Dark Truth (The Time Bound Series Book 3)

by Lora Andrews

“I don’t know. I feel his pain, don’t you?”

  “Aye, like a kick in the gut.”

  “I need to find him,” she said. “Don’t ask me why.”

  Fighting against the urge to keep her from running out the door, Ewen released her hand. “I’m here if you need me.”

  She kissed his cheek and whispered, “I know.”

  THIRTY

  CAITLIN HAD no clue where Fionn had gone. He’d exited the library into a lower level beneath the abbey. She closed her eyes and let the pain in her center guide her, trailing her right hand along the stone wall as she walked. The bright silver of Fionn’s link wound around his wife’s golden bond. She followed the psychic map for five, ten minutes more, the rope-like bond thickening until it was all she could see, glowing brighter and brighter, until it forced her eyes to open before an ornate wooden door nearly identical to the one in her head.

  She raised her hand and knocked. The last thing she expected was for Fionn to actually open the door.

  “I wondered if you’d follow.” Pain etched deep grooves in his face. His white-blond hair stuck up in all the places he’d tugged his fingers through. He didn’t move, and she couldn’t bring herself to invade his space.

  His chest heaved, the loud sigh expelling from his throat. He stepped back and gave her barely enough room to squeeze through the opening. Her eyes caught on the altar swallowing the center of the room the minute she crossed the threshold. Rich swarms of fabric cushioned the body of a sleeping woman.

  She froze. “Oh, my god.”

  Valoria.

  Fionn closed the door, his steps silent. Standing beside his wife, he cradled her hand in his and pressed his lips to her skin. “She sleeps. Five hundred fifty years each time. She sleeps.”

  “I don’t understand. In my—”

  “No.” He shook his head, a hint of the other Fionn peeking through the blue of his eyes. “No. I cannot allow your words to influence my actions.”

  That’s why he’d avoided her.

  “I fell in love with a human woman and could not bear to watch her die. The spell keeps her asleep until I can carry out the execution and break my curse. Only then can we truly live.” He ran a knuckle down the side of his wife’s face. The sorrow in the tender gesture gutted a hole in Caitlin’s heart. She recognized his grief. The hollow emptiness pain of that magnitude carved in one’s soul.

  She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “You’ll be mortal then?”

  “Aye. With the veil closed, the elders cannot restore my godhood. Nor would I ask it. I’ve no desire to return to that life.”

  Caitlin smiled. “So she’ll sleep until you kill Bres?” Like sleeping beauty waiting for true love’s first kiss.

  Fionn bowed his head. “That is what I had hoped after the first cycle. This is the second.” When he met her eyes, she saw fear, wide, open fear.

  “How many cycles does the spell allow?” She was afraid of the answer.

  “Three. She’ll wake soon. If I kill Bres tonight, we’ll have the rest of our lives beginning the moment she opens her eyes. But you and I both know that is not to be, or our destinies would not be linked.” He covered his face for a long time, then dropped his hand and looked at the beautiful woman lying before him. “I’ll have one year to love her before I put her to sleep for the final time. After that…”

  Caitlin knew how this story ended. Traitorous tears stung her eyes, and the only words that formed in her mouth were, “I’m so sorry.”

  Fionn backed away from Valoria and turned around in the tiny room. “I’m so bluidy tired.” His bloodshot eyes caught hers. “Find Brigid. Convince her to give you the damn pendant. Or take it. I don’t fecking care, but we open that portal. Now.”

  * * *

  Caitlin found Brigid outside, standing on the rocks edging the shore, staring out into the shadows of the sea. The sun had yet to rise, dusk coloring the sky in an angry purple hue.

  “Fionn told me I should take your pendant. I think you should lend it to me. Temporarily, of course. What do you think?”

  Brigid snorted. “Love makes people weak.”

  “Some would argue loves makes people stronger. More resilient. Forces you to fight for what you believe in because you want the world to be a better place for those you love. Isn’t that what we’re all doing here?”

  “You haven’t once asked why. Why would I marry a god who devalues life? Who destroys everything he touches? His wife. His son. His world.” Brigid continued to stare out to the sea, her arms clasped around her tall and proud body, black as sin hair blowing in the breeze.

