“This had better be good, Matilda.”
“Jake?” God it was good to hear his voice. “The girls. God…get there.”
He was silent for a moment. “What’s going on?”
“I feel them Jake. Something’s wrong. Really wrong.”
“This witchy shit doesn’t—”
She slammed on the brakes to avoid oncoming traffic. Horns around her blared.
“Dammit, Jake. Your daughters need you. Put the fucking phone down.” With that, she tossed the phone to the floor and blew through a stop sign, swerved around a pedestrian in a crosswalk, and gunned her gutless engine down the street within a block of the girls’ home.
She saw a wave of blue over the house and pulled her car to the curb. Behind her, the sports car pulled in and from it, Helen jumped out, a wolf at her side.
Simon.
“Wait here,” Selma told her friend. Helen didn’t need to get any closer until they knew it was safe.
Simon shook his head and bolted toward the house. The fact he didn’t need to be told which one it was bothered Selma on so many levels.
Simon ran in front of her, cutting her off with a growl.
Selma hesitated outside the splintered and cracked front door.
Simon pushed through and Selma waited for several seconds before she heard his bark.
Without hesitation, she shoved her way inside and nearly stumbled over the sight.
Blood splattered a path through the house, throughout the living room, the kitchen. Her head spun and she swallowed back nausea. Not the girls. Please, not the girls.
At the end of the blood bath lay two adults.
The man Selma didn’t recognize, but the woman was Lindsey. The wide deathly stare of their eyes and the carnage of their bodies were evidence of the vicious, lethal attack. Animal, if she had to guess.
From the stairs, she heard Simon bark.
She ran up and found Simon at the top. Seeing him naked wasn’t something she wanted to get used to but by now, she didn’t even flinch.
He stopped her from running into a closed door.
“They’re in there.”
For one awful moment, she thought he was shielding her from the unthinkable.
“Alive.”
Her body collapsed against him. From the distance, she heard sirens.
“An animal killed them. I need to leave here in a different form.”
Selma nodded.
“I’ll scout, but I think whatever did this is gone.”
“Whatever?”
“It wasn’t human.”
The charm on her neck started to thaw, as the noise of sirens grew closer.
“Go,” Simon told her. “They need you.”
Selma nodded and Simon shifted form and spread his wings. Without a thought, she opened a window and watched briefly as Simon flew away.
She opened the door to what had to be Kelsey’s room.
The color green penetrated every surface. “Girls?” she said once, then again a little louder. She headed toward the closet and felt the charm warm. “It’s Selma. You’re okay… I’m here.”
Without waiting for them to open the closet door, she inched it open to see the two of them huddled together, shaking. They rushed her, their large eyes opened wide as tears ran down their cheeks.
“I’m here, baby.” She kissed the top of each of their heads. “I’m here.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
From the corner of her eye, Amber saw Gavin take several steps back as her family moved in to surround her. Her father positioned his back to her to face her husband while Lizzy pushed forward.
“My God, we just left you,” Lizzy said.
“Only minutes ago,” her mother, Lora, said.
“’Tis been a few months in my time.”
From the hallway, footsteps announced new arrivals.
Duncan and Tara arrived first followed by Todd and Myra whose chambers were farther down a distant hall. Her family was a welcome sight, a relief beyond any she could imagine. So many questions swam in her head. So much doubt. Finally, Cian filled the doorway.
She’d missed them. All of them.
Lizzy turned her gaze toward Gavin. “Who is he?”
Amber met Gavin’s stare, said nothing.
“I’m her husband.”
Her father tensed.
“And you’re standing on opposite sides of the room… why?” Lizzy asked.
Amber lifted her chin, recalled Giles’s words. “I’ve learned he is a descendant of Grainna.” Every eye in the room shot to Gavin.
He looked at her, only her. His thoughts were a jumbled mess inside her head.
“We don’t know if that’s true,” he told her.
“We don’t know if it isn’t.”
He advanced on her and the men in the room moved to stand before her.
“I heard Giles. He spoke of a passage—of proof.”
“He recited from a book, Amber. That’s all.”
Gavin kept moving forward. Her father attempted to move in his path only to jump back from the shield.
Duncan drew a dirk and rushed. He too was pushed to the floor.
It took every ounce of willpower to stand still as Gavin used his shield to clear a path to her side.
Everyone in the room grew uneasy as they found themselves held back.
“Have I given you any reason to question me? My trust?”
“Grainna was a master manipulator.”
Is that what you think I am? His question sounded angry in her head.
He reached her and lifted his hand slowly to her face as if she were a frightened animal. Which she had to admit, if only to herself, she was.
“Don’t hurt her!” she heard her father growl under his breath.
“If I wanted to hurt her, Laird Ian, I wouldn’t have saved her.” Gavin’s gaze never left hers. His deep abiding stare soaked into her skull, leaving her head with pain. His long fingers skimmed around her neck in a near intimate caress. The heavy chain holding the sacred stone that afforded her the luxury of traveling in time fell into his palm.
His hand fell away with it.
