Highlander's Rage: A Scottish Medieval Historical Romance (Unbroken Highland Spirits Book 2)

by Alisa Adams

  "The point is that Finn was mighty surprised when I told him you'd brought yourself a little wife back from Scone," Tomas explained. "As was I."

  Lachlan turned away. He busied himself about the room with nothing of note or merit, simply because he had determined the conversation to no longer be worth his time. Who he had brought back with him to the militia was entirely irrelevant now. She was no longer here and hadn't been for two weeks. She had stayed barely long enough to see her feet touch the ground before she had run away, likely for the nearest town or means of escape. From him.

  "But," Finn added, sensing the need to make their point a little harder, "we were even more surprised to learn that you loved her."

  Lachlan snorted. The air drew in through his nose and made an unpleasant sound of rebuke and disgust.

  "What idiot told you that?"

  "You did," Tomas snapped.

  When Lachlan's jaw closed on his denials, Tomas continued. He took a step inside the room, emboldened by the way Lachlan had not yet simply pushed past them.

  "You told me your feelings were null and void when you got back. You didn't love her, you said. You had no interest in her, you said. No great emotion was swaying your hand. That you were only doing the honorable thing."

  "And so I was!" Lachlan barked, finally getting a word in around Tomas's taunting. The man threw his own words at him as if they were revelations. Lachlan knew what he had said then. And he stood by it. It had been the truth. And it was still the truth.

  Tomas yielded only slightly. "Perhaps that was honestly your belief then."

  "It's my belief, now!"

  "Lachlan..." Finn's voice was calmer than everyone else's. It rose through the antagonism like a soft and optimistic light. He, too, moved to hover in the doorway, taking up the position leaning against its edge that Tomas had abandoned. They were encroaching upon him. Flanking the enemy.

  "Lachlan, do you really think that you would be behaving this way if you cared nothing for this girl? Your orders have been harsh, your punishments for disobedience near cruel. You find fault in everything, unable to take any pleasure in what you do."

  Claiming a history with him that Tomas could not, Finlay stepped fully into the room and began to approach him. As if it were the slowest foot race in history, Finn overtook Tomas in his progression across the room.

  "Ever since you joined the militia, Brother, all you could ever tell me was how much pride you took in your career. The honor there was in holding a position of authority and performing its duties with chivalry. Is that what you've been doing these last few weeks?"

  Lachlan felt his jaw click out of place, he was clenching his teeth so hard. He was looking between his brothers, no longer pretending to be preoccupied with offhanded tasks. His muscles were tense, like he was spoiling for a fight. And yet, he would never strike his brothers. And they would never hit him. So, why was he reacting as if he were being threatened?

  When he couldn't seem to respond, Tomas took up the gauntlet.

  "Look, Brother...you are the strongest man that either of us know. And while we understand that you might never admit it aloud, you'll lose no respect from us to accept that perhaps you now have a second love in your life." Tomas shrugged, as if the entire situation was of little consequence to him. But the burning in his eyes betrayed him. "But you will lose our respect—not to mention that of your men—if you cannot be aware of your own weaknesses and adjust your behavior to suit. You are not currently the captain that deserves to lead these men."

  "Are you challenging me?" Lachlan demanded.

  Tomas's eyes sprung wide.

  "No! Do I look like the kind of person who should be making important choices? I'm just saying that we care about you, Brother. And if you aren't willing to open your eyes to what is happening to you, then we have to try to."

  "Go and find her," Finlay suggested, snapping Lachlan's attention in his direction again. "It's been only a few weeks, and she had no money, right?" He glanced at Tomas for confirmation. Tomas nodded. "Right. She had no money; she took nothing with her. By Tomas's description of her, she could hardly be difficult to recognize or remember. You could track her down in no time. All you have to do is try."

  "Try to what, exactly?" Lachlan grumbled. His hands had twisted into fists, and his shoulders had become tense. No matter the softness of their suggestions or the care that was put into their words, Lachlan still felt as if he were about to walk into the field of battle. Why did he feel so on edge? Why did he feel under attack from those he would trust with his life?

  "To admit your feelings," Tomas answered with a smirk that did little to calm Lachlan's irritation. "Or to accept a life without her and go back to the Lachlan we know you actually are."

  No one spoke after that. There didn't seem to be much else that either of them felt ready to say, and Lachlan was too nonplussed to retort.

  The only clear answer that he had swimming around and again in his head was that things could not continue like this.

  He could not continue to go to bed each night feeling hollow and wondering where the other part of him had disappeared to.

  Despite the springtime month, Aoide was hot. She was bent at the waist, hip-deep in a wild field that needed clearing. With the land left to grow feral and sink into disrepair, it was hard work to cut back at the ever-encroaching nature. Yet, she had not turned down the work when it had been offered. A solid day's work ensured her a bowl of hot stew and the comfort of the farmer's barn loft each night.

