The MacLomain Series: Later Years - a Scottish Time Travel Romance Boxed Set

by Sky Purington

  “Get her up the mountain, Darach!” Brae cried as she went at Eoghan.

  Jackie yelped when Darach flung her over his shoulder and ran.

  “Put me down!” she said. “I’ll run.”

  “Not fast enough.”

  The fighting behind them intensified. The demi-god was definitely changing...weakening. His movements were slow and the dark aura that always seemed to shift around him fading.

  “He’s becoming human, isn’t he?” she said.

  “Aye.” As he had at MacLomain Castle, Darach moved amazingly fast considering the hazardous route up the mountain. “And your dagger is getting him there a wee bit faster. ‘Twas quick thinking, lass.”

  “It was awful.”

  “I’m sure, but ‘tis good you keep dishing out kisses,” he said. “Verra helpful.”

  She didn’t take his bait. Not after kissing evil. “Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.”

  “You more than most,” he mocked.

  “Are we really having this conversation?”

  “Are you properly distracted?”

  Jackie sighed and shook her head. He was doing the same thing he’d done to keep her mind preoccupied when they were in Ireland.

  Her gaze returned to what was happening behind them. “He’s coming after us!” She narrowed her eyes. “But he’s not shifting into a black cloud. He’s still a man. That’s good, right?”

  Darach didn’t respond but kept moving. Luckily, Brae was making things tough for Eoghan and battling him as they climbed.

  “Really, you should put me down,” she said. “You need your strength.”

  “You dinnae weigh overly much,” he said.

  “Overly?”

  Darach plunked her down, eyed her chest and smirked. “Well, those likely weigh more than most.”

  She frowned. “How can you joke right now?”

  “Sorry, lass. I’m only trying to keep your spirits up,” he said. “Because this is where we make our final stand.”

  Her eyes widened as she took in their surroundings or lack thereof. Though it didn’t seem like they had climbed nearly long enough, they were at the top of the mountain. Yet it looked more like a plateau with nothing but a sheer drop on every side except the one they’d climbed. A rock pathway completely surrounded a large, circular wading pool.

  “Is that a waterfall I hear?” she murmured, astounded by the crystal clear water considering everything else seemed so murky and dark.

  “Aye.” His eyes met hers. “If Da’s right, we should be at the verra top of the mountain the oak tree grew up.”

  “The Magic Mountain of Fertility?”

  The corner of his lip shot up, and he nodded.

  “But how is that possible?”

  “I dinnae have time to explain.” He led her along the right-hand side of the water. “Stay here, lass.” His brogue thickened with urgency. “Dinnae move unless ye’ve no choice, ye ken?”

  “But—”

  He put a finger to her lips and shook his head. “Just do as I ask, Jackie.”

  “But I want to help,” she said into his mind.

  “And ye will. From right here when I ask it of ye.” He pulled his finger away. “All right?”

  “Why not let me fight alongside you guys?”

  “Because when ‘tis time your battle is right here,” he said softly. “Promise me ye’ll do as asked.”

  She searched his eyes. “I take it you’re not going to tell me exactly what my part is.’

  He shook his head. “Not yet. I just need you to trust me.”

  “I do.”

  “Then promise.”

  How could she say no when he looked at her with his heart in his eyes?

  “Okay,” she whispered. “I promise.”

  Darach brushed his lips over hers then headed back the way they came. He no sooner vanished over the edge when the sound of metal striking metal rang out. The fighting sounded intense. Fast and furious. Then suddenly ear piercing. But why so loud?

  “’Tis time, lass. ‘Tis time to fight just as I taught you,” Darach said. “Close your eyes and visualize your surroundings.”

  Jackie frowned. It didn’t seem like they had time for that.

  “You promised, Jackie.”

  She had. And if these were their final moments she didn’t want to break her word. About to do as asked, she tried not to panic when everything suddenly went black.

  She couldn’t hear, see, speak, feel or smell anything. It was as if she suffered all of her friends’ disabilities at once. Tingles spread through her as anger flared at the difficult journeys each had suffered. So did a renewed sense of pride. How much they had learned. How brave they had been.