He twisted and tossed the necklace at her father. “I’m sure you’ll want to hold onto this,” Gavin told Ian. “Amber, running off scared to times unknown can get her killed.”
She opened the link in her head to his. You think I’m a child.
No, Amber. I think you’re scared.
“God’s teeth, Amber…you’re not cloaked,” Myra said as she pushed in only to hold back outside Gavin’s shield.
Gavin’s eyes traveled to Myra’s heavily pregnant belly and he stood back, sucking in his shield so it only layered his skin. Amber did the same and opened her arms to her sister.
While the women moved to gather around her, the men regarded her husband with thinly veiled anger.
“You’re cured,” Tara said.
“It seems I am.”
“But how?” Tara asked.
Amber glanced at Kincaid and lifted her chin. “The same shield that protects my husband protects me.”
“They’re bonded,” Lizzy told those who hadn’t heard the earlier exchange.
“Really?” Myra asked.
While the other women asked questions, Amber stared directly into his eyes. “Aye,” she said softly. “We are.”
Bonded and wed, Amber. Running from me won’t change that. He opened his mind to her…every thought, every emotion. I have nothing to hide.
She blinked several times. I am frightened.
Kincaid faced her father. “Laird Ian,” he said with a slight bow of his head. “Gavin Kincaid, m’lord, at your service.” He extended his hand and waited to see if he was to be accepted or denied.
Ian swept his eyes up and down Gavin’s frame, his eyes landing on his extended hand. “Are you kin to Grainna?”
Gavin sucked in a deep breath. “I want to tell you I’m not. But the truth is I have no knowledge of my extended lineage.”
For one awful moment, Amber noticed her father’s shoulders tense and felt the static in the air charge.
“He speaks the truth, Father.”
Several seconds passed before Ian nodded and slowly extended his hand.
The men regarded each other in silence, and Gavin then turned to Duncan. “Duncan MacCoinnich, I presume?”
“Aye.” They shook hands.
“And Finlay?”
When he turned to Cian, her brother stared at his extended hand but didn’t offer his own.
“I won’t shake the hand of evil incarnate.”
“Cian!” Ian scolded.
“Nay, Father. If this man has an ounce of her blood in his veins, then he is our enemy.”
“We will withhold judgment.”
Cian offered a cold stare in Amber’s direction. “How clever to penetrate our family through the bed of the most innocent one among us.”
His disgust shot like a dagger into Amber’s core.
Gavin dropped his hand, his jaw clenched. “Apologize to my wife.”
Amber’s gut twisted. To see her beloved brother denying her husband left her ill. This wasn’t what she wanted when she’d run home. What had she expected? Watching her brother’s stone-cold stare directed at Gavin made her realize how thoughtless she’d been in running away.
The air cracked with the force of her father’s gift. “You’re out of line, Cian.”
“Better to die a noble death than to spawn with the devil.”
Gavin pulled his arm back and swung. His fist connected to her brother’s face with a loud clash.
Fin grabbed a hold of Cian and Duncan and Todd pushed Gavin away.
Instead of backing away from the violence, Amber pushed in, placing herself between her brother and her husband. “Stop!”
Get out of the way, Amber! Gavin pushed around Duncan only to have him keep hold of his arm. The fact that Gavin didn’t use his gift to push off Duncan proved her husband was distracted by the chaos in the room. Chaos that left him vulnerable. She left him vulnerable.
Instead of addressing Gavin’s words, she leveled her eyes to her brother. “Gavin has not been in my bed. Not in the way you mean. I was close to death and he bonded to me, extending his gift. He did so without any assurance he would survive. We only just learned of his possible lineage.”
“Yet you ran,” Cian told her.
“Aye. I wanted the council of my family. I too fear what I don’t know. But do not lay blame on an affair that hasn’t occurred.”
Cian pulled out of Finlay’s grasp and squared his shoulders. “You call him your husband.”
“And he is. I spoke the vows. We are bonded.”
There were voices in the hall that told her they were about to be discovered by either servants or knights. None of which would understand the presence of Gavin and herself.
“Mother?”
“Ian,” Lora said with the calm voice Amber wished she had. “Shall we find something for our son-in-law to wear while we,” she indicated the women in the room, “assist Amber with an appropriate dress?”
With the distraction, Cian slid from the room without a backward glance.
Ian watched his youngest son leave and said nothing. “Finlay, Todd, see to Gavin’s needs. Duncan, we will speak downstairs. Myra, tell the others we expect Amber and her intended to arrive before dawn. Tara, take your son from his bed and lead a horse to the south wall.” Ian paused, glanced at Gavin. “Do you ride?”
“Of course.”
“Elizabeth, prepare the children.”
The room started to buzz with activity.
“Father?” Amber stopped him from leaving the room.
“Aye, lass?”
She opened her arms and embraced her sire. “He’s a good man,” she whispered into his ear.
He kissed her forehead and gave her a slight smile. “We’ll speak later.”
****
The drizzling rain of Scotland wasn’t something he’d ever get used to. God help him if his wife wanted to stay.
He stood under a tree with a horse at his side while he waited for the women…or maybe it would be one of the men, to bring his wife to his side.
