Dark Rival

by Brenda Joyce

“The infection was severe,” she breathed, worry crossing her face. Her gaze drifted to his bulging leine. She wet her lips.

  He lurked.

  She was recalling the taste of his manhood. She was recalling how very close they’d come to “making love” that morning.

  He took another calming breath. “An’ the rest o’ them?”

  She was reluctant. “I don’t know how this happened. They’ve been coming to see me all day. Toothaches, the common cold, cuts, bruises, aching backs!” And now, the joy that had lit up her eyes was gone. She was filled with apprehension.

  He counted to three. He gestured at the three waiting villagers. “Is anyone severely ill?”

  “No.”

  He turned. “Lady Ailios willna see ye today. G’day.”

  The two men inclined their heads and the girl curtsied. They all seemed disappointed, but they left immediately. Royce folded his arms across his chest and slowly turned to face her.

  He tried not to think about how beautiful she was in the bright skirt and the small white bodice with the daring chemise beneath. He tried not to think about the fact that he’d bet his life she wore the tiny pink thong, too. “Ye heard the boy calling ye a witch this morning.”

  She breathed deeply. “You know I did. If you are angry—and I know you are…your aura is flaming red—you are doing a great job holding your temper.”

  He was angrier about this morning. His priorities were not straight. Let her try to play him. He had to swiftly quell any gossip about witchcraft and sorcery. He did not want the rumor of her healing power.

  Moffat would realize she was there, in this time.

  The royals might take an interest in her, too. The King was fervently devout, and he could see Ailios as either an omen or a dangerous sign of the devil; the Queen was ambitious and she would think only to use power for royal ends. He did not care to have Joan Beaufort ever interested in Ailios.

  “I dinna wish to argue,” he said to Ailios. “T’is clear ye obey no one.” He gave her a look. “If ye disobey yer own father, I’d be a fool to think ye’d be obedient to me, even if I am lord here. I’m no longer insulted by yer defiance.” He meant his every word.

  He walked over to the hearth and stared at it. How was he going to get through this evening—and every subsequent one—when his lust was raging like an inferno?

  He could smell her scent. Something floral, something crisp and pure, like the Highland water, but mostly, it was woman and sex.

  She was wet and full beneath that surprising skirt and that tiny, shocking garment.

  He rubbed his temples.

  “Okay,” she said cautiously behind him. “You were really pissed this morning. You should be pissed now. What’s going on?”

  He didn’t want to face her. “I ken ye canna help yerself. If someone is ill, ye’ll heal him.”

  “Yes.”

  He did turn. “Yer like yer mother that way. She never turned her back on anyone, as long as he was a Master or an Innocent.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “You know—knew—my mother?” she gasped.

  He became cautious. “Aye, I did.”

  Her mind whirled in shock; it raced incoherently. “How…you mean—wait! You haven’t become the twenty-first-century Royce yet! You couldn’t have known my mother!”

  His instinct was to soothe her. Her anxiety was profound, and dread was beginning. She didn’t know anything.

  He lurked but her thoughts were still not coherent. He hesitated and touched her arm. “Ailios. Let us sit.”

  “I don’t want to sit!” she cried. She was pale, except for two bright pink splotches on her cheeks. She opened her mouth—and no words came out.

  He took her hand firmly. “I’m sorry that ye dinna ken the truth about Elasaid.”

  She pulled away. “Her name was Elizabeth! Elizabeth Monroe!”

  “Aye, Elizabeth is the English translation.” He smiled at her. “Come an’ sit with me, lass.” He increased the seductive note in his tone.

  “Oh gods,” she whispered instead, oblivious to his male allure now. “When? When did you know my mother? What time was it in?”

  He took her hand and pulled her close to his side. His body screamed in pleasure at him; he ignored it. When she learned who and what she was, she was going to be shocked. He recalled, too well, his own shock upon discovering that his Fate was the Brotherhood, and that his grandmother was a goddess. “I first met Elasaid in the sixth century.”

  Ailios cried out.

