Page 70 of Highlander of Steel
“I’m still four!” the girl chirped, quite content to be carried back to her bed.
As Ailis tucked the child beneath the warm coverlets, she launched into a tale of a human who accidentally picked up a precious faerie jewel while wandering in the woods, and a faerie king who came in the night to take back what was his. Only, when he saw the human woman sleeping, he immediately fell in love and stole her from her bed.
The words tumbled easily off her tongue, but as she reached the part where the faerie king was trying to woo the human girl, teaching her to swim in the faerie pools, she noticed that Skye had fallen asleep. The peaceful slumber of someone who hadn’t suffered.
“I’ll tell ye the rest another time,” she whispered, leaning down to place a gentle kiss on her niece’s brow.
Skye wrinkled her nose and snuffled in her sleep, but didn’t awaken.
There’s nothin’ I wouldnae sacrifice for ye, lassie.
With a weary sigh, Ailis rose to her feet and crept toward the door. She didn’t regret returning to make sure that Skye was safe, but she couldn’t help feeling resentful toward Murdock, who had played such a clever trick.
Killian had been right to question the severity of the threat, just as he had been right to tell her not to play into a madman’s hands. She had just focused on the wrong madman—her father instead of her brother.
Now, she was trapped here. Both she and Skye were trapped here.
“I trust ye’re pleased that the bairn wasnae harmed,” her father said, surprising her as she exited the bedchamber and closed the door behind her.
He sat on the windowsill opposite, his eyes glinting in the dark.
“I am, for now,” Ailis replied. “Then again, Murdock isnae here, so the danger isnae.”
Her father scoffed. “Ye always did spin tales. What ye think happened is probably simple to explain.”
“Ikenme braither was there when I almost drowned,” she shot back, no longer as afraid as she used to be. “If it’s so simple, explain it.”
The old man shrugged. “Ye probably wandered out by yerself and got into trouble. If anythin’, ye should be thankin’ yer braither for savin’ yer life. That’s what it sounds like to me.”
“Then ye’re mistaken,” she said coldly. “I’ve had the same nightmare since I was just a bit older than Skye. I think I ken the details better than ye.”
“Aye, and memory cannae be trusted,” her father countered. “After so many years, ye’re just believin’ what ye want to believe.”
Refusing to dignify that with a response, Ailis immediately turned right and headed to her old bedchamber, aware of the footsteps following her down the hall.
In all her twenty years, she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her father in this wing of the castle. He always left it to Murdock to lock her up, or Murdock did it without their father’s knowledge.
But it hardly mattered now.
“Are ye retirin’?” her father asked. “I expect ye’re tired after yer journey back.”
As if ye care.
Ailis rested her hand on the door handle, hesitating. What if he used the opportunity to push her inside, lock her up, and throw away the key?
“I may, I may nae,” she replied, steeling herself.
Opening the door to her bedchamber, she went straight to the box that she kept beneath her writing desk. A box filled with good memories, to help soothe her mind on the darkest of days.
There were dried flowers that Skye had picked for her, a broken hair slide that once belonged to her mother, letters from her sister, an old doll made from a twig, some wool, and scraps of fabric that she and Kristen used to play with when they were little girls.
The lock of hair was no longer there.
Murdock, ye bastard.
She felt a faint prickle of relief that it hadn’t been cut more recently from Skye’s head, but it wasn’t much. Indeed, regardless of Skye’s perceived value as a ‘worthless girl,’ Ailis should have known that neither Murdock nor her father would have done anything to harm their own flesh and blood.
The drowning that lived on in Ailis’s nightmares was different.Shewasn’t Murdock’s flesh and blood, not in the same way. Andhe had reason to want to destroy her, considering that she was the one who had killed their mother.
