Page 29 of Bound By Deception

“And you’re welcome,” Lara replied. However, her pine-green eyes were still intense, searching.

Clearing her throat, Bree looked away, shifting her attention to the healer once more. She watched Eldra mix a concoction of dried herbs and powders. “I hear you are new to this role,” she said finally.

Eldra glanced up. “Aye.”

“You assisted the former healer?”

“Aye.” Eldra’s pale-blue eyes narrowed slightly. She then cut the princess a glance. However, Lara was now focused on crushing the woundwort in the pestle and mortar that the healer had set aside. “Why do you ask?”

“I hear he ran off.”

The healer nodded, her face shuttering.

Bree swallowed a growl of frustration. Getting information out of the inhabitants of Duncrag was going to be harder than she’d thought. Counseling patience, she glanced around casually before motioning to the neat rows of bottles and jars lining the walls. “Well, it looks as if he left your shelves well stocked.”

“Aye,” Eldra murmured, even as her gaze remained sharp. “Damhan didn’t take anything with him.”

14: A SILENT MARRIAGE

“BE WARY OF your bride.”

Stiffening, Cailean met the arch-druid’s eye. The two of them stood in the yard outside the broch. Cailean had come outdoors to see Raen off. She’d journeyed here specially to conduct his handfasting ceremony and would now return to the Isle of Arryn. Above them, the sky was the color of smoke, while the wind—The Sweeper this morning—pushed at them and scattered straw across the yard.

Raen fixed him with a steely gaze he knew well. “There’s something odd about her.”

Cailean fought the urge to snort. That was putting it kindly. The woman was mouthy, willful, and devious too. He’d known what she was up to that morning, lingering at the washbasin clad only in her skin, waiting for him to wake up. When he’d rolled out of the furs, his gaze alighting on Fia, he’d been greeted with a delicious sight: the sweeping curve of her back, with wavy oak-colored hair tumbling between her shoulder blades, and a delicious pale and rounded arse. And, of course, his prick had responded.

But Raen’s concerns were likely different from his.

“She wasn’t what I was expecting,” he admitted gruffly. “But what is it exactly that bothers you, Wise One?”

“I touched her mind just before I began the ceremony.”

Cailean nodded. He’d seen the tattoos on the arch-druid’s neck glow briefly and knew what she was doing. Before being elected to her current position, Raen had once been a seer. She could read the bones and see patterns in smoke and the flight of birds. And she was powerful enough to be able to touch a person’s mind and read—even sway—their emotions. “And what did you see?”

“Nothing … she warded herself from me.”

Warded?Cailean stilled. “How does a Maid of Albia learn to do that?”

Raen’s strong features tightened. “She doesn’t.” Her gaze narrowed then. “Of course, the lass might wield the gift.”

Cailean frowned. The gift was the untapped druidic power that usually manifested at puberty. Cailean’s own gift had shown itself just after his fourteenth winter. “You think she could be one of us, yet not realize it?”

“It happens … she’s spent the last ten years locked away from the world. We have no access to the Maids of Albia.”

Cailean considered these words. “Is it a problem … if she’s gifted?”

“Possibly not.” The arch-druid fixed him with a piercing look. “But something about her bothers me, all the same. Don’t let your guard down around her.”

Cailean pulled a face. “Don’t worry … there’s no risk of that.”

The silence was getting to Bree. Digging her wooden spoon into the thick barley and pork stew, she cast a veiled glance in her husband’s direction.

The man hadn’t lied the night before: theirs was to be a silent marriage.

In other circumstances, she’d have been relieved—she didn’t want to have anything to do with him—but the success of her mission depended on mac Brochan opening up to her.

Clearing her throat, Bree reached for her cup of wine and took a sip. “Was your day a fruitful one, husband?”

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