Brighid’s Quest

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

At dawn when Brighid cleared her mind to concentrate on searching for the light of wild boar the first light that blazed before her subconscious was golden and not situated in the surrounding forest. It was coming from the quarters Elphame had prepared for her brother during his absence.

No! Brighid closed her mind’s eye, turning away from the beckoning golden light. Find the bloodred light of a boar. The searching power within her spun away from Cuchulainn and MacCallan Castle -out into the forest. It sifted through the glimmering soul lights of animals, small and large, until it focused on a single red shaft. Automatically Brighid’s infallible sense of direction locked on the boar. Northeast of the castle. Not far from where Elphame had been attacked by one of the beasts those many moons ago. Brighid knew where she needed to go.

She took a skin of water and a healthy portion of the bread and meat that was left over from the night before, filled her quiver with arrows, strapped her long sword across her back, fitted her short sword in its sheath around her waist, and slid her throwing daggers within the hidden pockets of her vest. Then she silently made her way to the front gate. As they had done so many times before, the sentry saluted her, opening the iron doors and calling luck to her for the morning hunt. She was so intent on getting free of the castle that she hardly took time to return the sentry’s salute before she kicked into a swift gallop. Even after she was well within the concealing northern woods she barely slowed her pace.

It felt good to push herself, to keep her mind so busy with dodging trees and underbrush, ravines and rocks, that she couldn’t think…couldn’t remember. She ran a long time before her sanity returned.

When she finally slowed, and then stopped, she realized that she had passed the boar’s territory. Brighid wiped the sweat from her face and reoriented herself. She wasn’t far off. She scented the slight breeze and caught the unmistakably clean smell of moving water. When she found the stream, she would follow it to the boar’s wallow. Then she would take the animal down with one clean shot, dress it out, and return the meat to the castle. Simple. Clear. Uncomplicated. Exactly the way she liked her life.

And exactly the opposite of what her life had usually been. When she started toward her prey again, she did so slowly. It was time to think. Here, surrounded by the forest she knew so well, she would sift through the intricacies of last night. She’d work it out in her head-figure out how she could go on living at MacCallan Castle with Cuchulainn and the knowledge of what had passed between them. She would do it because she had to find a way to make this work-to turn back time and have things be simple between the two of them again. She didn’t want to leave MacCallan Castle. The thought of it made her immeasurably sad.

Of course she didn’t want to leave-to displace herself again so soon after she had begun to take root-but perhaps she should, temporarily. Guardian Castle was missing a Huntress. She could honestly say they needed her presence until their own Huntress returned. It was likely she wouldn’t be gone long. Surely Guardian Castle ’s Huntress would not desert her post for more than one moon cycle. But even a few days should be enough for Cuchulainn to…

To what?

“To stop thinking with his passion,” she said aloud to the ancient pine trees.

That’s how he’d explained it last night. His mind had known that he shouldn’t touch her with such desire, but his passion and his joy in life had been too newly restored to him. Its voice had drowned out the sound of reason. It made sense. She knew the part of Cuchulainn that had shattered. He had been all heart and passion and impetuosity. He really couldn’t help it. She had been there, breathing his soul back into him…kissing him…He had been raw and newly whole, and a part of him had believed the two of them were falling in love. There had been credible reasons for his behavior, but what about hers?

Brighid rubbed a hand across her face and picked her way over a fallen log. When she looked at the soul retrieval logically, there had been nothing wrong with her behavior. She hadn’t meant to mislead Cuchulainn about their relationship. That had been an honest miscommunication, which had, when she looked at it frankly, without emotional strings, worked out well. Cuchulainn’s shattered soul had returned to his body. She had performed the complicated task of a Shaman, and had been successful at it.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t all there was to it.

Emotional strings… If they had been visible Brighid had no doubt that she would be covered with them, like a ball of wool waiting to be woven into a garment. But her emotions weren’t visible, and Cuchulainn wasn’t the only one who could hide his feelings. But she wouldn’t lie to herself. Not here, in the middle of the forest she considered sacred. She hadn’t meant for Cuchulainn to misunderstand their relationship, but when he had, she had been glad. And when he kissed her, she had been filled with more than his soul. She desired him. The memory of his touch, his scent, his taste, still made her gut clench with a tension that was definitely sexual.

By the Goddess, what was she going to do!

Even if his desire for her was more than a temporary reaction to an extraordinary event, the facts still remained the same. He was human. She was centaur.

Yes, she knew human men found her attractive, even alluring. And though she had never before thought of them in a particularly sexual manner, she was no foolish young virgin. She knew how human anatomy worked. She could give Cuchulainn satisfaction with her hands and mouth. Brighid stumbled to a halt. What was she considering? Any centaur from the Dhianna Herd, and many from the other herds that shared the Centaur Plains, would consider the mere thought of a Huntress pleasuring a human man repellent, abhorrent behavior. It would make her even more of an outcast than she already was.

