by Brenda Joyce
Aidan paled. “Ye canna go back in time an’ change the future…t’is forbidden.”
“Who cares?” she cried. “I must stop Royce from being murdered! You must help me!”
“I canna break such a rule.”
“What?” She was shocked. And then she was furious. “You hate rules. They’re a cage for your soul!” He would refuse her now? What was wrong with him?
“Lass, the rules I break are the petty ones. MacNeil will take my head if I take ye back so ye can change this day.” He was dark and grim now. “Besides, Royce wished to leave this life. I have heard him say, many times, that he’s tired o’the fight. Ye’ll nay change his mind, not in a single day.”
Allie stared at him, incredulous, disbelieving. Her mind spun and raced. He wasn’t going to take her back to earlier that day or yesterday; she could see it in his eyes. Royce had wanted to die. She had to accept that, even if she couldn’t understand it. And he wasn’t going to change in a single day.
She breathed hard. Her senses told her that Aidan knew Royce well and he was telling her the truth. Instantly Allie changed her plans. To undo his death she needed time with him—time to convince him he had a future worth fighting for.
And she wanted time with him—a lifetime—even if it was in the primitive past.
He must have sensed what she intended, because his eyes went wide. “Nay.”
“I haven’t asked you yet!”
He shook his head and then drained half of her drink.
“Take me back with you.” A wild determination hardened.
He stared back. “To 1430? Royce will have my head.”
“No, you don’t understand. When we met the other night, he came to me from the fifteenth century. He left me here—but waited for me for almost six hundred years. Don’t you get it? There’s a reason we met that way. He loves me. I love him. You’re going back—take me to him. Take me to him in your time!” she begged fiercely.
He inhaled. “Lass, lust an’ love are hardly the same.”
She seized his hand. “I am going with you!”
And Aidan hesitated.
Allie knew an opening when she saw one. “Please. I will do anything, anything, to go back with you to Royce.’
“Ye offer me yer bed?” He was incredulous.
“Anything…but that!”
He shook his head, still ready to refuse. “Ye willna like my time. Ye willna like Royce very well in my time, either.”
“You can’t deny me. Please.” Her grip tightened. Panic began. He had to do this for her.
He looked into her eyes. “Are ye certain, Lady Allie? Are ye truly certain? What if yer wrong? What if Royce doesna love ye as ye love him?”
“I am certain!” she cried, clinging now to his large hand with both of hers.
He drained the drink, murmured, “Royce left ye here fer a reason. I dinna ken,” and pulled her into his embrace. Allie held on tight. And they were flung across the room, through the walls and into the universe—back to 1430.
CHAPTER FOUR
Carrick Castle, Morvern, Scotland—1430
SHE OPENED HER EYES, the torment finally receding. Allie somehow breathed. This time had felt even worse than the previous one and she was amazed she was alive. While in the throes of bone-breaking pain, she’d thought she would actually die. Now she became aware of a pounding headache threatening to split her skull. Allie stared up at a high ceiling with timbers. High on stone walls, stunning stained glass windows radiated from the sunlight outside.
“Rest a moment more.”
She blinked and saw Aidan standing above her, arms folded, and all recollection returned. Royce had been murdered and she had gone back in time. Grief rose up, choking her, but she fought it. Instead she thought about the fact that traveling through time was hell. She hoped to never do it again, at least, not until there was no other choice in order to return home. And the gods only knew when that would be.
She sat up, still somewhat weak and very shaken. Her body felt as if it had been stretched out like elastics and pounded with hammers. But since the night before the fund-raiser, when she’d tried to bring that girl back from the dead, her body had been through hell. Making love to Royce had to have taken its toll, too. “Did we make it? What time are we in?” she managed to ask. She sounded hoarse.
He gave her a look. “T’is May 15, 1430.”
She started. “And you know that how?”
“I dinna have to look at a calendar, lass. T’is almost two weeks since I followed Royce to the future.” He added, “I decided to give Royce some time to forget ye.”
