Sacrifice

by Heather McCollum

  Anna whirled. She dropped the damp sheet and threw her short chemise over her head, yanking it down into place as she threw up the bar on the door. Her bare feet slapped the polished wood, her hand skimming the smooth rail as she trotted down the cut steps and ran to throw open the front door.

  Ignoring the bruising of her feet as she dodged acorns along the high deck, she spotted the trap door closed with the coiled ladder beside it. It took two tugs to pull the door open on leather hinges. “Drustan!” she yelled down as she heaved the thick coils over the edge. “Drustan, the ladder.” She ran to the rail, leaning over in time to see the ladder thump and still, quivering in the air.

  But it was too late. Anna’s hand cupped her mouth, catching her scream.

  Chapter Four

  Drustan stared upward into the trees surrounding his house and forgot to breathe. Never before had he seen such a beautiful sight. The woman who had filled his dreams since he was a boy leaned over the rail. Framed by gold and red leaves with her damp hair loose and given to waves, her face was lovelier than any piece of art he’d studied, and he’d studied multitudes looking for her. He spied the pale skin of her ankles as she stood in a filmy white chemise.

  Drustan’s fingers stilled in the black fur of the wolf as he stared upward from under the beast. He shoved at the hundred pounds across his chest, pushing Tenebris’s muzzle away from his face where he’d just licked him, and sat up. His gaze shot around the clearing, but he didn’t detect any threat. He watched the ladder sway.

  “Good morning, Anna,” he called and stood, his hand still on Tenebris’s head.

  Her hand lowered from her mouth, her lips parted. “The wolf…I thought…” she called down, her voice trailing off, then spun around to disappear back into his house.

  Your mate? Tenebris cocked his head when Drustan looked back at his friend.

  “Yes,” Drustan said aloud and looked at the ladder again. She didn’t want his throat ripped out by a wolf? It was a start.

  He used her gift to climb up like a normal man. He coiled the rope back and closed the trap door. Drustan walked to the back of his house where he’d rigged an outside reservoir to collect rainwater for quick showers. He lathered, rinsed, and threw on a shirt and pants that he’d brought out with him. He toweled off his hair and walked barefoot into his kitchen. The room was empty. He circled the downstairs but Anna wasn’t there. The upstairs bath was empty except for the residual smell of the honeysuckle soap he’d left for her and the tub full of cold water. He stood before his bedroom door and rapped. “Anna?”

  She didn’t say anything. “Anna, I’m coming in,” he warned softly and pushed inward. She sat in a chair by the cold hearth. He stopped just inside. She was dressed again, but her hair still fell loose, drying in waves of honeyed brown. “Tenebris is my friend,” he said.

  “You used him to frighten me last night.” Her words were quiet yet the strength behind them reminded him of honed steel.

  “I needed to get you into my house before Semiazaz and his demons found you. It was easier than carrying you up the ladder.”

  Her body remained angled away from him, but her face turned, her gaze meeting his. “I do not like being tricked.”

  “If they had found you outside the protection of my wards, they could have sucked your soul from your body and crushed you to dust,” he said matter-of-factly. “There was no time to convince you.”

  She stood, and he noticed that the back of her vest was damp. Would she become ill? Humans were exceedingly fragile. With a focused snap of a thought, a fire blazed up in the hearth. Anna jumped, whirling toward it and then back to him.

  “I would not have you cold,” he explained.

  She pursed her lips though her eyes seemed overly wide. Her fingers clutched her skirts. “What do you plan to do with me?”

  “I don’t know, but I know that without me near you, Semiazaz will kill you.”

  She huffed. “Why? What care does a demon have for an insignificant human?”

  “He is actually a warlock, born of this Earth, not from Hell.” Drustan took several steps closer. Anna was like a cross between a frightened kitten and a tiger.

  “Fine, then why is a warlock set on killing me?”

  “You are unaware of your significance in the future of humanity and this world. He, however, is not.”

