The Highlander Series 7-Book Bundle

by Karen Marie Moning

  “But why did he make you immortal?”

  Circenn exhaled a bitter sigh. “He said he did it because his race had selected me as guardian of their treasures, of which the damned flask is one. That is why he made me swear to kill whoever found it. He said his race had long been looking for someone who could keep their hallows safe; they needed someone who would never die and could not be bested in battle.”

  “So you will truly live … forever?”

  Circenn said nothing, his eyes dark with emotion. He nodded.

  Lisa shook her head, beyond coherent thought. Her gaze swept over him, disbelievingly.

  “Lisa—”

  “No.” She raised her hands as if to protect herself. “No more. That’s it. I’ve heard enough for today. That’s all I can hear. My ears are full.”

  “Is it so terrible a thing to accept? I accepted that you were from my future,” he said. “Haud yer wheesht!” he roared, thumping on the floor again.

  “Just let me have time to think. Please? Go. Go off to your war,” she said, pointing to the door. Then a small, half-hysterical laugh escaped her.

  “Lisa, I am not leaving you like this.”

  “Oh yes you are,” she said firmly, “because according to my recollection of events, you and your Templars are necessary at Bannockburn.” She needed desperately to be alone, to think. It was not hard for her to push him out to war, now that she knew he could not die. “But you bled when I poked you with the knife,” she added, as an afterthought.

  “Beneath my shirt the wound closed instantly, lass. I can bleed, briefly.”

  Footsteps thundered down the corridor; his men had exceeded their patience.

  Circenn nudged her back a step and swiftly sealed the chamber. “You said my Templars were necessary at Bannockburn. You know of this battle?” he said, his gaze brooding.

  “Yes.”

  “So it seems perhaps we’ve both been withholding information from each other,” he pointed out quietly. “Is there anything else I should know?”

  “Is there anything else I should know?” she countered.

  Suddenly he looked weary. “Just that I love you with all my heart, lass.”

  He kissed her swiftly and was gone.

  IMMORTAL. CIRCENN BRODIE WAS IMMORTAL.

  How ironic, she thought. In the twenty-first century, she’d raged against her mother’s mortality. Now, in the fourteenth, she was raging against his immortality.

  Her life couldn’t be a simple one of going to college and collecting kisses from handsome and mostly harmless young men. That just wouldn’t do for Lisa Stone. She suddenly understood how bewildered and put-upon Buffy must have felt upon discovering it was her plight in life to slay vampires.

  She hurt.

  He rode miles away from her, but their bond did not diminish. She was battered by his feelings, buffeted by his anger and sorrow and guilt. She found herself pushing it away, relegating it to the background. She could not afford to feel what he was feeling right now. She needed to feel only her own emotions, to sort through them undistracted by his pulsing intensity.

  The man was downright overwhelming sometimes, and it was no wonder. He had over five hundred years of living, and loving and losing his loved ones, and being invincible. She felt a surge of concern emanating from him because she was trying to shut him out. Too exhausted to do more, she sent a burst of reassurance, then firmly corralled his emotions in a corner of her mind.

  That was better.

  Perhaps a walk would clear her thoughts, she decided, rising from his bed, where she’d been sitting since he’d left.

  She strolled through the silent castle and ventured into the night. It was strangely quiet: there were no knights jousting in the courtyard, no children playing—war was grim business indeed. She didn’t have to worry about Circenn dying, but most families at Brodie had a loved one who might be mortally wounded in battle. An air of sobriety draped the estate.

  Absorbed in her thoughts, she wandered to the reflecting pool and sank down on the stone bench. Tilting her head, she gazed up at the velvety black sky. Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with a normal, mortal man? She’d been so happy with Circenn, but she was a realist, if nothing else.

  She had some idea of what it would be like to age. She knew how she would feel when she was forty and he was thirty still. She could only imagine with horror how she would feel when she was fifty, yet he still appeared thirty. She could taste the fear of being sixty—when she would be old enough that most would think she was his mother, or worse—in this land where women had children at fourteen—his grandmother.

