by Kat Bastion
Plenty of interesting activity happened outside the peaceful sphere. Attracted to the energy field, various fauna wandered or flew close by: a deer, a mountain hare, rodents, curious birds, insects. But each creature sensed only the vibrant golden essence delineated by Brigid’s magick. Not one detected Skorpius’s presence, aside from their woven magick field. Because to conserve energy, he’d mostly dematerialized, become part of the forest itself.
Tiny sparks periodically flashed and crackled at the energy threshold; kamikaze winged insects torpedoed straight into their magick’s fire, igniting on impact.
All of a sudden, without a sound, Brigid drew a slower, deeper breath.
Muscles languid, expression serene, she rose from her seated position with grace. Golden luminescence began to radiate from her skin until its bright aura surrounded her. The copper spirals of hair floated into a rippling halo around her face. Irises, already a pale shade of gray sparkling with magick, glowed brighter, brilliant with energy.
Then her arresting silvery gaze held his, soft and accepting.
Already a raw beauty, she now exuded something pure and elemental, pristine.
Angelic, even.
The moment the resemblance crossed his mind, she moved.
Padding with graceful steps on leather-booted feet across a leaf-strewn forest floor, she approached their magick barrier. The white-gold magick that fringed his midnight blue, flared and licked toward her in recognition, in deadly invitation.
His breath caught.
Yet a hairsbreadth away from making singeing contact, her form faded. And she passed through.
“Incorporeal.” The stunned murmur escaped tightened lips as he unfolded his arms and straightened to attention. He’d never once, in all the millennia of his existence, witnessed a human accomplish the feat inborn to angelkind.
And as her ethereal form whispered through the barrier, the magick field flared. Her golden and his blue vibrated hotter, brighter. Until all at once, in a flash of brilliant light, the energy burst outward into millions of spinning particles. Their fused magick, which hung in suspension for a split second, then imploded straight into her chest.
Residual energy sizzled and snapped through her golden aura.
Those silvery eyes sparkled with more unearthly vibrancy.
The halo of copper hair rippled from the force.
“What are you?” he murmured under his breath.
Angelic? Perhaps. But more. Much more.
Dangerous to time? Without doubt.
Any being as powerful as Brigid had become could tear a rift through time at will. Become supreme ruler of not just one plane, but multiple realms. And the fact that she obviously was still learning, still evolving, portended grave implications.
Yet regardless of the risks, the situation didn’t automatically sentence Brigid to death. Not in his mind. Not all power corrupted. He failed to pinpoint any specific example, but his gut warned him to stay her execution. For now.
She pegged him with a hard stare, chin lifting a fraction. “I’m no wee lass to be trifled with.”
“Clearly.”
“So, let’s do this for real.” As she murmured his words back at him, she infused them with power.
Atoms throughout the glade charged.
The dense forest beyond quieted, as if waiting on baited breath.
A clear sky above misted over, water molecules crystalizing before hanging in suspension.
With a preternatural lunge, Brigid blinked out of existence, then began to materialize right before him as she spun around like the twisting tip of a tornado. When she slowed into the lower frequency of solid form, twin razor-sharp blades skimmed up his chest until the dagger edges pressed against either side of his throat.
Fierceness blazed in her eyes.
Cool metal bit into his flesh over each jugular.
You’ve been well trained. Magick didn’t grant that kind of talent.
Skorpius didn’t flinch, remained in solid form. With a slow exhale, he arched his wings up.
Brigid glared up at him.
He held his ground, staring down into eyes that swirled and glittered a rich dark silver.
They stood in the solitary clearing, dark outcast angel towering over a fair human maiden. The soft ends of those coppery curls brushed against a chest battle-honed into sleek muscle. Scant inches remained between their beating hearts.
But human maidens don’t have swirling glittering silver eyes, do they?
He suspected Brigid had no idea. That she’d begun to transform. That she was becoming something…other.
