Page 28 of A Little Highland Magic

“Of course. If we are to truly trust one another when we enter Fairyland, it is best to know more about each other, I suppose.”

“Were you talking to those seals earlier?”

She chuckled. “Nay, not talking exactly. I can sense their feelings and they seem to be in tune with mine. The seals understood my distress and came to comfort me.”

Unable to concentrate on the stars, he turned towards her. Only fragments of her features were clear to him in the silver moonlight. “Is that why you went into the loch?”

She shook her head, her earlier humour gone. “I wanted to see if the waters of the loch had the same effect on me as those of the stream in case Oberon tries to burn the castle to the ground again.”

“Is that what you believe he’ll try next?”

She brought a hand up to wrap around the vial of water at her neck. “No longer can Oberon punish me directly. Instead, he’ll keep trying to hurt everyone who has helped me since my escape. It pains me, all the trouble I’ve brought to this clan—now and in the past.” Her words were spoken lightly, yet there was a touch of sorrow in their depths.

At the sound, an overwhelming urge to reach for her swamped him, and instead of forcing the sensation away he capitulated, bringing his arms around her, pulling her against his chest.

Instead of fighting him, as he expected, she leaned into his embrace, and a warm glow moved through him. He simply held her, trying to communicate as the seals had that she mattered to him.

Graeme gave Aria control of the situation, allowing her to lengthen or shorten the moment at her will. She must have found their contact as comforting as he did because it felt like hours had passed when she finally did pull back. He released her, pleased to see a smile upon her lips.

“Thank you for that. I feel more at peace now.” Aria had barely finished the words when patches of mist rolled in from the open waters of the Little Minch beyond the loch. It crept in low and hovered near the shoreline.

As if sensing that something was amiss at the same moment, he and Aria jumped down from the rock. She quickly slipped her feet into her stockings and donned her boots. “This is not right.”

“Oberon?” Graeme clutched his fists at his sides, wishing their opponent would show himself so he and Aria could battle the fairy king as they did other intruders.

Graeme stared out across the water, waiting, when suddenly a silver object hurled towards him, followed by another and then another. He reached for his sword as the objects came closer, and heard Aria do the same beside him.

Drawing a breath, he steeled himself and was about to strike when a mackerel appeared and dropped to the ground at his feet. Followed by several more. The silvery-green fish flopped around, gasping for breath. “Fish?”

“Hundreds of them seem to be beaching themselves. Pollock, mackerel, and coalfish. Oberon is trying to decimate one of your sources of food,” she exclaimed as she returned her sword to its scabbard. “Should I return to the stream and see what I can do to help?”

Graeme bent down and gripped a gasping fish with its tell-tale black striped markings and returned it to the water, relieved when it swam away.

Aria did the same, sending several fish back into the loch.

“I believe we can handle this situation without magic, but not alone. Will you go back to the castle and send others to help gather any dead fish and return the living ones to the water?”

Their sombre gazes met. “I will go.” Aria hurried over the rocks; her footsteps obscured by the thudding of fish on the beach. The MacLeods were in the middle of another crisis. If Aria was correct, they still had four more trials ahead of them. Painful torture, Aria had endured, but he knew she did not count that as a strike against all the MacLeods. In their first trial as a clan the grasshoppers had been made harmless. The castle fire had been doused. The MacLeods would be eating a lot more fish in the days ahead, but so far, the ways of Oberon’s torment would not have a lasting effect. Did that mean more devastating punishments lay ahead of them?

Graeme returned his attention to the suffering fish. He needed to focus on the task at hand with all due haste and not worry about what the future held. Tonight, that had to be enough.