On Wings of Time

by Linda Boulanger

  “You are my key, my Prihom, Ami. You unlocked the world for me.” He kissed her on her shoulder before pulling the gown up to cover the spot. “In exchange, my heart, my body, my dragon will always belong to you… no matter how much time separates us.”

  She turned her face up and he kissed her, wishing he could take her back to bed. A few more minutes or a lifetime… he would settle for either, just to have her near.

  “I have to go,” she whispered.

  Luke nodded, placing his forehead against hers. When Kiernan and her father returned, perhaps they’d marry immediately and there’d be no more sneaking about. He’d never really relished the thought of being able to hold someone in his arms as often as he liked before, but he did with her.

  Ami smiled. “Perhaps the special license will be granted. I heard Father and Kiernan had ridden to the monastery to find out.”

  Luke almost choked on his next breath. “You knew?” She nodded and he found himself blinking back the strange moisture that had sprung to the corners of his eyes. She had known they could be married soon and still she had come to him. After one more encompassing kiss that told her how much he loved her, he took her hand and led her down the hall.

  “I’ll be down for dinner,” she told him as she slipped into her room. “My mother has given me no choice.”

  “Until then, my Lady.” Luke kissed her hand and stepped back, bowing when she curtsied.

  “Until then, my Lord.” She blew him a kiss and shut the door.

  Whistling softly, Luke began the lonely trek back to his own room, stopping abruptly after just a few steps. The floor swayed and he reached for the wall. It was strangely cold beneath his palm, an even cooler breeze suddenly gusting from out of nowhere as the world around him dissolved into rippling waves. He looked down to see the lush tapestry rugs melt into rotting carpet.

  “What the hell?”

  In the distance, he could see the lanterns that hung every few feet along the hall and watched them turn into stars, one falling to the floor before him near the big double doors. He squinted. It wasn’t a lantern or a star, but an industrial flashlight. And there was a person sitting beside it.

  “Will?”

  His younger brother turned his face toward him, though Luke felt more like he was looking through him than at him. Will let the bottle drop away from his mouth and his lips curved up in a drunken grin while he pushed himself up onto unsteady feet.

  “Get away from the edge, Will.” Luke reached for him, but he couldn’t move. “Will!” he called again when his brother stumbled, barely managing to right himself. Will just laughed, sliding back down to his rear and scooting to where his legs dangled over the edge near the ladder.

  “Oh, God.” Luke held his breath, frustration at his inability to move making him swear. “I told you not to climb up here to drink. You stupid kid, you’re going to kill yourself climbing down one of these days.”

  “I know, I know, Brother.” Will laughed again and swung his foot toward the ladder. “If you were here, I know zezactly what you would tell me. To get my ass down and stay down.” He reached for the ladder, nearly stopping Luke’s heart when he faltered before finally managing to grab hold.

  “Come on, Kid,” he whispered, closing his eyes as Will’s head disappeared below the severed floor. He winced when, seconds later, a commotion indicated a fall.

  “I’m okay,” his brother’s voice floated up and Luke’s breath whooshed out just before the earth let out another rumble. Swaying with the tremor, he stepped forward.

  “No!” he screamed as the gap in the structure before him began to take form. “Will!” Stumbling, he scrambled down the stairs that were only partially there, rounding the corner, the walls solidifying just as he saw Will staggering in a direction that could only mean one thing. He knew where Will was going. To the metal door, and the dungeon below.

  Luke blinked several times, scrunching his eyes closed and then opening them wide, trying to rid his head of the vision. What the hell was happening? Had he actually seen his brother in the future or was the whole scene just a trick his mind was playing on him? Reality was becoming a blur.

  On heavy limbs, Luke climbed back up the stairs, pausing on the landing to stare down the hall of the family wing. The guard sitting in the chair across from Amileigh’s door, just as he was supposed to, looked in Luke’s direction, but said nothing. Another servant was beginning to turn up the oil lamps on the wall, relighting the ones that had been extinguished for the night. All seemed right in their world.

