by Kat Bastion
The heat of his magick swept her into his hold.
Arms wrapping, head angling down, wings enfolding into a protective cocoon, he curled around her as they pierced through the veil, traversing from the substrate of time back into the realm of matter.
From a bright blue sky, they shot like a missile, manifesting from utter nothingness into a targeted time and place. They hurtled in a low arc over the Highlands, a fiery comet in broad daylight.
And as Skorpius’s magick sputtered on dwindling reserves, he shot a final burst of energy along his end of their dangling tether. The powerful charge seared across its length, snapped the tether rigid, and fired its pulse into her breast.
System shocked, Brigid seized with a heavy thump of a restarted heart and a loud gasp of air surging into deflated lungs.
Their bond rippled to life again.
Weak, but holding.
As they plummeted toward earth, Skorpius did the best he could to cant open his wings, lift their trajectory, soften their landing. But his strength flagged at the critical moment.
Instead of struggling with spent wings to gain more lift, he wrapped them tight around her.
And as the softer needled tops of the forested tree line raced toward their bodies, he pulsed the last of his life-giving magick essence into her. “Hang on, apprentice,” he teased.
Through fading awareness, Skorpius sensed a slight tremble from her, a hint of mirth that tingled along their restored bond. Then firm fingers wrapped around his biceps. And a slight flare of warmth radiated outward—from her.
Exhausted, Skorpius exhaled in relief. Softer new-growth boughs lashed at his arms, the arches of his wings, the top of his head. With a twist and roll, he angled toward the biggest pine crown, hoping it might serve as a makeshift net to break their fall.
Even so… This might hurt a bit.
Aye. Another tickle of humor along their thread.
Black dots edged into his awareness. A darkened shadow floated across his mind.
And as Skorpius drifted out of consciousness, a jolt jerked them off course.
They tumbled away from the treetops, into another direction altogether.
Straight down.
Kindness smiled down upon Skorpius.
Silky raven hair.
Gentle blue eyes.
Beauty incarnate.
Familiar, yet distant. A human face. Someone he had once known. Love long ago lost. Sacrificed for the greater good. Cast unto the ravages of Earth time.
I’m dreaming.
Yet angels did not dream. Humans did.
“Let go, Skorpius.” Laughter tinkled out, its faint echo drifting off in the vivid dream world. “Forsake duty,” the raven beauty implored. “Be with me.”
Which he’d done, once upon a long time ago. Not a dream, then. A memory.
Yeah. He didn’t do memories either. No regrets. No dwelling on the past. No suffering. Mistakes? Best forgotten.
Merciless bitter-cold wind buffeted exposed skin.
But a soft porcelain cheek brushed against his own.
“Embrace life,” the low feminine voice murmured. “Love me. As I love you.”
Love. Pure weakness. Human emotion.
An illusion. Great. He’d catapulted from memory stalking to straight-up hallucinating.
Pain seared along raw nerve endings.
Heat saturated his body. A familiar soothing warmth filled his being.
“Fight, my angel.”
Awareness wrestled to break through the hallucination.
Hot agony twisted in his chest. My angel. Millions of razorblades scraped feathers from battered wings. Fiery ash singed into burning lungs. Raging lava coursed through throbbing veins.
Parched lips split as they parted. “My angel,” he rasped out, confused.
The raven-haired beauty had never known him as such. Only in guise, as trusted knight in a fabled kingdom. Then, at her seductive plea, he’d become fully human, someone for a doomed woman to love. To become newly mortal had been a fool’s risk, a fool willing to try to be loved.
“Aye.” The apparition shimmered, shifting color. “Mine.”
Heavy eyes cracked open to blinding brightness.
Raven hair vanished, replaced by copper. Porcelain skin burnished golden. Fawn freckles dusted across a pert nose, spread toward rosy-peach cheeks. Silvery eyes that sparkled with the glow of magick gazed upon him, dancing with joy.
