The Legend Mackinnon

by Donna Kauffman

  The oil ran over her wrists and the leather, which she began working immediately. Her wrists were already chafed but she worked at the bindings heedless of the scrapes and the mess she was making. “Bingo.” One wrist slid free and the belt fell to the floor. She immediately ran for the passage, but saw Alexander’s looming shadow indicating his return.

  “Damn.” She spun around and spied the small door at the back of the chamber. She darted around the table and the oil slick on the floor and dashed into the dark passageway beyond just as Alexander strode in.

  His roar filled the small room and filled her with no small amount of trepidation. She ducked around the narrow bend as she heard him pounding down behind her.

  The passage ended around the next corner. There was a room on either side. She dove left, hoping for another way out, but it was pitch black and she struck her shin on something big and hard. She swallowed the curse and ran her still slick hands over the object, hoping against hope it was a crate filled with guns.

  “Delaney! You will not escape me!”

  She started at the nearness of his voice, but stayed on task. The object was a table, or felt like one. Nothing was on the surface. She limped forward, hands out to protect herself in the total darkness and ventured deeper into the room, hoping he searched the other room first.

  Her hands met air, but her shins met metal. She pitched forward before she could catch herself and landed with a thud on what felt like a padded slab of stone.

  Alexander, who obviously knew the maze of rooms far better than she did, entered the room right after her. He had grabbed the kerosene lantern, which he hung on a peg by the door. A doorway he more than filled.

  Delaney darted a look around the room but quickly saw there was no way out but the one presently blocked with about two hundred pounds of very angry male.

  She looked down and found she was indeed sitting on a padded slab of stone. His bed? She looked back at him and tried to will her heart to slow down and get out of her throat. “Not exactly a Posturepedic. This can’t be good for your back.”

  “ ’Tis no’ my bed, but Balgaire’s.”

  His pronounced accent was an unexpected but pleasant surprise. The glint in his eyes as he closed the distance between them was not.

  “Well, since I’m in the doghouse, this seems apropos, don’t you think?” She tried a smile.

  He said nothing, just continued coming toward her.

  She resisted the urge to crawl backward and plaster herself against the wall. “Speaking of the dog, what was the ruckus about?”

  “He is barking up at the tunnel.”

  She worked to contain her elation. Duncan and Rory must have opened the door and found her note! “Shouldn’t you be checking that out?”

  “I will know who enters here soon enough, but I knew better than to trust you to do as I asked.”

  “Commanded,” she corrected.

  He stopped a foot away and lifted one brow. He’d pulled his hair back into the tight ponytail again, giving her a chance to really see him. He wasn’t gorgeous, but he had that same striking intensity as his brothers. Brothers he would be meeting shortly.

  “You must listen to me.”

  “I will do as I please, not as you direct. Stand.”

  “I have to explain things before they get here.”

  “Stand!”

  She sighed in frustration and slid off the stone bed, stepping over the gunstocks she now saw piled on the floor, the same ones she’d struck her shin on. “Figures,” she muttered. Uzis, she noted. MP-5s. And other assault weapons that had recently been introduced on the growing international arms black market. This guy meant business.

  “You will show me this portal before your cousins arrive.” He moved closer and took hold of her arm. “I will tolerate no more games.”

  She looked at his grip on her arm, then back up at him. “You know, it’s a good thing I’m not a faery, because I could really get into turning you into a toad right about now. Or maybe a pig.”

  His eyes widened for a split second and his grip loosened a fraction. The laugh burst out of her before she could stop it.

  “You almost bought that, didn’t you? Damn, I should have just gone for it.” He opened his mouth to argue and she impulsively reached up and covered his mouth with her hand. “Listen to me,” she said, but faltered to a stop when his eyes flared again. There was no fear of faery magic in them this time. This look was purely mortal male reacting to mortal female.

