The Highland Brother's Witch: HIGHLANDER ((Scottish Historical Pregnancy Bad Boy Romance)) Read online

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  The Warrior and the Witch

  By: Emma Atwell

  Table of Contents

  The Warrior and the Witch

  The Warrior & The Witch

  *****

  1: The Ride from Durness

  “I swear, Evan, you were born lusty and stupid, and you're going to die lusty and stupid! Perhaps you'll even die of being thus!” Donal MacLeod scowled as they walked their matched bay geldings up the stony hill that led to the next leg of their journey to Cape Wrath. The muddy trade road was barely wide enough for two horses abreast, and linked the tiny hamlets lining the sea-cliffs that ran up to the Cape. It was only two hours' ride from Durness even in this blustery mire, but the burly ex-soldier already felt tired.

  The fault of this lay with his younger brother Evan, a lanky, perpetually smiling redhead of twenty who was as convinced of his own rightness on every topic that getting through his thick skull often took an hour's persistent work. And even then, his memory was so suspiciously short that his brother had come to wonder if Evan's eventual concessions were an act, while inside he dismissed out of hand everything that Donal tried to explain to him. He was an innocent-faced young man with bright blue

  eyes, and they had saved each other's lives half a dozen times last year while facing the English, but when Evan gave that lopsided

  smirk of a smile, Donal had to struggle hard not to smack it off his face.

  Donal, three years his senior and his only kin, was darker, his long wavy hair and trimmed beard a deep auburn and his eyes

  a cloudy gray. Unlike his lean brother, he was a great brute of a man, who had been a bully and tavern-brawler in his youth, but

  had seen the folly of that in the war, and now held himself in check despite the frustration in his tone.

  “Well, that's a nice way of talking to your brother!” Evan complained, tone more annoyed than wounded. “All I'm saying is that I like to get girls good and drunk before I bring them

  home. Saves time and a lot of persuasion.” He flashed that smirk again, and Donal felt his idiot-slapping hand itch.

  “I'm getting bloody sick of how you handle women. It reflects on both of us. You're talkin' about rape, Evan, plain and simple. Like when you say you're helping a lady decide by getting her drunk. Or that the crying one I pulled you off of three months back was asking for it.”

  “So? She was!” Again, that empty-eyed smile.

  “Hst!” Donal actually raised the back of his hand to face level, and Evan flinched a bit and fell back a little to get out of smacking range. Donal eyed him. “There's no family in town that will let us marry their daughters because of all the stories going round about you and what you've done. Three babies born in your wake when we left for the war, and all of them with that red hair of yours. And all their mothers spit on the ground when they speak of you! The last two girls I courted, their fathers turned me out when I came courting just because they didn't want the chance of you around the rest of their daughters!”

  “Your last girl had younger sisters? Were they pretty?”

  Donal stared back into the empty sky of his brother's eyes and sighed.

  The path leveled off at the top of the slope, and they let the horses canter a while on the firmer ground. It was a nice late spring day; they couldn't see their breath, and patches of blue were actually showing in the roiling gray above them. The icy seacoast wind was down to a faint chill breeze, and now and again Donal could see flowers blooming in the heath rolling back from the cliffs. Hopeful signs...at least, he kept trying to tell himself that.

  They were riding out to Cape Wrath in search of the herb-witch Maeve, who was known for great success against fevers and contagions. Durness had a nasty epidemic going on: high fever, swellings in the neck and under the arms, and a red rash. Nothing the locals did helped, and so a call had been put out for riders to go in search of the reclusive Witch. Donal had volunteered himself and his brother for the afternoon's ride up to the Cape, where hopefully they would be able to find some sign of her hidden cottage. Rumor had it that Maeve could only be found if she wished to be. Hopefully, she was currently in a mood to receive guests.

  “Anyhow, I don't see what the problem is. There are plenty of these stupid little hamlets scattered about where you could find a wife, if you aim to. Me, I'm not so ready to settle down.”

  “Hopefully you'll never be, with your attitude. You'd end up with the most miserable wife in the Highlands.” Donal, though, was realizing more and more just how lonely he was. It had only ever been him and Evan since their parents had died in a cottage fire when Donal was sixteen. Evan was poor company except on the battlefield; they didn't even like to talk about the same things. And unlike his randy and alarmingly heartless brother, Donal didn't toy with women. That meant he was both lonely and filled with frustrated desires. But despite his brutal past, the idea of having a wife of his own brought him soft joy, and dreams of something peaceful and filled with tenderness. He had never known contentment in his life, knocking around the region with his brother for years of half-misguided fortune-seeking. Volunteering against the English might have given him purpose, but it had done his heart no good.

  “Ah, well, she'll be satisfied with my endowments, that's certain.” Evan started whistling, so ridiculously sure of himself that Donal just shook his head.

