Chapter Four

E thne crouched outside the kirk, staying low behind a pile of rubble overgrown with tall grasses. Did the man think her a fool? He was trying to protect her from something. She saw it in his face, heard it in the timbre of his voice, and felt the desperation in his touch. She did not need protecting.

A disgruntled huff escaped her. How dare he think her weak or helpless? She was a woman grown and had fought for years to not only protect herself but those she cared about as well. And she could protect him—a lonely soul aching to be loved. She would stay here, quiet as a wee mousie, until she found out what he was struggling so hard to hide.

Her heart pounded faster as the fog crept into the courtyard, swallowing up the rubble like a great gray beast devouring the land. An anguished roar from the front of the chapel startled her. She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. It had to be her friend. No one else was here except the two of them.

With the silent stealth she'd learned while avoiding the villagers, Ethne eased out of her hiding place, crept to the front corner of the small church, and peered around it. Her friend stood just outside, clutching his staff and staring down at the heavy mist creeping toward his feet. The urge to shout for him to flee was strong, but she forced herself to remain silent. She needed to see what he intended to do.

His staff dropped to the ground, disappearing beneath the fog. But instead of stumbling to retrieve it, as she had seen him do before, he slowly straightened his back, making himself appear to grow. His bowed shoulders widened and leveled, filling out and squaring off as if ready to face any enemy. Where the bent, wasted-away cripple once stood was a fearsomely tall, well-muscled warrior with a broad chest and a dark, wild mane as sleek and black as the feathers of a raven. He ripped the cloth from around his head and glared up at the sky with two good eyes instead of just one.

Ethne held her breath, unable to believe the transformation she had just witnessed. When he shifted and revealed the pipes in his hands, she knew. Her beloved friend, the half-blind, suffering man of kindness and caring, was the cursed chieftain of Clan MacDanua. A man the local legends said had been as fierce and protective as a great wolf. So much so, he even bore the name Wolfe MacDanua. But he had fallen to the seductress, Morrigan-the-wicked, and made the mistake of spurning her for his arranged wife. Ethne swallowed hard and clutched a fist to her heart. She ached for poor Wolfe MacDanua's cursed soul.

He placed the mouthpiece of the pipes between his teeth, tucked the bag under his arm, and filled it with his wind. The bleak hopelessness in his face broke her heart as he positioned his fingers on the chanter. Hatred for what he was about to do rolled off him in waves. He closed his eyes and started to play.

As soon as the sad strains filled her ears, a plan came to her as naturally as drawing breath. She would listen to the song in its entirety, and when Morrigan-the-wicked came to steal her soul, she would spit in the evil one's face and end the hag's cruel curse. Somehow. She didn't know how just yet, but she would find a way. Maybe her devil's mark and oddly colored eyes truly held the power everyone feared. If so, she would battle the dark witch and end her reign.

Ethne settled back against the wall, all the while keeping Wolfe in sight. According to everything Mama had said, the curse forced him to play until the sun rose and burned the mist away. He slowly wandered through the courtyard as he played. The thick fog swirled around his legs as though keeping time with the sad tune. The moonlight made him glow with an eerie blue-white light. He reminded Ethne of a restless spirit searching for his grave.

Tears streamed down her face as the song continued. It was a melody of mourning, of love forever lost, of wretched, aching loneliness. It was Chieftain Wolfe MacDanua's story. She yearned to go to him and tell him all would be well. But she daren't. She wasn't sure what the cursed mist might do to him if he stopped his song before daybreak. And she had to speak with Mama, glean every bit of information she could, before she faced the witch.

He turned and started walking toward her, his forlorn gaze locked on the ground. The closer he came, the more she shrank into the shadows, praying he would soon turn and take another direction. Thankfully, he did, enabling her to breathe again. As he walked away, she returned to her refuge behind the shaggy, weed-infested pile of rubble. At the back of the kirk, almost where it attached to what was left of the skirting wall, she pressed her back into the shadowy corner. After a while, she eased up and peeped at the moon, then pulled in a deep breath. It barely hovered above the ruins. It would be a while before it reached its zenith, then readied itself to relinquish its place in the sky to the sun. She hugged herself tight and concentrated on Wolfe's song. The saddest, most beautiful melody she had ever heard.

*

The sun rose, the mist faded, and his eternal shackles of deformation and pain returned. But this morning there was no glimmer of hope, no pinprick of brightness to lessen his agony, because Ethne would not come this afternoon. Or any day thereafter. He had severed the bond for her sake, knowing she drew too close for her own safety.

