“He had two blades,” Keenan said (29 page)

Keenan’s arm extended past her to point at a flat rock on the other side of the pool. “There, the rock bakes with the sun in the summer. A perfect place for a nap.” He kissed her ear lightly causing Serena to tilt her head at the ticklish sensations. “Secluded, warm, rushing water to hide yer lusty screams.”

She twisted again to look at him. “My lusty screams? I remember some ferocious roars that left my ears ringing,” she teased back but her fierce blush didn’t back up her boldness.

Keenan laughed out loud. “Aye, ye bring it out of me, lass,” he said kissing her upturned mouth. He turned her slowly in his arms without breaking contact. After a few minutes he broke the kiss and looked at her.

Serena saw joy lurking in his eyes, joy to match her own. Over the last four days, she had watched Keenan transform as they loved one another thoroughly through their journey. Serena had kissed out every last bit of sadness and hopelessness she had seen before in him. In their place she now found an easy laughter and genuine smile that crinkled the little lines at the corner of his gray eyes. They were beautiful eyes, sparked with life. She stared into them and smiled.

“What goes through yer beautiful head, lass?”

“I hope our children have your eyes.”

For a moment, Keenan’s teasing smile faltered, and a slow one of warmth and contentedness replaced it. He spoke low and cupped her cheek with his palm. “Our children will be beautiful.” He kissed her lightly and pulled back. “Our sons will have my strength and cunning.” Serena laughed at his boast. “Our daughters will have yer beauty.”

“And perhaps my magic?”

Keenan frowned briefly before nodding. “Aye, if they do ye will teach them to protect themselves. To use it for good and to not let it rule their lives. “

Serena’s eyes blurred a bit with her tears as she smiled up at Keenan. Here was the man who accepted her for all that she was. Even when they were surrounded by intrigue in the middle of English court, he never asked her to use her powers to discover plots or make mischief to better himself. He’d never tried to manipulate her or anyone else. In fact, he’d never once asked her to read anyone, only to alert them to danger. Keenan Maclean was a good man, the man she loved with all her being.

Keenan dismounted and lifted her to the ground. He pulled the blanket from the rolled pallet and spread it for them to eat their evening meal upon. Serena watched the muscles in his back stretch beneath the thin weave of his shirt. She blushed remembering how she had come up behind him to run her tongue between his shoulder blades that morning before they left their latest camp. Her sneak attack had delayed them two more hours. Although, he didn’t seem to mind overmuch.

Serena sighed. Would Kylkern welcome them? What would Keenan say to Lachlan? How should she act? Several times the conversation had come around to their homecoming, for she thought of Kylkern as her home now. Each time the subject came up, silence fell between them. Neither one was willing to break the spell of happiness that had begun in the magical clearing.

As if sensing the change in her mood, or perhaps reading the tone in her sigh, Keenan looked over his shoulder from where he sat on the blanket. He patted the spot near him and leaned back on his wrists as Serena kneeled down in the spot.

“I’ve been thinking, Serena, about where we will live.”

“Not at Kylkern?”

Keenan crossed his ankles in a gesture of ease, but Serena could see a small furrow across his brow. “I was thinking that we might want a bit more privacy.” He smiled wickedly at her, but Serena was not fooled.

“Do you think we won’t be welcome at Kylkern?”

Keenan shrugged slightly, his smile faltering at her words. “It’s a possibility, Serena. The whole clan thinks ye are for Lachlan, except Elenor.”

Somehow the reminder that Keenan’s sweet sister would not hate her and Keenan for wedding, felt like a warm balm through Serena. Serena lowered her voice so that it was almost inaudible over the rush of falling water.

“And do you still believe that I’m meant for Lachlan, Keenan?”

Keenan looked deep into her eyes. She dared not blink for fear of missing some unspoken communication. After a moment, Keenan shook his head slowly. “Nay lass, I feel ye in my bones, Serena.” He touched her cheek lightly while she held her breath. “I burn for ye from my loins all the way to my heart.” He let out a long sigh, as if he’d been holding his breath all his life. “I doona understand the way of the prophecy, but I ken that I would kill Lachlan myself if he were to try and take ye from me now. Tha gaol agam ort, Serena,” he said in thick Gaelic. “I love ye, Serena.”

Serena had felt his love in every caress, every kiss, every touch of her hair, but he had not said the words. Until now. Tears poured as she leaned forward to kiss him.

“I love you too, Keenan.”

Keenan quirked a grin on his face. “So I’ve heard.”

Serena laughed lightly. “Brodick?”

“Aye, and Ewan.”

