Page 4 of Connal

Sea winds whipped around Laird Connal MacMar as he stood on the bay shore of Caladh. Holding the pale, limp woman against him as Merrick waded closer to shore forced him to remain where he was. He wanted to yank off the ring she wore, for it looked exactly like the very same ring he’d thrown off a cliff a year ago after the death of his beloved wife. Had she found the cursed thing? Why had she come to the island? How could she kiss him?

For now, he had to keep her from being taken against her will, or his questions would never be answered.

“She wishes stay with the clan,” he told the Finfolk king.

“I’m no’ deaf, MacMar. She spoke naught of the clan.” Merrick halted, the foam rushing around his webbed feet. As the subtle scales that covered his flesh smoothed into his land skin, his gaze shifted to the woman. “You’ve no’ the belly for dealing with her. I shall take her, and she’ll trouble you no more.”

Connal glanced down at the woman’s golden hair, which even now had begun to curl as it dried. Her delicate features made her appear no older than a girl just reaching maidenhood, and wrought an unwelcome protectiveness from him. He knew the Finfolk prized young, healthy females like her, and especially coveted those with fair coloring close to their own. If he handed her to Merrick he likely would never again see her. The king would give her as a gift to one of his favored men, who would transform her to become his wife and live in their underwater settlement in the bay. As they could only sire males, the Finfolk claimed all females found in the water as their property.

I’ll stay with you, she’d said just before swooning, gratitude and relief in her flowery blue eyes.

“You cannae claim the lady.” Lifting her hand to show Merrick seemed the quickest way to settle the dispute. “She wears Joana’s ring.”

Connal had not spoken his wife’s name since he had watched her kill herself. After returning to Caladh from the mainland, he’d cast her ring into the sea and cursed her and himself a year ago to this very day. Merrick looked for a moment as if he meant to snatch the woman out of his arms, and then shook his head as if disappointed.

“Walk with me on this at dusk,” the Finfolk king said, and before Connal could refuse turned and dove into a wave.

Connal waited until Merrick’s dark shape vanished before he turned and carried the woman toward the cliff steps. It took hardly any effort, for her long, slender body weighed little, and even unconscious she clung to him. As soon as he reached Dun Ard he would hand her off to Fletcher, who would happily tend to her and keep her occupied until the clan could decide what to do with the wench. Then all he had to do was show up at the labyrinth at sunset, and hash out a final agreement to keep her on land.

Yet with each step he took up the steep stairway to the stronghold on the cliff top, Connal’s heart grew heavier. He couldn’t stop staring at the ring she wore, the ring to which she had no right, the ring he had fashioned with his own hands in the clan’s forge for the woman he loved. As the daughter of a rich merchant Joana Arasgain should have expected something grander, made of precious gold and set with a large gem from the mortal realm. Instead she had exclaimed with delight as he had placed it on her finger, the adoration plain in her eyes as she kissed him.

’Tis perfect, my love.

Not even two years later Joana had jumped to her death from the highest cliff at Aberdeen on the mainland, shattering her body on the rocks below before the sea swept her away. Connal had stood helpless at the railing of the ferry boat he’d taken to meet her, shouting her name, for her to stop, and then falling silent as she plummeted to her death. He’d known he could never have reached her in time to stop her, and yet still since endlessly thought of ways with which he might have saved her. Being unaware of how much his wife had come to despise him provided no excuse.

At the top of the steps Nyall and a group of sentinels rushed to intercept him. His captain’s dark eyes shifted over the woman’s face before he reached for her.

“No,” Connal told him, unwilling to give her to his fiercest warrior, who had little patience with females. “I took her from the water. Bring Fletcher.”

Nyall glanced at one of his men, who nodded and ran off into the stronghold. To Connal he said, “She came from the water, my lord? ’Tis more mortals in the bay?”

“Only her.” He grew annoyed that he yet did not know her name, and angry with himself for being curious. “Merrick attempted intervene, and wouldnae settle with me. We walk at dusk.”

The captain’s brows drew together. “Why should you wish keep the woman, my lord?”

Nyall had always been infamous for his utter lack of emotion, but Connal still bristled. “She asked for sanctuary.”

“Fack me.” Shaw, his senior chieftain and younger brother, joined them and glared at the woman, disbelief obvious on his handsome face. The Pritani skinwork on his arm bulged into stranger patterns as he bunched his big hands into fists. “’Tis another wreck?”

Before he could answer Fletcher appeared beside him, nudging the sentinels aside to reach Connal. His sun-streaked mane, standing on end from his nervous habit of dragging his hands through it, flopped down in his golden-brown eyes.

“Give us room, lads. Och, the poor lady’s drenched.” To the maids that followed him he said, “We’ll want her wrapped and by the hearth, lassies. One of you fetch some warming brew.”

As his seneschal reached for the woman Connal had to force himself to release her. “Summon Duncan to attend her. She may have wounds.”

“Aye, lad.” Fletcher cradled her in his arms and tucked his chin over her pale curls as he strode off toward the great hall.

Connal knew the rest of the men were trying not to gape at him and failing. His annoyance deepened as he said to Nyall, “’Tis naught more to do. Go back to your drills, Captain.”

“As you command, my lord.” The tall man’s dark red hair blazed in the sunlight as he bowed and walked away toward the lists, his sentinels following with a few glances back at their laird.

Shaw kept pace with him as Connal entered the stronghold. “I heard what you told that heartless bastart. Why should Merrick wish walk on a woman? Did you snatch her from him? Want you the clan war with the Finfolk?”

As his brother continued to pester him with questions he wasn’t inclined to answer, Connal walked past the arches leading into the hall and mounted the watch tower stairs. Here the torches remained unlit for his benefit, but already his gut knotted tighter with every step he took. If the female had been cast into the sea during a shipwreck he had to know now, but it would cost him.

Walking out to the battlements, Connal stopped short of the edge and peered out at the sea. As long as he didn’t look down his mortal weakness would not immediately paralyze him and render him senseless. Well aware of what it cost him to do such, the guards on duty turned their backs and pretended not to notice him.

Then, as ever when he came to the edge of a high place, the world slowly began to spin.