“Och!” she breathed in fierce whisper. A warm smile curved her lips. “There you are.”
“Brigid?”
“Aye.”
Skorpius lifted his head from her lap, attempted to take in the landscape beyond her. Busted tree limbs lay scattered about an open grassy field. Divots of freshly churned soil lay on either side of a strip that led to their position. Pain fired through every fiber of his being at the physical effort, so he pinched his eyes shut and dropped his head back down. “We crashed.”
“Sarcasm.” Amusement lightened her tone.
“Yeah.” All he mustered through a raw throat.
“You caused me great worry.”
Then we’re even. The horrific image of her floating lifeless body flashed across his mind. But Skorpius banished the thought. Instead, he sought her hand, wove his fingers into hers, then squeezed. And he kept strong hold of her, even through the tremendous ache firing into each joint, every muscle and sinew.
“Guess I should have mentioned”—he swallowed hard past a cramp in his throat—“we needed to maintain contact.”
Brigid’s scorching glare would’ve flayed a mere mortal. A slender brow arched. “I’ve been told ‘obvious statements of fact are good.’”
Ah. More sarcasm. Well done. His lips twitched. An almost smile.
Increasing warmth bathed him. And with it, the pain ebbed further with every next beat of his heart.
After a dozen more beats, Skorpius was able to fully open his eyes. When he lifted his head once again, stretched tight wings, then pushed himself upright, no further pain remained.
“What happened?”
“You skipped over the earth like a stone across a loch.”
Skorpius frowned, scanning over her flawless face and seemingly unmarred body. “Are you injured?”
“Nay.” Brigid glanced around at ratty tufts of black feathers that clung to grasses and heather all around them. Then her hard gaze pegged him. “But you were.”
Apparently.
She stroked a hand over his left wing. A golden hue of magick floated between her fingers and perfect new feathers. “Your wing. ’Twas badly broken.”
“As opposed to goodly broken.”
“Ha.” A glint of humor flashed in her eyes as her gaze snagged his. “Your skin…”
Skorpius flexed a stiff hand. The tightness of new skin stretched over his knuckles. “Got shredded.” Educated guess.
“Aye.” Brigid’s attention roved across his body, then paused over the now-unblemished black leather covering his legs. “I let magick and my memory guide me. Your body did the rest.”
He blinked in surprise. “You healed me?”
“In a way.”
Only one explanation existed where his immortal body would fail to heal itself. Death. But if he’d hovered on the brink of it, or had been too badly injured, it would take a long time for his body to heal.
“How long have we been here?”
Brigid glanced up at the bright sun overhead. “Less than an hour.”
“Impossible,” he breathed. Not without darkness. Sunlight sapped his magick. More than half a dozen centuries had passed since the last time solar energy had been able to restore him.
A knowing gaze stared at him. “Verra possible.”
“But…” Skorpius tried to wrap his mind around the unique incident. Failed. “How?”
“I’ll share the secret of how I healed you.” Silver eyes stared at him, penetrating. “If you share what happened with me and the otherworldly creatures in the glade, what I d
id—all of it.”
So it’s like that, then? We’re now bartering for disclosures?
Aye.
“Very well.” Skorpius tried not to laugh. But damn, he was proud of her. Of her determination and her tactics.
A strange expression washed over her features, then her brow furrowed.
“First, there’s a task we’re needin’ to see to.”
Alarm tripped through him. That Brigid sensed some hidden danger he failed to detect. “What task?”
Skorpius scanned farther out. Then he realized a giant dome of golden magick stretched over the glade. Trillions of its glittering particles absorbed the sunlight, then refracted it toward a convex lens over them. The lens, faceted with a honeycombed surface, magnified the sun’s power down toward the earth.
But before the magnified light reached where Skorpius lay prone on the ground, the energy filtered through a second, smoky lens, transmuting the lighter golden energy into a denser force. Cooler, darker, purer energy than any Skorpius had ever sourced radiated throughout his body. Had healed him. Still strengthened him on an elemental level.
