The Heart of a Highlander Excerpt

Book 9 > Highlander Vows

Prologue
1340
Isle of Mull, Scotland

Every man had a weakness, and for Laird MacQuerrie, his had been his wife. His chest ached something fierce, as if he were the one who’d been stabbed through the heart two days ago and not his sweet Agnes. He could hardly believe she was gone, but the proof was his crying bairn, Ada, whom he cradled in his arms. Ada had never cried when Agnes had held her. He was doing it all wrong; he was certain of it. He loosened his grip and stared down at his daughter. So fragile. So innocent.

So red-faced and loud.

Her fresh wail echoed throughout the packed great hall as Father Dorian sprinkled the holy water on her forehead. His clanspeople stood still, their grim expressions mirroring his feelings. They’d loved Agnes, too. He ran a soothing finger over the soft, plump skin of Ada’s wet cheek, and his chest squeezed with loss.

Agnes… Ye should be here, Wife.

Big, gray eyes looked up at him, eyes the exact color of the sky before the rain broke through.

Make certain Ada remembers me.

It had been Agnes’s one plea before she had succumbed to the knife wound she’d sustained. He gritted his teeth. If only she hadn’t come to the rescue when a murderous swine had attempted to relieve a fairy of her pouch, which purportedly held magical dust…

Of all the places in Scotland, why did his island have to be saddled with those two featherbrained fae, Hortense and Portense? They hadn’t even had the ability to save themselves from the men who’d attacked Hortense. He clenched his jaw, shoving down his anger at the fae. Agnes would not have been pleased with him. She had adored them, and the fae were forbidden by their own law to harm a human, even one attempting to hurt them.

Oh, Agnes. Why did ye get involved?

“Laird.” A tap on his shoulder accompanied the softly spoken word near his ear.

He frowned at the interruption of the Blessing, but it had to be pressing for them to have done so. Turning, he took in his first-in-command, Connely. “Aye?”

Connely swept a hand toward the great hall door. MacQuerrie sighed. Hortense and her sister, Portense, stood just inside the entrance to the great hall.

“Laird,” Hortense called, dipping a curtsy beset with the awkwardness of a fairy not used to doing such things. “We’ve come to give Ada a gift.”

His first instinct was to deny them entrance, but he knew deep down it was not their fault Agnes had died. She would have wanted him to allow them to bestow what they wished upon Ada. He nodded to Connely, who waved to the guards to let the fae pass.

They seemed to glide just above the rushes that covered the floor of the great hall. As they moved down the center of the path formed by the two long lines of MacQuerries, the clanspeople’s heads swiveled to follow the fairies’ progress. When they reached him, Hortense gave him a sad look that made the ache in his chest flare hot.

“I’m so sorry, Laird MacQuerrie,” Hortense said. She opened her mouth to say more but looked uncertain.

“We wanted to bless Ada with gifts,” Portense jumped in, filling the silence left by Hortense, “in our gratitude for Agnes’s sacrifice to save my sister.”

Hortense nodded enthusiastically. Portense snapped her fingers, and a pouch appeared. “’Twas my idea,” the fairy said, to which Hortense gasped. “I told Hortense to be watchful down by the water, but she did nae listen and now…”

“I am watchful.” Hortense scowled at her sister. “And us coming here was my idea. I feel horrid that Agnes gave her life for mine.”

MacQuerrie’s throat was too tight with raw emotion to speak.

“Ye should feel horrid,” Portense said in a chastising voice as she opened her pouch and dipped her fingers inside. When she withdrew them, her fingertips shimmered silver. “Hold the bairn away from ye, if ye please.”

Unsure, the MacQuerrie glanced to the priest, who shrugged helplessly, a shocked look upon his face. Agnes’s voice filled his head again: The fae are good and kind. He sighed. His wife had never been one to give trust easily. Knowing this, he stretched out his arms so that Ada was not pressed against his chest anymore. She splayed her arms and scrunched up her face. Her tiny hands balled into fists as she cried.

Portense set her hand to Ada’s forehead, and when the child immediately stopped crying, he relaxed. The fairy smiled knowingly at him, then fixed all her attention upon Ada as Portense held her fingers above his daughter. “I give to ye the gift of beauty,” she announced in a loud, sure voice. When Hortense scoffed at her sister’s pronouncement, Portense frowned. “Is there something wrong with my gift?”

He wanted to know the same thing. He was half-ready to snatch his daughter away from the fairies. Hortense elbowed her sister out of the way and now stood in front of him. The gesture triggered a memory of Agnes laughing at how humanlike the fae were in how they argued as human siblings did.

“Yer gift,” Hortense said, her voice dripping with scorn, “is nae a real gift.”

MacQuerrie instinctively started to pull Ada back to protect her, but Hortense stopped him with a hand to his arm. The power radiating from the warm touch of her fingertips upon his skin rendered him unable to move. She smiled reassuringly at him. “’Tis nae a harmful gift.” She smirked at Portense. “Just a useless one. Beauty fades and will nae protect the bairn.” Hortense held out her arms. “Give me the bairn to set things right.”

