Текст книги "Only With A Highlander"

Matt separated a thick lock of Winter’s hair and started brushing it out, working his way up from the end. “As a bairn, the boy didn’t think it strange that they lived so far from the village, or that he never got to play with other lads. Nay,” Matt said, his voice lowering, “he was quite content to run through the forest with his brother as they fought mock battles with their wooden swords. The boy was too young and carefree at first to even wonder why he’d been told to avoid people and never form bonds with anyone other than his brother and sister.”

Winter wanted to speak, to ask why, but a lump had started to grow in her throat.

“It wasn’t until the boy began to feel the first stirring of manhood that he questioned his papa’s refusal to let him train to be a warrior with the other lads in the nearby village.” Matt stopped brushing.

“Each day he grew more determined to be a warrior, getting into shouting matches with his papa that made his mama cry, his sister cower in the corner, and his younger brother hide in the woods.”

Winter felt Matt pick up another knot of hair, and he again started gently brushing out the tangles. “By his sixteenth birthday he’d had enough. He ran away from home to the shouts of his angry papa and the desperate sobs of his mama. He ran as hard and as far as he could, traveling on foot for days, until he reached the sea and couldn’t go any farther. There, wandering up the coastline, he found a village of hardworking but poor sheep farmers. One of the families took him in despite their poverty, and by day he worked tending their sheep and by night he trained with a group of old warriors who were desperate to protect what little their village had from reaving neighbors.”

Matt stopped brushing again, and Winter felt him ball his hands into fists in her hair. “The boy couldn’t understand why his parents had been so against him having anything to do with people. The village that had taken him in was populated by good folks. Generous and kind people.” He started brushing again. “He lived with them for ten years, quite content with the new life he’d made, until one moonless night an army of thieving marauders sailed up the coast and landed on the village beach.”

Winter stiffened, her fingers laced tightly together on her lap as she stared at the glowing wall in front of her.

“The villagers didn’t stand a chance. Some were slaughtered in their beds, some burned alive trying to escape their homes. Women were raped and killed, the men mutilated before they were executed. Children were chased down and run through with swords, except for bairns under the age of three, who were stolen. Even the sheep were slaughtered, only their hides taken. Wheat fields were burned, wells salted. By daybreak the destruction was complete.”

“A-and the boy?” Winter whispered in frozen horror, not even able to wipe the tears running down her cheeks.

Matt’s hands tightened on her hair. “The boy was a twenty-six-year-old man then, lass, who had grown into a mighty warrior. He killed over thirty of the murdering bastards with his sword, and at least ten with his bare hands when his weapon snapped, before he was finally brought down by a blow that sliced him nearly in half.”

“H-he died?”

The hands on her hair, trembling now, slowly began brushing again. “He should have,” Matt whispered. “The wound was mortal. But he lay with his blood seeping into the ashes of the wheat field and watched the burning village below while waiting for death to take him. But it never came. The sun rose and he still lived. It set again that night, and he still lay in a pool of his own blood, still waiting for death as he breathed the stench of slaughtered animals and people mingled with burnt flesh.

“Shh,” Matt whispered, reaching around Winter and enveloping her into a tender embrace as he pressed the side of his face to hers. “Don’t cry, lass,” he said, his arms tightening. “The young warrior lives. By the next morning he’s able to stand, and he binds his wound and sets out on the long and arduous journey back to his parents’ home.”

He used his thumbs to wipe her tears away, then started brushing her hair again. Most of the tangles were gone, and Matt brushed in long strokes as he ran his free hand under her hair. “He nearly didn’t recognize his old cottage,” he continued, his voice as soothing as his gentle strokes. “It was in a state of disrepair and didn’t seem to have anyone living in it. But he did find two graves out back, with the names of his mama and sister carved on two crooked crosses. His mama had died four years earlier, the cross read, his sister just three months before he’d returned. There was another board propped against his sister’s cross, with the name Kyle carved into it, along with the age of three weeks and two days.”

