Duncan (Immortal Highlander Clan MacMar #5)

Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

N icole didn’t try to lift Duncan from the floor, as he was far too big and heavy for her to move on her own. Dosing him with the sleeping herbs he’d given her had been risky, but luckily the cider had covered the taste. Going to the trunk where she’d hidden the manacles she’d taken from his room, she carried them over and knelt down to use them to restrain his wrists and ankles before she looked down at his peaceful face.

Gag him. The herbs might wear off before you can get away from the island.

First she had to dash away the tears in her eyes before she tore a sleeve from one of the blouses Lark had made her, and held that over his mouth. Her knees buckled, and for a terrible moment she thought that touching him had transferred the effects of the sleeping herbs to her. But no, it was because she was leaving him.

I wish I could stay. She bent over and kissed his lips before she tied on the gag. Good-bye, my wonderful love.

Nicole pulled on a cloak and made her way downstairs, where she found Connal waiting for her in the laird’s chamber as he had promised. Shaw stood by his eldest brother, and looked unhappy.

“Laird MacMar.” She tried to smile. “I’m ready to leave.”

“We’d ask your help before you do, Mistress Fairburn.” Connal glanced at the shadows on his right, and Merrick emerged from them, dragging a large, wet sack. “The king found this shifter hiding in the bay cove.”

Nicole took a step back as the aquatic emptied the sack, spilling a nude female onto the stones. She had dark hair and an emaciated body, and deep wounds in her belly and chest that appeared very serious. When she opened her eyes they weren’t human but the flat, black of a shark’s.

The piteous expression in them wrenched at Nicole’s heart.

She knelt down beside her, and draped her with her cloak, but as she reached to touch her cheek she stopped and pulled her hand back. “I don’t know what my touch will do to her. I might kill her without even meaning to—or she might kill me.”

“Please, lass.” The hybrid spoke before either man could, her voice little more than a ragged whisper. “’Tis better die here than in the sea, devoured by monsters such as me.”

Merrick met Nicole’s gaze and nodded. “She asked me end her before I carried her here. Try as you wish, my lady.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of how she had left Duncan before coming here. He would have insisted on treating the hybrid himself, so in that sense she was glad she’d left him like that. Yet she also knew that touching this creature might end up tearing her apart.

Maybe this is why I was brought here. I’m to be a sacrifice after all.

“Laird MacMar, I drugged Duncan with sleeping herbs and left him bound and gagged in my room. I didn’t want him to stop me from leaving Caladh tonight.” She sat on the floor next to the dying hybrid. “Please send someone to get him after I’ve left.”

Connal gave her an odd look before he said, “I shall, my lady.”

“Thank you.” She shifted her gaze to Shaw. “Chieftain, if I’m not going to survive this healing, would you see to it that I don’t suffer? I assume you and Buster know how to kill a half-Fae female quickly.”

“Aye, lass, that we do.” Surprise and then respect gleamed in his eyes as they turned black, and his tattoos began to move over his skin.

Finally she regarded the Selseus ruler. “Please don’t tell Duncan you brought this woman to me, King Merrick. I don’t want him to murder you.”

He inclined his head. “As you wish, Mistress Fairburn.”

“All right.” Nicole looked down at the hybrid, who was watching her. “What’s your name?”

“Fiacail.” Some watery blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth. “And you?”

She almost answered her as she would any other person, but then decided to for once use the name her mother had secretly given her.

“I’m Nicolina.” She took her hands in hers. “Now let me help you, brave girl.”

For a time nothing happened, and Nicole feared the hybrid was too far gone to be saved. Then a tiny pinpoint of light came into her head, swelling and broadening into a brilliant shaft that streamed through her. It came with no pain or discomfort; as if a sunbeam had been trapped inside her body and was trying to find its way out. The air around her and Fiacail began to glow with dappled shadows of amber, brown and green, and the hybrid convulsed as the colors grew brighter and blocked out the sight of everyone around them.

There you are. Nicole looked into her eyes, the black of which had paled to a warm brown. I’m sorry you’re in pain.

Dinnae apologize, my lady. Fiacail arched up as the lights poured over her body, throwing off her cloak and revealing her wounds, which appeared to be shrinking. You’ve saved me.

