Highlander Redeemed (Guardians of the Targe Book 3) by Laurin Wittig

body rose like the hackles on a dog. “I just ken it,” she said.
    “She
knows
things, Kenneth,” Duncan said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “’Tis Scotia who learned of the English trap this night. ’Twas Scotia who found the wee lassie, not me. She
knew
exactly where to look for her.”
    “How?” Nicholas asked. “She did not track the wee lass?” He directed this question to Duncan, who shook his head but said nothing. “How did you find her, Scotia?”
    Scotia’s ire rose at the doubt in her chief’s voice, and in preparation for a battle, for she knew already they would not believe her. But before she could spring to her feet Duncan reached back and laid a hand on her arm, holding her in place. He glanced over his shoulder at her and subtly shook his head as if he could hear her thoughts.
    “Just tell them how it happened.” He sat back, stretching his long legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles, as he slowly looked each person in the circle in the eyes, but he never took his hand off her arm. “They will listen without judging.”
    It was as if they all took a long breath as tension eased.
    Duncan looked over at her, his eyes filled with what she could only call encouragement and support, and gave her arm a small squeeze before he let it go.
    “Just tell them.”
    She pulled the warmth of his belief around her like plate armor, focusing on it instead of the disbelief she expected from everyone else. “When I said her name, the child’s, I just . . .
knew
. I knew where she was and how to get there. I know not where the knowledge came from, nor why it came to me. Later, after we found her and her mum had brought her back here, Duncan and I were . . . talking.” For a moment the taste and unexpected passion of that kiss tried to overtake her senses again, but she forced her mind to stay on the trouble at hand, not the man sitting beside her. “And all of a sudden, I
knew
, first that the English lord planned a surprise attack for our allies and that they had not made their way into the bens yet, and then, almost immediately, I knew a small contingent of our allies neared this glen.”
    Nicholas looked at Jeanette, and Scotia knew he was asking her, without speaking, if she thought Scotia spoke the truth.
    Jeanette got that look that was both far away and inward that signaled she was searching through the things she had learned before rendering an opinion.
    “There are records of some Guardians,” Jeanette said, her voice dreamy, almost as if she were reading directly from the scrolls that held the Chronicles of the Guardians as she spoke, “who had this sort of gift.”
    Scotia held her breath. A Guardian gift? She had hoped, but only now realized she had not thought it possible.
    “But Scotia is not a Guardian,” Kenneth said, “is she?”
    Jeanette and Rowan looked at each other, Rowan’s auburn brows raised as if she, too, questioned Jeanette without words.
    “Perhaps,” Jeanette said. “We did not ken there could be two Guardians at the same time. Who are we to say there could not be three?”
    “Truly?” Scotia said. “You think this is a Guardian gift?” She hated the way her voice almost squeaked with the hope that engulfed her.
    “I think we need to speak to Scotia alone, if you will all excuse us,” Rowan said, and she and Jeanette rose.
    “But the allies,” Scotia said, also rising to her feet, unsure of whether she wanted more to know if she was right or if she was a Guardian. “Should we not wait to find out if I am right, if my
knowing
in this is true? There is no point in testing me if it is not.”
    “We do not intend to test you, cousin,” Rowan said. “There is no test to pass to become a Guardian. The Targe stone either strengthens your gift, or it does not. There is nothing we can do to influence it one way or the other. And I do not doubt that it is a gift. You found Maisie, aye?”
    “Aye.”
    “And she has had