  “Who am I to judge?” Marissa. Her parents. Janet. They were all dead because of choices Caitlin made. “Besides, it’s not my place to ask.”

  “How very wrong you are.” Brigid paused, her face contorting like she’d withdrawn into her painful past. “Bres was a tortured soul caught between two worlds where he was neither accepted nor rejected. There was goodness in him once. Innocence in the eyes of the boy I once knew. The man I loved like no other before him, or since. But as is often the case, destiny had other plans for us. And now here we stand on opposite sides of the divide, and the only way to right the wrongs of our time, is for one of us to kill and the other to die.”

  God that sounded so morbid. “I can’t imagine what that must feel like.”

  “I hope you never do.” She turned around then and jumped off the rocks, landing silently on the ground a few feet before Caitlin.

  “You’re not going to let me use the pendant to open the portal to the castle, are you?”

  The goddess cocked her head. “Will you fight me? Sink your Elfenni sword into my mortal heart and take what’s mine?”

  Caitlin sucked in a deep breath. She did not have the patience to endure another tit for tat exchange on the morning of another suicide mission.

  Been there. Done that. Did not buy the T-shirt.

  Brigid’s emerald eyes glittered black beneath the twilight. “I’ve sacrificed to protect those I love. When I returned to this realm, I was determined to save humans. Humans I’d grown to love. Humans I considered friends.” Gone was the ice princess facade. In its stead stood a vulnerable woman. Strong yet fragile. Hardened yet sensitive. Resolute yet surrendering. “I was pregnant with Bres’s child. Your people feared the baby I carried. The situation turned ugly, and as a result, a condition was written into the covenant that forced me to abandon my child. They took him from me. Removed his godhood. Placed him with a human family protected with enough charms and wards to keep me searching for centuries.”

  “You see,” Brigid said with a cold, desolate laugh. “I underestimated mankind, the people I loved and thought my peers. They created compacts of their own that left those of us on this side of the veil prisoners of a world we sacrificed everything to save. The MacEwens are my son’s descendants.” She narrowed her eyes at the abbey. “I’ve wisely kept my secrets to myself. Should I give you this pendant, those truths are endangered.”

  Caitlin didn’t see how, unless... Oh! The visions she’d experienced while wearing her grandmother’s pendant were Brigid’s memories. Had to be. What else could she mean?

  “The time has come to let go of the past, hasn’t it, Caitlin Reed of the twenty-first century?” Brigid unclasped the pendant.

  Now that was wholly unexpected.

  The goddess closed the distance between them, standing close enough Caitlin could smell the monk’s sweet wine on her breath. Her emerald eyes shimmered, probably from the wine because there was no way those could be tears. She touched Caitlin’s cheek in a feather-light stroke. “I am so very proud of the woman you’ve become.”

  Caitlin couldn’t help herself. She let her shields slide, just a little, extending her senses out to touch the goddess like Valoria had taught her, but other than a profound sense of regret, Caitlin felt nothing.

  Brigid took Caitlin’s left hand. “Don’t make the same mistakes I did. Try as we might, we cannot change time.” She dr
opped the pendant in the center of Caitlin’s palm, folded her fingers over the ruby, then turned and walked back to the abbey.

  Mouth agape, she watched Brigid’s form disappear into one of the tents lining the abbey.

  What the hell just happened?

  Her brain was literally about to implode.

  Strong arms enveloped her from behind. Her nerves settled. She leaned into Ewen’s chest. “I think I’m going crazy. Either that, or everyone around me has gone off the deep end.”

  Ewen chuckled. “Should I be worried about the deep end?”

  She smiled and took in a cleansing breath. “Brigid gave me the pendant. I’m pretty sure I can use its power to open the portal. Rupert will have to guide me through the spell, though.” It couldn’t be much different than opening a portal to the past.

  He brushed his lips against the side of her face. “Are you okay?”

  She squeezed her eyes. He’d said the word “okay.” God, she loved this man.