  Not to mention the additional benefit of keeping her mind and hands busy all waking hours of the day.

  She worked with determination. The long grass resisted against the blade, her wrist ached with the additional swing she had to employ to cut on through. She momentarily considered the sharpening stone she had back near the barn, but she had progressed so far across the field today that it would be a significant walk back. She was hot, she was sweaty. She had rolled up the sleeves of her green dress and tied the skirts about her legs. Her hair was bound up on top of her head with her scarf to keep her neck bare and cool. And yet, she still would not submit.

  Pausing to catch her breath, Aoide reached a thin arm to wipe across her forehead. Her wrist came back sticky and damp, and she licked at chapped and painful lips. The cold of the air and the heat of the work was turning her insides into a confusing assault on the senses. One moment her lungs ached for any sort of warmth, and the next, her stomach rebelled against the heat, searching for a deep draw of cool. She felt nauseous, emotional, and too tired to do anything more than clamp down on her heart's wanderings. Now ten miles from the Mackensie military, Aoide had worked her mind as hard as her body for the last week under Farmer Harold's employ. As her back hurt at the end of each day, so too did her heart. For every moment that she lamented the heat or rejected the cold, she was forced to bury a memory or a thought. Always of the same person. Always of the same face.

  And sometimes, when she wasn't wholly paying attention, and her traitorous heart decided that she'd not felt enough pain for one day, those all-too-familiar words came back to haunt her...

  No... did the honorable thing...

  Enraged by just the echo of the words, even as they had paled and lost shape and form in her head, Aoide attacked at the grass once more, narrowly missing slicing through her own leg with a clumsy sweep. Stopping to assess the little hole in her skirts with a boiling sense of injustice, something had Aoide looking up.

  She had no idea what had prompted it, what that nudge at the corner of her peripheral vision had been. She had simply looked up.

  Across the unruly long grass, several fallen trees and the remainder of what had once been a wooden perimeter fence was the main road. And, along it, rode a man on a white horse—a giant of a man.

  There was a soft noise as the sickle in her hand fell from her limp fingers. The grass was so sturdy, it held the weapon in a nest of fallen strands, not letting it sink all the way to the ground. Aoide didn't not
ice.

  Despite every instinct within her encouraging her body forwards, forcing her to walk, if not run, towards the roadside, Aoide remained rooted in place. She could do no more than lean, as she sought to watch him ride by. Straight across from her was a fallen sapling, blocking her view. She could not tell if the captain had ridden on by, unnoticing of her presence, or if he might have stopped.

  If he had stopped, would it matter?

  Her conscience poked at the holes in her heart.

  You were the one to walk away. You were the one to deny yourself a future with him.

  It didn't matter that every day that had passed by, she had regretted that choice, chastised herself for being an emotional child, and throwing away what could have been a happy life for herself. As the weeks had gone by, doubt had stolen in further, convincing her that she could have made Lachlan happy; that it didn't matter if their union came initially from honorable intentions. Her love could have been enough. It could have given them both a happy world that her own, selfish stupidity had denied them both.

  Then there were the other days, when her generous spirit had spoken up, defended her for choosing her own path, commended her for not forcing Lachlan to follow through with his sense of duty. She loved him. She had not wanted to condemn him to married life with a woman he could not offer those same feelings to—all for the sake of her reputation. She would not do it.

  In those moments, when an aching pain of need had caught through her and her heart had swelled with a love that was all the stronger for never being fulfilled, Aoide had thought about her mother. She had wondered if this was the reason that Fanny had run after being together with that man. If she had known that he lusted for her but did not love her as she had loved him. If she had been attempting to offer him a life free of obligation.

  Or perhaps she had just been scared—a coward. Like Aoide had been.

  The heavy shift and crunch of large boots broke through Aoide's inner turmoil. Her eyes were wide, her mouth dry, her heart hammered against her ribs. As if by some strange mythical spell, the face and body that she remembered so well came around the fallen carcass of the young elm. Avoiding the clambering branches reaching out like fingers to snag at his clothes, Lachlan waded through the grass with more skill than she, his long legs seeing him through easily. He didn't even look where he was placing his feet. He stared only at her.

  Unable to look away, Aoide held her breath as he came to stand before her, his expression more twisted with feeling than she had ever seen it.

  In fact, his features were so burdened with emotion that it was hard for her to tell which was his dominant drive.

  Pain, relief, confusion, uncertainty, determination, lust...

  In trying to name them all, Aoide was forced to admit that she had no real understanding of what Lachlan was feeling, nor why he was here. Yet, she also couldn't seem to make her tongue work.

  "W-Wha?"

  "What am I doing here?"

