Page 59 of Connal

Remembering how her captors had easily swarmed Jamaran and tossed his ravaged body into the sea convinced Valerie to stop struggling and go along with them into the town. She constantly blinked back tears of horror and pain, hoping against the odds that the Finfolk commander had somehow survived the vicious attack. She had no idea if the twelfth century had some form of authorities like the police who might act when they saw she was in danger, but no one tried to stop them. On the contrary, everyone who crossed their path hurried out of it, not even looking back to see what was happening.

I’m on my own now. If she was going to survive this, she had to be ready to seize any opportunity to escape.

Although one of her eyes had nearly swollen shut from a hard blow she’d taken during the attack, Valerie could still see clearly out of the other. The dark woman who walked ahead of them seemed entirely out of place with her roughly-dressed sailor companions and the women of Aberdeen; her fine gown, oddly-cropped hair and languid movements looked completely foreign compared to the other females they passed in the streets. She also seemed naggingly familiar, as if Valerie had seen her before now.

As for the sailors, their high-pitched voices didn’t match their broad, rugged bodies. All of them had dark eyes filled with menace, and walked with slow, long strides that looked as if they tested the ground with every step. A very unpleasant odor came from them that seemed to grow thicker the longer they walked.

“Dinnae think it,” one of the sailors said when Valerie eyed an alleyway they passed. “If you run, we’ll hunt you down.”

“I’m not an animal,” she said. Although she had tried several times to read the thoughts of the men, she couldn’t connect to their minds at all. “Why are you doing this?”

The sailor’s eyes gleamed with bright malice as he smiled. “You’ve something our princess desires very much, wench.”

Our princess. Valerie looked at the dark woman again, and the way she carried herself did suggest she considered herself regal. The monarchial term kept echoing in her thoughts: princess…princess…until Shaw’s story came back to her.

In ancient times a dark princess became obsessed with Prince Mar, a Fae water elemental.

No matter where he went, she chased after him, and threatened kill everyone he loved.

He protected us by creating Caladh, which he bespelled to hide the clan and our vassals from the enchantress.

Could the dark woman be Derdrui? Had they abducted her because they’d seen her with Jamaran, or had somehow otherwise connected her to Caladh and the MacMar?

Whether that’s true or not, I can’t say anything about the island or the clan.

They arrived at a large house on a promontory overlooking the sea, and some of the sailors left the group to take positions as if keeping watch. The rest entered the house, where most scattered, leaving Valerie alone with the dark woman and the last three sailors, who marched her into a big room filled with fine furnishings and a desk on which mounds of gold had been scattered.

“Bind her to something,” the tallest of the sailors told the heaviest, who jerked Valerie over to a wooden chair, shoved her into it, and tied the rope they had been using like a leash around her.

“May we shed these loathsome forms, my princess?” At her nod the smallest sailor clapped his hands, and then regarded Valerie. “Good, I wish to play.”

Valerie’s heart skipped a beat as she watched the tiny sailor’s body reshape itself into that of a young, beautiful girl with burnished red hair and the blackest eyes she’d ever seen.

“Do not toy with her just yet, Runt.” The dark woman came over to Valerie, her long-fingered hands reaching for her face. “I must first know how she comes to be wrapped in my love’s magic.”

Somehow Valerie knew letting the woman touch her would be worse than anything the shape-shifter could do. “I found a ring. That’s all.”

“She’s no’ Scottish.” The heavy sailor, who by now had shifted into an even larger pale-haired woman with small yellow-brown eyes, came over behind the chair and tried to yank Joana’s ring off her hand. A moment later she howled in pain and staggered back.

“She’s been warded.” As the tall sailor came toward Valerie her body and face shifted into that of a middle-aged brunette woman with a sharp nose. “We cannae permit you touch her, my princess.”

“Mar’s magic can never harm me, Fiacail,” the dark woman said, and yet the moment her fingertips grazed Valerie’s cheek she frowned. “It is not my prince’s enchantment that protects her.” She drew back her hand and peered down at Valerie for a long moment. “She bears the death spell of another, bound to that ring by an old enchantment. One cast not far from here.”

Valerie saw her stare through the window at the sea cliff beyond the house.

The tall brunette drew a dagger. “Permit me cut off her finger, my princess, and that should break the spell.”

“Please don’t do that,” Valerie said quickly. “You’re right, I’m not Scottish. I’m from another place in the future, and I found this ring in a lake. It saved my life and brought me back to this time.” She tried to look harmless as she regarded the dark woman. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, your majesty.”

“I am Derdrui, a royal Fae of Elphyne.” She drew herself up the way a cat did when it stretched. “But I think you knew that. Who told you of me? The bastard sons of my lover, Mar? Ah, your scent changes, so they did. Where is that cursed island on which they hide from me?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know.” That was the truth; Valerie had no idea of the direction in which Caladh lay. “I came to Aberdeen to look for help. I don’t belong here.”

“You do not.” Suddenly the enchantress grabbed her by the throat and lifted her and the chair off the floor until she was at her eye level. “The ring cannot shield you from me. Where are they?”

Valerie couldn’t speak; Derdrui held her so tightly she couldn’t take a breath. A wave of dizziness came over her, and her vision grew tunneled. She stared into the Fae’s eyes, the whites of which shrank as her dark irises expanded.

She’s going to tear off my head, was her last thought before she blacked out.