  Luke sighed and turned toward the guest wing where he wouldn’t even bother to remove his clothing before he collapsed onto the bed. He breathed deep, reaching for the sheet and pulling it to his face. It smelled of her… of them. He’d just had the most wonderful night—more magical than he could have ever imagined, and yet his heart was weighted down with concerns about his brother. He fell asleep and dreamed of Will.

  Heavy pounding had Luke on his feet before his eyes could even open. Sonofa… he staggered to the door after realizing where the sound was coming from. With a glare that could have cut down the hardest of men, he pulled open the door to come face to face with Kiernan.

  The older man glared back for a second before pushing past Luke, stalking around the room as if he was looking for something. Luke felt his heart pounding when Kiernan stopped, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared, lifting one brow. It was a look Luke had seen often from his great grandfather during his youth… one that always indicated displeasure.

  “Tis nearly noon. Why are you still in bed?”

  Luke blinked a couple of times in rapid succession before averting his eyes. Did Kiernan suspect what had happened between him and Amileigh, or was he simply annoyed that Luke had missed his training? He looked everywhere but at his great grandfather, not wanting to give anything away.

  “I… uh…” He fished for something, anything to say. “I saw my brother,” he finally blurted out, looking up.

  “Your… brother?”

  Luke nodded, rushing on to tell Kiernan about seeing his brother. He was careful with what he said, leaving out minor details like which side of the stairs he’d been on or why he was out of his room at that time.

  Kiernan rubbed his chin as he listened, nodding occasionally. “And you actually saw him go to the door that leads down to the dungeon?”

  Squinting, his brows down, Luke started to nod, then stopped. He hadn’t seen him at the door, not exactly. But he knew without a doubt that is where Will was headed. “Well, he had rounded the corner and was making his way down that hall when everything changed back to the present. Or, to now… which is really the past, but present.” He shrugged. “That’s when I lost him.”

  Kiernan straightened his stance and slowly nodded. “I see.” He looked at Luke for a second before again surveying the room, stopping to stare at the unmade bed. “Luke. Tell me what happened.”

  Luke swallowed hard. “I… already did.”

  Kiernan’s piercing blue eyes swung back to him and he shook his head. He spoke in a low, deep voice, filled with command. “As far as I’m concerned, you and the girl are as good as married. You will do right by her, do you understand?” Not waiting for the nod that Luke gave, he continued. “Now get ready. We must ride out so that you may learn to release your dragon.”

  Luke didn’t move for a few minutes even after Kiernan brushed past him and left the room. Just like in his own time, Kiernan seemed to know everything without really knowing. Maybe it was his dragon sense. Luke wondered if he would develop it, kind of like the night vision. He thought of the vision that had been in his bed the night before and felt a stirring in his pants. He groaned. As much as he’d like to entertain those thoughts, now really wasn’t the time for it. When Kiernan had mentioned releasing his dragon, Luke had instantly felt the straining, a burst of excitement rippling through him.

  Wait, he thought turning toward the screen so he could wash up. Ride out? “Oh brother!”
He hadn’t been on a horse since he was maybe thirteen. This might well be a day of great humility.

  Chapter 12

  Riding seemed to come naturally to Luke, much to his surprise. At least it did once he managed to get himself up in the saddle. If the damned horse hadn’t started moving before he could hoist himself up, it would have made a huge difference. Maybe if he hadn’t been distracted when he looked up at a certain window it would have gone better, but he did eventually get atop the large beast and found he enjoyed the feeling, especially as they galloped across the countryside. He wasn’t sure where Kiernan was taking him, though he figured it had to be far enough away so that no one would see them when they changed or took to the skies. Another surge of excitement shot through him and he felt his dragon straining inside.

  Ami couldn't help but laugh as she watched Luke attempt to get on his horse. She wasn't sure how people got around in his time, but if she had to make a wager, she'd guess it wasn't of an equine nature.

