Page 58 of Love Beyond Wanting
She took her time looking him up and down.My heart ached for him as she did so.
She didn’t look at him as if he were her son.She looked at him as if he were a thing—a tool she meant to use for her amusement.
When she did speak, there was no love in her voice for him.“Ye certainly take after yer father, lad.The fae is barely visible in ye.Mayhap a little in yer eyes, but if ye dinna know to look for it, ye wouldna know.”
“Thank Brighid for that.Ye mean nothing to me, Machara.I want nothing to do with anything ye have planned for me.I willna harm my father.Nor will I harm the men who placed ye here.”
She laughed and flicked her wrist as Brachan dropped to his knees.He screamed and covered his ears with his hands.The sound of Machara’s laughter grew to other-worldly levels.
When she spoke again, her voice was different—booming, and scary as hell.“Can ye not see, lad?Ye doona have a choice.Ye are mine, and ye will do as I bid.Grab the lass next to ye, Brachan.Wrap yer hands around her neck and twist until it snaps.”
He turned toward me, and his eyes were filled with a plea.I kneeled in front of him and tried to keep my eyes locked with his.
“Block it out, Brachan.You are not hers.You are the person you want to be—your mother’s son, your real mother, the one who raised you.You are Nicol’s son.You were raised in goodness, and goodness is what is in your heart.”
He nodded as if he understood, but his hands shook as he pulled them away from his ears.He began to sob as he spoke, “I’m so sorry, lass.I doona want to hurt ye.”
He lunged, but Maddock was on him before he could reach me.In an instant the other men pulled him away, chaining him with magic as they hauled him from the dungeon.
Machara’s laugh echoed through the castle for hours.
Chapter 38
In my opinion, the men overreacted to the entire situation.Brachan had lunged, but I’d never felt frightened.I believe he would’ve been able to stop himself.And it only took a moment after they pulled him away for him to gain composure of himself once again.
Compared to Brachan, I was frantic.As they dragged him up the stairs, I ran after them, pulling on the arms of any of the men I could reach, trying to get their attention as I begged them not to hurt him.
It was Nicol who’d finally been able to calm me by reaching out to grip my shoulder with his hand.
“I canna kill him, lass.I willna let them harm him.I doona know what we shall do, but I canna end his life.”
Assured that Brachan was at least free from physical harm, I decided that the most useful thing I could do was to spend the day in the library and look through books to see if I could stumble across some way to help him.But I found nothing, and at some point in the day, I fell asleep with my head in a book.
“Lass, ye had me scared to death.I looked all over the castle for ye.”Maddock lifted me from my hunched position and gathered me in his arms like a child.He looked weary and sad.
“I’m sorry.”I yawned as my eyes opened.“I fell asleep.I was looking for something that might help.”
“Did ye find anything?”
“No.”I lay my head into his chest as I struggled to remember my dream.It felt important that I not let it slip away.
“Where are ye, lass?Ye appear verra far away.”
“I’m trying to remember something.I was dreaming about the book I read back home.About…I think it was about Calder.”I could see bits of the text flash before my eyes as Maddock carried me up the stairs.I tried to recall what it said.“Oh my God!”
I tapped his shoulder so he would set me down.
“Maddock, I know what it was.”
He lowered me, his expression curious.“What was it, lass?’
“Calder fell in love with a fae, yes?And that fae was turned into a human.Perhaps we can find a way to make Brachan fully human—to remove the fae from him.”
“Ye do remember what happened to the lass Calder fell in love with, aye?She couldna bear her humanness once she had it.She threw herself from a cliff.”
“Yes, but Brachan isn’t fully fae.Even Machara admitted that he has more of Nicol than her within him.He would be able to survive it because he already thinks of himself as human.”
He stepped away and crossed his arms skeptically.“He may be more human than fae, but he still has magic, lass.If ’twas stripped from him, ’twould be a terrible loss.”
