Page 56 of The Finest Scottish Fate

An aching heaviness yanked Drummond’s heart to the pit of his stomach. How could she still question their bond after all they’d shared, after all they’d felt ever since her arrival at the sidhe hill? “Life’s events, the wants of the heart, the yearnings of the soul, have no set schedule, lass. Why do ye insist upon questioning what we are? What we could become? What we already have and what we could have in the future?”

“’Tis the meddlers.” Stroking his beard, Farbis gave a wise nod. “Subtle, they are. Crafty and sly. This is one of the many ways they chisel away at yer bond.” He shook a stubby finger at Evie. “Fight them, m’lady. Dinna listen to the doubts and worries they plant in yer mind. Ignore their whispers in yer ear.”

“Farbis lost his dear one, m’lady.” Jadrack clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “He knows of what he speaks.”

“My Petra had her doubts and fears,” Jarrah said to Evie, then shifted his gaze to Drummond. “Dinna let her give up, m’lord. Mortals are often swayed too easily.”

“I am mortal.” Drummond eyed the man, wondering what sort of mystical creature his current form hid.

“Aye, but yer mam raised ye in the ways.” Jarrah’s eyes narrowed as he gave Drummond a slow up-and-down look. “And there’s more to ye than many of the mortals we’ve come across here of late.” He turned to Morganna. “Reckon a bit of Fae blood flows in this one’s veins?”

“Nah,” Jadrack said before Morganna could answer. “I smell kindred. There be a hint of dragon in this mortal’s ancestry.”

“Dragon?” Evie stared at Drummond as if he’d just sprouted wings and breathed fire. “How in the world could that be physically possible?”

“Feckin’ hell, man. Dinna give her even more reason to doubt me.” He turned to Evie. “I swear to ye, my own, I am as mortal as ye are.”

“Not dragon,” Morganna said with a frustrated toss of her head. “Dragon shifter. An ancient grandsire many times over on his mother’s side.” With a flip of her hand, she added, “Too far back and diluted with Celts, Picts, and Norse to be of any concern.”

Jadrack grinned and threw out his burly chest even farther while tapping the side of his nose. “I knew it. Kindred.”

Drummond threw up his hands to silence them all. They had little time before the council arrived. “How do ye mean to protect my wife and our bond? Fear for others suffering whilst this battle ensues plagues her.”

“I can speak for myself.” The quietness of Evie’s tone was anything but calm. It was a warning of how troubled she was. Then she made a face and shrugged. “But he’s right.” She crossed to the wall of windows, eyeing them with a pained expression. “Case in point,” she said, “this weird ice storm, complete with apocalyptic lightning.” Turning to face them, she seemed ready to cry. “I cannot be the cause of this clan’s starving to death this winter. I can’t live with that.” She locked eyes with Drummond. “And you shouldn’t be able to live with that either.”

“I care for my people, but I also know that sometimes ye must fight. Ye canna cower and give the enemy whatever they wish, hoping they’ll go away and leave ye be. Because they won’t. They’ll always return to take more until ye’ve nothing left to give.” He had to make her understand. “No one takes what is mine, and my clan knows I’ll battle just as fiercely for them.”

“If we surrendered, and I went back—”

“Nay!” He crossed the room in three broad strides and caught her by the shoulders. “We never give up. Not ever.” He took her hand and pressed it to his heart. “Ye said I lived in yer heart as ye live in mine. Do ye deny that?”

Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “I do not deny that, but I also don’t deny my doubts and worries. My sacrificing my century was something I could handle—eventually. But my sacrificing the lives of others isn’t.”

“What about our lives?” Morganna asked quietly. “Just because we are immortal does not mean our life forces canna be torn asunder by the gods and goddesses and tossed into the winds of time.”

“The meddlers are twisting yer soft heart, m’lady,” Jarrah told Evie. “They did the same with my Petra.”

“How many died because of your and Petra’s love?” she asked, hugging herself so tightly that her knuckles whitened.

Drummond tensed, praying the answer wouldn’t make this impasse worse.

“They made us believe many would die,” Jarrah said, his voice soft and thoughtful. “But in the end, only one perished.” He swelled with a deep breath, then shrank with a sigh of such heaviness that Drummond felt the weight of it. “My brother. I ended his immortality because he tried to kill my Petra.”

“I thought only the gods and goddesses could rip apart your immortality?” Suspicion dripped from Evie’s words.

“Yer own kind can also end ye.” He resettled his stance, shuffling in place as he turned aside to stare at the floor. “It is that way with all immortals. Keeps us within the boundaries set by the tenets of the races and the mother goddess.” Another heavy sigh left him. “Yet another reason we isolate ourselves in Craig Durness. ’Tis verra difficult to know whom to trust when it comes to our kith and kin.”

“There is already Fae in our midst,” Drummond said, remembering how Evie’s ring had turned at the banquet. “The Dark One’s spell ring warned us.”

“Morganna Nightwhisper,” Morganna said. “Is it so difficult to call me by name?”

“My mother told me many tales of the Unseelie that I’ll not soon forget.”

She glared at him, her mouth pursed with the sourness of her disposition. “I am not yer enemy, m’lord.”

Drummond ignored her, more concerned with Evie’s silence. She’d gone back to the windows and stood there, using her fingernail to scrape through the frost creeping up the glass panes. He went to her, but didn’t touch her. Instead, he quietly watched her as if it were only the two of them in the room. No one else spoke either. A heavy silence reigned, only broken by the occasional pop and crackle of the fire.

Soon, a scene emerged from her scratchings in the coating of ice: a wee cottage with smoke rising from its chimney. Animals too. A cat. Hens. And maybe even a dog or perhaps another cat. It was hard to say, since the unforgiving frost didn’t allow for a great deal of detail.