by Kat Bastion
A charge arced from the metal to my fingertip before I made contact, but the realization came slower than my momentum. The cool metal electrified me, shooting an erotic pulse into me that cascaded into an uncontrollable orgasm. I gasped, unable to remove my hand. I heard my empty coffee mug clunk onto the hard earthen floor.
Then everything went dark.
* * *
My lungs sucked in oxygen from air suddenly colder by a good twenty degrees. Prone on the floor, the beats of my heart raced the thoughts flying through my mind over what I’d done. A sudden adrenaline rush heightened into an acute awareness of my surroundings.
Vast darkness spanned above where the thatched ceiling had just been. A frosty, damp surface beneath me permeated my clothes, chilling the back side of my body. I slowly pushed myself off the floor into a seated position as uneasiness burned in the pit of my stomach.
Jagged gray stone formed the walls of a cave, shadows moving along its rough surface as if cast from a flame. I turned, searching out the source. Shock stuttered my heart, seizing my lungs.
Three naked men—all wearing bronze torques around their neck, their bodies armored in elaborate blue-inked tattoos—stared at me with wide eyes and open mouths. Picts? I scrambled up off the floor. One looked to be a prisoner; the other two held his arms. He looked at the box.
The box.
That damn box hadn’t finished with me yet. I should’ve knocked on the wood of the table that had held it before daring its power with my mere mortal ego.
A growl through the captive’s peeled-back lips pierced the cave, bouncing off the walls. The men released their hold of him. When they retreated, I realized they hadn’t been holding him hostage; they had supported him, preventing his fall to the ground. He’d been touching the artifact on his end—holding taut the common thread between our times.
The angered man advanced, and I backed up step-for-step. Without warning, he lunged. I spun on my heel, dashing out of the opening in the rock wall. A woman’s intuition had nothing on primal instinct—we tended to run in the opposite direction of hostile, naked men.
The night embraced me in a dark, bitter hold, an engraved invitation to the forest’s frightful festivities. Cloud cover prevented any possible moonlight from lighting a path. The absolute madness of running from one threatening situation with unknown men into another that had carnivores of the four-legged variety made me pause to think.
I turned around, reassessing what awaited me if I stayed. The trio rushed out of the cave looking enraged. As my limited options flashed through my brain, a flicker of movement caught my eye. They’d left a torch outside, lying on a rock. I’d have to close our distance by half to reach it. A deep breath prepared me for a kamikaze attempt to grab my only chance of escape.
Their bodies remained tense, springs poised to release. I advanced in slow steps, never looking away from them, but keeping the shining prize in peripheral sight. Not trusting my speed and agility against their level of fitness, I sprang the weapon of surprise at the last possible second. My heart hammered like a rabbit’s as I snatched the torch, pivoted, and bolted off, my mind processing their nonexistent reactions as I fled. The one in command had lifted his chin and crossed his arms, but not one attempted to stop me. They let me run off into the wilderness.
A clearer head would have wondered why.
The reason they didn’t give immediate chase dawned on me sometime after the second exhausting hour of forcing my way through unwelcoming brush; the uncharted journey led me nowhere quicker than it got me anywhere useful. When the growth thinned enough to ease my travel, sure footing was made almost impossible by slick, rocky surfaces.
Another helpful factoid revealed itself around that same time: torches only burn for so long. An errant burst of wind snuffed out the dying torch, casting me into total blackness. I stopped, uncertain of where to go, clueless about what place in time or space I’d been thrown. A wolf howled in the distance, chilling my spine to an icicle from the top down, but the cold remained deep in my bones as the constant wind bit through my so-wrong-for-a-hiking-adventure dress.
One tentative step forward on solid ground led to another. Slow waving of my invisible arms guided a blind expedition toward safety from the slick, rocky outcropping I’d been traversing. After several shuffled steps, my foot slipped across a slanted surface and my boot caught in a crevice. The forward momentum twisted my ankle, and I fell straight down on the unforgiving rock.
