How he dreaded telling his adoptive mother, the pain in her eyes too much for him.
He stepped inside the door to a large chorus of greetings. He waved to all the friends and family gathered in the great hall, then turned to the right to head toward the corner passageway that led to the tower rooms, the place where his parents lived. His uncle had continued to expand the keep, eventually adding another building of chambers due to the swelling size of theirimmediate clan, but his parents had remained in the towers—the most comforting place in the world as far as Loki was concerned, mostly because of his mother. He continued down the passageway, wondering how his parents had been. He grimaced and reminded himself that he was thinking of hisadoptedparents.
He’d been so fortunate to be adopted by Brodie and Celestina Grant, no one knew it better than he did. So why had he risked hurting them by seeking out his true parents? Even though they had never said so, he could tell how much it wounded his mother by the look that came into her eyes every time he mentioned searching for his real parents. He could not tolerate that look. In fact, every time he saw it, he turned away, feeling so guilty he wanted to run in the opposite direction. If not for Arabella’s foolish sire, he would never have tried to seek out his true sire. He believed he was a lad of value, but there was no way of proving his lineage.
Celestina’s English father had kept her locked up in their house as a young lass. Loki had first set eyes on her as she sobbed from the balcony of her home, basically her prison. Being wee at the time, he could sneak anywhere without being seen. So he had followed Celestina, his ‘missy angel,’ as he had referred to her, wherever life took her. It was this sneakiness that had earned him the admiration of Brodie Grant, the youngest brother to Laird Alexander Grant, for it had helped Brodie to find her after she was kidnapped, right before the Battle of Largs.
After the conflict ended, Brodie and Celestina were reunited in the Highlands, and it was then they had adopted Loki and brought him into their home. He still counted the day he became Loki Grant as the happiest—and luckiest—day in his life.
He opened the doorway to the tower chambers and stepped inside.
A chorus of “Loki!” greeted him. His mother sat with her needlework in her lap, but she stood as soon as she laid eyes on him, dropping her sewing onto a nearby stool. Her expression had gone from sadness to excitement in an instant. His two sisters, Catriona and Alison, twelve and five summers, ran up and hugged him. His brother, Braden, would be in the lists with his father.
His mother waited for him to come to her, as she always did—a relic of her proper English manners. With a still trim figure and long yellow hair threaded with only a few strands of silver, Celestina Grant was still a beauty. Some of his aunts had widened at the hips after carrying bairns, but not his mother. She was still the most beautiful woman in the Highlands.
But that wasn’t really what he saw. To him, she was simply the woman with the biggest heart he had ever known. She held her arms wide and he stepped into her embrace, towering over the wee woman.
“Loki, how I have missed you.” She patted his shoulders. “I am so glad to see you.” She stepped back and cupped his cheek. “How do you fare? Did you find your true parents?”
And that look of excitement in her gaze changed to one of worry as fast as could be. Just the mention of the identity of his true parents was enough to send heartache through his adopted mother. Loki chastised himself, as he’d already done countless times already. He could never love his birth mother as he loved Celestina. Someday, he promised himself, he would tell this woman how much her love had meant to him.
It had all been for Bella—to prove to her father that he was not some worthless orphan. True, his uncle could force the marriage, but it would feel wrong to allow his powerful adoptive relatives to fight his battles for him. Since he’d been so long without parents, he wanted Bella’s relationship with her sire to be strong. He had no desire to cause any discord between thetwo. Someday, he hoped he and Bella would have their own bairns, and bairns needed their grandparents, just as he had needed parents of his own.
But he had searched and searched, turning up naught. Now it was time to give up.
Chapter Five
Loki meets Kenzie behind a familiar inn…
Logan, Loki, and Torrian set out the next day with several guards. Gwyneth had chosen to stay home with the bairns since she had been journeying across the Highlands for a time. They arrived at the outskirts of the village toward the end of the day. As they paid the toll to enter into the royal burgh of Ayr, chills ran down Loki’s spine. This was where his sire had found him. He had not been in Ayr proper since the Battle of Largs in the 1260s, when the Scots had gained the Western Isles back from Norway. Exhausted, he glanced at Torrian, who seemed awed by the place. He was surprised his Uncle Quade had allowed Torrian on this excursion, but Logan had pressured his brother into agreeing, arguing that it would not only be an opportunity for Torrian to meet King Alexander, but for him to learn some basic survival skills.
Loki was so exhausted that he was starting to have strange flashes in his brain. Visions of past experiences that he could not quite identify popped into his mind. People without faces in unfamiliar settings called to him, but naught and no one was recognizable. As soon as they rode past a certain spot at the edge of the burgh, he stopped his horse and called out to his uncle and cousin, asking them to give him a minute.
He dismounted in front of a dingy inn, one for the travelers with few coins. He stood in front of it and stared. The inn hisfather had found him behind was a place much like this one. Bits and pieces came back to him, memories he had chosen to forget. Logan asked him a question, but he ignored it. Driven by an unknown force, he stepped to the back of the building and found what he’d been seeking.
A crate.
He nudged the crate with his foot, and it moved just a touch, enough for him to see there were items inside the crate.
It was exactly like the crate he’d lived under in Ayr. Something told him that as impossible as it seemed, thiswashis crate. He’d lived in it for many moons before he was invited to come to Grant land in the Highlands. He glanced over his shoulder, taking in all the familiar surroundings, smells, and sounds, which reminded him of what it had been like to live on the roads of Ayr, hungry and alone and cold.
He’d begged for most of what he ate at the time, though he’d found a nearby inn that used to save scraps for him once the travelers moved on.
The sound of running feet came from behind him.
“Leave off, you surly brute. Those are my belongings you’re wantin’ to steal.”
Loki spun around to see a laddie running toward him, a furious expression on his face. Dark disheveled locks that hadn’t seen a comb in days hung to his collar. A dirty face stared up at him with sharp eyes and a fierce scowl, a jutted chin daring Loki to challenge him. He looked to be the same age or just a wee bit younger than Loki had been whilst living in his crate.
“Bugger off, you auld man. Why’d you want my stuff? You’ll no’ get my crates either. I’ve taken good care of all three of them.”
Loki stared about the area, only then noticing that this lad’s home was larger than his own had been. He’d found two morecrates and arranged them as additional protection against the approaching cold weather.
“Problem, Loki?” Logan stood at the end of the alley next to the inn, both hands on his hips.
“Nay, no problem, Uncle. I was just leaving.” Loki stared at the lad.
“Aye, he was just leaving. So bugger off, auld man.” His chin lifted another notch and he gave Loki his most aggressive expression, one he’d clearly practiced well.