  “Yer mother was a great Healer, an’ yer so much like her,” he offered softly.

  She looked at him, tears rising. “Why didn’t she tell me? What does this mean? Was she the granddaughter of a god, too?”

  “Nay, her father was the greatest o’the gods.”

  Ailios stared at him, her eyes huge. And abruptly, she sat down on the bench. “My grandfather,” she said slowly, “was a god.”

  “Aye.” He wondered if he should tell her the rest of the truth now, or later.

  She whirled. “What else is there? I can hear you—debating what to tell me, what to hide! All this time, I thought my mother was a Healer and a pagan. I even thought she might, possibly, be a good, powerful witch. I thought that explained our religion—the prayers, the healing, our sense of evil!”

  “Elasaid was not a witch. Yer nay a witch, Ailios.”

  She stared breathlessly at him.

  “She was our Priestess, in the days when we still had one.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ALLIE SAT THERE IN SHOCK.

  Her entire life, she’d thought her mother a woman blessed with extraordinary healing powers. Not once, however, had she guessed or even considered that Elizabeth Monroe might not be entirely human. Although she believed in the Ancients, it hadn’t occurred to her that one of them could sire or mother a child with a human being. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest. Her grandfather was a god. Her mother had been a High Priestess centuries ago.

  “Have some wine,” Royce said softly.

  She jerked, having been entirely unaware of him. He sat beside her, a mug of wine in his hand, offering it to her. He was grim, as if her shock upset him. “I had no idea,” she whispered unsteadily. She met his gray, searching gaze. It was kind.

  And she felt his concern, a soft, comforting wave, undulating in the air about her.

  But she was too stunned to dwell on Royce’s sudden sympathy now. Her mother was the daughter of a god. What did that make her?

  And she thought about how her mother had hidden their powers and their religion from her father, so carefully, so deliberately. She thought about the secret room where they’d prayed. “She made me take vows of secrecy,” Allie whispered. “My God, did Dad ever suspect the truth about her? About me?”

  Royce clasped her shoulder. “I dinna ken, Ailios.”

  She began to feel sick. Her father had been a no-nonsense, ambitious, brilliant man. And while he had been Episcopalian, Allie was pretty certain he didn’t really believe in any god at all. He had been a workaholic and as different from her mother as possible. Had he suspected anything? How could he not—he had been so smart! Allie tried to recall his life with her mother, but all she could remember was his grief over her death. “He loved her,” she whispered. Royce didn’t answer and she met his searching gray gaze. “What does this make me?”

  “A great Healer,” he said softly.

  She had the odd urge to cry. But was she crying for herself—or for William Monroe, who had been betrayed by them both, in a way? “How long will I live?”

  “I dinna ken.” He handed her the mug. “Take some wine, lass.”

  The endearment rolled off his tongue like smooth, aged Scotch whiskey. Allie stared, then set the mug down. “Did you know her a long time?”

  “Aye, for centuries.”

  There was so much comfort in his presence and she felt like going into his arms. She did not. Instead she thought about how much the gods meant to
her. “I’m not a Priestess, too, am I?” Was this why he was intent on refusing her advances?

  His gaze was serious, moving over her face. “Yer a Healer. There has nay been a Priestess in centuries. Worshiping as we do is a grave heresy, so we follow the Catholic ways in public. Yer mother was our last Priestess.”

  “Can you tell me about her? And how on earth did she wind up with my father? They were so different!” She was starting to worry about that marriage. Her mother had lived through centuries, and of all men, she had chosen someone with no faith whatsoever.

  Royce began to speak, distracting her from a new, great unease. “She was a great beauty, like ye, but fair. An’ she was always spilling her pure light on those in need. Had she been ye, today, she would have healed old Coinneach, too.”

  Allie smiled. “I remember that. We couldn’t even step into an ice-cream parlor without her showering someone with healing light. She died when I was ten years old—and no one knew why.” She wiped her cheek with her hand. “Was it her time to die, Royce? She died in her sleep! Can the daughter of a great god die that way?”