  Oh, God. Her body would age and wrinkle, but his never would.

  Lisa didn’t think she was a shallow person, but there was only so much a woman’s vanity could willingly embrace. Would he still make love to her? Would she be able to permit him to gaze upon her when her body was so aged? It wasn’t merely a question of vanity; the physical contrast between them would be a daily reminder that she was dying but he was not.

  Take the years and don’t think too far ahead, a part of her offered hopefully.

  But she knew herself too well. She wouldn’t be able to. She would be living in fear, watching her mirror, waiting for the inevitable.

  And there was an even bigger picture to be considered.

  Not only would she age while he didn’t, she would ultimately die, while he continued to live. He would be left without her, and she knew she would have to encourage him to love again when she was gone—and, God forgive her, she didn’t think she possessed such a noble soul.

  Encourage Circenn to share such a precious, intimate bond again with some other woman? She was seized by hatred for her faceless, nameless successor.

  But she would have to, because she knew him well enough to know that he shared her tendency for self-inflicted atonement. He would deny himself. He could spend thousands of years alone, refusing intimacy, and such stark solitude would drive any person mad. He must love again after she was gone, for the sake of his own soul.

  Then, too, there was her intimate knowledge of what her death would do to him; because of their bond, he would feel every less-than-noble emotion she endured, and every bit of the pain. She knew what it felt like to watch a loved one die. It went beyond hell.

  What if she had actually been able to feel her mother’s physical pain over the last few months? Her despair and her fear?

  Circenn would feel every bit of hers, unless she could somehow hide it.

  I can’t! I’m not strong enough!

  Frantic, she lunged to her feet, driven to movement.

  She walked swiftly, skirting the pool, gazing up at the heavens as if they might hear her and grant a prayer. Focused on the sky, she tripped and fell to the ground.

  It was the final straw. Crying, she huddled with her arms about her knees and began to rock. After a few moments she realized that she had fallen on the side of the mound and was weeping in probable chamber-pot remains.

  She went very still.

  It is said that if you circle the mound seven times and spill your blood upon the peak, the Queen of the Fairies may appear and grant you a wish.

  Recalling Circenn’s words, she slowly opened her eyes.

  But what would she wish?

  I cannot guess how many young lads and lasses have pricked their fingers here. Old, tall tales—this land is full of them. Most likely some prior kin once emptied the chamber pots here. It would explain how thick and green the grass is.

  But she didn’t know what might happen next in her life. Why not try it? She could decide upon a wish later, if it worked.

  Numbly, she stood and began circling the shian. Slowly at first, then picking up speed and determination as she progressed around the mound.

  One time, three times, five, then seven.

  She stopped. She realized she didn’t have anything to cut herself with. With a peculiar detachment, she pierced the heel of her palm with her teeth, drawing blood. She asc
ended to the peak of the shian and, applying pressure with her fingers, forced the droplets to fall on the center of the mound.

  She waited.

  She had no idea what she expected, if anything. But considering how strange her life had been for the past few months, it would not surprise her overmuch if a fairy sprang from the earth, waving a magic wand.

  She held her breath. The night was eerily still, even the night creatures strangely mute.

  Nothing happened.

  Oh, Lisa—no Fairy Queen will spring from this mound, and you will simply have to deal with the fact that you are in love with an immortal man.

  She closed her eyes and shook her head, amused by her foolish fancy. After a moment more, she descended the unusually symmetric pile of sod.

  This land had definitely done something to her blood. She’d nearly believed that a mythical creature would appear. Magic pervaded Scotland’s air as thick and frequent as the mist, and she’d discovered little that seemed beyond the realm of possibility. Circenn was immortal. She had traveled through time. Making a wish seemed very reasonable in comparison.