  “There's more to loving a woman than the size of your dirk, you egg.” Amazing that he could have had so few women since his teens and yet know that when Evan didn't. But as with everything else, it seemed that sex was yet another thing Evan presumed himself an expert on. Enough so that instruction, from his lover or otherwise, would likely have gone in one ear and out the other all this time. All the more reason to hope that Evan would finally be shocked into growing up someday soon. But if the war had not done it, what would?

  “So what's with this witch, then?” Evan asked cheerily. He seemed happy to get out of their tiny town for a bit. “You think she can really cure that nasty sickness going around?”

  “I should hope so. There's twenty people down with it that I know about alone, and that means at least forty.” It was an ugly illness. It had killed three already—including a grown man. They needed help—and Maeve was their best bet.

  She had once lived in town with her mother, but they had moved out when the girl turned thirteen, about six years ago. People traveled up the road looking for the pair for all sorts of herbs and simples, keeping them in what must be a good living, and two years back reports had come of Maeve's mother's death. Presumably she now lived alone, as no man around would have dared marry a witch. “She's cured fevers before, and her mother before her. Once she hears the whole town's in peril, she's got to help out.”

  “And what if she doesn't? Do we hold her at sword-point until she gives up the right herbs?” There was a gleam in Evan's eyes that Donal disliked seeing.

  “Idiot, no! She has magic. If she doesn't want to see us we won't even find the cottage!”

  “Aw, that's no fun then.” Evan pouted. Donal shook his head and rode a bit ahead, suddenly want
ing to be free of his

  brother's presence. Sometimes he wondered where he'd gone wrong trying to raise the boy up properly. But in the end, he knew

  he couldn't be blamed for Evan's decisions, especially now that he was grown. He just wished sometimes that they could part

  company, so that he would not feel forever yoked to Evan and his reputation for terrible decisions.

  “Seems a lot of gold and smoked meat to be wasting on a woman,” Evan went on, and Donal sighed.

  “Not really. Those herbs are worth a lot. Growing and curing them takes a skilled hand, and the woman needs to eat.”

  “Can't we just skim off a bit?”

  Donal eyed him coldly until his smirk started to crumble around the edges. “It's not our gold or meat to take. I swear, if

  you do anything to mess up our getting the herbs they need back home--”

  “Aw, come on, then, no one has to know!” Evan's voice rose with petulance—but he froze when he saw the look on his brother's face and seemed to pull into himself, shoulders sagging

  and eyes down and sullen. “Bloody stick-in-the-mud, that's you, Donal.”

  Donal spit on the path and went silent, too angry to keep the conversation going. Why did I ever swear to look after you until you could look after yourself, Evan? Even now, once you're off the battlefield you start up again. You're not my brother so much as you're a burden, these days. I've long wished that I knew what ailment it is that makes you like this. But I think more and more that it's no ailment at all. You're just like this. This is what you've chosen to be.

  Maybe it had been the war, ravaging them both with the need to be killers then, not scrappers, while their kinsmen had died all around them. The war's horrors had sunk into Donal like a poison—and surviving them had made him kinder, with a closer rein on his temper. But what if it had done just the opposite to his brother?

  Except that his brother had always been the way he was with women. Only the thievishness was new. And as they rode within sight of Cape Wrath, Donal wondered if that was because the tribute in their saddlebags was meant for a woman. Perhaps it is a sort of madness, if he would die to protect me on the battlefield yet turn into this when anyone with a pair of breasts is about.

  The path ended at the last little mud hole hamlet along the cliffs, leaving their horses to pick their way across the windy

  wildlands beyond. Fog floated two man-heights above the ground here, even in the steady wind, and the hummocks and low

  hills turned everything into a maze of small, windswept mounds. Donal waved his brother to stop and stopped himself,

  dismounting and clambering one of the hillsides to peer into the mist. He had no idea of the etiquette for dealing with a witch. But

  if she lived out here, and watched for newcomers, then the fog at least would carry his voice for him.

  Cupping his hands around his mouth, he drew in a big lungful of chilly air, and called with all his strength, “We come to bargain with the Witch of Cape Wrath!”

  Silence, for long moments, as he peered around for any sign of change, his ears open for any answer. The wind picked up for a moment, ruffling the heather, and his throat tightened slightly in apprehension. The claymore at his back and the dirk at his hip were small comfort in the face of unknown power. She was a witch. Anything imaginable could come out of that mist at them—or worse, something they'd never considered.

  Then suddenly, a light glimmered in the gray dimness under the fog banks. It made its way toward them, and slowly resolved itself as an odd-looking lantern of pierced silver...held in the daintiest hand he had ever laid eyes on.

