But Ethyn wasn’t smiling, and she was far from laughing as everyone sat down in the great hall. Nearly all of them continued eyeing her with distrust as mugs of ale were served. Milly, however, remained by her side, an avid supporter when she had no reason to be.
“So tell us, Ciara,” Adlin finally said, standing with his back to the fire, “what brought you here first as a wolf then along a death ley-line as a woman?”
While she would have preferred speaking with Ethyn alone first, she understood his family was an integral part of who he was. They worked as a team, especially during trying times such as this. In fact, this was likely the most trying time in MacLomain history.
She took several swallows of ale, deciding how best to go about this.
“Honestly,” Ethyn muttered, surprising them all. “You go about it honestly.”
Adlin’s brows flew up. “Did you catch Ciara’s thoughts then, nephew? That fast?”
When Ethyn scowled and shrugged, she answered for him.
“Yes, he caught my thoughts that fast.” She sighed. “Not surprising considering we’re linked together via a curse. And now that I’ve put the ring on and we’ve started traveling the death ley-lines together, as you call them, though I prefer cursed-lines, we’re bound to connect very quickly.”
Adlin rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Ah, nothing like a good curse to find one’s way out of.”
Several faces carved in the monstrous hearth behind him opened their eyes curiously. Ancestors all, they had watched over the MacLomains for generations. Even Adlin’s face from his former life was there though it remained still because he’d been reborn. His sister, Iosbail, however, was quite enjoying the afterlife. Yet at the mention of a curse, interest flared in her eyes with good reason.
“Tell us about your curse, Ciara,” Adlin prompted. “How it ties in with everything going on now.” His gaze dropped to her ring. “For clearly, it does.”
“Well, from what I can recall, it all began a long time ago at the Irish Stonehenge you were conceived at in your last life, Adlin.” She sipped more ale and avoided looking at Ethyn because she couldn’t stand the disappointment in his eyes. He felt like she had betrayed him, and she understood that. “While I have trouble remembering the details, that’s where I fell in love with Ethyn in another life. One in which I wasn’t cursed.” She sighed and shook her head. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one who loved him. There was another.”
Ethyn’s eyes narrowed. He caught on quickly. “You dinnae mean...Alyssa?”
“I do,” she confirmed. “Who is not reborn but actually time-traveled from that era.”
“Oh, but the things I didnae see coming!” Adlin’s eyes narrowed. “She is the imposter Broun?” He recapped what they'd learned thus far about a potential rogue ‘Broun.’ “A lass presumably sent by the Brotherhood who’s able to wear a ring because of Madison influencing the Irish stones in another life. A pretender who tapped into the Broun bloodline, hence a ring being created for her in the first place.” He shook his head. “Though I cannae see any god who took part in creating the ring wanting to aid her dark intentions. For they are dark, aye?”
“Without a doubt.” She sipped more ale. “I might not know the details, but I know she wanted Ethyn and was willing to do anything to make that happen. I would say, in part, that meant joining up with the Brotherhood. It had to have. Because I know she placed the curse on me and suspect she would’ve needed help to do it.”
“A curse that evidently involves my son as well.” Christina frowned. “Why would she curse the man she loved?”
“I haven’t quite figured that part out yet,” she replied. “What I have figured out is that the curse is designed to bring Ethyn and I together yet keep us apart. Which was done by making me a wolf. An eternal punishment for lack of explanation. Because this isn’t the first time I’ve been born as a wolf.” She glanced at Ethyn. “Or the first life since the Irish Stonehenge that we’ve lived together. It is, however, the first life I’ve been able to shift.”
“Och, so your plight isnae all that different than Chloe’s was,” Adlin said. “Doomed that the man you love cannae love you in return.”
“In some ways, yeah, our circumstances are similar.” She shook her head. “In other ways, no. At least Chloe and Aidan could speak.” She pressed her lips together against a wave of emotion before continuing. “Ethyn and I never could...or should I say I could never respond.”
