Highland Shifter

by Catherine Bybee

  Stepping away from his horse, Simon spread his arms wide, closed his eyes, and envisioned the falcon.

  Familiar energy gathered around him. The air crackled and the world started to pitch.

  His limbs shortened and his skin erupted and morphed.

  Pain started at his head and spread to his feet, but it was brief and gone before Simon could blink an eye. The entire change took only a few seconds before Simon became the falcon.

  Kong offered a passing glance before returning to his meal.

  Simon took to the sky.

  Above the trees, Simon returned to the direction of battle. He noted the battlefield and Cian helping with the dead.

  Simon let a falcon’s cry fill the air and saw Duncan and Cian both turn their heads his way.

  Duncan nodded at him then continued with his duty as Cian waved a mock salute.

  Leaving his family behind, Simon followed the trail the enemy left behind in search of answers.

  Chapter Two

  Without an invitation, Helen walked into her boss’s office of the Auction House and gently placed the book she’d found the day before on his desk. “Look what I found.”

  She’d spent most of the previous night mulling over its pages and found herself more confused than ever by why her gift led her to this particular tome.

  “What is it?” Philip lifted his dark eyes to hers briefly before glancing at the book in front of him.

  Helen leaned a hip against the side of her boss’s desk and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s about Scottish folklore.”

  “Is it valuable?” He ran a hand over his firm, attractive jaw, the way he always did when intrigued. She had his attention.

  “It might be.” Though she doubted it. “It’s what I found inside that has me puzzled.”

  Philip Lyons, owner of The Auction House and Magazine, and her boss, encouraged her to follow her gut instincts when it came to finding valuable antiques. A couple of months before, two ornate candlesticks were brought into the auction house to be sold on commission. As the house photographer, and occasional buyer, Helen’s entire body sizzled with excitement when she encountered the twelfth century works of art. She knew there was more to the candlesticks than a common sale to a collector. Philip knew it too.

  He opened the pages of the book with care and skimmed the words. “What am I looking for?”

  Helen leaned in and scooted the book closer. She opened to the page of the Highland warrior and the lady who looked a whole hell of a lot like her.

  Philip paused.

  “Quick. What’s your first thought?” she asked him, not wanting him to filter his words.

  He paused, and then said, “She looks like you.”

  Not your first thought.

  Helen wasn’t sure how she knew Philip held his first impression back, only that he did.

  “What else do you notice?”

  Philip ran his finger over the page, stopping at the pendant around the woman’s neck. “That’s your necklace.”

  The necklace Helen wore even now. Philip’s gaze traveled to her neck. His eye twitched and a smile started to spread over his face. “How’s that possible?”

  “I told you I had funny feelings about things.”

  Philip reached out and touched the pendant. His cool fingers sent a tiny jolt over her skin and she shivered.

  Philip leaned forward to examine the necklace. His proximity suddenly felt too personal, and Helen shifted back.

  Letting his hand drift to the desk, Philip narrowed his eyes to hers. “Maybe I should appraise your necklace.”

  “I’ve already checked. It’s not worth much of anything.” Besides, the thought of removing it and handing it to anyone actually left her ill.

  Philip’s eyes skirted over the necklace and dipped lower. After a brief pause on her breasts, they returned to the book.

  Men and their wandering eyes.

  Helen would have been offended if she hadn’t already detected a desire from her boss to get to know her better. Something she wouldn’t have minded exploring if he wasn’t in charge of her paycheck.

  He was five years older than her, financially stable, and pleasing to the eye. His dark brown hair was military short and his jaw always clean-shaven. Though, if Helen had to guess, she’d swear he’d worn a beard at some point in his life. She constantly caught him stroking his chin and upper lip, a habit men with facial hair acquired. At six feet, he had five inches on her and though she’d seen him only in a suit and tie, she didn’t think he was a stranger to the gym.

  ...but he was her boss. That meant off limits as far as she was concerned.

  “What do you think it all means, Helen?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’m hoping you’ll give me a couple of days off to look into it.”

  “A couple of days off? That’s all?”

  Now came the tricky part. “A week, actually.”

  Philip didn’t say a word, just continued to stare at her.

  “...and a plane ticket to Scotland.”

  * * * *

  Twenty-two hours later, Helen finished unpacking her suitcase at a Holiday Inn outside of Dundee, Scotland and after renting a car, she started driving north. Where to, she hadn’t a clue.

  Part of her couldn’t believe she was even here, another part, a nagging little itch, felt as if she was coming home. Which was stupid, because Helen had never had a home? The closest she’d ever come was Mrs. Webber’s foster care where she’d spent four years housed in a small room with three other girls. At seventeen, Helen emancipated herself from the system by running away and never looking back. Smart thing, too, the other girls she’d roomed with all ended up either pregnant, in jail, or strung out on some cheap drug. Not the sort of life Helen envisioned for herself.

  Feeling at home in a country where she’d never been was as foreign as driving on the wrong side of the road. Even the gimped up car they’d loaned her didn’t have the controls in the right place.

  Still, the strange sense of peace had washed over her the minute she’d walked off the airplane.

