Healing the Highlander (31 page)

One bounce and then he tumbled, head over foot to the bottom of the stairs, where his body lay crumpled, impaled on the sword he'd tried to get to his father.

An unearthly howl shattered through the room and Richard threw himself over his son's body. Around them, fighting ceased, the English who followed Richard waiting to see what their lord would do next.

Even Moreland held his weapon, as if he too were immobilized by Richard's grief.

Richard pulled the sword from his son's body and tossed it to the ground. Clutching the child to him, he rocked the boy back and forth, his inhuman wail of sorrow echoing off the stone walls.

"Leah?"

Margery called her name on a pleading breath, but it was enough to snap her out of the spell that had held her motionless.

"Yes," she answered. Of course she would. How could she do any less?

Slipping past Drew, she ran to the huddled father and son, dropping to her knees beside them. "Give him to me," she ordered.

The pain in Richard's eyes when he looked up at her brought tears to her own. It was impossible for her to feel hate for a man who'd lost his whole world, even one such as Richard.

"Wait!" Margery was at her side. "She can save Edward's life, but first you must give us yer oath that when she does, you'll take yer men and leave here. That you'll leave us unmolested and you'll never; return to MacQuarrie Keep."

"My only son's lifeblood spills out on your floor, Mother! Your grandson. He breathes his last as we speak." Richard's voice cracked, and tears spilled from his eyes. "It's too late for any to save him now. I am lost."

"It's not too late. Show him, Leah. Show him yer throat."

Kneeling next to Richard, Leah pulled the plaid from her shoulders, exposing her neck to his view.

"I saw the wound there with my own eyes." Sir Peter spoke from behind her. "It's not possible for it to be healed."

"Give me yer oath and send yer men from the room," Margery insisted.

"Go!" he screamed, turning his tortured gaze to his mother. "You have my oath. Everything I have is yers for my son's life."

"Now, Leah."

Margery gave the go-ahead, but Leah had already reached for the child. Oath or no, she'd no intention of allowing her trusting little cousin to die. She blocked out everything but Edward, ignoring the sounds of the soldiers leaving, the hushed voices behind her, even the knowledge of Drew's presence.

Nothing mattered at this moment but the boy in her arms.

His eyes were open but unfocused. Blood burbled from the wound in his little chest with each forced breath.

"Don't be frightened, baby," she whispered to him as she covered his body with her own. "I know it hurts but I'm going to make it better real soon. I promise."

She held Edward, concentrating on his wound, seeing him in her mind, his cheeks pink and healthy, his strong legs carrying him down the corridor ahead of her.

How the gift worked, she had no idea. She'd been perfectly honest when she'd told Drew that. She knew only that when the moment came, the magic would fill her completely with a heat like no other.

The magic took her when her fingers grazed over the wound, stiffening her body and all but robbing her of her senses. Her muscles pulsed with it, the burn building until she felt as if her skin would melt off her bones.

A second wave of magic followed the first, blanketing her sight in a cocoon of green waves just before the pain of Edward's injuries shot through her chest. She thought she heard a woman scream but she had no time to wonder who it might have been, for in that instant the third wave of magic smashed into her, robbing her of all conscious thought.

On Richard's order, the soldiers had vacated the hall. Dair, Colin, and Sim remained at Drew's side while Leah's grandparents hovered near the stairs. The knight, Sir Peter, waited with an arm around Hawthorne's shoulders. All of them, every soul in the room, silent, awestruck by the tragedy playing out in front of them.

Helplessness such as Drew had never known tightened his chest as he watched Leah cradle the dying child to her breast.

Alow hum filled every corner of the room and a sudden wind howled through the hall. As if they'd been caught out in the frenzy of a vicious storm, the wind tore at their hair and loose clothing, whipping against them like tiny lashes to exposed skin. Its intensity built until furniture in the hallway began to shift and tumble in its path.

The air between him and Leah shimmered, engulfing her and the boy in a quivering sphere of green. A curtain of Faerie magic.

He'd seen its like only once before. It had engulfed his cousin Mairi and her Ramos and when it had shattered, they were both gone, sent back to the future from where they'd come.

Her body convulsed as if she'd been shaken by a giant invisible hand and he threw himself at the sphere, beating against the impenetrable wall of magic with his fists, desperate to get to her. Desperate to be with her if the magic took her away.

"Leave her be," Margery yelled over the howling wind.

From inside the sphere, Leah screamed, her body arching over the child before falling limp. He dove at the shimmering green wall once more, just as it shattered in an enormous crash. Like an explosion of thunder indoors, it shook the very foundation of the hall, knocking them all from their feet.

Closest to the sphere, Drew took the full blast of the magic that sent him flying through the air. His back slammed against the wall, knocking the breath from him. His head pounding, he struggled to get to his feet.

He had to get to Leah. Had to protect her. Had to keep her here.

Flipping to his stomach, he fought the wind, crawling, digging his fingers into the stones of the floor to reach her.

Around him, sparkling lights of all colors shot through the air, twisting and pitching, diving at his head like shards of living flame gone wild.

Ignoring it all, he made his way forward. His vision tunneled only on the woman ahead of him, her body limp on the floor, a growing pool of blood seeping from beneath her.

He gathered her body into his arms, turning her over to discover the front of her nightdress soaked in blood.

Not the child's blood, hers. Fresh, pumping from a wound in her chest. The wound that had been Edward's.

She lay limp in his arms, blood gurgling from the corner of her mouth with each ragged attempt her lungs made to fill with air.

