Page 36 of Her Scot of Yesteryear
Never be drawn to him like I was to Broderick.
Unlike the MacLeod’s great hall, the Sutherland's had fewer dragon tapestries and more pictures of people and woodland versusocean scapes. Interestingly, I wasn’t as drawn to them. They didn’t make my blood rush like the turbulent skies in the MacLeod tapestries, offering nowhere near the same sense of excitement or adventure.
Most lowered their heads to Dugal, acknowledging his return, except the women standing before one of two great hearths at either end of the room. One was older with silver hair pulled back into a tight bun and sharp, obsidian eyes, and the other was around my age and very pretty in an earthy way with light brown hair, softly rounded cheeks, and thickly lashed deep olive-green eyes.
Dugal introduced them as his mother, Elspet, and his wife, Lilias. Neither seemed surprised to see me. If anything, they had anticipated me. Worse yet, where his mother was properly dislikable with her arrogant bearing and spooky vibe, Lilias came across far warmer, offering me a smile I noticed she did not give her husband. Instead, the look she shot him seemed more nervous, if not a little frightened, despite how hard she tried not to show it.
“My daughter-by-marriage will give ye a tour of the castle and show ye to yer chamber,” Elspet said, assessing me in a way I didn’t much like. It was almost as if she were sizing me up. “Once ye are settled, we will dine privately and discuss how things are to move forward.”
Move forward? When I frowned at Dugal, he seemed nonplussed. No, wrong word. More like he agreed based on the approving way he looked at his mother, telling me who ruled the roost, and it wasn’t the laird of the castle. It looked like the bad guy in my Fairytale Gone Wrong was a mama’s boy.
“As to that mangy mutt,” Elspet went on with a sneer, scowling at Flame, who—still playing the part of a timid pup—whined and tucked himself between my legsat her sinister glare, “he belongs outside or roasted over a fire.” Her eyes narrowed. “Preferably dragon fire.”
Super.It looked like his mother was the witch out ofHanselandGretel. This wasdefinitelynot an adventure I wanted to be on.
“Unfortunately, the king wishes for the wolf to remain by Aspen’s side,” Dugal divulged, looking at Flame with equal disgust. “At least for now.”
“I am sure he will stay out of the way,” Lilias said gently, issuing Flame a warm smile before it dropped under Dugal’s stern look. She cleared her throat and curtsied to the other two before she urged me and my pup to join her.
“My apologies for my mother-by-marriage and husband’s poor behavior,” she said softly once we were out of earshot and making our way up a set of stairs that ran along the back wall to the next level. “’Tis bound to improve if things go well.”
Seriously?This was proving to be a strange day all the way around. Maybe she didn’t know what Dugal intended for me? She wasn’t half dragon, after all. While some might be inclined to keep it from her, I wasn’t that sort. She deserved to have her facts up front, so I told her.
I was meant to be her husband's mistress.
“Aye,” she said, her voice still soft as she steered me down a torchlit hallway that was narrower than the ones at MacLeod Castle. “I know all about the pact and what it might mean.”
Was it me, or did she sound relieved? “And that doesn’t bother you?”
“It cannae,” she replied dutifully, shaking her head. “Not for the sake of the clan.”
How big of her. Then again, despite seeming otherwise with a pleasant smile as she shared Dugal’s accomplishments, I sensed she was no fan of his. If anything, she was relieved I was here to distracthim, either for obvious reasons or because he was half dragon, and she wasn’t. She was, however, as I soon learned, something else. Flame had been trotting alongside us when she suddenly crouched, cocked her head as if listening to him, scratched him behind the ear right where he liked it, and her smile turned genuine.
“You’re a witch,” I realized, crouching as well. “Aren’t you?”
Oddly, I couldn’t sense her magic, but Icouldsense her kind spirit. Not just that, but I caught her hope that, in the end, I’d be returned to my fated mate unscathed. Not because she was jealous but because she felt no one should suffer Dugal’s touch.
“Aye, I’m a witch of a sort,” she murmured, her smile remaining as she and Flame gazed at each other. “I’ve a gift with animals and their ilk.”
“Their ilk?” I wondered.
“Aye,” she murmured. Her gaze rose to mine and lingered for a moment. “Ilk such as ye and my husband.”
Ah.I guess dragon shifters weren’t quite considered animals.
Before I could ask more questions, she stood abruptly and continued talking reverently about Dugal as if we hadn’t just had that conversation. Although tempted to ask her more, my inner beast warned against it, and I listened. It might be new to me, but I trusted it every bit as much as I trusted Broderick’s dragon, though I had yet to see it beyond its cat-like fire reflected in his human eyes. Lilias grew quiet as she led me up circular stairs, wrapping around a thick stone pillar before opening the door at the top.
“This will be yer chamber for now.” She entered before me. “I hope ‘twill be to yer liking. The breeze is always verra nice up here.”
Never mind a breeze. It felt like the wind was knocked out of me when I entered a circular room with two windows that looked out over the forest and ocean in what appeared to be the backsideof one of the lower towers. In fact, Iknewit was because I had been here before. Or should I say, based on the flash I saw of the chamber decorated differently, my incarnate had.
And she,I, had not liked it at all.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I managed a nod, grateful when Flame seemed to sense I was having trouble putting one foot in front of the other and led me inside, heading for the window furthest back as if it would be best for me to go there first. So I did, trusting him, grateful my legs held me up long enough to reach it.
“MyGod,” I whispered, shocked by what I saw. My window was at the perfect angle, so the lowering sun glowed golden beyond a woodland path lined by red autumn leaves that led to an all-too-familiar aspen tree in the distance.
“Mayhap ye’d like to see it up close?” Lilias wondered, joining me at the window. “’Tis a truly lovely tree, is it not?”
