Highlander's Seduction (The Matheson Brothers #3)

“You’re headed to the MacKenzie’s lair?”


“Nay, I am already here.” She sent a surge of warmth and love down their link, then whizzed through the hall holding three maids busily cleaning trestle tables before slipping underneath the chief’s solar door and inside his inner sanctum. She’d visited this castle a number of times over the centuries, for one reason or another and as such knew her way about well enough. She breezed around the room holding an oak desk, a tall polished chest with a dozen or more drawers, and an armoire containing the chief’s armor inside. At the narrow stained glass window overlooking the inner courtyard, she halted and drew her form back together. Cloaked and assured none beyond the window would be able to see her, she gripped the windowsill. Outside, fog swirled and the MacKenzie chief in his belted plaid appeared at the base of the stone stairs leading up to the barbican. He was unmistakable with his formidable size and grizzly features, his biceps bulging and legs almost as thick as tree trunks. “I see Colin MacKenzie. Thankfully he’s here and no’ attempting to harm one of our own right now.”

“I’m on my way with my brothers. Stay hidden, Cherub. Don’t let a soul see you.”

“There is no need for you to set sail to these shores. I willnae be here long.” She stepped across to the chief’s desk where a quill and ink bottle sat between a pile of the seneschal’s accounts and three rolls of parchment tied with red ribbon. Carefully, she unraveled the first roll and opened it. “I’ll do a quick search and see what I can discover. He intends to take control of Matheson land and I need to know how and why a time-walker is important to ensuring his ultimate plan is made successful.”

“Iain, Finlay and I are at the sea-gate.”

“You dinnae need to come.”

“You are mine to protect, and I’ll do exactly that.”

“What you are, is impossible.” Now she was on a time limit. There was no way she’d allow her mate anywhere near the MacKenzie’s heavily guarded keep. She scanned the first parchment holding dozens of names, all scrolling downward from two. Oh my. Her mother and father’s names sat at the top of what was clearly a family tree. Each of their children’s names written along with their offspring and so forth down the scroll.

“What’s wrong, Cherub? I can sense the confusion in your mind.”

“Colin MacKenzie holds my genealogy. I’m no’ sure how he would have gotten this being that my kin reside beyond the veil.” She continued to scan the names and tapped Samuel’s name. Samuel, her youngest brother, had been the one to visit the village over two-hundred years ago. He’d fallen in love with the chief’s daughter and wed her. There he’d lived, his line of descendants remaining strong at the village. She unraveled the other two rolls and frowned. Jeremiah and Amelia’s ancestries were recorded on those. “Kirk, there is more at play here than just the MacKenzie’s desire to have a time-walker and to take Gilleoin’s land. He has no’ only researched my family line, but also Amelia and Jeremiah’s. I’m missing something, although I dinnae know yet what.”

“Colin MacKenzie covets what he can’t have. Consider that as you search for your answer.”

“Aye, that he does.” She returned to her own genealogy and straightened the bottom crinkly edge. In slanted script two words bloomed. Eternal life. “Oh my, I’ve found the answer. The Chief of MacKenzie desires a time-walker in order to be as I am. He wishes for eternal life.”

A low growl rumbled from him. “He’s not going to get it.”

“Aye, ’tis impossible. Only you and those children born to us can hold eternal life.” She scrunched the parchment to her chest. “He chases a dream that can never be.”

The door swung open and Colin MacKenzie barreled in, his gaze narrowing on the floating parchment. He slammed the door, seized the tartan blanket tossed over one of the armchairs and bunched it under the doorway. Rising to his towering height, he muttered, “Well, well, well. Who do we have here?”

Heart thumping, she dropped the parchment and it toppled to his desk and rolled off the side. Damn it. She’d never been caught unawares like this before.

The MacKenzie heaved his heavy armoire in front of the door and fully blocked her exit out. “My spies have informed me that Amelia and her kin are under heavy guard at Matheson House, so that must mean the unseen visitor in my solar must be the faerie king’s daughter herself, the one they call Cherub, the one my men saw appear out of thin air as they fought the ‘power of three’ at the inn.”