The Legend Mackinnon

by Donna Kauffman

  Before Alexander could respond, the colors solidified into a scene. But it was no one-dimensional painting he sat witness to. The edges wavered, beyond was his chamber, the same as always. But within the window was a small courtyard, walled in stone, carpeted with green grasses and wild heather. A courtyard he knew well. It was the place Edwyna had met him in that final fateful afternoon. As if the thought had conjured her, she appeared within the window and stepped to the edge.

  “It is finally time for you to return,” she said.

  Alexander could not move, could hardly find his breath, but a single word found its way past his lips. “Edwyna.”

  “You have discovered the bond, Alexander.” She spoke calmly, as if she’d been waiting moments rather than centuries, for him to come to his senses. “You now understand what we must do.”

  And he did understand. “You are right, Edwyna.”

  A strangled gasp came from Delaney, but he caught her with a strong hand before she could bolt from the bed.

  “Do not make me watch you go,” Delaney said on a strangled sob. “You cannot mean to do that to me.” She was almost begging him and it shamed him to the lowest part of his soul that his warrior would lower herself so for him.

  “Come then,” Edwyna said. Her visage was smooth and calm as it always was. He realized now how irritated her perfect mask had always made him. He had no idea what went on behind her glass-green eyes, no idea what went on inside her heart or mind for she carefully kept her emotions hidden, even from him, the man she’d professed to love.

  “I have learned of this bond of love, Edwyna, it is true. But I dinna think you understand it well yourself.”

  Even then she did not look shocked or hurt. Or even particularly angry. “Oh, but I do understand.” Her gaze shifted to Delaney.

  Delaney immediately sat up straighter, as if determined to meet this new foe with full battle armor in place. Her nakedness did nothing to diminish her strength, in fact it did the opposite. Alexander’s respect for her flourished in that moment. He released her and sought her hand, which he wove his fingers through. He felt her gaze touch his face, then felt her fingers tighten within his.

  Edwyna’s gaze riveted to this joining in a flash, then shifted back to him. “One such as she will be of no help to you, Alexander. She cannot return with you.”

  “I cannot return through the portal either.”

  Delaney’s grip on his hand tightened almost to crushing. “Alex,” she whispered. “Your clan.”

  Pain did lance his heart, a deep wound from which he would not easily recover. But there would be time for the grieving he had never allowed himself. Delaney would be there by his side as he endured it. And lived through it.

  “Yes,” Edwyna echoed. “Your clan, Alexander. This is your destiny. Together we can forge a union that will bring peace to the MacKinnons and Clarens. You understand now.”

  “I do understand, Edwyna. And it is precisely because I do that I now know I canno’ return wi’ ye. It will be of no good use. To any of us.”

  Her expression began to shift then. “But you must. It is your destiny.”

  “You say you loved me, Edwyna, but you do no’. No’ in the way you must love. I wouldna ever hae understood this if you had no’ sent me here. I have spent seven years cursing you and plotting my vengeance. But that is what it would be, vengeance, no’ destiny. I never thought I would be grateful to ye, but grateful I am.”

  “This is nonsense. Return to me at once! I have saved your life. Given you the opportunity to learn of love.”

  “Aye, that you have. But Edwyna, there was your mistake. For true love is not a learned behavior, nor one that is earned as a debt paid from a lesson learned well. It exists between two souls that come together because they can naught be apart. You canno’ make it so, it simply exists. It doesna die. It will always be. And it canno’ be transferred to another on a whim. I will always be grateful to you for putting me in its path, Edwyna, but I do no’ love ye. And I never will, in this time or that.”

  “Yer making a mistake Alexander, one that you will pay for with the lives of your clansmen. Can ye live with the guilt of this decision? All your planning and you change yer mind on a whim?”

  “It is no whim. It is simply that now I see where before I could no’. My clansmen are already dead and gone, Edwyna. You have altered the future and because of it, I canno’ come back and alter the past. It will change nothing then, and everything now. I finally see that.”