  She turned her back on the mound, tilted her head, and gazed at the moon, admitting that despite her hurt and fear, she was more than a little relieved. Too many choices could be overwhelming. Now she had none; she had no choice but to stay there and love Circenn Brodie.

  Perhaps she would learn to view aging, while he remained ageless, as a small price for the kind of love they shared. She felt for him with her inner senses, slowly removing her earlier barricades. From their bond, she knew he was hurt, angry, and deeply worried. He was also consumed with fear that she would somehow try to leave him.

  Well, he needn’t worry about that. She couldn’t.

  “What shall you wish, human?” A voice that held a thousand cool shades of snow shattered her reverie, chilling her blood.

  Lisa froze.

  THE VOICE HAD COME FROM BEHIND HER, WHERE THE fairy mound lay.

  “You were watching the moon, as one entranced. Do you wish to fly to it? To count the stars as you touch them? Or something more … earthy?”

  Lisa drew a deep breath as the voice shivered through her. Not a mortal voice. She could never mistake such a sound for a mortal voice. It resonated with time and with passionless observation. It frightened her. She turned slowly on her heel. The sight that greeted her was frightening only in the magnitude of its beauty. The air caught in her windpipe, forcing her to draw rapid, shallow breaths.

  “Lovely,” she whispered. “Oh, God.” She suddenly understood the lure of fairy tales, of creatures who were so blindingly beautiful that it nearly hurt to look at them. This creature overwhelmed her senses.

  The vision inclined her head regally. “We are. Lovely, that is. But not gods. Most call us children of the Goddess Danu.”

  Lisa stared, lips parted on a sigh, mesmerized. The woman had silver hair—moonbeams had brushed her delicate head, loath to depart. The night air shimmered around her, as if lit by a thousand tiny suns. Her brows arched above exotic almond-shaped eyes in a pale face. And her eyes—they were of no color known to man, but conjured images of the iridescent hues of a mermaid’s wet tail gleaming in the sun.

  Her cheekbones were so high that they lent her face a feline cant, and her lips were full, blood-red, and uptilted at the corners as if caught in a perpetual smile. Her skin was dusted with gold; a sheer gown of white clothed her without covering a thing, and the body that was clearly visible beneath the shimmering fabric sparkled gilded pearl and rose, and made Lisa feel like she was twelve years old.

  Perfection.

  “What shall you wish, human?” Remote eyes held hers, widened by the barest hint of curiosity. “You made this door with your own blood, now wish before I weary of you.”

  Lisa swallowed. Here was her chance. All she had to say was, I want to go home to my mother. But could she leave Circenn? And how could she know whether her mother was still alive?

  “Yes,” the Fairy Queen said, tucking a strand of moonbeam behind her ear.

  “What?” Lisa gasped.

  “Your mother lives. If you call that living.” Her lips shaped a moue of distaste. “A mortal bane, the body. She is dying.”

  “How did you know what I was thinking?” Lisa whispered.

  The fairy laughed and the sound slithered around Lisa. For a moment, she lost herself in it: forgot who she was, that she had a mother, that she loved a man, that she was human. For an instant she wanted nothing more than to linger as close to this creature as she would permit. To kiss the hem of her fairy skein, to breathe her exhales, to dance barefoot upon a mound of green. She recognized it for an enchanted madness, when the compulsion eased as the laughter faded.

  “I am of the Tuatha de Danaan. We see all. So what shall it be, human? Shall I send you home to die with your mother? Is she so important? Shall you leave this lord who loves you?”

  “I need time to think,” Lisa protested faintly.

  “You summoned me now.”

  “I didn’t really think it would work. I have not prepared my wish—”

  “If thou needed time to think, thou should not have disturbed me.” The Fairy Queen’s face grew thunderous. A breeze kicked up around the shian, tossing leaves into the air. Lisa was startled, turning around, absorbing the suddenly charged night. Charged by the Fairy Queen’s displeasure.

