Whisper Of Smoke

~Celeste~

The dead had been whispering to me since I was six years old, but until I came to Scotland, none of them had ever whispered my name.

Thunder rumbled somewhere beyond the mountains as I stood beside my rental car, staring at clouds darkening an already gray sky while the first hint of rain carried across the hills on the wind

My mother had always known how much I loved storms, which made me wonder whether she’d deliberately waited until after her death to ruin my life because she knew I couldn’t argue with her once she was gone. If so, well played.

The first drop struck my cheek, cool against skin already chilled by the Highland wind, and wiping it away, I breathed in the earthy scent rising from the damp ground before another drop landed against the folded letter in my hand.

“Perfect,” I muttered, tucking it into the inside pocket of my jacket before twenty-nine years of family secrets dissolved into papier-mâché. “Absolutely perfect.”

Rain had always been one of my favorite things, mostly because there was something about the way it changed everything it touched. It washed dust from leaves, darkened thirsty soil and coaxed life from things that had gone too long without it, leaving the world smelling new even when nothing really was.

Life and death had always seemed that simple when I watched the rain. My own existence had never been quite as cooperative.

I wasn’t dead, considering my heart continued beating and the cold wind finding every opening in my jacket confirmed I could still suffer with the best of them, but calling myself entirely alive had always felt a little more complicated.

According to the birth certificate my father had kept locked away for most of my childhood, I’d been born twenty-nine years ago in Scotland, and according to the medical record he’d hidden with it, I’d arrived without a heartbeat.

For six minutes, there had been no pulse, no breath and apparently no reason for anyone in that room to believe I would ever take one, until an infant who had never breathed suddenly screamed hard enough to bring half the maternity ward running.

My parents called it a miracle. I’d spent most of my life calling it the first lie.

Turning toward the road, I looked through the windshield at the narrow stretch of pavement disappearing between rolling hills while my phone sat uselessly on the passenger seat. I’d lost service nearly twenty minutes ago, shortly before the navigation app decided the best contribution it could make to my situation was spinning its tiny blue arrow in circles as though it were just as lost as I was.

Somewhere farther along this road was the address I’d spent two days tracking down, and somewhere at that address, assuming I hadn’t crossed an ocean to find an abandoned sheep barn, was a man named MacKenzie.

At least, I assumed MacKenzie was a man. My mother hadn’t bothered with those pesky little details before dying.

Reaching inside my jacket, I pulled the letter out again and unfolded it beneath the shelter of the open car door, smoothing my thumb over the crease even though I’d read the damn thing enough times to recite every word.

Celeste,

If you have found this, then I failed.

Your father will tell you not to return to Scotland. For once in your life, do not listen to him.

Find MacKenzie before they find you.

Whatever he tells you about the night you were born, believe him.

I am sorry.

That was all she’d left me, twenty-nine years of secrets condensed into a handful of sentences and an apology that answered absolutely nothing. She hadn’t included an address or explained who they were, and she certainly hadn’t bothered telling me why my father had gone so pale when I’d placed the letter on his kitchen table that I’d thought for a second he might pass out.

He’d stared at my mother’s handwriting for so long I’d finally asked whether he planned to tell me what any of it meant, but instead of answering, he’d lifted his eyes to mine.

“Don’t go,” he’d whispered, reaching across the table and closing his hand around my wrist.

I’d gone anyway.

Folding the letter along its already worn creases, I tucked it safely inside my jacket and reached for the car door when a sound carried across the hills behind me. My fingers stopped against the handle, and for several seconds, I heard nothing except wind moving through the long grass and rain beginning to patter against the roof, but just as I started to convince myself I’d imagined it, another sound came from somewhere near the bend I’d passed less than a minute earlier.

Something had hit the ground hard enough that I heard it over the approaching storm. Turning away from the car, I stared toward the bend while rain dotted the pavement between us.

“Hello?” I called, stepping away from the open door as my voice traveled farther than I expected before disappearing into the hills.

Nothing answered, and the sensible part of my brain that had apparently survived twenty-nine years of questionable decisions immediately offered the only reasonable response.

Get in the car, Celeste. For once, my survival instincts and I were in complete agreement. Unfortunately, curiosity had always been louder.