  “If she died in her sleep, it was the will of the Ancients. Mayhap she was very old. The Masters are nay immortal, Ailios, even if it sometimes seems so. Yer mother was nay immortal, either.”

  Allie smiled sadly, in that moment missing Elizabeth very much. “I never grieved when she died. That night, she came to me in my dreams, comforting me. And it was the first of many visits while I was a child.”

  Royce was silent.

  “The night we met, she suddenly appeared again—telling me to trust you.”

  Royce started. “Ye saw her? Ye heard her?”

  Allie nodded. “I was pretty alarmed. I hadn’t had a visit from her in at least ten years. She told me to trust a golden Master—and that night, there you were.”

  Royce stared. “Mayhap she dinna come from the dead. Mayhap she came from the past.”

  “Could she time travel?” Allie demanded.

  Royce nodded.

  Had those visits from her mother been from another time—and not from the realm of the afterlife? She began to shake. “She wore white flowing robes in my dreams. But how could she come to me from the past? How? She wouldn’t know about me. Or did she also have the Sight?”

  “She dinna have the Sight an’ I dinna have the answers ye need, lass.”

  He was being so kind. “She could live centuries, like you.” She took both of his hands in hers. “If I went back in time, I could find her, couldn’t I? She’d be alive, in the past. You’d know where to find her!”

  Royce stood. “T’is forbidden to leap for personal gain.”

  “And what if she has been trying to contact me from some past century—because something huge is going down? When she came to me in South Hampton and told me to trust you, her eyes were filled with urgency. I sensed that something was wrong!”

  Royce stared, silent.

  Allie hugged herself. He wasn’t going to take her back to her mother—at least, not yet. Maybe there was no point—or maybe it meant everything. “When did you last see her?”

  “In the thirteenth century.” He added, “No one has seen her since then.”

  Allie sat up straight. What did that mean? “Do you think she leapt from the thirteenth century to my time?”

  Royce glanced aside. “I think it possible.”

  He was suddenly being evasive. “What happened?” she asked with alarm.

  He was slow to respond and her dread increased. “Her husband, William Macleod, an’ his eldest son, from Macleod’s first marriage, were murdered. No one has seen Elasaid since the murders, not even her own son—yer brother.”

  Allie gasped. Her mother had been married in the thirteenth century. Once she could wrap her mind around the fact that she’d had another husband—or even other husbands, given her life span—she wouldn’t be so stunned. She’d also had a half brother. And no one had seen Elizabeth since the thirteenth century—almost two hundred years ago.

  Had she leapt after the murders to the twenty-first century? “What are the facts? Who murdered her husband and stepson?”

  “There are no good facts,” Royce said softly. “Only Macleod an’ his heir were found. Elasaid vanished that day. The murders weren’t evil—they were political, a part o’ border wars. At first, we thought she fled the murderer. But she never returned.”

  “If she witnessed the murders, she wouldn’t have been safe anywhere,” Allie said. “Maybe she went to my time, where she met my father and had me.” But why had Elizabeth married William Monroe? And now, Allie realized the strange coincidence that both her husbands had the same first name. “Did she love her husband, Macleod?”

  “Deeply. William the Lion was a mortal man, a great an’ powerful English baron. Still, Elasaid wasn’t meant to love a man, Ailios. Like ye, she was meant to serve the Ancients an’ mankind.”

  Allie tensed. Suddenly she sensed the power of her mother’s love for Macleod. It had been huge, consuming, the love one found once, if ever, in a lifetime. “Don’t try to tell me the gods willed Macleod’s death in some kind of holy reprisal for her daring to find love! And by the way? She loved my father, too.” But she couldn’t recall her mother’s love for her father; all she could recall was her father’s grief after her death. And she somehow knew that love had been a mere shadow of Elizabeth’s love for her English baron.

  Allie rubbed her throbbing temples. Her mother had never recovered from William Macleod’s death. She was certain. “Please tell me about my half brother.”

  “His name is Guy Macleod.” He added, “He’s known as Black Macleod. Most men fear him mightily.”

  Allie realized Royce was speaking in the present tense.

