The Ravenscraig Legacy Collection: A World of Magical Highland Romance

by Allie Mackay

  But none of those horrors came anywhere near to the nightmare spread across the bed in the Heatherbrae’s tidy sleeping quarters.

  Going there now, he stared down at the books he’d examined earlier. Wee Hughie’s Rivers of Stone: A Highlander’s Ancestral Journey. Kira’s little volume, The Hebridean Clans, and several others.

  Eight altogether. Kira’s two, plus six he’d plucked from a shelf on the wall.

  Each one said the same thing.

  Conan Dearg drowned.

  Not that he’d really care, were it not for the rest.

  Sinking onto the edge of the bed, he picked up his kinsman’s little tome, once more opening it to the damning passage. Tracing the words with a blister-tipped finger, he swallowed against the thickness in his throat and wondered how the fates could be so cruel as to let him save Kira only to cause Tavish’s death.

  Aidan closed his eyes and groaned. Never had he felt more helpless and miserable. Until Alex Douglas’s cryptic words came back to him.

  There are some men who deserve killing.

  His eyes snapped open. When the first thing that leapt into view was Invincible, its blood-red pommel jewel glittering like a dragon’s eye, he knew what he had to do.

  Leaping to his feet, he grabbed the sword, feeling better, stronger, the instant his fingers clenched around the leather-wrapped hilt.

  Power – and rage – swept him, heating his blood until it was all he could do not to throw back his head and shout his clan’s battle cry.

  Instead, the words he’d said to Tavish the morning of the feast echoed in his ears: Chances are we’ll be rejoining you in the hall, back before the sweet courses are served.

  He closed his eyes again, his heart thundering. If they could manage that, all might not be lost.

  It was a risk he had to take.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You want to go back?”

  Kira’s astonishment was great as she slowly closed the door of the Heatherbrae behind her. She set down the glossy monthly, Scotland Today, that she’d brought back from the Ravenscraig library. She stared at Aidan, her initial euphoria on hearing him declare he wanted to return to his time, giving way to queasiness and dry mouth now that she looked at him more carefully.

  Something had changed.

  And it wasn’t good.

  He no longer looked like Aidan-out-of-water, but the fierce laird of Wrath she knew so well from his own time.

  His jaw was set in a formidable line and his eyes blazed. Most telling of all, he’d strapped on Invincible.

  Crossing the cottage’s little sitting area, Kira slid her arms around him. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” She looked up at him, not surprised when he disentangled himself and started pacing. “Why do you want to go back now? I know things aren’t ideal, but we just arrived here.”

  “It’s no’ that I want to go back, though, the gods know I do.” He whirled to face her, his expression giving her chills. “We must. According to your history books, our leaving caused Tavish’s death.”

  Kira’s eyes widened. “What?” She pressed a hand to her breast, shock welling up within her. “How can that be?”

  She was so stunned, she couldn’t think clearly.

  Aidan disappeared into the bedroom, returning a moment later with an armful of books. Dumping them onto a tartan-upholstered armchair, he snatched up one and began flipping through its pages.

  “Here! The lines in the middle of the page.” He thrust the book at her, pointing to a brief paragraph on page 57. “Read it and you’ll understand.”

  Kira looked down at the clear black print, her stomach dropping as she read the words. “Oh, God.” She tossed down the book, feeling ill. A terrible chill washed through her and her knees weakened. She met Aidan’s gaze, horrified. “Conan Dearg slew Tavish while escaping Wrath’s dungeon? Then drowned? With that MacLeod woman?”

  “So the books say.” Aidan folded his arms. “All of them. Even that windbag, Wee Hughie’s. Some just say Conan Dearg killed the laird of Wrath, but the result is the same. After we left, Tavish took my place. Had we remained, he would still be alive.”

  “And you’d be dead.” She didn’t like that possibility either.

  Not at all.

  Aidan snorted. “Nae. Conan Dearg would be dead, and by my sword. No’ from drowning.”

  Kira dropped onto a chair. “I don’t get the drowning part. Or the connection with that awful woman.”

