The Highlander's Touch Read online

  Along the Bannock Burn, Circenn Brodie was an animal, merciless and swift. Later the men would claim he vied with the Berserkers in his deadly rage, and epics would be composed in his honor. He was cold and sharp and hard, and good for nothing but slaughter. He lost himself in a blackness so complete that he cared naught if he slew legions, he simply raged, hoping to exhaust himself and gain the respite of unconsciousness, a temporary kind of death.

  When at last one of his lieutenants took the English king’s mount by the bridle and rushed Edward from the battlefield in a blatant admission of defeat, a bellow of triumph echoed across the bogs.

  The English swiftly decamped and fled upon seeing Edward’s standard leave the field, while the Scots roared their joy.

  In the midst of the celebration, Circenn felt only a savage sorrow—it was finished too swiftly. One measly day of battle, and he had no choice but to face both his pain and his ancient enemy. A month-long war would have made him far happier.

  While the men celebrated and paraded through the country proclaiming the English defeat, Circenn Brodie turned his mount and, without stopping to eat or rest, rode back to Castle Brodie to destroy his nemesis.

  * * *

  Circenn sensed Adam the moment he entered Castle Brodie.

  While riding, he’d conceded the possibility that a natural disaster or an accident had befallen his beloved. But Adam’s presence could mean only one thing: The fairy had found Lisa and discovered she’d brought the flask.

  Either you do it, or I will, the blackest elf had insisted.

  The blood roared in his ears, howling for recompense. He would be satisfied with nothing less than the immortal’s death. Circenn belatedly understood that he should never have left her alone, even for a moment, no matter how safe he’d thought she was at Brodie. Although Adam had sworn never to come there without an invitation, apparently he thought as little of breaking vows as Circenn did.

  Perhaps they truly were two of a kind, he thought bitterly. He berated himself endlessly on the ride back to Brodie. He should have stayed to comfort her, then this never would have happened. He should have slipped the immortality potion into her wine months ago, then this never would have happened. He should have explained to her that he could make her immortal. He should never have left her side, not even for a moment. Fighting in a battle now seemed as trivial as it truly was, measured against the loss of his love. He should have sent his Templars ahead without him—they would have won anyway.

  He slammed his packs to the floor and stalked into the Greathall. He would die inside later, after he’d taken action to ensure that the sin siriche du would never again manipulate another mortal.

  Now he understood why his vision had shown him that he would soon be mad, for once he finished with Adam, his rage would dissipate and he would be consumed by bottomless grief. He would unravel and embrace insanity.

  As Adam turned to greet him, Circenn raised a hand. “Stay right there. Doona move. Doona even speak to me,” he gritted through clenched teeth, and loped up the stairs.

  He snorted as he traversed the corridor. Adam was so arrogant that he failed to foresee what Circenn was about to do. Throwing back the door to his chambers, he kicked open the hidden room and swiftly unearthed the Sword of Light.

  When he stalked back down to the Greathall, the sword swinging in his grip, Adam flinched.

  “What do you plan to do with that, Circenn Brodie?” the fairy asked stiffly.

  Circenn’s gaze held no mercy. “Do you recall the vow I took over five hundred years ago?”

  “Of course I do,” Adam said irritably. “Now put that thing down.”

  Circenn continued as if Adam hadn’t spoken. “I said: ‘I will protect the hallows. I will never permit them to be used for mortal gain. I will never use them for my or Scotland’s gain.’ But most important to you, I swore that I would never permit the hallowed weapons to be used to destroy an immortal Tuatha de Danaan. He hefted the shimmering sword in one swift stroke. “I no longer believe in oaths, Adam. And I hold the means of your destruction. An oathless man could destroy your entire race, one by one.”

  “And then what would you have?” Adam countered. “You would be left alone. Besides, you don’t know how to find the rest of my kind.”

  “I will find them. And once I have slain them all, I will impale myself upon your damned sword.”

