by Donna Grant
And a lesson learned the hard way.
Declan half crawled, half dragged himself to the coffee table where he poured more whisky and drank it in one gulp.
“Robbie!” he bellowed.
Instantly his cousin was beside him. “What is it?”
“I need you to help me into the library. We’ve work to do.”
* * *
Ramsey opened his eyes gradually. It took a full minute for him to realize where he was and to take stock of his body.
“It’s about bloody time,” Phelan’s deep voice said quietly as he leaned against the foot of the bed.
Ramsey lifted his head and looked around the tower. Light flooded in through the windows. Tara slept awkwardly in the chair while Phelan continued to glare at him.
“What did I do to you?” Ramsey asked.
Phelan rolled his eyes. “You nearly died.”
Ramsey slowly sat up and swung his legs over the bed as he held the sheet around his middle. He was naked, which meant they had brought him back to the castle to be healed.
Healed? Near death? He pushed through his jumbled thoughts to determine what was going on.
Then it all came back to him in a rush. His jaw clenched as his gaze swung back to Phelan. “Is Declan dead?”
“Nay.”
So Ramsey had failed. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“Two days. Tara hasna left your side, and the entire castle is worried.”
Ramsey scrubbed a hand down his face, feeling the thick whiskers, and leaned forward so that his elbows rested on his thighs. He turned to Phelan and asked, “Why are you here?”
“I was brought here to heal Charon and the others that were wounded. Then we went to find you. You didna respond to my blood.”
Ramsey had seen what Phelan’s blood could do, so it made little sense to him that he hadn’t healed like the others. “I’m as baffled as you are about the reasons why.”
He looked at Tara and drank in her beauty. Her hair was tangled and her clothes rumpled, proving that she had indeed stayed by his side.
“Is she all right? The last time I saw her Declan had done some spell or something.”
Phelan nodded. “She’s fine. She’s a stubborn one though.”
“I know,” he said with a small smile.
“The others are going to want to talk to you.”
“And I them.” Ramsey rose and gently lifted Tara in his arms before he turned and placed her in the bed. After removing her shoes, he covered her with the blankets.
She didn’t awaken as she snuggled beneath the covers and sighed contentedly.
Ramsey straightened. “Where are my clothes?”
“They were ruined, but Galen brought more for you,” Phelan said, and pointed to another chair sitting off to the side.
Ramsey hurried to put the clothes on, his gaze going again and again to Tara.
“If you doona wake her, she’s going to be angry,” Phelan said.
Ramsey took a deep breath and looked at his hands that once more held the white ribbons of magic. “She’s been running too long. She needs to rest.”
“Yeah. Tell her that when she comes looking for you later.”
Ramsey knew Phelan was right, but he wanted to talk to the others without Tara first.
“By the way, what does that feel like?” Phelan asked, and jerked his chin to Ramsey’s hands.
He lifted his hands before him. “It feels incredible.”
“We’ve all touched her. You’re the only one who has that reaction to her.”
Ramsey sighed as he dropped his arms. “I know. It must have something to do with my own magic.”
“Yet none of the Druids are affected either.”
This Ramsey hadn’t anticipated.
“Whatever this is, it’s between you and her,” Phelan said. “I have to admit, I’m more than curious. That magic has been swirling about you since we brought you back to the castle.”
Ramsey frowned as he recalled the sound of the drums and chanting of the ancients deep in his mind. He’d thought it a dream because it had been centuries since he’d heard them. But maybe it hadn’t been a dream. Maybe they had been there.
What did it mean though? Ramsey hadn’t sought out the ancients, and the ancients didna come to a Druid unless they wanted to.
Ramsey frowned and glanced down at his hands. The white ribbons of magic were quickly becoming something he wanted to see.
And needed to feel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ramsey flinched inwardly when he descended the stairs and the conversation in the great hall ground to a halt. He’d tried to fool himself into thinking he was the same as the other Warriors sitting around the long table, but he knew differently now.
And so did they.
Ramsey didn’t look at anyone as he started to make his way to his seat. He shouldn’t have been surprised when Fallon, followed by his brothers, Lucan and Quinn, rose from their seats at the head of the table and blocked his way.
“You gave us all quite a scare, most especially Tara,” Fallon said.
Ramsey stared at the leader of their group, a man he considered a close friend. “It wasna my intention.”
“Nothing has changed, you know,” Lucan said. “You are still part of our family. You are still my brother, by fate if no’ by blood.”
Ramsey swallowed to dislodge the lump of emotion forming in his throat.
Quinn raised a dark brow. “No more secrets, Ramsey. We’ve all had something to hide over the years, but as Lucan said, we are family. We are here for you.”
“All right,” Ramsey said after a moment.
It seemed to mollify the MacLeod brothers since they resumed their seats and let him find his own. Ramsey had no sooner sat than a plate piled high with food was placed in front of him.
“It’s good to have you back,” Cara said with a small squeeze of his shoulder.
Ramsey stared at the plate, not seeing the food. He released a long breath as his shoulders relaxed. This hall, this castle, was his home. It was the one place he felt he could be himself.