Distantly, the sound of something like wood cracking came to Nicole, who ignored it. The pain that the hybrid had suffered came through her hands and into her body, welling up inside her like a black cloud filled with scarlet lightning bolts. Along with the agony came the terrible emotions as she moved back through time in the hybrid’s memories. The horrible betrayal of being stabbed by another shifter that Fiacail had loved like a sister. The terror of being melded with the shark while near death, and before that being stabbed and dumped into the sea to drown. The revulsion of witnessing firsthand Derdrui’s sadistic treatment of the mortals she used for her pleasure. Then came the suffering from the years long before those terrors, when Fia had been beaten and abused and sometimes hunted like an animal after being abandoned and trying to live on the fringes.

As Fiacail’s memories tore at her from the inside of her body, doubt piled atop the anguish. The shifter had survived all these horrific experiences, but after a lifetime of being cherished and pampered, how could Nicole withstand such misery?

I’m here with you, lass. The shifter’s mind entwined with her own.

In Fiacail’s mind Nicole saw the remainder of her memories, while her own poured through her and into the shifter. Yet as the other woman saw her life as it had been, she flooded her with sympathy, as if she had been the one to suffer.

No, I’ve had a wonderful life, Nicole protested. I never wanted for anything.

Your sire caged you like a pretty bird, and never permitted anyone near you, Fiacail thought back. Your lady màthair abandoned you, as did her sister. Even now you’d leave the man you want and endure your life alone. At least I knew the love of my sisters.

’Tisnae the same for her now, a deeper, softer voice murmured.

While they shared their thoughts, something nameless and warm came and enveloped them both. Time stopped, catching her and Fiacail and removing them from the universe of anguish they shared. With the guidance of that soft, tender presence Nicole found a way to pass through the pain. At first it seemed as if she were swimming through a boiling sea with waves of fire, and then the heat slowly cooled, and the burning sensations faded with it. On the other side of what she had endured existed a completeness she had never experienced, and it did not involve Fiacail, whose presence by then had disappeared from her mind. No, this was something quite different, something she had yearned for, something she had never believed possible.

I’m sorry.

Aye, my lady.

Gentle hands pulled Nicole away from Fiacail, and then she opened her eyes and saw the Cait Sith woman sitting in front of her, naked but completely healed and back to her human form, her eyes no longer like those of a shark. They both sat in a shallow puddle of water that shimmered with fading blue and green lights. Behind her Merrick was lifting the lifeless body of a huge white and gray shark, which he slung over his shoulder with his powerful arms and carried out of the room. The laird and Shaw appeared pale and shaken. Beside them stood the seneschal, his expression exasperated.

“You shouldnae prove me right and then wrong, Mistress,” Fletcher told her. “Choose one or the other, I beg you.”

“I’ll do better next time. Sorry about the lying.” She then turned to the man holding her in the cradle of his arms, his wrists still cuffed together. “How are you here? I drugged you.”

“Fletcher used a bucket of cold water and the threat of you healing a hybrid to rouse me.” Duncan kissed the corner of her lips. “We’ve much we need discuss, my lady.”

“That will have to wait, Healer.” Nicole lifted his arms, ducking under his chained wrists before she stood and regarded Fiacail. “I saved your life, and together with Duncan we restored you to what you were before Duxor transformed you. You need to tell the MacMar everything now, Fiacail.”

“Speal came to parlay with Duxor, and discovered we’d chased him away,” the shifter said. “’Twas her blade that near ended me. We’ve kept secret the location of your island, Laird MacMar, so we might use such to control the enchantress. When Speal drank my blood, she took in all of my memories with it, including the time I worked as a scullery in your kitchens. She can find your clan now.”

“Shall she lead Derdrui and the Cait Sith here?” Connal asked.

“Aye, my lord. As soon as she may.” Fiacail glanced at the window slit. “First she’ll sail for Insii Orc to collect the enchantress and the rest of our sisters. ’Twillnae take long before she reaches Caladh.”

As the laird and Fletcher went to his map table, Nicole glanced at the shackles on the healer’s wrists.

“Let me go and get the key for those from my room,” she told him, and kissed his cheek.

Once she slipped outside, she let herself smile a little. She didn’t have to leave Caladh right away; she could stay and, with Duncan’s help, change the hybrids back to who they had been. As a maid with vivid red hair passed by her she wondered if she could talk her lover into going to the future with her.

A heavy weight slammed into her from behind, knocking her to the floor, and something pounced on her and made a hideous sound as it clamped its hands around her neck. The grip was so tight she couldn’t breathe or call for help, and then everything grew shadowy.