Matt stopped brushing, circled Winter’s neck with his hand, and soothingly rubbed his thumb over her pulse when she tried to stifle a sob. Winter didn’t know how much more she could take, yet she held herself perfectly still, afraid he would stop telling his story.

“The warrior searched the cottage for any signs that would tell him what had happened to his papa and brother,” he continued as he started brushing again. “The place was a mess. Dishes were broken and grain spilled on the floor, but he could tell it had been from neglect, not thieves. Cobwebs covered everything, so he knew no one had been home for months. Possibly not since his sister’s death.

“Then he remembered the cave farther up the mountain, about a mile away. It was where he had often found his papa when the old man would go missing for days at a time. The warrior went to the cave, and there was his papa—drunk, half blind, dirty and smelly, and raving mad. The warrior tried to get him to come home, but his papa—not even recognizing his own son at first—refused. So they lived in the cave for nearly a month together while the warrior healed and the old man continued to tell his crazy, fantastical stories.”

“W-what kind of fantastical stories?” Winter whispered.

Matt gave her hair a soft tug. “Be patient, lass.” Instead of the brush, he started running his fingers through her curls. “The warrior did learn what had happened to his brother,” he continued. “Not a year after he had left home, his younger brother had also left in a fit of anger. He’d gone in search of another clan to live with, since everyone in the nearby village considered the whole family odd and shunned them.”

“He could do that?” Winter asked, trying to turn to look at Matt. “He could just go join another clan?”

Matt held her hair to keep her facing forward. “It wasn’t uncommon to move between clans back then. Remember, this was very long ago, Winter. Long before even your papa’s time. So,” Matt continued. “Our young warrior stayed with his father until the old man simply didn’t wake up one morning. He buried his papa next to his mother and sister and nephew, then burned their old cottage and raked the ground clean until no evidence remained that it had ever existed. He even disguised the graves before he set off to find the only remaining member of his family.”

“But why burn the house and disguise the graves? What was he hiding?”

“His heritage,” Matt said simply. He pulled her back into his embrace, leaning against the wall and folding his arms over hers just under her breasts as he stretched his legs along either side of hers. He used his chin to urge her to lay her head back against him, then continued.

“You see, the old man’s ravings finally made sense to the warrior after hearing them over and over for weeks. It seems his papa was the son of a drùidhwho had married a guardian.”

Winter gasped, and Matt held her tightly when she tried to sit up. “Aye,” he said before she could speak. “My grandparents had been destined to serve Providence, but they chose love instead. So they married and lived in the same cave my papa had died in,” he continued, relaxing his grip when he realized she was staying still. “My drùidhgrandfather’s powers were lost with my papa’s birth, and wouldn’t appear again until the next generation, in me.”

“But Robbie had a baby and didn’t lose his powers,” Winter quietly pointed out.

“It’s not the same for guardians. Guardians live a normal human’s lifetime, then move on to become mere helpers. MacBain’s pet owl, Mary, is an example of this. She was Robbie’s mother, and can help him in his guardian duties, but she can’t actually affect the physical world.”

“You know about Mary?” Winter whispered.

“Aye. We’ve met, mostly eight hundred years ago, when she was trying to help MacBain steal my tree.”

Winter stiffened, and Matt tightened his embrace and kissed the top of her head. “He brought back the tap root only because I wanted him to, Winter,” Matt told her. “Because I needed my energy to be brought forward. Along with Kenzie,” he added.

Winter stiffened again. “You said you wanted me to help you kill him,” she whispered, tilting her head back to look up. “I won’t. I can’t.”

Matt used one hand to gently ease her to face forward again. “Do you want to hear the rest of the story, or argue about something you know nothing about?”

She let out a deep sigh. “Continue,” she softly growled.