  “What of me, then?”

  For the first time, he felt sorry for her. “You have given me a gift beyond price and it is sorry I am that your plans have not concluded the way you wished. But I do have the benefit of future knowledge and I wish to give ye something in return for all ye have given me. A warning.”

  Her brows furrowed. “Warning? I am a seer, I—”

  “But ye dinna see things for yerself clearly, Edwyna. I know of your fate and it is no’ a good one. Be wary of the knolls and braes around Stonelachen and dinna travel alone.”

  She straightened and folded her arms across her midsection as if chilled. “I thought you were no’ willin’ to affect the destiny of others.”

  He shook his head. “No, I am merely accepting my destiny as it has happened. Call on the faeries to help ye as they have in the past. If ye can create a portal for yerself, maybe you can change your destiny as well. Save yourself, Edwyna.”

  She shook her head. There was true resignation on her face now. “I thought to change our destiny to my liking. I see now that it was wrong. Though I did it in the name of protecting my clan, I should have known better. Perhaps the faeries knew of this when they agreed to help me. They are great ones for playing mortals for the fools they are.”

  “Then maybe we have both grown wiser for your deed. I can only wish you Godspeed.”

  There was a pause, then she nodded. “And yersel’, Alexander. Godspeed in that future time.” The panel wavered, the colors blurring. The air shifted, then settled. All was as before.

  And nothing was as before.

  Balgaire bounded into the room, barking furiously.

  Alexander found himself bursting into laughter. “Och, what a poor watchdog ye make, ye great shaggy beast.” He shooed him off the bed when the dog tried to make amends for his failure by drooling all over them. “Be gone wi’ ye.”

  Balgaire sauntered back to the door and resumed his watchful post.

  “What have you done, Alex?” Delaney’s voice was small, but steady.

  He turned to her and knew in that moment, when his heart filled with nothing but pure bliss, that he had done the right thing. “I have done what I had to do.” He pulled her to his chest. “I will grieve for my clan, Delaney, but as you have tried to make me understand, they are well and truly gone. I am here and beyond giving them assistance. When I saw Edwyna, heard her words, I knew. I knew in a way I couldn’t have otherwise. Things have been changing for me since I met you and I could not sort them out. I have spent a long time preparing for what I thought was my only choice. It was impossible for me to consider anything else.”

  He kissed her and felt his heart piece itself firmly back together. “I had only to look at her to see and understand that were I to go back, my clan’s history would not change.”

  “What of her? Do you think she escaped that brutal death?”

  Alexander shook his head. “I dinna know if we will ever know. Perhaps we willna until such time as we ascend.” His heart grew heavy. “But I suspect it will happen as it is written in the annals of history. We feel that we are making choices, that we have a hand in our own fate, but I wonder, do we really?” He pulled her close her and kissed her deeply.

  She slid her arms around his neck and pulled his head to hers and took his mouth in a way that laid claim to his heart and to his soul and everything that lay ahead for them both.

  “I will spend my life making sure you never regret your choice.”

  “I had no choice. I
t just took me a while to believe in it. I love you, Delaney.

  She rolled him under her and mounted him, her eyes filled with fierce light, her smile blinding him with her joy. “You can believe in it. Believe in us. If this is our destiny, then it will be a damned good one because I love you, too, Alexander.” She bent to her task and took him to heaven and back. And to heaven once again.

  Their joining was at turns fierce and soul-shatteringly gentle. When it was done and she lay tucked beside him once again, it was her chuckle that roused him as he drifted toward sleep.

  “What is so amusing?”

  “Well, we have one little thing we need to clear up before we begin planning our lives.”

  He lifted his head. “What would that be?”

  “Well, there is the little matter of, oh, a few thousand weapons in the basement we need to discard.”

  He laughed, amazed that he was so carefree. After a lifetime of nothing but worries and concerns, it felt like no small miracle.

  Suddenly Balgaire set off to barking once again.

