Chapter 1
Twelve years later
For a while, Deidra thought Luthias had actually forgotten about her.
Hoped. Prayed.
But she did not possess such blessings. Apparently he'd been no more than distracted, busy hunting other witches. Word had reached her of a spectacular witch trial and hanging in the lowlands -- complete with torture and dunkings. The images it brought to mind made her want to crawl under her bed and hide like she had when she'd been a wee bairn. No doubt Luthias's stink was all over those trials.
Luthias Forsyth was a witch-pricker, a man well versed in the torture and execution of witches. The past few decades had been very prosperous ones for Luthias and very dangerous ones for Scotland's witches...and women. That was the difficulty with being a woman in Scotland. One did not have to be a witch to burn for witchcraft. One merely needed breasts.
That had changed for a time in 1597, when King James had rescinded his edict that had allowed witches to be hunted and killed like wild game. But King James ruled England now, too, and the Presbyteries had control of Scotland. Witch hunting was regaining popularity. Today, it had come to Strathwick. Again.
For the past three days Deidra had hid in the tower room of Strathwick, her family's home. It had been a while since she'd been forced to hide out in this manner. So long, in fact, that she'd begun to hope that perhaps the hiding was finally over.
She stretched out on the bed, reading by candlelight a chapbook about Saint George slaying the dragon. When she was younger, she had loved these stories, but the older she'd grown the less likely the stories had seemed. She had read her father's histories and attempted to read her mother's journals and herbals, but she couldn't stay awake while reading any of them. She had read and reread their translations of the Greek myths. There was nothing left to read but these chapbooks, and they just made her roll her eyes. She shut the book with a sigh.
A dog had followed her upstairs and now sat beside the bed, staring at her. When she turned even slightly in its direction it whined softly and shifted from foot to foot.
Deidra ignored it.
She never knew how long Luthias would nose around the village, asking questions about her, making sure she wasn't practicing magic. Checking up on her. Once, when he'd come, she had not hid. She'd been eighteen and feeling very idealistic and full of the need to cure injustice. She had imagined how, when he came sniffing around her, she would give him a flaying about all the innocent women he had murdered. She'd thought that somehow she would be able to make him see the error of his ways....
It hadn't turned out the way she'd planned. By the time he'd found her, she'd been surrounded by animals -- dogs, cats, sheep, chickens. It had been difficult to explain them away when he'd asked why all the animals in the village migrated to Goodwife Anne's house, where Deidra assisted in the shelling of peas.
She had started out strong, telling him it meant nothing; they were pets, that he was the monster, not the girls he killed. His long angular face had hardened to granite, and he'd started in on her, calling her a foul witch who communed with the animal spirits, quoting the Bible and how she was a blemish on humanity. In the end, she had run away, more frightened and confused than ever. He had followed, harrying her home, promising that soon she too would pay, as all witches did.
Her father had run him out of the village and threatened to kill him. He'd stayed away for a time, but of course he'd come back. He always came back, and when he returned he brought reinforcements. From that day forward, when he'd brought a guard of mercenaries with him, rendering her father powerless. The only thing Deidra had been able to do was hide.
He was so persistent, so intent on her. She hadn't practiced any sort of witchcraft in more than a decade, and yet still he was obsessed with her. She didn't understand why he couldn't just forget, move on, hunt other witches. And she supposed he did in the time between visits, but he never forgot about her. Every year he returned, as reliable as the seasons, and stayed for several days. But this time nearly two years had passed with no sign of him, and she'd begun to hope.
There was a tap on the door. Deidra closed her book and twisted toward the door. "Aye? Come in."
Her stepmother, Rose, peeked her head around the edge of the door. "Are you hungry?"
Deidra swung her legs over the side of the bed and sighed. "Not really."
Ignoring this, Rose entered, balancing a tray, and crossed the room. The warm smell of herbs wafted to Deidra and her stomach rumbled. Rose set the tray on the bed.
"I heard that," she admonished. "Stop being a wee fool. You will eat my soup." Rose rarely took no for an answer. A strong woman, made of steel and as beautiful as a well-honed sword. Deidra wished she could be more like her. She doubted Rose would hide from Luthias.
