Ronan chuckled as he held the bit of carved wood up to the magnificently hideous beast lounging beside him and compared them. Graham must have ingested too much char this morning. Whene’er his friend overfed on the favorite fish of his human form, Graham waxed particularly morose and even more whiny than usual. “Aye, m’friend. We’re a pathetic pair, are we not?”
Ronan ran his knife tip along the curve of the miniature wooden dragon curled in his hand, and his blade slowed as he added another row of points to the tiny ridged back. “A healer for his sorrows.” Why would Graham phrase it so?
The memory of Mother Sinclair’s shared vision of her granddaughter residing in the future flickered across his mind. A beguiling smile and gold-green eyes flashing with…what? Ronan closed his eyes and concentrated on the image Mother Sinclair had conjured atop the reflecting pool. The lass was fair to look upon for sure, but there was more to her than mere physical beauty. Her reflection pulsed with an unexplainable energy. An energy that beckoned him, filling him with an anxious aching need to capture it. But what if he did and she was nay the one? Then what?
Ronan shifted uneasily atop the shelf of stone and relocated to a chunk of wood upended into a makeshift stool. He closed his eyes. Mother Sinclair had sworn she had the answer he sought. His salvation was no’ to be found in Kenna after all but rather in one of her other granddaughters. A younger one. A twin gifted with a healing touch. Mother Sinclair assured him that this particular time-traveling Sinclair lass held the key to unlocking the prison of his curse.
Ronan counted backward. The young woman should be nearly twenty-one summers of age by now. Mother Sinclair had said it would be so. Mairi. Aye, that was her name. The Lady Mairi Caledonia Sinclair.
But what if Mother Sinclair was wrong?
Ronan leaned forward and thought harder. Mother Sinclair had spoken at length about the youngest twin granddaughters of her brood, the last two sisters yet to join the family at MacKenna keep.
Ronan involuntarily shuddered as he pondered all the women he’d met at castle MacKenna during his last fateful visit. Mother Nia Sinclair, the fearless grandmother of the Sinclair lasses, had made it quite clear that neither of her absent, youngest granddaughters were of an age to be wooed at that time.
Ronan snorted and shook his head as he smoothed the blade around the muscular curve of the wooden dragon’s hind leg. If he remembered correctly, Mother Sinclair’s exact words were that the youngest of the four sisters were strictly off limits and she would physically alter any man thinking otherwise into a hobbled gelding. That brutally clear announcement ’twas but another reason he’d erred in his choice of which Sinclair woman to take to wife.
But now another conversation from those forgotten memories pushed to the forefront of his mind. Mother Sinclair had revealed that she knew his personal history. She had sworn she knew his true lineage, knew the details of his damnedable curse. Ronan squirmed atop the hard cold block of wood and stared down at the scuffed toes of his black boots. How could it be? The cryptic old woman had also told him in veiled murky words that he was meant for one of her granddaughters, but she had failed to mention which damn one.
“Stop mucking up yer future by wallowing too long in yer past. Ye always did o’erthink things. No good will e’er come from reliving what ye canna change. Ye should ha’ learned that lesson well enough by now.” Graham raised his glistening black head until the twisted horns sprouting in front of his armored earflaps nearly bumped the roof of the cave. The dragon’s great glowing eyes narrowed into piercing slits that shifted into an even darker glare when Ronan failed to respond.
With a disgruntled huff, Graham stiffly rose from the ledge, stretching and bowing his spiked back like a gigantic house cat rising from its nap beside the hearth. He swung his steaming muzzle to within inches of Ronan’s nose. “Dinna ignore m’words, Ronan. I am nay one of yer gathered orphans awestruck by yer bloodline. I’m nay afraid t’tell ye what ye need to hear. Ye should ken that well enough by now.”
“Ahh, m’friend. Have ye ne’er heard that if ye fail to remember yer past, yer doomed to repeat yer mistakes?” Ronan pushed Graham aside and edged closer to the mouth of the cave. He held the finished carving up to the weak sunlight flooding across the entrance. The finished carving was a mirror image of Graham, down to the mail-like scales shining across his sides. Would that he could shape his life as easily as he shaped wood into whate’er he envisioned.
A pang of sadness twitched through his core as he closed both hands around the carving. He could ne’er forget the past and all his mistakes. Among his greatest regrets were the two painfully short-lived marriages preceding the debacle at Clan MacKenna. Lady Kenna Sinclair of MacKenna keep wasna the only wrong path his intuition and quest for freedom had tricked him into following. His other marriages had abruptly ended when each wife in turn had done her best to gift him with an heir. Each had died, and so had each of his infant sons.
Sadness weighed heavy on Ronan’s heart. If he but looked to the north, he would see the cemetery cliff with the white stone cairns of the innocents he’d made the mistake of drawing into his life. Love had not factored into either of the marriages, but Ronan still regretted his part in the shortening of their lives. What an unforgivable waste. If he’d no’ erred and chosen the sweet maids in an attempt to bring a bit of warmth into his world, perhaps they’d still be alive this verra day.