  “I don’t know. A lot of good people have died because of this stupid covenant, and I’m afraid it’s not over yet.” When she turned around, his lips found hers, a slow, tender kiss that pulled a soft moan from her throat, stirring all the love, all the fear, and all the hope budding in her heart.

  He held her, his chin resting on her head. “I wish we had more time.”

  “I know.”

  He crouched until he was eye level with her and cupped her face. Those intense sapphire eyes spoke a language all their own. “When we get back, I have plans”—his sexy lips curled into a half-grin—“for a real date.”

  “You remembered the word.”

  “Aye, and I’ll have to learn to speak Uhmurrican.”

  Caitlin snort-laughed and hugged her Highlander, the ruby pendant clasped in her left hand. “Alright, big guy, that’s a promise I’m going to hold you to. But maybe you should let me plan our second date. For reference.”

  “Och, god forbid,” he said in mock humiliation. He kissed the top of her head, a sigh rumbling through his chest. “Are you ready to open the portal, lass?”

  No. She’d never been less ready in her life. “I am. Time to get this show on the road, right?”

  Ewen didn’t answer. He held her tight, a pulse of warmth shooting through their bond. A promise he sealed with another kiss. And then he took her hand and led her into battle.

  THIRTY-ONE

  LAOGHAIRE AND HER friends were human descendants of the Norse goddesses said to control fate and destiny. No one knew the extent of their abilities, but one thing was certain. Bres wouldn’t entrust his safety to just anyone. When he’d broken Balor out of that supernatural prison, he’d posted the Norns outside to get their butts out alive. Together, the Norns had swooped off a second story window in the form of a thousand tiny red-beaked birds. You didn’t see that kind of magic every day. And with the cauldron amplifying their powers, who knew what other fancy tricks they had up their sleeves.

  God, what the hell are we walking into?

  Biting her thumbnail, Caitlin stared at MacEwen Castle’s bleary stone tower, lifting her face skyward to the parapets while adjusting the scabbard at her left hip. Her fingers slid down the outside of her right thigh and pressed against the knobby hilt head of the weapon snug in its sheath. She’d thrown on the leather pants and blue tunic Brigid had loaned her when she’d first arrived in Iona. There was enough play with the sleeves to allow free movement of her arms. The shield at her booted feet however would be a problem. She hadn’t mastered the required coordination necessary to wield it and her sword at the same time. Apparently, not only did she have two left feet, but two left arms as well.

  Caitlin forced out a breath. Brother Rupert, the abbot, and Brother John were chanting outside the magical barrier. She, Ewen, Fionn, Brigid, Braern, and Dyn were on the team assigned to search the inside of the castle and engage the supernaturals. Ian would command the twenty-four man troop—a combination of warrior monks and Lachlan’s soldiers—who’d be fighting the spelled guards to secure the perimeter. And Deidre, god bless her soul, would be on the sidelines with her baskets of bandages and poultices and potions, working alongside the abbot and Brother John to contain the casualties.

  The castle door opened.

  Caitlin tensed, her sore muscles pumped up on the adrenaline.

  Men filtered out the door and down the stairs. She glanced at the ring on the middle finger of her left hand. The Bres detector remained as gray as the stone tower.

  No Bres.

  Yet.

  The ten enemy soldiers fanned out onto the field, some dragging their feet, others shuffling, all aiming vacant eyes in their direction. Caitlin could strip off her shirt and dance naked and not one of them would react. The freak factor sent a chill down her spine.

  The monk’s chanting grew louder, causing the magic around the ward to flicker. After being at it for an exhausting twenty minutes, they were close to breaking the barrier.

  Ten more guards exited the castle, joining their zombie friends on the field.

  They’d be outnumbered soon if this trend continued.

  “Easy, lass. Remember, these men are spelled. They will not fight like trained warriors. The magic compels, but they lack heart and spirit.”

  True, but it didn’t exactly calm her nerves. The guards began pouring out of the building the minute the ward weakened. Bres, or the Norns, had to be connected to the barrier’s magic, which meant they were all too aware of their actions outside. Where were the fireballs? A unit of spelled guards was the best they could do?

