Swept By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance-Highlander Forever Book 3

by Preston, Rebecca

  “The cross is cold iron, and blessed by the Father,” Brendan explained. “The iron keeps Fae at bay, and the blessing thwarts witches. If you’re neither, it won’t be a problem.”

  Without looking at him, she strode over to the window ledge, picked up the cross, and pressed it to her throat like a blade. She made eye contact with Brendan, who just stared back at her as though she was a stranger. And without a word, he stepped through the door and shut it hard behind him. She heard the lock sliding home, and shut her eyes, not sure whether she wanted to scream, cry, or collapse onto the bed and try to forget that any of this had ever happened.

  She put the iron cross back on the window ledge, staring out into the sky. At some point during the morning, the sun had gone behind the clouds, and it was a gray, overcast day out there. Well, good. If she was going to be a prisoner, the weather may as well play along.

  Chapter 49

  She was grateful she had her book, at least. As time wore on, it became clear that this wasn’t going to be a short term imprisonment. A servant brought her food an hour or so after Brendan left her — she peered out into the hallway, and saw two guards posted by her door — both of them not only clad in full armor, but wearing cold iron dirks at their belts and iron crosses much like the one on her window ledge around their necks. When she peered through the door, she saw them both peering in at her — but when they met her eyes, they turned back to staring straight ahead as though her gaze had shocked them like electricity. Well, good, she thought with a resentful glower. She hoped they were very uncomfortable, keeping an innocent woman prisoner like this.

  Was she an innocent prisoner? She certainly hadn’t done any of the things they’d accused her of, and she certainly wasn’t a witch or a baobhan sith — she was a regular human woman from Baltimore. But she had been keeping her association with Una a secret… and with more stories about women with red hair and green dresses, it was becoming rapidly clear that Una was probably someone who knew what was going on. But if Brendan was willing to imprison Elena like this — Elena, someone he was close to, someone he’d seemed to trust — then who knew what he’d do to Una? No, she’d been right to keep her friend’s existence a secret. She only wished she’d taken her advice and not trusted Brendan like this.

  God, she was furious with him. She almost wanted him to come back and visit her, just so she could continue to subject him to the silent treatment. Unfortunately, he seemed to have beaten her at that game already… because the longer she waited, the more it became clear that he had no intention of visiting her. She peered out the window, restless and bored — from this angle, she could mostly see the Loch from the window, but there was a little triangle of the wall visible, too, and she could make out the shapes of the men moving back and forth along it, keeping watch. She peered down at them, wondering if Brendan was one of them. Would he seriously just go back to his work as though nothing had happened? Hot tears stung at her eyes. She was furious with him… but it was nothing compared to how deeply angry she was with herself. She was the one who’d chosen to trust him. This was her fault, she knew. Una had been right all along — she was too naive, too vulnerable.

  Had Una been telling the truth about wanting to protect her? Was there anything she could do, trapped up in this high tower? She desperately wished she’d gone down to the docks the night before to talk to Una when she’d had the chance. After all, it wasn’t like staying safely in her room all night had protected her of being accused of leading Eamon down to the village. Was that what had made Brendan turn on her, she wondered bitterly? Was it the idea that she was toying with another man that had made him angry enough to accuse her of what he’d accused her of? No — she knew that there was more evidence than that… but god, it was a tempting explanation. He’d been jealous. That was so typical of men. They felt fine about taking advantage of as many women as they liked, but the instant they even suspected that one of their female partners was interested in another man, that was the end of the world.

  Not that he’d reacted with anything other than irritation at Eamon when she’d first confronted him about the man’s odd behavior, of course… but still.

  She shook herself, a little annoyed at how much she was thinking about Brendan. He’d proven himself beneath contempt — it was time to start working on not giving a toss about him or what he was doing. She turned to her lunch, which the servant had left on the table — the little woman had been very reluctant to make any eye contact with Elena at all, which suited her fine. She was in no mood to talk. Still, she’d spied the way the woman was clutching at an iron cross around her neck, and she rolled her eyes. Did the castle keep a stockpile of those somewhere, or something? It seemed like everybody was suddenly breaking out the blessed iron crosses. Too bad iron did absolutely nothing to her, because she was a human woman.

  The food tasted ashen in her mouth. She was too worried to have much of an appetite, and ate because it was something to do, to keep her occupied. But as the afternoon wore on, she found herself more and more deep in worry. Why had an anonymous servant brought her meal to her? When she’d been sick, it had almost always been a friend that came along to bring her food… Anna, Nancy, even Maeve. Why hadn’t Maeve come? She could have used a visit from a friendly face, that was for sure, after a morning of being accused of being an evil witch who was draining the life out of the men of the village…

  A horrible thought occurred to her. What if her friends — the women she’d met here, the women she’d gotten to know and love — what if they believed Brendan? Not that Brendan had said one way or the other that he thought she was a witch, but she could read between the lines. And the suspicion, in a superstitious time like this, was enough. Even being accused of witchcraft could be a death sentence. What if Maeve, Anna and Nancy were staying away from her because they were frightened of what she could be?