  “I am not significant in any way,” she insisted.

  “Just because you say something, does not make it true. Semiazaz can scry the future, see the possible outcomes of substantial events, and in most of those prophecies you are present. In most of the ones without you, Semiazaz wins the world.”

  “What does that mean exactly, ‘wins the world’?”

  Drustan stayed by the doorway, bracing his arms across his chest. “Semiazaz promises that I will rule the new world he’s envisioned, one without the restriction of time. But the future is not woven yet. It has been whispered to me that there are some outcomes where Semiazaz will rule without the annoyance of my differing opinions. And you are absent from those outcomes.” Bechard had tried to turn Drustan against Semiazaz early on, confiding in the boy that his adoptive father had seen other successful outcomes without Drustan.

  “And he wants to rule without you?” she asked.

  “The chances of him conquering my sisters in the final battle, without my help, are so small that he won’t openly risk an attempt to usurp the position he’s promised me. I know he covets the idea though, despite acting as my father all these years.” Drustan pushed down the empty ache of betrayal that had grown since the first time he’d broken through to read Semiazaz’s vision of his own glory.

  Anna shook her head, running fingers through her hair at the scalp. “I don’t understand any of this, this mysticism. My world is made up of science, medicine. Up until last night I never even considered the existence of demons.” She threw up her hands. “This still might just be all a ruse, a nightmare or hallucination brought on by some drug.” She narrowed her eyes. “Did you put something in my tea?”

  “I don’t recall serving tea while hiding you from hell spawn bent on killing you,” he answered. Anna Pemberlin was much more than the docile beauty from his dreams. Surly, unappreciative, and determined to think the worst of him. Although, she had thrown down the ladder.

  Drustan shook his head and let his arms hang by his sides. “I will protect you whether you desire it or not.”

  “You will return me to Kylkern,” she said.

  And bossy. Nearly everything she said or did surprised him. He’d never been surprised before. He felt his mouth relax into a grin while she turned to pace before the fire he’d lit.

  “My sister is supposed to be wed today, and if I am missing she will probably cancel the ceremony. It will break her heart.” Anna sighed and sat back in the chair by the fire. “And I will have ruined everything once again.”

  “Kylkern,” Drustan said and walked to his wall of Anna. The soaring castle out on a peninsula stretching into the clear waters of Loch Awe was the backdrop to one of his favorite dreams of Anna. The picture sat centered on the wall, the smile on that Anna’s face lighting her eyes in a way the sun could never do alone. “I will take you to Kylkern.”

  “Right now?” Anna asked, her voice breathless.

  “Yes, but I must accompany you.”

  Her smile faltered but then she nodded. “Do what you feel you must.”

  He should probably enlighten her to the danger in which she would also be putting her soon-to-be relations, but Drustan had long desired to meet his great-grandnephew, William Maclean. And he’d made the promise last night. Keeping the promise made her smile, which did strange things to his middle.

  Leaping up, she strode past him out the door. He followed her as she trotted down the steps, the damp waves of her hair swinging against her straight back. Her hand skimmed the polished railing. So graceful. She traipsed through his house, her little boots tapping, to whisk outside to the trapdoor in the floor of the
deck. There she finally paused.

  He opened it once again and dropped the ladder. “Thank you for earlier,” he said, crouching down to guide a spider off to the side. “For coming to my rescue with the ladder. It has been a long time since someone sought to help me.”

  She looked past him at the square hole. “It was instinct to save another human being. I am a doctor and therefore have an instinct to help those in harm’s way.” She placed two hairpins between her teeth and quickly twisted her hair into a loose bun at the back of her head. She secured the ends by tucking them into the center and inserting the pins.

  “After you,” he said, indicating the gently swinging ladder.

