Page 28 of Highlander Unraveled
I grunted to the guard and pushed past him toward the main doors, shoving them open a little more forcefully than was necessary. I stood at the top of the keep stairs, glowering at the messenger who stood nervously in the bailey, the reins of his horse still in his hands, though he stood beside it. He looked to be about the same age as my son, and he was covered in a film of dirt and grime. I could smell his stench from where I stood. Either he was not very good at personal hygiene, or he’d ridden hard and fast to reach me.
“My laird,” he said before I’d addressed him.
My glower deepened, but he didn’t stop speaking, only attesting to his urgent message.
“Apologies, but ye must come quick. The Guardian, he needs ye.” The messenger met my gaze, pleading in his eyes.
The Guardian. Logan Grant. If he was summoning me, then it must be dire.
“What’s it in regards to?” I asked in the hopes the man had an idea.
“Your wife is also to come.” The messenger shook his head, slapped the side of it. “The lady, our mistress, she is missing.”
That one word,missing, had the ability to drain all the blood from my body, leaving it to pool in my boots, and I feared I’d sweat it right out of the bottom of my feet.
“Missing? What do ye know of this?”
“Not much. The laird woke in the night to find her gone. They searched the castle and surrounding grounds for hours and there is no sign of her.”
Ballocks!
Nay!
The very thing I feared myself… Moira going back to the future. I’d been back and forth; there was no telling when it would happen.
Had Emma been taken back? The messenger wouldn’t have that answer, but Logan might.
“Do they know who took her?” I asked, just in case.
The messenger shook his head. “Not a clue, my laird. Not one clue. ’Tis as if she vanished into thin air.”
Mo chreach… ’Twas true.
“Get a meal, refresh your horse. We will pack and leave within the hour.”
The messenger thanked me. He handed his mount off to one of our stable lads, and then hurried around the back of the keep toward the kitchens. I blew out a breath, the heat that had been pummeling me for the past half hour gone and replaced with a cold as thick and frigid as ice.
Ever since I’d been brought back to the future, and I’d been able to hold Moira in my arms again, I knew it would be a crushing blow to be without her. I loved her deeply, more than I’d ever thought possible.
Och, and Logan had Emma with him for much longer. They’d just birthed a bairn. I couldn’t imagine the pain he must be suffering at that moment.
Thick, dark clouds moved over the blue of the sky, pressing in on the sun. Dark and formidable. Was Fate taunting me?
I turned slowly back toward the main doors and walked with heavy steps toward the keep. Inside, the light barely hit the walls, obscured by the narrowness of the windows and the dark clouds.
I stood at the bottom of the circular stair, counting the steps until they rounded out of sight. I didn’t want to go upstairs. I didn’t want to tell my wife that Emma, her good friend, was gone. Missing. Vanished into thin air. That there was the possibility that she, Moira, one day could be gone, too, even though we both knew it was a possibility and happened to us both before. Hell, Moira was from a different time than modern day anyway. Hundreds of years in the past. And who knew what the time difference would be. Could be catastrophic.
When I’d gone to the future, only a couple days passed in my mind, butyearspassed in the Highlands. Five long years to be exact. Five years I’d lost and could never regain.
If time caught up with my wife, she’d long since have turned to dust. And me, too, for that matter, if I ended up in the future.
If my son, Ranulf, were ever to find out the fact that I’d time traveled, that I could disappear at any moment, along with my lady wife—a missing royal princess—his argument against me being chief of the MacLeod clan would be secured. Or else, the clan would think him mad. Or me. Who knew?
Either way, I couldn’t risk it.
“Ballocks,” I ground out and lifted my foot onto the first stair, but I couldn’t make myself go any further.
I stood there, half suspended.
