by Kat Bastion
Skorpius’s expression softened. He stepped closer and took her hands in his. “You have.”
“Why is different a threat?” She slid her fingers over his palms, up his muscular forearms, and grasped a firm hold. The act of touchin’ his solidness soothed her.
“It doesn’t have to be.” He grasped her forearms in return, thumbs caressin’ the underside of her arms. “I think that’s why I’ve also been sent to protect you. Your fate is still undecided.”
“Och!” she bit out under her breath. “I doona understand. ’Twould be a great thing for a world to exist where ‘different’ doesn’t threaten. Mayhap different can be good.”
“Without doubt. That depends greatly, however, on the intention of the one with power.”
Brigid remained quiet for several moments while she focused on the problem. And as she did, vibrant thoughts unfurled like blossoms openin’ toward the warmth of the sun. “Then I wish peace for all. The different have a right to coexist, as long as they share goodwill toward others, great and small, flora and fauna. And for the powerful, to the better of the great consciousness, that they seek to share the wisdom of the ages, the freedom of the light, secrets of the mysteries.”
Slowly noddin’, satisfaction shone bright in his eyes. “But what if your idea of ‘good’ doesn’t match theirs?”
“If I’m determined to be a threat?”
Skorpius’s gaze hardened. “Yes.”
“Weel, then you’d be duty bound to kill me.”
The passion in his eyes flattened further, and he sighed. “I would.”
She gave a decisive nod. “Then for the safety of all, I would agree.”
“That you’d need to be eliminated?” His grasp tightened on her arms.
“Aye. I would command it. Mayhap, I’ll stray too far off the path. But would I know it? Does a wanderer who stumbles through the darkness know where they are? Nay. ’Tis up to one wiser to correct the…mistake.”
“Me? No. Not wiser. Just older. Responsible for more than one life.” Skorpius pulled back a wee bit, clasped her hands, then lifted them to his lips. He pressed a kiss to her knuckles on one hand, then to the other. “And you’ll never be a mistake.”
“More experienced, then. And mistake or not, I agree to forfeit my life for the greater good.”
Skorpius shot her a glare full of hot emotion. “You’re making me like you more than I already do.” His jaw clenched, then released. “It makes the burden of my task all the heavier.”
A light laugh bubblin’ up from her throat caught her by surprise. “Aye. ’Tis all part of my grand plan.”
Hands still clasped by his, Brigid stepped closer, till her breasts pressed against his bare chest. Covered by the sheer drape of sparklin’ gold magick, ’twas as if their hearts pulsed together, beatin’ as one.
Then she swallowed hard, leaned up on tiptoe, and with the touch of a butterfly’s wings, brushed her lips over his. “Skorpius. I submit my ultimate death unto your care and judgment. But before I do any of the dyin’, I’d like a bit more of the livin’.” She let out a wish-filled sigh. “I want to have a glimpse of love.”
The softest kiss captured her lips. A slow heat like warmed honey spread down her throat, out toward her fingers and toes. And tingled every scandalous spot between.
But then his mouth left hers. Cool air brushed over her lips and his hands released their hold. Greater fierceness flared in his eyes as his breaths quickened.
Voice lowerin’, his question came out gruff. “What do you know of love?”
Chapter 26
Skorpius stared down at who he saw Brigid to be, a brave warrior, a hopeful young female.
My female.
One who displayed remarkable fearlessness. Charged headlong into a challenging situation, without hesitation. Pushed until her energy waned long before her will. And woke up after near-exhaustion with a bright spirit and open heart.
She literally hugged trees, for Authority’s sake.
How could such a vibrant creature be a threat to time?
Without concern for her own safety, she’d drawn a deadly hunter away from her clan, had protected young children against enemy soldiers, faced the most powerful gathering of druids likely ever to assemble—as her duty, with honor and grace.
Brigid’s entire way of being eschewed her birthright of nobility within her clan.