“Nice trick.” The astonishing female continued to dazzle with them.
Brigid glanced up as if affected by some exterior force again. “A foreign magick has been tryin’ to break through. Mayhap”—eyes narrowed, she gazed up and scanned along the surface of her protective sphere—“many magicks.”
Skorpius huffed out a conflicted sigh. Strong as he’d become again—repaired and in top fighting condition—he still could’ve used more time. Good old-fashioned rest healed even the mightiest immortals.
However, if answers lay on the other end of those magick knocks at her door? They needed to find them. Ready or not.
The dual internal tethers were silent on the matter.
Except a fine golden filament had developed and glistened along the repaired guardian line. Like scar tissue. Or some new enhancement they had no time to explore. But they would. He added the anomaly to the growing investigation list.
“Well…” Skorpius dragged himself up from the ground, but he concealed a slight sway with a flare of his wings as he gained his balance. Immortal did not mean instant. And the greater the injury, the deeper the repair needed. Whatever Brigid had done—and they would have a discussion about exactly what, when appropriate—had worked miracles, even from angelic perspective.
Skorpius drew in a slow breath, then gave a slow nod. “Perhaps we should let them in.”
Chapter 15
Skorpius held Brigid’s intense gaze as she slowly stood.
She was drenched in layers of magick.
Fire sparked in those silvery eyes.
Copper coils of hair rustled in a breeze made of pure energy.
A luminescent aura shimmered around her body, radiating outward.
And at some point during his lights-out crash, she’d shed her unique emerald dress. From the reaches of her imaginative mind, she had fashioned herself a golden diaphanous gown. Each gauzy layer floated with her every subtle movement, shielding enough for modesty, yet revealing a hint of feminine curves over the female warrior’s sleek muscular form.
The stunning effect made her appear ethereal.
Yet the substantive energy that crackled beneath her glowing skin warned otherwise.
Eyes narrowing, Brigid cocked her head a fraction and swept a critical gaze over him from head to toe. The healer deciding her patient’s fitness.
Even now, Skorpius felt her restorative energy sizzle through him, further tightening newly formed fascia, weaving together cells between skin and feather, sinew and bone.
And something else swirled in those spectacular observant eyes: a deep…knowing.
Uncomfortable for the first time in ages, Skorpius raised his brows.
Battle with an unknown foe? Bring it.
Analysis of a broken angel? Not in this immortal’s lifetime.
“Well, Doc?” Skorpius crossed his arms, feigning amusement to distract from the scrutiny. “What’s the verdict? Will I live?”
Brigid granted him a sign-off with a curt nod. “Hale and whole…enough.”
He gave a respectful nod back. Message received. Not enough for him to engage in battle, although he’d measure up to the task. Enough for her to be okay with it, after recovering from the fright of nearly losing him.
On a calm exhale, Brigid dissolved the dome of her magick shield into a shower of glittering particles.
The heat of a midday sun followed, radiating down on them.
But an instant later, a black hole swirled into existence in the sky directly above them, then stretched down in an expanding shadowy sphere.
The surrounding verdant glade stretched tall and wide—then vanished.
Until a different glade appeared, with a darker, more ancient forest bordering its perimeter.
And for the first time ever, Skorpius’s inner chronometer went haywire.
“Multiple times, multiple spaces, all at once,” he murmured, astounded at the feat.
Upon closer inspection, he discovered details of the trees surrounding them blurred thicker, as if each trunk represented the same tree at various stages, new to old-growth. Branches and leaves, as well as ground foliage, appeared as a smoky haze. Each image existed at some point, but not all together in the same time-space reality.
Therefore, whatever beings had summoned them—and it had to be multiple beings as well with the unbelievably powerful achievement—worked in concert. And possessed untold power, individually. Magnified as a collective. For each had somehow aligned, then superimposed their respective time-window to allow the wielder to remain on his or her home turf. While enabling the collective to assemble in one gathering place. A multidimensional proving ground.
