arm was named “luck.”
“I canna be certain the clan’s difficulties are caused by the Banshee,” he assured the crowd. “Even so, I’m taking measures to be rid of them.”
“Them?” Hugh bellowed. “Ye mean there’s more than one?”
“Aye.” Saoirse swung at Hugh’s burly arm as though she gripped a meat cleaver. “Didn’t ye hear Bridget’s tale when she came into town this morning? She saw them, the Washerwoman sisters, lurking in the ruins with their bedeviled old mother. She barely escaped with her life.”
“That’s not exactly how she told it,” Carraig corrected her. And if he cried an embellishment, then something must be rotten.
“I always thought Elspeth MacKay was a witch,” Saoirse mumbled.
“Yer just sayin’ that because yer husband asked for her hand first, but she refused him for Diarmudh, the braw smithy,” Hugh laughed. “He had to settle for you instead.” His bright orange hair flashed as he ducked her fist again.
“What’s yer plan to fix this, Laird?” Carraig prompted him, a supportive smile on his face. “Ye said ye’d sent for someone?”
Rory loved and resented the kind old fisherman for the devotion and trust he read in his eyes. What if his plan failed? He found himself equally conflicted regarding Katriona and her sisters. They had every right to be what they were, but why did they insist on taking their anger out on their entire clan? What if the bairns started to die of the fever? What kind of woman would allow such a thing?
“I summoned the Druid.”
Rory’s announcement was met with shocked silence.
“Do you think that wise?” Fraser stepped forward. “Shouldn’t you send for a proper cleric to get rid of the Demons?”
Rory bristled a bit at the man’s calling Katriona names. He wasn’t a part of this. He didn’t get a say in how it was handled. And, as soon as he and Kathryn were married on the morn, Fraser would be off toward MacLauchlan country to collect his thousand men.
The betrothal contract between him and Kathryn had been signed after a long discussion and a little more bartering over the dowry. What with the Banshee troubles, Laird Fraser seemed to think that affected the price of grain.
Miserly old bugger.
“They’re not demons,” Rory corrected. “They’re creatures of the Fae now. Souls yet to be laid to rest.”
The tall doors to the hall burst open with all the force of the storm raging outside.
Rory surged to his feet as a timely flash of lightning silhouetted three black shadows against the silver-streaked sky. The most astonishing sight wasn’t the Druid himself but his unlikely companions.
Flanked on either side by a magnificent red stag and a light-footed she-wolf, Daroch MacLeod didn’t just step into the dry, torch-lit hall, he advanced upon it.
As was their custom, many of the five gathered elders of the clan council made various signs of protection against him. Some olde, some new.
A mocking sneer twisted Daroch’s sinister features into something jarring and unseemly.
Unease tightened in Rory’s gut, but he was a desperate man.
“Ye’re all fools if ye think that those signs ye make protect ye from anything.” His words were lent a spectacular darkness by his harsh voice. “Most especially me.”
The silver wolf at his side let out a low, threatening growl.
“MacLeod.” Unwilling to be intimidated, Rory stepped out of his place at the head of the council table by way of greeting.
The Druid’s eyes were an unsettling color, too light to be called brown, too dark to be called green. They were like him, situated in some abandoned, unthinkable in-between. They became lost behind the shocking array of tattoos claiming the left side of his face and reaching across the boundaries of his strong nose and cruel brow as though to portray the inevitability of their accessing his right side eventually.
Rory had only
“I canna be certain the clan’s difficulties are caused by the Banshee,” he assured the crowd. “Even so, I’m taking measures to be rid of them.”
“Them?” Hugh bellowed. “Ye mean there’s more than one?”
“Aye.” Saoirse swung at Hugh’s burly arm as though she gripped a meat cleaver. “Didn’t ye hear Bridget’s tale when she came into town this morning? She saw them, the Washerwoman sisters, lurking in the ruins with their bedeviled old mother. She barely escaped with her life.”
“That’s not exactly how she told it,” Carraig corrected her. And if he cried an embellishment, then something must be rotten.
“I always thought Elspeth MacKay was a witch,” Saoirse mumbled.
“Yer just sayin’ that because yer husband asked for her hand first, but she refused him for Diarmudh, the braw smithy,” Hugh laughed. “He had to settle for you instead.” His bright orange hair flashed as he ducked her fist again.
“What’s yer plan to fix this, Laird?” Carraig prompted him, a supportive smile on his face. “Ye said ye’d sent for someone?”
Rory loved and resented the kind old fisherman for the devotion and trust he read in his eyes. What if his plan failed? He found himself equally conflicted regarding Katriona and her sisters. They had every right to be what they were, but why did they insist on taking their anger out on their entire clan? What if the bairns started to die of the fever? What kind of woman would allow such a thing?
“I summoned the Druid.”
Rory’s announcement was met with shocked silence.
“Do you think that wise?” Fraser stepped forward. “Shouldn’t you send for a proper cleric to get rid of the Demons?”
Rory bristled a bit at the man’s calling Katriona names. He wasn’t a part of this. He didn’t get a say in how it was handled. And, as soon as he and Kathryn were married on the morn, Fraser would be off toward MacLauchlan country to collect his thousand men.
The betrothal contract between him and Kathryn had been signed after a long discussion and a little more bartering over the dowry. What with the Banshee troubles, Laird Fraser seemed to think that affected the price of grain.
Miserly old bugger.
“They’re not demons,” Rory corrected. “They’re creatures of the Fae now. Souls yet to be laid to rest.”
The tall doors to the hall burst open with all the force of the storm raging outside.
Rory surged to his feet as a timely flash of lightning silhouetted three black shadows against the silver-streaked sky. The most astonishing sight wasn’t the Druid himself but his unlikely companions.
Flanked on either side by a magnificent red stag and a light-footed she-wolf, Daroch MacLeod didn’t just step into the dry, torch-lit hall, he advanced upon it.
As was their custom, many of the five gathered elders of the clan council made various signs of protection against him. Some olde, some new.
A mocking sneer twisted Daroch’s sinister features into something jarring and unseemly.
Unease tightened in Rory’s gut, but he was a desperate man.
“Ye’re all fools if ye think that those signs ye make protect ye from anything.” His words were lent a spectacular darkness by his harsh voice. “Most especially me.”
The silver wolf at his side let out a low, threatening growl.
“MacLeod.” Unwilling to be intimidated, Rory stepped out of his place at the head of the council table by way of greeting.
The Druid’s eyes were an unsettling color, too light to be called brown, too dark to be called green. They were like him, situated in some abandoned, unthinkable in-between. They became lost behind the shocking array of tattoos claiming the left side of his face and reaching across the boundaries of his strong nose and cruel brow as though to portray the inevitability of their accessing his right side eventually.
Rory had only
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