Page 51 of Dorchad

He hadn’t considered releasing her that quickly. “’Tis too soon.”

“If you wish done with her, act. If you mean chatter on about such like a wench, dinnae involve me.” Sgathan went over and stretched out on his bed. “Now go. I need an hour of rest before the household wakes.”

Dorchad went over to argue the point, and saw his brother had already fallen asleep. He then glanced back at the jug on the table. How much had he been drinking, and why? Sgathan never did anything which threatened his self-control, claiming that he had more dark Fae blood than mortal, which made him more dangerous. He’d always accepted that, but since Rebecca had come to him he’d begun to see many things with new eyes.

’Tis no excuse to bind her to me. She needs a man, no’ a shell of one.

He walked down from his brother’s tower room to the gardens, where he saw a nightjar alight on a wooden trellis with a flurry of gray-brown feathers. Once perched, the bird let out a long, churring trill to announce his presence to any females in the area. Dorchad had observed birds since his boyhood, when those that flew too close to him were pulled out of the air to collide with his face or body. He learned to catch them gently, and place them on the ground before retreating as quickly as he could. Sometimes, however, the shock still proved too much for the delicate creatures, and they toppled over and went still.

No’ her. Never her.

Dorchad turned and went back inside the stronghold, first trotting and then running through the passages until he reached his bed chamber. As the thin dawn light filtered in from the window slit he shed his boots and tunic, and climbed into bed beside his sleeping lover. She immediately stirred and reached for him, and he pulled her against his side. This was the last time he would hold her like this.

I shallnae be her end.

Rebecca, like the nightjar, could not escape a grim and loveless life with him. Tomorrow night he would set her free.

After a long, restless night of little sleep, Cath rose, dressed and left the stronghold, taking one of the laird’s boats into the water, but not bothering to row across to the other shore. Instead he lay back as the vessel drifted, and watched the night sky turn from dark blue to gold, violet and fiery rose. The colors of the mortal realm never ceased to fascinate him, for he’d never before remembered seeing such hues before coming here from Elphyne.

His memories of his mortal life remained only a handful of vague, sensory blurs. The faint scent of moss and flowers. The warmth of gentle hands stroking his back. The sound of singing, sweet and soft. At the very end, he flinched as screams of horror tore through his thoughts from when he’d been stolen by Rune, although those he likely imagined, for he had no other memory of that terrible night.

Had his lady màthair tried to fight for him? Was he the reason she vanished, or had his sire slain her?

Cath realized how fortunate he was to have survived his brutal boyhood apprenticeship. Rune had been unrelenting in his harshness during training; more often than not he’d beaten Cath for even the smallest mistakes. He suspected his sire had wished to brutalize every last bit of his mortal weakness out of him, but he hadn’t realized the most powerful weakness was one that wouldn’t manifest until he took his son to live in Elphyne. There Cath had encountered another mortal; one who had changed him forever.

The only boon that bastart ever gave me undid all those years of ill-treatment with a single touch.

He would never be accustomed to the warmth and noise of Gealladh, and often wished he could sleep out of doors on the island. He could easily make a shelter for himself in the forest, but if he slept too well he might prove a risk to the safety of the clans’ vassals and indeed, all of his half-brothers. That had been his sire’s final gift as well, but he would never call it a boon.

Cath wanted to blame his restlessness on the strangeness of the stronghold, which would never seem like a home to him. The true cause, however, lay inside his skull. Night after night he would try to sleep, only to remember her.

Don’t leave me.

It had been nigh on five centuries since they had parted, and yet Cath never truly stopped thinking about Amanda. He saved her like a cherished talisman in the back of his mind, unable to discard even thoughts of her. From the first moment the very young female mortal had reached through the bars of her slave cage to grab his hand, she had clung to him so tightly her tiny fingernails had dug furrows into his flesh. Those wounds had been hardly worth noticing, but it had been her terrified trust that had nearly ripped him to pieces.

Please, I want to go with you. Take me with you.

Stealing a mortal female child from the dullahan that had lured her through a hollow to Elphyne had been beyond foolish, of course. Cath knew it had been her fate to be whisked from her world to the nightmare of the dark Fae kingdom, where she would serve as prey for the hideous headless horseman. Most bairns that went missing in the mortal realm ended skewered on the end of his pikestaff. Even if she managed to escape her cage and run away before the dullahan could toy with her, there would be no haven anywhere for her. He and his friends would summon the Great Hunt, which would bring monsters beyond any nightmare to chase her down for sport and then tear her to pieces like a pack of starved dogs.

I’m so scared.

Seeing the tears spilling down her pale, pretty wee face as she stared at him through the bars of her cage had been too much for Cath. He tossed some gems to the dullahan’s servant, who opened the cage for him, and picked up the child, who clung to and nestled against him as if she wished to crawl inside his skin. From there Cath carried her off to his sire’s bastion, where he warded every arch and door to keep out the dullahan and his monstrous allies. The wee thing had held onto him so tightly he couldn’t persuade her to release him, and was forced to hold her plastered against his chest until she finally fell asleep.

“Shall I cage that creature, Apprentice?” his sire’s steward had asked after bringing him his nightly brew.

“Leave her to me.” Cath carried her over to his bed, pulling back the heavy furs and placing her in the center before draping her tiny body with his own cloak. She would not be able to eat what the dark Fae dined upon, so he asked. “Do you yet have some food from the mortal realm brought here?”

“Yes, Apprentice,” the steward said. “Shall I prepare some for the thing?”

“No’ a thing.” The child sat up and glared at the old retainer as she poked a finger against her chest. “Amanda.”

“It speaks.” The steward grimaced. “Why do they name them so young? My mate and I never did until such time as our whelps could defend themselves.”

“She’s human.” Cath rubbed a gentle hand over her fine, soft brown hair. “Mortals protect their young with their lives.”

“No wonder they’re so easily slain.” The steward shook his head as he left.

“Pree pictures,” the child said, running her tiny fingertips over the skinwork Rune had inked on him. “Why so many?”