“But I don’t find the thought of pleasuring him abhorrent.” She whispered the words aloud, and then put her face in her hands. Was she turning into some kind of horrid freak of nature? Or… Oh, Goddess! Could it be that she had fallen in love with Cuchulainn?

She wasn’t entirely sure which would be worse.

If she loved him that would certainly explain why her reaction to what she’d thought was Cuchulainn’s growing desire for Ciara had been so completely negative. She hadn’t been prejudiced against the winged woman-she’d been jealous of her! And then there was the ease with which she’d called his shattered soul into her dreams. With a groan she remembered Cuchulainn’s almost nonstop ribald teasing. Did some part of the warrior recognize her innermost feelings? It was possible-he had been in her dreams, which meant on some level he’d had access to her subconscious. Didn’t it?

She didn’t know enough about this…this world of spirit and emotion. Trying to understand it was like trying to capture smoke and shadows! She was sure of very little except that the most damning evidence against her was the kiss, or more precisely, her reaction to it. His touch had made her forget who and what they were. Human…centaur…none of it had mattered when their lips had met and she’d inhaled him.

She groaned again. Etain had been there! In some way the High Priestess had been with her during the soul retrieval-encouraging and advising. Did she know what her son’s touch had made Brighid feel? Heat rushed into the Huntress’s face.

Think logically! Etain’s lifemate, fashioned for her by Epona, was a centaur. Etain would not be shocked to learn that a centaur desired a human. And she must know that her son was a passionate warrior. Everyone knew that before Cuchulainn had fallen in love with Brenna he had rarely slept alone. Etain would not judge Brighid harshly for enjoying the kiss that restored her son’s soul to his body.

But what would Epona’s Chosen think if she knew that the Huntress’s desire for her son hadn’t ended there?

There was no sense in thinking about it. It had to end there.

So Brighid made her decision. If Cuchulainn still thought he desired her, she would seek and gain Elphame’s permission for a temporary sojourn to Guardian Castle. By the time Brighid returned, the warrior’s passions would be back under control, and he would, doubtless, have found a human woman eager to share his bed.

Actually, there was an excellent chance that when she returned to the castle today Cuchulainn would be back to himself, and probably worrying about how she would react to seeing him again. She’d focus on putting his mind at ease. She’d assure him that what passed between them last night would not affect their friendship. She would simply pretend that she’d felt nothing more for him than fleeting desire while they had been caught up in the intimate act of the soul retrieval. Maybe they would even laugh about it together over a goblet of Etain’s excellent wine.

The thought of carrying on such a pretense made her feel sick. She loathed dishonesty. It was against her nature to lie. But she damned well was not going to lose her home and the peace she had found at MacCallan Castle because of an impossible love.

A twig snapped and the Huntress instinctively slowed her movements and tested the wind that blew softly into her face. She grimaced-boar. The beasts were always rank with mud and anger. She drew an arrow from her quiver and felt the stillness of the hunt blanket her tumultuous thoughts. This was something she knew she could control. She would take the boar, thank Epona for its sustaining life, and then be too damned busy dressing it out and hauling it back to the castle to obsess over Cuchulainn. She’d made her decision. There could be no future with the warrior, so she would protect herself and her place at MacCallan Castle. She would deny her feelings for him. Someday the denial would become truth.

As she’d predicted, the boar had made a wallow near the bank of the small stream. With the eerie silence of an experienced Huntress enhanced by the power inherent within her blood, Brighid crept closer without the boar detecting a single sign or scent of her. When it lolled half up in a sitting position, she notched the arrow and took sight. The arrow twanged and sped to its bloody bed, and as it pierced the boar the forest exploded with an unearthly shriek of pain. The Huntress was rushing forward before the sound died. She surged through the stream to where the boar’s body should have been and gasped in horror.

The raven lay on the muddy ground with a bloody arrow piercing its chest.

“Mother!” she cried, sinking down to her forelegs beside the twitching bird.

Avenge me! The words screamed through Brighid’s mind, and then the bird lay still, its eyes turning milky with death. Brighid’s hand did not tremble as she stretched it out to touch the blood-soaked feathers of the dark bird. The instant her fingers made contact with the raven its body vanished, and Brighid found herself kneeling beside the dead boar.

“Oh, Epona, what does it mean? What has happened?”

There was no answer from the Goddess, and, feeling lost and alone, Brighid made herself bow her head and speak the traditional words to honor the spirit of the fallen boar. As she dressed the corpse and readied it to be carried back to Clan MacCallan she was filled with a terrible, unspeakable sense of dread.