Immediately, he could once again move, but he was reluctant to do as bid. Yet, despite his hesitation, he found himself handing Ada over without even realizing what he was doing until it was done. When she started to cry, her nursemaid, Esther, came to Hortense’s side and cooed at Ada to quiet her, which immediately worked. Hortense dipped her fingers in her pouch, which appeared out of nowhere, just as her sister’s pouch had. This fairy’s fingers also shimmered silver when she took them back out.

“I bestow upon Ada the power to make a king,” she said, shaking her fingers above Ada’s forehead and heart. Silver specks fell through the air to land upon the bairn and then disappeared.

The words triggered an avalanche of whispers from the clan. “King Maker,” they muttered, one after another, sounding like a swarm of bees.

“Silence!” MacQuerrie boomed. Then to Hortense, he said, “What do ye mean ye will give my daughter the power to make a king?” Such a gift sounded as if it would attract great danger.

Hortense smiled at him. “Not will give, Laird. I have already done it.” She placed her hand over Ada’s heart. “Yer daughter now possesses the gift within her.”

“Ye’ve done it now,” Portense announced, slapping a palm to her forehead. “Ye’ve given a curse, nae a gift!”

“A curse?” MacQuerrie bellowed.

“Och!” Hortense scoffed, her silvery-blond brows dipping together. “I gave a great gift. Yer daughter will wield immense power.”

Fear spiked his blood at the notion of such a thing.

“See there?” Portense exclaimed, pointing at him. “See how his eyes are wide and his nostrils flare? See how pale his face has become? He kens yer gift is an ill-conceived one.”

“How?” Hortense demanded, her jaw setting. The fairy set her hands on her hips and glanced between him and her sister.

“Ye nae ever have the clarity to see yer own foolishness,” Portense grumbled. “Men will hunt the lass and use her for her power,” she said slowly as if her sister were a simpleminded child.

Hortense’s face flushed. “Ye always wish to appear so wise, so superior.”

Portense gasped. “What?”

“Here.” Hortense yanked open her pouch and tilted it above Ada, who was now quiet, as if she were under a spell. “The sweet lass will nae wield the power until the day she weds.”

An uproar of chatter came from the clan, and the sisters scuttled backward from him with Ada. He struggled to hear the rest of what the sisters said. Yet, from how they argued and the way Esther’s mouth parted with shock, he did not think it could be good. The fairies faced each other now, and Esther stood behind them, gawking. Hortense’s lips moved as she once again said something and tilted up her pouch. One lone silver speck fell.

He wanted to snatch his daughter away from Hortense, but he found he could not move once more. “Esther,” he bellowed. “Take the bairn!”

“Stillande!” Hortense and Portense pronounced in unison, blinking at each other with surprise.

“Laird, I kinnae move,” Esther cried out.

“Nor I!”

“I kinnae move, either!”

The calls came fast from MacQuerrie clanspeople behind him.

Father Dorian said, “Nor can I, Laird.”

“Ladies,” MacQuerrie said, looking at the fairies. “Release me.”

“Just a moment,” they answered, voices sweet and once more in unison.

“Dunnae fash yerself, Laird. I’ll make this right,” Portense said. And with that, she shoved her sister, who went flying forward, and then Portense quickly turned over her own pouch and dumped the contents on Ada.

The bairn let out her first laugh, and MacQuerrie could not help but stare at his daughter in amazement and pride. “She laughed!”

Portense did not spare him a glance. As Hortense charged toward her sister and Ada, Portense quickly rushed out words as she shook her fingers. “Yer gift will only activate if ye willingly choose yer husband.” With that, she shot her sister a triumphant grin. “There. I’ve fixed yer mess.”

“Oh, Sister!” Hortense wailed. “We are both fools, but ye remain the biggest. I had already set things right with the second part of my words.”

Second part? MacQuerrie frowned. He had not heard the second part.

“Please tell me ye have some fae dust left,” Hortense wailed, snatching his attention back to her.

Portense bit her lip and peered inside her pouch. When she looked up, worry danced over her delicate features. “Nay. Do ye?”

“Nay,” Hortense said, worry as equally evident in her voice as it was on her sister’s face. “That word, willing, do ye believe—”

“Nay,” Portense interrupted. “It will nae be enough. But what ye added…” She bit her lip. “Ada could willingly choose a husband to save someone or something. Did ye nae think of that?”

Hortense burst into tears, and suddenly, MacQuerrie could move. He closed the distance to Portense and snatched Ada from her. As he pulled his daughter to his chest, he glanced between the sisters, who were fading. “Where are ye going?” he demanded.

“To the fae world,” they said together. “We dunnae have any more dust. We must replenish it. If our father will let us…”

Ada grabbed his finger, and he glanced down. “How the devil long will that take?”

When he received no answer, he looked up to find the fae gone. Their so-called gifts to his daughter rang in his mind: beauty, and the power to make a king. She would most definitely be hunted when word got out, and he had no doubt it would. His clan had started to move, and the excited chatter was near deafening. The chant of King Maker filled the hall.

This would be impossible to contain.

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