To Tame A Highland Warrior

Page 105

Jillian glided along the wall. It took only a few moments for her to realize she was walking down a historical genealogy, a time line done in portraits. The first pictures were chiseled in stone, some directly into the wall, with names carved beneath them—odd names she couldn’t begin to pronounce. As she worked her way down the wall, the methods of depiction became more modern, as did the clothing. It was apparent that much care had been given to repainting and restoring the portraits to maintain their accuracy over the centuries.
As she progressed down the time line toward the present, the portraits became more graphically detailed, which deepened her growing sense of confusion. Colors were brighter, more painstakingly applied. Her eyes darting between portraits, she moved forward and back again, comparing portraits of children to their subsequent adult portraits.
She must be mistaken.
Incredulous, Jillian closed her eyes a minute, then opened them slowly and stepped back a few paces to study an entire section. It couldn’t be. Grabbing a torch, she moved nearer, peering intently at a cluster of boys at their mothers’ skirts. They were beautiful boys, dark-haired, brown-eyed boys who would certainly grow into dangerously handsome men.
She moved to the next portraits and there they were again: dark-haired, blue-eyed, dangerously handsome men.
Eyes didn’t change color.
Jillian retraced her steps and studied the woman in the last portrait. She was a stunning auburn-haired woman with five brown-eyed boys at her skirts. Jillian then moved to her right; it was either the same woman or her identical twin. Five men clustered around her in various poses, all looking directly at the artist, leaving no doubt as to the color of their eyes. Ice blue. The names beneath the portraits were the same. She moved farther down the hall, bewildered.
Until she found the sixteenth century.
Unfortunately, the portraits raised more questions than they answered, and she sank to her knees in the hall for a long time, thinking.
Hours passed before she managed to sort through it all to her satisfaction. When she had, no question remained in her mind—she was an intelligent woman, able to exercise her powers of deductive reasoning with the best of them. And those powers told her that, though it defied her every rational thought, there was simply no other explanation. She was sitting on her knees, clad in a disheveled plaid, clutching a nearly burned-out torch in a hall filled with Berserkers.
CHAPTER 32
GRIMM PACED THE TERRACE, FEELING LIKE A FOOL. HE’D sat across the table and shared food with his da, managing to make civil conversation until Jillian had arrived. Then Ronin had mentioned Jolyn, and he’d felt fury rise up so quickly he’d nearly lunged across the table and grabbed the old man by the throat.
But Grimm was intelligent enough to realize that much of the anger he felt was at himself. He needed information and was afraid to ask. He needed to talk to Jillian, but what could he tell her? He had no answers himself. Confront your da, his conscience demanded. Find out what really happened.
The idea terrified him. If he discovered he was wrong, his entire world would look radically different.
Besides, he had other things to worry about. He had to make certain Jillian didn’t discover what he was, and he needed to warn Balder that the McKane were on his heels. He needed to get Jillian somewhere safe before they attacked, and he needed to figure out why he, his uncle, and his da were all Berserkers. It just seemed too coincidental, and Balder kept alluding to information he didn’t possess. Information he couldn’t ask for.
“Son.”
Grimm spun around. “Doona call me that,” he snapped, but the protest didn’t carry its usual venom.
Ronin expelled a gust of air. “We need to talk.”
“It’s too late. You said all you had to say years ago.”
Ronin crossed the terrace and joined Grimm at the wall. “Tuluth is beautiful, isn’t she?” he asked softly.
Grimm didn’t reply.
“Lad, I …”
“Ronin, did you …”
The two men looked at each other searchingly. Neither noticed as Balder stepped out onto the terrace.
“Why did you leave and never come back?” The words burst from Ronin’s lips with the pent-up anguish of fifteen years of waiting to say them.
“Why did I leave?” Grimm echoed incredulously.
“Was it because you were afraid of what you’d become?”
“What I became? I never became what you are!”
Ronin gaped at him. “How can you be sayin’ that when you have the blue eyes? You have the bloodlust.”
“I know I’m a Berserker,” Grimm replied evenly. “But I’m not insane.”