Highlander Betrayed (Guardians of the Targe) (29 page)

“Open your eyes.” A soft kiss on her brow, a gentle hand running up and down her arm. “Rowan. Please.”

The remembered pleasure washed through her again, pushing the pain even further away. She sighed at the relief and forced her eyes to open.

Nicholas stared down at her, a sad smile lighting his handsome face—his scratched face. “There you are. I knew you would not leave me forever.”

She reached up and stopped just shy of touching a cut on his cheek. “What happened to you?”

His smile stayed on his mouth but his eyes grew somber. “You did.” He leaned down and placed a feathery kiss on her lips. “Do you remember?”

She didn’t remember, not for a moment, and then it all came back to her on a gasp. “I could not control it. I hurt Jeanette.”

“I will live, Rowan,” Jeanette’s voice came from close by.

Rowan craned her neck and found her cousin sitting close to Nicholas, her hands on Rowan’s head, a large angry goose egg on her forehead. “I am so sorry. I would never—”

“We know, love.” Nicholas said. “You did not do it on purpose.”

“I was trying to call the energy but I could not… and then suddenly it was there, rushing through me as if it had been imprisoned, as if I was a door suddenly flung wide and there was nothing I could do to stop it, to control it.”

“I can help you learn that,” Jeanette said.

“It hurt,” she told them. “Will it always?”

“I do not ken,” Jeanette said, “but I have not ever seen anything to indicate being the Guardian of the Targe brought pain. You fought it again, didn’t you? It frightened you when it leaped through you and you fought against it.”

Rowan thought about that split second when she had turned to find Jeanette in the doorway and the energy had surged through her. Panic had gripped her…

“Aye, I fought it. I had to control it.”

Jeanette seemed to be culling through her knowledge, lost in thought. Nicholas ran a hand up and down her arm, calming her like a fussy bairn.

“I do not care to think about it anymore,” Rowan said.

She heard Jeanette rise from the floor, could feel her standing over her. “You have little choice in this matter, Rowan MacGregor, Guardian of the Targe. You must protect the clan. It is what you are meant to do.”

Rowan pushed out of Nicholas’s lap and stumbled to her feet. “You saw what happened, Jeanette! I was helpless against it, though I fought it. I did not want to hurt you, or Nicholas. I do not want to hurt anyone. I fought it, tried to stop it, but I could do nothing against it.”

“But it stopped.”

She swallowed and nodded. “It did. I do not ken why. Was it finished with me?”
For now
, she added silently. She looked at Nicholas where he still sat on the floor between the two women. “Did you do something to free me from it?” Another memory whispered up from the pain she had been in. His voice, calling to her, railing against whatever held her hostage. Over and over again. Claiming her. “She is mine.” Tears threatened at the tenderness she had felt underlying that fierce claiming, the loneliness, the longing.

“It was you that stopped it.” She rubbed her aching forehead. “You stopped it.”

He rose and took her hands. “Then I will stop it again, and again, until you discover how to control it, to fight it, to stop it yourself.”

She shook her head, remembering the fear, the terror, the pain when she had not been able to move, had to endure the flames that burned through her, the wind that scraped and pushed at her, nearly suffocating her. How could she allow that to happen again?

“Perhaps that is the problem,” Jeanette said quietly. “Perhaps the Targe does not want to be controlled or fought. Perhaps ‘directed’ is a better way to think about it.” She looked around the demolished chamber, then moved toward the nearest wall, retrieving the Targe stone. The ermine sack was caught on the remains of a chair that had been smashed against another wall. “Mum said it was an odd, but pleasant, feeling when the energy flowed through her. She never spoke of controlling it, nor fighting it. She welcomed it, guided it. The next time, do not fight it.”

Jeanette placed the stone in the sack, pulled the cords tight, and held it out to Rowan.

Nicholas lifted it from Jeanette’s hand and placed it in Rowan’s, wrapping her fingers around it when she did not do it on her own. “You must learn to use this and I promise I will be there with you, helping you, calling you back.”

