The Dark Highlander
Page 116

And why haven’t you claimed your mate, old man?
The answer to that was complicated, he brooded, glancing about the tower chamber.
Fat pillars of candles scattered across several small tables burned brightly, flickering in the warm night breeze, and he smiled, looking around his peaceful haven. As a lad, he’d delighted in everything about the tower, the spiraling stairs, the stones walls with their myriad cracks and crevices covered with thick tapestries, the breathtaking beauty of the view from the tall window in the spacious circular room. As an old man, he found it no less enchanting.
He’d sat in this same deep chair gazing out into the night as a man of a mere score of years, then two, and now three plus a few odd ones. He knew every wrinkle and rise of the land beyond his window. As much as he loved it, however, the solitude he’d sought as his salvation had in time become his prison, and he’d been more than ready to leave it a few years ago when he’d wed Nell and moved down into the castle proper.
Still, there were evenings, like this one, when he craved the lofty heights and a quiet place to think. Dageus and Chloe had left nearly a moon before, and he wondered how much time would have to pass before he finally accepted that he would ne’er know what had become of his son. Though he believed Dageus would do aught that must be done, not knowing the final outcome would plague him to the end of his days.
And Nellie too. The atmosphere in the castle had been somber indeed since they’d gone.
Nellie. How she’d blessed his life. Without her, he’d have lost both his sons and been living alone high atop the Keltar mountain.
Anon, he would blow out the candles and make his way down the winding stairs. He would go first to the nursery where their sons would be slumbering by now. He would sit beside them as he did every eve, and marvel over them. Marvel over the second chance at life he’d gotten when he’d least expected it.
He flipped open the tome to the page where his finger held the place.
The exchange of the binding vows will seal their hearts together for all eternity, and once mated, they can never love another.
And that was the crux of his problem. He’d not fully claimed his mate because of the age difference betwixt them. He knew he would die before her. Possibly long before her.
And then what? She wouldn’t remarry because he was gone? She would spend the next score or two of years alone? The thought of her lying with another man made him nigh crazed, yet the thought of her lying alone in bed for so many years made him equally crazed. Nellie should be loved, cherished, petted, and caressed. She should be savored and … and … and—och! ’Twas an impossible conundrum!
It should be her choice, his conscience prodded.
“I’ll think on it,” he grumbled.
And if you die before you finish thinking on it?
Scowling, he slipped the tome into one of the clever pouches Nellie had stitched for him inside the blue robes he favored and was about to rise when he became aware of a presence in the room, standing just behind his shoulder.
He went motionless, reaching out with his Druid senses to identify the intruder, but whoever or whatever it was that stood behind him, defied his comprehension.
“Sit, Keltar,” a silvery, lilting voice said.
He sat. He wasn’t certain if he’d chosen to comply, or if her voice had robbed him of will.
As he sat tensely waiting, a woman stepped forward from the shadows behind him. Nay, a … och, a being. Wonderingly, he cocked his head, staring up at her. The creature was so brilliant, so lovely that he could scarce gaze upon her. She had eyes of iridescent hues, colors impossible to name. Hair of spun silver, a delicate, elfin, inhumanly beautiful face. He suddenly wondered if he’d gotten a bit of bad beef for dinner and was suffering some instability of the mind induced by poisoned digestion. Then a worse fear gripped him, one that made his head feel alarmingly light and his blood pound too fast inside his chest: mayhap ’twas his time, and this was Death, for she was certainly beautiful enough to lure any man to that great unknown that lay beyond. He could hear his own breath coming too fast and harsh, could feel his hands going curiously tingly, as if they were about to go numb. A cold sweat broke out on his skin.
I canna die now, he thought dimly. I haven’t claimed Nellie. He wouldn’t be able to bear it, he thought, blinking enormously heavy eyelids. They might never find each other again. He might be forced to suffer a hundred lives without her. ’Twould be the purest hell!
“Aoibheal, queen of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, bids you greeting, Keltar.”
His vision blurred alarmingly, and his last thought before … er, before the stress of the moment temporarily leeched him of his wits, was relief that he wasn’t dying, and fury at himself for missing even a second of what was surely the most thrilling event in his entire life.