The Highlander Series 7-Book Bundle
Page 29
“Besides, even if I had thought you would have believed, I still probably wouldn’t have told you. Compelling the Fairy is a last resort. ’Tis a dangerous thing. With the fool’s true name you may compel him only once—and precisely to the letter of your law. The fool obeys only exactly what you say. Were you to say, “I command you to bring Adrienne back, he would have to bring her. But she might be dead because you didn’t specify in what condition.”
The Hawk threw his head back and let out a wail of frustration.
Rushka continued. “Or, if you were to say, ‘Take me to her,’ he would have to, but you might be dead. Or turned into a lizard if the thought appealed to him. ’Tis a very dangerous thing to try to compel the fairy fool.”
The Hawk rubbed his clean-shaven face and brooded into the flames, listening intently as Rushka went on. He sorted through the flood of information, picking and choosing carefully. It could be done. Aye, it could. When Rushka finally fell still, they passed a time in silence unbroken but for the crackle of the hearth fire.
“If you choose to try it, we still have one small problem, my friend,” Rushka warned.
“What’s that?” the Hawk asked absently.
“He’s gone. How will you find him? I’ve known men who searched for the legendary Fairy their entire lives, yet never saw so much as a stray kelpie, Hawk.”
Hawk considered that a moment, then smiled. “Egotistical, you say he is?”
“Aye.”
“Vain, obviously.”
“Aye,” Rushka confirmed.
“Prone to fits of anger and mischief was how I believe you put it.”
“Aye.”
“And it would appear he came here, goaded by such a human thing as jealousy. Of me.”
“ ’Tis true.”
“Good. Then I’m about to really shake up his nasty little world.”
“What do you have in mind, Hawk?” Rushka asked, the faint trace of a smile carving his weathered face.
The Hawk grinned and rose to his feet. He had work to do.
Adrienne raced up the steps at 93 Coattail Lane with more energy than she’d had in months.
“Marie! Marie!” she cried as she plunged through the door, searching for the diminutive Cuban woman who’d become more than her housekeeper in the past month; she was now more like a mother and a dear friend.
Adrienne had flatly ordered Marie to move into the house with her, and cautiously the two of them had settled into the lovely rituals of friendship; the nightly teas, the morning chats, the shared laughter and tears.
“Marie!” She called again. Then, spying Moonie, she scooped her up and twirled the bewildered kitten around the foyer.
“Adrienne?” She appeared in the doorway, her eyes bright with hope. Marie measured Adrienne a careful moment; her shining face, her sparkling eyes. “You saw him—zee doctor?”
Adrienne bobbed her head and hugged Moonie tightly. The cat gave a disgruntled snort and squirmed. Adrienne and Marie beamed dumbly at each other over the kitten’s head.
“And zee doctor said …” Marie encouraged.
“You were right, Marie! That is why I felt so sick. I’m having Hawk’s baby, Marie,” Adrienne exclaimed, unable to keep the news inside a moment longer. “I have the Hawk’s baby inside me!”
Marie clapped her hands and laughed delightedly. Adrienne would heal in time. Having the baby of the man she loved could graft hope into any woman’s heart.
The Hawk hired fifty harpers and jesters and taught them new songs. Songs about the puny fairy fool who had been chased away from Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea by the legendary Hawk. And being such a legend in his own time, his tales were ceded great truth and staying power. The players were delighted with the epic grandeur of such a wild tale.
When they had rehearsed to perfection the ditties and refrains portraying the defeat of the fool, the Hawk sent them into the counties of Scotland and England. Grimm accompanied the group of players traveling to Edinburgh to help spread the tale himself, while Hawk spent late hours by the candle scribbling, crossing out and perfecting his command for when the fool came. Sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning, he would reach for his set of sharp awls and blades and begin carving toy soldiers and dolls, one by one.
On the Island of Morar, the Queen smothered a delicate laugh with a tiny hand as strains of the new play drifted across the sea. Adam snarled.
