My inner beast hadn’t sensed any strife when I arrived home, so I needed to hear this information myself in order to trust it.
“They were hunting on our land.” Lucas’s dragon eyes flared with frustration, telling me he would have certainly revealed what we were, no matter who had been present, if he thought it might run them off for good. It didn't seem to occur to him that even though, like us, not all Sutherlands were half dragon, enough of them were that seeing dragon eyes likely wouldn’t faze them at all. Much less terrify them.
“’Tis said they were causing trouble in our northern village as well,” Lucas went on. “Stirring things up with lasses at the tavern.”
While clansmen stirring up lasses in taverns wasn’t all that unusual, the fact that they were Sutherlands was. “Who carried these rumors to us?”
“Kenneth MacLomain.” Lucas gave me a look. “So 'tis safe to say 'twas not a rumor but fact.”
I didn’t need to ask why our cousin was this far north of MacLomain Castle. He was a wanderer by nature and visited often, claiming he enjoyed the feistiness of our female dragons.
I frowned and scanned the courtyard below. “Where is he now?”
I hadn’t sensed him in the castle or on our land, which was unusual. Granted, he was a wizard who could occasionally avoid my detection, but rarely. Even so, this bit of news not only solidified the rumor but made me all the more relieved I had come home when I did because Kenneth would have handled the situation, meaning Lucas had been heading that way not to intimidate the Sutherlands but likely to chase them down.
“I dinnae know where Kenneth’s off to now.” Lucas shrugged and grinned, thinking he was in the clear. “One moment he was here, the next he was gone. Ye know he cannae stay in any place too long. Either way, ye must see now ‘twas wise of me to head for the tavern and make sure things were straight.”
He was right about Kenneth. Unless he found a lass to his liking during his visit, he rarely stayed long before embarking on his next adventure.
“Kenneth aside, ye were dishonest about yer intentions, and ye know it.” I poured another drink and frowned at him. “And ye know better than to deny it because our inner beasts are more connected than most. So ‘tis right there in yer mind what both ye and yer dragon intended to do.”
As it were, Lucas was as restless as Kenneth in his own way, often the first to volunteer to handle things outside our clan if it meant meeting new people and seeing new things. He had yet to take a mate, claiming none suited him, so it made no difference if he was away for weeks or months. Outside of skirmishes here and there, either with other clans or at the English border, all had been quiet, so I hadn’t needed him.
“I wouldnae have unleashed my dragon,” Lucas denied, despite the flare of his eyes even now. “Not unless…”
Sensing something in my cousin I hadn’t caught until now, I eyed him more closely and prompted him to continue when he trailed off. “Unless what?”
“I dinnae know.” He stared out over the countryside as if looking for something or someone, his tone softer now. “I just sensed it was morethan mere drunkenness at the tavern…that they meant harm.” He shook his head slowly. “As if they meant to take something from me.” His gaze drifted my way. “Something verra important from all of us.”
Lucas might have flaws, but I paid attention when he sensed things out of the norm because, more often than not, there was something to it. I was about to ask what he thought they meant to take when a woman with long, dark hair flashed in my mind. She wore a red dress and seemed to be searching for me or perhaps fleeing. Which one, I couldn’t be sure. A blink later, she was gone, and a flicker of red dancing through the distant forest caught my attention before vanishing.
Trying to catch sight of it again, I narrowed my eyes. “Did ye see that?”
“Aye.” Yet Lucas’s gaze was trained on the Viking blade sheathed at my back. “’Tis an impressive sword. Does it do that often?”
“Do what?”
“Flicker red as if newly forged?”
“Ah, that must have been it.” I unsheathed the blade and eyed the mystical weapon handed over to me after I helped the Irish. It didn’t surprise me that Lucas hadn’t asked how I ended up with a Viking sword because we were time travelers in our own right, and over the centuries, our kin had occasionally gone to the aid of our Viking ancestors. “It must have been the setting sun reflecting off it and playing tricks with my eyes.”
Mine were dragon eyes, after all, and tended to see things differently, no matter my form.
Lucas’s brows flew together. “How so? The blade was at yer back, not in front of ye. ‘Tis…”
Yet again, he trailed off, but this time with good reason, as we both seemed compelled to look from the sword to the forest only to find Kenneth emerging from the tree line on horseback, racing toward our drawbridge.
That was not what snagged our attention, though.
“What is that wrapped up in his arms?” Lucas narrowed his eyes at what appeared to be a long lock of black hair that had escaped from the plaid blanket. “Is it alass?”
It certainly appeared so. “Let’s go find out.”
Why was she wrapped up like that? And why was Kenneth in such a hurry? Was he being chased?
I scanned the forest as we made our way down the front stairs, signaling the guardsmen on the ramparts to open the gate and raise the portcullises that had just been lowered for the night.
“Close everything behind me right away,”Kenneth urged into my mind.“I dinnae want anyone not of clan Macleod to see her.”
