Highlander's Faerie (Highlander Heat #5)

“Your enemy, not mine. I’m a MacLean, in case you forgot.” She wriggled her trapped hands free from between them and sighed. “The Chief of MacLean will father my paternal line, just as Mary MacDonald will give birth to my maternal one. I may be living in the past, but in truth, I’ve yet to be born. Even Mary wishes for peace between the clans.”


“Of which you’ve assured me does no’ happen for many years. If you attempt to bring about peace, then you’d be changing the future, something you and Marie are adamant against doing. Now enough of this talk of traveling to Mull. ’Tis late and you need your rest.” He tucked her under his shoulder and led her toward the stairs.

“The fae wouldn’t have asked me to travel to Duart Castle if I wasn’t supposed to.”

“Mayhap what the fae said is no’ all you believe. Consider their words well.” He called out to the guardsman in the gatehouse, “Lower the portcullis. Secure the keep for the night.”

The portcullis within the stone-arched entrance lowered, its clunky chains reverberating throughout the keep.

“I’m twenty-one, John. You can’t demand I go to bed just because that suits you.”

“I can and I did.”

He was so frustrating.

“You also don’t need to watch over me as intensely as you do.” In the past fortnight, she’d barely slept, her dreams always swirling with darkness and death. Her cries had woken John that first night and ever since, he’d slept in her room, watching over her. “I’m not a child.”

“I’m well aware.” He opened the door and motioned her into the great hall.

“I spoke to the fae about my nightmares.”

“You did?” He lifted one eyebrow. “And…”

“She said I no longer belonged to the future, but here in the past. Not much of an answer.”

“Well, I agree you belong here, although I wish you’d speak to me of what awakens you at night.”

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “Perhaps it’s my grief manifesting. I’m not sure. All I know is I miss them.”

“Your parents?”

“Yes.” Losing her mother to cancer a few short months ago had near broken her heart, as it had her sister’s, particularly when it had come so close on the heels of their father’s passing the year before. “Don’t you miss your parents?”

His father had died on the battlefield the year he’d turned eighteen, and his mother on the day she’d given birth to him and Archie. How awful. He’d never even gotten to know his own mother.

“I think of them constantly. ’Tis best to allow only the good memories to surface.” He guided her upstairs to the third floor, ushered her into her chamber and shut the door. Crouched before the hearth, he tore strips of bark from a log and brought a flame to life striking flint with his dagger. A fire soon blazed and spread its heat through the room. Hands dusted, he rose and crossed to the navy corner padded chair he’d slept in these past two weeks and plumped the pillow. With a deep sigh, he removed his sword belt, set it against the side of the chair then tucked a loose blue shirttail back into his black leather pants.

“I wish the nightmares would stop. I hate that I’m keeping you from your bed.”

“Until they cease, I’ll remain at your side. Do you need me to unlace your gown?”

“Yes, please.” She turned her back and he stepped in behind her. Holding the burgundy velvet bodice to her chest, she smiled over her shoulder at him. “In the future, one doesn’t need this kind of help when undressing.”

“Do you miss your men’s trews?” A teasing glint lit his eyes as he scooped her hair and slid it to one side.

“They’re called jeans, and in the twenty-first century, men and women both wear them, and yes, I do miss them.” She’d fallen through the veil in her favorite skinny jeans and quite shocked John when she’d removed her tartan red and blue woolen coat to uncover them. “It’s amazing to see how proficient you’re getting at this task, although sleeping in my chamber must be giving your single status a knock.”

“Single status? Another interesting term of yours.” Chuckling, his breath puffed warmly against her back as he exposed her skin. “All here are aware of your nightmares and that I must maintain a vigil at your bedside. Your good name remains intact.”

“My good name doesn’t worry me.”

“It should.” A frown furrowed his brow.

“Well, I didn’t mean it quite like that. It’s just I’m here in the past and I have to be so careful. I can’t take the risk of changing anyone’s future. That means I’m keeping my own single status.”

“Your sister happily changed Archie’s future by agreeing to be his wife.”

“Archie had already decreed he’d never join with another, and well before Marie had ever arrived. She changed nothing.”

“You wish to live your life without ever knowing love?” He loosened the last lacing.

“No, but I’m out of choices.” Bodice scrunched in her hands, she faced him. “Do you wish to marry one day?”

“Aye, I wish to wed, to find a wife who’ll give me strong sons and feisty daughters.”