Forged in Dreams and Magick hl-1

by Kat Bastion

  “Velloc, did you know the box could do that?”

  “No,” he replied. His tone seemed thoughtful.

  “What do you know about it? Why were you there with it?” I asked.

  His impassive expression echoed déjà vu through my mind; Iain might as well have been standing there. I knew both men well enough to recognize their hesitation and hard countenance meant they were withholding information. And both men shared something else in common: each had possessed the box prior to my arrival.

  What is with these men and their damn time-bending artifact? Didn’t they understand their box and its powers messed with my life? They weren’t the ones bounced from eon to eon with careless disregard for their emotional welfare.

  I snapped, advancing. Above those stubbornly crossed arms, I jabbed my pointed finger hard into his sternum. He stumbled back, his mouth dropping open.

  “You know, Velloc? I’ve had it. I’m tired of you and Iain thinking you don’t owe me an explanation. You do. I’m owed every bit of information you have. Quit holding your damn secrets so tightly to your chest. It involves me. I’m already eyeballs-deep into whatever it is you’re hiding from me. You love me? If you truly love me, prove it. Set this bird free. Trust in what we have . . . that she’ll fly back home.”

  He set his jaw. My back talk had clearly overstepped a boundary in his world.

  Whatever. I didn’t belong in his culture anymore than he belonged in mine, but we made allowances. He either accepted me now—with every asset and defect—or he never would. Either way, I refused to budge on my position. My very presence in his world proved a warp existed in the fabric of time, and I needed to get to the bottom of the reason. Their stupid secrets had unraveled the last thread of control I had . . . and I had no desire to repair it.

  “Well?” Fury laced my tone, and his expression changed. Respect and pride filled his eyes. Maybe his society valued a woman standing up for her rights. What did I know?

  He sighed. “Yes. We’ll go at first light.”

  I threw my body into his chest, wrapping my arms around his waist. After the briefest pause, he embraced me back. I hadn’t gotten the valuable information I wanted, but I’d started us down a path of compromise.

  “Thank you, Velloc.” I pressed my cheek against his shoulder, and he kissed the top of my head.

  I didn’t know what tomorrow held for me, but then, neither did anyone else. The agenda of a reunion with an object that had caused me both misery and joy gave me a brief flash of anxiety. I tightened my grip around the man I loved, grateful for his support, his resilience bolstering my courage to continue on my quest of discovery.

  Strong arms squeezed me back. “To prepare for the journey, we’ll need to go to bed early.” His playful tone hinted that he had no intentions of sleeping early.

  “Animal.” I laughed, nipping at his neck.

  He growled, his gaze roving over my body as if trying to decide what he wanted to devour and in what order.

  “Catch me first,” I shouted, sprinting off.

  Deep laughter boomed behind me as he raced to catch up, closing the distance, chasing me home.

  CHAPTER Eighteen

  I pressed my upper body into the warmth of Malibu’s back. Cool winds rippled through my unbound hair. A thick, morning mist veiled the dark gray landscape. Our horses slowed as we picked our way through increasingly congested forest. With solid focus, I centered myself, becoming one with Malibu’s breaths and heartbeat, joining my frequency with hers to quell the growing uneasiness lurking beneath my glassy surface.

  Our return trip to the cave shed light on why Velloc’s men had traversed the distance on foot the first time I’d met them. Although the first time had been a difficult, full day’s walk, the trip today had become painstakingly slow, many sections barely accommodating the breadth of our horses. Dense foliage and tight turns hid the trail well, if there had ever been a trail at all. Thankfully, Malibu and I didn’t need to put much thought into the safest path—we followed Velloc and his stallion, mirroring every move they made.

  Eventually, the near-impenetrable forest loosened its constricting hold, sparser growth giving us room to breathe. Within minutes, I discovered why the plants had yielded; the ground had turned into an obstacle course. Deep fissures opened up, running parallel to our southerly course. Boulders, ranging in size from SUVs to beach balls, were strewn about on the surface as if God Himself had tilled the steely gray bedrock. Malibu tensed, snorting her protest, righting her footing as loose shale slid away from every step.