  His voice was exactly as she recalled: gravelly and so deep that it soaked into her skin and warmed her from the inside.

  Unable to do anything but nod, Aoide swallowed and blinked, fearful that the mirage might disappear between her lashes.

  He was still there.

  "I'm here because you are here," he told her. His hands rose as if to touch her but then he stilled, not able to bridge the gap between palm and skin. Aoide felt her heart ache. "And...I need to be where you are."

  It was clear that the admittance had been a hard one for him, his lips struggling to form the words, his chest tight with feeling. It only convinced Aoide all the more that his words were true.

  "You mean, here?"

  "Here. Back at camp. In a tent. In Scone." Lachlan's lips started to curl into what might have been a smile. "On the top of a mountain, on a deserted island, in a cave beneath the sea It doesn't matter. I need to be where you are."

  "To do the honorable thing?"

  A flash of realization crossed Lachlan's features.

  "Marrying you is the honorable thing," he told her, a trickle of worry trembling through her heart. Lachlan's fingers came down to touch beneath her chin and lifted it to meet his stare. "But it is also the necessary thing. I need to marry you, Aoide. Just as I need to love you."

  "You...you love me?"

  "I do. With every honorable, angry, compassionate, and secret part of me."

  It was too much. It was impossible for a single person to contain so much happiness within them. Aoide felt as if she should be shining from within, glowing through her skin or soaring into the sky with the ability of flight.

  "I left because I thought you did not love me," she admitted.

  "I know." Lachlan leaned in closer, his eyes falling to her mouth.

  "I did not tell you why I ran."

  "No, you did not," Lachlan chided without any sense of anger. He was too busy leaning in, ready to claim her lips with his.

  "And yet you came. You came for me."

  He had ridden to her, found her, and asked her again to be his wife despite any and all doubts that might have plagued him over why she had left.

  "I did." His lips brushed hers in a begging plea to forget the words and only focus on the loving.

  "Thank you," she said.

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  Afterword

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  Unbroken Highland Spirits

  Book #1

  Highlander’s Sacrifice

  Book #2 (This book)

  Highlander’s Rage

  Chapter 1

  Merith felt her body jolt slightly as the carriage hit another dip in the road. The muscles in the small of her back held tight, and her hands gripped the seat on either side of her knees. She smiled in a moment of excitement, relishing the limited time she had left outside of her father's home. Her amusement dwindled, however, when she caught sight of sweet Ilya pressing a handkerchief to her mouth.

  "Are you well, Ilya?" Merith asked before she could calm her tongue. She immediately chastised herself for being a fool, as Ilya had always traveled ill. A woman more confident on her own two feet than being dragged behind a set of horses, Ilya’s skin took on a grey and eerie pallor whenever she was forced to ride within a cart or carriage. Merith had known this since she was a child. Yet, her natural compassion for the older woman had not seen her question restrained.

  Ilya seemed to recognize this, her eyes doting above a strained smile. She drew back the lace to speak.

  "Quite, mistress," she assured the girl. Her expression was grace itself, her voice one of a calm disposition.

  Regardless of age, Ilya was Merith's servant, and it had never seemed odd to them that the wiser of both was the one to bow her head.

  "But perhaps you would care to distract me?" Ilya suggested.

  Smiling brightly, Merith drew her focus away from the open view of the grasslands outside and turned a caring look upon her maid. She reached forward to take Ilya’s hand in her o
wn, the lace pressed between their joined palms.

  “I shall do what I can,” she vowed to the woman. “Pray, tell me.”

  As the woman asked for stories and tales, Merith was unsure how much of the request was for her servant's sake and how much was for her own. Ilya might have been feeling ill and truly wish for the preoccupation of her thoughts, the diversion of far-off tales. But the lady's maid was also highly skilled at tricking Merith into actions that benefited herself under the excuse of her maid’s desires. Merith knew herself to be a little lost when it came to self-care, and Ilya was talented in using her natural compassion to serve Merith’s favor when her own natural disposition would not.

  Not clever enough to decide whether her closest friend and surrogate aunt was now playing one of her smart little tricks or not, Merith capitulated to the request all the same. Concentrating for a moment, she closed her eyes and drew to mind the stories her mother had once told her at her bedside. She saw the gossamer shapes of ladies and princesses, the flash of steely heroics, and the bright and charming smile of saviors in armor.

  The bedtime stories of her infancy had stayed with her throughout the years and now sat sweetly in her memories. They grew there, lush in the fertile soil of her imagination. They claimed texture and dynamism, complexity and tone. With each retelling, they grew in maturity as she did, her passion for stories and the simplicity of the fictional world, rendering them more polished with every incarnation. When she opened her eyes again, Merith’s lips were forming the beginning of one of her favorite tales, her hands carving images in the air.