Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  When she'd left the broch shaking and pale, she'd seized one last moment of glory. She'd made love to the Hawk with all the passion in her soul. Saying goodbye, and dying inside. She'd known it would be horrible to lie to him, but she hadn't anticipated just how deeply it would cut her.

  Adam had been unyielding on that point. He'd made it clear that she must fully convince the Hawk she desired Adam. After the incredible intimacy she and Hawk had shared, she'd known she would have to say hateful, horrid things to convince him.

  She shivered violently as Adam's thumb brushed her lower lip. She slapped his hand away in spite of her fear. "Don't touch me."

  "If I thought for a moment you had tried to tell him something more, I would go back and kill him even as we speak, Beauty."

  "I gave you what you wanted, you bastard!" Adrienne cried. "All of Dalkeith is safe from you now."

  "It doesn't matter." Adam shrugged indolently. "He's dead anyway." Adam tugged at her reins and resumed their slow passage beneath the rustling limbs.

  "What?" Adrienne hissed.

  Adam smiled puckishly. "I thought you might enjoy the scenic route back. This trail is a timeline and we just passed the year 1857. It's that misty bend back there between the… trees… for lack of a better word. He's been dead for over three hundred years.

  A silent scream began to build inside her. "Who are you?"

  "They used to call us gods," he said dispassionately. "You would do well to worship me."

  "I'll see you in hell, first," she breathed.

  "Not possible, Beauty. We don't die."

  * * *

  CHAPTER 31

  seattle

  november 1997

  adrienne drew her arm back and winger the book like a Frisbee. It was supposed to fly across the room and crash with a resounding thump against the wall. Instead, it dropped limply, landing on the floor at the foot of her bed.

  She glanced at the volume in disgust and noticed that it had fallen open to a page. She squinted to read it from her perch at the footrail.

  Dreams about stopped-up commodes can symbolize many things: the dreamer is emotionally repressed. Emotional and/or physical purging is recommended. A recurring dream of this nature signifies the dreamer has endured a traumatic experience from which he/she must find some kind of release or serious psychological damage may occur.

  So much for a sign from heaven.

  Adrienne swallowed a choked laugh that turned into a sob. Who writes this stuff?

  She dangled her bare foot over the bed and poked the book shut with her toe. 1001 Little Dreams. How bizarre. She hadn't even realized she had that book in her library. Even more bizarre that she'd been dreaming about toilets for ten nights in a row. Nothing else. Just backed-up, overflowing commodes.

  Lovely.

  But she didn't have to be hit over the head with a dream guide. She knew what was wrong with her. Fifteen days ago she had materialized in her sprawling Victorian house at 93 Coattail Lane, Seattle, U.S. of A.

  And she hadn't spoken to a single soul since then. Every scrap of energy she had went toward maintaining her composure—her tight skin. Tight dry eyes. Tight little death going on inside. She understood perfectly well that if she let even one tiny tear sneak out of the dry corner of her eye, she couldn't be held responsible for the flooding that could cause mass evacuations throughout the state.

  She scratched her tight scalp with a tight little hand as she tightly petted Moonie's silky back. She touched Moonie's pink nose in a tight, economical motion. No stopped-up commodes in a cat's world, Adrienne mused as Moonie curled her paws into her hair and began a thrumming little purr.

  It was Moonie's hungry mews that roused her from the bed. Adrienne eased her aching body from the down coverlets and padded slowly to the kitchen.

  God, but she felt five hundred years old herself, in pain from head to toe from a heartache she knew would never heal.

  Adrienne woodenly opened a can of tuna. White albacore. Only the best for Moonie. She slumped down on the floor and brushed irritably at the hand that shoved a book in front of her. "Go away, Marie, I need to be alone." Adrienne marveled at the pale swirls of lime in the jade tile of the kitchen floor, and wondered why she'd never noticed them before. She rubbed lightly at one of the swirls. Slate tile could be so interesting. Riveting, in fact.

  "Eees book you dropped," Marie said in her thick accent.

  Adrienne didn't move. The book brushed her cheek. Heavens, but the woman was insistent. The book's sharp corner poked the soft underside of her neck. Probably another stupid dream book. Well, she just wouldn't look at it.

