Highlander Enchanted

Chapter Two

Four days later

The forest was restless.

Caderyn "Black Cade" MacLachlainn, clan chieftain and one of the most feared warriors in the Highlands, whispered words from a tongue long since forgotten by most men. The wind obeyed his soft command, soaring overhead to move the clouds obscuring his sunlight. The trees before him bent away for him to see the path beneath him more clearly. Ferns tickled his exposed arms and neck, and the calming scent of earth tempered his impatience.

With his belly pressed to the ground, and his senses filled with nature, he was able to suppress the restless pacing of seillie sorcery in his blood to focus on why he was hiding in the first place.

"This isna right," whispered the raven-haired, steely-eyed warrior hidden beneath the brush to his left. His cousin, Niall, bore scars across his face and spoke with a mild lisp, both traits that helped him keep his longtime vow of celibacy, as no woman wanted near him.

"Nay," Cade agreed. "'Tis not."

"What 'tis it?" Father Adam's voice was too loud for their situation. He was to be forgiven, however, because of his age, which rendered his eyes weak and his hearing even weaker. The only non-seillie in the clan, he relied upon the men around him to explain the magic he could not sense.

"The wind speaks to us, Father," Niall replied.

"No more rain, Cade. Yer foul mood is worse than yer wine," Father Adam grumbled.

"Tis not a storm, Father." Cade glanced at the sky. His magic played out across the heavens, altering the weather according to his mood. He had been concerned of late, hence the previous fortnight of hard rain.

"Then what?" Father Adam asked.

She is coming. The message, accompanied by the faint tickle of the wind, swept across Cade and his cousins.

"That canna be good," Brian, the third member of his trusted advisors, murmured from his right. With a pleasant face women swooned over, he was unlike Niall in appearance but no less deadly in battle. Niall and Brian were close enough to his age for them all to have been raised together under the tutelage of Father Adam.

"Nothin' good ne'er came from a woman," Niall agreed.

"Unless she has gold," Cade said.

A horse bearing two forms appeared on the road at the bottom of the hill, and they grew still and quiet once more, observing the ancient gelding and its ill-dressed riders.

"There isna room for gold," Cade said. "Ye assured ye read it well?" He twisted from his position to see the elderly priest leaning on his cane behind him.

"Me eyes are no' so good, but yea," came the response. The priest of Norman birth had wandered the Highlands preaching Christianity for many years before being adopted by Cade's father. Since becoming a clan member, he had the task of reading the written word to the rest of the clan. "A great lord sent message of a precious gift destined for clan MacDonald from the English court as reward for MacDonald sending all his warriors to the Crusades."

"Methinks ye are too old to see yer own nose, Father." A hardened man of battle, Niall's tone carried warmth he reserved for his priest and cousins.

"'Tis yer wine. That swill willna keep a man young."

Always the wine. Cade snorted. "In time, old man, ye'll 'ave yer good wine. I am land rich and gold poor."

"Yer land poor, too, cousin," Niall pointed out. "We'll be cast out 'fore winter."