  Philip had given her the time off and the ticket abroad. He’d have been stupid not to. The last time she asked for such a thing, she delivered the location of a stolen Vermeer.

  While on assignment in a Boston museum, Helen photographed several pieces that were going to auction. When she scraped her hands along a wall, she’d felt a current of electricity similar to one she’d experienced when touching the book of Scottish folklore.

  Apparently, a Vermeer had been heisted from the spot long ago. Helen called Philip and asked him to research the museum and tell her everything he could find out about the missing art. In addition to looking into the past theft, Philip flew to Boston and stood beside her as she followed her gift tracking the painting around the city. One week and hundreds of miles later, on an island off the Florida Keys, Helen led her boss to a collector who had the art in his possession.

  The museum in Boston credited Philip’s Auction house for the retrieval of the art. As a result, his standing in the art community elevated to amazing heights. Philip attributed her gift, her ability to follow objects and find missing things, to intuition. There was a lot more to it than intuition. That she knew. But why was this path now leading her toward a missing boy?

  “The answer is out here somewhere,” she said to herself as she dodged a crater-sized pothole in the road.

  The roadside signs pointed off in all directions to castles dating back hundreds of years. The desire to drive up to the nearest one and pull out her camera was strong, but the feeling that doing so would slow down her search stopped her.

  As she approached a four way stop, her right hand started to tingle. If she hadn’t been waiting for the sensation, she would have missed it. At the stop she veered northeast onto a tiny two lane road. According to her map, the road would eventually run out and become nothing but dirt. Yet while her hand hummed, turning away wasn’t an option.

  Ten miles la
ter the road turned to dust, and weeds of neglect crowded the lane. A large rut forced her from the car. She still had several hours of daylight and a backpack full of snacks and water.

  Outside the car, humidity hung in the air like a blanket. Helen rolled up her short sleeved shirt to catch some of the wind blowing off the eastern coast. Following the rolling tingle along her skin, she moved away from the deserted road toward the sound of the ocean. She didn’t think she was that close to the shore, so the noise caused her to pause.

  A strange, panicky sensation rolled down her spine, forcing Helen to spin in a circle, searching for the cause. She was alone, but the feeling of being watched made her question the sanity of venturing off the marked road in a foreign country. Anyone could come along and do, God knew what, and never be caught. The only person who even knew she was in Scotland was Philip, and he wasn’t expecting an update for a couple of days.

  Hoisting her backpack higher, she pushed aside her unease and tried to walk closer to the noise of crashing waves.

  A low stone wall peaked above the grassy field a good two miles from her car. She took a moment to rest and removed a bottle of water from her pack. After taking a long drink, Helen closed her eyes and leaned against the stones. She realized then the ocean sound hadn’t changed since she’d stepped from the car. It hadn’t gotten louder, or softer. It was as if she were walking along a coast, yet the coast wasn’t there.

  Her entire body began to hum. A small vibration told her she was close to whatever clue came next. “What the hell am I looking for?” she called out to the empty field. She removed the objects from her pack that led her this far, hoping to find her answer.

  First was a picture of the candlesticks. Twelfth century pieces of art sold on consignment at Graystones, a rival auction house. They’d stayed in the possession of the owner for nearly a year before the said owner sent them to Philip to be resold. Apparently, the current economic crisis wasn’t limited to the poor.

  When Helen had touched the candlesticks every nerve ending in her body lit up. When an insatiable need to find out more about them rivaled breathing, she decided to discover all there was to find out about their history.

  A woman by the name of Myra Doe consigned the candlesticks. Lord, the name Doe put up so many red flags Helen couldn’t see straight. It was worse than Smith or Adams, for that matter. Still, a real live person brought in the candlesticks to sell. Yet when the sale took place, the money was put in another woman’s name. Elizabeth McAllister.

  Elizabeth was the mother of Simon. Both of whom simply disappeared without a trace nearly two years ago.

  Helen thought she’d reached a dead end. The missing persons’ case was cold. It didn’t seem like anyone cared about these two people vanishing. On further study, Helen learned of another sister who’d gone missing. It was then Helen found herself in the halls of a favorite haunt, the public library. Then she explained her plight to her oldest friend, and only real family-like person in Helen’s life, Mrs. Dawson.

  Now the book from Mrs. Dawson’s library warmed her palm as she opened it to the pages of the man with the woman who looked like her. Under their pictures was a simple passage. Love is Timeless. Whoever wrote the book was either a poet or a romantic.

  A school picture of Simon dropped from one of the pages. Helen gripped the familiar photo, the same one that had been plastered in newspapers and on milk cartons for months. Even though his mother disappeared at the same time, the authorities always obtained more tips about missing children than missing adults.

  Helen didn’t know what to think. Only that her gift was pointing toward the child and not the mother. But something told her if she found one, she’d likely find the other. She shoved her things back in her bag and pushed herself to her feet.

  A flicker of white caught her eye. The picture of Simon lifted with a breeze, floating away on the wind.

  With bag in hand, she ran after the photograph. She tripped once, scraping her palms on the jagged surface of the rocks, and then took off running again. When the wind calmed for a moment the picture dropped and caught in a weed.

