To Tame a Highland Warrior (41 page)

Ronin shook his head. “It just seemed that way. It was first blood in battle that brought the Berserker out. Normally our sons doona turn until sixteen. First battle accelerated your change.”

Grimm sank to a seat on the wall and buried his face in his hands. “Why did you never tell me what I was before I changed?”

“Son, it’s not like we hid it from you. We started tellin’ you the legends at a young age. You were entranced, remember?” Ronin broke off and laughed. “I recall you runnin’ around, tryin’ to ‘become a Berserker’ for years. We were pleased you welcomed your heritage with such open arms. Go, go look in the blasted Hall of Lords, Gavrael—”

“Grimm,” Grimm corrected stubbornly, holding on to some part of his identity—any part.

Ronin continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “There are ceremonies we hold, when we pass on the secrets and teach our sons to deal with the Berserker rage. Your time was approachin’, but suddenly the McKane attacked. I lost Jolyn and you left, never once lookin’ west to Maldebann, to me. And now I know you were hatin’ me, accusin’ me of the most vile thing a man could do.”

“We train our sons, Gavrael,” Balder said. “Intense discipline: mental, emotional, and physical trainin’. We instruct them to command the Berserker, not be commanded by it. You missed that trainin’, yet I must say that even on your own you did well. Without any training, without any understandin’ of your nature, you remained honorable and have grown into a fine Berserker. Donna be thrashin’ yourself for seein’ things at fourteen with the half-opened eyes of a fourteen-year-old.”

“So I’m supposed to repopulate Maldebann with Berserkers?” Grimm suddenly fixated on Ronin’s words about the prophecy.

“It’s been foretold in the Hall of Lords.”

“But Jillian doesn’t know what I am,” Grimm said despairingly. “And any son she has will be just like me. We can never—” He was unable to finish the thought aloud.

“She’s stronger than you think she is, lad,” Ronin replied. “Trust in her. Together you can learn about our heritage. It is an honor to be a Berserker, not a curse. Most of Alba’s greatest heroes have been our kind.”

Grimm was silent a long time, trying to recolor fifteen years of thinking. “The McKane are coming,” he said finally, latching on to one solid fact in an internal landscape deluged by intangibles.

Both men’s eyes flew to the surrounding mountains. “Did you see something move on the mountains?”

“No. They’ve been following me. They’ve tried three times now to take me. They’ve been on our heels since we left Caithness.”

“Wonderful!” Balder rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation.

Ronin looked delighted. “How far behind you were they?”

“I suspect scarcely a day.”

“So they’ll be here anytime. Lad, you must go find Jillian. Take her to the heart of the castle and explain. Trust her. Give her the chance to work through things. If you had known the truth years ago, would fifteen years have been wasted?”

“She’ll hate me when she discovers what I am,” Grimm said bitterly.

“Are you as certain of that as you were that I killed Jolyn?” Ronin asked pointedly.

Grimm’s eyes flew to his. “I’m no longer certain of anything,” he said bleakly.

“You’re certain you love her, lad,” Ronin said. “And I’m certain she’s your mate. Never has one of our true mates rejected our heritage. Never.”

Grimm nodded and turned for the castle.

“Be certain she stays in the castle, Gavrael,” Ronin called to his back. “We canna risk her in battle.”

After Grimm had disappeared into Maldebann, Balder smiled. “He dinna try to correct you when you called him Gavrael.”

Ronin’s smile was joyous. “I noticed,” he said. “Prepare the villagers, Balder, and I’ll rouse the guards. We put an end to the feuding today. All of it.”

I
T WAS EARLY AFTERNOON WHEN
J
ILLIAN FINALLY ROSE
to her feet in the Hall of Lords. A sense of peace enveloped her as she laid the last of her questions to rest. Suddenly so many things she’d overheard her brothers and Quinn saying when Grimm had been in residence made sense, and upon reflection she suspected a part of her had always known.

Her love was a legendary warrior who had grown to despise himself, cut off from his roots. But now that he was home and given the time to explore those roots, he might be able to make peace with himself at long last.

She strolled the hall a final time, not missing the radiant expressions of the McIllioch brides. She stood for a long moment beneath the portrait of Grimm and his parents. Jolyn had been a chestnut-haired beauty; love radiated from her patient smile. Ronin was gazing adoringly at her. In the portrait, Grimm was kneeling before his seated parents, looking like the happiest brown-eyed boy in the world.

Her hands moved to her belly in a timeless feminine
celebration as she wondered what it would be like to bring another boy like Grimm into the world. How proud she would be, and together with Grimm, Balder, and Ronin, they would teach him what he could be, and how special he was—one of Alba’s own private warriors.

“Och, lass, tell me you’re not breeding!” a voice filled with loathing spat.

Jillian’s scream ricocheted off the cold stone walls as Ramsay Logan’s hand closed on her shoulder in a painful, viselike grip.

“I can’t find her,” Grimm said tightly.

Ronin and Balder turned as one when he stormed into the Greathall. The guards were ready, the villagers had been roused, and to the last man Tuluth was prepared to fight the McKane.

“Did you check in the Hall of Lords?”

“Aye, a brief glance, enough to assure myself she wasn’t there.” If he’d looked longer he might never have dragged himself back out, so fascinated was he by his previously unknown heritage.

