Mael
Immortal Highlander, Clan Mag Raith Book 2
Hazel Hunter
Contents
HH ONLINE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Sneak Peek
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Glossary
Pronunciation Guide
Copyright
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Chapter One
TEMPTATION, MAEL MAG RAITH realized that morning, made a man wholly dolt-headed.
The unusually warm spring in Scotland had festooned Dun Chaill in flowery vines and ample shade from the flourishing trees. Moss now so thickly carpeted the forest surrounding the castle ruins it had begun creeping up the tumble-down stonework. Daily washed by lavish morning dew, the air smelled like a coddled maiden, soft and sweetly fragrant.
After laboring for weeks to make habitable the intact portion of Dun Chaill’s keepe, Mael had quickly agreed to help his chieftain reclaim the kitchen garden. While he had no skill with planting, all of the men had tired of foraging in the sprawling forests. Soon they would need more to add to their limited food sources. The prospect of working outdoors had cheered him as well, for how hard could it prove?
What he should have done, Mael thought as he stood buried to the hips in greenery gone wild, was first have a look at the tangled undergrowth.
“’Tis hopeless, Chieftain,” Mael said, grimacing as he pried a spiky thistle from his sleeve. “I say we burn and plant anew.”
“You’ll tell Jenna she cannae have fresh strewings until the solstice,” Domnall mag Raith said as he waded through a white-spangled snarl of hawthorn and meadowsweet. “She ever finds new ways to scatter the sweet herbs for their scents.” Standing almost as tall and broad as the tracker, the chieftain looked just as incongruous. “Then bid Edane seek elsewhere wood sorrel for his tonics, and Broden sweet berries for his snares.”
“I’d rather beg the Gods smite me.” Mael eyed a patch of sky. “Why didnae I remain in the hall to muck out the hearths? ’Tis humble work, and yet can be finished well before the snows arrive. This?” He shook his head.
“’Tis no’ so bad. ’Twill need but taming and tending.” Domnall surveyed the uncultivated growth around them. “We should ken the range of what may be saved.”
“I’ll trodge to the back.” Mael peered over a snarled spread of purple blooms before glancing down at the hundreds of pods they’d sprouted. “’Twould seem we willnae want for seed, but I reckon I’d rather eat dirt.”
The chieftain grunted. “’Tis good horse fodder, vetch.” He reached down and plucked a blushing rose from the undergrowth, a rare smile lighting up his tough features. “We must save some flowers for my lady.”
Pushing through the tall grasses until he cleared them, Mael tried to stave off the familiar stab of envy. Since mating with Jenna Cameron, Domnall’s nature had vastly changed. He no longer retreated into icy indifference and bleak silences. While they all labored in various ways to improve their situation, the chieftain had worked tirelessly to transform the abandoned stronghold. He meant to make it become a true home for his wife and his men. Mael had no doubt that all of it sprang from the deep, abiding love Domnall had found with Jenna.
’Tis their reward for all they’ve endured, this life they build.
Mael had no illusions about his own future. He’d inherited his defender sire’s massive build and outlandish strength, and looked every inch a brute. While some females regarded his size as proof of his virility, none could gaze upon him without a shiver. The lasses of his tribe thought him the same as Fargus mag Raith, who had nightly vented his endless rage on his mate and bairns.
Unlike his sire Mael had always been of a mild, thoughtful temperament. Indeed, he’d often thought it a punishment from the Gods for pairing his cherishing nature with such a fearsome appearance.
Beyond the vetch he found wild carrots and turnips paving the ground with lacy cups and broad fronds of green. The plentiful roots would add flavor to their pottages, and even feed the mounts when grazing grew thin in the cold season. Yet when Mael lifted his gaze he saw they had crept out from under an unkempt hedge of juniper that stretched in an enormous curve that seemed to have no end. Even more puzzling, behind it he could see the top of a wych elm hedge and another of blackthorn growing behind it.
“Chieftain,” he called to Domnall as he looked down the long wall of spiky leaves and berries. “We’ve more than we reckoned back here.”
* * *
That night when they gathered in the hall for the evening meal, Mael described the tangled area to Jenna Cameron, who nodded.
“I’ve seen that place,” she said as she passed a platter of oatcakes to her mate. “It looks to me like an overgrown hedge maze.” She paused as she took in the blank looks the rest of the men were giving her. “That’s a garden labyrinth made from shrubs or small trees trimmed to serve as walls. But they date back only as far as the Renaissance—ah, the mid-sixteenth century—so I’m probably wrong.”
Mael didn’t doubt her, but something about the carefully planted hedges set his teeth on edge. “And if you’re no’, lass?”