  Both he and Delaney froze, then laughed at themselves. “No more portals, no more curses,” she said. “I need normal.”

  “I need to kill that damn dog.” He pulled trousers on and stormed to the doorway.

  “Don’t shoo him off,” Delaney said. “It must be morning. Maybe Rory—” She stopped and shot straight up. “Rory! Alexander, oh my God, I hadn’t even thought—”

  Her questions and her frantic attempts to drag on her clothes and race after Alexander tumbled to a stop at the loud shout that echoed down the hallway.

  “Rise you lazy MacKinnons! There’s celebratin’ to do and this fine first December day is a short one.”

  She and Alex gasped. “Duncan!” they breathed.

  “Where are ye, brothers of mine? Get up, get up!”

  Balgaire was running through the passageways, barking incessantly. Delaney quickly dressed and raced barefoot on the stone floors. It couldn’t be. She caught up to Alexander in the main artery that connected to Rory’s chambers.

  Rory came tumbling out with Cailean right behind him. He ran to Alex and the two raced off.

  “It can’t be,” Cailean said. Her flushed skin and tousled hair brought a smile to Delaney’s own love-struck eyes.

  They ran toward the main room, heedless of the cold floor and stubbed toes. “I have so much to tell you,” Delaney gasped.

  “Me, too. Oh, what a night.”

  Delaney could only grin at her as they maneuvered through the dim passageways. They all converged in the cavernous hall just as Duncan and Maggie strode to the center of the room.

  “Duncan,” Alexander breathed in a hushed tone, his hand held to his heart. “What—How?”

  “They have given me a second chance.” He pulled Maggie up into his arms. “And dinna think ye can pull me away from this one. It was her eloquent prayers what brought me back. We are well and truly bound. We are marryin’ this day. I want my brothers as witnesses to this finest moment and I’ll hear no arguments.”

  Alexander crossed the room and clapped his brother on the arm. “Ye’ll get no arguments from me.” Duncan slid Maggie to a stand beside him as his brother pulled him into a tight hug. “Och, Duncan how did ye come back to us? I thought never to see you again.”

  “It’s because of Maggie. She is my miracle.” He set Alexander at arm’s length, his smile fading into as serious a look as Alexander had ever seen on his face. “I know this is no’ the time to speak of this, but we are all here and I feel it is together we should stay, Alexander.” He looked to Rory, who had come across the room and hugged him hard.

  “I am no’ goin’ anywhere,” Alexander said. The room fell into a hushed silence. He turned to face them all. “We found the portal this morning. Edwyna called me back. I have learned what she sent me into the future to learn.” He took Delaney’s hand and looked down at the woman by his side. “To love. Fully and completely.” He looked to the assembled group, wide smiles on all their faces. “My commitment to unite the Claren and MacKinnon clans and ensure their long and healthy future remains my goal. Only I will be accomplishing it here, in this century.” He turned to Rory. “We have yet to find your key, but we will free you, John Roderick. It is our legacy to flourish.”

  A broad grin split his own quiet countenance. “We have already discovered it.”

  There was a gasp from the group.

  “We each had the key,” Cailean said. “It was inside us all. We had only to discover it to unlock the curse.”

  “Love.” Maggie and Delaney spoke at the same time.

  “Exactly.”

  “So it is over?” Duncan asked. “All of it?”

  “I am mortal,” Rory stated. He pulled Cailean into his arms. “And I plan to spend my future with this Claren women, legendary curse or no’.”

  Cailean smiled at him. “I have a feeling—” At Maggie’s gasp of dismay she turned to her with a grin, “Not that kind. But this one is stronger than any feeling I have ever experienced. I don’t need a vision to predict this future. Lachlan’s mission has been accomplished. The Legend MacKinnon will flourish for centuries to come, only this time with stories of the startling success of the unions of the clans.”

  The three MacKinnon brothers pulled the three Claren cousins into their arms, their kisses a binding promise to her testament of their future.

