Cassian (The Immortal Highland Centurions #2) - Jayne Castel Page 0,1

Caledonia quashed. He demanded that we take back the northern fort of Pinnata Castra, which Agricola had built many years earlier.”

Cassian paused there, bitterness spiking through him even after all these years. They’d been offered up like sacrificial lambs. No one cared what happened to the Ninth—the once great legion had become an embarrassment.

“And so ye marched north,” Lilla continued the story for him. Her voice was weak, and her eyes remained closed, yet her words were clear. “And the Picts picked ye off, one by one, until the last men stood before the crumbling walls of that old fort and made their final stand.”

Despite the heavy stone in his gut, Cassian smiled. “Yes, flower. That’s what happened. A druidess then captured me and two others … and she cursed us to an immortal life. She told us also that we could never father children or leave the boundaries of this land.”

“But ye didn’t believe her at first,” Lilla reminded him.

Cassian squeezed his wife’s hand softly. “Would ye?” Cassian paused then, his voice low as he continued. “The next day, the bandruì set us free and sent hunters after us. They stuck me full of arrows, but the following dawn, I awoke to find the arrows had disappeared and my flesh whole and healthy. I knew then the witch was indeed powerful.”

“She gave ye a way to break the curse.” Lilla’s eyes flickered open, and she fixed Cassian with an unnervingly direct stare. “Only of late, ye don’t seem to care.”

Cassian’s faint smile faded. She was right. His years with Lilla had turned his focus away from solving the riddle that had the power to set him, Maximus, and Draco free. “It doesn’t matter,” he said huskily. He didn’t want to discuss the curse or that infernal riddle now.

But Lilla wasn’t prepared to let the matter drop. Her thin fingers tightened around his, her throat bobbing. “It does, Cass,” she whispered. “And once I go, it’ll matter more than ever. Please promise me that ye will dedicate yerself to solving it.”

Cassian stared down at her, his vision blurring. He hated this conversation; it made everything seem so final.

Swallowing hard, he reached out and stroked his wife’s cheek. It was so cold; death’s shadow already touched her. Right now, he’d agree to anything, if only he could bring her back from the brink. “I promise,” he whispered.

Lilla died at noon.

Cassian wrapped her body gently in furs and then lifted her into his arms. She weighed nothing these days, so different to the robust woman of her youth. He then carried her outdoors, stepping into brilliant sunshine. Sunlight filtered across the hills, bringing with it the scent of heather.

Bitterness knotted deep in his chest. How dare the sun shine so gaily when the woman he loved lay dead in his arms?

How dare the world continue on? The wind still rustled through the pines, the birds still sang, and the burn bubbled merrily down the hillside.

Lilla was dead, and everything should stop.

And yet it didn’t.

Cassian carried his wife up to the crest of the hill behind the cottage where they’d lived for the past fifty years.

He preferred an isolated life. The nearest village was half a day’s ride on horseback, and with the passing of the years, few people had traveled this way—mostly to stop and refill their water bladders or to ask directions. Those who did assumed that Lilla was Cassian’s mother. Cassian had simmered with fury at their presumption, yet Lilla hadn’t minded.

She’d often teased him about it afterward, but for Cassian, it always took a while for the sting to fade.

It was a reminder that the outside world saw them as an unnatural coupling: she was a crone and he a man who looked barely older than thirty winters, a man still in his prime.

At the top of the hill, Cassian lay Lilla down and prepared to dig a grave for her. He knew he should have done this before now, yet he’d put the task off. It had seemed so final.

However, there was no getting around it now.

Cassian got to work, and all the while, the sun beat down on his back—and upon the shrouded figure that lay a few feet away, awaiting her burial.

Eventually, Cassian heaved himself out of the hole he’d dug. His body ached, and sweat poured off him, yet he paid his exhaustion no mind.

It wouldn’t do any lasting damage. Nothing would. He could dig until his back literally broke, yet he’d awake the following