  Nope. Something was off.

  Caitlin glanced up at the parapet. “No archers?” Wasn’t that unusual in this time period?

  “An archer must think. Find his target. Gage distance. Account for wind or rain to make his kill.” Ewen tapped his temple. “Thinking. The swordsman has but to swing his sword. The poor wretches. We will no’ kill unless it means our lives. No man deserves this fate,” he said, eyeing the now thirty men standing in a zombie-like trance, waiting to advance.

  Her gaze climbed up to the tower again then down the sides of the building to focus on the wooden door. A strange sense of Deja vu enveloped her. “What if we’ve done this before?”

  “Then let’s hope this time we win.”

  Movement at the parapet drew her eye back to the tower. Five archers appeared between the crenellations. One gripped his war bow, drawing the string with an effortless pull. The whoosh of the arrow sailed through the air. Caitlin jumped back reflexively,

  The arrow point landed two feet before the barrier, smack dab in front of Ewen. Archer Dude was sending a clear message.

  Ewen rose from his crouched position and answered with a look that said you’ve-just-signed-your-death-warrant, idiot.

  “Well that debunked your archer theory,” Caitlin said, recovering from the adrenaline rush.

  “Those men are no’ spelled.” The rustle of feet behind them signaled their warriors were getting into position.

  The chanting hit a higher pitch, dimming the magic around the castle.

  “It’s working,” Caitlin said. “It shouldn’t be long now, I don’t think.”

  “Good. Prepare yourself. We engage as soon as the ward drops.”

  More men emptied out of the castle. Another ten. Twenty.

  Crap. This is bad.

  “Caitlin, they are spelled,” Ewen said in a voice that masked no fear. “I took on ten men easily. Between Ian and I and the warriors, we’ll be fine.”

  And the Draconians.

  And her. She was a semi-skilled swordswoman, after all. Only she kept forgetting.

  Another ten guards entered the field. Five more archers took positions on the tower, and those guys didn’t appear spelled either.

  “Be ready, lass.”

  Caitlin gripped her shield.

  The chanting stopped.

  A pulse of energy slammed into her body, not as strong as the one in Lismore, but a close second. Ewen caught he
r and set her back on her feet. The shimmering magic around the perimeter was gone.

  They charged into the field, the groups moving into the sequences they’d rehearsed. Metal clanged around her. With her shield over her head, Caitlin couldn’t see much, but her arms felt every jolt of the arrows smacking the armor. Racing up the stone stairs single file, she caught a glimpse of Ian and the warriors battling Laoghaire’s spelled army on the ground.

  The heavy oak door opened. Ewen stepped aside and bashed the unsuspected guard exiting the keep with his shield, then knocked him down the stairs to the landing they’d vacated. When he came to, he’d be sore but alive. Swords brandished, they infiltrated the castle, spreading out along the inside wall on either side of the massive door, waiting for the attack that never came.

  Old trays of food lay abandoned on the tables, contributing to the stench pervading the room, the eerie silence disrupted by the grunts and shouts from outside. Ewen signaled Brigid’s group, which consisted of Fionn and Dyn, to search the tower and take out the archers, which left her, Ewen, and Braern to the task of searching the attached buildings that included the great hall and kitchen, a separate bake house, and a chapel at the other end of the hall. Each building opened up to a courtyard bordered by the tower and its structures.

  After searching the bake house and the kitchen with its near empty storage rooms, they headed to the chapel and courtyard. The tapestries, fancy paintings, and most of the furniture appeared long gone. Inches of dust covered the floor. All the good silver, candelabras—basically anything that could garner coin—were also missing. Plenty of dust and filth to go around, though. By the squalor, Swene must have sold most of his possession and let go of the help years ago. A brief inspection of the courtyard turned up nothing. They were re-entering the castle when they encountered Fionn returning to the great hall.

  “Dyn and Brigid are eliminating the last of the archers.” He held a parchment in his hands.

  “What do have?” Ewen asked.

  “There was evidence of recent scrying in the laird’s chamber. We found this.” Fionn handed Ewen the paper.