Rose smiled as she uncovered a dish to reveal a savory bean soup, warm bread with jam, and dried fruit. All of Deidra's favorites.
Deidra sighed but gave her stepmother a grateful smile. Rose was an amazing woman and had more than made up for the years Deidra had been motherless. She had married William MacKay twelve years ago. She was still a relatively young woman -- in her thirties -- but her hair had turned almost completely white. Her face still held a youthful beauty, but neither William nor Rose could resist using their healing magic at every opportunity, and it aged them both. Yet another reason Deidra hated this witchcraft curse -- it would eventually take away everything that mattered to her. It had already altered her father and Rose's life in ways they'd not anticipated.
After they'd married, Rose had borne William a son, Ross. And had miscarried every pregnancy since. It was the healing magic; something about it made her different, made her unable to bear any more than Ross. And now Ross was gone, sent to King James's English court to learn English ways so he would not be a heathen like his parents.
Luckily, thus far Ross had shown no signs of magical ability. It appeared he might be like William's brother, Drake. Deidra envied him.
"Is Luthias still in the village?" Deidra asked.
Not meeting Deidra's gaze, Rose fussed with some currants that had spilled out of the little bowl.
"What is it? It's been three days and he's still here?"
Rose straightened and planted her hands on her hips. "I think you're just going to have to show yourself. He knows you're here somewhere and he's not going away until he sees you." Her voice and face softened. "It'll be just as it always is. He'll see you are not doing any magic and go away."
Deidra dropped her chin on her fist and glowered at the wall. She did not want to show herself. A dozen years had passed since the incident that had sparked Luthias Forsyth's obsession with her, and Deidra was no longer a child but a woman...and yet she still trembled in his presence. She felt eight years old again, terrified and wanting to bury her face in her father's shirt.
"I should go away," Deidra murmured. "It brings danger to you and Da when he comes here searching about for witchcraft. There is plenty to find here. One day he will strike against you for sheltering me. I feel it." She shook her head, fear gripping her shoulders tight. "I bring danger on us all."
"What foolishness. Don't be ridiculous." Rose pushed the tray at her insistently. "You know we won't hear of it. You will stay here with us until you marry and that's the end of it."
Deidra chose to ignore that and picked at the currants instead. No man would ever marry her. She was one and twenty, and not a single offer had been made for her. Her parents took her to gatherings, but the men she met did not seem to find her looks pleasing or her person interesting. It was her hair. Wild and woolly, like a sheep's. She'd heard what the other lasses said about her. She was ugly and a mute, raised by animals. No, she would never find a man with such references.
She snatched a roll off the tray and stood, pacing the room. "I will live in the mountains, somewhere far away from here, on the Continent perhaps...the Alps, in a remote chalet where he'll never find me and I bring danger to no one."
Rose made a dismissive sound and waved a hand. "That kind of behavior never brought anyone any happiness. Remember you Stephen Ross?" She raised her copper brows. "We all loved him well, but he was so miserable he couldn't see it. So away he went and now everyone thinks he's a monster, living in the mountains. No friends or family. People fear him."
Deidra did remember Stephen Ross. He'd been a young man when she'd been a child. Crippled in an accident, he'd tried to live among friends and family, but the pain and bitterness over what had happened to him had cankered his soul and made him unpleasant. Eventually he'd moved to one of his estates in the far north to live in isolation.
"People say he is a baobhan sith," Rose said. "That he traps unsuspecting travelers and drinks their blood. Would you like them to say that about you?"
Rose was clever, playing on Deidra's need for acceptance and approval. Deidra disliked the taint of witchcraft. But she ignored the question and slid Rose a dubious sidelong look. "I thought blood witches were all women."
Rose shrugged. "I suppose they can be either men or women. I know not." Rose smiled slyly. "Perchance Mr. Forsyth could tell you more about them. Go see him and find out."
Deidra scowled and returned to the bed, where Rose sat. "Is it true? Is Stephen Ross really a baobhan sith?" She still remembered the tale her father had told her as a child, about how her great-great-great-grandsire had made a pact with a blood witch. She'd always found the story compelling but not particularly useful. After all, she'd assumed the baobhan sith were not...
