Ian
Authors: Elizabeth Rose
Tags: #Highlander, #Highlands, #Historical Romance, #Love Stories, #Medieval England, #Medieval Romance, #Romance, #Scotland Highlands, #Scottish Highlander, #Warriors
| Ian | |
| MadMan MacKeffe [3] | |
| Elizabeth Rose | |
| Elizabeth Rose (2014) | |
| Tags: | Highlander, Highlands, Historical Romance, Love Stories, Medieval England, Medieval Romance, Romance, Scotland Highlands, Scottish Highlander, Warriors |
Ian MacKeefe is haunted by the demons in his head, taunting him of his tarnished past. And then in the fire on All Hallow's Eve, he sees the face of Tearlach MacTavish, the man he'd killed and buried three years ago.
Not a settling thought since this is the night when the veil is pushed aside and the dead are said to be able to come back to life.
Kyla has grown up with Ian, as her brother is his best friend.
And while Ian thinks of her as naught more than a wee sister, she has fallen in love with him through the years, and plans on proving to him she is much more than he thinks.
But love is the last thing on Ian's mind, especially when their clan chieftain makes an alliance with their enemies, betrothing Kyla to the MacTavishes -
and Ian is faced with more demons once again.
C
an Ian overcome his past before it's too late for him to notice that the lassie he's considered naught more than a wee sister, Kyla, is a strong, beautiful woman who he is about to lose forever?
Ian
MadMan MacKeefe Series
Book 3
By
Elizabeth Rose
Copyright © 2014
by Elizabeth Rose Krejcik
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual organizations or persons living or deceased is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without the author’s written permission.
Cover by Elizabeth Rose Krejcik
Cove
r images provided by Shutterstock
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Ruby
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Onyx
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Ian
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(Madman MacKeefe Series)
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The Dragon and the Dreamwalker
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(Elemental Series)
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Judging Judas
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The Caretaker of Showman’s Hill
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Curse of the Condor
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Table of Contents:
Glasgow, Scotland, 1363
A murder of crows watching from up in the trees was a bad omen, and
also the last thing Ian MacKeefe wanted to see on the night before All Hallow’s Eve. Or Samhain, as the ancient Celts called it. But Christians as well as pagans both celebrated either way. It was a festival that lasted three days to honor the dead, be they hallowed or not. But Ian didn’t want to think about the dead right now.
He sat o
n a stool in the Horn and Hoof Pub, his eyes fastened to the tankard of old Callum MacKeefe’s mountain magic in his grasp. He couldn’t stop thinking of the fact that not only the crows, but a very large raven seemed to have been following him around everywhere he went today. The last time he’d seen so many crows at once, or heard that raucous laughter of the raven was on a night like this but three years ago. A night that changed his life, and one he would rather forget.
He felt a darkness covering the land, and
it had nothing to do with the fact these next few days were considered the time when the dead could come back to life. That is, when the veil between the two worlds was lifted slightly, and those poor departed souls could once again join with the living. Or mayhap it did have something to do with that. But even that wasn’t as frightening as the feeling of doom weighing heavy on his chest, warning him something bad was about to happen.
Ian always felt unsettled this time of year
, but not as much as tonight. After all, there were many dead he never wanted to see again, and most of them were that way because they met with the end of his sword. Some of them had deserved their fate, some of them possibly hadn’t. Either way, it no longer mattered, as they were dead now. And dead was supposed to be final.
A haunting m
elody played in his head. A tune he’d known since he was a child, one that calmed him though he never knew from where it came. ’Twas a tune that he’d never shared with anyone, nor had he ever heard anywhere else but inside his own, troubled mind.
“Och, Ian, why so glum?” asked Aidan, coming forward and slapping him on the back with such force that he jerked forward and the whisky slo
shed out of the vessel in his hand. Aidan was a good friend, and recently married to Effie MacDuff. He leaned an elbow on the drink board and looked up at Ian. Aidan’s long, blond hair fell around his shoulders, and he had his usual satisfied grin on his face. “I havena seen ye so glum since the time ye disappeared fer a year and then came back and wouldna tell us where ye went.”
“And I still willna tell ye
,” he said, determined to keep that part of his life a secret forever.
“He
’s probably thinkin’ he willna bed a lassie tonight and end up bein’ as frustrated as a beastie in matin’ season, I bet,” said Onyx settling himself atop a stool at the drink board on the other side of Ian. Onyx was another good friend. The three of them had grown up together as part of the MacKeefe Clan.
P
eople called them Madmen MacKeefe. They were known to be wild and reckless, and take way too many risks. The crazier the challenge or the more dangerous the situation, the more their blood flowed through their veins. Actually, it was because of Ian they were this way. When he’d returned to the clan, he realized nothing could fulfill that emptiness inside him, and he no longer feared anything either. But he’d felt dead inside, and he’d been trying his hardest for the past three years to do anything that would make him feel alive again.