She blushed. “It’s true,” she said falling forward into him, knowing that he would catch her. After many long kisses, Keenan leaned back on his elbow as they lay before the small fire he had built near the edge of the blanket.

Serena watched Keenan quickly clean and spit another hare for their dinner. Her voice broke the silence. “So we will live outside Kylkern then?”

Keenan glanced at her and then back to the fire as he rigged the hare over it. “There is a vacant cottage on the edge of the village before the castle. It is sound, and I could build onto it.”

Serena felt her pulse pick up speed. “A house? Where I could raise a small vegetable garden?”

He smiled over his shoulder. “If we are welcome at Kylkern, aye, then we will live there. I wouldn’t want to stay in the castle, welcome or not. No privacy and the tension may be tiring until Lachlan gets used to the idea of ye being married to me. It took a lifetime for him to find ye, it may take him the rest of his lifetime to give ye up. I wouldn’t have us live under that.”

Serena turned back around. “I married a wise man.”

Keenan snorted and stood up. “For someone so wise, I’ve never been so unsure of the future in all my life.”

“We’ll figure it out together.” She sighed happily. “And to think, I will have a house, my very own house, without wheels.”

Keenan’s laughter rumbled and he sat back down with her on the blanket.

“I will grow herbs in one section,” Serena grabbed a small stick and knelt at the edge of the blanket to draw in the dirt. “Cabbages too.” Serena talked on of vegetable gardens and little fences and a hearth. The fear that had plagued her turned to excitement as they talked about setting up their home.

Keenan nodded and listened while giving advice. As they laughed and talked of their future, Serena felt such relief. They would be happy, they would live and love one another. As long as they were together, joy would weave itself through each day of her life. Together, they would face the words and thoughts of betrayal. Together they would survive, and love, and live. Together.

Chapter 15

Serena rode her own horse as they skirted the perimeter of Loch Awe. Keenan’s warhorse chomped and stamped, longing for his stable. High above them, Serena heard Chiriklò chirp as his bright blue body darted from one branch to another. Her pet had been absent during most of their journey, only showing up after they left the waterfall. Serena was thankful for his sense of privacy, leaving them truly alone after their wedding. Chiriklò’s bird eye view told her that all four of Keenan’s men had returned to Kylkern earlier that morning. As they neared the village, Serena longed to reach out mentally to them, and to Lachlan, but she forced herself to erect walls.

The wind blew cool as spring’s sun tried to thaw the earth. Sheep called to one another over the fields, and the glassy surface of Loch Awe reflected the waking land. The world hummed, ready to burst with life. Somehow it was oblivious to humanity’s fears, anger, and wars.

Serena had learned about Prince Charles Stuart from Keenan on their journey. Keenan completely supported Scotland in its war for independence, but he despised the prince. Keenan had spent some time with him in France. The Young Pretender, as he was called by loyalists, knew nothing about Scotland and her traditions. He drank hard and wenched hard, sometimes too hard. Keenan had softened the details of one story where he saved a woman from the princes’ drunken wrath. Although charismatic with his men, the young prince knew nothing of war, nothing of strategy. Aye, Keenan would support his brother’s cause out of loyalty to his clan and to Scotland, but he put no faith in the leadership of Prince Charles Stuart.

Before entering the village, Keenan reined in beside Serena, keeping his horse under control with firm but gentle words. He turned to her, his look serious. “Have ye walled yer senses off?” She nodded. “No need to hear the ugliness in peoples’ perceptions. They ken nothing of us, only the prophecy.”

She reached for his fisted hand against his leg. She had put her gloves on as they neared, but she pulled one off so she could feel the warmth of him in the contact.

“Keenan, you have done nothing wrong. Even if I had never met you, I would not marry Lachlan. I love only a man of strength and courage.” Her eyes filled with tears she refused to shed, not now, not when he needed her strength. “No matter what greets us, know that I am only yours.”

He reached back, bringing her knuckles to his lips and kissing them.

“Keenan,” someone from the village yelled. “Keenan’s returned and he’s brought her.”

Keenan dropped her hand, and she pulled on her glove. She nudged her horse up alongside his. They would walk into Kylkern together.

Smiles and greetings surrounded them as they rode to the gates of the castle. Serena didn’t see the four Macleans who’d reached Kylkern before them. She focused ahead as they approached Kylkern Keep, step by step, her horse’s hooves squishing in the mud along the road. Chiriklò landed on the blanket tied behind her, tilting his head this way and that. As before people gathered behind them and whispers of their thoughts seeped through minute cracks in Serena’s walls. None that she could fully hear, it was more like a soft hum, a tone of voice and not the words themselves.