  Beside him, Evan swore in amazement, but Donal didn't quite catch what he said, for his whole attention was suddenly captive of the small, delicate-looking maiden who walked out of the mist. Her hair was wavy and thick, and fell loose around her head and shoulders, so pale a blonde that it looked almost silver. Her skin was very white, her face small and heart-shaped, her lips a deep red, and her eyes enormous, their shining irises an evening-sky blue that Donal felt himself tumble into the moment their gazes met. Her slight, almost delicate form was swathed in a pale homespun robe, its rough fabric making her seem even more smooth-skinned and dainty by comparison. A small, shy smile curved her lips as she held up the lantern, which threw flickering splashes of gold across her face and hair. “Who calls for the Witch?” she asked, in a voice like the soft twitter of a bird.

  2: The Witch of Cape Wrath

  Donal could almost mark the exact moment that his heart set its sights on the small, fey woman before him. It was the most wondrous and terrifying sensation he had ever known, pure and carnal at the same time, both his heart and his loins so fully in agreement on the matter that for once in his life he felt absolutely certain about something. Problem was, at the same time, he felt like a great awkward fool who had no idea how to address such a vision, and it made him hopelessly nervous. By the time she asked her question his throat had already closed up from the strength of that feeling, and he stammered silently, blinking at her.

  “Aye, that's us, little lady. Are you her daughter, then?” Evan stepped forward so fast he forgot he had the reins of both horses, and their solid weight yanked him back. The girl blinked at him a little warily, and looked between him and Donal, who was still trying to get his breath.

  “I am Maeve. I am the Witch,” she replied simply, her eyes locking curiously on Donal. His ears started burning. “May I help you?”

  “Oh, well, I can think of a few things you could do for me--” Evan started—and suddenly Donal felt a surge of rage that shook him out of his tongue-tied reverie. Turning around, he grabbed his brother by the shoulder and glared into his eyes so hard that Evan actually shut up. Not to her. Never one drop of your shite gets flung in her direction, or so help me—

  “Are you well, sir?” she asked Donal softly, and his ears started prickling again as he turned back to her and drew a steadying breath.

  “Please excuse my brother, Lady Witch, he was dropped on his head as a child.” He ignored his brother's blurted protest and offered her a small bow. “I am Donal Macleod, that's my brother Evan. We've come from Durness, which is beset with a plague. We've need of your aid in this matter, and we're prepared to pay you well for it.”

  She turned a tiny, thoughtful frown on each of them, and then nodded, and turned around. “Follow me closely, or you'll be lost in the mist. I will need to know their symptoms, and how many have fallen sick. Also if any have recovered.”

  “Uh, yes, I--” He hastily slipped his hand inside his shirt and found the folded paper he had been entrusted with. “I brought a note from the Laird. It should have what you need on it.”

  Evan had fallen silent, and miraculously, kept silent as they followed the small, pale-draped figure down an almost invisibly narrow path between the hummocks. Watching the soft bounce of her hair in the breeze mesmerized Donal, leaving him with the longing to wake up with his face buried in it. His head had filled up with strange fancies, each one more awkward and sweet and embarrassing and delightful than the last. I'd give anything to

  make that one my wife, he thought with a sweet pang of wistfulness. Anything, witch or not.

  “Lovely piece of arse we've run across,” Evan muttered cheerily at his ear suddenly, and Donal felt that sweet-wistful

  feeling blows away on a wind of deep annoyance. Oblivious, his younger brother chattered on, with the two bays clopping

  placidly along behind him. “Think she's telling the truth about being the Witch?”

  “Well, whether she's the Witch or sent by her, we're a step closer to getting this done, so try not to make an ass of yourself.” Donal gave Evan a pointed look, and got a sulky one in return.

  “Oh come on, she has no man, where's the harm? Who's going to be around to tell me no, if I--”

  “I will be,” Donal snarled low, and something in his eyes made Evan startle back, and stammer his mouth a little before shutting it. Donal focu
sed on the girl ahead, and felt his rage flee back as her light filled his eyes.

  She led them down that odd little lane, and then around a slightly larger mound than the rest. Donal followed her—and found himself on the doorstep of a strange little stone-fronted cottage dug back into the side of the hill. Its sod roof beetled over its front face a little bit, trailing moss and flower vines down in front of a set of shuttered windows and the single, heavy oak door. “Tie the horses out here, there's plenty of good forage and they can drink from my rain barrel.” She hung the lantern from a hook by the door and rapped twice on it; the thick, ironbound oak sprang open, and she led them inside.

  Donal had to duck going in, but stood up right afterward into a dome-roofed and surprisingly airy space. Two rooms: a combination kitchen, hearth and workspace in front, and whatever lay beyond the plain curtain hanging in the arched doorway at the first room's back. Herbs of every type hung from the rafters or trailed in braids down the walls, while tinctures and poultices filled racks of jars on the walls near her worktable. Evan stomped in from tying the horses, grumbling something about being treated like a servant, but stopped himself to look around at the witch's workroom.