The rag he used to cover his mauled eye rose from the ground and floated toward him. "I have something to show ye, my chieftain," Mrs. Tarrel said without making herself seen.

"I dinna have the heart for anything this morn, Mrs. Tarrel. Please—leave me be."

"Ye must have the heart for this." Her tug on his arm surprised him. The ghostly housekeeper had never done that in all the years he had known her, either when she lived or after. "Come now, my chief. Ye must."

He allowed her to lead him past the overgrown mound of rocks and debris that had once been the fine bell tower he ordered built in celebration of his daughter's birth. Then he halted, clenching his staff so hard his nails dug into the wood. "Dear God in heaven. I beg that ye deafened her to the song." But he knew in his heart his prayer came too late.

Sunlight washed across Ethne, surrounding her in the gentleness of early morning light. It gave her the ethereal glow of a sleeping angel. He prayed she slept and that the wickedness of the curse hadn't already killed her outright. But even if it hadn't, the song of doom would eventually take her and send her soul to Morrigan. The knowledge of his dear Ethne's fate tore a sobbing groan from the depths of his soul.

Her eyes flew open, and she sat straighter. "Chieftain," she said in the soft, throaty whisper of hastily cast aside slumber. "Ye startled me." She coughed and pushed herself to her feet, nervously brushing her kirtle in place. "Dinna be angry. I have a plan, ye ken?"

"A plan to send yer soul to the depths of hell?" He shook his head and turned away, unable to bear the hopefulness in her face. Poor, innocent lass. She had no idea. He bowed his head. Another ragged groan escaped him. Once again, his selfishness had cost the world something precious and good. Evil had won. "Ye shouldha gone, Ethne. Shouldha saved yerself."

"I can break the curse." She circled him, trying to make him look at her, but he turned away again. "Ye must give me a chance to end this misery," she said.

"Do ye not think if there was a way to break the curse that I wouldha found it after bearing this torture for over two hundred years?" He scrubbed a hand across his face, flinching as he rubbed too close to the gouged eye that never healed. "And now ye will die and yer soul will be lost." He finally met her gaze. "Ye have done the verra thing I tried to save ye from, lass."

Her jaw hardened with determination as she shoved in close and slid her arms around him, holding him in a gentle embrace. "I did what I needed to do. I did what was right."

He reeled with her warmth, the sweetness of her scent. It sent him staggering back, making him drunk with her softness and the love in her eyes. "Ye deserve better!"

"Ye are not a bad man!" She closed the distance between them again. "Ye are the one who deserves better!"

"But I am a terrible man." He had to confess, so she would see. "When the woman sent to marry me hated becoming my wife, I sought another's bed. Gave in to the wicked seductions of the Morrigan. I was weak when I shouldha been strong. Instead of working harder to win my new wife's favor, I merely serviced her to seed an heir, then sated my passions with the vile witch." He met Ethne's stubborn gaze, willing her to see him for the horridly selfish bastard he was. "And when I finally gained a grain of decency and became ashamed of my ways, I spurned the witch and sought forgiveness from the Lady Aria. But it was too late. Even though the wife I dishonored bore me a daughter, she never truly forgave me. And nor should she have." He stepped away again, putting an arm's length of distance between them. "Then our wee one died and my long-suffering Aria could stand no more of the unhappiness I had brought into her life." He turned and cast a sad look up at the east tower, the only tower still standing. "She jumped to her death because of me."

"Mama said ye were a good man," Ethne said. "If Mama said it is so, then it is so." She lifted her chin again as though daring him to challenge her. "Mama always knows."

"And what will yer precious mama say when she discovers what ye have done?" A bitter snort escaped him. "I feel certain her opinion of me will change then."

"It will not." Ethne closed the distance between them yet again. "She will help me find a way to break the curse."

"There is no way." Wolfe hated himself more than he ever had before. "I deserve this hell. Brought it upon myself." He touched her cheek with a shaking hand. "Ye deserve life. Love. A fine husband and precious bairns to care for ye in yer old age." His voice broke. "Ye deserve better than me, dear one. So much better."

"Leave what I deserve to me, ye ken?" She framed his face with her hands and pressed the sweetest of kisses to his mouth. "I will make ye free," she whispered. "And then ye can decide whether ye want me here or not."

He stiffened and clutched his staff tighter to keep from falling to his knees and weeping. What precious Ethne promised would never be. He knew it heart and soul. "Go, Ethne. Go to yer mother."