Authors: Nina Mason
“Nay, my lord,” she said with woe in her eyes. “You’ve been sentenced to death.”
Fear and outrage collided in his chest like comets, even as his mind refused to accept what he’d heard. “Death? You must be joking. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“I wish it were a jest, my good knight, but the Dark Lord must have his tithe. Every seventh Samhain, each royal court must pay him a tithe in the form of a blood oblation. The tithe is due tomorrow, and the queen has chosen you to be the sacrifice.”
He closed his eyes and took a breath as he struggled to come to grips with his fate. “So, I am to be sacrificed. For no worse crime than begetting sons.”
“’Tis only a crime because of the prophecy,” she replied.
Surprised, he opened his eyes and met her gaze. “What prophecy is it you speak of?”
“The prophecy foretelling the queen’s overthrow by a natural-born drone of pure blood. That is why she kills her sons and punishes their fathers.”
Callum’s roiling fury erupted into an inner tempest of outrage. “She abducts men, forces them to breed with her, and then subjects them to unspeakable tortures if they happen impregnate her with a male offspring?”
“Aye, my lord.”
“But, but—that’s lunacy!”
“Aye, my lord. ’Tis. Which is why I’ve come to aid your escape.”
The last bit startled him as much as it pleased him. He’d assumed she’d come to prepare him for the sacrificial altar. “You’ve come to help me escape?”
“I have.”
“But how, when every exit is so heavily guarded?”
“They’re not so heavily guarded during the hunt,” she offered. “But, as an added precaution, I’ll teach you to change your form. That way, even if you should be seen, none will ken it’s yourself.”
“Change my form?” He wiped his brow with a shaky hand. Though the cave was cool, he was sweating like a blacksmith. “How in the name of Jupiter am I supposed to do that?”
“Through the use of an ancient incantation known as the Fith-Fath.”
The words stuck a chord.
Fee-faw
. The tenant farmers of Barrogill used to sing it around the Beltane bonfires, the pagan festival marking the start of the summer season. Some of the older men bragged about using the spell while hunting, so they could track their quarry undetected. He’d always listened to these tales with skepticism. He was an educated man, a man of science. He also was a fairly devout Catholic who saw the old ways as a lot of superstitious twaddle.
“This spell will turn me into an actual animal?”
“Aye.”
“What type of beast?”
“Whatever type you desire, my good knight.”
“What about a lion? Can it turn me into the king of the beasts?”
“Aye.”
He regarded her with skepticism. “All right then, make me a lion.”
She shook her head like he was a fool. “I can’t just snap my fingers and make you a lion, my lord. First, you must prepare yourself for the change.”
“Prepare myself how, exactly?”
“Through meditation and visualization,” she said. “You must focus your thoughts and see yourself in the form you wish to assume. The Fith-Fath calls upon Manannan mac Lir, the god of the sea, whose magic cloak controls the mists and fogs. These vapors cover the subject and reflect like a mirror the creature he’s conjured in his mind.”
“So, all I have to do is see myself as a lion and recite the verse?”
“’Tis more challenging than it sounds, my lord. At first, anyway.”
Determined to succeed, Callum closed his eyes and called a lion from his memory. King James kept a pair of them in his private zoo at Holyroodhouse, so he had a strong frame of reference. As he held the image in his mind, his sense of time fell away. He grew less aware of self and more attuned to the things around him. Fertile earth, dank stone, and pungent pine filled his nostrils. A sweet symphony of birdsong, rustling leaves, and rushing water delighted his ears.
Belphoebe spoke the incantation:
“
Mighty Manannan of the Sea
For the loan of your cloak we summon thee”
The inside of Callum’s eyelids began to glow with soft but brilliant golden light. The incandescence filled his vision, burning away the lion’s image. His breathing deepened. His emotions disappeared. His mind began to swim. Time slowed almost to a standstill.
“Into a lion my lord shall go
Brave in the face of every foe
And he shall go in the Horned God’s name
Fith-Fath, Fith-Fath, Fith-Fath,
From now till he comes back again.”
Callum’s abdomen began to vibrate and warm. His limbs twisted and pulled. Something at his core broke loose and floated upward into a place of blissful radiance.