There was unease in the hum of the village, a waiting tension among these good people. But as they stepped from their homes to see their arrival, the tension transmuted into anticipation, an ease to their shoulders and their worries. As if they all took a collective sigh of relief. The happy relief of seeing their leader return, of seeing the witch they thought would lead them to peace.

“Keenan, they do not know yet,” Serena said next to him.

He frowned at her. “Ye’re supposed to be protecting yerself from their thoughts.”

“I am. But I still feel their underlying emotion.”

The wind whipped around Serena’s hair swirling red tendrils up in dance. A murmur rose through the onlookers. She pulled it close to her head, twisting it to behave. The hum of awe and excitement grew. Serena’s stomach flipped about. These people believed in her, believed that she was their savior to bring peace to Kylkern. They were about to learn that she was not living up to their prophecy.

Would it have been easier to feel their disdain from the very start? Serena swallowed hard and tamped her guilt down into the pit of her belly where she resolved to keep it. Keenan didn’t need her guilt on top of his own to bear.

“Ready?” she heard him say as he stared straight ahead, lifting his hand in greeting to the guards along the walkway above them. They stopped before the tall arching gates, the doors open.

“Together, then,” Serena answered, and they nudged their horses forward in unison, under the walkway, under the arch, into the bailey crowded with warriors.

Serena’s eyes scanned the armed men looking for Brodick, Gavin, perhaps William or Elenor. She didn’t see any of them in the gathering. As she continued to look across the faces, it took her a moment to realize what she actually saw. Blood? Dark stains wavered in and out over their cloaks. The tangy stench of sweat and fresh wounds filled her nose. She coughed against it. The piercing caw of carrion crows made her gasp. She tilted her head back to search the blue, empty skies above them. Smoke, she smelled gun smoke.

“Serena?” Keenan said from his horse, reaching his hand out to steady her on her mount.

She looked back out across the men. “What battle has befallen them,” she whispered at the sight of broken and torn limbs, gnarled bones twisted out of their ragged skin. Most of the warriors around her seemed like they should be buried in the ground, not standing before her, hailing Keenan in greeting. They even smiled, their broken faces twisted and pale. Her stomach curled against the sight, and she looked to Keenan. Thankfully he looked normal, but then her powers didn’t work on him. If they did, would he match the others? A shudder rippled through her, and she swayed.

Keenan nudged his horse up alongside her until their horses touched. “What do ye see, Serena?”

“They’re,” she hesitated before looking at him, pleading him with her eyes to believe her. “They look dead, Keenan, most of them anyway. Dead as if slaughtered by sword and shot.”

Keenan’s eyes scanned the crowd. He held his hand up to stop them from advancing around them, giving them a moment.

“All of them?”

His voice held no doubt, no worry about her sanity. He trusted her sight, even though he might not understand it any better than she did. She looked out past him again. For a moment they looked normal, but in a blink, they turned back to grim specters, smashed, bloodied, bashed and crusted with dark blood and smears of battle. Several women were among them. They looked normal, just curious as they watched them. Several older men looked whole and as hardy as they could in their advanced age. Here and there, Serena was able to pick out a man or two that didn’t look to have a fatal wound, only a scratch or two.

“Not all, not the women, nor the old men. Some warriors don’t look dead, just battered.” Serena rubbed her eyes. “Keenan,” she mumbled against her hand. “What am I seeing?”

With powerful arms, he lifted her off her mount in front of him and shouldered through the crowd to the stone steps of Kylkern Keep. “I doona know, lass, but we’ll get ye inside. Try to focus yer power on blocking the images.”

“Make way,” he called out. “Serena feels unwell. Make way.”

He bent to pick her up into his arms.

“Please, Keenan,” Serena said. “Let me walk. I want to walk inside beside you.”

He halted a long moment, and then released her to the stone steps. A warrior stood at the door, holding it open. She knew him from her first visit. Rus was his name, and his wife worked in the kitchens. Serena let her breath out slowly thankful that he looked whole, worried but whole. She smiled timidly at him and he smiled back.

“Welcome back, Milady,” he said bowing slightly. He reached out to help her up the steps.

“Doona touch her,” Keenan’s sharp command was too late as Rus grabbed her arm near her elbow.

As he stood, snatching his hand back, Serena saw the spear tip protruding from his belly, bloodied flesh and muscle caught along the jagged shaft. He warped into a corpse before her eyes, the rancid smell of bile and stomach juices assailed her. She coughed, covering her mouth with her hand and rushed inside. In the darkened entry Serena pressed herself against the cool solid stone wall. Keenan came up before her.