  The unforgiving landscape compounded my rising anxiety. I sucked in a lungful of air and exhaled through pursed lips, tamping down the unwelcome fear as we neared our destination.

  Shafts of light speared through the treetops to the east as the surrounding rocks began to look familiar. Velloc led his horse into the same expansive area where his men had been waiting that first morning when he’d chased after . . . and then rescued . . . me.

  Brilliant sunshine broke into the clearing, illuminating a mossy-green meadow. The tips of ferns peeked out from the forested edges. Granite boulders that stretched to the baby-blue sky sparkled as we approached.

  The serenity and warmth of the glade wrapped around me, calming me unexpectedly. My first visit to the place had been dark—dismal. Now it shone brightly, beaming its splendor. Unfortunately, the relaxed optimism of the outside environment had only a fleeting effect on my inner barometer—pressure rising.

  Velloc dismounted and moved to my side. I slid off my horse into his waiting arms. He kissed the top of my head, lacing his fingers with mine as we walked together, settling the horses by a tree. Once he’d secured their reins, he turned, gazing into my eyes. Tears had welled up in those dark pools that had always held undefeatable confidence. He cupped my face and brushed his lips softly against mine before kissing me with more tenderness than ever.

  I smiled against his lips, nipping them softly as I pulled away to look up at the man I loved. “Velloc, you won’t lose me.” With my wild history, I had no basis for the claim, but I felt it deep in my bones.

  He sighed. “You are my world, Isobel. Know that.”

  I nodded, glancing beyond his shoulder, searching for the words to explain my jumbled mess of emotions as I tried to hold it together. I gazed back into those loving eyes. “Velloc, you are everything to me too. In this world. I don’t know what I’m meant to be . . . or why I’m even here. The box’s magick has a hold on me. I’m bound to it—controlled by it in a way I don’t yet understand.”

  His arms banded around me, crushing me into his chest. A painful lump burned at the base of my throat. My arms slid around his waist, and I clutched him tightly, not wanting to let go.

  Indecision had never been a part of my makeup, but at that moment, I wanted to call the whole thing off and go home with the man who held me in a death grip as if he feared losing me forever. What if his worst thoughts were justified? The man holding me was something real and true, a certainty amid a thousand unknowns.

  My confidence waned, his anxiety seeping into my skin. I closed my eyes, burying my face into his neck, inhaling his scent, memorizing everything about the man who’d become my rock in a turbulent sea.

  I inhaled a shaky breath. “Velloc . . . I can’t imagine my life without you.”

  As if an unseen force watched from afar, the pressure to move forward increased. The microscopic grains in the hourglass had collected to such a mass, the weight of time itself fell heavy on my shoulders, bearing down on my heart and soul. The urgent need to flip the timekeeper—to restart the clock—had become undeniable, even as I failed to understand why.

  The purpose of my journey back to the box had become about more than merely my strong tether to Iain. Renewing my connection with the artifact seemed essential to my very survival. Regardless of my wishes, I had to make at least a perfunctory appearance—have my hearing before the unseen judge and jury—no matter the results, even if the consequences tore m
e away from the second love of my life. That potential outcome and a sinking gut feeling clenched my stomach.

  Velloc pulled away, interrupting my inner lecture about obligations put upon me by others. His strong hands clasped my shoulders, and I looked up. Lines of strain etched into his forehead as his tear-filled gaze held mine. My breath caught in my throat.

  His deep voice broke when he softly uttered, “The box isn’t from here. We stole it from another tribe when we heard it brought a woman—a mate—to their leader.” He cast his eyes downward. “I’d . . . lost . . . mine.”

  Whoa. We had much more to discuss than my issues. “Velloc, I—”

  His lips captured mine, silencing the instinct to comfort my man. I tightened my grip on him, providing everything I could to ease his pain without words.

  Velloc’s answer to my unasked question loaded several rounds of ammunition into an already-jammed cartridge. Had the other leader’s mate been snatched from another time too? Had she unlocked its secrets? Were there others? Had they time jumped more than once?