  Working in Baltimore, she’d only been a rookie cop when she’d learned about a huge drug investigation. It was a complicated setup, and she wasn’t privy to the details, hearing about it mostly through office gossip or drunk cops at the bar after work. Lots of undercover work involved, lots of moving pieces. Then, one week, something happened. A big development in the case — a lot of whispering, a lot of paperwork. Much, much later, once all the dust had settled, Elena found out what had happened. There had been accusations flying, in the drug ring that was being infiltrated, that one of the inner circle was a cop. The funny thing was — that wasn’t true. There were a few cops who’d successfully infiltrated the inner circle, but the guy being accused wasn’t one of them — he was a criminal the same as all the others. Nevertheless, the cops had made the decision to pull their guy out, saying it was too dangerous to stay in that situation. When suspicion was raised, even suspicion in the wrong direction, it made undercover work too risky.

  She’d been surprised, and a little angry at the time. It seemed like a huge waste of time and resources to get a guy so close to the inner circle, then pull him just because suspicion was up. But now she was in this situation, she felt a little bit like she understood. When accusations flew around — even unfounded ones — everyone was threatened.

  Elena spent the afternoon trying to distract herself with the huge book of faerie sightings, but it was slow going. The text was so cramped and rambling, and diagrams and illustration were few and far between… and what was worse, there was no coherent order to the creatures listed. It seemed like the author had just stuck them in the book in the order in which he’d sighted them… or, much more often, heard a story about them. Just how long had this guy spent sitting around in bars, she wondered? Half of the creatures being described sounded like jokes… and of the rest, there was a lot of repetition. Were there really twenty-odd different kinds of goblins, or was the guy just repeating himself to fill up the book?

  And once the sun was down, she realized with frustration, she couldn’t read anymore. It got dark in the room, and there were no torches for her to light, and no supplies
to light them with, either. The cold began to creep in, and she shivered, pulling the blankets of her bed over her and staring with resentment at the little fireplace that clearly hadn’t had a fire in it for months. She’d come to take her little fireplace in her other room for granted, as well as the fires that were set in it regularly by the servants. But the woman who’d brought her lunch to her had been in such a rush to get out that she hadn’t set a fire.

  Would she get dinner, she wondered, feeling impatient as the night grew darker and food still didn’t appear? Maybe they were trying to starve her into a confession. At this point, she wouldn’t put it past them. The lack of a visit from Maeve, Nancy or Anna was making her feel thoroughly victimized — as though by their absence they were agreeing with Brendan that she was some kind of witch, guilty of all crimes leveled against her. They hadn’t even taken away the empty plate and bowl from her lunch, and she scowled to herself, crossing to rattle the door irritably. Maybe the guards out there would remember they were guarding someone who needed to eat.

  “Hey!” she shouted, not having much hope that her voice was going to carry through the thick wooden door — it felt pretty soundproof. “Hey, you have to feed me! It’s bad enough you’re keeping me prisoner in here,” she muttered, crossing back to the bed and dropping heavily onto it. “And trying to freeze me to death, apparently.”

  There was no response from the door, and she heaved a sigh. Still, it felt oddly good to talk out loud, even if nobody was listening or responding. Was that a sign she was going mad already? That had to be some kind of record… how long had she been imprisoned in here, a few hours? Elena liked the company of people — she was an extrovert, she needed conversation to function. Being sick in her room had been torture, and at least then she’d had visitors… and there hadn’t been a locked door between her and the rest of the world, just a sick body that wouldn’t let her drag herself out of bed. This was awful.

  Maybe an hour later, there was a soft tap at the door. She sat bolt upright, hoping against hope that this time it was Maeve, or Anna, or Nancy… but it was just a servant. Another woman, who peered at her suspiciously — she, too, was wearing an iron cross around her neck, which she touched protectively when she made eye contact with Elena.

  “You know I’m not a witch, right?” Elena said, heaving a sigh. “Look.” She reached up to the window ledge and picked up the iron cross. The servant’s eyes widened, but she didn’t speak, dropping the tray she’d brought on the table and gathering up the other one. “Hey! Can I at least get… a torch,” she finished sadly as the door slammed shut, taking the reflected light from the hallway with it and plunging her back into darkness. “Great. Guess I’ll eat in the dark.”

  This was miserable, she thought as she moved over to the table, trying and failing to use the tiny amount of starlight that was filtering through her window to eat by. How long were they going to insist on keeping her in here? How long until they realized that even with her locked up, the men were going to keep getting sick?

  A pang of fear struck her. Worse — what if the men got better while she was in here? It would be a coincidence… but good luck convincing these superstitious people of that. As much as she hated to admit it, it would be best for her if the men kept getting sick, kept getting worse.

  “I should’ve listened to you,” she whispered to herself, tears stinging her eyes for the fiftieth time that day. “You were right, Una. You were right about everything.”

