Free Ian by Elizabeth Rose

“Thet’s what ye’re thinkin’ isna it?”
    “I’ve had enough o’ this talk fer the night,” he said, ta king a coverlet from the travelbag on the horse and laying it down on the ground. “Now let’s get some shut eye and head out early at first light.”
    “Fine.” She settled on the blanket, lying back, and to her surprise he lay down next to her. She smiled. Mayhap he’d had a change of mind. She flipped onto her side facing him, and instantly he turned the other way. She could see that changing Ian’s mind was not going to be easy. Mayhap it would never happen at all. She turned away from him, and lay with her hand over the hound that was now snuggled up next to her. Then she fell asleep thinking about the awful face of the man she’d seen in the fire and hoping that it was all just a bad dream. Because after what she’d just experienced with Ian, she knew no other man would ever suffice now.
     
    * * *
     
    Ian tossed and turned, not able to get the vision of Tearlach MacTavish’s face from his mind. His eyes drifted open slightly, and he focused on the flames of the fire he’d left burning throughout the night.
    He wasn’t sure if it was a dream or a vision, but in those flames he saw Daghda, the witch girl that he’d married, tied to a stake and screaming out as her body burned in the fire, and he was forced to watch.
    She had been a Celtic witch, there was no doubt in his mind, as he’d found out too late she’d concocted and used a potion on him that had played a big part in his decision to stay with the MacTavishes three years ago, and not go back to the MacKeefes.
    It was an herbal love potion . He knew that now. Because as soon as she’d died, he was released from the spell that bound him to her, and he realized that he’d never loved her after all. But he couldn’t say the same for the baby – his baby – that she carried. The baby that died in the fire with her that night.
    He felt the sweat on his brow and his hands balled up into fists. He cou ld almost feel the chains biting into his wrists and neck as the clan’s chieftain, Tearlach ordered his men to hold him and make him watch, though he’d fought to save the lassie from her imminent death. Tearlach told him none of this would matter once he realized he’d been under a spell and that his wife was a witch that deserved to die. But even so, Ian didn’t want to see any defenseless person die, and especially not his unborn child.
    “Nay!” he cried , reaching out to save his child that would never know life. “Nay, Daghda,” he cried again, breaking away, and fighting the soldiers, but still not able to save her. There were too many of them following their wretched leader’s rules. Just the same as Ian had done when he’d found his dark side and decided to stay with the MacTavishes in the first place.
    “Wake up. Ian, wake up!” Someone shook him by the shoulders, and he rolled over and jumped to his feet, then reached down to the ground and grabbed his sword and held it out in front of him.
    “Nay! I’ll kill ye, ye bastard,” he shouted, then realized Kyla was standing there with a surprised look on her face and her hands in the air.
    “God’s eyes, what are ye yellin’ aboot?” she asked, cocking her head and l ooking at him as if she thought he were crazy. Actually, he wasn’t so sure himself any more.
    His eyes scanned the area around him, and he tried hard to slow his rapidly beating heart and regain a normal breathing. Then he realized he had been having a dream and naught more. A nightmare, actually, about his past.
    “Dammit, I . . . was jest dreamin’, thet’s all .” He lowered his sword in disgust at the fact that it was getting harder through the years to decipher the difference between dreams and reality anymore. His wolfhound got up suddenly, looking into the trees and then lowering its head as it growled lowly.
    “Well, I dinna ken what thet was all aboot, Ian, but ye are a dangerous man,