Page 14 of Saving Nessie
Cam stretched his spine and pushed off from the loch bed, propelling upward in a flurry of peaty silt. He’d had an inkling for a while that his ancestor, Elspaith, was the phantom woman inhabiting his nightmares. The story of her demise at the hand of her brother Bróccin—or Bryce, as he’d reinvented himself—had been occupying Cam’s mind.
Bryce and Elspaith were where it all began: the Walker curse, and the Loch Ness Monster. Cam still didn’t know exactly how Bryce had killed her, except that it involved fire, and he knew she’d died trying to stop him from murdering innocent people. She’d invented the very curse that Cam was under now. This loch was originally Bryce’s prison, before Lachlan had unwittingly exchanged places with him all those years ago. Trapping her brother was probably Elspaith’s last act in the world as Witch Incumbent of the Highlands.
So it was natural, Cam reasoned, that his subconscious was including her in its disturbing night-time medley.
But surely his image of her was pure fantasy. How could the Redcap have recognised Elspaith from his dream?
Keeping to the middle of the loch where he’d be hard to spot from the shore, Cam skimmed just under the surface and attempted to transform. His muscles endeavoured to stretch, bones feeling briefly like jelly… to no avail. Every part of him remained stubbornly plesiosaur shaped.
He peeked his eyes out of the water to check the sky. The Redcap had woken him early, so it wasn’t yet dawn. He wouldn’t be late to meet Lachlan at the jetty.
Cam snapped half-heartedly at a passing trout and watched it dash away from him into the gloom. He wasn’t hungry, anyway.
He turned his eyes back to the sky, waiting for dawn’s pale sunlight to spill over the loch.
* * *
Lachlan was also awake before dawn. Ignoring the heaviness of his eyelids, he took refuge in the kitchen, seeking to occupy his hands in order to distract his mind. He’d found the cinder toffee cake recipe where he’d left it, carefully ensconced in a plastic envelope propped on the counter. There was a ludicrous amount of sugar in it. But it would make Cam happy. That was all the justification Lachlan needed to begin baking at 4 AM.
Two hours later he was placing the final honeycomb decoration onto dark chocolate ganache, and feeling much better for it. The cake looked like a small, stylised bonfire, with jagged cinder toffee flames licking up its sides. He hoped Cam would like it.
Pastel blue sky was visible from the windows. Lachlan brushed cocoa powder from his hands and found a box to carry the cake in. He threw on a thick jumper to ward off the cold morning air and hurried down to the jetty with the box tucked under one arm.
To his surprise, Cam surfaced the moment he stepped onto the wooden boards.
‘You’re up early,’ Lachlan said with a teasing smile. He held out his palm and Cam pressed his nose into it in greeting.
‘I brought something for you.’ Lachlan sat cross-legged—briefly regretting that he hadn’t brought a blanket as slick condensation soaked through his trousers—and opened the box. Cam trilled a note of surprise as he lifted the cake out.
‘Cinder toffee cake,’ Lachlan explained, setting it down in front of Cam. ‘Your mother’s recipe. I hope I did it justice.’
He imagined Cam’s narrow mouth curved slightly in a smile, and watched his serpentine head dip to nibble at the cake. Being a plesiosaur, it was a rather large nibble. Cam looked embarrassed as he pulled away with a lump of frosting smeared over his snout.
Lachlan snickered and swiped a thumb over Cam’s mouth to clear it. ‘You know, I had hoped to be eating this off you in different circumstances,’ he said while licking the icing from his hand. His cheeks tinged pink as his mind summoned the rather fantastic image of a shirtless Cam with dark chocolate dripping over his abs. Dark chocolate and ginger, he thought. Those would be good flavours to pair with Cam.
Cam gave a rippling growl, a little like a chuckle, and delicately plucked one of the large honeycomb pieces from the cake. He proffered it to Lachlan, blinking slowly. Lachlan held back a laugh. If a plesiosaur could look coquettish, Cam was certainly trying his hardest.
Lachlan accepted the honeycomb with his teeth and enjoyed the satisfying crunch of it, even if it was tooth-achingly sweet.
Things didn’t seem so bad in the light of dawn. Here he was, eating and laughing with Cam as though a witching job hadn’t gone horrendously wrong just yesterday.
Lachlan’s shoulders slumped even as he thought it. ‘You know, I’ve just gotten used to having you around all the time,’ he said, stroking Cam’s head. ‘After three hundred years I thought I was good at being alone. But the prospect of just a few days without you now makes my heart hurt.’
Cam chirped a low sound, warm and comforting. Then he rose further from the water, stretching his long neck over the pier to press his weight into Lachlan’s chest. Lachlan closed both arms around him, and Cam draped his head over Lachlan’s shoulder.
‘I could sleep here,’ Lachlan murmured against the soothing sound of Cam’s breathing.
The sky was growing light around them. Cam was the first to break, gently nudging Lachlan away. He glanced pointedly at the sun climbing over the hills.
‘I know,’ Lachlan sighed. ‘We shouldn’t risk you being seen. Although…’ He quirked an eyebrow. ‘I haven’t told Meredith this, but I noticed you had an audience yesterday.’
Cam groaned so loudly the sound vibrated through the boards of the jetty. He slunk low to the water, very much conveying a sense of‘if the loch could swallow me…’
Lachlan chuckled softly. ‘I shouldn’t worry. No one’s going to believe it was real. I hear photos can be made to look like anything, these days.’
Cam nodded hesitantly. He surged up to bump noses with Lachlan again.
‘See you later, love,’ Lachlan whispered. Cam trilled a goodbye and sank smoothly into the loch.