“’Twas likely meant to catch and end the unwary,” said Broden, his handsome face set in its habitual scowl, “like every other facking thing in this place. No matter what ’tis, we should burn it.”
Gleaming red braids bobbed as their archer, Edane, nodded. “Aye, spread flames in the midst of all that deadfall and blowdown. We’ll clear at least the forest and the ruins before the smoke summons the Sluath to descend on us.”
“Let them come.” The trapper drove his eating dagger into the top of the trestle table. “We ken how to kill them now.”
Kiaran dragged a hand through his red-gold mane, making the kestrel on his shoulder fly off to join the other trained raptors perched in the rafters.
“We’re five against a horde of demons,” he retorted. “Aye, surely we’ll prevail.”
“Enough,” Domnall said, bringing an end to the argument before it’d begun in earnest. He met Mael’s gaze. “As seneschal the grounds as well as the stronghold shall be your domain. What say you?”
Mael was a little startled to be given the position as well as the say, but it seemed sensible. Sinc
e boyhood he’d shared the work of his máthair and sisters, and had the nature best suited to managing this unruly household.
“’Tisnae a present threat to us,” Mael said after giving it more thought. “I’d clear the garden first. Take stock of the maze after, and learn if ’tis safe or no’.”
Broden snatched up his food, mumbled something like an apology to Jenna, and stalked out.
Edane made a rude sound, caught Domnall’s eye, and then turned his attention to his trencher.
After they finished the meal, Domnall lingered to help Mael bank the hearth and take apart the trestle table. When not in use they hung it on wall hooks.
“I might have first asked you to serve as my seneschal,” the chieftain said.
“You never ask, for you’re never wrong.” Mael grinned at him. “’Tis facking annoying. Dinnae keep your lady waiting so you might smooth my feathers. You plucked them all, long ago.”
“Still, Brother.” The chieftain inclined his head. “My thanks.”
Mael watched him stride off in the direction of the chamber he shared with Jenna. The thought of seeking his own empty bed didn’t appeal to him, so he took down a torch. There weren’t enough men to stand regular sentry, but he could patrol once around the ruins. It might tire him out, and keep him from staring at the wall cracks for half the night.
Outside the great hall he navigated the warren of dark, cluttered passages from memory until he stepped over the rubble of the inner ward’s back wall. Beyond it lay the front of the wild garden. Earlier he and Domnall had cleared a narrow foot trail. As Mael lifted his torch to it for a better view, a sudden, chilly wind blew down it. A distant, booming sound, like echoed thunder seemed to come from the ridges, as well as a strange, stuttering, metallic noise.
Scowling, Mael held the torch higher and surveyed the surroundings. Could the wind have knocked something down? The fluttering torchlight showed only the same overgrown garden and tumbled down stones. A glance at the dark and starless sky revealed nothing as well.
Slowly Mael lowered the torch and decided to take his patrol in the direction of the strange sounds, in the direction of what Jenna had called a hedge maze.
Chapter Two
THE WIND BUFFETED Rosealise Dashlock with the fervor of an intent to flay her to the bone. Yet even as she whirled and tumbled through the air, she was gladdened. The pale curls lashing her face could be brushed and pinned. Her limbs, now no longer limp and leaden, felt very strong indeed. As soon as she found some footing and a handhold, she would defeat this wretched gale, and then she would…
…and then she would…
There had to be something she would do. Rosealise simply couldn’t think of it for the buffeting and twirling.
The clouds below her parted, revealing a flaring flame, a silhouette of an enormous figure, and a huge web of shadows surrounding both. Instinctively she flipped away from the fire, falling squarely atop the figure beside it, which collapsed beneath her. They both landed with a bone-jarring jolt and a grunt. The fire fell away, illuminating the face of a very large man.
“Such an abominable denouement.” She pushed herself up from his very broad chest as his rough shirt grazed her breasts—her bare breasts, she saw as she glanced down. “Hello? Sir? Good gracious, have I killed you?” The large man said nothing, but she rose an inch as he took a breath. “Thank heavens.”
Rosealise struggled upright. In addition to straddling the large man in a most inappropriate manner, she hadn’t a stitch of clothing on her tall, pale body. She regarded the man’s primitive-looking tunic, which she still clutched with both hands.
“Sir, forgive me, but…might I borrow this?”
The man didn’t refuse, which satisfied her.
Removing the long shirt required Rosealise to shift and slide and adjust the poor fellow in an awkward manner. The warmth of his big body kept her from shivering until she could finish disrobing him. He seemed very familiar to her, although she couldn’t say why. Black symbols she couldn’t read covered the top of his right arm. They seemed most disagreeable to her, until she stood with the removed garment and saw a reflection of the same symbols on her left thigh. When she attempted to rub off the marks they remained, as much part of her skin if she’d been born with them.