  “That’s because you don’t know my cousin. Or Fenella MacLeod.” He gave her an alpha-male look, all medieval chieftain again. “I wouldn’t be one of the most respected warrior lairds in the Highlands if the answer weren’t clear to me.”

  Kira looked at him. It wasn’t clear to her at all.

  “It is simple, lass.” He picked up Mara McDougall Douglas’s welcome decanter of single malt and poured himself a hefty dram. He started to pour a second measure for her, but she waved a hand to stop him. Tossing down his own whisky in one quick swig, he wiped his mouth. “If you knew Lady Fenella, you’d understand. She devours men faster than I just swallowed that whisky. Conan Dearg will have attracted her like a lodestone. Especially since she was grieved with me.”

  “She didn’t like you?” Kira lifted a brow.

  “She liked me too much. Some while before you came to Wrath, she visited, offering her men and her fleet of longships to help me to search for Conan Dearg.” He paused to run a hand through his hair, a look of distaste passing over his face. “She offered me other services as well. You’ll ken what they were. When I declined, she left in a fury.”

  “You think she then hooked up with your cousin? To get back at you?”

  He nodded. “I’d bet my sword that was the way of it. I should have thought of suchlike before, but I was distracted.”

  Kira swallowed. She knew he meant her. “I still don’t understand the drowning part. Especially if the MacLeod woman is supposed to have drowned with him.”

  “I can only guess, but I’d vow Lady Fenella helped him escape at some point during the feast and they tried to leave Wrath Bay in her galley.” Coming over to her, he placed his hands on her shoulders. “Tavish and I suspected her of damaging her own craft as a ploy to pull up on my landing beach. If her flight with Conan Dearg caused as much confusion as I suspect it might have, and my men pursued them, in the rush to get away, she may have set sail in her own galley rather than taking one of mine as I imagine she’d planned to do.”

  “You think her boat sank?” Kira blinked up at him. “As they tried to sail away?”

  “I was told when she arrived that there was quite a hole gouged in her galley’s hull. They wouldn’t have made it past Wrath Isle if they sought to flee in such a vessel.”

  Kira shuddered. “If this is true, I’ll bet she was behind my poisoning.”

  “I thought the same,” he agreed, again shoving a hand through his hair. “Though if she’d been slipping into Wrath to visit Conan Dearg, or harm you, someone there must’ve been helping her.”

  “That has to be how your cousin got up onto the arch that night.” Kira bit her lip, a hundred thoughts churning in her head. “I suspected he’d somehow learned about me. How I got there. Someone must’ve helped him sneak out of the dungeon so he could examine the top of the arch.”

  “Indeed. You’re a wise lassie.” A touch of admiration lit his eyes. “Poor Kendrew must’ve startled him, and suffered the consequences.”

  “But who would’ve helped your cousin?” Kira couldn’t wrap her mind around it. “Your men can’t stand him. And the women, those laundresses-” She broke off, suspicion making her breath catch. “Do you think one of them did it?”

  He frowned. “Help my cousin?” He started pacing again, rubbing the back of his neck as he walked. “Could be. I’ve told you, Conan Dearg exerts a weird influence on women. But I can’t see any of the laundresses doing Lady Fenella any favors.”

  Stopping by the table, he helped himself to another dram o
f whisky. “It doesn’t matter, Kee-rah.” Confidence rolled off him. If she didn’t know better, she’d have sworn he’d grown several inches. That his powerful shoulders had gone even wider. He looked at her, his expression fierce. “Now that I know what to be wary of, I’ll get to the bottom of the matter when we go back. Hopefully we can get there the same night we left. If so, I’m sure I can save Tavish.”

  Kira’s heart sank. “Oh, dear,” she said, half certain the shadows in the room had just deepened, turning as dark as the blackness she felt bearing down on them. Her gaze slid to the little pine table by the door. The slick and colorful issue of Scotland Today lying on the tabletop. “I don’t think we can get back.”

  She hadn’t wanted to say so yet, but now, watching and listening to him talk about saving his friend, she couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “The gatehouse arch-”

  “Worked once and will serve us again.” He set down the little crystal dram glass. “You just need to left-drive us back to Wrath. We’ll leave in the morning, as soon as you’ve said your farewells to your family and friends.”

