Page 51 of Nyall

“Sounds good.” Because she was curious about exactly what he’d done while he was away, she asked, “Want to help me collect some Fae junk for your healer?”

“I thank you for offering. Someone else wishes the privilege of your company, I reckon,” he said, nodding toward Jamaran, who had emerged from the waves and stood in the surf watching them. “Fair day, Commander.”

“Chieftain.” He came up to stand beside Caroline. “You’re well?”

“As you see.” Shaw bowed, and then walked up to the trail leading to the forest, where he disappeared into the trees.

“That was interesting.” She noticed Jamaran sliding a blade into the sheath he wore strapped on his forearm. “Whoa. Were you hiding that dagger behind your back?”

“Aye.” He looked all over her, as if expecting to see her bleeding somewhere. “Why should you speak with Shaw? You cannae trust him near you.”

“Apparently whatever he didn’t like about me is no longer an issue. Seems he’s settled down. He said I’ve changed, too.” She thought her knees were wobbling a little, but otherwise she was fine. “I wonder what he meant by that.”

Shaw kept his fist around the castaway imp he had removed from the egg, which had already bitten him once. He hoped his blood would poison the wee monster, but until he found some mistletoe he couldn’t make sure. At last he spied a big ball of the greenery hanging low enough for him to use his blade to cut loose a vine, which he wrapped around his fist. When he relaxed his fingers and opened them, the tiny imp sat up on his palm, looking like an eyeless poppet carved from moldy wood. It hissed as it cringed away from the golden berries of the vine.

“Aye, I ken what ends your kind,” he told the imp, which bared its tiny black-stained teeth in a fierce scowl. “Only I reckon my other affliction, ’twill do you in swifter once it breeches your spell shield.”

The imp’s toothy snout widened as it uttered a few high-pitched squeaks, and then flames sprouted from its wooden body and it began to blacken and wither. The mistletoe did the same, and a few moments later all Shaw held was a handful of ash. He curled his fingers over it and walked through the woods until he came to the edge of the valley. Once he’d looked everywhere, he allowed the beast to take him to the Stone Forest.

The blackness of the magic that moved him blotted out the sun, turning everything around him into nightmarish blurs.

Once he reached the melia-cursed woods he stopped, his head spinning slightly as the daylight returned and the island came back into view. Nothing moved here, not even the wind. Everything before him, every tree trunk, branch, leaf and even a wee spider that had been spinning its web had been turned to stone long ago. After the death of his sire, every melia who had dwelled on Caladh had come here to seal themselves inside their beloved trees by casting a death spell over the forest. No one had ever discovered why they would choose to do something so drastic, but their sad tale would likely be told for as long as the forest stood.

Shaw had expected to suffer the need to return to the shore where he could stalk Caroline, but for the first time that hungry desire of the beast to hunt her down did not gnaw at his insides. Since he knew he could not recover in any fashion from what the Pritani had done to him, it meant the darkness no longer considered her a threat.

Why? She looks the same, speaks as she did, and smells of....

He closed his eyes as he remembered how the scent of her had not stirred him at all. He realized now that was because she smelled like the MacMar, and the beast did not consider his kin as prey. Since Shaw knew Caroline had refused to wed anyone, and remained mortal, she could not have been transformed by Lady Joana’s ring. That left only one possibility: she’d taken a clansman as her lover. If he’d saturated her with his own scent, that meant they’d been facking often and for hours.

Nyall, of course. Perhaps that was why Connal had wanted him to return, for he expected the captain to go the way of the laird and the seneschal. The thought of his coldest brother with a fiery beauty like Caroline amused him. The poor bastart likely never had a chance to resist.

What still puzzled him was seeing the Finfolk commander rush to shore after spotting him with Caroline. Jamaran never interfered in the clan’s affairs, and while he had been courteous to Valerie and Lark, as an unmated male he would never befriend a mortal female.

Unless Caroline’s facking him as well. Shaw almost laughed out loud as he recalled the intimate closeness between the lady and the commander. I wonder if Merrick’s safe from her allure.

Thankfully he experienced no attraction to the diver, probably because of the lady merrow dreams that had been plaguing him almost every night now. Although they remained the same, they lasted longer, sometimes gripping him for hours before the release of his beast made him jerk awake. He’d also come to know the lovely wench in them as well as if she lived among the Finfolk.

’Tisnae any such creature as a female merrow.

Shaw walked to the very center of the petrified woods, where a simple pedestal covered with moss still stood. Although it had been turned to stone like the trees, the mortals who crossed the valley still left tribute gifts of fruit and nuts around the base of the old altar for the Fae that had once abided here. Nothing had touched them, either. Shaw could not remember ever seeing a living creature draw near the forest since the melia had turned it and themselves to stone. When he poured the ash from his hand onto the pedestal’s top, it sank into the weathered surface.

“My apologies.” He knew the melia could not hear him, nor see his bow, but he had killed their creation. “Your wee one didnae belong here. May it come your way now.”

That little death had roused the beast, as had Shaw making use of its power, but curiously it seemed content now—or perhaps he had grown so numb in his solitude he no longer sensed its voracious pangs. Would he fare better if he left Caladh? He knew of dozens of small islands where he might abide alone. His brothers would not wish him to go, especially Fletcher and Connal, but if this was the only choice he had aside from ending himself, he had to consider it.

“I dinnae oft see you here, Chieftain.” Connal approached him almost warily, watching his face until he joined him. “Do you make some homage for our lost Fae cousins?”

“Mistress Parish found an imp egg on the shore. I hatched the thing, and my touch did the rest.” Shaw regarded the traces of ash on the pedestal. “’Twasnae its fault.”

“We must protect our vassals first.” The laird added a sprig of heather to the pedestal from the bouquet he carried. “You spoke with Caroline, then?”

He knew he had, Shaw thought, and understood now why Connal had come to the Stone Forest, which he intensely disliked. He looked beyond him to see Lady Valerie waiting a safe distance away. He frightened them, he knew, but now it seemed they no longer trusted him.

My brother and his wife, they’re clever.

“Aye, and we’ve settled the matter between us. She no longer plagues me.” Or his beast, which still bemused him. “She even invited me join her hunt for Duncan’s Fae jobby. You and your lady neednae fret.”

The laird touched his unmarked arm. “We ken how hard you struggle, Brother. We but wish aid you in the battle. Tell me what more we may do.”