To Tame a Highland Warrior

“I can see someone should have told you more fables when you were young,” she teased. “My point is, memory can be a deceptive thing,” she clarified. “Perhaps the village never was completely destroyed. Perhaps it just seemed that way when you left. Did you leave at night? Was it too dark to see clearly?”

Grimm took her hands in his as they knelt together on the cliff’s edge. It had been night when he’d left Tuluth, and the air had been thick with smoke. It had been a horrifying scene to the fourteen-year-old lad. He’d left believing his village and home destroyed and himself a dangerous beast. He’d left filled with hatred and despair, expecting little of life.

Now, fifteen years later, he crouched upon the same ridge, holding the hands of the woman he loved beyond life itself, gazing upon impossible sights. If Jillian hadn’t been with him he might have tucked tail and run, never permitting himself to wonder what strange magic had been worked in this vale. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “My memory of you was never deceptive. I always remembered you as the best that life had to offer.”

Jillian’s eyes widened. She tried to speak but ended up making a small choked sound instead. Grimm stiffened, interpreting her sound for a cry of discomfort. “Here I am, keeping you out in the cold when you’re ill.”

“That’s not what … no,” she stammered. “Truly, I feel much better now.” When he eyed her suspiciously, she added, “Oooh, but I do need to get somewhere warm soon, Grimm. And that castle certainly looks warm.” She eyed it hopefully.

Grimm’s gaze darted back to the valley. The castle did look warm. And well fortified. Damn near the safest place he could take her, and why not? There were “welcome home” banners draped in dozens of locations. If the McKane were following him, what better place to stand and fight? How strange it was to return to Tuluth after all these years, with the McKane on his heels once again. Would the pattern finally come full circle and end? Perhaps they wouldn’t need to go to Dalkeith to raise an army to fight the McKane after all.

But he’d have to face his da. He blew out a frustrated breath and weighed their options. How could he descend into this valley that cradled all his deepest fears? But how could he explain to Jillian if he turned and rode away? What if her illness returned? What if the McKane caught them? He was confounded by the onslaught of questions with no clear answers. Discovering Tuluth was this … this glorious place … it was too shocking for his mind to absorb.

Jillian winced and rubbed her stomach. His hands tightened on hers and he invoked his legendary willpower, aware that before this day was through he would need every ounce of it.

He had no choice. They swiftly remounted and began the descent.

“They’re comin’!”

Ronin looked ready to bolt.

“Relax, man,” Balder chided. “It’s goin’ to be fine, you’ll see.”

The McIllioch grimaced. “Easy for you to say. He’s not your son. I tell you, he’s goin’ to spit in my face.”

Balder shook his head and tried not to laugh. “If that’s your worst concern, old man, you have nothin’ to worry about.”

Grimm and Jillian descended the back of Wotan’s Cleft, circled around the base of it, and picked up the wending road into the mouth of the valley. Five huge mountains formed a natural fortress around the valley, rising like the gentle fingers of an unfurled hand. The city filled its protected palm, verdant, teeming with life. Jillian quickly concluded that when the McKane had attacked Tuluth years ago, they must have been either thoroughly arrogant or impossibly vast in numbers.

As if he’d read her mind, Grimm said, “We weren’t always this great in numbers, Jillian. In the past fifteen years, Tuluth seems to have not only regained the men lost in the battle with the McKane, but increased by”—his dumbfounded gaze swept the valley—“nearly five times.” He whistled, and shook his head. “Someone has been rebuilding.”

“Are you certain your da is insane?”

Grimm grimaced. “Yes.” As certain as I am of anything at the moment, he appended silently.

“Well, for an insane man, he certainly seems to have done wonders here.”

“I doona believe he has. Something else must be going on.”

“And the ‘Welcome back, son’ banner? I thought you said you have no brothers.”

“I doona,” he replied stiffly. He realized they would soon be in clear sight of the first of those banners and he hadn’t told Jillian the truth: that there was absolutely no mistaking who was expected because he hadn’t been entirely truthful before—the dozens of banners hung throughout the city really read “Welcome back, Gavrael.”