  Then the tingles faded along with the anger.

  And something else got through.

  Darach’s voice from far away.

  “Fight your darkness, Jackie,” he said. “Close your eyes and visualize your surroundings, lass.”

  Jackie swallowed back fear. She swore she would fight. She promised. So though already seemingly blind, she closed her eyes and paid attention. First, she saw the flicker of her ring. The blue of Darach’s eyes.

  Then more.

  Bit by bit she started to hear a raging waterfall and lapping water. She began to feel the fine mist of moisture caught on a warm wind. The scent of wildflowers and spruce.

  More than that, she began to see her surroundings.

  Not as they had been, but what they were becoming. Sunlight warmed her cheeks. Replaced with color, darkness began to fade away. Only when Darach raced over the edge in her direction did she realize her eyes were open.

  They were no longer in the Otherworld Eoghan had created.

  “Well done, lass,” Darach said before he spun back and everything happened within the blink of an eye. Sunlight spiked over the staggered, green mountains as he lifted his arms over his head and gripped the hilt of his sword. The metal seemed to flash against his back before Eoghan rushed onto the edge. All dark divinity was finally gone.

  The demi-god was human.

  Darach whipped the sword.

  Eoghan whipped his as well.

  Darach’s sword lodged hilt-deep in Eoghan’s stomach, and he fell to his knees, shocked as he looked down at his own blood. A split second later, Brae came up behind him and drove her sword through his back.

  Yet Eoghan was strong enough that he managed to swipe his leg around and catch Brae off guard. She stumbled back, lost her footing then went over the edge. And not the one she had come up but a sheer cliff. There came no scream but a silent drop to what could only be certain death.

  But none of that mattered when Jackie realized Eoghan’s blade had struck Darach. Her world came to a screeching halt when he yanked a sword out of his stomach and turned. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as his eyes found hers.

  “I’m sorry, lass,” he whispered into her mind before he staggered then landed in the water.

  “Darach,” she cried and stumbled after him. “No, no, no. This can’t be happening.” She managed to drag him a few feet until she fell down on the side of the pond and rested his head on her lap.

  “I need to drag you further,” she gasped as red blossomed in the water.

  “Nay, lass,” he whispered. “There’s no point.”

  “There is,” she said through tears and tried to put a hand over his wound to stop the bleeding. “If I had to fight, so do you!”

  “I did fight. We both did.” He wrapped his fingers around hers. “And won.”

  “We need to find Lair...or your Aunt McKayla,” she urged, trying her damnedest not to panic. “Someone who can heal you.”

  “No time,” he murmured, struggling for breath as his eyes stayed on hers. “Just be with me, lass. ‘Tis all I want in the end. Just ye.”

  The end? God, no. Not after everything they had been through.

  But it was, and she felt it right down to her soul.

  She choked back a sob before bli
nding pain ripped through her head. A thump sounded off to their left as Eoghan finally slumped to his death at the same moment Darach took his last breath.

  Pain increased.

  Right where her tumor was.

  Yet she never let go of Darach. Or she didn’t think so. The pain became far worse. Unbearable. Crippling. She lost sense of everything around her.

  Then a little bit at a time, the pain faded.

  That’s when she realized she sat on his lap, and he held her. The oak that grew up the side of the mountain had apparently continued growing because its branches fanned over them. Colors had only intensified, and the clear water shone a bright, Caribbean-colored blue.

  It was stunning. Indescribable.

  Darach cupped the side of her neck, concerned. “How are you feeling, lass?”

  “Good...I think. What happened?” she whispered, confused, before it occurred to her she had to be hurting him. “Darach, I’m sitting on your wound!”

  When she tried to move, he shook his head. “Nay.” A smile lit his eyes as he stood, lowered her to her feet and made sure she was steady. “The wound is gone.”

  “Oh, thank God,” she whispered, smiling with relief and wonder as she touched his midsection. The wound had completely healed. “But how?”

  “I dinnae know,” he murmured before he cupped her cheeks and kissed her so tenderly that all the horror she’d just witnessed drifted away.

  “So ye are back where ye began. Beneath the oak,” came a whisper on the wind. “Or should I say its offspring.”

