chapter Five
He must have gone into the sea. Kylah inventoried the belongings in front of her. Freshly laundered, still-damp Druid robes and a dark pair of trews flapped in the ever-present wind, secured to the cliff’s ledge by heavy stones. Beside them, a birch staff and a pair of gigantic knee boots were neatly lined up next to an iron sword that Kylah recognized from his cave the night before.
She peeked over the cliff and shook her head. Situated somewhere between the point at Cape Wrath and the sands of the Allt Dubh, this bluff plummeted dangerously into deep water, yet no rocks jutted from the seafloor to catch an unwary diver. Still, she’d have been certain the drop would kill a man, but the ceaseless sensation of unfathomable, swirling emotion called to her from deep beneath the waves.
The Druid was down there, and had been for some time.
Rare sunlight warmed the spring chill, and the sea was calmer than usual, lapping against the cliffs with small white breaks instead of volatile surges. Kylah could see rather far into the blue gulf, but had no sign of the man.
No one could hold their breath for that long.
She stepped off the cliff and dropped into the water, barely registering the change in temperature after plunging into the sea. To someone whose life still heated their flesh, the icy chill of the ocean would feel like a thousand needles driven into skin by a relentless hammer. Kylah couldn’t fathom how Daroch McLeod could stand it.
Maybe he couldn’t. Mayhap the frigid sea had frozen his limbs and stolen the life-giving heat from his body. Spurred by the thought, Kylah followed the signature of emotion reaching through the space separating them, roiling beneath her translucent skin and dancing along veins no longer filled with blood.
In this ghostly form, the water didn’t hinder her movement and Kylah didn’t let the wonders of the sea distract her as she drove herself ever deeper and farther from shore. Until a strong movement from just ahead and beneath her caught a shaft of sunlight that pierced deeper than the rest. She froze just in time to see the Druid plunge a several-pronged wooden spear into a school of sea bass and emerge with a large catch.
Kylah could picture the pleasure of victory on his features, though he’d yet to face her. The sea seemed to be his element. His heavy body rippled and flowed with the currents, uncovered by all but a loincloth secured to his strong hips. Two straps crisscrossed his wide shoulders. One belonging to a burgeoning bag obviously full of the day’s catch, and the other a bladder of some kind with a long spout, which he secured around his mouth and took a long pull into his lungs. Holding it there, he placed the wriggling bass in his other bag and then had to angle his body deeper to fight buyancy. His hair flowed around him with suspended movement, much like hers always did.
In awe of his ingenuity, Kylah went to him.
“Ingenious!” she exclaimed, pointing to his bladder full of air. “What an extraordinary idea.”
He recoiled from her; his tattoos reflected the shaft of light. A group of bubbles burst from his mouth and escaped toward the surface on a surprised gasp. One hand went to his throat as the other frantically groped for the bladder with air in it. He found it and sucked in another breath, but his body was caught in some powerful spasm and those bubbles escaped from his mouth in two short bursts.
Seized by panic, Kylah reached for him out of habit, but her clutching fingers only passed through him and seemed to make the situation worse.
He surged upward with a powerful kick, but they both knew he’d never reach the surface in time.
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered as his eyes flared and his muscles started to spasm and jerk. “Daroch, no.” This was all her fault. He was going to drown because of her. She’d never forgive herself. She’d thought that burning to death was the worst possible way to die. But as she watched his eyes latch on to the surface of the sea, so close and yet too far, she realized that drowning must be equally frightening and horrific.
His eyes rolled back beneath his lids and he went unnaturally still.
“No,” Kylah groaned as her hands reached for him again. “No, keep trying. It’s too early for you to give up.”
The tattoos on the side of his face rippled with a dim light, catching her notice. The undulation flowed down the knotted work that covered the entire left side of his body until a pulse of power exploded from his form and broke over her to expand in a circular arc through the sea.
No, not power. Magic.
Kylah watched it go, and then turned back to his still form.
What in the in the name of the Gods…
A high-pitched ticking answered from somewhere to the left. Kylah turned to it in time to watch two swift black shadows dart through the water with synchronized movements. She had to wait until they slowed enough to situate themselves beneath the Druid’s arms to recognize just what they were.
Seals! Kylah rejoiced. Somehow he’d called them to his rescue and they lifted his bulk from the depths and shot him toward the surface with their sleek, swift bodies.
Kylah followed, able to keep pace with the animals until they broke the surface. While the Druid sputtered and choked up an alarming amount of sea water, the seals scolded and barked their displeasure at Kylah.
“I’m sorry,” she told them. “I didn’t think I would startle him.”
“Ye didna think,” Daroch rasped, tugging at his ears.
One seal blew a very rude noise at her with its wee pink tongue as they started to tow Daroch toward the rocks.
“No. Well, yes. That is, I figured you would see me as I came at you sideways and I do tend to glow,” she rambled. “I wouldn’t at all put you in danger on purpose. You must believe me.”
