Page 32 of Joanna's Highlander (Highland Protector 2)

Grant squatted down beside her, amusement written all over his face. “Good now, aye?”

“You think this shit is funny?”

“Absolutely not,” Grant responded in a serious tone, but Joanna could see impishness sparkling in his eyes. He held out his hand. “Come. Ye’ve caught yer breath. Time t’finish this day’s journey.”

Taking his hand, Joanna pushed her way up the cool, smooth wall at her back and stood. The metal doors slid shut with a shushing thud and a mild wave of claustrophobia washed across her. She lifted her chin and took in a deep breath through her mouth.I’m okay. There’s plenty of air.She swallowed hard and looked around. Wire cages covered bright incandescent lightbulbs mounted close to the ceiling. The lights marched down both sides of the tunnel, placed no more than four feet apart, leaving no opportunity for shadows to gather anywhere in the passage. The slightest movement of cool air brushed across her face. She shivered and hugged closer to Grant’s side. “Where exactly are we?”

“Do ye ken the mountain that rises behind Castle Danu?”

“Where the explosion was a little over a year ago?” Joanna remembered the explosion caused by the film crew Sadie used to work for before she married Alec. It had blown away a good chunk of the mountain and forced the MacDaras to close Highland Life and Legends early in the season—putting a lot of people out of work. It had been a dark time for both the town and the MacDaras.

“Aye. The same.” Grant slowed as they came up even with a bronze plate engraved with several odd-looking symbols. The plaque was mounted between two of the wire-caged lights, and Joanna didn’t recognize the strange symbols etched across its surface.

Grant studied it for just a moment, then pointed in the direction they were headed. “A bit farther and then we take the tunnel to the left. I wasna certain. It’s been quite some time since I was down here.”

The fact that Grant might not remember where they were going did nothing to ease the nauseating knot of“oh shit”tightening in the pit of Joanna’s stomach. Her self-preservation paranoia was back in all its jittery raw-nerved glory. This little jaunt had gotten too weird to be some kind of quirky romantic rendezvous. Joanna stopped, pulled away from Grant, and backed up against the wall. “I’m not going any farther. You’re scaring the living shit out of me. What the hell is this place? Some underground nuclear facility or something? Is your family some kind of secret contractor for the DOD?” They were strategically positioned here in North Carolina. No one would ever suspect Highland Life and Legends to be a covert military facility for testing secret weapons.

“DOD?” Grant repeated slowly, staring at her as though she were speaking in a language he didn’t understand.

“Department of Defense.” A twinge of maybe-I-just-overreacted-a-little-bit pricked at the back of her mind like a bad memory. But she couldn’t help it. The hidden cave. The climate-controlled steel tunnels.I mean, damn!she defended to herself. She widened her stance, leaned tighter against the wall, and folded her arms snug across her chest in an attempt to tone down her pounding heart. “I’m not moving. Explain this place. Now.”

Grant looked down at the floor, scrubbing the back of his neck as though trying to massage away one hell of a headache. Finally, he raised his head. Unsmiling. Face etched with weariness. He looked like a man with the weight of all eternity yoked across his shoulders. “Yer standing in the secret tunnels that run through the bowels of MacDara Mountain. There are four entrances to the tunnels. All secret. One for each of the brothers and known only to those within the clan that are trusted with our secrets.”

“Secrets?”

“Aye.” Grant nodded, lifting his chin to a defiant angle. “The tunnels lead to the chamber holding the goddesses’ most sacred gift to all mankind—the blessed Heartstone. It has been my clan’s duty, since the time when clans began, to keep the stone safe. We were trained by the goddess Scota, the war goddess, to use the four weapons the goddess Bride forged for us to aid in keeping our sworn oath. We are the Highland protectors, sworn to protect mankind from itself.”

Oh my God. I’ve stumbled my way into a cult.“I see.” She didn’t know what else to say. Panicked thoughts ofare they dangerous, are they crazy,andbut he said he loved mebattled it out in her head. What the hell was she going to do now? Especially since she was currently trapped who knew how deep inside the guts of MacDara Mountain. “So…uhm…is that all?”

Grant frowned at her, one sandy brow quirked higher than the other. “What d’ye mean ‘is that all’?”

Joanna shrugged. “So…the MacDaras are a secret…group. Like the Masons. Right?”

“Nay, lass.” Grant slowly shook his head, staring back down at his feet as he did so. “We are no’ members of the Masonic Lodge and ’tis quite a different matter of which I speak.” He scrubbed a hand over his face as though attempting to wipe aside his weariness. “We are an ancient druid clan—and I mean ancient in every aspect of the word.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I am Grant Danann MacDara. Second son to Clan MacDara. Born in the year 882 A.D. in my beloved Scotland. My family and I were brought forward in time by the goddesses Danu, Bride, and Scota to save both us and the beloved Heartstone from the invading Northmen that had breached the walls of our keep. We arrived here, in this time, approximately sixteen years ago.”

Joanna stared at him. Confusion, uncertainty, and a general feeling that her knees were about to buckle battled for supremacy over her. “I…I just don’t know what to say to that.” Joanna swallowed hard. What bothered her most was that Grant was dead serious. He was totally vested in every word he’d just said. She could see it in his eyes. “I…uhm…you…all that can’t possibly be true.” Maybe they used some kind of hallucinogenic drug in this cult. What he’d just said could not be so.

“Aye, lass.” Grant sounded lost and very sad—as though his heart was breaking. “I ken how ye might struggle to believe all that is MacDara. ’Tis why I wished to show ye…” He waved one hand, encompassing the entirety of the tunnels and beyond. “ ’Tis why I wished t’show ye all this so it might help ye understand the truth of it.”

“You’re saying there really is a Heartstone?”

“Aye.”

“And it does what?”

“Protects mankind by fostering hope. Ensures that love, creativity, and the need to make life better never disappears from this world. The great stone ensures none of those powerful energies are ever lost.”

“Show me.” What else could she say? Joanna hugged herself and started walking in the direction Grant had pointed out earlier. She felt sick. Angry. Hurt. She wanted to sob and scream until she puked. She’d done it again. Found a real loser to latch on to—a crazy-ass, possibly drug-using—or if he didn’t use drugs now he probably needed to start—loser.Son of a bitch. Am I fucking cursed or what?

They walked in silence until they reached some futuristic-looking door embedded in the roughed-out wall of stone. Apparently, this was the end of the line, the bottom of the bat-shit crazy rabbit hole. Joanna hoped like hell there were some damn good magic mushrooms beyond that door. Maybe then she’d believe this shit as much as Grant did.

Grant stepped in front of her, centering his body between the double doors and stretching to flatten his palms on the squares of red glass mounted high on either side of the entrance. Infrared panels that scanned handprints. And yet, these were supposed to be ancient Scots from the ninth—or was it tenth—century.Yeah, right.How the hell did that make any sense? Joanna sucked in a deep breath, then huffed it back out. Never in a million years would she have guessed that today would play out this way.

Red lines zipped up and down each panel, scanning Grant’s palms. As soon as the lights disappeared, Grant lifted his face to a black square of grating positioned above the door. Clear and strong he said, “Spero.”

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