“So, you were born a wolf in every life?” Marek said, a little less grumbly now. Not by much, though. “And, what, you remembered you were cursed?”
“Pretty much,” she confirmed. “It was always sort of vague, though. I knew something was horribly wrong but found contentment in being near Ethyn.” She tried to sound optimistic when, in truth, it had been torture sometimes. “So how much of a curse is that really?”
“A horrible one, darlin,’” Christina said softly, eyeing her with less distrust, compassion obvious in her voice. “So what happened in this life? And when did you shift for the first time?”
“I think I shifted because of what’s going on with the Irish Stonehenge and Scotland,” she said. “My curse has been evolving...my inner human waking up.” She flinched. “As to the first time I shifted, it was right here in this castle several years ago.”
“Bloody hell!” Ethyn’s eyes rounded as it came to him remarkably fast. “It cannae be.”
“But it is.” She couldn’t help a small smile remembering his reaction. “That dream you had wasn’t a dream at all.”
Chapter Four
“YOU SHIFTED INTO...you, in my bed?” He remembered the night all too well. “As...” all he envisioned now were her perfect nude curves as he gestured at her, “that...you.”
He cursed his bumbling tongue, but there was no hope for it.
“Aye, son, her.” Having gone from wary to amused in little time, his father chuckled. “That’s what you get for letting your wolf sleep on your bed.”
When his mother chuckled too, Ethyn shot her a look, but it did little good. She just shrugged and winked, agreeing with his father. So he downed a hearty swig of ale, not surprised to see Ciara doing the same.
He could admit, despite being hurt by her, and the oddity of her having been his wolf, he grew more attracted to her by the moment. If her beauty wasn’t enough, now he had the image of her lying nude in his bed. Against him. Soft and luscious and...
“Bloody hell,” he muttered under his breath, taking another swig, remembering all too well what he’d done. And who could blame him? She’d been beautiful and receptive. And he’d been aroused.
Not to mention, he had thought it was a dream.
“It wasn’t as bad as it sounds,” Ciara spoke up, not telling the half of it. “I chanted him back to sleep none-the-wiser.”
“Chanted, aye?” Adlin rocked back on his heels and considered Ciara. “So you’re not just a werewolf but a witch. I wonder, though, how can you be a Broun?”
Ciara glanced from Iosbail’s face on the mantle to Adlin. “Because your sister made sure of it a long time ago.” She flinched. “And I prefer shifter to werewolf. After all, werewolves are born human and turned. I was no such thing.”
“Nay, you werenae, were you?” Adlin said softly. He glanced from Iosbail to Ciara, clearly not surprised his sister’s hand was in this somehow. But then theirs was a clan of never-ending oddities. “And pray tell, how did my sister ensure you were born with Broun lineage within the midst of a curse?”
“During one of our lifetimes, Ethyn lived at Broun Castle,” she explained. “Though Iosbail never said anything to him, she saw what I suffered. And somehow she knew my suffering had come out of her homeland, Ireland. That I had once been Irish.”
“Aye, you were Irish,” Ethyn murmured, convinced of it when yet again he swore he heard a lilt. “Yet, you’re not in this lifetime?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I was born right here then traveled to th
e future as I got older. Traveled to where I needed to be when the time was right.”
“Then why do I hear an Irish lilt in your voice every so often?” He narrowed his eyes. “Which would speak to your being from Ireland in this life.”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, clearly discomforted. “Maybe it has something to do with the curse starting to unravel. Or drawing closer to what cast it in the first place.”
Though it would be easy enough to doubt her, for some reason, he didn’t. Mayhap because he was starting to sense her thoughts. They were connecting in a way that would make it easier for him to know when she was lying.
“So Iosbail knew you were cursed.” Adlin pondered that. “Then?”
“Then she brought me into the woods and performed some sort of ceremony.” There was no missing the nostalgia in Ciara’s eyes. “She gave me a piece of her somehow. It was the most powerful thing I’d ever felt.”
“No doubt it was,” Adlin said softly, amazed. “Although I have always been with God, Iosbail was pagan and her magic powerful indeed.” He shook his head. “Such a gift she gave you. She must have liked your soul verra much to do such a thing.”