She could only hope that would be enough.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“I
WILL TAKE
him back to the gaol,” the guard said from the doorway.

Rowan stared at the ermine sack in her hand, its softness belying the hard truth of what lay within it. She was the Guardian. She must learn to… What was it Jeanette had said? Guide it? Aye, that was it. And she would not do that without Nicholas by her side to keep his promise.

“Nay, Myles,” she said, looking up at the guard, a lad she’d known since he was a toddler. “He stays with me.”

“But the chief, he said—”

“He is not here.”

“As he left,” Myles said, “just afore you awoke, he said I was to take…”

She held the sack up in front of her so the guard could see it. “I am the Guardian now. I need Nicholas’s help. He stays.”

“Rowan,” the guard said, staring at the sack, “I… I… I cannot ignore the chief’s command.”

“Nor can you ignore the Guardian’s.” She felt a small twinge of empathy for the young man as he glanced from Rowan to Jeanette, to Nicholas and back to Rowan. The feeling passed quickly.

“Perhaps,” Nicholas said, “he could stand guard outside this chamber? ’Twould satisfy both the chief’s requirement to keep me under guard and your requirement, Guardian, to keep me close enough to help you.”

Rowan allowed herself half a smile. “Will that do?” she asked the guard.

He nodded rapidly and backed through the doorway. “I shall be here, outside the door.”

Jeanette took pity on him. “Fear not, Myles. I will tell Da you had no choice in the matter.”

He nodded rapidly again and took up his post.

Rowan turned her attention to her cousin. “Is Morven still here?”

“Aye. She did not want to leave until Mum…”

“Find her and have her tend your head.” She sighed. “I am truly sorry. I did not mean to hurt you.”

Jeanette ran a hand down Rowan’s arm. “I ken that, cousin. Nothing is as anticipated right now and you are caught in a place you did not expect to be.” She gingerly touched the lump on her forehead. “You will see that she does not try anything with the Targe until I return,” she said to Nicholas.

“I will do my best, but she is the Guardian. It seems the Guardian is not to be denied,” he said with a wink that had both women smiling. “Hurry back, mistress. I fear we may need Rowan’s gift before much longer.”

Jeanette left. Rowan shut the chamber door behind her, irritated by the guard still standing in sight. When she turned back to the room she realized that she was suddenly alone with Nicholas. An unaccustomed shyness overtook her.

“Did I hurt you?” she asked.

“A few scrapes and bumps, nothing serious.”

Neither moved and silence fell between them, thick as the walls that surrounded them.

“Were you hoping for more injuries, Rowan?” His words sliced through the silence.

“Of course not! Why would you think such a thing of me?”

He slid his fingers into his hair, pushing it back, revealing a cut along his temple.

“You have reason to hate me. If I were in your position, I think I should like to do some damage to the man who threatened my clan.”

Rowan closed her eyes for a moment and settled her jumpy emotions. “I do not hate you, Nicholas,” she said quietly. “My feelings are complicated and confusing but hate is not amongst them.”
Rowan took a deep steadying breath and moved toward him. “Thank you for helping me, not just today, but with Archie. That could not have been easy to turn against a man you have worked with for so long.”

He reached out to her, running the backs of his fingers down her cheeks. She leaned into his touch, needing so much more of him than that.

“I would do anything to keep you safe, Rowan, to keep you happy. My fate is here now.” He hooked his hand under her hair, cupping her neck, and gently pulled her to him. “With you,” he whispered against her lips.

The touch of his lips was like a drink of cool water cascading through her, quenching a thirst she hadn’t been aware of; diminishing the gut-twisting fear that she hadn’t been able to conquer on her own. His groan as he wrapped her fiercely in his arms, tilting his head to deepen the kiss, calmed her and heated her simultaneously. The slide of his tongue against hers, the taste of him, the scent of him, and the feel of his hands pulling her so close she could feel the rapid beating of his heart against hers. She pressed against him. Deepening the kiss even more, she reveled in the pulsing of her blood in her veins, the heat of his desire that pressed against her belly, and knew that he must feel the same way she did even if neither of them would speak the words.

