Highland Supplanter (Book 2)

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

                For all his size he could be silent. And even in the snow he knew how to cover his tracks. Perplexed he followed. Why would she be going back to the hovel she called a home. It was full of holes and one section looked ready to fall down under the weight of another snowflake. It was cold and he knew after a secret inspection she had not a scrap of food in there. But there was plenty of the alcohol her father drank like a babe drank its mother’s milk.

                Yet she had left the warmth of the main hall. To travel in clothes unsuitable to the weather. Back to a home, where in all probability, her father had passed out in. In the early hours of the morning he had seen the man stumbling back there. Hamish being on watch at that point could not follow to check Fyfa was well upon his arrival. But he had not managed to find her all day. Except when he spied her sneaking out of the gate.

                He could see her ahead. Too far away for her to hear him, but if she turned he could easily find some place to wait for her to carry on. Brow furrowing over what looked to be the start of a limp occurring in her left leg, he wanted to check her for injury, but knew that would betray too much. It was obvious she knew where the meat and other bits and pieces were coming from. But after he started leaving them for her to find, she could not call him out for it. For she had no proof. That did not mean that she did not make it obvious in other ways his help was not appreciated.

                He was still glad that she at least took the food. It was starting to look as if a gentle winter breeze would whisk her away from Mackay land. And he had a promise to keep, to a woman who would have been around his age had he grown in the time she says they are from. Cam believed the story completely. He was not so sure. He was not special in any way. He knew Cam could ‘feel’ things, even knew that Aislinn had gifts passed down through her female line for generations. And yet he was nothing. All that made him stand out was a height that was known to terrify some children.

                He had tried for love once, and when that had failed miserably, all he could now hope is to know those under his care were well looked after. And this waif of a woman was now his to look after, permission granted by and asked for by his grandmother. In the absence of any real father figure, that was all he needed to have. He would not have trusted her father for anything, let alone looking out for the interests of the daughter he had failed for most of her life.

                Holding his breath he saw her go down to one knee and stay there a moment. If she did not get up he would step in. Not even he could sit back and watch as a woman froze to death in a snow drift because she was too stubborn to call for help. He alone seemed to see the spine of iron that ran through her, in fact he was starting to think how much anyone really saw her any more.

                Fyfa gasped through the pain. Her breath misting in the cold air before her. She was caught in a memory for a moment. One of the only good ones from her childhood. And even rarer containing her father. How he had held her one night and told her stories of faeries and dragons. The mist her breath created reminded her of the dragons from the tale. The bitter coldness that had seeped into her bones the chilling reminder that that father was as distant now as he had been the morning after that tender evening.