The fool had been gloating for months now over his defeat of the Hawk. Smugly he had said to the King, and to anyone else who would listen, “He may have been pretty, but he was no match for me. Just a stupid pretty face.”
The King cocked a mischievous brow, unable to resist taunting the fool. “Stupid, is he? Defeated, was he? My, my, fool, ’twould seem we named you thusly in truth. The legend of the fairy fool has just been rewritten. For all eternity mortals shall remember your defeat, not his.”
The fool loosened a giant howl of rage and disappeared. This time, Finnbheara went directly to his Queen’s side.
“The fool goes to the Hawk,” he told her. Adam was in a dreadful temper, and the fool had nearly destroyed their race once before. The Compact must not be broken.
The Queen rolled onto her side and measured her consort a long moment. Then she offered her lips for his kisses and Finnbheara knew he was once again in the good graces of his love.
“You did well to tell me, my dear.”
Sometimes, very late at night, Adrienne would dream that she walked the green slopes of Dalkeith again. The fresh tang of salt air scented with roses would lick through her hair and caress her skin.
In her dreams the Hawk would be waiting for her by the sea’s edge; her kilt-clad, magnificent Scottish laird. He would smile and his eyes would crinkle, then turn dark with smoldering passion.
She would take his hand and lay it gently on her swelling abdomen, and his face would blaze with happiness and pride. Then he would take her gently, there on the cliff’s edge, in tempo with the pounding of the ocean. He would make fierce and possessive love to her and she would hold on to him as tightly as she could.
But before dawn, he would melt right through her fingers.
And she would wake up, her cheeks wet with tears and her hands clutching nothing but a bit of quilt or pillow.
CHAPTER 34
1 APRIL 1514
HE WAS NEAR. THE HAWK COULD FEEL HIM AS HE SAT IN HIS study polishing a toy soldier to a smooth, sealed grain while he watched the dawn move over the sea. A tingling awareness started at the base of his spine and worked its way up, heightening all his senses.
The Hawk smiled darkly and laid the toy carefully aside. Something wicked this way comes. Aye. And I am ready this time, you bastard!
The Hawk crossed his study to his desk and rolled the thick sheaf of parchment, tucking it into the leather girth of his sporran. He was ready to use it, but only after he had the satisfaction of fighting the smithy on mortal terms.
He stepped into the morning feeling more alive than he’d felt in months. Hold fast and believe in me, love, he whispered across the centuries.
Because love and belief were serious magic in and of themselves.
“Come out, coward,” he called, his breath frosting in the chill morning air. The snowfall had stopped a few weeks ago, only sparse patches remained, and soon spring would grace Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea once more. As will my wife, he vowed fiercely. For days now he’d been tense, knowing something was about to happen. Feeling it in his heart, as the Rom sometimes suffered their premonitions. Then, this morning, he’d woken in the wee hours knowing the time was at hand. The battle would be waged this day, and it was a battle he would win.
“Come on! ’Tis easy to fight anonymously. It only tells me you’re too much a coward to declare yourself and face me,” he taunted the misty air.
He felt foolish for a moment, then pushed the feeling brusquely aside. Adam Black was near, he knew it clear to the marrow in his bones, goaded by the minstrel plays and a fool’s weakness.
The breeze kicked up, more puckish now, but still no one came. The air swirled thickly in a rush of fast-scuttling clouds with black underbellies. Hawk laughed aloud, feeling exhilaration and strength course through his veins.
“Mortal man knows the truth about you now, Adam—that you couldn’t win my wife, that she scorned you for me.” Naturally, he omitted the truth that Adam had temporally convinced him that Adrienne had gone willingly. But the Hawk had regained his senses, along with his belief and trust in his wife. “I know she rejected you, smithy! I know you forced her to leave me against her will. She chose me over you and the whole country knows it now.”
“Cease, mortal,” Adam’s voice whispered on the breeze.
