Page 8 of Highlander Unraveled
“When she was feeding Saor in our chamber, afore bed.” The two of them had been so beautiful. Her fiery red curls, their sons matching locks. She’d cradled him to her breast, smiling down at the bairn as though he were an angel beckoning her. They were both my angels.
Ewan frowned. “Do ye think…?”
He trailed off, but I knew what he was thinking. The same thing as I. Neither one of us wanted to say it out loud for fear it would be true. Giving voice to thoughts often made them more powerful.
I shook my head. “Nay, it canna be.” I ground my teeth so hard I feared they’d turn to dust, pain pounded through my skull. “Fate canna do this to me.”
I felt as though someone had shoved a jagged-edged dirk into my chest and was sawing back and forth very slowly at my heart.
“Fate can do whatever she wishes,” Ewan muttered. He raked a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. He and Emma had been separated when they were both children, a plane crash that she’d thought had claimed her brother’s life, but in fact sent him here to me as a lad. They’d only just found out about each other.
Fate can do whatever she wishes.Damn Fate to hell!
That was not what I wanted to hear, that all power and control over the situation had been stripped from me. I liked being in control, needed it, and craved it.
“I will scour the earth for her before I believe that she’s been taken,” I said.
Ewan let out a long, downtrodden sigh. “Do ye remember doing the same thing when I went missing a few months ago?”
I gave a brief, curt nod, pulling my lips back from my teeth and hissing. Nay, nay, nay. Sheneededto be here.I need her. I love her.
Ewan regarded me with steady, serious eyes. “It didna help.”
“Ye’re not helping,” I growled.
Ewan nodded. “’Haps not. I will go and check with the guards.”
“I’ve already done it.”
“I’ll check with those who are asleep then.”
I could tell he was only going through the motions. Ewan had already determined that Emma had time traveled.
“Aye. Wake them all. We will check the surroundings of the castle in case one of my enemies has somehow managed to breach the walls.”
Ewan pressed his lips together, obviously wanting to say more, but he didn’t. He jogged off to do my bidding, and though we had somewhat of a plan in place, I didn’t feel better, not even a twinge. I felt worse. For, I was beginning to believe that she was truly gone.
How could I get her back?
Mayhap Shona, the Lady of the Wood as she’d been dubbed years before, would know what to do. Married to Ewan, she lived here at the castle now, the castle healer, and she was due to have her own bairn in a month’s time.
If she didn’t know how, mayhap Emma had told her something, anything, that might help me to find her. Emma had been the one who often listened the most to local folklore or the minstrel’s tales as they were sung, asking questions and investigating. It had been her idea to make love by the sacred stone in order to conceive our child. The magic of the stone had worked.
What else might she know? How could I find her?
“Emma!” I bellowed toward the sky, disturbing the crows that’d come to perch on the walls, awaiting the movement of anything they might find appetizing.
“My laird.” Shona’s soft fingers slid over my elbow.
“Where is she? Did she tell ye she was leaving me?” I asked, almost desperate for that to be the answer so at least I knew she was alive and here somewhere that I could find her and beg her to take me back.
Shona’s hands lifted to her massive pregnant belly and she shook her head. “She did not mention leaving. I think…” She frowned, her lips pursing. “I think she has, ye know… Left…”
“How could ye think that?”
“I had a dream.”
“A vision?”