Opening his eyes, he looked at himself. As impossible as it seemed, he’d turned into a lion.
“How long will it last?”
“Until you invoke the counter spell,” Belphoebe replied.
“How do I do that?”
“You simply concentrate on returning to your natural form as you say these words: Mighty Manannan, I implore, make me as I was before.”
Callum the lion sat, focused his mind, and said the words. Sure enough, in a puff of vapor, he returned to himself. Utterly drained, he reclined upon the bed of pelts. A new concern began to prey upon him. “Even if this works, won’t the queen notice I’ve gone missing?”
“Not if I tell her you met your end trying to escape,” she assured him, her eyes bright and moist, “and fool her by offering the heart of a boar as proof.”
From the legends of his youth, Callum knew the hunt she spoke of was “The Wild Hunt” during which all the subjects of Lord Morfryn trooped across the sky in a grand procession. According to the lore, the parade took place on Samhain every seventh year and any human witnesses soon perished.
The next day, after Queen Morgan and her subjects departed, Callum assumed the form of a sea lion to steal back through the passage beneath the Farne Islands. He shifted into many other animals as he made his way back to Duncansby, eager to return to the bosom of his family.
What he found when at last he reached Castle Barrogill tore him in two. During the months he’d spent in the Thitherworld, two centuries had passed in the Hitherworld. Scotland was no longer free of English tyranny, his wife and son were dead and gone, and his castle and just about everything else in Caithness now belonged to Clan Sinclair, the sworn enemies of his ancestors.
Taking refuge in the forest, Callum eased his grief by living as a wolf until the need to mate grew unbearable. Then, one day, he spied Deidre Sinclair, the eldest daughter of the new laird of Barrogill, in a meadow gathering herbs. Resuming his human form, he approached her, putting into play the plan he’d worked out to reclaim what he’d lost.
500 years later
John o’Groats, Scotland
“Have a look at your adoring fan over there,” Duncan said, leaning in. “I do believe she’s visually undressing you.”
Callum looked up from the book he’d been signing—
Political Astrology Through the Ages
, his latest in a series on the subject. The fan in question stood by the refreshment table, clutching the book to her chest.
Was
she undressing him with her gaze? Och, nay. Judging by the heat of her stare, he was already stark naked in her mind’s eye.
He’d seen her in the third row, giving him equally heated looks while he delivered his lecture. She seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t seem to place her. With a shameless ogle of his own, he traced the long, smooth contours of flesh and muscle beneath the posh black pantsuit she wore. She was tall and slender with an angular face and a wide, full mouth that stretched into an inviting smile as his gaze met hers with a palpable sizzle. Her eyes shimmered like rare Burmese sapphires. Holding her stare, he dispatched his psychic probes.
Particles of her life presented themselves—odd bits of a puzzle whose pieces didn’t quite fit together. Smart parties and balls. Environmental protests. Political rallies. Charity affairs. A string of unwelcome suitors.
Looking deeper, he found an older man whose ambitions mattered more than his family and a woman who cared only about her social standing.
Her parents.
Oh, aye. He could feel it, feel everything. She was the quintessential “poor little rich girl,” the black sheep of the blue bloods who’d been given everything money could buy while being deprived of the things she wanted most. Love, affection, and approval, mainly. Consequently, she’d erected barriers to protect herself.
Not unlike himself.
Pulling out of her psyche, he sought the pulse in her swanlike neck. The dark hunger awoke with a ferocious roar. His gaze dropped to her breasts, which were large and firm, despite the lack of a brassiere. Given his proclivities, he sincerely hoped she wasn’t disinclined toward undergarments.
He put her in a satin corset and thigh-high stockings—the sort with seams up the back. A searing bolt of lust ripped through his pelvis. She definitely had the figure for risqué lingerie.
Shifting in his chair to ease the tightness in his trousers, he turned to Duncan. “Who is she? Do you know?”
“Only from the papers,” his friend replied. “She’s William Bentley’s daughter—a real rebel with a cause, from what I hear.”
Callum remembered her now. Lady Vanessa, the one the papers called “Madam Butterfly” because she couldn’t be caught. She looked better in person than in those grainy newsprint photographs. Ten times better.