Nicole fell into darkness, terrified all over again that it would be her new forever.

After sunset Speal instructed her crew to collect all the weapons they could find in town, as well as enough sturdy branches, linen, and pitch to fashion a torch for every Cait Sith. As they dispersed, she then waited on the shore until Tiene surfaced and trudged up out of the shallows.

“Dinnae try stabbing me, you traitorous pig,” the shark shifter warned, “or I shall tear off your face. How did you ken I came?”

“I saw you and the other monsters following us as we sailed from the cove. If you mean to conceal yourselves, you must dive deeper.” She looked into her eyes, both of which now resembled a shark’s. “Why didnae you go after Fiacail? A few jabs of my blade wouldnae end her swiftly.”

“She fled from us.” Tiene’s lips parted, showing her jagged teeth. “Doubtless she feared we’d attack and slay her. ’Tis what we do with anything wounded that bleeds in our water. Dearg’s gone, mayhap to hunt her down, kill and eat her.”

“So, you’ve become cannibals as well as beasts. How charming.” Speal looked past her. “We’re leaving for Caladh at first light. No doubt your former master has fled there so he may warn the other aquatics about you. Do you and your kind wish come along and share in the spoils?”

The shifter’s brows rose. “You dinnae intend order us join you?”

“I’ve no power or sway over you lot.” She regarded her. “I ken you all despise what Duxor did by changing you. As long as some part of you remains Cait Sith, we shall welcome you among us. Your sister Mace especially desires you at her side. Mayhap if we win, the enchantress shall reverse the transformation, and restore you as the sisters we ken and love.”

A strange guilt flickered across Tiene’s face. “Dearg yet possesses the memories of the druids she slaughtered in Aberdeen. She claimed naught may undo what’s done.”

“That wee fiend’s no’ a Fae enchantress.” She reached out and touched the shark shifter’s shoulder. “Go and tell the others what I’ve offered. If they agree, come and see me before we set sail, and we shall plan the attack.”

The walk back to town gave Speal some time to ponder the bargains she’d made on behalf of her sisterhood. She had never liked the shark shifters. The danger they now represented to the mortal realm by their rapid breeding of mindless bairns that could live in the sea or on land deeply disturbed her. Like them, Derdrui had become more of a nightmare than a boon for the Cait Sith. Despite her vow to uphold her promises, Speal no longer trusted or believed in her.

There was also something strange about how quickly she had sworn on her life to keep her promises, and what she had said .

She means cheat us of our due, but when, and how?

When they reached Caladh she would have to act. Until then, she needed to conceal almost all of her thoughts, and dwell only on the destruction of the enchantress’s enemies.

She found their sovereign standing outside a barn, from which small rivers of blood poured out to mix with the muck of the street. From inside the structure the sound of knives working through flesh came, along with the smell of fresh meat and newly-spilled blood. Swaying lamps hanging from the rafters spilled moving pools of light over a dozen Cait Sith who were butchering carcasses.

“Your sisters complained of hunger,” Derdrui said, sounding bored. “Since the full moon is near, I permitted them a hunt for some stray cattle, which they brought to me for slaughter.”

Speal kept up her thought barricades, as she doubted her sisters had been that hungry, or the enchantress would be so generous. She wishes lull us into trusting her again. “I met with Tiene. She shall take our offer to the other hybrids.”

The enchantress frowned. “You should have killed her. That would have compelled the others to obey you.”

“They’re swiftly losing what remains of their mortal sentiments, my sovereign. One cannot bargain with those who think only like sea creatures, or no’ at all.” She glanced back toward the docks. “We should set sail at first light. ’Twill take most of two days to make the journey, and longer if the weather changes. Once we’re within sight of Caladh we should wait until nightfall before we attack.”

“Do you intend to instruct me on how to wage a war?” Derdrui asked idly. “For I have fought countless battles against enemies of unimaginable power in Elphyne. I cut my own brother to pieces when I took the rule of the Therion from him. I even slaughtered that whore Eilonwy when she got in my way. What have you battled in this puny realm? Mortal villagers wishing to drown or burn you?”

“We’ve served you, Princess.” She smiled as the enchantress’s expression darkened. “You should ken none of the others may provide you with the location of the MacMar and their island. Only Fia, and now I, can guide you there, and she’s dead. Slay me, and never shall you find them.”