  “You don’t understand.” Kira pressed her fingers to her temples. “It won’t matter if we go back to Skye. Even if we did, we wouldn’t be able to get to the arch-top. Not even the outermost ruins of your castle.”

  He looked at her, uncomprehending.

  “The site’s under construction,” she tried to explain, pushing to her feet. Going to the little table near the door, she grabbed the Scotland Today and waved it at him. “It’s all in here. You can even see pictures. The news will surely be splashed across the Internet, too. In the months I’ve been away, Wrath has gone to the National Trust for Scotland. That’s a historical preservation society and they’re currently developing the ruins into a tourist exhibition. They-”

  “A what?” He stared at her, the blood draining from his face. “You mean a place overrun with Ameri-cains and tour buses?”

  Kira nodded, her heart breaking that she had to tell him. “Mother said they tried to go there weeks ago when they first arrived, but it’s all roped off and guarded. Even at night. No one can set foot on the property.”

  “I see.” He looked at her, all the flash and gleam in his eyes, vanished. “Put that thing away, Kee-rah,” he said, glancing at the magazine in her hands. “And dinnae go fetching the like on your Internet whate’er. I dinnae want to see the images. No’ now.”

  Turning away from her, he went to the cottage’s front window. The one with the view of Mara McDougall Douglas’s One Cairn Village memorial cairn. Its stones and great Celtic cross shimmered silvery-blue in the pale luminosity of the late summer night, the beauty of it piercing Kira to her soul.

  Aidan seemed to be staring at cairn. His shoulders sagged more the longer he stood there, stiff and silent, his hands clenched at his sides.

  Kira moved to join him, but stopped halfway there, her stare shooting past him to the big memorial cairn, a smile splitting her heart as she made the connection.

  “Oh, God!” she cried, starting to tremble. “I know what we can do!”

  Aidan whipped around, the hope on his face making her spirit soar. “You know of another time portal, Kee-rah? Another way we can return?”

  “I might.” She couldn’t lie to him. “Let’s say there’s a chance. If” – she snatched Wee Hughie’s book off the chair and thumbed through its pages until she found what she needed – “we go here! The Na Tri Shean.”

  His brows shot upward. “That accursed place?”

  Kira nodded. “My boss, Dan Hillard, had reason to believe the cairns there aren’t just faery mounds, but a portal to the Other World and all places beyond and between. A time portal, yes.” She held the book beneath his nose, forcing him to look at the black and white photograph of the three piles of stone on their hill. “If we go there, maybe, just maybe, we can get back to Wrath.”

  “Cnoc Freiceadain – the Na Tri Shean – is far from here, Kee-rah.” He rubbed his forehead. “Getting there would mean crossing almost the whole of Scotland.”

  “Does it matter?” She tossed aside the book and wrapped her arms around him, squeezing tight. “It’s our only chance.”

  He drew a deep breath, hugging her back. “Then we shall seize it. I owe Tavish no less.”

  “We both owe him.” Kira leaned her head against his shoulder, knowing that was true. “I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he sees you.”

  That he might not was something she wouldn’t consider.

  After all, as Mara McDougall Douglas had said, Scotland was a place of miracles.

  ***

  It was after nightfall the next day by the time they passed through the tiny hamlet of Shebster in Scotland’s far north and finally reached the great grass-grown hill that held the three long-chambered cairns known as the Na Tri Shean. A stout, rib-sticking full Scottish breakfast, a swift, but emotional farewell from George and Blanche Bedwell and their hosts at Ravenscraig, along with hope, sheer will, and a seemingly endless ribbon of narrow, winding Highland roads had brought them here. Now, turning off the ignition at last, Kira had to struggle to hide her disappointment.

  Dan’s supposed time portal par excellence proved nondescript.

  Little more than a huge, treeless hill stood before them, outlined against the eerily light late summer night sky. The hill’s summit showed the telltale faery mounds, said to date back to the third millennium BC. But rather than the massive, well-defined cairns she’d expected, only a scattered jumble of boulders and stones showed that anything really significant had once stood there.