Twice now he’d found his way back to the castle and his family. Would he have another chance?
“What happened, Ramsey?” Hayden asked.
Ramsey lifted his gaze to find Hayden’s black eyes trained on him. Ramsey shrugged and said, “Declan got away, though I was sure I had struck him with my magic.”
Galen cleared his throat and leaned forward over the table. Ramsey’s gaze narrowed as he watched his friend. It wasn’t like Galen to be nervous. Galen was the antithesis of nervousness, which didn’t bode well.
“It wasna until after you left for Dunnoth Tower that I realized we hadna spoken to you about you also being a Druid. I should have.”
Ramsey waved away Galen’s words. “We were celebrating, as we should have been. And truth be told, I didna want to talk about it.”
“But we should have,” Galen insisted.
Ramsey saw Reaghan entwine her fingers with Galen’s, and Ramsey instantly thought of Tara. A glance down at his hands showed the tendrils of magic had faded to almost nothing now.
“Get to the point,” Ramsey said.
Fallon said, “Galen became curious about the Torrachilty Druids, and he also recalled you saying you didna know what happened to them.”
Ramsey clenched his hands into fists, trying desperately to stay calm. “What did you learn?” he asked Galen.
“No’ much, unfortunately. What I did learn you probably already know.”
“That we were warrior Druids, the ones feared by all. Even the droughs.”
Galen gave a short nod.
“Which is damned impressive,” Camdyn said from Ramsey’s right.
Logan smiled. “Verra. It’s no wonder you’ve a god inside you.”
“What else did you learn?” Ramsey asked Galen.
Galen glanced at the table. “They knew who had taken you.”
It was like a dagg
er to Ramsey’s heart. He’d hoped, prayed, that his family had merely thought he’d run away so they wouldn’t go looking for him.
Ramsey struggled to keep his breathing even, desperately tried to hold back the anguish over Galen’s words. Ramsey kept perfectly still, his gaze focused on a spot on the table just above his plate.
Gradually, the vise around his chest began to lessen so that he could breathe again.
“There had been talk of Deirdre,” he said. “It was just talk. We’d heard the rumors of the MacLeod massacre. I was dispatched to discover if it was true. I saw the truth of the attack, and I knew it would mean war between my people and Deirdre. I was on my way back when I was taken.”
Lucan caught his gaze, his nostrils flaring. “You saw … our clan?”
“There was nothing left by the time I got here. But I saw the evidence in the castle and on the land.”
“When was this?” Quinn asked in a whisper. “How long after Deirdre murdered our clan?”
Ramsey looked at each MacLeod brother. “Three years.”
He rubbed his forehead with his hand as his father’s face flashed in his mind. Deirdre had never used his family against him as she had the others. He thought he’d been spared that, but now he began to worry that something horrible had happened to them.
“What of my people?” he asked.
Galen’s blue eyes were sad as he said, “As a warrior clan what did you think they did? They went out in small groups to try and end Deirdre.”
“They should have been able to do it.”
“From the text I read that was their second mission. Their first was to find you.”
Pain ripped through Ramsey’s chest as he rose to his feet and stalked from the hall. He needed air, and some time alone.
Ramsey threw open the castle door as he strode into the bailey. The rush of cold winter air did nothing to calm his heated skin.
His boots crunched through the snow in the bailey as his mind whirled with thoughts and questions. Why had they looked for him? He might have had the greatest magic of any Torrachilty Druid, but he was just one man. His entire people shouldn’t have been sacrificed for him.
He walked beneath the gatehouse and away from the castle. On and on he went until he reached the edge of the cliffs. They dropped steeply to the crashing water below.
With a hand over his chest, he rubbed where the ache continued to grow. One of the reasons he’d never delved into finding his people was that he’d been afraid of what he’d discover.
He’d hoped they had survived. Somehow, some way. Though he’d known Deirdre wouldn’t allow all of them to live. The Torrachilty Druids had held incredible magic, magic that had rivaled even Deirdre’s black magic.
But Deirdre hadn’t known he was a Druid. Of that Ramsey was certain. She would have used whatever means necessary to find his clan and destroy them. And there was no telling what she would have done to turn him into a drough.
So how did she find him? How did she know he had a god bound inside him? These were questions he’d never know the answers to, questions that would haunt him for eternity.
And knowing he had failed to kill Declan only made him feel even worse.
Ramsey turned his anger to Declan. There he could focus all his attention on the bastard who had taken Deirdre’s place. It was Ramsey’s only choice, because if he continued to think of his family and his people, he would lose the last shred of his control. And that couldn’t happen.
There was a crunch of snow as footfalls grew closer. He should have known they wouldn’t leave him alone. They were family, so they worried.
“Ramsey,” Logan said from behind him.
He slowly turned to find not just Logan but Hayden and Galen as well. The four had often traveled together over the centuries. They had been his first friends. And for a very long time they had been the only ones Ramsey trusted.
“You know we’re here for you,” Hayden said.
Galen nodded. “Always.”