Hands, a knee, and a hip took the brunt of the hard impact, pain lighting me up. I bit my lip to prevent an outcry while the outside of my ankle throbbed with fire. Seconds passed, and a choking lump in my throat threatened to break free; but I rejected my helplessness, refusing to give the sob its needed release. At least I couldn’t hurt myself any further, sitting here alone in the dark.
As if it had been decided I’d been tortured enough, the cloud cover thinned, letting the moon’s glow shine through. Shapes emerged from the dark abyss of nothingness, giving once-cloaked surroundings shaded dimensions of black and gray.
I shifted my weight slowly to the other hip, examining my injuries. The heels of both hands were scraped and bruised, my knee flexed well enough to operate, and my bruised hip would survive. The ankle concerned me, though. Burning pain within my boot told me it had begun to swell. Tight lipped, I whimpered, giving it a full rotation. Satisfied I’d suffered only a sprain, I methodically used every ounce of balance I had and stood with the least amount of weight possible on the damaged joint.
Determined to exploit the small window of light the night sky had granted, I limped over to a tree, found a manageable dead branch, and swept forest litter into a pile under the canopy. The father–daughter camping trips we’d taken on my dad’s summers off taught their far-reaching lessons. Thankfully, bugs and small creatures didn’t freak me out. Well, not much, anyway, since more important issues . . . like survival . . . forced trivial matters away.
I settled onto my makeshift bed, elevating my foot, wide-awake since I’d only been up a few hours of my day. I wondered what Iain would think when he realized I’d gone missing. Actually, he wouldn’t think anything for days, since he’d left the castle to find his guardsmen.
No one would even discover my absence there until well after morning had come here, wherever . . . and whenever . . . here happened to be.
CHAPTER Thirteen
Highlands of Scotland—Ancient Reign of the Picts
I tossed a white flag at restless sleep, blinking at gloaming’s grayish sky, accepting what I’d been fighting: the Universe had undisclosed plans for me far beyond my humble archaeology-grad-student existence. Tired, hurt, and undeniably alone, I sat up on the leaf-litter bed. Earth spun into another day, forcing her inhabitants to do the same. Dawn marked the start of a new chapter in a story I’d thought had already ended in my happily ever after.
What a fool I’d been.
How naïve the human race had become, myself included. Like most of society, I’d thought I had a solid grasp of the real world. But in the pulse of a heartbeat, the rogue wave of a new paradigm crashed upon the rocky outcropping of my life, scattering accepted principles into a million effervescent bubbles, each one bursting with every thought I’d known to be true.
Twice in as many weeks I’d struggled with assumptions about what defined my reality, but thought-driven insomnia had crystallized the details of my situation. At the exact moment I’d believed my mind warp had settled in Iain’s time, supernatural forces had hurled me to a more ancient Scotland, where blue-painted Picts ruled the land.
Although I hadn’t any clue of the exact era, my brief exposure to the natives suggested the medieval Highland home I’d come to love, and the man I’d fallen in love with, existed more than a millennium beyond where I sat. I took a deep breath. Tenacity to survive long enough to find a way home became the only thing saving me from funneling down into a whirlpool of self-pity.
My immediate goal remained protection from men l
ooking to kill me. I couldn’t pinpoint how I knew they hunted me with any rational explanation. I just knew. Like a divining rod pointed to a strong source of water, I knew escape remained ahead . . . danger stalked behind.
Once I no longer felt threatened, I would figure out a way back to the cave—back to the box. That I’d taken flight into the midnight darkness hadn’t escaped notice of my clearer-thinking head. Directionally challenged from birth, I prayed a new skill had developed overnight.
I carefully stood, shifting my weight onto my good leg as every other muscle and tendon screamed in simultaneous protest about the strenuous pace I’d forced on them. Tears sprang to my eyes, the physical pain twanging my mental anguish, but I took several more deep breaths, willing the hair-trigger anxiety to go away. My slowing heartbeats joined the cacophony of birdsongs, squirrel chitters, and cricket chirps—happy, normal sounds indicating no alarm had been tripped. Confident that I remained alone in my section of untamed wilderness, I hobbled across the damp leaf-litter carpet, inhaling sweet botanical scents as I sought the most camouflaged path, leading . . . somewhere indeterminate.
