Needed By The Highlander - Rebecca Preston Page 0,82
true. Especially if sounds too good to be true. Because it always is.”
She sighed, biting her lip. “It’s just… my training was always to find a diplomatic solution, if possible. To exhaust all the options offered by diplomacy, by talking, by manipulation if necessary…”
“And I’m sure that’s the best course of action when it comes to human beings,” Niall said softly, his eyes serious. “Please don’t think that I’m underestimating your skill in this area, Helen. If these were roving bands of mercenaries, or robbers, I’d certainly be interested in trying a diplomatic solution. But when it comes to the Unseelie Fae, and especially to creatures as given to cruelty and trickery as these… it’s simply not an option. I’m sorry.”
She nodded, her jaw set. “I suppose I’d better talk to Anna about those knife-fighting lessons if I’m going to be of any use at all.”
He laughed, his eyes crinkling. “Aye, I don’t doubt you’ll pick it up quickly. But I’d challenge the idea that you’ve not already been of enormous help to this investigation, Helen. Without you, I don’t know where we’d be on all this. I certainly wouldn’t have thought to check the shoreline so closely. I’d have given it a brief glance and been done with it — and we’d never have found that disturbed bush, or those prints.”
She chuckled. “You’d have had a man-look, you mean?” He looked mystified, and she giggled. “A man look. My auntie’s phrase. Whenever my brothers lost something, she’d ask if they’d had a proper look or a man look… then she’d sweep in and find whatever they were looking for right there in plain sight.”
They laughed about that for a long time. Her friendship with Niall was one of her favorite parts of this strange, often frightening place, she reflected that night, smiling in the dark at the memory of their laughter. He made her feel so warm, so safe, so… cared for. They hadn’t revisited the subject of the kiss, though even she wasn’t blind to the lingering looks they sometimes shared when conversation lapsed for a minute or two… but she supposed in the grand scheme of things that was for the best. Honestly, she was just happy to enjoy his company. No agenda, no impatience for anything more… although the way her body responded to his presence, to the lightest touch of his hand, was getting a little embarrassing.
A week went past. Guards continued to report sightings of the Kelpies, though there were no more direct encounters — it seemed the creatures had learned that the men who circled the Loch at night were armed with iron and fire and were keeping their distance. Still, Brendan insisted his men travel in pairs, for all that it did prevent them from covering as much of the lake shore as they could have if they’d patrolled alone. It wasn’t worth the risk of losing another guard. For Helen, who’d spent a lot of long nights thinking about those hoofprints on the shore and the drag marks that told a grim story of what had happened there, that was the best option.
But they were worried about the villagers. Not much news was reaching them about what was going on over there — Donal was sending messengers to check every morning on whether any more disappearances had come to light, but they came back reporting a thoroughly surly response from the villagers. Donal was worried that more disappearances were happening, but the villagers didn’t trust the castle folk enough to share the information… though Niall said that from what he could tell from the fishermen, nobody had disappeared since the castle had taken action.
“The guard patrols are helping,” he said to the men at dinner one night. He and Helen were dining with the Laird, his tanist and their wives — discussion, as it always did, had turned to the Kelpie threat and how it was progressing. “We haven’t lost any fishermen since the first group, and while they’re still chafing about the reduced productivity of not being able to set sail before dawn, at least they’re all alive to chafe about it.”
Donal nodded, but Brendan looked worried. “Aye, the patrols are helping, but it’s not sustainable to keep operating at this level. My men are pulling longer shifts than they ought to be to cover the patrols, and I’ve borrowed half of Blair’s kitchen staff, so if a Kelpie doesn’t get me first, my death will be at the Headwoman’s