  "Quit shoving at me." Adrienne took the book blindly, her eyes squeezed shut. "Go away now," she mumbled. There. That wasn't too bad. She applauded herself for performing a simple function with precision. No tears. Not one thought of… the thing she wasn't thinking of. Adrienne took a deep breath and forced a grim, tight smile.

  She was going to be fine. Small things now—big things soon.

  "I think I make for you some tea," Marie said.

  Adrienne's stomach heaved and rolled. "No."

  "I think, then, I make dinner for senorita."

  "I'm not hungry. Go away."

  "Okay. I move things to garage," Marie grunted.

  Move things? Leave the house? "No!" Adrienne controlled her voice with a tremendous effort. "I mean, that's not necessary, Marie. God knows this old house is big enough for both of us."

  "Eees no good. I no good to you. I move now back to garage." Marie watched her carefully.

  Adrienne sighed. Marie simply had to stay in the house.

  She couldn't stand the huge, aching silence, the empty rooms. The hum of the refrigerator might drive her mad.

  "Marie, I don't want you to move back out. I really want you to stay with…" Adrienne opened her eyes, her voice trailing off as she stared in horror at the book in her hands. A Study of Medieval Falconry.

  Stay tight!

  Would you soar for me, falcon? I'll take you higher than you've ever been. I'll teach you to bank heights you only dreamed existed.

  He'd certainly made good on that promise. And now she was falling from those incredible heights without a parachute, or a Mary Poppins umbrella, or anything else to break her fall. Adrienne de Simone Douglas squeezed her arms around her stomach and started screaming.

  The tiny Cuban woman dropped to her knees and very carefully pulled Adrienne into her arms. Then she rocked her, smoothed her hair, and did her best to comfort her.

  For days and days Adrienne lay on her back replaying every precious memory on the blank screen of her ceiling. She'd pulled the drapes shut and turned all the lights out. She couldn't stand the world to be bright without him.

  Marie floated in and out, bringing food and drink that remained untouched, and Moonie stayed at her side unceasingly.

  Adrienne just drifted in and out of consciousness, as the mind does when grief runs too deep to handle. Eventually she came back to herself, but she went the long way around.

  * * * * *

  On the glistening silica sands of Morar, Adam Black sauntered with arrogant grace to his Queen's side.

  "Where have you been wandering, minstrel-mine?"

  Queen Aoibheal asked silkily. "What new tales and entertainments have you collected for me?"

  "Oh, the finest of tales! An epic, grand adventure," Adam bragged, drawing the elegant courtiers near.

  The Fae loved a good tale, the thicker the subterfuge, the more intense the passions, the more aroused the court. They'd long since tired of happy endings; immune to suffering themselves, they were enamored with mortal struggles and casualties. The Queen herself was most especially partial to a tragicomedy of errors, and this new tale did suit that genre well.

  "Tell us, jester, sing and play for us!" the court of the Tuatha De Danaan cried.

  Adam's smile gleamed brightly. He met his Queen's eye and held it long. "Once upon a time there was a mortal man. A man so fair even the Fa
e Queen herself had noticed him…"

  The Queen's eyes glittered brightly as she listened, at first in amusement, after a time with obvious agitation, and finally with a sensation that vaguely resembled remorse.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 32

  lydia sighed as she picked through her seeds. the new year had inched past them as if it traveled on the humped back of a snail. She didn't even want to recall the grim scene Christmas had been. Winter had descended upon Dalkeith in force—icicles twisted obscenely from the shutters, and the dratted door to the front steps had been frozen shut this morning, effectively sealing her in her own home.

  Lydia could remember a time when she'd loved the winter. When she'd reveled in each season and the unique pleasures it brought. Christmas had once been her favorite holiday. But now… she missed Adrian and Ilysse. Come home, children. I need you, she prayed silently.

  The sound of splintering wood suddenly rent the air, causing her to jerk her head up in an involuntary gesture that sent her precious seeds flying.

  Damned inconsiderate of them to split firewood right outside the window.

  Lydia pushed irritably at her hair and began to reorganize the scattered seeds. She dreamed of the flowers she would plant—if spring ever came again.

