Page 56 of Highland Sky

“Are we . . . too late?” Nash looked over to Tomas who shook his head slowly.

“Nash, come here quickly,” said Kellina with a sniffle. “Uncle says he wants to tell us somethin’ important. Ye, too, North and Tomas. He wants ye all to hear what he has to say.”

“We’re here, Chieftain,” Tomas informed his leader, stepping around the twins and leading the way to the bed.

“I’m sorry,” said the chieftain in a soft whisper.

“What did he say?” asked North. “I canna hear him. He is speakin’ too softly.”

“Get closer. All of ye.” Kellina moved over, making room for Nash to sit next to her on the bed. North and Tomas went around the other side of the pallet.

“Go ahead, Uncle. We can all hear ye now,” Kellina urged him to speak.

The man opened his eyes slowly, then used what little breath he had left to tell them a story that Nash would never forget for the rest of his life.

“It was no one’s fault but my own that yer parents are dead. Both yers, Kellina, and yers, too, Nash and North.” He coughed, spitting up blood onto a rag.

“Yer fault?” asked Kellina, taking the cloth and giving him a fresh one. “What do ye mean?”

“Kellina and Nash, yer parents were . . . friends . . . at first. It all started when I drank too much Mountain Magic . . . one night in the . . . Horn and Hoof.”

“I ken the feelin’,” said North with a snort. “I’ve done that on occasion and couldna remember a thing afterwards.”

“Shhh,” Nash silenced his brother. “Go on, Chieftain. Tell us what happened.”

“I didna ever want to tell this story aloud . . . but now I must. I willna . . . go to my death lettin’ the MacKeefes and the MacKenzies be . . . enemies.”

“What happened?” Kellina asked him again.

“Och, I dinna want to say.” The man closed his eyes and turned his head, looking as if he were disgusted with himself.

“Uncle, ye called us here, so please tell us,” said Kellina. “If ye have somethin’ weighin’ heavy on yer soul, then confess it before ye die.”

“All right,” the man said, coughing a few more times, looking weaker by the moment. “I am a lustful cur, and I was . . . attracted to both . . . yer mathairs.”

“What!” snapped Nash, ready to take off the man’s head.

“Uncle, ye had a wife. And children,” cried Kellina. “I dinna understand this kind of talk at all.”

“I didna . . . understand either. I wish to God I didna do it.”

“Do what?” Nash demanded to know. “If ye touched my mathair at all, ye willna have to suffer any longer from yer wounds because I will kill ye right here in yer bed.”

“Nash, please,” begged Kellina. “Let the dyin’ man speak.”

“Go on,” said Nash, biting his tongue before he said things not fit for Kellina’s ears.

“It was a celebration that night . . . I dinna remember what for. I had to piss . . . so I borrowed yer faither’s cloak, Nash, and went outside. That’s when I saw Robena.”

“My mathair,” Kellina told Nash.

“She was by herself . . . and I had to have her.”

“God’s eyes, nay!” Kellina gasped and held her hand to her mouth. “Ye raped my mathair?”

“Nay, lass. But I might have if things had gone differently. I grabbed her from behind and kissed her. She . . . fought me. And she called for Avery, to tell him . . . Bram accosted her.”

“Bram?” asked Kellina.