Yet millions of seemingly insignificant events shot energy waves through the timeline with every decision made, by each being. No singular soul within its framework could fathom its entirety. Only play their part.
Even if Brigid’s role became martyr and his…her executioner.
But no matter how resilient she’d proven herself to be…love? Not for the faint of heart.
All of a sudden, a strange frisson of tension buzzed through him. Different than either dual tether. Almost as if a silent alarm had been tripped. But when he glanced around the glade, all seemed well.
And when he glanced back down at Brigid, she seemed unaware of any intruding energy.
Instead, bright eyes full of innocence gazed up at him, undaunted by his question of love. They softened while she contemplated her answer. “All I’ve known of love is the horrible pain it brings.”
“Pain?” From past personal experience, he knew the fact to be true. He knew, even as they dared fate, it was a fool’s errand to imagine the two of them could come out of their difficult situation unscathed.
Brigid’s brow furrowed and those luscious peachy-pink lips set into a firm line.
“After my mother died at my birth, Gawain—that bonnie wee one in Da’s map room of the past—changed from a sunny lad into a tortured soul.
“And when I’d had to touch the magick wall in that room months ago, when Isobel had vanished? Iain had thought he’d lost her forever. Och! the anguish Iain had suffered, ’twas unlike any agony I thought a man could bear. At one point, he’d no longer carried the will to live.”
“Definitely a man in love.” Because human love and suffering? Went hand in hand.
“Mayhap, we’re better off without love. Duty. Honor. Kindness. ’Tis enough.” Brigid gave a solemn nod. But then she glanced up at him with an inquiring expression, brows lifting slightly.
“I wouldn’t know.” Because he’d loved once. And had suffered for it. “Not my department.” Hadn’t been for a very long time. But the way he felt about Brigid? Perhaps, not even the once. For his emotion toward her eclipsed anything he’d known in his lifetime, immortal or human.
Another frisson of energy tripped through him. Vibrating with greater strength.
A second alarm of warning?
Yet Brigid’s penetrating gaze held his, aware of only the poignant moment between them. “You suffered decades in solitude as a mortal. Then died. ’Twas all there in your writin’. You’d chronicled the slow passin’ of your endless days. Great sorrow bled across those pages. The only joy you allowed yourself was in the gardens.”
She’d brought up his past, but he allowed it. For a brief moment.
Because her sole focus was on who he’d become because of what he’d had to endure, not on the woman in his past. And because part of his focus alerted to something unfolding in the present, a subsonic reverberation that triggered his protective instincts. Mild. But growing stronger.
“I wouldn’t call it joy.” Skorpius continued their conversation, monitoring in the background, acting as if nothing was wrong. For her sake. And to not dissuade whatever element had begun to surface, to enable him to identify it. “More like forced peace amid wild chaos. Possessing the unparalleled skills of an angel warrior—even stripped of my immortality and magick—made me a ticking time bomb. Serving out a self-imposed penance by sequestering myself away in nature? Was the only thing that kept me sane, therefore the rest of the human world safe.”
“What was it like?”
“Dying? Painful.”
“Nay. Losing a love so great.”
“Excruciati
ng.” A mortal’s truth for a long vulnerable time. And Brigid had just strayed where she had forbidden him to go.
I thought we weren’t talking about our pasts.
Her eyes narrowed. When we were kissin’, you asked about love.
Right. Because he’d needed her to be certain that she understood the stakes if she risked her heart. “Love lost is the greatest pain. Death?” What he’d rather they remained focused on, the final price of what they were up against, for them, for every being. “Not as bad as humans make it out to be. For a mortal, aging is inevitable; bodies in the material realm are fragile and Earth’s elements, harsh. But that’s all part of human experience. Life is the messy adventure between birth and death. Accepting that illness and death is our destiny makes the suffering a little more bearable.”
Brigid eased into his space again and placed gentle hands on his chest. “Which is why, if love is not for us, then I’d like to get to the tuppin’.”
