And then he’d step over their dead body on the way back to the village.
But it wasn’t going to be as easy as that. He hadn’t the first bloody idea how to kill aCaoineag.If they even could be killed. And what of the curse that bound Mara here? Would that lift if theCaoineagwas no more? Then what would happen to Mara if it did?
A clammy sweat broke out between Callum’s shoulder blades as he began to consider all of the repercussions. Mara was not of this time. She may not have been a ghost, but neither was she human. To what world would she return to if she was freed? The land of the living…or the land of the dead?
Trapped as she was here, at least she had a voice and a body. A sense ofbeing. What if that was taken from her? What if she became as she would have been had theCaoineagnot plucked her from the sea? Nothing more than a distant memory to those who had come after her, as everyone who had come before had long seen their bones turned to dirt.
What if he wasn’t Mara’s savior…but her destruction?
Chapter Eight
That night, Marainvited Callum into the castle and then into her bedchamber. In the silver glimmer of moonlight, they languidly explored each other’s bodies. In the bed. On the floor. Against the wall. Instead of creaks and wails, the air sang with the sounds of sweet moans and sharp gasps. Instead of spending her night restlessly pacing or staring at the ceiling, she spent it curled in Callum’s protective embrace.
She may not have known what the morning would bring, but for tonight…for tonight they had each other, and that was enough.
Dawn broke gray and somber, with clouds moving across the water and a cool wind whipping in from the west. It blew Mara’s hair into her eyes as she stood at the open window gazing down at the keep, her gaze inadvertently pulled to the spot where she had first seen the dreadedCaoineag.
Wet, exhausted, and confused, she had stumbled up from the cliffs while calling out for Hugh. Of course, he hadn’t responded. He was already gone, even though she wouldn’t find his body for another fortnight. A grisly discovery that remained etched in the back of her mind.
Skye had joined her as she made her way around the grounds, stalks of grass and thistle slapping at her wet skirts. They’d avoided the castle until it was the only place they hadn’t searched, and Mara was gathering her courage when she saw her.
TheCaoineag.
A woman but not a woman, swathed in tattered black. So thin that she was almost transparent, with skin that was as ghastly white as the inside of a clam shell and hair that stuck to her scalp in clumps of greasy brown.
“Ye,” she’d hissed, pointing a bony finger straight at Mara. “Ye woke me.”
Shaking so badly that it was all she could do to remain on her feet, Mara had barely managed a coherent sentence. “I…I’m sorry. I dinna mean tae. I just need tae find me husband, and then we’ll be on our way. I promise.”
“He’s gone,” the wraith had cackled. “But I brought ye back tae take me place.”
“Gone? Gone where? And what do ye mean, take yer place? Whoareye?”
A twisted smile had revealed an uneven row of cracked, yellow teeth. “If ye have tae ask, then ye are not prepared for the answer. The dead will come here, as ye have done. Ye will sing tae them their fate, and in the knowing, their death shall be sealed. But first, before ye forewarn the dead, ye must take a life yerself. A circle cannot begin without an end.”
“Ye’re speaking in riddles!” Mara had cried. “Death? A circle? I dinna understand!”
But she’d been ignored as if she hadn’t spoken at all.
“The cliffs require a servant, and me time has been served. Ye will do this, Mara MacLea.” For an instant, theCaoineag’sexpression had almost appeared vaguely pitying. “Ye should not have come here. Ye should not have awoken me. Although I do not wish tae give ye this burden, ye brought it upon yerself.”
As theCaoineagstarted for the sea, Mara had chased after her with Skye, ears pinned and nostrils flared, trotting at her heels. “Wait,” she’d begged. “I dinna want this. I dinna want tae take a life. I want me husband. I want tae return tae me family.”
“As did I once,” theCaoineaghad said without turning around. “But rest easy, Child. Ye will forget them soon enough. The cliffs will see tae that. Unless…” Here, she had stopped herself short, and Mara had pounced on her hesitation like a lioness upon a fresh kill.
“Unlesswhat?” she’d said desperately. “What do I have tae do?”
“It matters naught.”
“It matters taeme.”
Shards of coal burned black where theCaoineag’seyes should have been as she’d swiveled her head all the way around and said in an eerie, chanting tone, “Blood shall spill upon this stone, and all who came shall remain. As they were in life, so will they be in death, and the Caoineag will sing of their demise. Unless comes a man pure of heart and noble of mind, whose love shall free the maiden from her haunting cries.”
Without another word, theCaoineaghad stepped out into emptiness…and disappeared. Mara hadn’t seen her since, which was both a blessing and a curse. The skeletal figure was as terrifying as she was ominous, but she also held information. Information that Mara had been unable to glean from the heavy tomes she’d found in the castle’s archives.
What did it mean for a man to be pure of heart and noble of mind? Many men had come to Blackmoore since Mara had been forced into her post. Young and old. Handsome and plain. Scottish and English alike. She’d scared them all. In their fright, they’d left the castle alive…the only mercy she could grant them. And while she had fancied a few, she hadn’t found herselfdrawnto any…before Callum, that is.
The big, brawny Scot had demanded her attention from the first second that she found him. When their hands had touched…when their hands had touched, it was as if the world itself had opened up. A flower blooming, bright and bold, after being made to suffer in the shadows.
