“Fine,” he said, laughing a little. “The prospect of having you in debt to me is far too tempting. I’ve been down at the village a lot, aye. There’s something going on. Do you remember a few days ago, we were speaking about that strange illness that’s affecting men?”
“Yeah, I remember. We tried to figure it out, but none of us knew anything about medicine.” Her eyes widened. “It’s not getting worse, is it?”
“Aye, it may be. A lot of the men in town are sickly,” Brendan told her, his face drawn.
She suddenly made a connection. “Oh! That’s why you looked so freaked out when I got sick a few days ago. Were you worried I had the same thing?”
He smiled at her. “You’ve a sharp eye, Elena Cross. Aye, I was worried the same thing may have spread to you. The sickness comes on as a kind of frailty and weariness during the day. Then the men lose their appetites and start wasting away, getting all frail and sickly… what’s more, their minds get distracted. Does any of that sound like what you’ve had?”
“Well, the appetite and frailty, that’s there,” she said, considering the course of her illness. “But the other things… no, I don’t think so. I wish my mind was distracted, it’d make the time pass quicker,” she grumbled. “Any other symptoms?”
Brendan hesitated — and was that a blush on his face? She leaned forward, curious. “Go on.”
“It’s a little improper to speak of in mixed company,” he said stiffly, and she snorted laughter.
“Brendan, you’re alone with me in my bedroom. Isn’t that improper?”
He stared at her for a long moment, and she felt her heartbeat start to pick up even as she tried to hold his gaze. Finally, he relented, dropping his eyes from hers — she felt an odd combination of relief and disappointment. “I suppose it is. Well. The other symptom the men are reporting — and it’s a half dozen of them who’ve fallen ill — is dreams.”
She tilted her head to the side. “What kind of dreams?”
He carefully avoided her eyes as he spoke. “Improper ones.”
Chapter 19
Elena stared at him for a moment, joining the dots. “Improper dreams. You mean — sex dreams?”
He jumped as though he’d been shot, fixing her with a scandalized look. “Elena Cross!”
“What? Everyone has them,” she said dismissively, trying to suppress a giggle at how outraged he looked that she wasn’t playing along with his squeamishness.
“Do you?” he said sharply, and there was worry in his eyes. “These last few days? Have you had …”
Now she couldn’t hold back her laughter. He was so torn between interrogating her about her symptoms — his concern that she had this terrible illness that the men were suffering from — and his reluctance to ask her such a personal, improper question… god, it was the most fun she’d had all week. But she couldn’t keep tormenting him like this. Giggling to herself, she waved her hand dismissively, trying to get control of her laughter.
“No! No, not these last few days. I don’t have whatever the men have, Brendan, it’s okay. God, the look on your face, though.”
He was grinning a little, too, though it was reluctant. “I know, I know, it’s… it sounds absurd. But all six of the sick men reported it… reported erotic dreams, that seem to coincide with the wasting away, the listlessness, the lack of appetite.”
She frowned, intrigued by the mystery even as her amusement at Brendan’s discomfiture faded. “That’s a very strange set of symptoms. I’ve never heard of a disease like that. The lack of appetite and stuff, that could be anything… a parasite, an infection… but the dirty dreams? I have no idea what that could have to do with anything.”
“We’re worried it’s supernatural,” Brendan said simply, leaning back on the chair that sat by Elena’s bed. She was starting to think of it as her Visitor’s Chair — Anna had sat in it earlier, and Maeve before her. Elena liked both of the women fine, but so far she felt that Brendan looked best in the chair. He certainly filled it up — he was such a big man. She was itching to see what he looked like under his armor — whether his bulk was pure muscle, as she suspected it was. Suspected it even more strongly after how effortlessly he’d carried her up the stairs, too.
“Supernatural?” she asked, blinking hard and trying to force herself to focus. God, this illness was a menace… sending her mind wandering in all kinds of strange directions. Directions she was usually much better at keeping it away from … but exhausted from the illness, she only had so much energy to spare for keeping her mind where it was supposed to be…
“Aye. Some kind of… creature, we don’t know much more than that.”
“Some kind of creature? That’s it? Haven’t you got all those records up there?” She gestured up toward where she knew the library was on an upper floor.
Brendan just shrugged. “Aye, we’ve asked the scholars, but it’s not so easy as all that. They’ve got to go back through the records, cross-reference them with other records… there’s a lot of argument between history and folklore, whether a thing’s recorded because it was sighted or because a lot of stories get told about it… if I were you I wouldn’t get the scholars talking about it, you’ll never get out of there alive. But we’re looking into it.”
She frowned. “These men… they’re all young?”
“Aye, the youngest is sixteen, the eldest is forty.”
“And they’re all having erotic dreams. That sounds like something out of folklore, for sure.” She frowned, looking at him intently. “You’re between those ages, and a man. Be careful, will you?”
He nodded, looking a little surprised at the intensity of her concern — and grateful. “Aye, I will.”
“You won’t be able to help any of those men if you’re wasting away yourself,” she pointed out primly. “And who will show me around the castle if you’re too busy being horribly ill somewhere, having terrible dreams…”
He snorted, covering his mouth with his hand as his eyes twinkled. “Well, by all accounts the dreams aren’t terrible.”
