go back, and yet he wanted to stay. He had no idea where he ought to go or what he ought to do. He operated on instinct and conjecture alone.
Nora touched his arm one more time. “Come on. Let’s go back to my house. I’ll give you something to eat, and you can think about it.”
He turned away to follow her. Just then, two uniformed police officers approached them from behind. They stopped in front of Lachlan and Nora. “Hey, man,” one of them said. “How’s it going?”
Lachlan glanced at Ivy. “Going?”
Nora stiffened. Lachlan sensed the tension in her right away. Whoever these men were, she didn’t like it at all. “Is there some problem, Officers?” she asked.
“We had some complaints from families around the Park about a big guy walking around carrying a sword. Is there some reason you’re carrying a weapon in public?”
“I always carry it,” Lachlan replied. “Any man’d be a fool no’ to.”
The officer cocked his head. “You’re not from around here, are you? Let me see some ID.”
“Some what?” Lachlan asked.
Nora tried to intervene. She put her hand between Lachlan and the policemen. “You don’t understand, Officer. He’s…well, he’s from a different place where they don’t have the same rules as here.”
“That’s obvious,” the officer returned. “Since he’s here, though, he follows our rules. If you don’t have any ID to prove who you are and where you come from, I’ll have to ask you to come down to the station with us until we can sort this out.”
“Look, Officer,” Nora interrupted. “It’s not a real sword. It’s just a theater prop, so you don’t have to worry about him hurting anybody with it. You can see he’s wearing a costume for the local play, so if you don’t mind, I’ll just take him back to my house and there won’t be any more complaints about him carrying a weapon.”
The officer turned to Lachlan. “Is that true? Is it a theater prop? Let me see it so I know it’s not sharp.”
Lachlan squared his shoulders at the man. In his mind, he ran through a quick evaluation of how easily he could take these two. “Oh, it’s sharp, all right.”
The officer’s head shot up. “Is that so?” He put out his hand and seized Lachlan’s elbow. “You’re coming with us. Just relax and cooperate, and we’ll make this as easy as possible.”
Nora darted forward. “You don’t have to do that, Officer…”
Lachlan yanked his arm out of the man’s grasp. “I’m no’ going anywhere.”
Both officers reacted at once. They lunged at him to grab him and wrestle him to the ground. Lachlan jerked away. He stepped back toward the fountain. His evaluation started to play out before his eyes. He tensed every nerve to fight these two off when, all of a sudden, they both stumbled back with a startled cry.
Nora shrieked, but Lachlan couldn’t quash his anger so fast. They attacked him in the open. Now they would pay the price. He catapulted at them in all his manic fury, but they weren’t even looking at him. Their eyes widened, and they staggered away as fast as they could.
Lachlan glanced over his shoulder to see what they were looking at. He froze in his tracks at what he saw. All the water in the fountain exploded out of its concrete walls into a swirling, silvery form. Lachlan knew that form well. A huge man with flowing gray hair and beard towered over the fountain. Seaweed trialed in his hair and draped across his chest. He
trained his flinty eyes on Lachlan.
The policemen beat a hasty retreat, and Nora vanished somewhere. Lachlan couldn’t move. He stared up at Aegir, but the Sea God didn’t frighten him. Supreme calm filled Lachlan’s being, and he knew at long last what he had to come to this strange country to find.
That first sight of Aegir rising out of the fountain confirmed, once and for all, that Kincaid was telling the truth. Lachlan sensed his own power inside him. He used it without meaning to when he traveled through the pool and landed on the wharf. He used it again when he looked through the fountain to stop the battle and to show himself to Martha before she died.
Now he came face to face with the God of the Sea, the source of his power. Lachlan could use that power. He could use it to battle the forces of the curse, even if he couldn’t lift it completely. He had to come all the way here to realize it.
Aegir raised his hand, but Lachlan reacted faster. He dove forward and scooped a handful of water out of the fountain. He flicked it in Aegir’s face, and the Sea God writhed and squirmed away with an enraged bellow.
Aegir spun around, and one hand shot out. A worm-like snake shot out of his hand and hit Lachlan in the chest. Lachlan staggered back, and the snake retracted into Aegir’s hand, where it disappeared.
Lachlan leapt to his feet. His hand flew to his saber, but Aegir had all the power here. He thrust out his hand again, and a trailing vine of seaweed slithered through the air at Lachlan. It snatched the saber out of his hand and left him defenseless—or so it would seem.
Where Lachlan found the power to fight back, he didn’t know. It came out of his cells and hair. It came from his blood and his sinews. He sensed the droplets of water still clinging to his fingertips. They gave him all the power he needed in this fight.
He threw out both arms and flicked the water off his fingers at Aegir. A shower of fiery sparks rocketed out of him, and two handfuls of scorching fire jetted at the Sea God’s head.
Lachlan extended all ten fingers at the demon. His fire poured around Aegir’s head and chest. It enveloped his arms and legs. Clouds of steam poured out of the fountain and obscured the battle.
Sea Queen (Phoenix Throne Book 6): A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance Page 14