  Chapter 50

  Elena woke at dawn the next day, and for a moment the sunlight creeping over her windowsill made her feel as though maybe there was something worth waking up for. Then the memories from the previous day came crashing over her and she groaned, burying her face in the pillow again and regretting not dragging the curtain over the window to stop the sun from waking her up at all. What was the point? She was stuck in this room until … until when? Were they just going to keep her here forever, until the men either all died or got better? She found herself hoping they’d all die, pure spite motivating the horrible thought. That would serve everyone right for locking her up instead of letting her help with the investigation like she wanted to. Little did they know, she knew a lot more about it than they did… she was halfway to figuring out the culprit, in fact. And she had a contact who definitely knew more than she did. All of this material she brought to the investigation… but they chose to lock her up? Fools. Idiots. It’d serve them right if half the village was knocked out by the disease that was rampaging through it.

  Una, she thought miserably. These thoughts sounded an awful lot like Una. God, she was starting to sympathize with the woman. Experiencing what she’d experienced the day before — those men lunging at her, begging for her attention, trying to force her to kiss them… and then Brendan, who was supposed to protect her, just standing by, glaring at her like it was her fault she was being attacked like that? If that was anything like what Una had been through, well, she understood why she hated human men so much. God, she’d even understand if it turned out that Una had something to do with the attacks on the men, with their wasting illnesses…

  Because it was possible, she had to admit, despite the profound reluctance she felt at acknowledging that fact. It was likely, in fact — Occam’s Razor said that the simplest explanation was usually the best, and the simplest explanation was that the woman in green, the woman with the long red hair who all the sick men had reported seeing in their dreams… that she was the one responsible for the illness. They were certainly all besotted with her, and she had mentioned ruling, a long time ago. But even if Elena was willing to consider that Una was doing this… well, if she was honest, she wasn’t. There was a strange kind of mental block that came up, making it difficult to think about, but in the absence of anything else to think about, she pushed through, using her sharp analytical mind to refocus. Even if she considered the possibility that Una was to blame for the sick men… all that did was raise even more questions. Like was she doing it on purpose? Or was it simply a power that happened passively? Did she need the life force of the men to feed on? Did she even know she was doing it?

  And even if she was doing it intentionally, even if it was motivated by nothing but spite and malice at the men who’d wronged her… god, how could Elena judge her? At this point, if she had the power to drain the life force out of men, she’d have used it a dozen times by now. On the two guards at the door, for a start… on Brendan, for imprisoning her here, and then on anyone who dared to stand in her way. Because Una wasn’t just mindlessly cruel, was she? It was only men that she harmed, only men that she fed on. Women, she seemed to care about. She’d certainly taken a shine to Elena, hadn’t she? Saved her from the Sidhe, saved her life from the Loch, come back again and again despite everything Elena had put her through to give her valuable advice.

  Advice that she’d ignored. Well, she wouldn’t ignore it again, she thought decisively. But had she missed her chance? Locked away up here, there was no way she’d be able to sneak down to the docks again to meet with Una any time soon… somehow, she had a suspicion someone might notice that. No, their secret meetings may be at an end… unless she could figure out a way of getting herself out of jail long enough to get outside the walls late at night.

  So as much as she hated the idea of giving in, she gnawed on her lip, realizing that she’d have to talk to Brendan again. The silent treatment wasn’t going to get her anywhere, and for every day that she was stuck in here, the men outside the walls were hunting for someone who looked just like Una. What if they found her? Well, on the plus side, Elena would be exonerated… but they’d probably kill Una or imprison her with cold iron. She couldn’t let that kind of torture be inflicted on her friend. Not again — not after what she’d been through already.

  No, she needed to get out of here as soon as possible. And that meant manipulating Brendan however she could. Hopefully, her anger had burned the last of her feelings for him out of her chest… when he eventually came to
visit her, to interview her, she’d see what she could do. She had a few tricks up her sleeve still, even if she was trapped in a prison cell. Did he still feel anything for her? Even if it was just raw sexual attraction, there might be some tool she could use to get her way free of the cell.

  She was so lost in these schemes that she barely heard the door creak open. When she did, she sat up with a sigh, expecting to see the same servant loitering awkwardly at the door. But instead, her eyes widened with shock — and a fair bit of delight — to see Anna, a huge bowl of porridge in her hands and a look of worry on her face.

  “Anna! Thank God, I was getting so tired of all those servants —” She hurled herself out of bed, not caring that she was still in her night clothes, and after Anna put the porridge down on the table she dragged her into a full-body hug. God, it felt good to see a friend again.

  “Darling, I’m so sorry I didn’t come yesterday, I had no idea you were even here,” Anna said anxiously, clasping her hands as they sat together on the side of the bed.

  God, Una was right, Elena thought to herself unexpectedly. Women were so much better than men in basically every way. There was technology in the future that allowed women to reproduce without men being involved at all… it was a shame that wasn’t an option here in the past. Was it possible that some magical method could be used? Worth thinking about, anyway. It had become abundantly clear that she couldn’t trust a man to share her life with, and she definitely wanted children one day. Spending time with Nancy — and with Anna’s little daughter — had well and truly confirmed that.

  “I was wondering why nobody came to visit,” Elena said, smiling a little sadly. “It’s been pretty boring in here.”

  “I’ll bring you things to keep you busy,” Anna promised. “Now — what exactly happened? Donal told me what Brendan told him, but it was a pretty crappy account.”