The Hawk laughed.
“You find this amusing? You think to incite my wrath and live to laugh about it? Are you truly such a madman? For you are not my match.”
The Hawk was still smiling when he said softly, “I was more than your match when it came to Adrienne.”
“Face your executioner, pretty bird.” Adam stepped menacingly out of the dense Highland mist.
The two men regarded each other savagely.
Adam stepped closer.
So did the Hawk. “Fair battle, fickle fae. Unless you’re too afraid.”
“This is what you called me for? A fistfight?”
“Take a mortal form, Adam. Fight me to the death.”
“We don’t die.” Adam sneered.
“Then fight me to the draw. Fight me fair.”
They circled each other warily, muscled frames abristle with unleashed hostility. The violence that had simmered since the moment these two men had met escalated to a roiling boil. It was a relief to the Hawk to have it out, to have it done with. And oh, get his hands on that bastard smithy at last!
“Fair battle is all I’ve ever done.”
“You lie, fool. You cheated at every turn.”
“I’ve never cheated!”
“Well, don’t cheat now,” Hawk warned as they faced off. “Bare-handed. Man to man, you are my match in size. Are you in strength, agility, and cunning? I think not.”
Adam shrugged indolently. “You will rue the day you were born, pretty bird. I’ve already beaten you and taken your wife, but this day, I will seal your fate. This day I will destroy Dalkeith, until nothing but granite crumbs blow over the cliff’s edge to meet the hungry sea. Your bones will be among them, Hawk.”
Hawk threw his dark head back and laughed.
Shrouded in the heavy mist, the court of the Tuatha De Danaan watched the fight.
“The Hawk is winning!”
Silvery sigh. “So much man.”
“See him move! Fast as a panther, deadly as a python.”
“Think not of him, he is safe from all of us now. So I have commanded,” the Queen snapped on a frigid gust of air.
A long silence.
“Will the fool play fair?” queried Aine, the quiet, mousy fairy.
The Queen sighed. “Has he ever?”
Adrienne clutched Marie’s hand and gasped aloud as she felt the soft kick in her womb. Somehow it felt as if the Hawk were near and needed her strength and love. As if something magical hovered, almost tangible enough to grasp with her slender fingers. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and willed her heart across the chasms of time.
Adam snarled. “Enough of this mortal idiocy. It’s time to end this once and for all.” He was bleeding, his lip cut and nose shattered. Adam used his immortal strength to fling the Hawk to the ground at his feet. A sword appeared in Adam’s hand, and he laid the blade against the mortal’s throat. “Compact be damned,” Adam muttered, balancing the razor-sharp edge flush to the Hawk’s jugular. He cocked a brow and taunted the fallen mortal. “You know, for a moment there, I was worried you might have managed to learn something about my race, the kind of thing we don’t like mortals to know. But it seems I was right about you all along, and my worry was for naught. You are truly thick-witted. You really thought you could best me in a fistfight?” Adam shook his head and tsk-tsked. “Hardly. It takes more than that to defeat my kind. Oh, and by the by, prepare to die, mortal.”
But his threat elicited nary a quiver from the legend at his feet. Instead the Hawk arrogantly wrapped his hand around the blade and looked deep into Adam’s eyes. The intensity of the mortal’s gaze latched on to Adam’s and held with a strength all its own.
Adam tensed, and a flicker of uncertainty flashed across his face.
Hawk smiled. “Amadan Dubh, I compel you thusly …”
Adam froze and his jaw dropped, belying a very human expression of astonishment. The sword melted from his hand as the words of the ancient ritual of binding mired him tightly. “You can’t do this!” Adam spit out.
But the Hawk could, and did.
Adam growled low in his throat. It was not a human sound at all.
Twenty minutes later, Adam was gaping in disbelief. The Hawk had actually unrolled a parchment scroll from his sporran and was reading a very long, very specific list of demands.
“… and you will never come near Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea again …”
Adam shuddered. “Are you almost done, pretty bird?”