It was surreal, really, to have Ian MacCoinnich orchestrate his entry into the family, into the fortress with little more than a few barked orders.
Dressed in a kilt, and not one that had enough pockets to house his weapons, Kincaid stood by the dark horse and waited.
How had his life been reduced to this? He was a warrior, for God’s sake. He’d battled men throughout time, saved lives…taken others. And here he stood in the damn rain waiting.
Waiting.
When he started to contemplate what was happening in Simon’s time, his head felt as if it was going to explode. Too damn much turmoil. Once Kincaid was brought into the Keep with enough pomp and circumstance to secure his welcome, he would be able to take all the men aside and discuss life in the twenty-first century.
Well, all the men save one. Cian’s reaction needed to be analyzed.
The muddy sound of a horse approaching brought his attention to the misty darkness in front of him.
Amber?
Aye.
Listening to her in his head held a strange comfort. Even though she didn’t offer anything other than confirmation, it was her approaching.
She sat on the back of a horse; her brother Fin sat in front.
Fin swung from the horse and captured Amber’s hand to help her dismount. The hood of her cloak covered her face, masking any emotions he might see.
Long layers of dark fabric covered her lithe frame. She moved in the gown with the ease of a woman born in them, ever so much a lady.
Fin handed her over to Kincaid, who happily took her hand.
“Give me time to make it back and circle in from the North.”
“I’m familiar with the land, Fin.”
“As am I,” Amber said.
Fin returned to his horse and kicked it into a run.
Alone, Kincaid watched his wife.
“You missed your family.”
“Desperately. But I shouldn’t have come here the way I did.”
“I won’t argue that.”
“I’m sorry, Gavin. I was scared.”
He pulled her farther under the tree to add some protection from the drizzle. “You have to learn to trust me, Amber. Maybe that would be easier for you to do if you didn’t work so hard to keep me out of your head.”
“But I’m not.”
“You are. Even now. I see the stress in your eyes, the tension in the way you stand, but your emotions are highly detached from inside my head. Emotions I felt before we bonded.”
“I haven’t learned to separate your shield from my gift. Not completely.”
Then simply open your mind to hear my voice. Can you do that?
I’ll try.
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.
For the first time since they arrived in this time, she offered him a smile.
You’re so very beautiful.
Her cheeks started to resemble the pink rays of sun starting to lift over the horizon.
Thank you. She lowered her eyes.
“I’m embarrassing you.”
“I’m not used to the compliments.”
“Well prepare yourself, Amber Kincaid. I plan on complimenting you often.”
She giggled and he felt a smile on his lips.
“C’mon, m’lady. Your family awaits. I really don’t want them to worry more than they already are.”
He helped her onto the back of the horse and pulled himself up behind her. He held her slim waist with one hand and the reins with the other.
He led the horse to the north in a wide berth before heading toward the Keep.
“Should I worry about Cian?”
“I want to say no. He lost the most when we battled Grainna. The girl he loved fell victim and died before we could destroy the witch. I suppose
if any of us knew of a child of Grainna’s we might have searched them out.”
“Guilty by association?”
“I don’t know. Men in these times battle families based on the past deeds of their ancestors. My father has never ruled that way, but ’tis hard to say if he would have, had he known of a child.”
The fog pulled in around them, and he slowed the horse down to see the silhouette of the Keep.
“And if I carry her blood…will your father damn me?”
He felt her answer before she said a word. “Nay. My father will judge you on your merits. He will worry and question. Grainna held so many powers, dark menacing power. Yet she was beautiful on the outside. Only her dark eyes gave away her evil. The contradiction is what will keep my family on alert.”
“Hmm. What about you, Amber? Will you damn me?”
She twisted and looked up at him.
Kincaid pulled the horse to a stop and opened his mind for her to search for answers.
“You’re worried Giles is right.”
“I am.” Because the evidence Giles found in the past seldom led them down the wrong path.
“Then we’ll battle whatever internal conflict might occur together.”
His chest warmed with the conviction of her words. He leaned down and briefly touched his lips to hers.
She didn’t flinch.
“Let’s get you home,” he told her.
Without effort, the horse started to move again, carefully picking his way through the fog.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I did what I could, but the children were charmed...protected.”
“I wanted you to bring them to me.”
Mouse barely held himself up. “I couldn’t touch them. The power surrounding them was too great. You wanted to create panic, which was achieved with the death of the parents.”
Raine seethed, gripped the back of the chair.
“Did you at least penetrate the manor?”
“Yes. Briefly.”
Mouse wasn’t meeting her eyes.
“Well?”
“Kincaid and Amber were both gone. Slid in time.”
“Forward or back?”
“Back. Far back.”
Raine hid a smile. At least that part worked.
The manor would fill quickly now. Because Mouse had been inside and laid his own blood, he would be able to penetrate the wards that would undoubtedly be placed. Only Mouse wasn’t cunning enough or strong enough to finish the job Raine was preparing for.
Highland Protector (MacCoinnich Time Travels Book Five) Page 21