Thank God for small things, like wearing my twenty-first-century boots. I wiggled my toes, confirming the swelling hadn’t constricted the blood flow, but I still gritted my teeth in pain with every step as I shuffled along. To make matters worse, my thirteenth-century dress snagged at every thorny, thick-brushed opportunity. I steadfastly gathered every bit of torn fabric and fibers which would’ve been gift-wrapped breadcrumbs for my pursuers. A desire not to fall again also topped my new list of “Wisdom Gained in the Light of Day.”
Where the hell am I going? I sighed.
Sun’s first light illuminated the dark undercanopy with narrow golden beams. Logical thoughts crept in, highlighting the gravity of my situation.
He is predator—I am prey.
He is native—I am foreigner.
The traitorous distractions chiseled at my resolve, yet my realist side couldn’t discount the tremendous odds against me. The man chasing after me like the wind blowing through the trees knew the challenging terrain. I did not.
“Great. He probably knows where I’m headed better than I do.” Talking out loud might not have been the wisest action but, absent friendly voices, the sound of my own soothed me.
In the loneliness of my surroundings, my heart ached. I needed to get back to Iain. How would he find me? How would he know I wasn’t merely missing in his time, but that I’d been lost somewhere in time? The box clearly continued to be an open gateway, and in my panic-induced marathon, I’d created a vast amount of distance between me and my only route back home.
My pace eased, along with every thought bouncing around in my head. With my endless mental chatter, I’d failed to listen to any telltale animal sounds and hadn’t noticed the terrain change.
A glade opened ahead. Low bands of sunlight streamed between sparse tree trunks to the east, lending an ethereal quality to the spacious clearing. The visual serenity stopped me cold, and I drank in the beauty of nature’s living masterpiece. Large insects flew through the rays of light, flashing iridescence with their wingbeats. A brook babbled on the far side of the open space, its banks teeming with wildlife drinking their fill. Heads popped up in succession as they took note of my presence.
Captivated by the scene, I held still, my eyes wide but my mouth firmly shut against flying insects. The animals moved toward me as if entranced. A deer, two hares, a beaver, and several species of birds walked, waddled, and flitted closer and closer to my dumbfounded self.
Had I been dropped right onto the screen of a Disney animation? Unless I’d missed the memo, forest creatures didn’t hang out together, greeting newcomers. Since I hadn’t eaten anything in nearly a day, I figured it had to be an inhaled hallucinogen, like pollen molecules floating in the air. An odd, heavy calm washed over me as the animals came within touching distance and stopped.
Suddenly, the hairs shot up along the back of my neck and chills raced down my spine. I turned around. Ten paces away stood my relentless purser. An air of confidence radiated from my adversary. Leanly muscled, he still wore only a brass torque around his neck. The unclothed man appeared to be plenty warm in spite of the cold bite in the air.
As I blinked heavily, staring at him, delayed comprehension trickled into my bewitched brain: I hadn’t drawn the fauna from their water source—he had.
He tipped his head to the side, approaching in measured steps.
My heart thundered in my chest. Either my foe was an expert tracker or he’d been a constant, unseen companion all along. The latter would’ve explained my intuitive need for continued flight.
The overpowering calm I’d felt—and still felt as it fought for supremacy over my panic—emanated from him. He brandished some kind of magick. I’d read about the Picts communing with animals to aid in capturing them. They also thanked them for the gift of their life and death prior to eating them. Great. I’d become subdued prey.
He opened his arms wide, palms up; apparently, he knew the universal gesture for “I mean you no harm.” Yeah. Right. Naked man. Chasing woman. Aggressive history. Our roles dictated my lack of trust in anything he had to offer, peaceful . . . or not.
With every stubborn cell I possessed, I fought the foreign pacifying influence, embracing a healthy dose of fear. I whirled around and bolted toward an opening on the far side of the clearing. Sharp pain lanced through my ankle with every jolting step. By the time I’d reached the thicket beyond the glade, my lame gait slowed more from the density of the scrub than any handicap. Thorns and tree branches scratched my arms, but I pushed through the pain, forcing my way through the vegetation.