Ramsey drew the crisp, cold air into his lungs and slowly released it. “I know. I appreciate you finding out what you did, Galen. It’s just…”
“Too much,” Logan answered.
Hayden crossed his arms over his chest. “And Deirdre never knew you were a Druid.”
“Never,” Ramsey answered.
Galen stuck his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, his long hair whipping in the sea breeze. “That part of our lives is over with. It doesna matter what she did or didna know. What we need to discover is if any of the Torrachilty Druids survived.”
“Besides me.”
Logan kicked at the thick snow. “You must have been verra important to your people, Ramsey.”
“They would have gone after anyone that was taken,” he said. “We were a large clan, but we were close. Our magic brought us together. It bound us.”
“As we are bound together,” Hayden said.
Ramsey gave a nod to Hayden before he looked at Galen. “How many went looking for me?”
“Over the decades? Nearly all.”
The knife in Ramsey’s chest turned at the news.
“The rest,” Galen continued, “were wiped out by Deirdre.”
Ramsey dropped his head back and closed his eyes. The news kept getting worse and worse. If all the warriors had gone to find him, there had been no one in the forest to protect the women and children.
It would have been a slaughter. Just as the MacLeod clan had been.
“Surely the women and children there had magic to defend themselves,” Logan said.
Ramsey shook his head as he looked at his friends. “No. The magic stayed with the men only. It was too potent for a female to control. They would go daft with the sheer power of our magic.”
“Doona tell my wife that,” Hayden said with a grin.
Ramsey found the corners of his lips tilting a fraction as he thought of Isla. She might be the smallest of the Druids, but her magic was a force to be reckoned with.
“I know this is a lot to take in, but we want to help you,” Galen said.
Ramsey raked a hand through his hair and looked at the sea where it met the horizon. “There is no way to help me now, my friends.”
“We can learn more,” Hayden offered.
Logan grunted. “Nay, we will learn more. Gwynn is amazing with what she can do on a computer. There has to be more than that one book we found with information about the Torrachilty Druids.”
But Ramsey wasn’t so sure. His people had kept to themselves for a reason. Their magic had been guarded against outsiders because everyone wanted to know what it was that made them so powerful.
Only his people had known that the very first man to step forward to offer himself as a vessel for the gods had been a Torrachilty Druid.
As far back as time went his people had been revered and feared. Their prowess in battle had been legendary. They had given their allegiance to no one, yet every king and clan leader had sought them out for help.
The Torrachilty Druids didn’t just fight to fight. They entered battle only after hearing both sides and determining who they believed was the one in the right.
So many battles had been decided by his people. He’d been proud to be one of them, proud to carry the sword of his ancestors.
They kept records of their people first through their historians and by storytelling. Then, later by recording it all on scrolls.
“You willna find anything,” Ramsey finally said. “My people were distrustful of outsiders. We kept our history safely guarded. If they were attacked, it was the first thing they would have burned.”
“Just what was in your history that they were trying to protect?” Hayden asked.
Ramsey looked into his black eyes. “The source of who we were.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Tara’s eyes flew open as she came awake. She sat up and blinked. A frown tugged at her face as she looked down at the blankets surrounding her.
The fact that she
was in the bed Ramsey had occupied for days was the next thought that flitted through her mind.
Tara threw back the covers and found her shoes lying beside the bed. She knew Ramsey must be all right. Otherwise they would have woken her. Wouldn’t they?
She rubbed her forehead as her confusion mounted. But if Ramsey was fine, why hadn’t he woken her?
“Because he doesn’t want to talk to you,” Tara mumbled to herself.
That realization made her feel like the biggest fool. She’d only thrown herself at one guy before Ramsey, and it had been disastrous. And yet, here she was doing it again.
She grabbed her boots and rose to walk to the door. Something made her pause as she neared the window tower. Slowly, she approached one of the four windows and glanced outside.
At first all she saw was the wide expanse of the sea. Her gaze drifted to the left and she took in the majestic cliffs. And then she saw the four men.
Ramsey with his black hair was the first she spotted. Next she recognized Hayden, then Galen and Logan. Whatever the four were talking about it was a deep conversation based on the stance of their bodies.
Tara was glad to see Ramsey not only up, but seemingly unaffected by the dozen X90 bullets they had pulled from him. She had sat by his side waiting and hoping for him to open his eyes.
And when he had, he hadn’t even bothered to wake her.
Tara stepped away from the window. She didn’t glance back at the bed as she squared her shoulders and walked from the tower to the chamber Cara had shown her to the day before.
What few belongings that had fit into the two bags she carried were waiting for her. Tara shut the door and stripped out of her jeans and sweater and into her workout gear. If there was one way to help clear her head, it was with a run.
Tara had just finished tying her running shoes and was pulling her hair back into a haphazard ponytail when there was a knock on the door.
Her stomach jumped into her throat as she thought that it might be Ramsey. She forced a calming breath through her body before she opened the door. To find Gwynn.
“Hi,” Gwynn said with a smile.
Tara somehow managed a smile.
Gwynn glanced down at the jogging pants and thick zippered hoodie Tara wore. “Is everything all right?”