A quiet tapping on the door drew them back from the brink. “Rowan, Da wants to see you in his chamber,” Scotia said, her voice muffled by the door. “Only you.”

“Of course,” Rowan said quietly. “Tell him I will attend him presently,” she called loud enough for Scotia to hear.

“He is in no mood to wait,” Scotia replied.

“Rowan, I—” He rested his forehead against hers but did not let her move any further away from him yet.

“Wheesht.” She nuzzled him with her nose until he let her kiss him again, gentler this time, a promise of things not said, things that could not be said yet.

W
HEN
R
OWAN ARRIVED
in her uncle’s chamber Jeanette was already there, along with Uilliam and Duncan. The chamber was not large. A fire burned brightly on the hearth behind Kenneth. The rest of them stood in a loose semicircle around the chief, Rowan taking her place amongst them next to Jeanette.

Kenneth leaned back in his chair, a wooden tankard in his hand. His hair stood in tufts at odd angles as if he’d been pulling on it. He glanced from Jeanette to Rowan and back several times before he said, “What sort of gift is this, exactly? It is nothing like my Elspet’s.”

Rowan had expected Nicholas to be the first order of business.

“ ’Tis not unusual for different guardians to draw from different gifts,” Jeanette said. “Mum draws from the energy that flows around all living things. Rowan appears to draw from the energy of the air, fueled by strong emotions.”

“Nay, Jeanette, I do not understand why the wind accompanies it, but it always feels as if there is energy flowing up from the ground, filling me, looking for a way out, a way to escape. I think the wind is pulled to me by that energy.”

Jeanette looked surprised. “Why did you not say so before?”

“Because I had not put it all together in my mind until this very moment.”

“And what emotion fueled the maelstrom I witnessed?” Kenneth demanded.

“I startled her. The power surged and frightened her. She fought against it,” Jeanette said.

Kenneth blanched. “A simple startle caused that?!”

“I was holding the Targe stone for the first time, trying to call my gift.”

“You held the Targe stone?” The shock in Duncan’s voice had them all turning to him.

Rowan lifted the ermine sack where it hung from her belt.

“But… I do not understand,” Duncan said. “ ’Twas supposed to be Jeanette… or Scotia.”

“None of us understand,” Rowan said, letting the sack drop back by her side, “but ’tis done. I am the Guardian.”

Uilliam pulled on his beard but said nothing. Duncan started to say something else but Kenneth stopped him.

“It is as she says and I have seen evidence of it myself.” His face was drawn, worry etching deep lines across his brow. “Can you harness this gift, Rowan? Can you control it for the good of the clan?”

“Not at present, Uncle, but,” she reached out and grabbed Jeanette’s hand for strength, “with Jeanette’s guidance, and Nicholas’s help, I hope to.”

All three men went stiff at the mention of Nicholas.

Kenneth took a long pull from his tankard. He rubbed a hand over his face, then scratched his scalp, rearranging the tufts of unruly hair. “I did not wish to call upon him, but it seemed the only way.”

Rowan relaxed. “I do not understand why he is able to summon me from the grip of my gift, but I thank you for trusting him to help.”

“Trust is not what I feel about the man,” Kenneth said.

“But you trusted him enough to have him help me.”

“Aye, but it was trust born of necessity.”

“It is a start,” she said, content that someday, perhaps, Nicholas might win back the trust of all of them.

“Jeanette, you will help her in whatever way is necessary,” he said. “It is important that the blessing be made over the wall again as soon as possible. It falls to Rowan to protect the clan. And this route into the Highlands.” Kenneth looked at Rowan. “You will have to learn how to do that, as well. The responsibility of the Guardian is bigger and more important than just this clan and this castle, but it starts here.”