Seconds ticked by.
A minute.
Longer.
Their great standoff took unspoken form.
To advance matters, he inhaled a slow breath, then exhaled and leaned against the edges of her blades. “What a warm welcome,” he taunted. A daring smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“You’re not welcome,” she replied, gaze still locked with his.
Razor edges sliced into skin.
The fearless vixen stood her ground.
So quick to behead me? “Have care,” he warned in a soft tone. Toward the both of them. Because few things could end him permanently, but losing his head was one. And neither of them understood the limits of Brigid’s new power. More important, if she pushed her luck too hard, he’d force those blades to sever her neck before she’d manage a blink. “I’m not here by will,” he admitted.
The slightest twitch furrowed her brow.
“Have you ever taken a life before, Brigid?”
“I came into the world takin’ life.” The fierce whisper escaped tightened lips.
Interesting. He stared hard into the depths of silvery eyes churning with raw emotion. However, he had no desire to delve into psychoanalysis. He also refused to relent. Instead, he pressed harder on the struck nerve. “And now? Could you take a life now, watch the lifeblood drain from another whose fragile heart beats…until it beats no more?”
Brigid’s face paled at the crude description. But her gaze sharpened. Those soft shoulders squared from her spine of steel. She leaned her weight into the sharp blades threatening him. “Aye,” she whispered, confidence booming in the barely spoken word.
Fair enough.
The time had come to appeal to more reason, less emotion. “Brigid, please lower your weapons. They are ineffective on me.” As far as he knew. “Besides, you are treating your assigned protector like an enemy.”
His polite request was answered with a cutting slice as she withdrew the blades with a cross-handed release. Warm twin rivulets of blood streamed down, joined at the base of his throat, then ran down the center depression of his chest.
He chuckled. “Only necktie that will ever touch this body.”
Brigid took a step back. She gripped the blades comfortably at her sides, aiming at his mid-section. The woman remained at the ready to disembowel him, if so inclined.
“You are my enemy.” Venom laced every word. Hard eyes stared him down.
Skorpius tilted his head, watching her carefully. Accusations of nighttime visits—that he had no recollection of—were a concern, but he didn’t broach that topic yet. Better to keep her on the offensive; she’d be more likely to drop inadvertent clues regarding the mystery of her sudden magick. “Why do you consider me your enemy?”
Brigid stared up at him, eyes shifting back and forth while she took his measure. He almost heard the cogs turning in her head as she weighed his question with the merits of her answer. Those assessing silvery eyes narrowed. “You’re not my friend. You disturb everra good dream I’ve ever had. You’re the first person to approach me on my journey. If you’re here to stop me, you’re mistaken.”
His brows arched. “Quite a list for having just met.” He crossed his arms, ignoring the tips of her blades as they tracked his movements. “Let’s see if I can address your claims, in no particular order.”
She gave no reaction to his humorous tone. Sim
ply stared at him with a cold expression.
He continued, as if she hung on every word with rapt interest. “I’ve never had a good dream. If I’ve somehow interrupted all of yours, I deeply apologize.” He paused, letting the sarcasm drip to its full effect.
“I’ve not made a new friend in a long time. Therefore, your assessment of our relationship status is correct: not friends.” He gave a slow nod. “But that does not make me your enemy.
“As far as stopping you on your journey, I’d have to know what quest you’re on and why, before deciding whether I’d stop you, or not.”
That did the trick: her brows furrowed.
Confusion caused by sound reasoning. He bit back the laugh that lodged into his throat and unconsciously brushed his fingers across the dried blood there.
Brigid gasped, eyes growing wide.
Ahhh…the wound healing.
“You’re…” She shook her head in disbelief, her delicate brows furrowing again. “I doona understand. I…I…cut you.”
“Really? I stand taller than any male you’ve encountered, eyes swirling blue-and-green, black wings arching up from my back like a monster hatched from your darkest nightmare, and that’s what you focus on? That my wound—that you inflicted—healed before your eyes?”