The terrain dropped off quickly as soft forest floor turned into irregular rocky surfaces. The change in topography thinned the plant life, allowing me to pick up my pace. As I jogged along, broken rocks crunched under my footfalls. An incline littered with loose rock sent me surfing down several yards, arms flailing to keep my balance, and I belatedly realized that my haste had blinded me to a serious geographical warning.
My entire body shot out over open air. Adrenaline fired through my veins as I spun around, scrambling for a handhold on the edge of a ravine. I slipped down a sheer face of rock and earth, grasping desperately with my hands to find a brake to stop my descent. Finally, my fingers clamped around a thick protruding tree root.
I clung to my lifeline, gasping for air. Every small detail sharpened as the fight-or-flight drug rocketed through my body. With my weight supported by only my arms, I lifted my good foot and toed it into a fissure in the rock. A ledge would’ve been better support, but I was terrified to look around for one. At least the foothold relieved some of the immense pressure on my shoulder sockets.
Perfect. My idiotic self had literally run into a no-way-out situation. Correction—no way out . . . but up. Even as my white-knuckled fingers held a death grip on the roots of my very own tree of life, I didn’t need to look up to know the man who’d chased me had arrived. I felt him.
I sighed. If my pursuer would be the cause of my demise, I’d be a party to the decision. I’d fearlessly look fate in the eye and accept its inevitable course.
A glance up confirmed his presence. He’d stretched flat on the ground, his chiseled face hovering directly over mine. Our gazes locked, and . . . the strangest thing happened. Dark eyes pierced mine with a look of kindness. And . . . hope? He raised his brows, lowering a large hand down, his entire demeanor conveying safety.
Instinct reigned supreme in my gut, not trusting for a microsecond the gentle façade he portrayed. Unfortunately, I had limited options and didn’t want to precariously dangle a moment longer. Frying pan or fire? I made the obvious choice. I released a hand, thrusting it directly into the flames.
The corners of his mouth curved up imperceptibly. With a solid grip, he hoisted me out of harm’s way, pulling me firmly into his arms . . . and his world.
* * *
Sunlight streamed onto
my face and chest, warming the slight chill away. I limped alongside my tight-lipped escort, wondering about him, his people, and the age into which I’d been thrown. Valuable information could be gained from any of the Pict time periods, their lives practically stricken from known record by an absence of information. My inner archaeologist refused to settle down even in light of everything I’d lost. Priority one, however, remained the same; communicate with him to find a way back to the box.
Iain had withheld information about the box, the wall, and perhaps other information about his castle and the people within. With all my respect for Iain’s right to privacy out the window, I planned on a thorough interrogation the moment I got home.
Hellooo, Iain! Details on the rules of the game seem kinda important right about now.
I snorted, earning an inquisitive look from my companion. I ignored his curiosity, walking on as he pushed aside brush that impeded the path to wherever he was leading me.
The irony of my situation returned during the silence. Tucked within the relative safety of Clan Brodie, I’d mistakenly thought I had all the time in the world to discover the mysteries Iain had kept locked inside. All the time in the world? Somebody call Merriam-Webster—a serious definition revision is in order. When expanded to include all of time, with no say in when and where I got to spend my time, it was ridiculous to assume I had plenty of time for anything.
I glanced at my host who’d been staring at me with interest. He made no attempt to look away. My dark incarcerator didn’t carry the demeanor of a captor, but I felt every bit a prisoner to him and the greater forces of the Universe at play.
Since he’d made no attempts to breach the silence, I began. “My name is Isobel, by the way.”
My ankle twinged painfully, an acute reminder to face forward as we picked our way through dense forest on uneven ground. I glanced his way again. He’d furrowed his brows at my words, but gave no reply. The whole clichéd jungle-meeting scenario came to mind. Only my crazy life would require a “you Tarzan, me Jane” icebreaker.