“After the battle, that threat will no longer restrain me, you idiot. Nor can you keep me out of your thoughts forever.” The dark Fae woman drew herself up, wrapping her silk cloak around her slender form. “Tell the monsters to decide quickly.”

After Derdrui strode off toward one of the larger houses that remained standing, Speal entered the barn and closed the doors behind her. The lovely stench coming from the tables made her blood stir along with the promise of the coming monthly change. Once the full moon rose, she and the rest of the Cait Sith would revert to their feline Therion forms until dawn. They would be savage and hungry, and wish to do nothing but hunt, kill and devour any living thing that crossed their path. It would be the perfect time to invade Caladh, as long as the enchantress dealt with the black beast that possessed the MacMar with the deadly skinwork.

Mace came to her with a plate of the choicest slices of ribcage meat. “I’d cook these for you, but they’re best raw.”

“I’m no’ hungry. Stop the others from drinking the blood,” Speal warned her. “’Twill hasten the change, and we must reach the MacMar’s island before we surrender to the full moon.”

The Cait Sith frowned, and made a hand signal asking for a reason for everything she’d just said.

“Later, sister. Do as I bid,” she urged her, and then walked out.

Nicole opened her eyes to see Duncan sitting beside her, but she didn’t recognize anything else in the room. The large bed had only plain linens, and aside from a washstand, she noted the other furnishings: the two chairs by the fire, a small table and three trunks all looked quite old. From the light layer of dust covering everything it seemed no one had cleaned the room in a while.

“’Tis Nyall’s bedchamber,” the healer told her as he watched her face. “He goes to Caroline’s cottage most nights. ’Twas the empty room nearest the laird’s chamber.”

He must have carried her here after she’d passed out, which she only vaguely recalled. “Is Fiacail okay?”

He nodded, smiling. “Aye. The laird’s wife took charge of her.”

Something about his smile seemed almost smug, and then she recalled Merrick being in the room before she had come.

“Your laird planned all of this. He never had any intention of allowing me to leave with the ferryman.” Nicole sat up, unsure as to why she wasn’t angry about being deceived. “Were you in on it? Is that why you hit me over the head?”

“Connal told me naught of his plans, for he guessed I would stop him. When you didnae return with the manacle key I went looking for you. You lay in the passage outside the laird’s chamber, and I couldnae rouse you, even with hartshorn held under your nose.” His dark eyes shifted as he studied her face. “I thought you collapsed from healing the hybrid. ’Twas something else caused your swoon?”

“No. Maybe. I can’t remember.” She pressed a hand to the back of her head. “I’m a little sore back here.”

“Mayhap you struck your head when you fell. If I may?” When she nodded and took away her hand he touched the back of her skull, moving his fingertips through her hair as he checked her scalp. “’Tis no sign of injury, Nicole.”

“I probably started healing before you found me.” The soft way he said her name made her throat tighten. “May I have some water?”

Duncan drew back, giving her another searching look before he tipped up her chin and studied her neck. “You’ve some fading bruises on your neck, my lady.”

“Could they have come from the fall?” she asked, her dread growing.

“’Tis unlikely. Wait.” He rose and left the chamber, returning after a few minutes with a goblet. When he gave it to her Nicole sipped it, and then found herself gulping the contents until water ran down from the corners of her mouth.

Seeing that he was watching her made her cringe a little. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was so thirsty. I should probably go and get some sleep.”

As soon as she stood her knees dissolved, and then the healer was catching her as she pitched forward.

“You’re yet weak, lass.” He lifted her onto the bed, but one of his tunic laces became caught in her diamond earring. “Och, forgive me.”

“I’ll do it.” She pushed his hand away and tried to untangle the lace, but the threads of the linen were caught fast in the platinum prongs. Since there were no mirrors in this time, she couldn’t even look to see how it was tangled. “Or maybe you’d do better.”

Duncan drew a dagger and cut the lace between her ear and his tunic, freeing her. “May I remove the bauble?”

“The back is very small, and pulls off,” Nicole told him, closing her eyes and turning her face away as he bent closer. The warmth of his breath whispered over her ear and along the side of her neck like an intimate caress.

“’Tis paining you, your ear?” he murmured as he fiddled with the lace.

She didn’t want him this close to her. Whenever he put his hands on her he made her extremely nervous. As time went by the physical attraction between them seemed to be growing stronger and more irresistible. If he didn’t stop touching her she was going to do something truly reckless, and she’d promised herself that she wouldn’t make another mistake.