“This will not do,” she muttered under her breath as she frowned at the black symbols. Surely, she’d never willingly mark herself in such an excessive fashion, if at all. She would hide them from sight until she could acquire some soap and a scrub brush.
The pressing chill of the night air finally prompted her to don the man’s long shirt, which fell only to the top of her knees. She arranged the scandalously short length as decently as she could, aware of the decidedly masculine scent he’d left on the rough cloth. He smelled as good as an autumn blaze on a cold night. His garment had been sewn very badly, however, and needed mending in three places.
He must not have a wife to look after him.
She felt oddly gratified by that notion, as well as embraced by his garment. She hugged the rough fabric closer to her. To feel so safe and comforted under such conditions baffled her as much as the shared symbols. Then there was the distinct sense that she knew this man, which only added to her confusion.
Carefully Rosealise knelt beside him, doing her best not to ogle the chest she had bared. Not that it was in any manner lacking of muscle, breadth or width—on the contrary. It seemed to her eyes a map of some exotic, sun-washed land where spices burned in braziers and long dark lashes fringed jewel-bright eyes. His magnificent body also gave off the most sumptuous heated scent, as one might savor on a cold night before a fire of fragrant woods. Such an outlandish fancy seemed new to her, but then she felt sure she’d never beheld a half-naked man.
Egad, but she was ogling his chest, quite shamelessly.
“Sir?” Rosealise said as she placed a hand on his bare shoulder, and gave it a gentle shake. “Please do wake up, sir, so I might inquire of you some details. Your name, certainly, and where we are, and how I came to fall here. I daresay I’m not the sort to climb trees or leap from balconies.”
Perhaps, if she were very fortunate, he could also enlighten her as to who she was. All she could recall was her name, nothing more.
The man groaned, shuddered, and then opened his eyes. They appeared dark topaz in color, although somewhat unfocused at present. She’d have sworn she knew his face, if she could recall anything from before her unfortunate fall.
Stop being such a gongoozler.
“Good evening.” She offered him a prim smile. More friendliness than that might invite unsuitable assumptions and attentions, especially as she sat virtually naked at his side. “My name is Miss Rosealise Dashlock. I’m terribly sorry, but I fear that I dealt you something of a floorer.”
The man squinted at her, suggesting that he might not understand.
“I fell atop you and knocked you senseless,” she clarified. “I do apologize, and wish to know to whom I should apologize.” Rosealise waited on his reply, but he seemed still dazed. She touched his arm. “You are named…?”
“Mael mag Raith,” he said in a deep voice made melodic by a familiar accent. He pushed himself up, tucked in his chin, and then stared at her with such fascination that girlish heat rose into her face.
Such missish behavior would not do.
“Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. mag Raith.” Her sense of familiarity in regard to him suggested they had already been introduced in the past, but with her befuddled brain she could not be sure. “If you would tell me how I came to be here?”
His dark brows drew together, and he looked up. “You fell from the sky, lass.”
“Yes, that much I do remember.” Harrowing as it had been, it seemed less important than the circumstances that had caused her plummet. “Do you know what occurred before my fall?”
“Mayhap.” Mael blinked. “I reckon the Sluath captured and enslaved you from another place—no’ America, for you dinnae speak
as Jenna—as they did the Mag Raith and our chieftain’s lady. You then escaped the underworld by leaping from the demons’ sky bridge, which brought you here to Dun Chaill. ’Tis somehow taken your memories from you, as it did Jenna’s, and ours.”
This flood of astounding particulars quite undid Rosealise, who carefully drew back the hand she’d placed on his shoulder.
“Presumably I jumped from the underworld to this place in an effort to elude the demons who abducted me?” When he nodded, she felt a surge of sympathy. Such a Banbury tale meant the poor man suffered from some form of lunacy, likely aggravated by her dropping on his head. “Well, thank you for that, sir. Perhaps now we should go and find your chieftain.”
When Mael rose to his feet Rosealise had to smother a squeak of alarm. The man was simply enormous, like some great statue of a titanic hero brought to life. He held out to her a huge hand.
“Come with me, lass, and stay close. ’Tis likely ’twill want to end us, this maze.”
* * *
Mael expected Rosealise to recoil from his touch. When she instead took his hand in a strong, steady grip, he did the flinching. Heat jolted from her palm to his, and spread up his arm like invisible fire. By the time he gathered his reeling thoughts, she had risen to stand in front of him and confounded him anew.
Mael: Immortal Highlander, Clan Mag Raith Book 2 Page 1