  “It won’t work. An immortal cannot kill himself, not even with the sacred hallows.”

  “How do you know? Has one ever tried?”

  “She is not dead,” Adam snapped. “Quit being so melodramatic.”

  Circenn went very still. “I cannot feel her. She is dead to me.”

  “I assure you she is alive. I give you my word upon myself, since you think that is all I hold sacred. She is safe. She wished upon the mound, and it amused Aoibheal to appear and confer a boon upon her.”

  “Where is she?” he demanded. She was alive. Relief coursed through his body so strongly that he shuddered with the intensity of it. “And what did she wish?”

  “She wished to go home,” Adam said, more gently. “But she didn’t really mean it, I was there. I’ve been stuck to Aoibheal’s side for quite some time now, ever since she took my powers.”

  “Why did she take your powers?” Circenn was so stunned that Adam had been so harshly punished, that he was briefly sidetracked.

  Adam looked abashed. “For interfering with you.”

  “Ah, there is some small justice in your world, after all,” Circenn said dryly. “So, Lisa has returned to the twenty-first century?” He could endure seven hundred years of solitude to be with her again.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean no? You said she wished to go back.”

  “She did. Sort of. She was very unresolved on that point. I could feel her indecision. So I neither complied nor failed to comply. Aoibheal gave me the order to ‘send her.’ I obeyed the gist of her command by sending her to a safe place, out of time, until you returned. That’s why you cannot feel her. She is not … quite in this world.”

  “Where is she?” Circenn said through gritted teeth.

  Adam cast him a mocking glance. “I knew better than to send her home. Had I returned her to the future, you would have patiently sat on your disciplined warrior’s ass and waited seven hundred years to see her again. So passive, so damned human. And then I wouldn’t have gotten what I wanted.”

  “Where is she?” Circenn roared, swinging the sword.

  Adam grinned.

  * * *

  Lisa kicked at the sand in disbelief.

  She was on a tropical island.

  “Un-bee-leevable,” she muttered.

  But it wasn’t really, she amended. It was perfectly in keeping with the sorry state of her existence. Somewhere, God was convulsing with laughter, each time she zoomed around another blind curve along the mad course he’d mapped out for her life.

  She gazed out over the ocean, breathing deeply. Despite her irritation, she adored the beach, had never gotten to spend much time at it, and couldn’t help but greedily inhale the salt air.

  Waves swept the sand gently. The sea was so beautiful that it was difficult to regard it for any protracted length of time. The water was unusual—a breathtaking, exotic aqua one glimpsed only inside the pages of misleading, photo-shop-enhanced travel brochures. It lapped at the perfect white beach with foamy tendrils.

  Sparkling white froth, glittering white sand, endless expanse of aqua crystalline water.

  She narrowed her eyes.

  It was too perfect. Something was askew here. Even the air felt strange. It smelled … She sniffed cautiously.

  Like Circenn.

  How could an island smell like Circenn?

  She felt a pain deep inside at the thought of him. First she’d had her mother, but no life. Then she’d had Circenn, but no mother. Now she had neither, and missed them both with the whole of her heart.

  “What did I do to deserve this?”
she demanded of the cloudless sky.

  “As if there is anyone up there who cares,” she heard someone say dryly. “Why do they always look up when they wax rhetoric? Better the creature should tithe to us.”

  She pivoted on the sand. Two utterly beautiful men stood on the beach, dressed in simple white robes. One was as dark as the other was fair, and both were regarding her with disdain.

  The blond Adonis gestured to his companion. “How strange, for a moment I almost thought it heard me. It appears to be looking at us.”

  “Not possible. It can neither see nor hear us unless we permit it.”

  “I hate to burst your smug bubble, but I do see you and I am mortal. Are you more of those pernicious fairy-things?” she asked irritably. The hell with them. They were not going to manipulate her. Besides, how much worse could her life get?