  His mouth was firm, but his lips were soft and warm against her oiled palm. The jolt of awareness that shot through her wasn’t remotely unpleasant. He didn’t move and when she lowered her hand, he didn’t speak again either. But the loss of immediate contact with his mouth only made her more excruciatingly aware of his hand on her arm, his chest brushing against her shoulder.

  “I’m no faery, Alexander,” she said, surprised at the hoarseness in her throat. “Believe it.”

  “Ye are witch to be sure, Delaney.” She watched with a combination of terror and anticipation as he slowly lowered his head toward hers.

  No, she told herself, this isn’t appropriate. He’s an arms dealer. He’s a MacKinnon! Stop, move, duck.

  “Faery eyes,” he said, “but the mouth of a sorceress.” He brushed his lips against hers, making her gasp. “Dinna burn me with yer fey fires, Delaney, until I’m done kissin’ ye.”

  Clarens were indeed doomed to be drawn to MacKinnons. “Dear God, the curse is real,” she whispered shakily.

  He paused and lifted his head just enough to look into her eyes. “Curse?”

  “Between our clans.”

  He straightened and his eyes narrowed. “And what clan would that be?”

  “You never asked my last name.”

  “Faeries have no surname.”

  “Mortals do. Mine is Claren.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  “Bluidy hell.” He searched her face. “Yer lying. Ye haven’t the look of any Claren I’ve ever seen. What trickery does Edwyna think to play with me now?”

  Delaney sighed. Enough was enough. She yanked her arm from his and before he could grab her, she stomped on the butt of one of the guns at her feet and snagged the other end when it flew up. She backed away and leveled the gun at him. A nice little MP-5. He had his gun too, of course, but hers was bigger … and way faster.

  She motioned to his gun. “Drop that, please. And kick it toward me.”

  “Now why would I do that, lass?”

  “If you don’t think I know how to use this, think again. I could field strip this in the dark, one-handed. So put the gun down, and kick it away.”

  “You can put together a dozen of them in the dark, sprite, but they willna work too well without ammunition.”

  She didn’t even glance at the gun. She knew it was weighted with ammunition. “Nice try.”

  He tossed his gun to the floor. “But if you think I believe you will shoot me, that is a nice try as well.”

  “Just ten minutes ago you believed I could turn you into a pig, so I’m not real worried.” She had the pleasure of watching his face turn a very mottled shade of red.

  “And I’m done with all this faery nonsense. My name is Delaney Claren. I was born in Kansas, in the United States, thirty-two years ago. I am not now, nor have I ever been, in cahoots with a dead woman or anyone from faery land.”

  “Yet you so easily believe I am Alexander MacKinnon? For a mortal woman born thirty-two years ago who can fieldstrip MP-5s one-handed in the dark, I find your gullibility a bit difficult to buy. If you’ll forgive me for saying so.” He offered no smile, but there was amusement in his eyes.

  Damn the man, but she found herself stifling a smile of her own. The way he slipped in and out of the rhythms of modern speech also snagged her attention. “Let’s just say yours isn’t the first incredible tale I’ve come to believe in the last few days.”

  “Explain.”

  “You give orders very easily, too. As one wou
ld expect from the chief’s oldest son. You would have made a fine chief yourself, I think.”

  His eyes flashed steel. “There is no ‘would have,’ Delaney Claren. I will be laird.”

  “Do you honestly believe you can return to your time and alter history? Do you have any idea what that would do? This isn’t some game you’re playing here.”

  “I am well aware of that, sprite.”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Sensitive about your size, are you?”

  She hadn’t meant to give him that particular weapon, it had just slipped out. “I think I have effectively proven that my size does not hinder me in any way.”

  He ran his gaze over her in ways that inventoried assets which had nothing to do with battle worthiness.

  “Even if you find the portal, you cannot go back and change things.”

  “I care nothing for this time or its inhabitants. If I change the past, then what is affected is affected.”

  “Even if it means my birth might never happen?”