  I needed to think about the bigger picture before haphazardly firing into an interrogation. Every domino in the line affected all the others, but the more I tried to focus, the more my mind clouded. The pull of the box tugged at an inner string that connected me to the inanimate object, as if some unseen game officiator sought to eradicate any distraction from its goal.

  Velloc inhaled deeply, dropping his forehead down, resting it on mine. “Today isn’t about me, Isobel. I . . . needed you to know.”

  A deep ache burned in my heart. My head spun. Panic had set in, and I didn’t want to leave. Conflicting emotions threatened to overrule any sense of purpose I’d had since my entire odyssey began. To a wanderer of worlds, knowledge might’ve been power, but human connections had become everything. “Velloc, please . . . I—”

  “No.” His stern tone surprised me. As the two of us struggled, he became the strong one. “You need to do this. For us to be anything, you have to finish what you started.”

  A broken record replayed in my mind: there hadn’t been time . . .

  Velloc clamped his arms around me, squeezing the air out of my lungs. Before I had a chance to inhale a full breath, he tugged me toward the cave, keeping our arms locked together as we walked.

  The inevitable had come. Prolonging the agony would only kill us slowly. Blessedly, my mind went numb as we rounded a corner of solid rock, approaching the entrance.

  Daylight spilled into the shallow cave. My gaze tracked to the cause of all my turmoil. There she stood, gleaming and proud on her pedestal of rock, waiting for her continuing role.

  Fear of the worst-case scenario gripped me as disappointment settled into my chest. I’d gained nothing; I didn’t have any answers to unlock the secrets of my artifact, and I wouldn’t have Velloc.

  Like a dowsing rod, every cell in my body vibrated to a frequency from the box as fate conspired to play cruel tricks with my life again. Dread seeped into every pore. My legs grew leaden, and an elephant sat on my chest, every breath an insurmountable struggle.

  Velloc urged me forward, crutching my paralyzed body. The closer I came to the master of my destiny, the more its power took hold of me. Ironically, a soothing feeling washed over me.

  “Isobel, my fierce warrior. You can do this. You can do anything.”

  I looked up into Velloc’s dark brown eyes, kindness and wisdom shining in their depths, realizing the supportive energy had come from him. He radiated strength and calmness, and it briefly overrode the object’s irrefutable command over me.

  I exhaled the breath I hadn’t realized I’d held, glancing at the deceptively innocuous metal box. “Do you feel the energy it emanates?”

  He followed my gaze. “I do. I did the night you came to me. Open yourself to it, Isobel. Make a connection with the vibrations.”

  I turned in his hold, facing forward. Velloc kept his arms loosely wrapped around me from behind. I did as he asked and closed my eyes, relaxing as I accepted the pulsing frequency.

  A warm tremor danced goose bumps across my skin before the heat spread deeper. The earlier calmness I’d felt settled further. Tiny vibrations hummed through my body, accelerating in intensity the more I opened the conduit. Chain reactions fired on a cellular level, energizing me from the inside out. Every positive emotion ignited, triggering a sense of euphoria. Like a highly faceted diamond held in a beam of light, the connection refracted optimistic possibilities into an explosion of vivid rainbows.

  My eyes flashed open. For a split second, I glimpsed misty tendrils of iridescence reaching through the air toward me. But they vanished the instant I focused on them.

  I gaped. “Velloc, did you—” Feel that? See that?

  He dropped his lips to my ear, brushing the shell before kissing it. “Yes, love. I did.”

  Wow. Too many unprocessed thoughts were usurped by the tremendous energy flowing around us, rendering me a mere observer to the events: I’d joined with an inanimate object, and yet, nothing about the relic was inert; Velloc had called me love—the endearment a first for us.

  I turned back around in his embrace, gazing into eyes filled with myriad emotions. “Velloc, will you do this with me?”

  He smiled, leaning down, nipping my lips softly before answering. “Isobel, I have been. Every step of the way, I’m with you. Always.”

  I took a fortifying breath, lacing my fingers with his. We stepped forward, and I guided our hands down to the top of the box.

