Highland Fires

Lugus stood atop the small cliff on his isle and watched the sun crest the horizon, its bright orange glow streaking across the gray sky. It was a daily ritual, one he had done from the moment his mortality had begun.

In the nearly five years since he did the unthinkable and nearly destroyed Earth and the Realm of the Fae, he had pushed his past life and the horrors he committed from his mind.

But there was one thing he couldn’t push away.

The memory of Moira.

A Druid priestess who had powers granted to her by the Fae, a woman so incredibly beautiful that Lugus would have done anything to claim her as his own. Despite his great love for her, he was not her mate. Even when he discovered this, he refused to give her up. It wasn’t until she sacrificed herself for her mate that Lugus saw what true love was.

That was the day his new life, a life of mortality, had begun.

He inhaled the sea air deeply and stretched his arms over his head before he turned and faced the village across the sea. His ventures to the small village were as rare as he could make them.

Somehow the people there knew he wasn’t a mere mortal, that he used to be something more. The ones that did speak to him weren’t what he would call friendly, but they were civil. He had learned who those people were and made sure to only trade with them.

His gaze moved to his small boat that sat waiting for him. He blew out a reluctant breath and started down the slope. The sooner he left, the sooner he could return to his haven, the only place he felt he could be himself.

Lugus chuckled to himself as he climbed in the boat and set the oars to rowing. If only the people that used to fear him could see him now. He once held the power of two realms in his hands, a power so great that he could have ruled all the realms. Yet now he was hesitant to face a small village of people and their whispers and glances behind his back.

Sweat beaded his brow and rolled between his shoulders when he finally reached the shore. For long moments he stared at his small island, his home and refuge. Some nagging feeling told him to return immediately and not venture into the village, that if he walked onto the Scottish shore his life would be forever changed.

As a Fae he would have known immediately what the threat to him was, but as a mortal he was still learning to discern the strange, and sometimes unwanted, intuitions that assaulted him. He debated with himself for several heartbeats, but the hunger in his belly ruled the day.

His hands immediately went to the sword at his back and the dagger at his waist. Just knowing he was prepared helped him face whatever lay ahead. He flexed his hands before he jumped from his boat to pull it onto shore and tie it off. Regardless of what his senses told him, he had to get more supplies. Eating wasn’t an option.

He kept his eyes forward as he walked to the village. A group of children stopped their play and whispered among themselves as he passed. Lugus should have been immune to his treatment but each time it occurred, it hurt worse than the last. Out of the corner of his eyes he noticed the people that gave him a wide berth, and others that would stare after him as if he was some monster.

And he was, in more ways than they realized.