Ciara nodded, unmistakable emotion on her face. “I like to think so. Outside of Ethyn, no human was ever so kind to me.” Her gaze swept over everyone. “Until I was born here...with all of you.”
Even Marek started to look compassionate as he glanced from the mantle to Ciara. “To have someone such as Iosbail find your soul so worthy says something, lass.” Though begrudgingly, he conceded, “Mayhap, I owe you an apology...assuming you speak the truth.”
“She does.” Adlin’s eyes met his sister’s. Whatever he saw there confirmed it. “There cannae be any doubt.”
“Why did you say you might be an ally or enemy back in New Hampshire?” Marek asked her, voicing what Ethyn had just been thinking. “And whilst you have explained why you thought Alyssa was with the Brotherhood, you’ve yet to explain why you would hope for such?”
“That’s where things get tricky,” she confessed, casting grateful eyes to the lass who refilled her mug. “I always knew that when the ring came, it would begin a countdown of sorts. One that revealed many things. The start of something that might allow Alyssa to finally get what was lost to her.” Her gaze flicked to Ethyn’s face. “Who was lost to her.”
She took a few more sips before continuing.
“Essentially, as this curse unravels, it could very well make Alyssa the Broun meant for Ethyn,” she explained. “And me, the imposter.”
Ethyn wasn't sure how he felt about that other than it didn’t sit quite right. “How can that be when you’ve protected me lifetime after lifetime?” He frowned. “How could you suddenly become the enemy?”
“I’m not sure.” She shook her head. “All I know is that the information, however shrouded right now, is part of my subconscious. It’s as much a part of me as breathing.” Her gaze settled on the fire for a moment before she gathered herself and looked at Marek. “As to me hoping Alyssa’s part of the Brotherhood, that might just mean I stand a chance in all this. Sure, her curse may somehow make me the bad guy in the end, but at least at the start, I was on the right side of things.”
Ethyn might still be caught off guard by Ciara in general, but the part of him that loved his wolf, could only agree with her. As to what sort of lass she was, he had yet to determine where he stood. What to make of her. Other than his body’s response, of course, which was not to be trusted. A response, he realized, that had not happened with another like it did her. Nowhere near close, in fact.
“I met her,” he reminded everyone as he considered the lasses he’d been around. Those who might have had an effect on him. “I met Alyssa when I went to Madison in New Hampshire.”
“I know,” Ciara said softly. “I tracked you.”
That didn’t surprise him. Not of Phelan, anyway.
“The point is I met Alyssa and felt nothing,” he said. “The only person I was attracted to, and now we know why, was Madison.”
“Which we thought at the time was because you were drawn into Cray’s love-triangle,” Adlin remarked. “But mayhap ‘twas because you yourself were part of a love-triangle that you couldnae remember.”
“Aye.” He pondered it. “You would think, if Alyssa were part of that triangle, I would have had a stronger reaction to her.”
“Unless,” Adlin theorized, “you were never in love with her to begin with.” He shrugged. “It stands to reason that your love would have been one-sided for her to curse you.” Adlin gestured at Ciara. “I would say she was the one you loved to have had such a curse thrust upon her.” He shook his head. “Based on the evidence thus far, Alyssa was a scorned lass with nothing but revenge and punishment in her heart.”
“It certainly appears that way,” Milly agreed.
“And now she’s yet again alone with Destiny back in New Hampshire.” Marek frowned at Ciara. “I ken the reasons you and Ethyn should not be there, but what about me? Why should I not go back? For it doesnae sound like Destiny should be handling a potential ally of the Brotherhood alone.”
“Yet she already has been for days and doing just fine,” Ciara replied. “And now that you’ve stepped foot in that house and into our curse you’re on Alyssa’s radar too. I guarantee it.”
“Into your curse?” Marek’s frown turned to a scowl. “And how do you know Destiny is doing just fine? Have you spoken to her?”
