Page 42 of Queen of the Shadow

Scáthach was happily sipping from the skin as the cart trotted around the bend that revealed the Rubha Shlèite. She didn’t see Cuchulainn, but Leannan was gamboling among the flat, golden rocks that ringed the beach as she chased brown crabs.

Scáthach hobbled the horses on the grass-covered hill above the beach so they could rest and graze and then, taking the skin of mead with her, picked her way down to the white sand. Cuchulainn had put his clothes on one of the big flat rocks near the water and Scáthach headed there, taking off her leather boots and the soft leather pants she often wore, leaving on only her linen tunic dyed a vibrant red that reached to her mid-thighs.

The sun, a blazing ball of gold, was beginning to descend toward the sea. Scáthach shaded her eyes with her hand as she tried to spot Cuchulainn. Not seeing him, she walked to the waterline. Leannan rushed up to her, barking and spraying sand and saltwater in welcome. Becoming concerned about Cuchulainn, Scáthach quieted her.

“I will be very angry with him if his boon drowned him,” Scáthach grumbled. She glanced at her dog. Leannan’s tongue lolled a doggy grin at her before she took off after another seabird. “Surely were Cuchulainn in trouble, Leannan wouldn’t be acting as if all is well,” Scáthach mused as she tried to decide if she needed to worry or not.

She shifted her gaze to the water in time to see Cuchulainn erupt from the surface as if he were an arrow shot from a watery bow. He swam toward the shore, slicing through the turquoise water with a swiftness Tabiti would be proud of, standing when he reached the shallows. He flung back his wet hair and laughed. His gaze went first to Leannan, who barked furiously at the seabird diving at her, and then, as if Scáthach called his name, his eyes found her—they were light topaz, shining with joy. His grin was radiant, and he waved as he plowed through the water toward shore.

Scáthach smiled and returned his wave. She watched him stride through the shallows, appreciating how the sunlight caressed his smooth skin, gilding it with gold. He was naked. Gold illuminated every long, thick muscle, every chiseled plane, the broadness of his shoulders and the length of his legs. He was too beautiful to be fully mortal.

Suddenly very thirsty, Scáthach took a long drink of mead.

Cuchulainn stopped a few yards from the beach. The water was just a little below his waist. “Did you get the mead?” he asked as he cleared his ears like Tabiti had taught him.

Scáthach lifted the waterskin and grinned.

His brows rose in appreciation, and he held his hands out. “Enough for two?”

“More than.” She capped the skin and tossed it to him.

Cuchulainn took a sip. He smiled at her in delight before taking several long drinks. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That is the best mead I’ve ever tasted.” He tossed the skin back to her.

Scáthach caught it easily. “Exactly why I make this trip every summer. Imagine how delicious it will be after it’s cooled in the Dunscáith sea cave.”

“I hope I don’t have to imagine,” he said. Then he made an expansive gesture at the sparkling sea around him. “It feels so good on a hot day. Did you know that here even the floor of the sea is sand?” He shook his head as if in amazement. Through the crystal water she could see him wriggling his toes. “Much softer on the feet than the rocky beach around the castle.” He flashed a grin at her. “Come swim with me.”

“Haven’t you had enough swimming?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever have enough swimming—not on a day like this.”

He threw his arms wide and tossed his head back. Scáthach thought he looked more sun god than mortal man.

“I think I’ll stay here at the waterline. We need to be heading back soon if we’re to make the castle by the evening meal. By now the Shadow Guard will all have heard I’ve gone to fetch the mead from Lileas and they will be watching eagerly for our return.”

“Stay at the waterline? The Queen of Shadow? How can that be?” Cuchulainn asked the questions in a sweet, innocent voice, and at the same time he bent, fisted his hand, squeezed, and shot a stream of water at Scáthach, hitting her forehead.

She sputtered and shook her head, wiping saltwater from her eyes as Cuchulainn laughed and laughed and—

With one swift movement Scáthach dropped the capped waterskin, pulled off her short tunic, and sprinted into the water, bumping the still-laughing warrior with her shoulder and knocking him backward onto his butt as she ran past him. She shouted, “Race you to the rocky point and back!” before she dove into the sea.

He was up and after her in an instant. Scáthach didn’t look back at him. She didn’t have to. She had been at home in the sea since she was five, and her strokes knifed the water silently and powerfully. Cuchulainn was a strong swimmer. He was also a very loud swimmer. She knew exactly how far behind he was.

She kept a body length ahead of him until the rocky point became visible. It was then the first dorsal fin and boney scutes appeared beside her. Suppressing a grin, Scáthach slowed, allowing Cuchulainn to catch her. He’d just glanced sideways at her between strokes, his eyes glittering with his victory, when one of the sturgeons—body as large as the warrior’s—circled them, passing close enough to Cuchulainn that it scraped against his side.

“Lugh’s balls!” Cuchulainn cried out. Treading water, he looked frantically around them, eyes widening at the swarm of huge fish that escorted Scáthach as she reached the rock, turned, and raced back toward the shore. “Sturgeons! Of course!”

From behind her Scáthach heard Cuchulainn’s exclamation, and then he noisily swam after her, attempting to close the gap between them again. He could not. Even had Scáthach not been surrounded by enormous fish, Cuchulainn did not move in the water as she did—as if it were her home—as if she’d grown up swimming in the slate sea that surrounded Skye for most of her life.

She reached the shallows so far ahead of Cuchulainn that she had time to caress the sturgeons, thanking them for their escort as they wriggled happily around her before she sloughed from the water and jogged to her discarded clothes. She was smiling and drying herself with her tunic when Cuchulainn finally emerged, coughing and shaking his head like Leannan, who lay on a rock near Scáthach, tail thumping happily as she chewed a water-whitened stick.

Cuchulainn grabbed the short blanket and wrapped it around his waist as he joined her at the rock. He smiled wryly. “I believe you cheated.”

“Ha!” she said before she pulled on her damp tunic, took a long drink of mead from the waterskin, and then handed it to him. “I swam to the rocky point and back faster than you. How is that cheating?”

“You called your sea monsters!” He flung a hand seaward at the dorsal fins that glistened silver as they sliced the water heading out to sea.

Scáthach shrugged. “I didn’t call them. And even had I called them, they don’t make me swim any faster.” She raised one tawny brow. “Oh, did theyfrightenyou?” She clutched her throat dramatically. “I certainly never expected that. Did they throw off your swimming strokes? Slow you? If so, I must apologize, though I really do expect my students to be prepared for anything, including swimming with a few fish.”