She glared anew at all his obviousness. Then she lowered her weapons and turned her back on him.
Great. He snorted. I’ve been relegated to absolutely-no-threat status.
Brigid shrugged as she stooped to gather a handful of belongings strewn across the ground beside an open satchel. “Isobel warned me of you.”
“Oh, she did, did she?” The runt even antagonized him by proxy. Yet his interest piqued. “What did that…sweet…girl have to say about me?”
The corners of Brigid’s lips twitched as she fought a smile. “I doona remember everra detail.”
Translation: Females hold all girl-talk jokes sacred.
“’Twas a wee bit like ‘barkin’ with no bitin’,’ that you’ll be ‘comin’ in handy’ when she’ll be ‘needin’ some muscle,’ and…”
Brigid paused as she turned toward him with her small stack of belongings in her hands. She pursed her lips as if trying to control a great flood of amusement that threatened to break free.
Skorpius forced a steadying breath, mentally grumbling a too-distant-to-receive message at the Traveler. You little runt of a troublemaker. Isobel wasn’t even present and still she annoyed him. Paybacks, Ms. MacInnes. They’ll be painful. And character-building.
To Brigid, he raised expectant let’s-have-it brows.
“Isobel claimed she called you by ‘nicknames.’ And you liked it. She said, although she liked to call you Sunshine, her favorite was…Cupcake.”
Slow breaths.
Deep, slow breaths.
He managed to stop the low growl instinctually forming in his throat. Then he coughed out a laugh and shook his head. No one held true power to torment him by proxy, not even Isobel.
And Brigid bravely stood up to him in the here and now. Only she earned the right to provoke him at present. And he alone decided on whether or not he’d be provoked. He waved a disinterested hand in the air. “Call me what you wish. It matters not to me.”
Brigid gave a satisfied nod, then strode away with her stack, toward the edge of the glade. But she paused, then veered back toward him, until she stopped a few feet away. She regarded him with cool assessment. “What’s your real name? She dinna tell me.”
In rare form, he considered his answer. He typically replied to that question with sarcasm—as he’d done with Isobel—because angelkind never uttered given names, theirs sung in a frequency so high its vibration would shatter glass, and human eardrums.
But Brigid had asked in a context altogether different. She wanted to understand what he preferred to be called.
Whether or not she realized it, her request was a tentative olive branch.
He relaxed his wings and chose to respect the subtle gesture. “My name is Skorpius.”
With a thoughtful nod, she uttered his name in three slow syllables, as if rolling the flavor over her tongue to savor its taste for the first time. Then she repeated it with fluid grace. “Skorpius.”
When she turned with her stack, plucked her satchel from the ground with two fingers, then strode away toward thicker forest edging the glade, he followed.
“Do you even know what a cupcake is?” An olive branch back. Conversational. One step toward camaraderie. Helpful if they remained together for any length of time. Crucial to gain her trust.
From the shadows of the trees ahead, light laughter tinkled like breeze-rustled wind chimes. “I dinna know, at first. Isobel said ’tis a wee sweet cake for children. And yours, she said, ’tis ‘frosted’ in pink. With somethin’ called sprinkles?”
“Of course,” he grumbled.
But as Brigid relaxed further and paused beside a large oak to pack her belongings back into her satchel, his attention diverted to one item in particular. A split-second glimpse was all he managed before she stowed the object: a weathered black book, leather-bound with distinctive strips at the middle of each cover’s edge, which wound around to secure it closed.
His breath caught. That can’t possibly be…
Chapter 5
Skorpius arrowed an icy stare at her.
His blue-green eyes swirled, tiny sparks of silver flashin’.
And then, those unearthly eyes narrowed further.
Brigid had plunged from friend to foe in a heartbeat.