Ronan bowed his head and closed his eyes. Damn his father’s crazed wife and her curse. He agreed with Graham in hoping the woman of darkness who had cursed them now suffered in the worst level of hell.
“Ye nay ended their lives. Surely ye know that.” Graham stretched his long slender neck across the strand of jagged rocks and peered down into the blue-green depths of the rippling loch. “Ye had no way of knowing for sure if the curse would take them. Each of us has our own fate, old friend. Theirs was to leave behind the squalor of the poorest of clans and know a short time of ease before they passed beyond the veil.”
“All the same—” Ronan shuttered his mind against the painful past, locking the memories back into their dark corners. He slid his knife into the sheath strapped to his leg and placed the carved dragon on a stone shelf inset just inside the cave. “—I’ll no’ be returning to MacKenna keep. Clan MacKenna is strong and prosperous. The Lady Mairi Sinclair is no’ in need of saving. She has Mother Sinclair to protect her.”
As he spoke Mairi’s full name, an odd twinge stirred deep in his heart. The more he argued with himself to abandon the idea of seeking out yet another wife, the stronger and more insistent the twinge became. Ronan swallowed hard and thumped his chest. Perhaps he’d eaten a bit too much char as well.
A sly smile curled one corner of Graham’s black leathery mouth as he winked a great golden eye. “Aye. Yer words dinna echo the wants of yer heart. Though ye’ve nay even met the woman, I believe yer soul has already noticed the Lady Mairi a bit more than yer willing to admit.” Graham thumped a curled claw against Ronan’s breastbone. “Yer heart wishes to see the lass and decide for itself.”
Ronan pushed Graham’s claw aside. “And have ye also forgotten that m’last visit to MacKenna keep ended in a duel nearly to the death?” Ronan stomped to the edge of the stone slab jutting out from the face of the cave and lifted his face to the wind. The crisp clean breeze coming across the water stroked his face as though attempting to soothe his mind.
“Aye. I remember.” Graham resettled his folded wings along the ridge of his back and wound his massive girth down the narrow path cut through the sun-bleached fingers of sharp stones lining the hillside. In one smooth motion, he slithered off into the sparkling water without so much as a single splash. The elongated shadow of Graham’s swimming form shimmered black beneath the rippling waves. The surface erupted with a snorted fountain of crystal droplets as Graham’s head broke up through the barrier and his long slender neck rose above the water. “I also remember yer stables are now home to a pair of the biggest damn horses
I have e’er seen. I believe they were a gift from Clan MacKenna, were they no’? A gift for handlin’ a verra difficult situation with a great deal of honor and care? I daresay Chieftain MacKenna and his clan would welcome a visit from the recipient of those fine warhorses.”
Graham always had to have the last word. Máthair had said he’d been that way as a lad, and Graham hadna lost the trait when cursed. Ronan shrugged his dark plaid over one shoulder and turned to climb the narrow stone steps leading to the top of the cliff. After centuries of friendship with him, Ronan had found the best way to win an argument with the stubborn Graham was to ignore him and walk away.
“So ye will be goin’ then?” Graham rolled like an oversized log to float on his armored back. His silvery belly scales glinted just above the surface of the water. He idly paddled with the webbed toes of one back foot, slowly propelling his body up the loch alongside the stone staircase winding to the top of the cliff.
“Will ye be nettlin’ me until I do?” Ronan bristled against the foolish question. Once Graham got something in his head, he ne’er let it go. Ronan might as well order the lads to start packing provisions for the trip. He verra much doubted the threat of a century of silence would sway Graham this time.
“Aye. I will. Ye already ken the truth of it.” Graham closed his eyes and stretched one wing above the surface of the sunlit water, then turned it to catch the wind. The gray leathery skin billowed full between the inky black ribs that formed the wing’s structure. The makeshift sail bobbed the dragon along atop the waves like a buoy freed from its rigging. “I’m sure ye have the right of it this time. This Mairi Sinclair is the one we both need.”
A chilling howl echoed down the length of the glen, soft at first, then deepening in pitch as the mournful cry rode the wind across the choppier northern waters of the loch. An ancient knowing rippled across Ronan’s flesh as he climbed the remaining steps up the side of the cliff. Máthair’s call affirmed Graham’s opinion in a primal language Ronan fully understood. Perhaps ’twas time to try again.
Dare he hope Graham was right?
Love stories you’ll never forget
By authors you’ll always remember
eOriginal Romance from Random House
readloveswept.com
Follow us online for the latest new releases, giveaways, exclusive sneak peeks, and more!
readloveswept
readloveswept
My Highland Bride (Highland Hearts #2) Page 28