Allie got to her feet. “He isn’t going to forget me in a week or two. He waited six centuries for me, remember?” She glanced around. They were in a beautiful church or chapel. There were rows of highly polished wood pews on either side of the knave, and an altar at the far end. She stared, confused, at a beautiful, gilded, bejeweled crucifix with Jesus hanging there. “Why are we in a Catholic church?”
“We’re in Carrick’s chapel. Everyone’s Catholic, lass, even the Masters.”
Allie just looked at him. The Masters were blessed by the Ancients, not Christ; he had to be wrong. But she didn’t really care. Her heart began to accelerate and she started down the knave, toward the oversize wooden door.
She heard Aidan following.
But before she could pull the heavy door open, he laid his hand on it, keeping it closed. “Have a care, lass,” he said.
She turned. “I haven’t forgiven you, but thank you for bringing me here. Now, let go. I have to find Royce.”
Aidan said softly, “I’m very sure he willna be pleased to see ye.”
Allie dismissed his comment as absurd and pulled open the door. She stepped into Carrick’s inner ward—and she faltered.
She had asked to go back in time. But she hadn’t really had a chance to think about what to expect. Vaguely she recognized the courtyard, even though it was not cobbled. She saw the entrance to the largest building across from her and knew that inside was the great hall. The corner towers were the same. But that was it.
The courtyard was filled with people—medieval people.
The women wore simple linen dresses and had bare feet. Two women had plaids pinned to their shoulders. The men she saw crossing the ward wore the same tunics, but only to the knee, and they were barefoot, too—and armed with swords and daggers. A pair of pigs wandered about, and a milk cow was being led by a little boy. Animal droppings abounded. Huge hounds were barking from across the ward, chained to a wall. They were barking at her and Aidan.
The passing men and women turned to look at her and Aidan.
Allie tensed. They stood out like sore thumbs. He was still clad in his jeans, T-shirt and leather jacket; she was wearing her knee-length skirt and linen corset top and her platform shoes. Surprise was becoming suspicion.
“Are we in trouble?” Allie whispered to Aidan. She wasn’t afraid—not exactly—for these were people, not evil demons. On the other hand, every medieval movie she had ever seen seemed to tumble through her mind. Ignorance caused people to do really bad things to other people.
“They have seen stranger sights, lass,” Aidan said. And even as he spoke, Allie saw men and women firmly turning away. In that instant, she realized that life in the Middle Ages wasn’t very different from life at home. The average person preferred ignorance and chose not to think too hard about all the events and phenomena they saw but could not explain. She and Aidan being unusually dressed couldn’t be half as disturbing as seeing one’s friend or relative murdered in a crime of pleasure, or witnessing a battle between Masters and demons when the weapons were invisible—kinetic power.
“They’re wary because we’re strangers,” Aidan said to her. “In this time, yer friend or foe, an’ no man can be in the middle.” Then he raised his voice, speaking to a pair of men who had their hands on the hilts of their swords.
“I’m the Wolf of Awe an’ a great friend o’ Black R
oyce. Release yer swords.” He stared at them.
Instantly Allie saw their eyes glaze. She looked at Aidan and saw the glittering light coming from his gaze and realized he had great powers of enchantment.
Both men released their swords, but they glanced at Allie now.
Aidan moved so quickly Allie didn’t know what was happening until it was done. He suddenly had one of the men’s swords laid against that man’s throat. “Ye show the lady respect,” he said softly. “She’s Royce’s guest.”
Allie wet her lips. What had she been thinking? He could flirt and charm, he liked trendy clothes and was a bit arrogant for her taste, but he was as fierce and powerful as Royce, maybe even more so, for the red in his aura was almost blinding. There was something else present in his aura that she could not understand, either—a black streak, like black rain. But she had forgotten all that. She had dared to curse him and strike at him.
A horn blew.
Allie jumped in surprise and almost twisted her ankle. She whirled to look up at the tower above her. She didn’t have to ask, she knew.
Royce was returning. She could feel him, his energy huge and hard and powerful, impossibly male, impossibly indomitable. He was somewhere beyond the castle walls.