  Duncan was the first to break free. He swung Maggie into his arms. His brothers followed suit. Delaney, Maggie, and Cailean laughed and held on tight.

  “I believe that chapel will be booked full this afternoon,” Duncan said. He looked to Rory and winked. “Then the only question will be who shall be the first to propagate the clan?”

  Maggie touched his cheek and pulled his face to hers. “I can answer that question.”

  Duncan looked as if he’d been struck over the head with the flat of a mighty claymore. He all but staggered. “What is it yer sayin’, my Maggie?”

  “I’m sayin’ that is pretty sure I am that yer goin’ t’ be a da, Duncan MacKinnon.”

  He placed his hand over her stomach, a look of rapture and wonderment creasing his face. He lifted his head and turned to the rest of them. “We are all blessed.”

  Then his face split into a wide grin as he thrust his fist into the air. With a mighty shout that rang in the hall for long after it was done, he cried, “Long live the legend!”

  EPILOGUE

  Lachlan looked down and watched the unfolding scene below him. He could scarce believe it. He hadn’t understood himself what it was he sought when his time to ascend had come, other than to right the wrong that had surely happened between him and his beloved Louisa.

  He could only leave behind all he had found in hopes it would find its own way. He could not have dreamed in his wildest imaginings that it would unfold as it had.

  Love was an elusive sprite that did not always guide its subject down the right path. But succeed they had. And in glorious fashion. Without their boundless love for one another, the curse could never have been reversed. The three couples were well and truly matched.

  He could well imagine the joy Cailean would take in sharing her travels and discoveries with John Roderick. He would help her to discover a world she’d never have found on her own, and the knowledge they would share with their eventual offspring warmed his heart.

  Alexander and Delaney would also take no small amount of joy in bringing a shiny new slice of peace to a world they both knew could be fraught with ugliness and hatred. He had to wonder if they would not work for that greater cause a while longer before starting their own family. The troubled spots of the world would be well warned that there was a formidable team about to enter their lives, and make the wreaking of global havoc much more difficult to achieve.

  Och, and the final couple, Duncan and Maggie. His heart warmed to overflowing when he looked down upon them. Aye, there would be MacKinnon-Claren offspring to fill this world and these two would play no
small role in that endeavor. Stonelachen’s great halls and winding passageways would be filled with the ringing laughter of children yet again. Perhaps their destiny lay in finding a place for Stonelachen in this modern world. He could not wait to witness it.

  Now the Legend MacKinnon would begin a new arc in its existence. A glorious path into a future filled with the happiness and fulfillment of future generations of each clan and their joined progeny. Aye, his eternal contentment was assured. He could finally rest in peace.

  Motion caught his attention and he reluctantly pulled it away from the tearful and ecstatic unions as the three couples became man and wife in a wondrous joined ceremony, steeped in the traditions of both past and present.

  He shifted his observations outward across the heavens and was stunned beyond thought and deed by what he saw. He’d been so overjoyed with the earthly successes, he’d not given thought to the otherworldly effect their achievement might have.

  He observed in awed silence as Claren souls, dozens, nay hundreds of them, crossed what once were unbreachable divides to be joined with their MacKinnon mates. The heavens rang out with the wonderment of true love rediscovered. And from the midst of the convergence, a woman’s earthly image emerged.

  It could not be. He could not withstand the illusion were he to discover it were only that. “Louisa?”

  She smiled upon him and filled him with a warmth he’d thought never to feel again.

  “Lachlan. My dear, devoted Lachlan. At long last.”

  Och, dear glorious God in heaven but it was her. He cried tears he could not feel, but knew them each and every one as they fell.

  She came to him and it was a blending of souls, a supreme fulfillment. He had reached the highest pinnacle. True peace and eternal happiness.

  They looked down upon those who had made possible this ultimate glorious gift.

  “Long live the legend, indeed.”

  Romance novels have always celebrated the power, fortitude, and resilience of women. I am very fortunate because I’m surrounded by a number of real-life heroines. Without them, this book could not have been completed.