  Another resounding crash shuddered through the Greathall. She stifled a very unladylike oath and laid her seeds aside. "Keep it down out there! A body's trying to do a bit of thinking!" she yelled.

  Still the deafening crashes continued. "We aren't all that short of firewood, lads!" Lydia roared at the frozen door.

  Her words were met with a terrible screeching noise.

  "That's it. That's it!" She leapt up from her chair and seethed. That last one had seemed to come from… upstairs?

  She cocked her head at an angle.

  Someone had either decided it was too cold to split firewood outside or was quite busily turning the furniture into kindling instead.

  The crash was followed by the shattering of glass. "Holy shit!" Lydia muttered, as her lovely daughter-in-law would have offered quite perkily. She spun on her heel, grabbed up her skirts, and raced the stairs like a lass of twenty. Hand on her heart she flew down the corridor, skidding past gawking maids and tense soldiers. How many people had stood about listening to this insane destruction while she'd been sitting downstairs?

  Not the nursery, she prayed, anything but that.

  Her son would never destroy that room of dreams. Granted, he'd been a bit out of sorts, but still… No. He definitely would not do something so terrible. Not her son.

  By all that's holy, oh yes he would. And he was.

  Her breath came in burning gasps as she stared, dumbfounded. Her son stood in the nursery surrounded by a twisted heap of horrid broken wooden limbs. He'd been literally ripping apart the lovingly crafted furnishings. He was clad in only a kilt, his upper body glistening with sweat. The veins in his arms were swollen and his hands were raw and bloody. His raven hair was loose but for the two war braids at either temple. By the sweet saints, just paint his face blue and I wouldn't even know him for my son! Lydia thought.

  The Hawk stood silently, wild-eyed. There was a smudge of blood on his face where he'd wiped at sweat. Lydia watched, frozen in horror, as he tilted an oil bowl, drizzling its contents over the splinters of furniture, the toys and books, the magnificent dollhouse that had been squashed flat in his gargantuan rage.

  When he dropped the candle, a soft scream wrenched her mouth wide.

  The flames leapt up, greedily devouring the pile of Hawk's and Lydia's shattered dreams. Shaking with hurt and fury, Lydia pressed a hand to her mouth and swallowed a sob. She turned away before the animal that used to be her son could see her tears.

  * * * * *

  "We have to do something," Lydia murmured woodenly, staring blankly at the kitchen hearth.

  Tavis stepped close behind her, his hands suspended in the air just above her waist. He dropped his head forward and inhaled deeply of her scent. "I'll speak with him, Lydia—"

  "He won't listen," she choked as she spun around. "I've tried. Dear God, we've all tried. He's like some rabid dog, snarling and foaming and oh, Tavis! My nursery! My grandbabies!"

  "I haven't tried yet," Tavis said calmly, dropping his hands to grip her waist.

  Lydia cocked her head, marveling at the implicit authority in his words. He'd managed to surprise her once again, this gentle man who'd stood patiently by her side for so long.

  "You'll speak with him?" she echoed hopefully, her eyes glimmering with unshed tears.

  "Aye," he assured her.

  Strength and ability laced his reply. How could it have taken her so long to begin to see this man clearly?

  Some of her astonishment must have been evident in her gaze, because he gave her that patient smile and said tenderly, "I knew one day you'd finally open your eyes, Lydia. I also knew it would be worth every minute of the wait," he added quietly.

  Lydia swallowed hard as a fission of heat and hope and heady, tumultuous love spread through her in a wave. Love. How long had she been in love with this man? she wondered dumbly.

  Tavis brushed her lips with his, a light friction that promised so much more. "Doona worry. I care for him like my own, Lydia. And, as if he were my own,'tis time we had a good thorough father-son kind of talk."

  "But what if he refuses to listen?" she fretted.

  Tavis smiled. "He'll listen. You can take Tavis MacTarvitt's word on that, I'll say."

  * * * * *

  The Hawk brooded into the fire, watching ghosts dance whitely in the spaces between the flames. They were memory-born and hell-bound, as he surely was. But purgatory—if not heaven—was within his reach, tidily captured in a bottle, and so he toasted the ghosts as he raced them to oblivion.