“I am no’ worried aboot thet,” said Ian, running his hand over th
e spilled whisky and wiping it on his purple and green plaid. “Ye ken I have a way with the lassies thet neither o’ ye e’er did,” he said with pride.
“Well,” said Onyx clearing his throat and scratchin
g the back of his neck. “Is thet why ye are the only one outta the three o’ us thet is no’ married?” His two-toned eyes of black and orange seemed fitting on this strange night. A chill ran through Ian’s body at Onyx’s remark, but he willed it away and just shook his head.
Things were
different now that both Onyx and Aidan had gotten married. Onyx was a father already, and Aidan and Effie just found out they were expecting a child as well. That did put a damper on the escapades of the three of them. Those two were more careful now than they’d been in the past, heeding the warnings of the women in their lives. Love will do that to a man, Ian realized. And while his friends were still there for him as much as they could be, it just wasn’t the same now that they had wives and families of their own.
Ian was happy for them, but knew he would never find love, nor did he want to be married. He’d tried th
at years ago, and it ended up being a nightmare that still haunted him to this very day. It had been a time in his life that he’d rather forget, and that he’d kept a secret from even his closest friends. It had been such a bad experience that he’d never told anyone about the year he’d spent away from the MacKeefes when he’d found a darker side of himself that he hoped to never see again.
“Ye want me and Dagger te fix ye up with the cute lassie thet’s pettin’ yer wolfhound?” asked Aidan, motioning with his head to the other side of the pub.
Dagger was what Onyx’s close friends called him, ever since he was found in a box with a gemstone dagger as a baby.
Ian looked
across the room to see Grizela MacGregor petting his hound. She looked up at him and smiled, and he knew he’d have no trouble convincing her to lift her skirts for him later in the stables. He’d had her older sister as well as her cousin already, and he knew she was just waiting her turn in line to sample his lovemaking as well. He could tell by the lusty look in her eyes.
“I dinna feel much like wooin’
the lassies tonight,” he said, taking a swig of whisky. The potent brew burned a path down to his belly but still did naught to ease the pain of his past.
“Unless I’m mistaken, y
e havena bedded a lassie in months now,” said Aidan. “What is the matter with ye, Ian? It isna like ye to go without couplin’ fer more than a few days at a time.”
“Well, it wouldna be thet way if it wasna fer yer pesky sister,” he grumbled and took another swig of mountain magic.
“Kyla?” asked Aidan with raised brows, taking a tankard of whisky from Callum behind the drink board and handing one to Onyx as well.
“What
do ye mean?” asked Onyx, retrieving the tankard from him. “Is Kyla botherin’ ye again? Mayhap we’ll have te throw her in the loch like we usually do when she willna leave us alone.”
“Or p
ut her in one o’ me headlocks and throw her o’er me knee and give her a guid spankin’ is more like it,” growled Ian.
“
Blethers, haud yer wheest,” warned Aidan, telling him to be quiet. “Thet’s me wee sister ye’re talkin’ aboot, Ian.”
“Well, she’s bein’
pesky again. E’ery time I get a lassie under me charmin’ spell and we’re kissin’ and she’s lettin’ me fondle her, Kyla shows up and interrupts. I swear I’ll have te pay fer a hoor and go te a stew jest te get yer sister off me tail.”
It was crowded
in the pub tonight, and everyone was already celebrating All Hallow’s Eve though it wasn’t until the morrow. Callum made certain that women and bairns as well were invited to his pub to celebrate everything from the birth of a baby to a common festival, to something as simple and as stupid as the fact that Ian’s new pet wolfhound was no longer lifting its leg and pissing everywhere in the pub trying to claim its territory.
Not many of the MacKeefes were here tonight, as their chieftain Storm and his family were in Hythe visiting his English wife’s sister
, Echo and her husband. And the clan was split, as some of them were at Hermitage Castle on the border that they’d seized years ago, and the rest were back in the Highlands at the MacKeefe camp.
Ian
watched as some of the youngsters took turns leaning over a barrel of water with apples floating atop. With their hands behind their backs, one after another they tried to bite an apple, and lift it up with just their mouths.
“Who wants te bet a coin thet Aidan can beat Ian in bobbin’ fer an apple?” shouted Onyx suddenly
.
“I do,” came a shout from the crowd.
“Me too,” said someone else.
Men started throwing coins across the room, and On
yx’s ten-year-old son – Lovelle’s son from her first marriage – scattered around collecting them, just like Onyx had taught him.
“Nay,” said Ian
with a raised hand and shake of the head. “I dinna want te. No’ tonight.”
“I’ll tak
e bets against ye thet Ian can beat me brathair, even with his eyes closed.” Kyla, Aidan’s younger sister of twenty years walked up with Aidan’s wife Effie, and Effie’s sister Coira. Coira, though she was six years younger than Kyla, had become her best friend in the past few months.