  “Fairy-things?” The blond one’s eyes widened. “It called us a fairy-thing,” he informed his companion. “It sees us. Do you think it may be one of those meddling mortals who see both worlds—the ones our Queen and King kidnap at birth?”

  The dark one arched a brow. “Then where has it been since then? For it appears fully grown to me.”

  “I am not an ‘it’ and I am fully grown and I was not kidnapped at birth and I would appreciate it if you did not speak of me as if I didn’t exist.”

  “Then how did you come to be here?”

  “Where is here?” Lisa asked swiftly. She was going to assume control of events from moment one in this strange place.

  “Morar. It is where the Tuatha de Danaan repaired after the Compact,” the Adonis said.

  “Take me to your Queen,” Lisa commanded imperiously.

  They exchanged glances, then simply vanished.

  Lisa’s shoulders slumped. So much for imperial demeanor. She’d thought she’d sounded pretty regal.

  She blew out a breath and started walking down the beach, determined to greet with aplomb whatever new phenomenon fate chose to spew from the ocean’s teeth. A whale-sized piranha biking down the beach wouldn’t have surprised her right now.

  * * *

  “Morar,” Circenn repeated, his jaw tightening. “And why did you send her to the isle of your people?”

  “To keep her out of time for a bit, while I awaited your return. To buy you time to make up your mind.”

  “Make up my mind about what?” Circenn asked icily.

  “About what you wish to do with her.”

  “I doona need time to decide that: I want to marry her, I want her here, and I want her immortal. But I doona understand your motives. I thought you wanted her dead, Adam. Did you not force an oath from me—”

  “Never take anything I say or do at face value, Circenn. It was never about that. You needed to break some of your ridiculous rules. I merely put you in a position where you would be forced to question them. Had you truly killed her, I would have been vastly disappointed. You never understood what I was really after.”

  Circenn shook his head, muttering beneath his breath. All his angst about breaking the vow had been for naught, because Adam had never wished it fulfilled to begin with. “And I doona understand now, so why not explain it to me?”

  Adam circled around him, studying him. “Why don’t you put down that sword?” He shuddered. “We gave it to you so we wouldn’t be tempted to fight among our own kind. We trusted you.”

  “You coerced me into the guardianship and well you know it,” he said bitterly. Still, he let the tip dip toward the floor, although he kept his hand firmly on the hilt.

  Adam relaxed. “The way I see it, you have several choices. You can go join her where she is. In my world,” he added smugly. “Or you may bring her back here. Or you may go fix her future and then send her back. She is safely out of time while you decide.”

  “Why do you mock me, Adam? You know I doona know how to accomplish any of those things. Are you offering to perform such magic for me?”

  Adam looked pained. “I cannot. Aoibheal has clipped my wings, so to speak.”

  “Then exactly how do you expect me to dart about through time? Morar is not accessible by mortal means. You have trapped my woman on a fairy isle to which I have no means of traveling,” he said, growing angry again.

  Adam eyed Circenn challengingly. “Yes, you do.”

  Circenn flung a hand up in the air. “I cannot sift time—if I could, I would have offered to return her when I discovered what she’d lost and how much it pained her.”

  “You can sift time. You know that. You know also that there was a time recently when you would have given anything to have long ago accepted my lessons. You refused to let me teach you, but you know you have the power—it seethes within you. It begs to be freed. You would learn quickly. It would take me mere days to teach you how to sift time. We can practice with short jaunts.”

  Circenn regarded him, saying nothing. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

  “Circenn, I have been telling you for five hundred years that I can teach you how to move through time and place. You have always sneered and walked away. Now I offer again: I can teach you how to sift time, weave worlds, how to change her future so her parents don’t die. I can teach you enough that you can prevent the car wreck, perhaps even prevent the cancer, and return her to her future with her memory of you intact. When it is done you may join her there, or bring her back. Or split your lives between the two places. You can do anything you want, Circenn Brodie. I’ve always told you this.”