It was her turn to be jokingly shocked. She fanned herself with one hand as though about to pass out, hoisting an expression of horror onto her face. “Why, Brendan Grant! How could you speak so uncouthly to a lady!”
He chuckled, grinning at her. They passed the rest of the afternoon in pleasant conversation — she felt so much better having him in the room she could almost kid herself the sickness was over (unless she thought about getting out of bed or eating something more complex than broth… then the nausea came creeping back, clear as day.) But before too long, she could see him beginning to stifle yawns, and she sighed.
“When was the last time you slept, Brendan?”
He opened his mouth, then hesitated, clearly thinking hard. She sighed.
“Wrong answer! Go to bed. Honestly, I don’t know how men like you even function. Get some rest, come and see me again when you’re not falling asleep. Deal?”
He smiled ruefully, running a hand through that long, dark hair of his. God, she wished she could run her hand through it, too. She should have taken advantage the other day, when he’d carried her up the stairs… she could have blamed her feverish state. Then she’d know what it felt like, instead of just having to dream about it…
“Alright, Elena. I’ll go to bed, if you finish your broth.”
She groaned, staring up at the bowl on her bedside table. “Unreasonable cruelty.”
But Brendan just folded his arms, impassive. She sighed, taking the bowl and wrinkling her face as she prepared herself — then slowly and arduously, she drank what was left at the bottom.
“There. Are you happy?”
“Thrilled,” he said gravely. Then he reached down and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She was so shocked by the gesture she could hardly respond — and he seemed oddly surprised, too. He certainly beat a hasty retreat from the room, murmuring a goodnight as he went. She stared at the closed door behind him, shell-shocked, not even
worried about the feeling of her stomach complaining about the broth. Had that been an accident? Had he acted on some impulse to kiss her head? Was it just friendly… or was it something more? Was the flirting actually going somewhere? God, she was itching to get better from this illness… so resolutely, she turned over in bed and fluffed the pillow up. She’d close her eyes and go to sleep. She had a belly full of broth and a steely determination to get well…by the time she woke up, she’d be all better. That was the only option.
She drifted off to sleep, drilling the mantra ‘get better, get better, get better’ over and over in her mind as she did. Her brother Jacob had gotten very into mantras at one point in his career — he used to mutter them to himself all the time as he wandered around the house. Things about success, and believing in yourself, and good things coming to those who got out there and got them. She’d hated it — but at this point, she was willing to try anything. And finally, sleep claimed her.
Maybe it was the nature of the conversations she’d been having about Brendan, maybe it was all the discussion of erotic dreams, or maybe it was just being as close to him as she had been… but Elena found her sleep troubled by a series of distinctly X-rated dreams. She moved in and out of them as she slept, occasionally startling awake with the memory of his lips against her throat vivid in her mind, occasionally waking herself up with the sound of a moan tearing itself free from her throat. It would have been embarrassing, if she hadn’t been so determined to return, each time, to the dream world. It was like her brain was torturing her… she’d dive into the dream, things would just start getting hot and steamy, and then she’d wake up for whatever reason. Was it the sickness, stopping her from sleeping? Or was it her own fear of the feelings she clearly had for Brendan, startling her awake, yanking her out of his embrace and back to consciousness?
By morning, she definitely didn’t feel very rested. She lay in bed for a long time, her eyes on the ceiling as the light of dawn slowly crept across it. Her hair was a tangled mess, her breathing was unruly, and she felt physically frustrated in a way that she rarely, if ever, experienced. Her sex drive had always been… Well, it has never been low, she thought with a blush, but it had been controllable. Sure, she’d feel the urge… but she was very good at suppressing it. It seemed her ability to do that had vanished along with her ability to eat a solid meal. God, she hated this illness. How much longer was it going to last?
And she was a little worried about the dirty dreams, if she was honest. They didn’t feel like a symptom of anything — it wasn’t as though she hadn’t had sex dreams in the past, after all, and she had a crush on Brendan, it wasn’t exactly a strange occurrence that her mind would spin up some exciting little fantasies about him. But the fact that they’d just been talking about some supernatural affliction, the symptoms of which included sex dreams and lack of appetite… well, that was a little too coincidental for her liking.
She remembered what Donal had said, about the Sidhe bringing people through to the world for a specific purpose. Nancy had been brought through to help Malcolm close the Burgh and defeat some goblins, Anna had had a similar task to assist Donal with when she first emerged from the Burgh. But Elena didn’t feel like she had a purpose here — not in the same way. Maybe it was the sickness that was plaguing her still, maybe it was her lingering anxiety and stress about being so far from everything she knew, but she was worried that she had been brought through just to fall victim to something.
The worst part was, she didn’t even know what it was. She sat up in bed, gritting her teeth at the familiar dizziness, and grabbed the glass of water from her bedside table, drinking it irritably even as she felt her empty stomach protest. The sooner she got rid of this dumb illness, the better. It sucked, having to try to figure out what she was doing through all this fatigue and dizziness and nausea. She didn’t want to be a victim of whatever was happening to her. She wanted to be a perpetrator. Or, even better — she wanted to be the detective that figured it all out.