“Love is not for us?” So resilient. So innocent. “Take a close look inside, Brigid. That ship has sailed already.”
Her lashes lowered, face tilting down.
With a finger touched under her chin, he lifted, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Be unafraid in this. As you are with all things. Seize the adventure, no matter the consequences.”
A tentative smile curved her lips.
“But make no mistake, there will be consequences.” As there are with all things worthwhile.
“If we tup?”
“There you go with that word again.” He snorted at how casual she acted about it. Then his brow furrowed. He had assumed she was an innocent. “What do you know of tupping?”
Shoulders squaring back, she lifted her chin off his finger. Fierceness sparked in her eyes. “I’ve watched our animals mate. And I might have caught one of our warriors and his leman once in the back of the stables.”
“Then you understand basic mechanics.” Not much else to be gleaned from that sad education.
“Aye.”
Another singular frisson of energy pulsed, at a quicker interval. Stronger. And each time the reverberation escalated by a fraction. As if the source of the phenomenon approached nearer. Yet Brigid seemed unfazed, unaware.
“There’s more to a coupling than what you’ve witnessed, goddess.” Skorpius drew her closer when another escalating energy pulse tripped through him.
She tensed in his arms at the last word, eyes narrowing. “What ‘consequences’?”
Another electrifying pulse. Powerful. Dangerous.
They’d run out of time.
Skorpius needed to wrap things up. But he’d formulated a rough plan. “We’ll be bound together.” Which was part of the plan, but he needed her to fully understand, commit with full knowledge.
“We’re already bound together, angel.”
“More than we already are.” Another pulse boomed. Like base vibrations of a giant’s footfalls. Only the giant seemed to be approaching from somewhere in the ether, a parallel realm.
“Aye. More than the slender magick thread that ties us.” She touched a finger to her sternum, then pressed her palm to his chest, over his heart.
Shocked, he blinked heavily. “You feel our connection?”
Boom. The foreign pulse vibrated through him again.
“Aye. One thread to tie your heart to mine, not in love, but bound by duty. As guardian.” In illustration of not only her awareness but her power, Brigid tugged that delicate thread taut, then sizzled a slight bit of her magick along it.
Skorpius’s mouth fell open, but he had no words. Stunned speechless for the first time in his immortal life. No tether had ever been manipulated in such a way. By any being.
Boom.
One of her fingers tapped his chest. “The second thread exists to bind us in another manner, not to guide or protect, but to monitor. As executioner.”
“You feel them both.” He’d been reduced to statements of the obvious. Because the stunners from Brigid kept on coming.
Yet something else kept coming that he could no longer merely just monitor.
Boom.
“I wonder, are you certain ’tis you who are the guardian of me? Are you certain I’m the one who’s the threat to time?”
“No.” Skorpius wasn’t certain of anything anymore.
BOOM!
The last reverberation jarred him so hard, his teeth rattled.
Far behind and high above Brigid, an immense hole tore open into Earth-realm, a black nothingness that blocked out a large portion of the bright blue sky.
Their time had come.
Skorpius crushed his lips to hers. Close your eyes. And keep them closed.
Her soft lips molded to his as she obeyed and drifted her eyes shut.
Burst your magick along our tether, as powerful and fast as you can.
When her surge came then blossomed, he exploded his magick outward, hoping to join their two forces along their connection and radiate the combined energy outward.
Because together, they needed to create something greater and more protective than a multilayered dimension.
Chapter 27
At Skorpius’s direction, Brigid kept her eyes closed. Yet alarm spiked through her at the urgent undertone of his command.
But too many other sensations bombarded her at once for her to care about losin’ her sight. The ends of their hair whipped across her face and shoulders, akin to when they’d flown through the air. Radiant heat warmed her backside to such a degree, she dinna dare pull away from his protective embrace. Even the verra ground beneath her feet rolled and swayed.