Excitement seized her and made her breathless, caused her body to ache and swell. This was not the time—but maybe it was. Because after she leapt into his arms, she could think of nothing she’d rather do than be in his bed, making love, celebrating his life, and afterward, cuddling and talking, kissing.
Joy and relief warred.
Ahead was the gatehouse with its four towers, the one that he’d driven through in his Ferrari the other day. She rushed forward.
“Ye wait for him here,” Aidan called. “Ye let him accept what we have done.”
Allie ignored him, stumbling in her tall shoes, wishing she’d had the foresight to wear her Nikes. She stepped into the dark stone corridor that formed the passageway through the gatehouse—and came face-to-face with iron bars.
Her heart slammed. She was barred by a closed portcullis, because this was the fifteenth century, not modern times. Another portcullis was closed at the other end of the passage, and beyond that, she saw an outer ward, a smaller gatehouse and a drawbridge that was slowly lowering. Instantly she realized a large group of horsemen was approaching the drawbridge, the sun glittering wildly on their armor.
She seized the cold iron bars, her heart leaping.
His aura burned hotly red, dominating the orange and gold, making any blue and green invisible. He was at the band’s forefront, and he’d come from battle. The energy given by the planet Mars and the war gods was bursting in him still.
She swallowed, uncontrollably excited now and very aroused.
She hadn’t thought about what it would be like to see him again, in this century. Although they had first met when he was from this time, they’d exchanged no more than a dozen words, fought a single battle before they’d leapt time. The memories she had of him now had nothing to do with a Highland warrior standing in mail and a plaid, his legs boot-clad but bare. She would never forget the sight of Royce getting out of his Ferrari in his black T-shirt and trousers; Royce in bed, surrounded by Ralph Lauren pillows and sheets; Royce offering her wine, his 18 karat gold Bulgari watch glinting on his wrist; Royce smiling at her from across a table covered with linen and crystal.
The man riding across the drawbridge was on a huge, wild charger and wore mail over his tunic. Both horse and man were spotted with blood.
And then the bars started lifting.
She swallowed hard, telling herself it was silly to be uneasy. She shouldn’t be surprised to see him dressed like a medieval knight, because she’d seen him dressed as strangely at the fund-raiser, yet this was different—in his time, it was strange and somehow disturbing. It was hard for her mind to reconcile this Royce and the one she’d spent twenty-four hours with. The man approaching looked almost like a stranger. But he was the same man, when push came to shove, and she needed to remember that. He was her golden warrior, her lover, the man who fought demons no matter the time, the golden Master her mother had told her to trust.
The portcullis was waist high; Allie ducked through it and ran down the stone passageway. As she did, something made her look up and she saw gaps in the ceiling above. A face appeared, shocking her.
Allie ran faster, sensing hostile intent. Just before she made it to the second portcullis, this one almost the height of her head, an arrow whizzed past her. And then a dozen arrows scorched her path.
They were shooting at her.
Frantic, she ducked beneath the last portcullis, and she heard Royce shout, “Cease yer fire!”
She burst into the gray Highland daylight.
His gray eyes wide, he galloped his horse across the dirt ward, thrusting himself between her and the gatehouse. Allie halted, shaken by the attack, but so overjoyed to see him. The horse reared and Royce jerked mercilessly on its reins, making it submit to his halt. His gaze slammed to hers.
It was hard and incredulous.
Allie smiled, trembling. The moment he took her into his arms, all of her anxiety would vanish. Wouldn’t it?
But his hard eyes slammed down her rather exposed bosom to her skirt and bare legs. The sexual appraisal was raw, ruthless. Then he leapt from the horse, which reared again. Royce turned and kicked it in the ribs, hard.
The animal stood docilely, head down.
Allie tried to breathe. He didn’t look at her now, his expression strained, and she wasn’t sure she’d liked how he’d looked at her before dismounting. He was handing his helmet to a boy, then his gauntlets, his gestures forceful, almost angry.