Matt chuckled and dropped his mouth beside her ear. “So once I had wiped out any trace of my family,” he softly continued, “I pointed myself north and started walking to where my papa believed Kenzie had gone. It took me over three years to reach him,” he said, looking across the cave, seemingly amazed by that fact himself. “I kept getting waylaid by wars,” he explained, his attention coming back to her. “Oh, I forgot to tell you that before my papa died, he told me where my grandfather’s staff was. It was buried deep in the back of the cave he had been living in since he’d buried Fiona’s babe beside her.”

“W-what did her baby die of?”

Matt shrugged, shrugging Winter with him. “Neglect, most likely. My old man didn’t know anything about bairns. And he certainly wouldn’t know he couldn’t feed raw cow’s milk to a newborn.”

“Before he died, did your papa explain why you had to live away from people?” she asked.

“Aye. He kept our whole family isolated in the hopes of protecting me from my destiny. He knew that if I took up my calling to become a drùidh,bonding with people would cause me to grow bitter as everyone I cared for died but I kept on living. It’s what his own parents had told him would happen, and that he should discourage me from taking that path.”

Winter frowned at the opposite wall. “But you did take it. You became a drùidh.”

His arms tightened again. “Aye. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Daar told me we all have a choice. That we have free will to follow either Providence or our own path. Your grandparents chose their own path, so why didn’t you have the same choice?”

“Are you going to let me finish my story?” he growled.

Winter snapped her mouth shut.

“I finally found Kenzie after three years of hunting for him, but I was nearly too late. He was in the midst of a raging battle between two powerful clans, and his clan was being slaughtered. I almost didn

’t recognize him, since Kenzie had only been thirteen when I’d run away from home. And when I did finally fight my way through the battle to reach him, he was covered in blood. My first hope was that the blood belonged to his enemy and he was only stunned by the blow I’d seen him take.” Matt’s arms squeezed her tightly. “But Kenzie was mortally wounded, his guts spilling from a gaping hole in his belly.”

“But you saved him,” Winter whispered.

“Nay, not me. Providence saved Kenzie’s life.”

“P-Providence?”

“Aye. My calling as both a drùidhand a guardian became quite clear to me in that one horrific moment. As a warrior I could take revenge for Kenzie’s death, but I couldn’t keep him from dying. As a mere mortal, I could do nothing. But as a drùidh,I could summon the energies of the entire universe and command them to save the only person left in the world that I cared about.”

“So you accepted your calling in order to save Kenzie.”

“Aye. But drùidhsmay not play God, and as a guardian I could not impose my will—no matter how powerful—on another soul without there being consequences. So I made a pact that day, not with the devil but with Providence, that I would accept my calling if Kenzie was allowed to live.” He pulled her deeper into his embrace. “Do you realize what my decision meant, lass? I didn’t save Kenzie; I damned him instead. And myself.”

She frowned at the far wall. “By making him a panther?”

“That’s the consequence that proves we should be careful what we ask for. I was so desperate not to lose him, I didn’t care that Kenzie couldn’t live as a human. All I cared was that his soul would remain on earth with me, even as an animal.”

“But Gesader—Kenzie was only a cub when I got him.”

“Animals have very short life spans compared to humans. In trying to save my brother, I ended up forcing him to live many lifetimes as different animals. No soul is allowed to repeat its same life; Kenzie had to die a man on the battlefield that day and return as something else.”

“But why an animal?” Winter asked, again trying to turn to see Matt, and again Matt not letting her. So she settled back down and continued staring forward. “Why not let him come back as another person?”

“Then he wouldn’t be Kenzie. He’d be someone I wouldn’t recognize, and who wouldn’t know me. Our bodies die, Winter, but not our souls. So he couldn’t come back as himself—he had already been Kenzie Gregor.”

Winter pulled in a heavy breath and let out a frustrated sigh. “So Kenzie has been a different animal, living and dying over and over, since you found him?”

“Aye.”