Good enough to eat, one might say.
Licking his lips, Callum shifted his focus to the woman directly in front of him. She was fiftyish, plump, and squat with curly dishwater hair.
“What was the name again?”
“Deirdre.”
“That’s lovely.” He grinned through the qualm inflicted by the name. “I once had a wife called Deirdre.”
“Is that so?” the woman asked, her interest clearly aroused. “And would you be married still, your lordship? Because, if you’re not, I ken a bonny lass who’d be just perfect for you.”
“Oh, aye?” Still smiling falsely, he arched an eyebrow. “And what sign would she be then?”
“She’s a Gemini,” the woman replied, beaming in a way that suggested the fix-up in question was probably her daughter.
“Ah. I see.” He cleared his throat. “Well,
Deirdre
, that’s too bad. Because, you see, I make it a strict policy never to get tangled up with anyone born under the sign of the twins. They’re too changeable for me, I’m afraid.”
He signed her book and handed it back. He made more or less the same claim whatever the answer. Well-meaning women were forever trying to set him up—usually with themselves. He sought out Lady Vanessa again, wondering what sign she might be. Given what he’d seen when he probed her mind, his money was on Aquarius. Unconventional and unsentimental—the opposite of himself.
Still, there were worse signs. Water-bearers were unpredictable, so she’d keep him on his toes, and fiercely loyal once they’d made up their minds to commit—no small feat for someone born under the influence of freedom-loving Uranus. And, well, whatever her other attributes, she was stunning, highborn, and clearly wanted to hook up.
“What do you suppose she’s doing all the way up here?” he asked Duncan, keeping his eye on the lady in question.
“From the looks she’s giving you, I’d say she’s hoping to get into your kecks,” his friend returned. “And from the one you’re giving her, I’d wager she’ll get what she came for.”
Warmed by another burst of lust, Callum tore his gaze away. A twenty-something lass with frizzy blond hair stepped up and, beaming at him, held out her copy of
Political Astrology Through the Ages.
“I can’t believe I’m meeting you in the flesh,” she exclaimed as he took it from her. “I follow your blog every day and have all of your books.”
The smile that bloomed in response was genuine this time. As much as he hated these events, they did boost his ego. They also taxed him, mentally and physically. He was ready for it to be over, ready to be home in bed—though not necessarily alone. As he robotically scrawled his signature line—
Let the stars be your guide, Callum Lyon
—he shot another hopeful glance toward the refreshment table.
Aye. Good. Madam Butterfly was still there, still watching.
Why didn’t she join the queue to have him sign her book? She didn’t strike him as the bashful type. Far from it, in fact. Something in her air gave the impression of self-sufficiency. Or was it superiority? She was standing there so coolly, like she owned the whole bloody room and, soon enough, meant to own him, too.
Not that he objected.
Swallowing hard, he shook his head to clear the thickening cloud of lust. The room was cold, but he was sweating. He wanted to shed his jacket and loosen his tie, to get away from all these people, but he only smiled and handed the blonde back her book.
He took the next one from a young man in wire-rimmed spectacles, keeping one eye on his butterfly. Her father was a liberal, like himself, but unlikely to support the dissolution of the political foundation upon which his power rested. Especially after the failure of last year’s referendum on Scottish independence. Still, Lord Bentley couldn’t know Callum had quietly poured money into the cause of Scottish freedom for decades, nor could his daughter. It was a secret shared only by Duncan and a few other die-hard nationalists who, like him, weren’t about to give up the fight just because the majority of Scots had fallen prey to English fearmongering.
Duncan was a wolver, a benevolent type of lycanthrope found in the Shetland Islands. Most worked as fishermen, as Duncan had done, before he realized he could help more indigent people through politics than by donating part of his catch to the local soup kitchen.
Shutting his eyes against her allure, Callum took his emotional temperature. He was already fraying around the edges and still had to get through dinner with some of Duncan’s and his political pals. Another hour or two of forcing himself to be sociable would likely unravel him completely. How would he divide himself between a crew of rapid nationalists and the lass, let alone have anything left to give her afterward?