  They pulled apart as a beautiful woman, and tall, blond warrior shimmered out of nowhere.

  “Goddess Brigit,” Darach whispered. “And Fionn Mac Cumhail.”

  “Aye, laddie, ‘tis us.” Brigit eyed Fionn fondly. “It has always been us.”

  There was no mistaking the great love that passed between them.

  “Where are we?” Jackie inquired softly, not quite sure of the proper octave in which to address a god.

  “You’re in the Celtic Otherworld,” Fionn said. “The way it actually looks rather than that demented place Eoghan took everyone.”

  “A place that was only sustainable with help from Balor,” Brigit said. “A hell that does not belong on this plane.”

  “So...I’m dead?” Jackie’s eyes went to Darach then back to Brigit. “We both are?”

  “Aye,” Brigit said. “As is Eoghan.”

  “Just like my dream foretold. You died on my lap when I was laird,” Darach said. “I just didn’t realize I would be dead too.”

  Jackie shook her head in amazement. “So the tumor got me in the end.” Her eyes met Darach’s. “And one way or another got you too.”

  “Nay, ‘twas always evil that ye fought,” Fionn said. “And ‘twas evil that ended your lives.”

  “Ye do have a flare for the dramatic on occasion.” Brigit slipped her hand into Fionn’s and offered him a soft smile.

  “Me?” Fionn pulled her closer. “Were ye not behind the rings, oaks and the connections through time? And was it not all a wee bit dramatic?”

  “Aye.” Brigit grinned and nuzzled even closer to him. “And for the most part, great fun with ye there to help every step of the way.”

  Jackie and Darach glanced at each other. He was thinking the same thing. They better get answers soon before the gods got too wrapped up in one another.

  “So should Jackie and I say our goodbyes?” Darach’s voice deepened with emotion. “I dinnae see Eoghan so I can only assume we all move on from here.”

  “Say your goodbyes?” Brigit stared lovingly into Fionn’s eyes as she answered Darach. “Why would ye do that?”

  Fionn fingered a strand of her hair, enchanted. “They do not understand, lassie, because we have yet to explain.”

  “Ah...” Brigit whispered as if she just remembered. Her coy eyes turned their way. “Is it not foretold that he who loves she with the power to resurrect will follow her into the afterlife? That he will meet his end?”

  “Aye,” Darach said. “And so here we are.”

  “Yet ye forget something, laddie.” Her eyes flickered between them. “Three men loved Jackie. One brought her into the Viking tapestry where he was able to use that love to defeat not only the Genii Cucullati but Balor. Or should I say ban them from the MacLomains for all time.”

  “Heidrek.” Jackie’s eyes widened. “Is he okay?”

  “Aye,” Fionn said. “His love was strong and his power formidable. ‘Twas a lucky thing at the time that Eoghan was more obsessed with ye than saving his son, Keir Hamilton, or Heidrek might have faced a wee bit too much evil to succeed.”

  Jackie wasn’t sure what to think. She was sad that Heidrek evidently loved her so much but happy he won.

  “Then there were the two other men who loved ye,” Brigit continued. “Darach and Eoghan. And both have loved ye for a verra long time. Now both have followed ye into the true afterlife. Yet ‘tis foretold that ‘he who loves’ must pay the price of his soul’s death. Not ‘they who love.’” Brigit eyed Darach with a gentle smile. “Especially not he whose life ended in my healing waters.”

  “So Eoghan met his final death...the death of his soul because he loved me?” Jackie said. “And because it was foretold that only one man would pay the price, Darach escaped the same death?”

  “That is right.” Brigit’s eyes fell to Jackie’s ring. “And because of your ring. Because of love that remained so strong through time.”

  “Thank God.” Jackie blinked back tears as she looked from the ring to Darach then back to Brigit and Fionn. “I mean thank you. Both of you. For everything.”

  “’Tis all right to thank God as well,” Brigit said. “Did Cullen Stewart, one of God’s angels, not help everyone along the way?”

  Jackie nodded. “He did.”

  “As did many others.” A small smile hovered on Fionn’s lips. “Viking and MacLomain Ancestors alike.”