Before Matt realized what she was about, Winter turned in his arms and looked up to find his face paled to ashen gray and his eyes dark with pain. “You said you want me to help you kill him,” she whispered. “Why?”

“Because he’s asked me to,” he told her just as softly, smoothing her hair off her face. He held her head in his hands. “In the beginning, Kenzie was happy to be alive and reunited with me. Even though he first returned as a young colt, he was still himself, and we shared many wonderful years together getting to know each other all over again. But the colt grew into a horse, then an old horse, and he eventually died. Next, Kenzie returned to me as a puppy. It’s a cycle that’s repeated itself for a thousand years, and my brother is tired of it. He wishes to die only once more, and he wishes to be a man when he does.”

“So—so how do I fit in this story?”

Matt ran his fingers through her hair, gripping the bulk of it in his fists at the back of her head. “I

’m needing your magic to make that happen, Winter. I’ve used up most of my own trying to reach this point. Now you must help me let him die.”

“But will he…will he be Kenzie? You said he wants to die a man, but that a soul can’t repeat its life.”

“I don’t know,” Matt whispered, pulling her head down to his chest so she couldn’t look at him anymore. “I have hopes he’ll still be Kenzie. My gut says that your magic is powerful enough to let him finish his original life from where he’d left off on the battlefield; that he’ll grow old until he dies a natural death here in this century, with me.”

Winter closed her eyes, listening to Matt’s pounding heart as she mulled over what he’d told her. She suddenly sat up. “You’re going to die in this century?” she repeated. “But you’re younger than Daar.”

He shook his head, his eyes darkening to unreadable depths. “I’ve manipulated the energies so badly trying to grant Kenzie his final wish, that I’m afraid I’ve damned us all.” He captured her hair in his fists again and held her looking at him. “Including you, Winter. I committed the same sin against you as I did against Kenzie a thousand years ago, when I got you pregnant last night.”

“Pregnant!” she gasped, rearing back.

But Matt’s grip on her hair kept her from moving very far. “Aye. And in doing so, I’ve done the unforgivable. Just like I did with my brother, I’ve taken away your right to choose your own destiny.

Having our child means you can’t stay a drùidh,Winter, and that I will also lose my powers.” He pulled her forward, kissed her forehead, then held his lips against her skin as he spoke. “But it’s my sin, and I’ll be the one to pay for it. We’ll find a chapel in Las Vegas to make you feel married, we’ll build our home here, and raise our child together while we wait for the end to come.”

Well, saints and curses. Just what she wanted. A divested drùidhwho was marrying her out of duty, willing to live with her while they patiently waited for the world to end.

“Hey,” she said, pulling away enough to glare at him. “If you took away my powers by making me pregnant, how can I help Kenzie?”

Matt shook his head. “We won’t lose our powers until our babe takes its first breath. In olden days, more bairns died in the womb than were born, so our power is not lost until the child has a chance of living. Providence is very practical; it won’t close a door without opening a window first, and it won’t chance losing a drùidhunless another one is certain to replace it.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead.

“Remember, there’s also the possibility a drùidhwill turn away from his calling, so Providence keeps its options open. You still have time to help me help Kenzie.”

“You make it sound as if Providence is only in the business of making wizards!” she snapped, smacking him in the chest and scrambling to her feet before he could catch her. She pointed at the cave entrance. “Go away,” she whispered. “Go see if your brother fell in the lake in a drunken stupor and drowned.” She took a step closer. “What is he drunk on?”

Matt sat on the floor, looking up at her. “Catnip.”

She spun around to face the opposite wall. “Go away,” she whispered again, hugging herself.

He said nothing for the longest time before Winter finally heard him stand up, and when he next spoke his voice came from the entrance. “We need to leave for Utah tomorrow morning. You can tell your parents you’ll be back the morning after tomorrow, if you wish to let them know.”

She said nothing, and Matt—or Cùram de Gairn or whoever the heck he was—quietly walked out of the cave.

Chapter Nineteen