“Forget about it,” Nicole told him. “I’ll ask Lark to help me later.”

“I wish I could forget.” His hand moved away from her ear, and his fingers slid around the back of her neck. “Yet with every passing day, the vows I make myself fade from my memory. All ’tis left, ’tis you. Your softness. The sweetness of your scent. What ’tis, being inside you. How may I banish such memories from my thoughts, my lady?”

She shouldn’t have turned her head to look at him, because he had bent so low her lips skimmed his jawline.

“That was an accident,” she whispered as his heat sank into her, and the silky darkness of his hair brushed against her skin. At that moment every nerve in her body woke up and shivered.

His mouth hitched. “’Twas?”

When he began to push himself back up, she caught the front of his tunic. “No. You owe me one now, and I want to collect.”

Duncan eyed her lips. “Collect what, my lady?”

“An accidental kiss.” Nicole smiled as she pulled him down until only a breath separated their mouths. “I want–”

She never got to finish telling him, because he covered her lips and parted them with his tongue. Had she ever really been kissed properly before she had met this man? Not in college, when she’d gone on a few dates behind her father’s back, and ended up in stiff or sweaty clinches with boys who thought they could easily seduce her. Later, when she’d realized her effect on men, she’d given up on furtive dating without any qualms.

Duncan destroyed the memories of those blurry, uncomfortable embraces. He kissed her leisurely and with lingering absorption, as if he meant to enslave her to his mouth. She heard fabric tear as his arms came around her. Her breasts ached so much she whimpered as he clamped her against the hard muscles of his chest.

Duncan lifted his mouth from hers, breaking off the kiss to glide his lips up to her ear. “You vowed we shouldnae make love again. Do you change your mind, my lady?”

Yes, of course, was he crazy? Nicole was shivering, shaking, burning up with all these desires he brought out in her; she could hardly think. Then his words pierced the haze of lust and longing in her head, offering her a choice .

I can. I can’t. I want to stay. I have to go.

“I don’t know what to do.” Her face probably looked like a beet, and humiliation ground down on her as if it meant to crush her into the bed linens. “You and I…we’re good together, but I’m not staying. I can’t live here with you, ever. I don’t want to hurt you by leading you to believe otherwise. It will just be this.”

Duncan’s expression blanked, and his entire body went rigid. Then he kissed her so tenderly, she gasped.

“As my lady desires,” he murmured.

She watched him pull his tunic over his head before she reached for the laces of her bodice. Her fingers trembled so much she kept fumbling, as if this were the first time she’d ever made love with him. She shouldn’t be so nervous. He understood it was just sex, didn’t he?

Duncan glanced at her, and then planted his hands on his lean hips. “Do you change your mind again, my lady? Dinnae fear I shall mistake what you offer. Nor do I mean abandon you, should you admit you truly love me with all your heart.”

Nicole pushed herself off the bed and marched up to him. Yet as she got close she saw the torment in his eyes, the same suffering that filled her own heart.

“I can’t afford to love you.” She hated him a little right now, however. “You know why I have to go back.” He reached out and took hold of one of her hands, which she had knotted into a fist. “This ring can’t fix things for me in the future. Only I can do that.”

Duncan gently pried open her fingers, and then pressed her hand over his chest. Against her palm the deep, steady throb of his heart pulsed.

“I ken you love me as I love you.” He brought her wrist to his lips. “I hear it in your voice, I sense it in your touch, for ’tis the same as mine. You shall never leave me willingly, nor I you. Yet if we must part, I shallnae stop you.”

He’d seen through her, just that easily. He knew. It should have horrified her, but instead it made something hard inside her crack.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Nicole whispered.

“I’ve waited many, many lifetimes for you.” He drew her into his arms, pressing her shivering body against his. “I kept watch for a dream of a woman, one who would take away my pain. ’Tis all you’ve done since you came, Nicole. The joy you’ve brought, ’tis healed me.”

If she blurted out the truth he would never again see her as he did now, as the woman he desired above all others—as his dream girl. He was all she’d wanted since she’d come here, and she was tired of fighting it. Her truest love might never have to face the truth, either.

“Very well.” It made her eyes fill with tears to say the rest. “Then if you want me while I’m still here, if you can love me until it’s time for me to leave, I’ll be yours.”