“Did you search the whole castle?”

“Aye.” He buried his hands in his hair, voicing his worst fear. “Is it possible the McKane got in here and took her somehow?”

Ronin expelled a gust of air. “Anythin’s possible, lad. There were deliveries from the village this afternoon. Hell, anyone could have sneaked in with ’em. We’ve grown a bit lax in fifteen years of peace.”

A sudden cry from the guardhouse compelled their instant attention.

“The McKane are comin’!”

Connor McKane rode into the vale waving a flag of Douglas plaid, which, while it confused most of the McIllioch, filled Grimm with rage and fear. The only piece of Douglas plaid a McKane could have obtained was the one from Jillian’s body. She’d worn the blue and gray fabric at breakfast only this morning.

The villagers were bristling to fight, eager to demand satisfaction for the loss of their loved ones fifteen years past. As Ronin prepared to order them forward, Grimm laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“They have Jillian,” he said in a voice that sounded like death.

“How can you be sure?” Ronin’s gaze flew to his.

“That’s my plaid they’re waving. Jillian was wearing it at breakfast.”

Ronin closed his eyes. “Not again,” he whispered. “Not again.” When he opened his eyes, they burned with the inner fire of determination. “We won’t lose her, lad. Bring the McKane laird forward,” he commanded the guard.

The McIllioch troops emanated hostility but drew back to permit his approach. When Connor McKane drew up in front of Ronin he scowled. “I knew you’d heal from the battle-ax, you devil, but I didn’t think you’d recover so well from me killing your pretty whore of a wife.” Connor bared his teeth in a smile.
“And
your unborn child.”

Although Ronin’s hand fisted around his claymore, he didn’t free the sword. “Let the lass go, McKane. She has nothin’ to do with us.”

“The lass may be breeding.”

Grimm went rigid on Occam’s back. “She’s not,” he countered coolly.
Surely she would have told him!

Connor McKane searched his face intently. “That’s what she says. But I don’t trust either of you.”

“Where is she?” Grimm demanded.

“Safe.”

“Take me, Connor, take me in her stead,” Ronin offered, stunning Grimm.

“You, old man?” Connor spat. “You’re not a threat anymore—we saw to that years ago. You won’t be having any more sons. Now, him”—he pointed to Grimm—“he’s a problem. Our spies tell us he is the last living Berserker, and the woman who may or may not be pregnant is his mate.”

“What do you want from me?” Grimm said quietly.

“Your life,” the McKane said simply. “To see the last of the McIllioch die is all I’ve ever wanted.”

“We’re not the monsters you think we are.” Ronin glowered at the McKane chieftain.

“You’re pagans. Heathens, blasphemers to the one true religion—”

“You’re hardly one to judge!” Ronin exclaimed.

“Dinna think to debate the Lord’s word with me, McIllioch. The voice of Satan will not tempt me from God’s course.”

Ronin’s lip drew back in a snarl. “When man thinks he knows God’s course better than God himself is when hundreds die—”

“Free Jillian and you may have my life,” Grimm interrupted. “But she goes free. You will entrust her to”—Grimm glanced at Ronin—“my da.” He tried to meet Ronin’s gaze when he named him his sire, but couldn’t.

“I dinna recover you to lose you again, lad,” Ronin muttered harshly.

“What a touching reunion,” Connor remarked dryly.
“But lose him you will. And if you want her, Gavrael McIllioch—last of the Berserkers—free her yourself. She’s up there.” He pointed to Wotan’s Cleft. “In the caves.”

Horrified, Grimm scanned the jagged face of the cliff. “Where in the caves?” Dread filled him at the thought of Jillian wandering in the darkness, skirting dangers she couldn’t even know were there: collapsed tunnels, rock slides, dangerous pits.

“Find her yourself.”

“How do I know this isn’t a trap?” Grimm’s eyes glittered dangerously.

“You don’t,” the McKane said flatly. “But if she is in there, it’s very dark and there are a lot of dangerous chasms. Besides, what would I gain by sending you off into the caves?”

“They could be set to explode,” Grimm said tightly.

“Then I guess you better get her out fast, McIllioch,” the McKane provoked.

Ronin shook his head. “We need proof that she’s in there. And alive.”

Connor dispatched a guard with a low rush of words.

Some time later, that proof was offered. Jillian’s piercing scream ripped through the tense air of the valley.

Ronin watched in silence as Grimm climbed the rocky pass to Wotan’s Cleft.

Balder was far back in the ranks, his features concealed by a heavy cloak to prevent the McKane from realizing there was yet another unmated Berserker still alive. Ronin had insisted they not reveal his existence unless it was necessary to save lives.

From different vantages, the brothers admired the young
man mounting the cleft. He’d left Occam behind and was scaling the sheer face of the cliff with a skill and ease that revealed the preternatural prowess of the Berserker. After years of hiding what he was, he now flaunted his superiority to the enemy. He was a warrior, at one with the beast, born to survive and endure. When he topped the cliff and disappeared over the edge the two clans sat their horses in battle lines, staring across the space that separated them with hatred so palpable it hung in the air as thick and oppressive as the smoke that had filled the vale fifteen years past.