To Tame a Highland Warrior

“I won’t fail him this time, Jolyn. I swear to you, I will see Castle Maldebann secured and filled with promise again. Then we’ll be together to smile down upon this place.” After a long pause, he whispered fiercely, “I miss you, woman.”

Outside the Hall of Lords, an astonished Gilles entered the connecting hallway and paused, eyeing the open door in disbelief. Rushing down the corridor, he burst into the long-sealed hall, barely suppressing a whoop of delight at the sight of Ronin, no longer stooped but standing proudly erect beneath a portrait of his wife and son. Ronin didn’t turn, but Gilles hadn’t expected him to; Ronin always knew who was in his immediate circumference.

“Have the maids set to cleaning, Gilles,” Ronin commanded without taking his eyes off the portrait of his smiling wife. “Open this place up and air it out. I want the entire castle scrubbed as it hasna been since my Jolyn was alive. I want this place sparklin’.” Ronin opened his arms expansively. “Light the torchères and henceforth keep them burnin’ in here as they did years ago, day and night. My son is coming home,” he finished proudly.

“Yes, milord!” Gilles exclaimed as he hastened off to obey a command he’d been waiting a lifetime to hear.

Where to now, Grimm Roderick? he wondered wearily. Back to Dalkeith to see if he might lure destruction to those blessed shores?

His hands fisted and he longed for a bottomless bottle of whisky, although he knew it wouldn’t grant him the oblivion he sought. If a Berserker drank quickly enough, he might feel drunk for the sum total of about three seconds. That wouldn’t work at all.

The McKane always found him eventually. He knew now that they must have had a spy in Durrkesh. Likely someone had seen the rage come over him in the courtyard of the tavern, then tried to poison him. The McKane had learned over the years to attack stealthily. Cunning traps or sheer numbers were the only possible ways to take a Berserker, and neither of them was foolproof. Now that he had escaped the McKane twice, he knew the next time they struck they would descend in force.

First they’d tried poison, then the fire at the stables. Grimm knew if he had remained at Caithness they might have destroyed the entire castle, taking out all the St. Clair in their blind quest to kill him. He’d become acquainted with their unique fanaticism at an early age, and it was a lesson he’d never forgotten.

They’d blessedly lost track of him during the years he’d been in Edinburgh. The McKane were fighters, not royal arse-kissers, and they devoted little attention to the events at court. He’d hidden in plain sight. Then, when he’d moved from court to Dalkeith, he’d encountered few new people, and those he had met were abjectly loyal to Hawk. He’d started to relax his guard and begun to feel almost … normal.

What an intriguing, tantalizing word: normal. “Take it away, Odin. I was wrong,” Grimm whispered. “I doona wish to be Berserk any longer.”

But Odin didn’t seem to care.

Grimm had to face the facts. Now that the McKane had found him again, they would tear the country apart looking for him. It wasn’t safe for him to be near other people. It was time for a new name, perhaps a new country. His thoughts turned to England, but every ounce of Scot in him rebelled.

How could he live without ever touching Jillian again? Having experienced such joy, how could he resume his barren existence? Christ, it would have been better if he’d never known what his life might have been like! On that fateful night above Tuluth, at the foolish age of fourteen, he’d called a Berserker, begging for the gift of vengeance, never realizing how complete that vengeance would be. Vengeance didn’t bring back the dead, it deadened the avenger.

But there was really little point in regret, he mocked himself, for he owned the beast and the beast owned him, and it was that simple. Resignation blanketed him, and only one issue remained. Where to now, Grimm Roderick?

He nudged Occam to the only place left to go: in the forbidding Highlands he could disappear into the wilderness. He knew every empty hut and cave, every source of shelter from the bitter winter that would soon ice white caps around the mountains.

He would be so cold again.

Guiding Occam with his knees, he plaited war braids into his hair and wondered if an invincible Berserker could die from something so innocuous as a broken heart.

Jillian gazed sadly at the blackened lawn of Caithness. Everything was a reminder. It was November, and the hated lawn would be black until the first snowfall came to smother it. She couldn’t step outside the castle without being forced to remember that night, the fire, Grimm leaving. The lawn sloped and rolled in a vast, never-ending carpet of black ash. All her flowers were gone. Grimm was gone.