The first kiss he gave her landed on her brow, just above her right eye. She could smell the salt of tears, and wondered if they were both crying now. He shifted one arm down, pressing her body against his as he lifted and carried her over to Nyall’s bed. Once she lay on her back he finished undressing, and then unwrapped her clothing as if she were a buried treasure he’d just uncovered. The way he looked at her bare body made her shiver with wanting and pleasure, all mixed up.

“Come here,” she said, opening her arms for him. She took in a sharp breath as he bent over her instead and put his mouth on her breast. “That’s not fair. Oh, Duncan, please, come to me now.”

He ignored her plea, first licking her nipple, and then sucking on it lightly before he let it pop from his mouth. His hands caught her wrists as she tried to pull him down on top of her, and pinned them to the ticking as he kissed her other breast, and then glided his lips down to her belly .

Nicole arched under his mouth, awash with so much need she thought she’d drown in it. She watched him through half-closed eyes as he dragged her to the edge of the bed, and then knelt, shifting her legs over his shoulders as he moved in between her thighs. Watching her from there, he nuzzled her sex, kissing the soft thatch of red-gold curls before delving into them with his tongue and stroking the swollen, damp seam of her pussy.

Seeing his mouth against her added to the shockwaves of sensation as he began laving the nub between her folds, slowly at first, and then faster. He worked his hands under her bottom, lifting her up so he could penetrate her with his tongue as well. It was terribly intimate, something she’d be ashamed to let anyone else do to her. Yet with Duncan it seemed gentle and loving, and inflaming and indecent, all wrapped together.

The climax that came as he stroked her and kissed her drenched her in bliss.

He stood and thrust into her with his thick, hard cock, triggering a second orgasm before the first had ended. The way he fucked her made her writhe on the bed, as he was shafting her so deeply and with so much force it should have hurt. Instead it made her wrap her legs around him, wanting more, needing more .

“I want to taste you when you come for me,” Nicole begged.

Duncan pulled out of her pussy, climbing up on top of her as he held his slick, heavy cock like a gift. She curled her hand around the pulsing shaft, and guided his cockhead to her lips, engulfing him just as he began to jet. He watched her, his eyes narrowed to slits, his body jerking as he found his pleasure and gave it to her. Instead of joining her on the bed, he bent over to give her a kiss on the forehead, and then pulled on his clothes and walked out of the room.

Nicole lay in flushed, sweaty confusion, not sure what had just happened. Hadn’t she given him what he wanted? They’d had sex, spectacular sex, so why would he be angry? After she left she knew he wouldn’t be celibate, either. He’d told her he’d had lovers in the past. He was so handsome he could have his pick of the women on the island.

As soon as she grew steady enough to stand and walk, she got up, washed and dressed before she made her way down to the great hall. There she found the laird and his wife speaking with the ferryman, Nyall and some of the senior men from the garrison. They all fell silent as soon as they saw her, and Valerie came and looked all over her.

“Nicole?” The laird’s wife inspected her. “You should be resting. ”

“I’m all right, but I think someone knocked me out in the hall.” She touched the back of her head, which no longer hurt, and then the side of her neck. “I think they might have tried to strangle me, too. Someone really doesn’t want me here.”

“None of the Finfolk or the clan would have attacked you. How did you– Oh, Duncan must have found you,” Valerie said before she could answer. “Are you two all right?”

“We had an argument about me staying on the island, but we settled that.” If she kept talking about him she’d cry. She glanced around the hall. “Where is Fiacail?”

The ferryman made a contemptuous sound, and then eyed Valerie before he bowed to her and the laird and left.

“I am suddenly glad that man can’t speak without destroying the castle.” The laird’s wife gave her a rueful look. “We’ve had Fiacail moved to a room in the garrison hall. She’ll be comfortable, and the men will keep watch over her.”

“She isn’t planning to betray the clan to her sisters or the other hybrids,” Nicole told her. “She wants to live an ordinary life here on the island.”

Valerie frowned. “She told you that?”

She explained about the blending of their minds during the healing process, and then added, “Most of the Cait Sith are like her, you know. They believe they were abandoned by their Fae father, and mortals have treated them very badly. They’ve just wanted to live in peace, somewhere no one could find or torment them. Most of them fear Derdrui and her sadistic behavior. I don’t believe any of the others know the truth about the enchantress, either.”

“What truth?” the laird’s wife asked.