  “And what price for such knowledge, Adam? What price for my woman back?”

  “Oh, it’s so simple,” Adam said gently. “It’s all I have ever wanted, all along.” He nodded encouragingly. “You know what I want. I offer you a trade. Let me teach you. Let me take you where you belong. Let me show you my world. It is not evil.”

  Circenn grunted and rubbed his eyes. Five hundred years ago he’d sworn to avoid this moment at all costs. Throughout the centuries Adam had tempted him repeatedly with anything he could think of, and failed each time. Apparently Adam had realized that the trap would have to be more cunningly laid, and this one had succeeded brilliantly. That which Circenn had refused for five centuries had now become inevitable. The ninth-century man within him shrugged, stepped down, and ceded defeat. Was it evil? Were Adam and his race evil? Or had Circenn simply never forgiven Adam for slights inflicted long ago?

  His choices were painfully simple: Be with Lisa, or not be with Lisa.

  The latter was unacceptable, and Adam knew that. Circenn felt bitterly manipulated by Adam, and anger burned within him. This situation had been designed and orchestrated by Adam Black from the onset.

  But then he thought of Lisa. What existed between them had nothing to do with Adam. Adam may have cleverly manipulated events, but Circenn alone had fallen in love with Lisa. He would have loved her no matter where he’d found her. His anger melted away.

  If he accepted what Adam was offering, he could change her life: He could slip to the future and save her parents and return to her everything she’d ever wanted, and be with her again. And hadn’t he been toying with that idea for some time now? When he’d asked her to tell him everything about her life, when he’d listened and taken mental notes—aye, even then he’d been analyzing possibilities in the back of his mind. His bitterness over Adam’s making him immortal five hundred years past had caused him to violently reject everything about the Tuatha de Danaan. But perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  He knew she loved him. Since he had to accept Adam’s lessons, if only to rescue her from the fairy isle, why not go all the way? Why not perfect her world and give her all her heart’s desires? What a gift, to be so powerful that he could ensure her wildest dreams. What else might he be able to give her?

  Everything, Adam said wordlessly.

  Circenn glanced at Adam.

  Dare he brave her time? Dare he go forward and love her there?

  He would love her anywhere.

  Dare he give Adam what he wante
d?

  Circenn Brodie drew a deep breath and regarded the blackest elf. He saw before him the potential for corruption, unlimited power, terrifying freedom.

  Perhaps he saw a bit of himself in those dark eyes.

  “It’s so easy,” Adam assured him. “It won’t hurt a bit, once you’ve said it for the first time. You’ll find it feels quite natural after a while.”

  Circenn nodded. “Then teach me. Teach me everything you know … Father.”

  So sweet a kiss yestreen frae thee I reft,

  In bowing doun thy body on the bed,

  That even my life within thy lips I left.

  Sensyne (since then) from thee my spirits

  wald never shed.

  —To His Mistress/Alexander Montgomerie

  “DOONA THINK THIS MEANS I FORGIVE YOU FOR SEDUCING my mother,” Circenn said later.

  “I didn’t ask you to,” Adam said with a chiding, paternal expression that made Circenn uncomfortable. “She was irresistible, you know. Rarely has one of our kind successfully bred with a mortal, and had the child survive to maturity. But you Brudes have such life force that it was possible, as I’d suspected when I seduced her.”

  “You destroyed my father.”

  “His own jealousy destroyed him. I did not raise a hand against him. And that man had nothing to do with siring you. You are my son, and mine only. No seed of his made you. When Morganna died, I refused to lose you, too.”

  “So you made me immortal. I hated you for that.”

  “I know that.”

  The two men were silent for a time.

  “Is it truly possible to alter her future and return her to a better one?” Circenn asked.

  “Yes. We will go to her future and change it, twice. Actually,” he amended, “we will likely need many trips to her time to get it right. Then we will go to Morar, and we will send her on to the new future.”

  “But won’t she have lived portions of it twice?”