“Rus, too?”

All she could do was nod. Words may have brought up her meal. Serena sucked in shallow breaths.

“Deeper breaths, Serena, or ye will end up heaped on the floor.” She forced herself to slow. “That’s it, one step at a time. Rebuild that wall of yers to keep them out. I willna let anyone touch ye.” He frowned at her. “We need to find a way to strengthen yer defenses.”

“Drakkina said she could show me, teach me,” she said between deep breaths.

“Then we will find her after this mess is cleared up.”

Serena nodded and stepped away from the wall. “I’m ready.”

They walked into the great hall. The fire blazed hot across the room in the hearth. The tapestries, chairs and tables all looked as they had left it. A group of men stood near the far wall under where a sword and shield had hung before. Serena breathed in the warm smell of fresh bread that hung in the air. She closed her eyes and imagined her breath moving down into her. As she exhaled, the breath seeped out of her nose into a long thread of power that wrapped around her in circles from head to toe. She drew deeply on an inner core of strength that stemmed from her stomach. Her dragonfly mark began to warm, branding her with tingling heat, hot but not hot enough to burn.

Opening her eyes, she surveyed the men as they came forward. Serena smiled broadly.

“Brodick, Gavin, so good to see you here,” she said stepping forward as the two men came close. Brodick opened his arms to embrace her as Keenan stepped between them. Serena nearly ran into his broad back.

“She is not well,” Keenan said.

Brodick peered around Keenan. “She looks healthy enough.”

“Aye, she does, but if ye touch her, she may think ye look very unhealthy.”

Brodick frowned in confusion.

“What do ye mean?” Gavin asked.

“Not sure yet,” Keenan said cryptically as he watched Lachlan walk over with Thomas and Ewan. “I’ll explain later, just she shouldn’t be touched right now.”

“It’s good to see ye lass,” Brodick said around Keenan. Gavin also smiled at her.

“Does he know?” Keenan asked before his brother could yet hear them. Thomas talked close to his ear as they walked slowly.

Gavin shook his head. “Nay.”

“Don’t forget me, Keenan. We tell him together remember.”

“I doona remember that part, lass,” he said with a frown. “This is between me and my brother.”

“But I am part of it, part of your prophecy.”

Lachlan had reached them and stopped. Serena turned away from Keenan’s frown to look at his brother. Something was different about the man. True, his hair was still shoulder length brown, his build still tall but not filled out like the warriors around them. But there was an air about him, a confidence that hadn’t been there when they’d left. And something caught her eye, a sword, strapped to his back. That definitely hadn’t been there before.

“Welcome home, Brother,” Lachlan said and clapped Keenan on the shoulder. “I see ye’ve brought the lovely Serena home with ye.” He turned an awkward smile toward Serena, a smile that seemed at odds with the deep furrows of his brow and circles beneath his eyes.

“Aye, I’ve brought Serena. Lachlan, we have much to discuss.”

“Talk fast, we have much to do before we leave on the morrow for Culloden Moor.”

“Culloden?” Serena gasped.

“Ye plan to go to battle, Lachlan?” Keenan’s eyes moved to the sword strapped to Lachlan’s back. “With Da’s sword?”

“Aye, I do,” Lachlan answered and turned bright eyes to Serena. “It’s about time I come out of hiding?” He looked back at Keenan. “And we’ve been called to join the Prince, a final blow to drive those English dogs back down into their country.”

Keenan shook his head the smallest amount. “Lachlan, I’ve seen King George’s plans for Culloden.” Lachlan’s eyes grew round. “We,” Keenan looked first at Serena, and then back to his brother, “saw them at Frampton Manor where George sojourned.”

Lachlan’s face fell into a frown reminding Serena of the man they’d left behind. “Ye were close to him and yet he breathes?”

Keenan ignored his bait. “He has near nine thousand troops moving that way under the Duke of Cumberland. And there are also some Scots that plan to join him in return for their lands.”

Lachlan’s face grew red, mottled. “Baa, bloody bastards! It’s their betrayal that will defeat us.”

Lachlan’s words thundered through Serena’s ears. That he spoke of Scotsmen and not she and Keenan, didn’t matter much. She watched Keenan’s face, but he gave nothing away.

Keenan kept his voice level, unimpassioned. “Even without the Scots, he has nine thousand troops, well trained troops. We are no match to that, Brother.”

“Prince Charles Stuart will outmaneuver Cumberland.”