  She wrapped her full skirt around her legs, got down on bended knees and tried to find the first rung, her foot fishing around for it. As she found it, she lowered. “Blast,” she cursed softly as she jostled back and forth to jam her skirts down the hole around her. One hand held to the top of the ladder, the other pushed against the fabric. Her legs must be a lovely sight from below. He was tempted to levitate down.

  “’Tis easier to come up through with all those layers,” he said.

  She mumbled something about women being trussed by society with their own clothing and continued down until only the top of her head could be seen above the edge of the square hole. She tipped her face up. “Is the wolf still down there?”

  “No, but even so he would do you no harm.”

  “A wolf who can act.” She snorted and disappeared. Drustan followed her, using the ladder so as not to look unnatural. Of course he was unnatural, but he’d prefer not to see shock and disgust cross her features.

  At the bottom, Anna adjusted her skirts. “Do you have a horse?”

  What use did he have for a horse? He moved faster than any animal if he threaded. “No,” he said. “We will walk.”

  “Right.” She thumped at her skirts and marched off in a direction that would lead her further north away from the Macleans. Drustan caught up to her in two strides and walked next to her, letting her take the lead. She obviously liked being in charge.

  “Are you to be in the wedding?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am the bridesmaid.”

  “That is important?”

  “Very,” she said with emphasis. “I attend to the bride’s every need.”

  “That sounds tiring.”

  Two little chuckles escaped her and he captured the sound in his memory, like a bird in a cage. For years he’d only seen the woman in his dreams, seen her crying, screaming, yelling, and occasionally smiling, but never laughing.

  “I suppose it is,” Anna said, hiking her skirts to her knees as she climbed up a boulder. “But I love Patricia and all her exuberance. And I’m thrilled that she’s found the love of her life.”

  Thrilled? The slight dip in her tone disagreed with the word. “Is William Maclean a suitable husband for her?” he asked, guessing at the underlying non-thrilled emotion. If he could use his powers, he’d know the truth behind her words. Not knowing her thoughts and emotions was frustrating. How did normal humans live like this? He frowned at the foliage under foot as they walked.

  Anna stopped before a boulder that was too steep to ascend easily. “He is older than her, but yes, he is most suitable.”

  “Yet you are sad,” he stated and guided her to walk at a ninety degree angle eastward. Another turn and he’d have her headed toward Kylkern.

  “Sad? No.” Anna traipsed on in the new direction he’d set. “Just…I will miss her. She met Mr. Maclean when he visited London. Once she’d fallen in love, there was no stopping her from moving way up here. I fear I won’t see much of her again.”

  They walked to a mountain stream. “I think if we follow it downhill a ways, we will find a place to cross that won’t get your skirts wet,” Drustan said. Anna turned and like that, they were headed south toward Kylkern.

  “You could remain here in the Highlands,” Drustan suggested.

  “I have a position at Kensington Hospital in London. It was an honor to be invited to work there. I am one of only two women in the institute. I cannot just leave to move up here.”

  She would move, of course. She really had no choice. Drustan had lived in a city in the United States and found it dirty, full of emotion and turmoil, and it was too easy to brush up against a person who would suffer from his touch. Plus, after the temporal threads were slashed, the chaos in the cities would be too much for her. They would have to settle in isolation. A topic for another time. Right now the relaxed sway of her words and the occasional brush of her arm were too pleasant to disturb with practical details.

  They walked in silence through the color-drenched leaves and fresh-smelling pines. Occasionally, he’d help her over mired places and rocks cutting through the mossy floor. Her cool hand would press into his palm but then quickly disappear. Was it his touch she abhorred or the idea of needing a man’s help?

  They walked toward a clump of thick evergreens and Drustan reached forward with his mind to push the thick bows out of her way. He let her walk before him through the parted trees and followed. She glanced around, perhaps realizing the trees had taken on a strange, sideways slant, rather like the biblical Moses and his Red Sea. She drew up short and he brushed against her back.

  “Ahh!” she yelled, her arms raised to protect her face, as thick pine bows slapped into her.

