Page 36 of Highlander’s Protector

The strawberries were sweet and fruity on her tongue, and she wondered how his lips would taste if they wiped the juice away instead of the kerchief.

They kept on riding and talking, exchanging easy jests and stories of the past. She told him about Islay, about the castle, and about the people of her clan. About her aunt Leitis, who’d been like a mother to her.

About how when she’d died during the fifth and final stillbirth, her uncle Aulay had never been the same again.

Neither had Anna.

He told her about the feud between clan Mackenzie and clan Ross, about the battles that Euphemia of Ross had inflicted upon them. About his nephew, Paul, who had been born more than two years past and how, soon after Paul’s birth, after he knew his sister was all right and whole, David had left on his journey.

He didn’t talk about where he was from and only spoke in general about his family, his sister, and that football… Why couldn’t he tell her anything about where he was born and where he grew up?

But she didn’t want to press and question him. This peace and easiness between them, the trust that had grown like a fragile wee flower was too precious. She enjoyed his company, even though there was always that question at the back of her mind…

What was he hiding? Who was he really? Besides the man who had saved her and protected her and made her feel safe…

And alive.

In David’s arms, she felt this burning inside, this lightness, as though a fish’s swim bladder full of warm light had been put inside her stomach, as though she would lift off the ground and float higher and higher into the air like a butterfly.

Part of her dreaded meeting Philip Mowbray—the part that didn’t want to separate from David.

By the evening, they had entered a swampy area. Sickly brown and yellow grass stretched around them like horses’ manes as far as she could see. Several ribbons of smoke curled into the air in the far distance. There must be a village over there. Good. They could go there later to buy some provisions for the road.

They followed a worn path that was partly sunken in gray water. Trees and bushes grew here and there, though they were low, and stretched out along the ground, like the vegetation did on the highest mountains of Islay. A cloud hung above the swamp, and it rained a drizzly, misty fog as she and David struggled their way through.

But at the end of the day, the swamp ended. So did the rain, as though an invisible force had kept it over the swamp.

And when twilight came, they arrived at a strange collection of rocks on a hill, as though a giant had placed boulders the size of two-story houses, and moss and rain had made them sink into the ground. A river flowed nearby in a steady, dirty-green flow, with weeping willows cascading into the water.

Once they got closer, Anna saw they weren’t really random rocks thrown into the ground as though by giants.

It was a ruin. A ruin of what must have been an ancient motte-and-bailey fortress. The broken stones grew from the earth like teeth, ivy and moss covering them like rot. It was quiet here. Birds didn’t sing in the trees; the river didn’t even gurgle. As they rode on, David’s profile darkened, tensed. Did she smell a whiff of lavender?

“’Tis a good place for a rest,” she said as they stopped the horses. It was a secluded space, formed by a half circle of the rocks and earth. “If anyone follows us, they wilna see us easily from the path.”

“Yeah,” David said, his eyes on the collection of rocks by the foot of the earthen slope leading up to the base of what once must have been the fortress. “We’ll stay here.”

As though enchanted, his gaze remained fixed on the rocks. He dismounted and slowly walked there and stood over the rocks, staring.

Anna didn’t like it. Not a wee bit. With an alarm blaring in her chest like a war horn, she descended from her horse. Something about all this was familiar. But what?

Slowly, she walked the soft ground covered with short grass towards David. There were some carvings cut into the surface and a handprint in the rock. It was the same kind of rock that was on Islay, up in the ancient ruins. Everybody stayed away from it. Children were warned not to go anywhere near there because if they angered the faeries, the faeries would kidnap them and they would never return home.

Faeries were, of course, just superstitions, things of myths and legends. All who believed in God knew they were just stories.

Still…she had had that vision of a woman called Sìneag in the oubliette…

And then she knew what was familiar. The very same symbols glowed on the surface of the rock in the oubliette. The very same symbols that were on Islay.

Her memories of Sìneag, and the glowing symbols and how David rescued her were vague. But there was something about him slapping the rock and calling for Sìneag. She had thought this was her imagination, that she’d been sick from being alone and in the cold, damp darkness for so long.

But what if it wasn’t?

“What is this rock?” she asked. “Why are ye looking at it like ’tis going to swallow ye whole?”

He didn’t reply. He reached out to the rock but stopped, his hand an inch away from his body.

Then he dropped his hand and hid it behind his back and stepped away.