  Getting out of the car, Kira pushed back her shoulders and glanced at Aidan. “Not very impressive, h’mmm? I’m sorry. I thought-”

  “You are thinking like a woman who no longer believes in magic, Kee-rah.” Tossing back his plaid, he whipped out Invincible and held its blade to the soft, silver-glowing sky. At once, the combined light of the bright, crescent moon and the pale northern sun caught the sword’s edge, making its cold, hard steel shine and glow like a living thing. “The power of a place like this remains through time and eternity. It matters little that the man-made cairns are tumbled.” He reached for her hand, then started forward, up the hill. “Besides, the stones only marked what was beneath. It is there, deep under the earth, that we must go.”

  “Under the ground?” Kira stopped, digging in her heels. Suddenly the great, grassy hill no longer looked so harmless. “What are you saying?”

  He glanced at her, his dark eyes glittering in the strange, silvery-blue light. “I thought you knew what long-chambered cairns are.”

  Kira swallowed, not wanting to admit she hadn’t given it that much thought. At least not as far as entering the cairns and going down into the cold, dark earth.

  “I will be with you, Kee-rah. You needn’t fear.” He traced his knuckles down the curve of her cheek. “Now, come. Get out your flashlight, or whate’er you call it, and help me look for an entrance. There should be three. They’ll be low in the ground, and perhaps hidden by rocks or underbrush. I doubt it matters which cairn we enter. The magic will be powerful in each.”

  Hoping he was right, Kira fished the flashlight out of her backpack and let him pull her higher up the grassy slope. They found an entrance quickly, and with surprising ease. The dark, low-linteled opening seemed to stare right at them, an impenetrable-looking black hole in the hillside, its contours softened by thick-growing underbrush.

  It was also painfully small.

  A rabbit hole she doubted either one of them could squeeze into.

  Her stomach tightening, she flicked on the flashlight and aimed it into the darkness. A few moss-covered stone steps gleamed weakly in the narrow band of light. Nothing else was discernible except the narrowness of the dank, low-ceilinged entry.

  “I don’t think anyone above four feet can get down those steps.” She turned to Aidan, sure he’d agree. “Especially not you.”

  To her surprise, he simply shoved Invincible back into
its scabbard and stretched his arms, flexing his fingers. “Once we’ve mastered the steps and crept through the long passage, we’ll come to the inner chamber, Kee-rah. We’ll be able to stand upright then, you’ll see. It willnae be so bad.”

  He pulled her close, tightening his arms around her before he released her and grabbed the flashlight. “Come, now,” he said, ducking low and stepping into the darkness. “Follow close behind me and keep your head down. Dinnae straighten until I tell you.”

  Then he was gone, the blackness swallowing him as he descended deeper into the cairn.

  “Oh, God.” Kira threw one last glance at the parked rental car, then dipped her head to hurry after him.

  Cold, damp, and silence slammed into her, the smell of earth and old stone.

  Catching up with Aidan, she grabbed the back of his plaid. She needed all her focus to keep her feet from slipping on the steep, mossy steps. Then, before she knew it, they’d reached the bottom and were crouching along a tight, cobbled passage, its walls seeming to grow more constricting the farther they went.

  “We’re almost there, Kee-rah.” Aidan’s voice echoed in the darkness. “Dinnae be afraid.”

  Then he was straightening, pulling her up with him and wrapping a strong arm around her waist, holding her close. They were in a small, oval-shaped chamber with high, stone-slabbed walls and a corbelled ceiling. Kira thought she saw a few tipped-over urns and the remains of an ancient-looking fire, but before she could be certain, Aidan clicked off the flashlight.

  “I dinnae think it’s wise to use your light now, sweetness. No’ in a place sacred to the Old Ones.” He took her hand, easing her down onto the cold stone floor beside him. He gathered her against him, keeping their fingers tightly laced. “We’ll just sit here and think of Wrath and hope the magic works.”

  In the silence, she heard the soft hiss of Invincible leaving its sheath, then the rustle of his plaid as he settled the great sword across his knees. Its pommel stone glowed a faint red in the darkness, but all else was black. A deep, cloying blackness that suddenly zoomed in on them, then snapped back, exploding into a wild, spinning vortex of bright, eye-piercing color.