All because his lips were upon hers, bold, yet soft. Tantalizin’. Invigoratin’.
’Tis always like this? Her lips parted, and the tip of her tongue tentatively touched his.
A growl came from his throat. Like what?
Sweet, like honey. And hot, spicy. Breathtakin’. Earth movin’.
Only if we make it so. Skorpius broke their incredible kiss and rested his forehead upon hers. “Open your eyes, my love. See what we’ve done.”
My love. The endearment echoed through her mind.
When she opened her eyes, understandin’ flooded in. The wind, heat, and earth-movin’ part, at least. For above, below, and all around, a magickal sphere had formed, smaller than the ones she’d erected by half and half again. And thicker, by twice and twice again. In its structure, her golden magick sparked alive within Skorpius’s bluish black energy. They’d been wrapped in a cave formed of their woven energy.
But not only the two of them.
The great gnarled yew tree stretched its branches over them. And the ground was littered with its shed needles.
“But…” A new sensation overcame her as she turned within his arms. She focused intently at the pulsin’ curtain of their woven energy. And where she concentrated, what remained on the outside revealed itself.
Brigid gasped. She and Skorpius remained in the sphere. As did the yew and the portion of ground with its shed needles. But the sphere no longer remained in the glade.
“But…” Words still failed her as she watched. Trees outside of their protective magick bubble flashed in and out. One moment she saw a line of wee saplings, the next a line of wide trunks stood in their stead with their crowns stretchin’ toward the sky a hundred feet up.
Day broke.
Night fell.
Full moon.
No moon.
A whiteout of snow.
An explosion of wildflowers.
“I doona…” At the onslaught of images, she gripped Skorpius’s hands tight, at once unsettled and amazed.
A tapestry of colorful leaves fluttered by, a swirling column that surrounded their entire sphere, then vanished. Boulders were strewn across a barren frosted glade with no trees at all. Then no trees, no boulders, nor anythin’ but scorched earth. Till wee saplings appeared once again.
Each image existed only for the flash of a lightnin’ strike.
The
one constant in all? The Highland mountains’ silhouette on a distant horizon.
The warmth of Skorpius’s face brushed alongside her cheek as he bent forward, watchin’ with her. “We made this. Why?”
Close your eyes, goddess. Tell me what we’ve done.
Delighted with the game, and enchanted by his warm strength and spicy scent wrapped around her, she closed her eyes once again. But this time, she centered herself, dippin’ a toe into the depths of her calm loch. Then her awareness rippled out, beyond her inner loch, past the two of them, out into their sphere of magick, into the flashin’ realm beyond the energized walls.
“Och!” She pinched her eyes shut to hold on to the awareness. “We’re travelin’ through time. And so is my favorite part of the glade! You, me, the tree, a patch of heather.” She stamped her toe onto solid ground.
But why? he prodded.
Her brow furrowed as she concentrated, searchin’ for another element she’d clearly missed.
Around.
Up.
Behind. There. A faint trail of foreign energy pursued far behind them, through a blur of scenery changes. It disappeared for many flashes, then reappeared, as if the persistent hound had lost their scent, then retraced its steps. And its signature grew fainter with every flash.
“Our…hunter.” She dinna speak the name, refused to give it power by doin’ so.
“You failed to sense the danger coming. Before I time-jumped us.”
That she hadn’t sensed the danger bothered her. Accustomed to her newfound magick, it had become a second guardian of a sort, an inner herald. She turned in his arms and stared up at him. “Mayhap, I’d become too focused on you.”
“Possibly. More likely, because you’d pulled the sphere down and drew it within you.”
She’d thought pullin’ the magick shield within her had been an improvement. That she’d grown stronger. But clearly her more-experienced angel still served her well. “Are we shielded for a time?”
“We’ll have to generate a massive amount of power to keep our private ball rolling through the timeline’s energy stream faster than anyone can detect.” Wicked amusement glinted in his eyes.