Their vast energy vibrated just beyond Skorpius’s visibility, from deep within a cold darkness, the utter blackness along the fringes of this one-of-a-kind layered reality.
Until the first mighty being appeared along the perimeter of the darkened glade.
Another came forth.
Followed by a third.
Then more arrived, one after another.
Druids. Clear from their energy signatures. Powerful masters of magick.
The sorcerers—the rare few tapped into source power, wielders of its genesis energy—revealed themselves into the shadowy alternate plane, materializing from the hazy depths of the forest. Their faces were concealed under hooded cloaks, the style and fabric unique to the time and place each hailed from. Staffs of all kinds extended from firm grasps: knotted wood, carved ivory, sparkling alloy, immobilized serpent.
Ancient magick saturated the air, tasting of elements far removed from Brigid’s time. And realm.
Nice. A time-space summit.
In all, an even dozen appeared.
“How does it feel?” Skorpius asked her. Aloud. For two reasons: Brigid had been the one invited, and to gauge any of the druids’ potential reactions.
“Like darkest danger,” she murmured. “And powerful invitation.”
Interesting. “Good or bad?” Powered down, he chose not to assess. Brigid’s show, Brigid’s lead.
“Nay.” After a slight headshake, her eyes drifted shut. “’Tis neither. ’Tis the mountain. The brook. Meadow. Sky. Equal power exists in all; none register good or bad.”
“Why?” The nuanced question served as education, guidance. How did Brigid interpret the magick-saturated assembly? Valuable information lay in the druids’ energy signatures; their individual or combined frequencies could hide subtle messages, coded for her alone. If so, only she would have the ability to decipher any underlying meaning.
Did the druids wish to impart knowledge and power? Or had they gathered from the far corners of time and dimension to bear witness to her evolution? Worst case, their motives skewed darker—to steal, manipulate, consume.
Skorpius’s role? To observe and assess not only the external forces, but also the resulting interplay of his dual tethers
, both of which had begun to hum at a greater frequency with the power showdown.
And of course, to monitor Brigid.
Her root essence would determine the path she chose to negotiate through the rare challenge.
Because Skorpius knew history replayed in varying facets. Over the eons—with the natural ebb and flow of dominance and submission, through the rise and fall of civilizations that had veered one direction or the other—the moral compass of the one in power determined the course, channeled the flow of events from their influence outward.
“Weel…” Brigid’s gaze lowered, growing unfocused as she gave thought to the matter. “The mountain simply is. The traveler curses the barrier as an obstacle. The hawk cherishes it as a huntin’ ground.”
“Perspective.” Skorpius gave an understanding nod, grateful she’d grounded herself in analysis amid the strange chaos. “And if you became the mountain? Absorbed the power?”
Because that remained the two-fold crux of his mission: protect her, protect the worlds. And in his unprecedented challenge to intervene when necessary in a fluxing situation, he tugged on possibility threads, searching for an outcome where both could be achieved.
“Och!” Brigid’s startled oath rasped out, albeit under her breath, as she scanned over the group.
But Skorpius had heard.
And felt.
Immense energy had begun to build from the visitors. Subatomic particles sizzled and sparked. They ascended from the ground in vibrational waves, then spiraled off into iridescent tendrils that kicked up forest detritus. A gathering cloud cover blotted out what remained of a filtered midday sun. The temperature plummeted twenty degrees. Thirty. And falling. Currents of mist flowed in from the surrounding forest, from some unseen torrent of energy that released power.
Skorpius manifested his sword and burst his blackish blue magick through it. He stepped closer to Brigid, then angled back to back with her, in a united front against the strangers. A clear warning. They stood together. And as her guardian, he would defend her.
His magick alone would defeat any foe under normal circumstances. But a dozen powerful druids would challenge any angel’s abilities. And he had no way of knowing whether they’d witnessed his recent debilitating crash. Or her amazing powers of restoration.