Highlander's Trials of Fire

The next month or so passed in a blur, and Tormod was not sure he could recall it even if he wished to later. He spent much of it between his bedroom and his study, speaking little but to Roibert, Mairead, and the familiar young maid who brought him meals, Mariorie Boid.

He knew he must be wed soon regardless. He was Laird now, and his only heir was his half-brother. Doran was a good lad, but he was not so much young

er than Tormod that he felt it could secure a legacy. And besides that, the boy’s mind was elsewhere. He dreamed of traveling the world when he grew, not waiting for his brother to die to take a seat he did not want.

Even apart from all of that, it was every Laird’s duty to pass the seat on to his son one day.

I simply must marry. I’d be disappointin’ me Faither did I not.

Mairead was worried about him, too. He knew that. He wondered if she’d guessed–or perhaps Roibert had told her–about Tormod’s failure with Anabella. He owed his stepmother some positive news, and if that meant he must wed for duty rather than love, so be it.

Tormod spent some days thinking of all the eligible young women who had either shown interest or been suggested by their fathers. The choice, looking at it so bluntly, was evident.

“Mariorie,” he called.

The young maid with her round face and pretty short blonde bob appeared in an instant. “Aye, Laird?” she asked in that pleasant trill of hers.

She was a good lass, and Tormod was glad that Mairead had found her. “Mariorie, can ye do me a favor and get a message sent for me?”

“Aye?” the maid asked. “What message would that be?”

“To Laird Gregor MacTiridh of Rochel. Please let him ken I’d be pleased if I could arrange a meetin’ between me and his daughter Siona at his earliest convenience.”

The maid nodded and scurried out of the room, and Tormod sighed.

It’s done. I’ll wed Siona, and I’ll be happy.

He’d finally be able to put Anabella out of his mind forever. She’d never belonged there in the first place, after all. Over the next few weeks, he set about doing just that.

And yes, he may suffer pangs in his heart from time to time, but what man didn’t still ache from his first love?

If he sometimes tossed and turned at night, dreaming of a pair of gray eyes, then that didn’t mean he’d never be happy.

And as the months passed and his heart still hadn’t healed, surely that didn’t mean anything at all.

He would wed Siona and he would support his stepmother and his brother. He would lead his Clan, he would help his people, and he would fend off attacks where he needed to. Tormod was Laird now.

His heart didn’t matter anymore, and so he sealed it away, locked tight from his chest forever.

Chapter 2

The Flooded Selkie

The winter of Anabella’s twenty-second year was not as cold as she may have liked. If she expressed this thought, it usually merely generated laughter, but she had her reasons. Anabella had always loved the winter; the quiet noise of the snow, the comforting crackle of logs on the fireplace.

It’s one of the most romantic times of year, even if it is the hardest.

Anabella was nothing if she was not a romantic. Though she loved to swim, more than the average young woman, she excitedly waited every year for the rivers and lochs to freeze over from cold. Often, she had skated on the ice on Loch Tremaidh with her friends, dreaming of the day she’d do that with the man she loved.

If she ever found him. If there even was a man out there for her.

She was only two-and-twenty, but it was beginning to feel like she’d never find love. She’d received several proposals in the last few years, but none of them had given her the feeling the tales talked of, the feeling her mother described with her father.

There was the other problem, too. Though she was young, she was not so young anymore that she could keep putting this off. As a noble, it was past time she was wed.

But the fact was, none of them had made Anabella’s heart tremble.

Well, that is nae quite true. One of them did, but nae in the way I wanted.