  He picked up another bottle of whisky and turned it in his hand, studying its rich amber color with drunken appreciation. He raised the bottle to his lips, his hand fisted about the neck, and bit out the stopper. Briefly he remembered biting out the stopper of a Gypsy potion. Remembered covering his wife's body with his own and tasting, touching, kissing… He'd been fool enough then to believe in love.

  Bah! Adam! It had always been him. From the first day he'd seen her. She'd been standing pressed against a tree trunk watching the blasted smithy with hunger in her eyes. He tossed back a swallow of whisky and considered going back to court. Back to King James.

  A crooked, bitter smile curved his lip. Even as he pictured himself prowling the boudoirs of Edinburgh again, another part of his mind recalled the roiling thick steam rising from a scented bath, the sheen of oil upon her skin as she'd tossed her head back, baring the lovely column of her throat to his teeth. Baring everything to him, or so he'd thought.

  Adrienne… Treacherous, traitorous, lying unfaithful bitch.

  "Lay me into the dead earth now and be done with it," he muttered to the fire. He didn't even react when the door to the study was flung open so hard that it hit the wall. "Close the door, man. A bit of a draft chilling my bones, there is," the Hawk slurred unsteadily without even bothering to see who had invaded the drunken squalor of his private hell. He again tilted the bottle to his mouth and took a long swallow.

  Tavis crossed the room in three purposeful strides and smashed the bottle out of Hawk's hand with such force that it shattered in a splash of glass and whisky on the smooth stones of the hearth. He gazed at Tavis a befuddled moment, then reached, undeterred, for a second bottle.

  Tavis stepped between the Hawk and the crated liquor.

  "Get out of my way, old man," Hawk growled, tensing to rise. He had barely gained his feet when Tavis's fist connected solidly with his jaw, spilling him back into the chair.

  Hawk wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and glared up at Tavis. "Why'd you go and do that for, Tavis MacTarvitt?" he grumbled, making no move to defend himself.

  "I don't give a bloody hell what you do to yourself, laird" Tavis sneered. "Just get the hell out of this ca
stle and don't do it in front of your mother."

  "Who the hell d'you think you are?"

  "I know who I am! I'm the man who watched you grow from wee lad to braw laird. I'm the man who burst with pride while he watched you make some hard choices." Tavis's voice dropped a harsh notch, "Aye, I'm just the man who has loved you since the day you drew your first hungry breath in this world. And now I'm the man who's going to thrash you within an inch of your worthless life if you don't get a grip on yourself."

  Hawk gaped, then swiped irritably at Tavis. "Go 'way." He closed his eyes wearily.

  "Oh, I'm not done yet, my boy," Tavis said through gritted teeth. "You are not fit to be laird of a dunghill. 'Tis obvious you have no intention of pulling yourself together, so until you do you can just get the bleeding hell out of Lydia's castle. Now! I'll send word to Adrian and bring him home. He'll make a fine laird—"

  The Hawk's eyes flew open. "Over my dead body," he snarled.

  "Fine. So be it," Tavis spit back. "You're no use to any one as you are now anyway. You may as well fall on your own claymore for all the good you're doing your people!"

  "I am laird here!" Hawk slurred, his eyes flashing furiously. "And you… you, old man, oh hell, you're fired." Although he had intended—when he'd still had his wife—to relinquish his place to Adrian, it was currently damned cold outside and he wasn't going anywhere just yet. Maybe in the spring, if he hadn't drowned himself in whisky yet.

  Tavis yanked Hawk to his feet in a swift motion, surprising the drunken laird. "Pretty strong for an old man," Hawk muttered. Tavis pulled the stumbling Hawk to the doors of the study.

  "Get off me!" the Hawk bellowed.

  "I expected more from you, lad. A fool I must be, but I thought you were the kind of man who fought for what he wanted. But no, you just fell apart in the face of a wee bit of adversity—

  "Och, and my wife leavin' me for another man is only a wee bit of adversity? That's what you call it?" Hawk slurred thickly, his burr deepening with his anger.