  His gaze held such intensity, she knew nothing could change his long-awaited plan of redemption. “If that is to be so, then you will not know of it, as you will never have been.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “You are so callous?”

  “I am that honest. I am not going back to destroy the future, but if there is a way to change what happened to my clan, I have to do that.”

  “And what if your guns do not transport with you?”

  “Then that is as it will be. I have to try. I have amassed more than armaments in my time here; I have gained knowledge as well. If I am to go alone, then I will at least fight beside my father and my brothers with a greater understanding of battles and strategies. If I am to die in battle, then I will die.” He stepped closer until the narrow muzzle of the gun pressed directly into his chest. “But I cannot and will not sit here in exile and do nothing.”

  “There is more at stake than you know.”

  “It cannot be helped.”

  “Even if it means your brothers’ happiness?”

  Alexander felt the hairs on his nape rise. A certain dread filled him and it was only now that his instincts spoke loudly in her defense.

  “You are truly not sent from Edwyna, are you.”

  She shook her head.

  Crushing disappointment blew a wide hole in his gut. He hadn’t realized how certain he’d been that his path home had been found until now. “Explain everything, Delaney.”

  She sighed in frustration. “I have been trying to.”

  He knocked the gun from her hand with a swift chop that had her eyes widening in shock. He gripped her arms and trapped her legs as he spun her toward the closest wall. “Never let your guard down, sprite.”

  She grumbled, but she did not fight him as he moved to trap her. He did not mistake her docility for acquiescence.

  “Ye’d have made a valiant warrior for yer clan, Delaney. It is glad I am, I think, that I did not have to face you across a battlefield centuries ago.” He released her, boxing her into a stone corner.

  “Tell me your story, Delaney Claren.”

  She rubbed at her arms as she studied him and he felt a passing twinge for his rough handling. He was not normally a brute with women, but then, he had seen her as crafty faery warrior, as messenger and guide, he had not seen her as a woman.

  At least not until that stunning moment when the temptation of her mouth had proven too much. And if that had not been faery trickery, then she was even more dangerous than he’d thought.

  She did not speak right away. Wise one, she was indeed. Her mind was always working, never jumping into the fray without first weighing all the options, and weigh them swiftly she did. Had her Claren forebears been the same, this predicament he was in might never have occurred.

  “Time’s up.” They were coming. And he would know precisely who “they” were so he could prepare. “Tell me why you came here, how you claim Stonelachen, and what it has to do with my brothers.”

  “Have you looked up the history of what happened to your clan beyond that final battle? Do you know why your clan fell?”

  He had indeed researched his clan, but much of the documentation had fallen into the category of private family documents, which he could not lay his hands on. It seems the historians had forgotten the existence of his MacKinnon clan. The private documents had proven difficult to track, and he’d had other plans by then. “I know the Clarens defeated my clan in a massacre on the wedding day of their youngest daughter Kaithren to my youngest brother John Roderick.”

  “Yes, they did. You obviously know Edwyna was a seer, with claimed connections to the faeries. Well, as it turns out, Kaithren was even more powerful. She wanted Rory to profess his love for her. He told her what she wanted to hear, but she knew he lied and so she placed a curse on him.”

  “How do you know of all this?”

  “My great uncle, Lachlan Claren, whom I never even knew, spent most of his life amassing the personal histories of the Clarens and MacKinnons. It was part of his legacy to his heirs, who turned out to be my two cousins and me.

  “I’ve read his journals. It’s all documented. You say Edwyna sent you through the portal to save you from dying on the battlefield, but the MacKinnons believed Edwyna had you killed. There were any number of myths about how she did so. Most of them revolved around the faery world. She was forced to go into hiding for her own safety. The MacKinnons would not agree to another betrothal with her. Her sister Mairi was betrothed to your brother Duncan instead. She also refused to marry. Perhaps she believed her sister’s tales of destruction, perhaps she also would not marry without a promise of an enduring bond.”

  “The union between the Clarens and MacKinnons was not over something as contrived as the notion of love.”

