Highlander's Faerie (Highlander Heat #5)

Highlander's Faerie (Highlander Heat #5)

Joanne Wadsworth



The Faerie Circle


The ruins of Dunyvaig Castle, on the Isle of Islay, Scotland, current day.



The full moon, a bright ball of eerie orange, hung low along the ocean’s horizon and cast its glow over ghostly wisps of cloud floating across it. The wind rose, and inside Dunyvaig’s faerie circle, Katherine MacLean huddled on the cold, damp grass, her knees drawn tight to her chest. Nine white stones standing six feet high and six feet apart surrounded her, while a tenth center stone, short enough to sit on but just as wide, shone marble smooth with her ancestor’s silver amulet draped upon it. Mary’s MacLean’s talisman had been engraved on one side with the MacLean clan crest, and on the reverse, the MacDonald crest. The piece had been gifted to Mary on the day she’d wed the MacDonald chief, and should have represented the time when the two great clans had finally come together in harmony. Instead the feud had become bitterer and raged across the Western Isles.

Even as Mary’s kin had battled, she’d continued to wear the amulet as a firm reminder she belonged to both clans, until the day had come when Mary had decided nothing more could be done except to ask the faerie folk for aid. She’d stood in this circle and made a wish, asking the Guardians of Dunyvaig to aid her in bringing peace between her clans. They’d instructed her to bequeath her amulet to her eldest daughter, requesting it be passed down through the generations until it once again came into the possession of the eldest daughter born to a MacLean. That had taken over four-hundred years, but it was a gift Katherine’s older twin sister, Marie, had held dear to her heart.

Marie had received the bestowment on her twenty-first birthday, and following it, Katherine and Marie had traveled halfway around the world, from Australia’s Gold Coast to Scotland’s mainland then by ferry to this beautiful isle. As the progeny of two bickering clans, they’d brought Mary’s amulet home as she’d requested.

Then a mere week ago, Katherine had stood in this faerie circle with her sister and made a wish that had gone awry. That wish had lowered the veil and taken Marie away from her and far into the past.

Behind Katherine, high on the craggy hill, Dunyvaig’s ruins tormented her. Those blocks of jagged stone lay so heartbreakingly cold and alone, as she’d been this past week without her sister. Rocking, she allowed her tears to trickle free. “Please,” she cried out to the little folk, “I’ll do whatever you ask of me. Grant me one more wish. Allow me to join my sister. She’s all I have left in this world.”

Pain speared through her and she slumped onto her side. Blood flowed down her neck from an open wound that had come out of nowhere. She grasped the edges, but her lifeblood poured through her fingers and soaked her red and blue tartan coat.

Vision blurring, she scrambled to the edge of the circle and hit a hazy barrier. Beyond the fog, the darkened waves of Lagavulin Bay rolled in with a pounding crash, and high on the hill, Dunyvaig Castle rose strong. Three stories high, its battlements topped fortified walls and candles glowed from the tower windows.

“Mary, you’re no’ to wander beyond the gates,” a guardsman bellowed as he rushed across the top of the barbican.

A woman with a riot of red-gold curls swaying around her belly swollen with child hurried toward the circle and patted the sides. “The veil has risen,” Mary called to the guard. Kneeling in her white gown, she peered within, right at Katherine. Softly, she murmured, “Please, whose presence do I feel? That of the fae?”

“I need your aid.” Katherine fought to get to her knees and hammered the veil with what strength she had.

“I hear whispers from within.” Mary searched the circle. “Guardians of Dunyvaig, I implore you. Marie has gone to battle for the Rhinns and I fear for her safety. She will perish if my brother’s life is taken. Lachlan MacLean has yet to father her paternal line. If he dies, she dies.”

“Mary, you have to send someone to Marie.” She clutched her wounded neck.

“Aye, if that is what the fae ask of me, then that is what I shall do.”

“I’m not one of the—”

“Ye must come inside, Mary.” The guard strode out in a thick fur vest and breeches, his sword at his side. “’Tis late and the weather turns.”

“Nay, I need a moment. I can sense the fae’s presence.” Mary bowed her head against the veil. “Please, show yourself to me.”

“There is none there. Now come.” The warrior helped Mary to her feet and gently led her back through the gates.

“Mary, stay. I—I—” Black spots danced before her eyes. No. She had to hold on.