The Druid glowered at her. “I was a more than a little preoccupied,” he quipped. “And it’s not lack of foresight on my part if I wasna on the lookout for a Banshee in the middle of the ocean at midday! I’m only a man.” They reached the cliffs and the Druid touched his nose to each of the seals’ in a surprisingly sweet manner before he pulled himself out of the water and onto a narrow ledge.
Kylah’s retort died an instant and vicious death in her throat.
Not one living soul would glimpse Daroch McLeod standing on that ledge, surveying the ocean as though he owned it, and mistake him for a mere man. Nay, they would invoke the Sea God, Llyr, and tremble. Surely a man so savagely, brutally rendered could only exist in a mythic Pantheon.
Kylah’s gaze skimmed across runic tattoos that took on a wicked cast in the midday sunlight. They wrapped and knotted upward from his powerful left leg to splay indolently across a vast expanse of rippled torso and flare beneath his ribcage, then circle the flat of his nipple to claim the entire left side of his immense chest. There, the black and blue of the symbols vied for supremacy in an intricate design before stretching across one wide shoulder, reaching up the cords of his neck, and cutting across his clenched jaw before ending with sharp points over his intense left eye. His long, thick arm was also covered in runes to the wrist.
Her gaze darted back to his hips where the runes were half concealed by an animal skin loin-cloth secured by a leather strap. They drew her eyes like a sin, disappearing beneath each part of the scant covering, suggesting that they obscured more than she could ever wish to see, both in front of him and behind.
Something clenched deep within her belly. Something wet and warm and ready. The completely foreign sensation perplexed her, terrified her. It made her intensely aware of that place. The one she vowed to forever ignore.
Something beneath the cloth flexed and twitched and the Druid made a dangerous, guttural sound.
“I’m sorry,” Kylah breathed. Though wasn’t sure if she apologized because she’d been caught staring or because she’d almost drowned him. Her eyes flew to his face, which didn’t help with the alarming ache building inside of her. Kylah had always known she was a beautiful woman, but she realized that until this moment she’d never beheld true beauty.
Daroch’s beauty was cruel. His brow was high-born and lined with scorn, his nose straight but flared with arrogance, his lips full, but pulled tight into a malevolent sneer. His eyes evoked the sea in a storm, swirling with grey, brown, and green and occasionally flashing with silver.
“Ye have no idea what ye’ve done, woman.” Those eyes accused her now, as he reached into his bag laden with fish and threw a reward to his two lingering rescuers.
Kylah swallowed. “I’m really, very sorry. I—I—don’t know how to make it up to you.”
His eyes swept the expanse of ocean again with cautious expectation. “In a few moments, ye may not ever have to worry about trying.” With that cryptic statement, he turned to the stone and began to climb, using small fissures and juts in the rock to hoist his considerable body up the cliff face.
This must be something he did quite often, Kylah considered as she watched his muscles strain and cord with more interest then they likely merited. Perhaps it was how he’d built such a large, strong body. Kylah found herself transfixed by the movement of the tattoos reaching around his back. His shoulders and arms bulged. His legs propelled him with surprising strength and dexterity and she realized that if she remained at this angle for much longer, his loin cloth would no longer shield him from her view.
“You’re wrong, you know.” She levitated to eye-level with him.
“Not… a good… time,” he gritted out as he looked up as though to determine the distance he had left to climb.
“Oh, yes, right. I’ll wait.” Kylah decided to be silent, not wanting to be the reason he fell to his death. It wouldn’t do to be the cause of another disaster before she’d even amended for the first.
A little more than halfway, another ledge jutted from the cliff that was large enough for him to stand on. It took hoisting his entire body with just the strength of his arms, but once he swung his foot up and found purchase, he was able to rest for a moment and adjust his burden.
Shaking his arms, Daroch sent her a cranky look before latching on to the rock again. “Well, out with it. How is it that I am wrong?” With a grunt, he tackled the increasingly precarious cliff with renewed vigor.
“You’re not merely a man,” Kylah gently accused. “You said in the cave, that I was a creature of magic and you were a being of power. But that isn’t true, is it? You just used magic to save yourself. I felt it.”
A strong gust of wind tossed his dark, wet hair and the Druid clung to the rock, waiting for it to pass. “Aye, and it may have been the death of me.” The tattoos made the grim set of his face seem sinister. He looked over at her then, as she floated beside him. His calculating eyes searched every inch of her, snagging on places she’d not expected. Her feet. Her legs. Her breasts. The exposed column of her throat. When his gaze finally met hers, it held a naked mixture of desolation and heat. “Maybe I should have just let ye drown me.”
While he hoisted himself closer to the top, Kylah tried to control the unnecessary breathlessness that squeezed her chest.
A small tingle ran up her spine that had nothing to do with the mostly naked Druid.
Kylah looked up. Daroch was only a few hand-holds from the bluff.
And something malicious waited for them at the top.