  “’Tis your touch,” Drustan said and pushed forward, using his arms instead of magic to brace the evergreens.

  She swiped at her hair as she walked through, and Drustan picked a pine twig from her bun. “You used magic to part the trees?” she asked.

  “Until your touch dissolved it,” he said, helping her maneuver around a puddle she couldn’t see because of her skirts. They were a nuisance for women. When she was his queen, she could wear what she wished.

  “So what exactly are your powers?” Anna asked, splaying her free arm out to the side as if to encompass his magic. Her bun let go, and her hair tumbled free down her back. She frowned and plucked out the two pins that stuck out at odd angles.

  “With you I have none,” he said.

  “Strange that,” she commented as she pulled her hair to one side, braiding it quickly with flashing fingers. She held it to lie across one shoulder.

  “Immensely,” he said and watched a thin tendril of curl snake down the jaw line on the other side. It lay in perfect contrast to the smooth, pale skin of her neck.

  “With others?”

  “With others?” he repeated, unsure of what they were talking.

  She gave him a narrowed look as if taking him to task for a wandering mind. “Your magic with others. What is it you can do exactly?”

  What couldn’t he do? That was an easier question to answer.

  Anna’s one eyebrow rose as she waited. What should he say? Just yesterday she didn’t believe in magic at all. Now that she’d seen some, knew that her scientific world wasn’t exactly what she thought, would knowing about all his powers be too much? Would she think him a demonic freak like the nuns? He would start with what she already knew.

  “I can move things with my mind.”

  She nodded and looked forward. “And speak to animals?” she guessed.

  “For most animals I just pick up on their fleeting emotions, but Tenebris was a gift from my mother.”

  “Your biological mother? I don’t see a nun giving a child a pet wolf.”

  He grinned stiffly. “Yes, my biological mother bound him to me before she died. So that I would have someone.”

  Anna narrowed her eyes. “How long do wolves live?”

  “Tenebris will live as long as I need him.”

  They continued in silence for a stretch. “Is that all?” she asked, pulling his attention from the way a certain strand of gold in her brown hair wove in and out with her braid. “Moving things and talking to animals?”

  “I can protect things, ward them so that others cannot enter. Which is why you are safest in my house.” />
  She looked forward, ignoring his comment. “Why haven’t the Macleans seen your house in the trees? I’m sure they’ve scouted out all around the stone circle.”

  “I can change the way things look if I place a warding around it.”

  “So you hide your house?”

  “If needed.”

  “Can you see the future?”

  He’d seen Anna in his dreams. Were the images of her pleading with him for mercy predictions of the future? He certainly hoped not. There was a scrying bowl, but Semiazaz kept the knowledge on how to use it to himself. “Not that I know of.”

  She nodded as if he were a new patient and she was ticking off symptoms. “Can you heal?” she asked, turning to meet his gaze. “Patricia’s soon-to-be cousin is a renowned healer. Patricia says she uses magic. I hadn’t believed her before.”

  “I harm more than I heal,” he said. “It is a curse. You are the first I can touch without harming.”

  “Why is that?” she asked, as if she tried to identify his disease.

  He helped her step onto a fallen log. She stood on top so that her face was level with his. “You are special to me.”

  She glanced away, and he let her slide her hand free from his to step down on her own. “The pictures.”

  He nodded. “You’ve been in my dreams since I was an infant.”

  She stumbled but caught herself and trudged on.

  Riders, from the human village. Tenebris’s caution thrummed through Drustan’s mind. The wolf kept to the forest, yet followed them. Damn. The time alone with Anna was nearly gone.

  “What will you say about your disappearance?” he asked. Would she accuse him? As long as she didn’t touch him, he could easily render the Maclean warriors useless, but he’d always wanted to learn of his biological ancestors. He’d visited his sister, Kailin, in the prairies of the states after the Great War, but he’d accidentally hurt her daughter. Now that he was grown, he was more careful.