  “The Claren sisters did not see it that way. They felt that without at least the promise of a true bond, the union would prove to be worthless.”

  “You canno’ force the heart to love, Delaney Claren.”

  She nodded. “That is true. But then it might also be true that without that bond, your clans were doomed anyway. Edwyna saw this, as did Kaithren.”

  “What happened to Duncan?”

  “Duncan followed Mairi when she fled to America. They both died in the mountains of what is now North Carolina.”

  He swallowed hard. So far from home, his brother could not be resting in peace. His heart constricted. He’d only come to terms with the deaths of his family and clansmen because he truly believed that one day he would return to fight by their sides. His throat was tight as he asked, “And Rory?”

  “Kaithren had lost both of her sisters. After Mairi’s disappearance and death, Edwyna was found raped and murdered. The Clarens blamed the MacKinnons, the MacKinnons claimed innocence.”

  News of her slaying brought Alexander sorrow, not vengeance. “She did not deserve to die a brutal death. I never felt love for her, and my time here in exile has not bound her memory fondly to me. But she acted on what she saw as truth. For that she did not deserve murder, much less rape.” It took him several long moments to pull his gaze away from hers, to pull his thoughts away from the solace that he found there. “Did Kaithren curse my brother to avenge Edwyna’s death?”

  “Partly. She must have believed, as her sisters did, that there needed to be a deeper bond. Rory told her what he thought she wanted to hear but she heard the lie.”

  “He wanted the clans united!”

  “Understandable, but Kaithren didn’t see it that way. She not only cursed him, she cursed their union at the altar. She had apparently told her clansmen of her decision beforehand and they were prepared for battle.”

  “For slaughter you mean!”

  “Yes.”

  Her easy agreement gave him pause. “Not spoken as one who should be loyal to her clan.”

  “I didn’t even know I had one until recently. As it is, my clan now consists of my two cousins and myself.”

/>   “And it is they who are here in Stonelachen with you?”

  She nodded. “Kaithren’s curse has extended through time. Every union between a Claren and MacKinnon has ended in tragedy. We are searching for the key to end it.”

  “The key? You mean a Claren Key, such as Edwyna?”

  She shook her head. “Not that kind of key. Lachlan believed that there was some amulet or talisman that Edwyna and Kaithren used when they cast their curses. He had hopes that if he could find it, he could reverse the curse that has plagued the two clans for three hundred years.”

  “Edwyna used no talisman that I can recall. And these cousins of yours—are they men?”

  “No. Women. The last of the original line.”

  Once again Alexander felt the chill, like air from an open crypt door, pass over him.

  “They are not the only ones who have come back to Stonelachen to search for the key.” She took a breath and held his gaze firmly. “Your brothers were both cursed, just as you were. Each in a different way.”

  He went completely still. “Explain yourself.”

  She told him of Duncan’s purgatory and Rory’s immortality.

  Alexander could not take in the magnitude of what she was saying. “Rory—He’s here?”

  “Duncan, too.”

  He began to shake, so uncontrollable was his reaction to such stunning news. He whirled away from her, trying to assimilate what she was telling him. Then suspicion crept in. He turned and stormed toward her, trapping her deep in the corner, his body looming over hers. “God save yer soul if yer lyin’ to me about this, Delaney Claren.”

  She held his gaze. “I do not lie to you, Alexander. Your brothers are here. In fact, they should be coming down those blasted stairs as we speak.”

  “They dinna know of that passage,” he said, almost more to himself than to her. He struggled mightily to make some rational sense of it all.

  “So that explains why it wasn’t on my map.”

  He hardly heard her for the thrumming of his blood, pulsing past his ears, filling his head, quickening his heart. He grabbed her as it all sank in. His eyes burned and his throat ached with a joyous disbelief he couldn’t manage to express. It tumbled out in a fury of confusion and rage. “Why did ye no’ tell me immediately?”