  Helen pounced on it.

  Out of breath, she placed her stinging hand on her chest, and held the picture with the other. A smudge of dirt layered the picture. Helen brushed the filth aside and left a trail of blood on the image.

  “Dammit.”

  Her hands were a mess, full of embedded gravel and dirt with just enough blood to cake it all together.

  She shook the picture. “See, here. I’m bleeding to find you, Simon McAllister. So stop trying to fly away.”

  The words no sooner left her lips before the sound of the ocean simply turned off. The air around her crackled and rushed out of her lungs.

  The colors of the sky disappeared in a swirling tornado. The grass around her flickered and went black.

  Panic rose in her throat in a scream, but when she opened her lips the sound didn’t escape. Gravity sucked her down and pushed her back up.

  All Helen could do was sit hopelessly by and pray the world found its axis soon.

  Wind swirled around her and a loud thunderous roar replaced the nothing.

  When Helen’s stomach threatened to rebel, she closed her eyes and crushed her hands to her ears.

  I don’t want to die.

  As fast as the world shifted around her, it came to a stunning halt.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, Helen held perfectly still, fearing any movement would start the tornado again.

  Her skin chilled. The temperature felt almost frigid, and the smell of the air had changed.

  The sound of a horse neighing forced her eyes to spring open.

  She was in a forest, a lush green forest with dew dripping off the trees. A massive black horse stood a couple of yards away and eyed her with curiosity.

  “Well now, what have we here?” A deep, tender voice rumbled behind her.

  Helen jumped to her feet and let loose the scream that had been lodged in her throat before. Now filling every inch of the surrounding forest with her shock, she spun, dropping her backpack at her feet.

  There, standing in the middle of the forest and draped in only a kilt, stood the man from the book. Only this man was massive, huge in a way a picture could never describe. Thick arms and a bare chest so ripped with muscles, Helen couldn’t help thinking he could do some serious damage to anyone if he had a mind to.

  And she was alone with him.

  Her head reeled.

  It was too much. Everything had happened so quickly. She started to back away from the stranger, her foot caught on her pack, and down she went.

  Fine with her. Maybe she’d hit her head and wake up in her bed and all of this was nothing but a dream.

  Chapter Three

  Simon lunged to catch this stunning traveler before she hit the ground, but he couldn’t move fast enough. Kneeling beside her, he carefully pushed a lock of her hair from her forehead. Her eyes were shut, her breathing slow and steady. “Come now, lass. Wake for me.”

  She didn’t. With gentle fingers, he brushed through her hair and felt for any lumps or tender patches. Finding none, he lifted her head, rested it on his knee, and waited for her to wake.

  “When?” From when did she travel, and why? She wore a cotton shirt with perfect stitching. His eye traveled to her thigh and stuck there. Shorts were from a time in which he’d once lived. Memories of days running in the park, or on the playground with others in similar clothing, were etched so deeply in his past he had to close his eyes to reach it.

  Forever ago.

  It seemed it had been a lifetime since he saw this woman’s garb worn by anyone. Even his own mother and aunt didn’t bother any longer. Lizzy, his mother, rebelled against the clothing of this century for nearly five years before giving up the fight. His Aunt Tara gave up shortly after Simon and his mother arrived. Either way, Simon wasn’t used to seeing women with their legs bare for anyone to gaze upon.

  He liked it.

 
In a strange way, he missed it. Her sun kissed skin was free of any hair. Smooth. His hand itched to feel the silky surface. But before his fingers made contact, the woman winced and shuddered as she came awake, jarring him from his thoughts. If she’d been any other girl, he’d worry about the impropriety of her head being in his lap. This girl was from a different time, and he doubted she’d be shocked at his closeness. Well, at least not as much as a common lass from this time.

  “There you are,” Simon whispered.

  Her jaw tightened, and her body went rigid.

  “You’re still here.”

  It wasn’t a question. It was a statement that brought a smile to Simon’s lips. “Aye.”

  “Where am I?”

  Anyone else, he would have scoffed at the question. “Scotland.”

  She nodded, eyes still closed.

  “That’s good.”

  “You are not from Scotland.” Easily deduced from her lack of accent.

  “No.”

  “America then?” It was a trick question since America was little more than an unexplored land full of Indians at this date in time.

  The girl nodded, smiled. “Yeah, California.” Her eyes were still closed.

  “Who’s the leader…? I mean president?”

  Her brow pitched together before her eyes sprung open. “Obama. Geez, I didn’t hit my head that hard.”

  Bright blue eyes met his.

  Beautiful.

  Obama. Not a name he recognized. This woman must be from a future he hadn’t experienced. The confusion marring the expression on her face as it searched his made him wonder if she knew what she’d done.

  She gazed at him for several seconds with a multitude of emotions filling her eyes. “You’re him,” she finally said.

  Simon held his tongue. If there was one thing he’d learned in this time, it was to let others speak their piece before he offered his own. Patience was something he’d learned through the years. Not something practiced in this woman’s America.

  She knew him, but Simon knew nothing of her. Maybe she was sent from the future with a message. A warning. Lord knew he’d had plenty of them.