  Our clasped hands trembled. From him or from me? A little of both, I decided.

  Together, our fingertips touched the cool metal top, the surface warming at our touch.

  Nothing happened.

  I furrowed my brow. While the outcome had remained a complete mystery to me, I’d expected more than . . . nothing.

  I pulled my hand up to my mouth, drumming my fingertips lightly over my lips as I tried to think my way through the enigma. Each event with the box had been different. Iain and I had both touched it in the twenty-first century, while he’d made contact in the thirteenth century. Then I alone had placed my hand on the surface as Velloc did on his end.

  Energy practically sparked the air around us. Power from the relic held me in its grip like a tractor beam locked onto an incoming spacecraft. The artifact hadn’t shut down like the first time, when I insisted that Iain send me back. If anything, it appeared to be powering up.

  The accelerating rhythm radiating from the object flowed into me, commanding my runaway heartbeat. I tensed as a strong pulse burst through my body.

  Velloc squeezed me in reassurance. “Now, Isobel!” He shot his hand back up and clasped mine, dropping our hands onto the metal top.

  The slightest touch charged electricity through my body as if I’d plugged my finger into an overloading transformer. I squeezed my eyelids shut and dropped my head, gasping as excruciating pain seared through every ligament. A scream ripped from my throat, echoing off the cave’s rock walls as incredible pressure threatened to detonate my body into shrapnel.

  Velloc released my hand, shaking my shoulders. I opened tear-blurred eyes, flames of pain still shooting everywhere.

  Iain stood on the other side of the box with his hands around it . . . only he wasn’t solid—I saw the jagged cave wall through his body. I reached up to touch his image, removing my hand from the box.

  The pain ceased the moment I severed the connection. And . . . the portal sealed.

  Iain solidified, becoming corporeal as my fingers landed on his forearm.

  “Isa.” Iain whispered my name with a shocked expression, as if he saw a ghost.

  Velloc yanked me, shoving me behind him as he growled. I stumbled back, my blank mind failing to process the unbelievable.

  Two masterful warriors from worlds that existed centuries apart squared off for deadly battle.

  Both owned the heart of one woman.

  Me.

  I watched in horror as the men launched at each other
, colliding in midair.

  CHAPTER Nineteen

  My thoughts spiraled, the tornado carrying relevant fragments to the fringe, never quite pulling one to the clarity of dead center. The struggle to comprehend the unexpected twist of Iain and Velloc together—in one world—incapacitated my spinning mind.

  The two men most important to me were locked in mortal hand-to-hand combat. I stood there dumbfounded, my mouth hanging so wide open my jaw nearly came unhinged. Complete shock at having them together in the same time—in the same space—froze me like carved marble.

  Iain leapt from the ground with the force of a cougar, ramming his shoulder into Velloc’s ribs. They crashed into the wall of the cave, pieces of broken rock raining down. Velloc pushed off, spun them around, and turned, jabbing his elbow into the center of Iain’s chest. Iain grunted and wheezed, sucking air into his lungs after the sharp blow to a vulnerable nerve area.

  Iain snapped a short punch at Velloc’s kidney. Velloc spun, deflecting the dangerous shot, and rotated his arm out to chop at Iain’s throat. Iain ducked, avoiding the impact. It was clear that Iain’s six-inch height advantage made no difference whatsoever with their evenly matched combat skills.

  Blood dripped down their arms, smearing across their skin as they scraped across sharp rock walls. A coppery tang filled my nostrils. Grunts and heavy breathing punctuated the pulse hammering at my eardrum.

  Hands flew up around each other’s throats. They shoved off from the wall, leveraging their footing, channeling their force into strangling one another. Both of their faces turned beet red.

  Terror seized me. The sudden thought of losing one of them—of witnessing one die by the hand of the other—ripped through my shock. I screamed.

  The sound startled both men who’d seemed to have forgotten my presence in the cave, let alone the fact that I was the woman they fought over. Velloc turned toward me, and Iain seized on the unexpected interruption, sweeping his foot into Velloc’s ankle, dropping him.