“No, but she roasted me a chicken and has successfully gotten Alyssa out of that house twice now, so I’d say she’s got things under control,” Ciara assured. “Plus, as several have already witnessed, Destiny is...different.”
No doubt, she was. Ethyn recalled how quickly Destiny had gotten Alyssa into the car in New Hampshire when he'd been there with Cray. Somehow, despite doing it right in front of him and his cousin, they made it from the house to the vehicle without them seeing a thing. While Alyssa might have been behind the ‘magical slip of the eye,’ everyone felt it was Destiny considering her seemingly prophetic nature.
“Aye, she sounds gifted indeed,” Adlin said in response to Ciara's comment about Destiny. “Yet it also sounds like you might know something more about her. Mayhap something worth sharing?” He tilted his head at Ciara in question. “But before that, what do you mean, Marek walked into your curse when he entered the house?”
“He just...did.”
Ciara appeared to struggle with how to answer in a way that made sense.
“The moment I put on the ring, it activated the Broun lineage Iosbail bestowed on me and, in turn, caused a ripple of sorts in the curse,” she explained. “When that happened, whoever created the curse felt a vibration in their rhetorical ‘web.’ As long as we were still in the place in which I put on the ring, that ‘web vibration' would have alerted its creator to Marek’s presence as well.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure exactly what that means other than it can’t be good. Not if its creator, Alyssa, is in league with the Brotherhood.”
“On that, we agree,” Adlin murmured. He considered Marek before he looked at Ciara. “Yet Destiny can somehow, what, control Alyssa? For how else has she gotten her out of there not once but twice?”
“While I can’t give you a direct answer to that, I can tell you that I’ve sensed Destiny was different since I met her online.” Ciara shook her head. “Like me, she’s definitely not entirely human.”
Interest flared in Marek’s eyes. “Is she dragon then?”
“If you’d asked me that before Julie and Tiernan came together and the rings arrived, I’d have said no.” She frowned. “She didn’t feel like you and your MacLeods did to me. I can sense your inner beasts.” Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “But now that the rings have arrived, I get the feeling I might have been wrong about Destiny. Maybe she is dragon. If she is, though, she’s a different sort. More powerful than most.”
“And with such a name,” Adlin murmured. He glanced at Iosbail as though conve
rsing with her. “So a Broun dragon witch prophet who can ensorcell a potential member of the Brotherhood. Powerful indeed, I’d say.”
Ciara’s brows perked in surprise. Evidently, some of what he'd said was news to her. “Prophet?”
“Aye, based on what Chloe and Madison told us of her, I’d say so.” Adlin glanced at Iosbail again and nodded. “My sister is in agreement.”
“What about her name, husband?” Milly said. “Do you think it has relevance?”
“How could it not?” Adlin shook his head. “Whilst, aye, it could be purely coincidental, I dinnae think so. I think Destiny will be the final piece in all this. In truth, a part of the MacLomain’s destiny.”
“Then should we not,” Marek began only for his words to drown out into nothingness as they were again swept away on a cursed-line.
This time, however, they ended up somewhere that made little sense.
Until sadly, it made perfect sense.
Chapter Five
IT TOOK CIARA a moment to place where they were. When she did, she wished they were anywhere else.
At least Marek wasn’t along for this.
“I don’t understand.” Ethyn peered through the darkened fog. “Where are we?”
She couldn’t help but notice that he had shifted closer as if to protect her.
“The Clava Cairns,” she replied, moments before the fog cleared. They stood before one of several stones in a cemetery complex of passage graves made up of ring cairns, kerb cairns, and standing stones. “The lines like to take me here every so often.”
When he looked at her in confusion, she explained. “One of the stones here was once at the Irish Stonehenge.” Four of the original nine stones at the Irish site had been moved to four Scottish Stonehenges that the MacLomains needed to seal off. This would make the fourth. The location of the fifth remained a mystery. She gestured at the stone in front of them. “I always end up in front of this one.”
A Scot's Favor (The MacLomain Series: End of an Era, #4) Page 3