  Very true.

  “No disrespect intended, Fionn,” Jackie said softly. “But I was under the impression that you were as baffled as the rest of us by everything that happened since my friends and I traveled back in time.” Her eyes flickered between the gods. “If you knew all along exactly who the demi-god was and our story, why not go after him from the beginning rather than put Robert the Bruce through so much? Why have Darach and his cousins been trained from childhood to protect him?”

  “A wise man once told me that ‘twas all the moments in between that mattered most,” came a familiar voice. “Or mayhap I was that great man.”

  Adlin MacLomain, young and healthy, appeared beside the gods.

  “Nay, ‘twas certainly a great lass who said as much,” came another voice before Iosbail Broun appeared beside her brother.

  Adlin’s brows swept up as he looked at her. “Aye?”

  “Oh, aye,” Iosbail assured and grinned.

  “Say what ye will, my wee bairns,” came a familiar voice as Eara trotted out of nowhere. “But never forget who ye learned such wisdom from, to begin with.”

  Jackie smiled as the horse shimmered then a woman appeared. Lovely, with little beads interwoven in her many braids and a long, white gown cinched at the waist with a gold belt, there was no mistaking Chiomara the Druidess.

  “I was right!” Darach grinned. “Eara was Chiomara.”

  Chiomara smiled softly at him. “Aye, laddie.”

  A blink later, the druidess stood in front of Jackie.

  “Sister,” Chiomara whispered as she took her hand, eyes moist. “Or ye once were.”

  Jackie felt every ounce of love and familiarity with Chiomara that Gwendolyn once did. “And I somehow still am,” she managed before she embraced the druidess. “You risked so much for me. Gave up so much. I can’t tell you how thankful I am.”

  “I would do it again and again. Anything to save ye.” Chiomara’s eyes flickered between her and Darach. “Anything to help you reconnect with a love I never should have dissuaded you from, t
o begin with.”

  “It wasn’t just about us, though,” Jackie reminded. “It was about keeping our people safe.”

  “Aye. And we did.” Chiomara squeezed her hands. “After ye died and I left with Eoghan in pursuit, ‘twas Devlin who rose up against Da in your name. And ‘twas Devlin our clan followed. Under his leadership and without the oppression of the dark Druid, our people thrived.”

  Her eyes went to Darach. “Ye never took another lass but focused everything you had on our clan. A few decades later, your warriors found ye beneath the oak in the dead glade. Ye’d passed away alone where ye’d last held Gwendolyn. This was in your hand.” She held out a piece of cloth. “’Twas hers. I held it for ye all these centuries.”

  It was the handkerchief Darach had found in his pocket in Ireland. The one Gwendolyn gave him when they were married in secret.

  “Bloody hell,” he whispered as he carefully took the threadbare material. He held it to his nose and inhaled as his eyes met hers. “It still smells like you...in that life and this one.”

  “Unbelievable,” Jackie murmured before her eyes went to Chiomara. “I’m still curious about something.”

  Chiomara cocked her head in question.

  “Your hair. It was blond in Ireland and when Erin saw you in the Otherworld.” She fingered a braid. “But now it’s dark. How come?”

  “That would be because of my magic,” Brigit interjected. “’Twas all part of her new life traveling across Eire.”

  Jackie smiled at Chiomara. “I like it.”

  Chiomara smiled as well. “Thank ye.”

  “’Tis nearly that time,” Adlin interrupted softly. “Robert the Bruce leaves for home soon, and Darach and Jackie should be there.”

  “Aye,” Chiomara agreed as she joined her children then gestured at the horse. “Eara is yours, Jackie. Brigit long foretold that ye would reconnect with your ring in the New World. So the horse was named for the Easterly direction that ye needed to travel to reconnect with your lost love.” She stroked the horse’s neck. “’Twas her I rode across Ireland after Gwendolyn passed on. And ‘twas she who was with me when I started my life with the Dalriada. A clan and king that led to so many wonderful connections through time.”

  “Aye,” Adlin murmured. “But all truly started when a young druidess and her father’s first-in-command broke the rules and fell in love.”