He hadn't known. It should have been obvious to him when the scratch that had been on his arm had transferred to hers. She'd tried to tell him. She'd claimed that he knew nothing.

She'd been right.

"How could you let her do this?" He screamed the words, to no one. To everyone.

His sweet, gentle Leah, his Soulmate, had given her life to save that of the child and he could only watch helplessly as her grandmother directed his friends to carry her away.

THIRTY-FOUR

Peter Moreland ran a hand through his hair, wishing he could push away the memories plaguing him. He stared into the night sky, contemplating the stars in the heavens in a way he never had before.

The mysteries he'd witnessed in the past week could be nothing less than miracles. Miracles sent to convince him he needed to alter the course of his life before it was too late.

Behind him, the sound of his uncle's wracking cough shattered the silence as it had throughout the evening.

His lord lay cushioned on pillows in the opulence of the tent he insisted on setting up each night. He behaved as if he were an important member of the royal family on tournament instead of what he really was. An evil old, dying man.

"Sir Peter!"

Young Edward ran toward him, his face radiating the healthful glow befitting a child.

"My father says I should give this to you."

He held out the leather-covered flask containing the potion his uncle relied so heavily upon in his illness.

Though Hawthorne and his son traveled back to England under the protection of Moreland and his men, he had severed all ties with Lord Henry after the incident at MacQuarrie Keep. Richard seemed to have realized at last that his only son was too precious a treasure to entrust to Lord Henry's keeping.

"It's most important you remember the chatelaine's instructions for his lordship's medicine," the boy warned. "No more than three times each day. She made me swear to it."

Peter didn't doubt that she had. He'd watched the chatelaine herself prepare the potion for his uncle, a dangerous mixture of briony and honey, opium and henbane, all tossed together with a splash of hemlock juice.

Though not a student of the healing arts, even he understood that what was contained in the flask would not cure his uncle, but merely dull his pains. And while a small amount of the addictive mixture might ease his uncle's suffering, too much would serve to hasten his end.

It was no wonder the chatelaine had instructed the child to withhold the flask save the three times. And of no concern to the old crone how many times the boy's ears would be boxed for that withholding.

"I shall remember, Edward." As he remembered many things.

He accepted the flask the boy offered, ruffling the child's hair with his other hand. "You've been an excellent page, boy. I'd be honored if you'd one day consider applying as my squire."

He'd miss having Edward at Moreland Manor. His smile, rare though it had been of late, had been a boon to the gloom of their home.

"Thank you, Sir Peter." The child started away, stopping with a deep practiced bow before running back to his father.

Edward's life should be much improved now and Peter found he was grateful beyond measure for that.

"Where is he? Send the damned brat with my potion!" His uncle's shout rang out from the tent, his next words lost in another fit of coughing.

Peter passed through the flaps and kneeled at his uncle's side, extending the flask as he did.

"Your page is no longer with us, your lordship. Perhaps, to make things easier for you, you'd like to hold on to the flask yourself."

"Yes, yes," his uncle agreed, taking the flask from his hands and tipping it to his lips.

Once, twice, and a third time before Peter stood and made his way back outside.

Memories assaulted his thoughts as he strode away from the tent. Too many of those memories ones he could only hope to one day forget. Too many he'd give his very soul to purge from his mind.

Memories of the sweet smile Henry's wife, the gentle Elspeth, had offered to everyone she encountered. Memories of the fear in her eyes each time her husband had entered the room or of her screams, muffled behind the door of the chamber she'd shared with his uncle. Memories of her body after her fall from the tower, broken and bloodied but still clutching her lifeless babe.

Perhaps it was the more recent memories that would haunt him longest, like that of his uncle, deep in the throes of the opium, reliving those last moments with Elspeth on the tower.

These were the memories that wracked him, bringing with them guilt because he'd been blind to the danger, blind to the evil that was Henry. Guilt for not having acted in time.

Whether his uncle had pushed her from the tower himself or ordered it done by another, Peter might never know. Which one made no difference, her death was on his hands all the same.

Behind him, for the first time tonight, all was silence. Above him, a streak shot through the sky, blazing a brief and glorious trail before it disappeared.

By his ignorance and oblivion, he had failed to help the gentle Elspeth when she'd needed him. Perhaps by his actions now he had at last given her soul the peace she deserved.

Tipping his head once more to the heavens, he sent up a prayer for the recovery of the woman left behind at MacQuarrie Keep. It was through her sacrifice he'd come to know the miracles that would forever change him.

He'd witnessed the warning of the miracles. Witnessed and heeded, sending up with his prayers an oath never to be the man his uncle had been.

THIR
TY-FIVE

Chaotic dreams assaulted Leah as she floated somewhere outside her body in a gloriously color-streaked void. Even in this ethereal state, Leah recognized the severity of the shock her physical body had suffered.

She'd never healed anyone so close to death before. Even her sister's husband Jesse had more life left in him when she'd healed his gunshot wound than poor little Edward had. Her only attempt at anything even close to this had been when the Tinklers had brought Robbie back to MacQuarrie Keep, but the seal of the old magic encasing his wounds had protected her even as it had prevented his healing.

Your gift is strong, but not without limits, daughter.

Words spoken into the chaos by a beautiful man with her sister's eyes. He claimed to be her father, this apparition floating next to her in the river of mist

When the waves of mist had first licked up around her waist, lifting her from her feet, she'd panicked. Fear that she'd drown pummeled her until voices, thousands of voices, had reassured her. The mist itself swirled with every color of the rainbow, heaving and seething like a thing alive, holding her aloft, gently carrying her through the currents.