Looking at Ronan now, his eyes gleamed.
“There’s enough should you wish me to ride past Creag na Gaoith,” he offered, patting the leather bag again. “Lammas ash is powerful. I could —”
“Nae.” Ronan shook his head, the gesture final.
Bitter.
He should never have encouraged the old fool.
And the last thing he wanted was the ancient — or anyone — going near Creag na Gaoith.
Rock of the Windwas a black place. A mass of towering broken crags rising high above one of Dare’s bonniest corners, half of the once-proud rock bastion now lay tumbled and moss-grown at its foot. The great fallen stones spilled into the sweet little lochan there, the sight a damning and permanent reminder of what lay beneath.
“She needs to be let go.”
Ronan almost choked.
He did blink, the druid’s words piercing him. “She has been gone . . . for years.”
Words so true, guilt shamed him to the core. Thinking of the rockslide that killed his first wife Matilda wasn’t why the dread name of the place sent such a flood of chills streaking through him.
It’d been the reminder of the cause of that tragedy.
He couldn’t allow the like to happen again.
Especially not toher.
His gut twisting at the thought, he shoved back his hair and set his jaw. “I’ll no’ have you or anyone poking around Creag na Gaoith.” He spoke the sentiment aloud this time. “No good would come of it.”
Torcaill drew himself up. “Perhaps you should ride by there. Lay your ghosts.”
Ronan scowled at him.
He didn’t have any bogles.
But a short while later as he somehow found himself riding ever nearer to that once beloved spot, he couldn’t deny thatsomethinglurked in the bracken and heather hemming his path. Thick birches and bramble bushes grew there, too, almost impenetrable — just as he remembered — until the trees gave way to the peaceful little lochan, so hidden it didn’t even bear a name.
Whatever he’d spotted up ahead, large, gray, and moving slow, didn’t have a name either.
Saints forbid he encounter the beast.
His mood was too foul to cross swords with some bespelled creature sent by the Holders to torment him.
Ronan shuddered.
He pulled his travel cloak tighter about him, glancing from right to left as he rode, conscious now of every squishy, sucking clip- clop his horse’s hooves made on the damp carpet of fallen autumn leaves.
Then he heard it again.
A rustle of leaves as he’d caught back on the knoll. This time accompanied by the unmistakable snuffling and sniffing of a large animal. Its panting breaths as it moved stealthily through the undergrowth.
Ronan’s heart started beating slow and hard.
He drew his sword, holding it ready.
Then he rounded a great cluster of Scots pine and rowans and jerked his steed to such a jarring halt he nearly cut himself in the thigh.
A dog sat in the middle of the path.