They needed to speak. She tried to assimilate what was happening. He was the same man—she would swear it—but he was so different, too. He was so medieval. “Royce?” she asked uncertainly.
He whirled to face her, eyes blazing.
He was angry, she realized, shocked. But he couldn’t be angry with her. He might not know they were lovers, but he was in love with her. She had no doubt he’d told her he’d waited so many centuries for her.
And then he closed the short distance between them, towering over her. “I left ye in yer time,” he ground out.
What was this? As Allie stared blankly at him, her joy really faded. “Royce.” She wet her lips, terribly uncertain. Where was her warm welcome? She laid her hand on his chest. His strong heart thundered there. “I am so happy to see you. I have so much to tell you.”
His eyes widened with surprise. For one moment, he stared at her and she stared back, waiting for him to smile and erase all her doubt and confusion. Instead, slowly, he said, “Ye touch me as if we’re familiar.” His gaze had narrowed with cool speculation.
A sick feeling began. This was Royce five hundred and seventy-seven years before they’d made love. He didn’t know they were lovers, but he did love her, right? “We are very familiar,” she whispered. “In my time.”
His expression changed. A satisfied, smug and hard look settled on his gorgeous face. But then he said, “Ye need to go back to yer time.”
Allie dropped her hand. “You’re not…happy to see me?” She was shocked. It was hard to wrap her mind around the fact that she knew him intimately, but he did not know her.
Then she added silently, yet.
“Do I look pleased?” he demanded.
He did not look pleased at all. What was happening? Where was her lover—the man she had traveled through time to be with?
“Yer lover,” he said, his eyes glittering, “awaits ye in yer time, not this one.”
Allie could not react. Royce was cold and rude, terribly so. He was not welcoming, and he had put her in an uncomfortable and defensive position. She was far more than off balance, she was starting to feel rejected. But men did not reject her. They courted her, chased her, fell in love with her. Why was he being so harsh, so mean? Could he be so different from the man she’d slept with last night?
“Royce.” Aidan approached from the gatehouse.
Royce stiffened and turned. “Of course it was ye, Aidan. Ye brought her back. Are ye very amused?”
Aidan did not smile. He looked so incongruous, standing there in his jeans and leather jacket, confronting Royce in his mail and plaid. “There has been nothin’ amusin’ about this day. Ye need to be pleasant to the lady.”
Royce stared, his gaze narrowing. Allie saw the red in his aura explode. “So ye defend her?” he asked very softly.
Aidan shook his head, grimacing “Ye fool! Dinna start. I brought her to Carrick, not to Awe.”
Royce folded his arms, biceps bulging, a gold cuff glinting on one arm, a terribly dangerous expression on his face. His smile was ruthless. “Then ye be the fool. Take her with ye when ye leave.”
Allie bit her lip, aghast. He didn’t want her there.
Aidan flushed. “Ye dinna mean such cruel words.”
“If I’d wished to bring her back with me, I’d have done so,” he told Aidan. “I left her in her time for my reasons—I dinna like being crossed.” He glared at Allie.
Allie wanted to cry. He acted as if he hated her. He wasn’t even the same man as the Highlander who’d come to her aid at the fund-raiser.
“I dinna cross ye!” Aidan erupted, seeming as angry as Royce now. “Ye left her behind because yer afraid.”
“I left her behind at Carrick to protect her,” Royce said as furiously.
“Stop,” Allie cried. “Stop fighting like small boys.”
They ignored her. Aidan said, “There’s no one at Carrick in her time to protect her.”
Royce stiffened.
Allie looked back and forth between the two men, certain Royce had instantly understood Aidan’s inference. And he slowly faced her.
Uneasy, she tried to decipher his feelings. Most men would be shocked to learn of their death. Most men would be distressed to learn of the event, and the date. Royce’s gray gaze met hers.
And she saw the stark comprehension in his eyes. She wanted to ease any distress he might feel, to soothe any anxiety, any fear. She wanted to tell him that it was not the end, that they would fix it, change it somehow.