Pulling my jacket tighter, I started back along the road while the rain fell faster, catching in my hair and running cold against my scalp. I’d gone maybe thirty yards when something dark near the ditch caught my attention, and slowing, I squinted through the rain until the shape became an arm lying unnaturally still against the grass.

“Oh, shit,” I breathed, already running toward it.

My boots slipped on the wet shoulder as I scrambled down the shallow embankment and dropped beside a man sprawled partly on his side, his dark hair stuck to his forehead while rain streamed over a face that might have been unfairly handsome under considerably better circumstances.

The black shirt covering his chest was soaked through, and it took only another second to realize rain wasn’t responsible for the darker stain spreading across the fabric and into the grass beneath him.

There was too much blood. “Oh, God,” I murmured, reaching toward his shoulder.

His eyes opened before I touched him. The force of that stare stopped my hand several inches above him, because those weren’t the unfocused eyes I’d expected from someone who looked halfway to bleeding out. They were sharp and furious, locking onto mine with enough awareness that a chill crawled beneath my wet jacket.

“Dinna touch me,” he rasped, digging his fingers into the mud as though he intended to push himself up.

The Scottish brogue beneath those three words was rough and deep, stronger than most of the accents I’d heard since arriving, and under circumstances that didn’t involve the man bleeding into a ditch, I might have appreciated the way it rolled through his voice.

“Don’t touch you?” Shifting closer, I searched for the source of the bleeding without moving him. “Fine. Call for help? Point out that you’re bleeding all over Scotland?”

His jaw tightened as his eyes remained fixed on mine. “Leave me be,” he breathed.

“Excellent suggestion,” I muttered, pulling my phone from my pocket. I glanced at the screen even though I already knew I had no service. “As soon as I figure out how the hell to call an ambulance from the middle of nowhere.”

His hand snapped around my wrist before I could straighten and my breath caught as I stared at the fingers locked around me; a man who had lost that much blood had no business possessing enough strength to stop me from moving.

“No ambulance,” he growled, his gaze shifting past my shoulder toward the road as his grip tightened. “Get in your car, lass. Now.”

Something in his voice killed the sarcastic response already forming on my tongue, and following his stare, I slowly turned my head.

Three figures stood on the road above us. I hadn’t heard footsteps or voices, and I hadn’t seen anyone approaching, yet they were there, standing in the rain as though they’d simply appeared while my attention had been on the wounded man. None of them moved to help, nor seemed particularly surprised by the blood.

My pulse picked up as the stranger released my wrist and planted one hand against the ground, forcing himself upright while fresh blood streamed from beneath his shirt. “Run, lass,” he warned, managing to get one boot beneath him before his balance shifted.

Catching his arm before he fell, I tightened my fingers around wet fabric. “You can barely stand.”

His gaze dropped to my hand before slowly lifting back to my face, and something passed through those dark eyes that I couldn’t begin to read. “Aye,” he murmured, pushing himself fully upright. “Then this should be interesting.”

One of the figures moved, and the stranger shoved me backward so quickly that my boots lost their grip, and landing against the wet slope, I caught myself with both hands as he surged toward the road. Every thought in my head disappeared because nobody bleeding that badly should have been able to move the way he did.

He reached the first attacker before I managed to push myself upright, driving his fist into the man’s face with enough force that the crack of bone carried through the rain. The second came from his left, something silver flashing in his hand as he closed the distance.

“Behind you!” I shouted, scrambling to my feet.

The stranger turned a fraction too late, and the blade drove beneath his ribs. My breath caught as his body jerked, but instead of screaming or dropping, he wrapped one hand around the attacker’s wrist and twisted until another sickening crack broke through the storm, then drove his forehead into the man’s face.

“Should’ve brought more than a wee blade,” he growled, wrenching the weapon from the man’s hand and throwing it into the grass.

I assumed bleeding to death hadn’t affected his ability to be an asshole.

The third figure remained on the road, watching the fight with a stillness that bothered me more than the violence unfolding in front of him. He wasn’t waiting for an opening...he was waiting for an ending.

The stranger staggered and dropped to one knee, one hand pressing against the wound beneath his ribs as the first attacker recovered and came toward him again.

“Move!” I screamed, already starting up the slope.

He tried, but this time he wasn’t fast enough. The blade drove straight into his chest.