Page 3 of The Highlander's Fake Wife
“Maesie, hold!”
The deerhound let out a strained whimper, kicking furiously to keep the woman’s head above.
Arthur soon dove back underneath, working his hunting knife free from his belt as he grasped around the woman’s body. Eventually, his hand caught against fabric once more, and with a yank, it became clear that this was the anchoring point. His blade quickly sawed through, and he pushed beneath the woman to surface her further, finally able to drape one arm around his neck.
“Maesie, release!”
The deerhound obeyed, snout pushing the woman’s arm to her master as he pulled it similarly over his shoulders.
The smell of a burning torch ripped Olivia from semi-consciousness, a scream clawing its way out from the depths of her soul. Something behind her let out a panicked yelp, a series of sharp barks indicating the thing’s displeasure for her outburst. Olivia blinked furiously, head craning to catch the face of a deerhound curled up behind her, acting as an impromptu pillow. Her fur was a beautiful silver that shimmered blue beneath the moonlight, crisp and wiry beneath Olivia’s fingers. It was as if she’d lived her entire life running against the salted sea air, and Olivia couldn’t help but be utterly fascinated.
A cracking snap pulled her attention forward, the flickering heat of a fire–not a torch–unexpectedly warming the frigid chill from her face. Or, whatever chill remind; she found herself wrapped tightly in an oversized cloak, hair strewn out against her back and already dried. As if someone had carefully rubbed a cloth through it, or kept her close enough to the fire as to dry it quickly.
Hesitantly, she pulled the cloak away and gave her body a quick inspection. To her horror, someone had stripped her almost entirely from her outerwear, though curiously–and with incredible reassurance–had left her proper dress intact. The linen felt crunchy against her skin, still rough and somewhat damp from her tumble into the tarn. Olivia pulled the cloaktighter over her body, gaze lingering back to the rather large dog still curled up beside her.
“Where on earth did ye come from?”
The deerhound tilted their head slightly, as if the answer was quite obvious.
“Dinnae gimme me that look,” Olivia scowled. “And I suppose yer the one with started this fire?”
“Nay; that was me.”
Another shriek slipped out from Olivia as her head spun, watching as a man broke through the shadows, pulling on the reins of a horse. Heart pounding in her chest, she forced herself to breathe and scrutinize, running through memories for any sign of this newcomer’s face.
Much to her relief, she came up empty; whoever this was, he hadn’t come from MacCulloh’s keep. He didn’t even look to be from this stretch of Scotland; his skin a surprisingly deep tan with sharp features and thick facial hair that reminded her of black rocks jutting out from a stormy sea. One seafoam-green eye stared straight through her, while the other was covered by a worn leather patch that wound the length of his head and vanished behind long strands of dark, loosely-bound hair.
If she wasn’t so terrified, she might have commented on how similar an appearance he had to the fachans of myth.
“Glad to see ye roused, though,” One-Eye continued, tying his horse to a nearby tree’s limb before pulling a string of hares from the saddle. “Thought I wasted me time with draggin’ a corpse out of the tarn.”
Olivia shifted her posture, trying to lean away as much as she could. Once more, the deerhound let out a snappish yip as her back pressed into them, and the beast quickly got up and trotted to One-Eye’s side.
“Aye, be nice, Maesie,” One-Eye scolded lightly, producing a hunting knife from seemingly nowhere. “The wee selkie’s a bit groggy, still.”
She really was. Olivia ran a hand across her forehead, catching stray hairs and pushing it all back while exhaling loudly. The world refused to stop spinning around her, and she couldn’t help but gravitate towards the man’s voice.
There was an obvious edge–a gruffness every highlander carried alongside themself–but there was an unusually smooth undertone that kept taking her by surprise. Again, her mind drifted to the past, to picture books and tapestries depicting the sea. Wrathful and dangerous, yet at times, still as glass itself.
“Ye all right, there?”
Olivia glanced back upward, staring at the man’s churning eye. She opened her mouth to speak, but instead of answering, her own question tumbled out. “‘Wait; what did ye call me earlier?”
“What, ‘selkie’?” One-Eye chuckled lightly, skinning the beast with an obviously honed skill, “Couldnae call ye, ‘corpse’, could I?”
“N-Nay, I just,” Olivia shook her head, debating if she should offer her real name to him. Even if he wasn’t part of MacCulloh proper, he could’ve had friends waiting behind the wall. Best not to chance it, not when every ‘chance’ she’d taken tonight ended in disaster. “I…was taken aback, is all.”
One-Eye shrugged, sticking a skewer through the beast as he stuck it over the fire. “Seemed to fit well enough. Less ye feel like offerin’ another thing to call ye?”
Olivia shook her head, hair bobbing and coming slightly undone at the act.
“Good.” One-Eye hand stroked the length of his deerhound–his ‘Maesie’--as his brow furrowed with a scowl. “Then maybe ye can tell me what yer doin’ out here in the middle of the night?”
The snapping crackle of animal fat hitting the flames broke the long silence between them. Olivia did her best to avoid eye contact, futzing with a loose string she’d discovered on One-Eye’s cloak.
“Fer…the same reason as ye?” An awful excuse. Probably the worst she could’ve come up with. Admittedly, she wasn’t feeling as witty as usual, due in part to her mind still fogged over from the lingering cold.
“Good effort, selkie,” One-Eye chuckled humorlessly. “But yer attire completely gives ye away. Never met a fellow hunter who thought to trek bootless and with no supplies.”