  Royce put his arm around her. “I ken yer in so much shock.”

  She twisted and clutched his shoulders. “My math sucks, but he was born almost two hundred years ago. If he’s still around, that makes him godlike, too!” But it was a question.

  “He’s a Master, lass.”

  She had a brother, a holy warrior like Royce. Allie held on to Royce and felt him hold her in return.

  “Ye need to lie down.”

  Allie did not want to lie down. She wanted to think! Another brother…her mother the daughter of a god and married to a Highland baron in the thirteenth century, a man she had truly loved…her mother possibly fleeing the assassins of her family, into the twenty-first century…meeting her father and giving birth to her.

  And a few days ago, her mother had tried to contact her. What did it all mean? Allie’s headache became explosive.

  “What should I do now?” she asked desperately, clinging to Royce’s strong arms.

  “There’s naught to do now,” he said firmly. “Ye need to rest. Tomorrow yer head will clear. Ye think too hard, Ailios. Let me take ye to yer chamber.”

  Their gazes locked. His power was the safest harbor she’d ever been in. “Why are you being so kind now?” she finally asked, embarrassed by her emotional upheaval. But her world had been turned upside down in the past few moments. “Where is Mr. Macho? Don’t be kind if you don’t mean it.” She didn’t know what she’d do if his cold, even cruel medieval side popped up just then.

  “I had the same feelings—the same kinds of questions—ye have now,” he said.

  She grew more confused. What was he talking about?

  “I dinna ken the truth of my ancestors until I was chosen,” he said quietly. “I’ll never forget the shock.”

  He understood. Allie collapsed against his chest. It was a moment before his arms went around her. She closed her eyes and tried to think, but it was impossible.

  “Ye may never ken the truth of yer mother’s disappearance,” he warned quietly, her head tucked under his chin. “She fled after the massacre. Mayhap she lived in other centuries for years. Does it matter, Ailios? Yer mother died in her sleep in her own bed. Ye buried her as a child. T’is the past. Let her rest in peace.”

&nb
sp; It took her an instant to rebut. “But she may not be resting in peace,” Allie whispered. She looked up at him.

  He was grim. “Ye need patience. We willna find the truth tonight.”

  Allie held on to him, their gazes locked. Her mother wasn’t resting in peace—she knew it in that instant the way she knew she loved the medieval Royce as much as she did the modern man. Something was wrong—and for some reason, whatever it was, her mother had led her to Royce.

  Royce had just said “they” wouldn’t find the truth. He was in this with her. And she didn’t care if it was his sense of duty or the vows he’d taken. “Thank you,” she managed.

  Royce hesitated. She felt it in his big, warm frame. Then he pulled her close and held her tightly, just for a second.

  ALLIE SAT UP.

  It was the middle of the night, but she hadn’t been asleep. She had been thinking about her mother and both of her brothers, the twenty-first-century one and the medieval one. She loved the former, Alec, even if he was a new soul like their father and even if he thought her soft spirituality silly. She didn’t know the latter, Guy Macleod, but she damn well was going to meet him one day soon.

  Royce was right. As far as her mother’s life went, she might never learn all the answers, but she was damned well going to make sure her mother was resting in peace. Unfortunately she didn’t have the faintest idea how to proceed.

  Tension crept over her, darkly, with stealth.

  Outside, the night was studded with white stars and a half-moon. Inside, a fire blazed in the hearth, as if it were a winter night. Allie pushed all her musings aside, all her emotion, as wild as it was, and she focused.

  Evil stalked them, not far from Carrick’s walls.

  She leapt from the bed, still in her white tank and colorful skirt. She skipped her sandals and ran across the tower. She didn’t have to guess which chamber belonged to Royce, because she felt his power as she went. Like quicksand, it sucked her toward him.

  But she would not relish seeing him in bed with someone else. His kindness earlier had been shocking, and she was afraid she had imagined it.

  Arriving at his chamber, Allie only felt Royce. She was about to seize the door handle when it opened and Royce came out so swiftly that they collided.