Which served her well. ’Twas a healthy reminder that the creature not only possessed greater power than she, but also held more knowledge of her newly acquired strange magick. It dinna matter the value of learnin’ from someone wiser of how to wield it. His incredible energy set her on edge, prickled the hairs on the back of her neck. Continued acquaintance with the angel posed a risk not worth takin’.
She shot a colder glare back toward him, then resumed her journey. She angled off in the direction she’d been headed. Before the skirmish with the English soldiers. Before the wee ones. And the magick. Before the angel.
“I’ll still be travelin’ on my own.”
A heavy sigh gusted behind her. “We’re at an impasse, then.”
“Aye. I’ll be stayin’ here on dry shore. You’re”—she hiked a chin toward a jagged peak on the horizon that pierced the sky, then scanned the glassy stretch of blue at its feet—“welcome to stand knee-deep in muck, on the other side of a freezin’ loch.”
When pure silence followed, she glanced back to find him starin’ her down, jaw twitchin’. The bare-chested angel forced a deep breath into his lungs.
Brigid disregarded the male’s state of undress, likenin’ him to any of her clan’s guardsmen that trained at Brodie Castle. Pleased with how she strained his patience, she arched a brow.
After a handful of seconds, he loosened his rigid jaw with a side-to-side motion. “So it would seem,” he conceded with a short nod.
Yet he made no indication to move.
Brigid unsheathed a dagger, aimed it at him, then flicked the point toward that distant peak. “’Tis where I prefer you.”
“Understood.” He turned and strode away, in the opposite direction she’d been headed.
Tension in her achin’ shoulders began to relax for what felt like the first time all day. She resheathed her dagger and resumed down her path.
“But it doesn’t have to be that way.” His soft-spoken words somehow sounded loud and clear in her head.
“Nay?” She half-turned, amused at how their finished conversation continued to linger.
Skorpius still faced away from her, but had stopped. His chiseled jaw and the corner of his eye angled toward her, over his shoulder. “No.”
With a sweep of his chin, he completed his turn, stance widenin’. His gaze caught hers. “Although, getting cold…and wet…does have its merits.”
Brigid gasped as a sudden frisson of heat sizzled through
her, sparking tiny embers of pleasure in unmentionable places. From his carnal tone. Because none of that sounded appealin’.
Her eyes narrowed. More trickery?
And the way he stared at her, with the knowin’ of a thousand human lifetimes—down into the verra heart of her—warmed her further. He dipped his head a fraction, but never broke their locked gazes.
He waited.
His expression grew…predatory.
And in an odd fashion, some once-idle part of her began to awaken with interest, desired to bargain with him.
The magick? Had her new ability responded to him?
If so, she’d need to learn exactly how much control she had. “What’re you proposin’?”
“We should work together.”
“Och! In what way?” No warrior in Scotland would agree to work with a lass. The verra idea made her cough out a disbelievin’ laugh.
“You’ve discovered how to tap into great power.” The meltin’ heat in his expression cooled. “But you don’t understand how to use it.”
She scoffed and crossed her arms.
But as Skorpius’s words settled with her, her thoughts drifted over his earlier accusation: that she’d learned to summon her magick from someone. Mayhap, she’d take advantage of his false assumption. “I’m doin’ fine. On my own.” On the last words, her tightened fingers drummed once on the hilt of the dagger that she’d sheathed moments ago.
His gaze flicked down at her pointed movement. He gave a short nod, then tilted his head, glancin’ back up at her. “Acknowledged. You excel in combat skills. You have done well with your magick. But could you do better? Everyone needs guidance, on occasion.”
While she slowed her breaths to clear her mind—and calm her body—she considered his reasonable offer. In truth, she’d only achieved what she’d learned thus far through the instruction and counsel of others. Even if they’d been a trusted and select few. Even if they’d only trained her in traditional warrior skills. Even if none had even a wee notion of her newfound ability.
But can you be trusted? She pinned him with a hard stare, judgin’ his character.
Skorpius remained calm and motionless.