She’d get better, she decided, settling back into the bed and frowning as she heard the sounds of the castle waking up. She’d just have to get better. Then she’d have a lot of catching up to do on what was going on around here. It was time to get out there, to find her purpose in this strange world she’d been dropped into. And the first stop on her list — once she was well enough to actually climb out of bed — was whatever was happening to these men. Something about the idea of an illness that wasted people away made her curious. She wasn’t a doctor — but she sure was a detective. And maybe those skills could come in handy in this situation.
Once I am better, she thought, teeth gritted. Once she was better, she’d show them all what a Baltimore detective could do.
Chapter 20
But unfortunately, the illness seemed to want to take its sweet time in leaving her alone. It was a week before she could stomach anything other than the clear broth she’d been drinking — she kept the blankets pulled tight around her body, knowing for a grim fact that she was going to look pretty bony if she didn’t manage to stomach solid food again any time soon. The broth was a godsend — it kept her hydrated and stopped her from feeling too miserable, but it wasn’t something she was going to be able to live on for the rest of her life.
One night, after a long day tossing and turning, occasionally trying to read a history of the castle that Brendan had brought her, Maeve appeared in her doorway with a plate in her hands. On it were several pieces of bread, gently toasted. She sat up in bed with some difficulty, abandoning the book during a particularly tedious chapter about a centuries-old dispute with a specific family in the village about grain rationing. Any distraction, at this point, was a good distraction — and she’d take Maeve’s rather pleasant, quiet company over the book any day.
“How’s your reading coming along?” Maeve enquired, her silver eyes twinkling a little. “I understand Brendan picked that out for you himself.”
“It’s … fine,” Elena said cautiously, not especially wanting to offend her visitor by saying the history of her home was the dullest thing she’d ever read in her life. “I’m not focusing on it very well…”
“Could that have anything to do with the fact that it’s the most boring thing ever written?”
Elena laughed aloud, delighted by the solemn tone in Maeve’s voice. “You know, that might be a contributing factor.”
“I knew this scholar,” Maeve said, moving over to the bed and taking her customary seat by the head of it as she peered at the cover. “He never did like it here, much. He had strong objections to the existence of… well, magic.”
“I noticed that! He seems to go out of his way to avoid talking about anything supernatural.”
“Well, it’s true that we had a quiet period for a little while,” Maeve said, looking thoughtful, “but yes, he was certainly interested in expunging the Fae from the record. I don’t know what he made of my eyes,” she added, laughing. “I was a young woman when he was here. Probably more Fae than human, back then, at least.”
“He doesn’t mention you.”
“No, he wouldn’t. Changeling children are pretty difficult to include in a non-supernatural account.”
“What was it like?” Elena leaned forward a little. She’d been deeply curious about Maeve’s life ever since she’d learned that the woman had been a Changeling — taken from the world at a young age, raised in the Fae world, then returned to the other side as an adult. Her bright silver eyes — so luminous and beautiful in the dark — were a mark of her time there… and Elena had heard a few rumors among the servants that her eyes weren’t the only magical thing about her. “The Fae world, I mean. What was it like there?”
“It was like a dream,” Maeve said simply. “It’s hard to say much else.”
“If you don’t like talking about it, I won’t ask,” Elena said, hesitating a little. She’d had sensitivity training, back in Baltimore, they all had, after a spate of kidnappings. They were told to be very c
areful when speaking to people who’d experienced abductions — that the trauma could be easily triggered. But Maeve didn’t seem traumatized. A little otherworldly, perhaps.
The woman was smiling gently. “Oh, no. I like talking about it. It was a beautiful time.”
“What about your family, though? Did they miss you? Did you ever want to go home?”
“Oh, I wasn’t a happy child,” Maeve said. “The Seelie Fae… they don’t steal children. That’s a myth. The Unseelie, that’s a different story… but when the Unseelie Fae take children, they’re never seen again. Changelings like me, the Fae take because they see that they can offer the child a better life. That was the case, for me.” And something in Maeve’s eyes stopped Elena from prying too much about what she might mean by that. “In the same way that the Sidhe brought you here for a reason… they took me for a reason, too. And then they brought me back, once I was grown.”
“Were you sad to leave?”
“Heartbroken,” she said, smiling a little. “I thought I’d done something wrong. It was like waking from the most beautiful dream… trying to fall back asleep, just to capture a little more of it. But it wasn’t long before I realized why they’d returned me.”
“Why?” Elena leaned forward, the book forgotten. This was just the kind of bedtime story she loved.
“Because I met the love of my life, three days later,” she said, a beautiful smile breaking out across her face. “The Laird before Donal, my late husband. He took one look at my eyes and knew he had to have me.”
Maybe it was the long illness fraying her nerves, but Elena found herself surprisingly close to tears. “That’s beautiful.”
“Mm. The Sidhe, they’re hard to understand, but they’re incredibly wise when it comes to knowing where we’re meant to be. We just have to trust them.”
Elena smiled. For no reason at all, her mind strayed to Brendan.
Swept By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance-Highlander Forever Book 3 Page 12