  His time. She smiled thinking how she'd tried to deny her feelings for the man from the future, only to find her attraction to him was beyond her control. At least it seemed that way. When he'd come to her room, she'd been a whisper away from submitting. Only he'd stopped abruptly, leaving her feeling more alone than she'd ever felt. Even more than when she was in the pit. She shivered and pushed away the thoughts of her captivity. She didn’t want to think about that. Just Luke, and how as one day had slipped into the next, she'd succumbed to the desire that had been building in her since he'd left her room, admitting to herself that the more she’d tried to smother the flames, the bigger they’d grown until they’d threatened to consume her. In her mind, visions of them together filled her head. Skin on skin, mouths, tongues, and… already her breath was growing shallow just thinking about him touching her.

  Wanton. Her thoughts were wanton, and yet she refused to feel bad. Nothing could have convinced her more than the night they had just shared that Luke was the man Fate had intended for her. How they had been separated by six hundred years was anyone’s guess. It really didn’t matter. All had been made right, and if she was correct, her father’s and Kiernan’s return meant the special license had been granted. In just a few days, they would be married before men.

  As the sun when behind a cloud, she winced and stepped away from the window. It had been a cloud, had it not? She shook her head and peeked out again, looking out at the sun shining down over the trees. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, wishing for Luke’s arms to be around her again.

  Kiernan was mostly quiet while they rode, leaving Luke’s mind free to jump from subject to subject. Steering his mind away from thoughts of Ami, and not wanting to overly excite the already exuberant beast inside, he tried to remember what had happened back home leading up to him and Mairi visiting the Somerled ruins on Sunday. When Will hadn’t returned to the manor on Friday morning, no one had thought anything of it, but by nightfall and not hearing from him, they had begun to worry.

  He may have been a grown man, but he’d always be the kid brother. With Kiernan away, Abra had taken charge, asking Luke and Mairi to take her to the old ruins. She felt certain that’s where the youngest Tavish would be. In the dark, they’d looked around, calling as they went, and finding nothing. Now, knowing what he did, Luke couldn’t help but to be more worried, not that there was anything he could do about it from there.

  When Saturday rolled around in his own time, he and Mairi had gone back to the ruins to not only investigate more into Will’s potential whereabouts, but because there had been more tremors in the night and Kiernan always wanted them to check things out when that happened. Whether he was away or not, Kiernan’s will seemed to get things done. Luke smiled, letting it fade away as he continued to remember, putting bits and pieces of the days together.

  The door. Everything seemed to lead back to the damn dungeon door. He remembered walking right to it when they got there and seeing all the debris in front of it, the bush that had been there for so long buried between the rock, wood, and rubble. He’d mentioned the second lock being off, figuring it had been broken by a falling rock from the wall above, and Mairi had looked at him like he was mad. With her forehead furrowed so deeply, her brows couldn’t have gone any lower if they’d wanted to, she’d marched past him and started moving the smaller pieces of the pile.

  “What are you doing?” he’d asked her.

  Hands on hips after she’d tossed a stone to the side, she glared at him. “What does it look like I’m doing, dumbass?” When he hadn’t answered, she’d thrown her hands up in exasperation and gone back to chucking rocks. “Seriously, Luke? Abra was so sure Will was here. You know as well as I do that she’s never wrong. We need to check and make sure he didn’t try going into wherever this door leads. You said so yourself, the lock had been secure the last time you were here. Did you ever think that maybe Will broke it off, went in, and then the rocks trapped him inside?”

  Luke sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Of course, he’d thought of it, but something inside kept telling him not to open the door. Had he already been in the past and his dragon remembered being captive down there? Luke didn’t want to consider that. If he had already visited the past and couldn’t remember it, did that mean he’d forgotten about Ami as well? The thought had him grabbing the front of his shirt over his heart.

  “Kiernan?”

  His great grandfather in younger form turned his head in Luke’s direction, a raised brow indicating that Luke should go on… another mannerism that Kiernan had retained over centuries of time. It made Luke smile inside.