  “We are Scotland,” the Queen stated, observing the disturbance. “The land once wept when we wept, and spring came when we danced. Now the seasons roll consistently, and aside from the fool’s pranks, this soil is mostly tame.”

  “Because you are consistently detached, remote,” Lisa said, before thinking. “Has time done that to you?”

  The Fairy Queen blinked. Just a blink, but it said, Tread not here, mortal, in a forbidding glance that promised wrath Lisa never wanted to experience.

  Lisa recovered quickly from her fumble. “I meant, will my mother be alive if I return?”

  “For a time.”

  Lisa squeezed her eyes shut. She hadn’t really believed that the Fairy Queen would appear and grant her wish. But now here stood a being that could, and apparently was offering to return her to her mother.

  How could she choose? To stay in Scotland and watch her body grow old and fall apart while her beloved never aged, or to return to her time and watch her mother die?

  Neither choice was unanimously appealing.

  “I don’t suppose you could bring my mother here? Maybe make her well?” Lisa suggested hopefully. “Perhaps you could make me immortal?”

  “Two choices, human. Stay or go. I am not feeling generous, nor am I inclined to rearrange on a grand scale. It requires much will. A wish is a stone, and my granting is the toss into a loch. There are ripples. Shall I read your heart and find your true choice? You mortals think living is a war: Heart or mind? Silly child, guilt is not mind. Duty is not heart. Hear with that which your race claims we no longer possess. Shall I read your desire?”

  Lisa’s hand flew instinctively to her breast as if she could shield her heart from this creature. “No, I will choose, if you’ll just give me a few moments.”

  “I weary of waiting. Would you like to see her?” The fairy unfurled a slim white hand toward the reflecting pool, and it grew glassy and still. Within the water, like a silvery portal, her mother’s bedroom took shape. It was dawn in the twenty-first century and Catherine was awake, a rosary clasped between her gnarled hands. Lisa cried out when she saw her, for illness had taken so much of her life that it was hard to believe she still breathed. She was praying aloud. She was alive!

  During the past few weeks—convinced she would never see her again—Lisa had nearly laid her to rest in her heart, but her mother still lived and breathed and was missing her desperately, worried sick.

  Lisa shook her head bitterly, confounded by her choices. The vision of her mother was a fatal blow. Catherine was alive in the twenty-first century, and after all these months she must certainly
have given up Lisa for dead. But Lisa had the chance to go back and hold her hand, and reassure her that her only child was well. To hold her hand while she died. To comfort and love, and keep her from dying alone.

  Emotions overwhelmed her, and dimly she felt Circenn panicking somewhere out in the night—reading her feelings. Firmly, she shut him out.

  Lisa glanced again at the pool and suffered a killing vision of herself in Catherine; weakened by life, faded, a brittle wisp of desire to live, gazing up at Circenn, who would be untouched by time.

  Circenn had given her love. Catherine had given her love. Circenn would live forever. Lisa knew how Catherine’s death was destroying her, breaking her heart. When she died, Circenn would be subjected to such pain. If she stayed what would she have? To grow old while Circenn never aged, to die while the magnificent warrior stood by her bed, holding her hand, his heart breaking. He, who had lost so many loved ones over five hundred years. Wouldn’t it be kinder to go now than to make him suffer her death in ten or thirty or fifty years? She knew intimately the pain of losing someone so deeply loved.

  Her head hurt and the back of her throat burned with the effort of suppressing tears.

  Lisa turned in a slow circle, taking a long look at Castle Brodie, the enchanted night, the beauty that was the Scottish Highlands. I love you with all my heart, Circenn, she willed into the night. But I fear I am a coward and have little stamina. The years would destroy me.

  “Well?” the Fairy Queen demanded.

  “Oh,” she gasped around a swift intake of air, jarred from her thoughts.

  “Now,” the Queen pushed.

  “I … oh … h-home,” she said so softly that the wind snatched it from her lips and it was nearly lost. But the Fairy Queen heard.

  “What of the lord? Do you not wish to say farewell?”