Page 9 of Dark Victory

“’Tis time. Come to Iona and make yer vows.” MacNeil laid his hand upon his shoulder again. “Before yer Destiny is taken from ye.”

“Let them take my damned Destiny,” Macleod snapped. “It would please me greatly!”

“Ye act fourteen years old!” MacNeil exclaimed. “We both ken ye can control that rage o’ yours. Ye do so when ye hunt an’ war—ye can do so now.”

“Ye push me more than I’d ever let any other man push me, MacNeil. I let ye do so because I owe ye still. Ye arrived at Blayde that day with yer soldiers to help me turn the enemy away. Blayde would have been lost if ye hadn’t come. Ye helped me bury the dead—ye helped me rebuild. But I watched two Frenchmen stab my father in the back. I was held captive an’ I could not go to aid him, to defend him! My mother died in the fires that day, carryin’ my brother or sister in her womb. My two older brothers died that day, fighting against all odds.” Now, the placid river was raging, racing past them. “When every MacDougall is dead, I will come to yer island and swear on yer holy books to serve the Ancients and protect Innocence. But as long as a single MacDougall lives, my duty is to Blayde.”

“Are ye nay tired of yer endless wars? Have ye never thought of havin’ a different life—a pleasin’ one?”

“Ye’re the fool now.” He turned and whistled for his horse, aware that it was but a short distance away, grazing in a nearby glen. He’d leaped from it to pursue Alasdair on foot.

MacNeil sighed. “Ye’ve had yer revenge—ye’ve had yer revenge for over ninety years. No man would ever fault ye, Guy. Ye have done yer duty to yer father an’ mother.”

“My duty will never be done.” As he spoke, he glimpsed that young boy again, and his presence infuriated him. That boy was weak and he’d failed everyone. “If ye cease yer harangue, ye’re welcome at Blayde an’ I will be pleased to offer ye wine, a woman and a bed.”

Hooves sounded. The huge black charger came galloping up the riverbank, its eyes bright with interest. Macleod seized the bridle, then gave the animal a single stroke upon its neck.

“Ye’ve enchanted yer horse. Yer powers are meant to be used against deamhanain an’ their lackeys, not on mortals an’ not on the gods’ earthly creatures.”

Macleod shrugged. Shortly before the massacre—as if the gods had known he would lose his family and become laird—he had learned that he could hear the thoughts of others and bend the will of either man or beast with a simple direct thought. It was a useful power. And just after the massacre, he had found his other, god-given powers, powers that could destroy a man or a deamhan with a single blast.

But MacNeil showed no sign of being ready to return to Blayde. “Do ye ever wonder why yer powers sometimes defy yer very will?”

It was common knowledge that he often could not control his own powers, especially when he was angry. Even those closest to him were afraid of his errant powers and his terrible temper. “I dinna care if the occasional stone wall falls when I take an extra breath.” But he was curious now.

“When ye take yer vows, ye’ll be master of yer powers, Macleod, but until then, they’ll escape ye when ye need them most. The gods toy with ye—a punishment fer yer refusal to obey them.”

He had seen MacNeil use his powers, and they never failed him. Suddenly the explanation made so much more sense than his assumption that he was simply less skillful or powerful. “I have enough power, more than any mortal man,” he said slowly. “Ye should remind the gods that I never use their powers to dispatch my enemies. I always use my dagger, my sword or my bare hands.”

“We ken,” MacNeil said. “’Tis hardly enough, lad.”

He hated it when MacNeil looked at him as if he was looking into his very heart and soul, seeing secrets even Macleod did not know. MacNeil had great Sight. He could see the future and the past. If anyone could look into a man’s most private and unspoken thoughts, it was MacNeil. “I am ready fer wine,” he said, leaping onto his horse. “Ye have no mount, but then, ye undoubtedly leaped to Melvaig.” MacNeil could leap to Blayde to meet him there.

MacNeil seized the bridle.

“Ye were spared that day because the gods wrote yer Fate. ’Tis time to take the vows an’ serve them—or suffer their displeasure.”

That sounded like a threat! “Aye, the damned gods wrote my Fate—ye’ve told me a hundred times. But the massacre was Highland madness. The gods dinna care to save my family and I’m a mad Highlander now!”

“No god can save every man, woman or child,” MacNeil fired back. “’Tis impossible!”

“Let go of my horse.”

“I fear for ye now.”

“Dinna bother to fear fer me. An’, MacNeil? The boy will die another day.” He reached down and jerked his reins free.

“Ye had better think on yer ways,” MacNeil warned, his eyes dark and fierce now. “Because if ye dinna take yer vows soon, the gods will turn against ye.”

Macleod froze. The gods could not turn against him. His mother had been a holy woman. While no one could worship the old gods openly—it was heresy—she had been their priestess and he had been raised in those ancient beliefs. He still worshipped the Ancients secretly, while outwardly conforming to the Catholic Church. For ninety-seven years, he had been told that the gods had spared his life so that he could serve them as a holy warrior.

How could the gods turn against him? He was one of them.

“I came here today to warn ye, Guy. Continue to displease the gods, an’ they will disown ye. Ye will live a long an’ bleak life, without friends, family, without a wife or sons an’ daughters, huntin’ yer mortal enemies, each day the same. A man of stone, without a heart, without a reason to live.” MacNeil’s eyes flashed and he vanished.

Macleod stared at the boulder-strewn river, the water frothing white now. Without a reason to live? He had a reason to live. He was living each and every day because of that reason—revenge. His life was the blood feud. It was his duty. He did not need friends, family, a wife or children. MacNeil’s threats meant nothing, not to a man like him.

HIS HORSE KNEW the lay of the land as well as he did, and it was eager to reach the stables at Blayde. It was easier to ride along the coastline than follow deer and game trails in the interior, even if the going was rocky at times. But when Blayde appeared high upon the cliffs ahead, Macleod abruptly halted the animal. It was dusk, the moon beginning to rise. He was breathing hard and as lathered as his horse.