  “Do you… do you forget about previous times you’ve lived in?” he asked, knowing by Kiernan’s silent squint that he hadn’t expressed himself very well. “Like, when you’ve gone back to the past, do you remember that now?

  Shaking his head, Kiernan smiled. “It’s not the same for me. I was born, released my dragon, and continue to live. I don’t travel around in time like you did.” When he laughed and Luke didn’t, he sobered. “What’s troubling you?”

  Luke looked away, his voice distant when he answered. “I don’t want to forget her, Kiernan.”

  “I’m sorry, Lad. I don’t know what to say.”

  Luke understood. There were too many unknowns, though one thing he felt for sure was that this battle they both knew was on the horizon was going to be fought in the future, not now.

  The future… that’s where the forces of evil had been released, and that’s where they would have to be defeated. He closed his eyes for a moment and prayed. Fate had brought her to him once. Even if they did get separated, surely it could happen again.

  He opened his eyes and looked at Kiernan.

  “Love, my boy, is a powerful thing.”

  Luke nodded. Love. He certainly hadn’t expected to find it when he’d gone to Somerled that Sunday morning. And certainly not six hundred years in the past.

  Chuckling, Kiernan slowed his horse and began to steer them off the path. Luke looked around in surprise. He knew this land, though he’d never approached it from this direction.

  “Tavish Manor,” Kiernan told him just before they topped a hillside and could see the house in the valley below.

  Luke’s heart leapt at the sight of his boyhood home. “You still live there,” he marveled, never taking his eyes off the house.

  Kiernan smiled. “We tend to come back to it as often as we can.”

  With difficulty, Luke tore his eyes away and looked at his great grandfather. “So, how does that work, anyway? I mean, in my time, you’re an old man, but obviously not as old as you really are?”

  That made Kiernan laugh. “We’re able to choose our age, though it usually coincides with the age we need to be. Like now, it was important for me to grow up with Ami and her brothers. When her grandmother was a young woman and we thought she might be the one to unlock the next dragon, I was an older man, going by a different name. And when Lady Saundra was a babe, I was in my
forties.” He paused. “When do you first remember Abra and myself, Luke?”

  Luke thought, though it didn’t take much work to remember. It was a time that had forever branded his heart. He was seven, Will was four, and Seth had just turned eleven. It was summer and his family had gone to Creighton to visit his grandparents like they always did. There was some Georgian festival they always liked to attend… Georgian, as in the time period, with all of the clothing and scenes from that era. He let out an ironic chuckle. A lot closer to his own time than this, that was for sure. Too bad there hadn’t been a Medieval festival instead. Maybe he wouldn’t feel like a fish out of water. Anyway, while they were visiting, there’d been a fire in the old house where his grandparents lived. His father had gotten the boys and their mother to safety and gone back in to try to save his parents. None of the three of them had come back out.

  Before the ashes had even cooled, his great grandparents had showed up, the man taking charge, the woman taking them under her wings when his own mother fell apart. He looked at Kiernan.

  “Where do you go when you’re not living among the humans?” The question felt strange knowing he had always believed himself to be human until he found out he was a Blend.

  Kiernan didn’t answer for a few seconds, then he shrugged. Luke figured he realized the new dragon would know soon enough.

  “We sleep. In the caves. Sometimes for decades, sometimes for just a few years. In the days of old, our ancestors might spend centuries down there.”

  Luke nodded. “Are there others? Still sleeping down there, I mean.” He thought of the wall of dragon scales. Had that dragon been sleeping when the wall collapsed on him? That thought didn’t appeal to Luke in the least. Maybe he’d just find someplace above ground to sleep, if sleep was required.

  “At times there have been, though I believe the caves to be empty now, thanks to the last Dubhagan raid some two hundred years ago. I feel in my heart that there must be others, only I can’t find them. Not here, anyway. Not in Lochlainn.” He sighed then kicked his horse into faster motion, calling back as he sailed down the hill. “I fear there are not many of us left.”