by Kat Bastion
But then, the unthinkable happened.
One face stood apart from the rest.
Skorpius recognized him at the same instant Brigid did.
A soft gasp of shock sounded beside him.
Brigid took two steps forward, then paused on the third.
“Finn?” She frowned, then blinked in disbelief.
Skorpius held fast.
The timeline thread snapped taut, then vibrated.
Whatever transpired between those two had dire consequences. Which required him to stand down. One directive he refused to break—by Brigid’s agreement as much as his own—was to not interfere in how events played out, not to imperil the timeline. The realm they stood within, and countless others, depended on what Brigid did with her enormous power when challenged. Good or evil. For others, or for herself.
And the challenge before her? Colossal.
To Skorpius’s surprise, when the male took a step forward and pivoted fully to face her, the symbol on his shield revealed from where he now hailed.
After another heavy blink, Brigid’s jaw fell open as she stared at the warrior she knew who’d gone missing all those months ago—the Brodie Clan guardsman she’d been betrothed to.
Yet as the blond Viking held her stunned gaze, he winced. Then his expression twisted into one of regret…brewed with a heavy dose of guilt.
Ah, so you’d known, Skorpius thought to himself. You’d kept a secret from her too.
That Fingall hadn’t returned for a reason. That Clan Brodie no longer held his allegiance. That he’d sworn fealty to a higher power. And no longer had the luxury, nor the inclination, to offer any woman his heart and body.
“Och, Brigid.” Fingall took two tentative steps forward, halving the ten-foot distance between them, then stopped. “’Twas the only way.”
A defeated sigh gusted from the male’s lungs.
Then Fingall stared over her shoulder.
His unfocused gaze froze, sharpening as it locked on to Skorpius.
Yeah. Here we go.
The Viking rapidly blinked. Anger shot his bushy brows downward. Tension clenched a pronounced jaw. A quick jerk liberated the warrior’s sword from its leather scabbard, whispering its ring into the cool misty air.
The sword’s tip aimed at Skorpius’s breastbone as Fingall strode forward. “You!”
Brigid furrowed her brow at Fingall, then swung her attention toward Skorpius.
Then both men centered their full attention on one another.
“Thought we might meet again.” Not really. But it sounded like a good conversation starter.
“I dinna.” Fingall circled around him, edging ever closer, while he pointed the tip of his blade at various vital parts, outlining the order in which he planned to carve him to pieces.
“’Twas the only way,” Skorpius repeated the male’s words back to him. That fact seemed relevant to point out.
A hot burst of magick shocked Skorpius’s senses.
Fingall gasped, stunned as well. The Viking stumbled back a couple of steps, sword swinging wide before it flew right out of his hand.
Brigid flashed between the two males.
But she narrowed her eyes at Skorpius, accusation in her glare.
Shimmering gold radiated from her skin. Dark pink flushed her cheeks. The ends of her golden gown fluttered, whipping in an unseen wind. Tiny flashes sparked into the air around her, energy that fired out from her core.
Oh, you are furious.
But Skorpius had been waiting for the inevitable to happen. That shoe he’d tossed into the air all those months ago had to drop with a ground-shaking thud at some point. The timeline had a twisted sense of humor. And Skorpius had long been its favorite toy.
“What was the only way?” Brigid stared at him for an expectant moment, before shifting her gaze to Fingall.
The Viking’s attention strayed back to Brigid. A brief look of longing flashed into his eyes, seconds before the warrior schooled his expression. “My devotion to the order. Protectin’ a great treasure, one more precious than any of my earthly wants.”
Ah. Well played, Highlander.
Because who’s heart doesn’t melt when the hero’s sacrifice was for the greater good?
Fingall glanced toward his brother Templars. “We’ve all forsaken family ties, given away worldly possessions.”
Brigid stepped closer to him, shoulders rigid, jaw clenched tight, fury banked in those glacial gray eyes. “And you dinna think to send word?”
“Aye. I thought of it. ’Twas no time. And we dinna have a spare man to send.”
“Not yourself?”
“Nay. I…we…needed…” He ran a hand over his short head of hair, frustration twisting his expression. “Och, Brigid. I had things I needed to learn. Of great import.”
“Things.”
“The mysteries.”
“Secrets.”
“Aye.” Fingall opened his mouth. Shut it. Then opened it again. Snapped it shut once more. Like he’d become a fish out of water, gasping for oxygen. Myriad emotions flashed across the male’s face. It was obvious the Viking wanted to tell her more, but couldn’t.
Brigid shot a hot glare Skorpius’s way. “And you?”
Skorpius opened his mouth. But wisely shut it as well. What could he say: I tried to tell you? Not in a thousand millennia.
Brigid didn’t wait for his reply anyway.
Keeping Skorpius targeted in her sights, she strolled toward Fingall, stepped behind him, then around him. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the Viking, she leaned his way and crossed her arms. She narrowed her eyes at Skorpius. “How do you know the dark angel?”
“He’d be the one who attacked me.”
“Reassigned you,” Skorpius corrected.
“While I slept.”
