Page 21 of Shaw

“With that cock, ’twas part man.” Mace held up a jaw lined with three rows of jagged teeth. “And, ’twould seem, part beast.”

She recalled how Fiacail had appeared, and what she had said about the merrow transforming her and the shark. Looking at the burned, twisted bits of what had surely been a monster made her breakfast surge up her throat. She staggered away to empty her belly behind a rock.

Mace came to support her and pulled her hair back from her face. “Did the merrow change our sister after she died, or before?”

“I dinnae ken. Before, I think she told me.” She pushed herself upright and wiped her face with her sleeve. “You reckon he took our dead so he might change them as he did Fia?”

The other shifter started to shake her head, and then looked past her and froze.

“You cannae change the dead, Sisters,” Fiacail said as she waded out of the water, followed by Dearg and Tiene. “Those with but a spark of life left in them, however, may live again, as you see.”

Jamaran accompanied Merrick from the palace to the shores of Caladh, where a dozen of his men stood waiting. “My king, the laird sent word that he and Mistress Scott shall meet you at the walking labyrinth.”

He wondered if Connal was simply trying to save time, or further aggravate the tensions between the clan and the Selseus. Since the latest female from the future had come to the island, every Selseus male eyed him with bleak expressions, as if they had already accepted she would not become one of them.

Somehow, Merrick thought, he had to persuade this woman to do otherwise. “Who stands the laird’s second?”

“Chieftain Shaw.” At the sharp look he gave him, the commander sighed. “The man, he brought the lady back with him from the future. He’s named himself her protector, and ’tis talk that she returns his, ah, fond regard.”

“Or so the MacMar would make us believe. Facking Shaw shall make issue of such as well.” He handed off his spear of rule to his personal guard, and shook his head when they offered a shark hide cloak. “Jamaran shall stand second. The rest of you, wait here.”

As they walked up the beach to the trail leading past the forest, his commander constantly scanned the land before and on either side of them. Although his thoughts remained firmly alert, his emotions had snarled into a huge knot of worry and dread.

“Lad, I ken the lady shall likely refuse join us,” Merrick told him. “’Tis unfortunate, only we must accept, and persuade our men do the same.”

“You’ve no’ yet seen Mistress Scott,” was all Jamaran said.

The trail split at its summit, leading to one huge spiraling maze made of low stone walls and another of shells mortared together along an identical path. Both overlapped each other, creating an oval with pointed ends where he and the MacMar laird met to discuss matters of importance. While walking along the curving paths of the shell-lined maze, which had been built by the Selseus, Merrick was obliged to calm his thoughts and seek inner peace before facing the laird.

As he looked toward the center place, he saw Connal standing beside a golden-haired woman as tall as he, with long limbs, sun-kissed skin and a radiant grace that likely made every other female seem drab and clumsy by comparison. The woman turned toward them, and for a moment seeing her brilliant eyes and lovely features as the sunlight poured over her like liquid pearl seemed almost the same as being gutted.

Merrick had long ago given his heart to a bad-tempered red-haired chambermaid he could never take as his Queen. He loved Meg to distraction, and never would there be another for him. He knew this, and still his sullen heart quaked to look upon this beauty. In that moment he became a fumbling lad again.

Why came you here, you rare creature?

Although his people had stopped having female spawn after coming to this world, Julianne Scott might have been a Selseus born. Merrick imagined her long body, clad in only a mating veil of royal golden pearls, gliding through the gilded amethyst seas of his homeworld. The water would stroke her fair hair and caress her with its currents, scattering tiny golden bubbles all over those magnificent limbs. Her voice would move through the currents like a purr of delight, he suspected. Such a female would not allow herself to be taken quickly or easily; she would tantalize and lure before she tried to escape her pursuers. The male who wished to claim her would need all his strength and speed to catch up with her in the depths, declare her his, and fill her womb with his seed.

“Fack me,” Merrick murmured when she smiled at him and gave him a little wave with her long-fingered hand. “Who among us saw her?”

Jamaran shifted uneasily. “Only two lads who strayed beyond the settlement. Mistress Scott thought them drowning and made to rescue them.”

“As kind as she’s lovely. No one shall believe the lads.” He rubbed his eyes. “Why couldnae she possess red hair, as Mistress Ambrose? Then ’twould prove simple, persuading the elders she’s no’ suitable.” As he started toward the path, his commander caught his arm, and he frowned. “What more?”

Jamaran sent him a short burst of memories that showed a conversation he’d had with his lover about Julianne.

“Good. Mayhap I may use such.” He waited for the younger man to assume his position on the side of the maze, and then started walking the curving paths.

The loose man’s leine and trews Julianne wore did not disguise her lithe body, but as Merrick drew closer he realized she did not, in fact, appear quite as perfect as he’d assumed. She seemed slightly too slender, as if she had been ill or gone hungry of late, and some knobs of bone at her joints protruded too much. He noted some shadows smudging the lower lids of her large, dark brown eyes, but as he grew closer he saw a starburst of pure blue color around her pupil. While bi-coloration of the eyes was a common Selseus trait, he’d never known that particular pairing of colors to show in any male of his kind. On some level the combination disturbed him, although he could not fathom why.

What matters the color of her eyes? She’s a vision.

Among his men were some who would kill each other over the chance to mate with such an incomparable female. Any child sired on her by one of his kind would doubtless grow tall and fair and appear like a member of a royal bloodline, if she could survive the birth. The suggestion of fragility in her made him wonder if bearing a child might kill her, which would likely end the infant and drive her mate insane with grief and rage.

What do I with you, should you say aye, Mistress? Whom shall I plague with you as wife? How many squabbles and plots shall you inspire?

Merrick finally shifted his gaze to the laird, who looked impatient now. That was when he realized he’d stopped walking and stood only a few handspans from the center of the maze, staring at the mortal female. That Julianne had distracted him so completely did not bode well for a favorable parlay.

“Laird MacMar.” He bowed respectfully before smiling at Julianne. “’Tis a good day for a walk, especially when you present us with such a sight as the lady before me.”