Page 8 of Taming the Highland Beauty

Gille shivered at the memory. “Laughter is a cruel echo, mocking your presence in that desolate place. Time stretches out before you, filled with a sense of dread and foreboding. My memories of Fairyland are not like the fairy tales you might have heard growing up, but a place where dreams turned to nightmares.”

Callum stared at her without speaking as a tortured expression shadowed his brown eyes. After a long moment he said, “I had no idea you had suffered so much. And I can understand why trusting me at my word would be hard for you.” He looked out at the water. “You might not believe me, but I do know what it feels like to be isolated, alone, and . . . afraid.” He dropped his gaze to a sheath on his belt and slowly drew a dagger from the leather. “This dagger was given to me by my father before he died. It is the only thing of his I possess. It means everything to me.”

He returned the weapon to the sheath and then, loosening his belt, slid the sheath and dagger from it. He turned the hilt towards Gille. “I want you to have this as a sign of my pledge to you. The MacLeods will do everything in their power to break your curse if you will agree to help our mother.”

Gille shifted her gaze between the dagger and Callum. “Accepting this does not mean I forgive you for setting fire to the woods.”

Callum inched the dagger closer. “So long as you agree to help my mother, I can live with that.”

Gille accepted the dagger and set it in her lap. “I will help her if I am able.” She could at least try to do one last good deed before she succumbed to her curse, even if it was for a ghost.

As the terror of the fire and the fear of capture faded, Gille focused on the sights and sounds of Loch Dunvegan. She had come to the loch occasionally to hunt for food. Even then, she had stayed no longer than necessary. The water frightened her at times. The endless expanse seemed to go on forever. She preferred places she could see and understand instead of a vast unknown.

She gripped the edge of her seat as Callum started to row once more. A light spray of salt stung her lips. A flicker of movement at the water’s surface caught her eye. A sleek, silverish-grey head bobbed up, followed by another, and another. Seals. A shiver snaked down her spine. These were not ordinary creatures. Gille could feel the simmering anger rolling off them in palpable waves.

“Selkies,” she whispered into the light breeze.

Callum chuckled as he continued to row with forceful strokes. “Do not worry. The seals like to play with the boats. They are harmless.”

Gille relaxed her shoulders just as one of the selkies, larger than the others, reared out of the water, its gaze locking on to Gille’s. Its eyes, intelligent and strangely human, held a cold fury that sent a jolt through her. This was no playful creature. This was a predator, a judge, and a jury all rolled into one.

They say the MacLeods always get what is coming to them, a voice, both smooth and gravelly, echoed in Gille’s head. It was not a language she spoke, yet somehow, she understood as it resonated deep within the primal part of herself.

Gille looked at Callum. Had he heard the voice? Obviously not, as he continued to stare off in the distance, at the fortress on the edge of a cliff that she knew to be Dunvegan.

Fear once again clawed at her throat. “Callum,” she rasped, her voice barely above a whisper. “We need to get away from here before these selkies tip the boat.” As her words were caught and carried away by the wind, the seals started ramming the boat with their heads.

Callum’s eyes flared as he started rowing in a zigzagging path towards the castle in the distance. “Is there anything you can do?”

“I have no power over the water. That is my mother and Aria’s gift.” Her power came from the forested world.

“Can you swim?” Callum asked.

“Aye. But if we end up in the water, I fear the selkies will drown us.” Gille clung to the sides of the boat as the ramming continued, almost succeeding in overturning the vessel.

Just when all seemed lost, another sleek head, impossibly black, appeared at the surface of the water, followed by several more. This time black seals, also selkies, forced the grey, spotted seals to disengage. A female selkie’s very human gaze connected with Gille’s. Hurry. We can distract them, but not for long. Again, that language of old resonated in her head.

Callum took advantage of the reprieve and rowed quickly until they reached the rocky shore of Dunvegan. He hopped out into calf-deep water and tugged the small boat ashore, then offered Gille his hand, helping her over the side of the vessel. He did not release her hand as they raced across the beach and to the wrought-iron sea gate cut into the side of the castle’s defensive wall. He pulled a key from his sporran, then quickly inserted it into the lock just as both black and grey seals reached the shores. Their furious barking filled the late-morning air.

Once inside the gate, Callum slammed it shut and locked it once again before expelling a heavy breath. “Perhaps you were right. Why would the seals want to hurt us?” he asked, studying the irritated grey seals who had reached the gate, slapping their fins against the wrought iron.

“Only the seals know the answer to that.”

The large grey seal turned her gaze to Gille. This is not over. We will have our revenge. It’s only a matter of time.

Everything seemed to be a matter of time now: her last few days of freedom. How long it would take the villagers to come after her again. Lady Janet’s return to the shadow realm. If the MacLeods could keep the threat of the selkies at bay.

“Come. My mother awaits.” Callum seemed not as concerned about other dangers except the threat against his mother as he continued up the pathway towards the rear courtyard of the castle.

Along the shoreline, the black seals with lighter spots waited in the surf. Instead of the barking she was used to hearing, a soulful melody whispered across the breeze. Were they singing? A ripple of sensation pricked the hairs on the back of her neck. The song. It was important somehow. Did the selkies know something about the curse upon her that Gille did not?

At her pause, Callum reached back and took her hand. “No need to worry, we are safe from the seals.”

Jolted back to the moment, Gille cast a quick glance back at the angry selkies then followed Callum. His features were no longer burdened with anxiety as they made their way to the castle and the mother who awaited him there. Instead, his face illuminated with so much loving radiance that it took her breath away. She had never witnessed such emotions before, in Fairyland or in the human realm. And all her misgivings about leaving her forest vanished. It had been the right thing to do, to come with Callum to Dunvegan and to attempt to save the woman he obviously cared about.

Callum never asked about her ability to heal injured or even dying things. Over the past year she had used her magic to heal many types of plants and animals, but she had never been able to bring back something that was already dead.

Gille continued up the pathway after Callum. He did not expect Gille to resurrect his mother. All she had to do was find a way to move Lady Janet from one spectral plane to another. How difficult could that be?