Ah, but you’d awakened halfway through. “While you were docile.” Because, although Skorpius had dematerialized the warrior from one location and rematerialized him into another, in an instant, the shift had awakened the Viking.
“You froze me,” he gruffed.
“I immobilized you.” No subzero temps required.
He’d have knocked the bastard out with his fist, but that would’ve left a mark. And magick-induced sleep had dangers for the victim. Fingall’s risk had multiplied tenfold when adrenaline had spiked enough in his system to enable him to wrap his enormous hands around Skorpius’s neck in a chokehold on instinct. Immobilization had been the only way. “Safety first.” His own and the Viking’s.
Fingall’s nostrils flared, a bull seeing red. But the male said nothing further.
Brigid left Fingall’s side and took measured steps toward Skorpius in the silence.
“You were the cause of Finn vanishin’?”
Skorpius almost argued the point that Fingall hadn’t vanished. That the Viking had been exactly where he’d been destined to be all along. But that wasn’t what Brigid was zeroing in on. Her pointed unasked question? Was the heartache she’d suffered for months Skorpius’s fault? Possibly.
“Yes.” Up front and center. Cold hard truth.
“And you dinna think to tell me?”
“Not my secret to tell.” Not as her guardian, not unless she specifically asked. But she hadn’t pulled on that personal thread, had actually tied it off, refused to listen to his confession. And definitely not as the protector of time. Back then, he’d done it to preserve the timeline; Isobel’s coming as Traveler had demanded the deceptive action.
Brigid inhaled deeply. An aura of magick began to coalesce around her, the palest shimmer in the air taking flight. Probing magick scanned through him as her astute gaze searched his. “Someone else has gone missin’.”
Skorpius didn’t bother playing dumb. But didn’t answer either.
Brigid’s eyes narrowed. She’d caught scent of the trail, a way to discover what she sought. “Where are the wee ones?”
“Not my secret to tell.” Bold truth.
“But you know where.”
“Yes. I do.” Tucked far of danger’s reach, like she’d asked. But banished to another realm, out of her reach. Not for just the children’s welfare, but because the timeline had decided those children could hold a key to its preservation. As a backup plan. In case Skorpius failed.
The magick Brigid had been gathering flared hotter, vibrated faster. “Safe.”
“Of course.”
“So, you…lied.”
On multiple occasions. “Yes.”
“About Fingall.”
No point in restating the obvious. Skorpius cast her a don’t-make-me-say-it look.
“About the children.”
His gaze held hers, unwavering. Truth there for her to see.
Don’t ask, he begged. I won’t be able to divulge more.
“What else have you lied about?”
And you had to ask.
Skorpius sighed. “I’m only able to reveal what’s necessary for the mission.”
“For the mission.”
“Yes.”
“What about for me?”
For the warrior. For the goddess. For the female. His female.
Skorpius took a tentative step closer, lowering his voice. “Brigid.” A subtle plea tinged his tone.
She stood too close to the Viking. The male no longer posed a threat to Brigid; he’d offered his soul to a greater cause. But there were things that remained private.
Between two beings who’d both once been human. Who’d since become other. Who still both retained shreds of their humanity. And had shared those last tender shreds with one another, heart to heart.
Sensing Skorpius’s apprehension and suspecting why, Brigid glanced up at Fingall.
Then she powered down her aggression. The magick storm that had begun to churn faded away into swirling wisps, then vanished into nothingness.
After a last stern look at Fingall, she turned her back on the male she’d been betrothed to.
But her unforgiving gaze tracked Skorpius as she stalked off to the side, toward the edge of the forest.
When Brigid reached the edge of the shadows cast by the tree canopy, she shifted her attention away, then stared out across a sunny field of heather.
Skorpius followed at a respectful pace, giving her ample time to process the revelations. Most of which were facts he’d known for a while.
Silent seconds ticked by.
Torn between keeping his distance and comforting her, Skorpius split the difference and stepped close behind her. But he didn’t presume to touch. Kept his wings and hands to himself.
“You knew all along,” she muttered. The accusation was devoid of emotion. Tone flat and low, she’d only confirmed the fact.
Her gaze remained stuck toward the horizon to the south.
Their secret glade lay somewhere out there.
A place where they’d let down their guard. Where they’d forged delicate bonds of trust. Where they’d connected, had found commonality with another in the vastness of the universe, celebrated who they were together. And accepted their differences. Resigned to their limitations. And their fate.
“Most of it.” The time for full confession weighed heavy between them. But as the timeline had mandated his silence before, at her behest now, his duty required the truth. What portions he was permitted to disclose.
“And the rest.” Still with the flat words.
“Didn’t know he’d become Templar.” But it made sense, in a way.
“I feel the fool.” Her voice broke on the last word.
“Don’t.” He stepped beside her and glanced over, brow furrowing when he caught her pinching her eyes shut, expression pained. “I never thought you one. And I do not think you one now.”
Fuck distance. Skorpius placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
Brigid tensed, but didn’t pull away.
His chest ached. “What we had, what we share now between us, it’s all still real.”
“’Tis based on lies.”