The Hawk continued without interruption, unrolling his scroll farther.
“Did you write a goddamn book? You can’t do it like this,” Adam said through gritted teeth. “You get one command. You can’t read that whole thing.”
Hawk almost laughed aloud. The trickery would begin now. Any loophole the fickle fairy could find he would try to use. But the Hawk hadn’t left any loopholes. He kept reading.
“I said give it up, you infantile, mewling mass of mortality. It won’t work.”
“… and you will never …” Hawk continued.
Adam snarled and raged, his icy face turning whiter. “I will curse your children, your children’s children; I will curse Adrienne and all her children …” Adam dangled evilly.
Hawk stiffened and paused. His eyes flew to Adam’s.
Adam stifled a snicker of glee, certain that the Hawk would slip and break his command.
Hawk’s lips drew back in a fierce snarl, “… and you will never seek to lay a curse upon my family, my seed, myself, or the family, seed, or self of anyone I command you to forsake or any Douglas commands you to forsake … including Adrienne; with Douglas being expressly defined as any relative by direct blood tie, marriage, or adoption, seed being defined as progeny, children adopted or otherwise obtained, you will not harm any animal belonging to …”
Adam paced a stunted space of earth, fear now evident in his every step.
“… obedience being defined as … and when you return Adrienne to me, all will be in order at Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea … the Hawk and all his people being protected from any harm, alive and in the best of health with no tricks played … and Adrienne will be bringing her cat safely back through time with her … and …”
Adam’s face, once beautiful, was a livid mask of hate, “I will not lose! I will find a way to defeat you, Hawk.”
“… and you will forgo any thoughts or actions of revenge against the Douglas …”
Adam waved his hand and Adrienne appeared, looking utterly stunned, clutching a clawing cat in her arms.
The Hawk shuddered imperceptibly, knowing this was just one more trick by Adam to get him to break his command. Five months, five horrible, heartless months without a glimpse of his beloved’s face, and now she stood before him. Breathtakingly, heart-wrenchingly lovely. Hawk’s gaze rested hungrily on her face, her silvery mane, her lush body, her round belly …
Her round belly? His eyes flew to Adrienne’s, wide with astonishment and awe
, as a violent possessiveness rocked his frame.
His child! His daughter or son. Blood of his blood—his and Adrienne’s.
Adrienne was pregnant.
Hawk was speechless.
Adam grinned wickedly—and the Hawk saw it.
He would not lose Adrienne. He had too much to read yet. With iron force of will, Hawk averted his eyes from his beloved wife.
It was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his entire life.
Adrienne’s eyes devoured him.
She was afraid to interrupt, afraid to move. Somehow she’d been miraculously yanked right out of her library, and Moonie, who had been across the room by the fire, was curled snugly in her arms. She could still see Marie’s startled face fading before her eyes.
And there was the Hawk, beloved husband and life itself.
“How could you resist me, Beauty?” Adam was suddenly the smithy again, kilt-clad and glistening. “I am every bit as beautiful as the Hawk and can please you in ways you can’t even dream. I could turn you inside out and make you weep with ecstasy. How could you forsake me?”
“I love my husband.” She’d spent many months clinging to the hope of the Hawk’s child growing inside her and studying everything about Celtic lore she could get her hands on in hopes of finding a way back. But the Hawk, it seemed, had found it for her.
“Love. What is this love thing you mortals prize so highly?” Adam sneered.
Enough, fool, came a silvery peal of the Fairy Queen’s sigh.
Even Hawk slurred over his words, midsentence, at that voice.
And enough from you, too, beautiful man, legendary Hawk.
Sweeter than the chiming of bells, her voice was a sensuous stroke of heaven. But Hawk continued, without interruption, “… and as used in this command, the word person shall mean and include, where appropriate, an individual or other entity; the plural shall be substituted for the singular and the singular for plural when appropriate; and words of any gender shall include any other gender …”