Beyond the Highland Myst(167)
Ramsay clutched his head. "Och, man, quit bellowing! You're killing me."
Quinn mouthed a silent "sorry" at Grimm, followed by an apologetic whisper: "It's the lingering effects of the mandrake. I'm stupid right now."
"Eh? What?" Ramsay said. "What are you two whispering about?"
"Even between the two of us we didn't even eat all the chicken," Quinn continued, evading Ramsay's query. "And I thought the innkeeper dismissed the butcher after that incident. I asked him to do it myself."
"What incident?" Ramsay asked.
"Apparently not." Grimm ran a hand through his hair and sighed.
"Did you get his name?" Ramsay asked.
"Who? The innkeeper?" Quinn gave him a puzzled look.
"No, the butcher." Ramsay rolled his eyes.
"Why?" Quinn asked blankly.
"Because the bastard poisoned a Logan, you fool. That doesn't happen without recompense."
"No vengeance," Grimm warned. "Just forget it, Logan. I've seen what you do when you focus on vengeance. The two of you came out of this bungled attempt unharmed. That does not justify murdering a man, no matter how much he might deserve it for other things."
"Where's Jillian?" Quinn changed the subject quickly. "I have these foggy memories of a goddess hovering over my bed."
Ramsay snorted. "Just because you think you were making some progress before we were both poisoned doesn't mean you've won her, de Moncreiffe.
Grimm winced inwardly and sat in pensive silence while Quinn and Ramsay argued back and forth about Jillian. The men were still at it some tune later and didn't even notice when Grimm left the room.
* * * * *
Having spent the early hours of dawn with Quinn and Ramsay, Grimm checked in on Jillian, who was still sleeping soundly as he'd left her, curled on her side beneath a mound of blankets. He longed to ease himself into bed beside her, to experience the pleasure of waking up to the sensation of holding her in his arms, but he couldn't risk being seen leaving Jillian's chambers once the castle roused.
So, as morning broke over Caithness, he nodded to Ramsay, who'd managed to stumble down the stairs in search of solid food, whistled to Occam, and swung himself onto the stallion's bare back. He headed for the loch, intending to immerse his overheated body in icy water. The completion he'd experienced with Jillian had only whetted his appetite for her, and he was afraid if she so much as smiled at him today he would fall on her with all the slathering grace of a starved wolf. Years of denied passion were free, and he realized he possessed a hunger for Jillian that could never be sated.
He nudged Occam around a copse of trees and paused, savoring the quiet beauty of the morning. The loch rippled, a vast silvery mirror beneath rosy clouds. Lofty oaks waved black branches against the red sky.
Strains of a painfully off-key song carried faintly on the breeze, and Grimm circumvented the loch carefully, guiding his horse past sinkholes and rocky terrain, following the sound until, rounding a thick cluster of growth, he saw Zeke hunched near the water. The lad's legs were tucked up, his forearms resting on his knees, and he was rubbing his eyes.
Grimm drew Occam to a halt. Zeke was half crying the broken words of an old lullaby. Grimm wondered who had managed to hurt his feelings this early in the morning. He watched the lad, trying to decide what was the best way to approach him without offending the child's dignity. As he hesitated in the shadows, any decision on his part was ren dered obsolete as the crackling of brush and bracken alerted him to an intruder. He scanned the surrounding forest, but before he had detected the source, a snarling animal sprang from the woods a few feet behind Zeke. A great, mangy mountain cat burst onto the bank of the loch, thick white spittle foaming on its snout. It snarled, baring lethal white fangs. Zeke turned, and his song warbled to a stop. His eyes widened in horror.
Grimm instantly flung himself from Occam's back, yanked his sgain dubh from his thigh, and drew it across his hand, causing blood to well in his palm. In less than a heartbeat, the sight of the crimson beads roused the Viking warrior and set the Berserker free.
Moving with inhuman speed, he snatched Zeke up and tossed him on his stallion and smacked Occam on the rump. Then he did what he so despised… he lost time.
* * * * *
"Somebody help!" Zeke shrieked as he rode into the bailey on Occam's back. "You must help Grimm!"
Hatchard burst from the castle to find Zeke perched on Occam's back, hanging on to his mane with whitened knuckles. "Where?" he shouted.
"The loch! There's a crazed mountain cat and it almost ate me and he threw me on the horse and I rode by myself but it attacked Grimm and he's going to be hurt!"