“Inconsequential. Only trivial things along our crossed paths, required tasks of my mission. Lefts or rights at unimportant forks in the road. Not what drew us closer on our path.”
“But”—she glanced toward him, eyes glistening with unshed tears—“how do we know what matters?”
“Nothing matters in the end. It’s the middle that counts the most.” Their stolen moments.
You matter. What he felt, but couldn’t express. Because it would be another lie. Of course Brigid did matter. More than anything he’d ever stood for, believed, or loved, she mattered. But not more than all things. No one had that right. Not her. Not him. Not them, together or otherwise.
“Aye.” Brigid gave a slow nod. “Life’s journey.” Her voice had quieted.
Heavy tension between them thickened the air. Made every breath they took a struggle.
Chest aching, lungs burning, he let out a slow exhale. “An amazing journey. Down to the smallest moment,” he murmured. Every one of them. Amazing. Worth it.
Skorpius felt the sudden warmth of her golden energy. Sensed her envisioning the same.
But everything remained strictly on the emotional plane.
Uplifting energy vibrated all around, but centered strongest from within her.
And she radiated it outward, but focused. A tidal wave of love and adoration. A million lifetimes worth of happiness and pure joy filled him, heart and soul.
But then slowly, as all euphoric things do, the ecstatic feeling faded.
Until no connectedness remained.
To his bone-shaking shock, the dual mission tethers disintegrated. Both of them.
Their hearts’ bond? A dead filament.
Whatever Brigid had done, whatever challenges they’d faced up until that point, their sudden devastating heartache ended the threat. To her person and to time itself.
Then the obvious conclusion hit him.
It wouldn’t have been enough for them to have never met.
They’d had to love. To grow and brighten together. Then accept it as enough, and let it go.
They’d never had a choice.
And Skorpius no longer needed to kill her.
Brigid had already killed them.
Chapter 38
Brigid dinna know what to do. But she could no longer remain on her path. Not with Skorpius.
Her heart ached. The pain of multiple betrayals had gutted her.
“I’m done.” No more hunt. No more magick. No more goddess.
Skorpius stared at her, his blue-green eyes dulled. “You believe it’s that simple?”
“’Tis whatever I wish it to be.”
Pride sparked in his gaze. Which told her he knew she spoke the truth.
Then his eyes narrowed a wee bit, and his head tilted. “What of Robert?”
The missing lad. “Do you know for certain he’s alive?”
Skorpius exhaled a slow breath, gaze locked to hers. “No.”
Her callin’, the pull to move forward on her quest, had faded. Nothin’ vibrated as “urgent” any longer. All felt hollow, empty…dead.
The magick within had receded down into the depths of her loch, a mere ember.
And if she dinna use it, no threat would remain to Clan Brodie, nor to the timeline or realms. She understood that now. Her magick had been the cause of everythin’.
“What of us? That was real, Brigid. We are true, and always have been.”
She dinna need magick to feel his mirrored pain. The agony vibrated between them, hot and heavy.
“I need to think. I need time.”
He coughed out a dry laugh. “Don’t we all.”
“Without you.”
Torment tightened his features. “Well, Brigid. You finally get your wish.”
Skorpius vanished.
Her breath caught. The overwhelmin’ loss of his powerful presence was immediate.
Brigid pinched her eyes shut, a painful cramp in her throat.
She burned to cry out, to find some release from
the anguish.
But the Templars were gathered behind her, out of sight, but there. Because of her.
No matter. Not any longer. They’d have no use for her if she denied her nature.
And so, without explanation, with the use of her powers one last time, Brigid vanished.
The world’s better off without a heartbroken goddess in it.
As Brigid dissolved into the ether, she emanated a frigid blast onto the ember of magick.
And the golden flame within…extinguished.
Chapter 39
Skorpius deadened his emotions—a skill he’d mastered over the last eight hundred years—and flashed through the timeline with a singular thought in mind.
Which made him reappear in the distant past.
Brigid may have broken the tethers, ending his official dual mission.
But Skorpius didn’t need obligation to bind him into guardianship. Not of time. Nor of her.
Danger still lurked out there.
And he intended to tie up loose ends.
When he materialized into Earth-realm’s past, his mortal past, he skewed his arrival a few hours off and a dozen yards away, to avoid detection. Of his former self. And anyone else.
Lacy ferns masked a cave entrance. Spongy moss covered the ground in all directions.
Tendrils of cool mist writhed along lazy air currents, undisturbed by foreign movement.
Skorpius strode forward, dematerialized through thick foliage, then stepped into the inky darkness of the cave beyond. Intuition pricked at his senses, along with awareness of a unique and powerful presence, one that rang familiar—in two time periods.
A drip echoed into the ancient chamber. Another soon followed.
Cave odors filled his nostrils: musty, moldy, earthy.
Closing his eyes, he allowed his preternatural senses to take in the vastness of the underground symphony of life. Nocturnal creatures slithered and slid. Fungi grew and stretched. Microscopic organisms multiplied on moist clay and in pools of water. Crystalline stalactites hung from the ceiling, and condensation slowly spiraled down from their thick bases to their tips. The mineralized droplets of water then plunged, one by one, into dark pools below.