by Linsey Hall
Cadan’s hand closed over her wrist in an iron grip. Diana jumped, barely suppressing a scream. He glared at her, shadows haunting his eyes.
“What’re you doing?” he said through gritted teeth.
“I’m trying—” She winced as his grip tightened. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Doona need your help.” Cadan’s voice was harsh and dark with pain. His gaze dropped to her wrist. Scowling, he removed his hand and sat up. “Leave me alone, I doona want your help.”
“Fine.” She rose to leave.
“There’s a bedroom across the hall.” He gestured to the door as he limped around his bed and headed toward the windows. “You can sleep there, but leave the door open. There’s a spell on this house that makes it invisible to most who pass by, but better safe than sorry.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Vivienne Lawrence accepted the last test from a grinning student. All the others had left within the last fifteen minutes, but this smiling girl who’d sat in the front row was the last to turn hers in.
“Good?” Vivienne asked.
“Great.” The girl’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction. She turned and headed back to her desk to grab her bag. On her way out of the classroom she asked, “When will Dr. Laughton be back?”
Vivienne tried to play it cool. “Next week, I think. She’s a little under the weather.”
“Cool. ’Night.”
Vivienne stacked the tests and idly watched the girl walk out of the classroom that Diana’s department used for Intro to Medieval History. She’d only covered Diana’s classes for a few days, so she didn’t really know the student, but she knew her type. Sat front row, smart, dedicated, and always turned the test in last because she always had something extra to say on the essay portions.
Vivienne had been that girl. Diana as well, probably. Most archaeology and history professors had been that girl. Vivienne had always been clever, but in truth, it had been her work ethic and sense of urgency that put her ahead of her colleagues.
She tucked the tests in her bag, then reached for her laptop to close it. She’d been analyzing remote sensing data from her last field project in Egypt and she was just flying through it. Normally she struggled with learning a new program for analyzing data, but this one had been a breeze. Her colleagues had been complaining about the interface all summer as they’d gathered the data, but for some reason Vivienne was having no problems.
It was the weirdest thing, but she was reading exponentially faster, too. And grading tests faster. She was just getting smarter in general. She’d considered talking to Diana about it, especially with all the crazy stuff that had been happening to her friend. But she was just too scared. What if she had a tumor? Sure, she was leaping to the worst possible conclusions, but she couldn’t help it. And ignoring it meant that it wasn’t real. Right?
A disgusted sigh escaped her as she tucked the laptop into her bag. She swung the bag onto her shoulder and headed for the door, wondering about Diana. A text from Diana had arrived a couple of days ago. It hadn’t been long, just a note that she was safe.
Hopefully she’d figure out what was going on and be back soon. Her department would figure out that Diana wasn’t teaching her classes and then they’d really have to do some fast talking.
It was crazy, though, what had happened to Diana. Vivienne believed her, of course. Not just because she was her friend and one of the most rational people she’d ever met. She’d been raised by her father to believe that all wasn’t as it seemed. He’d been an Egyptologist too, and one year while on a project in Egypt, he’d met Vivienne’s mother. Vivienne had showed up ten months later, though her mother had died in childbirth. Her father had tried to make her mother seem real to her by sharing the fairy tales and myths of her culture. Ever since she was a little girl, Vivienne had felt a strong affinity for them.
But she almost wished now that she hadn’t believed Diana. Hallucinations were definitely better than what had happened to her. God, she hoped she got out of this safely.
Vivienne flicked the light switch as she stepped out into the dim hallway of the history building. The test had run a bit over, so it was after seven. Across the hall, waiting right near the building’s main exit, a tall figure leaned against the wall. A long leather coat hung off incredibly slim shoulders and a wide-brimmed hat shielded a face that was tilted toward the ground.
Before she could take another step, the head rose. Eerie features, sharp and almost birdlike, glanced up at her and back down. Vivienne’s heart thrummed like a butterfly’s wings.
There was something wrong with the figure. She spun on her heel to hightail it toward the other exit. She had taken only a couple of steps down the linoleum-covered corridor when the chill-inducing sound of leaden footsteps sounded at her back. She picked up her pace, but hard arms gripped her from behind. The scream was crushed from her lungs.
“Not getting away this time, Diana,” the rough voice said in her ear.
Suddenly, all she could see was blackness and it felt like she was being thrown from a rollercoaster. She had no breath to gasp. Hard ground appeared beneath her feet and she opened her eyes, her stomach pitching when she saw three figures standing in front of her, all spindly and harsh-featured like the one who held her. Cold rain sprinkled her face.
She was in a city, and it wasn’t one she recognized. The buildings were all made of old gray stone or muted red brick, far older and larger than anything in Clayton. There were no people except for the monsters who held her.
“Got her,” the voice said from behind her.
Vivienne’s scream was cut off by a blow to the head. A flash of pain, then unconsciousness.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The screams of dying men and terrified horses echoed in her ears as she glared at the boy cowering at her feet. She’d cut through dozens of men on the battlefield to reach him. Now that she had, victory and vengeance sang through her. Finally.
She raised her sword and brought it slicing down across his neck.
Diana shot awake as if she’d been plunged into a vat of freezing water. She gasped and pressed her hand to her stomach, struggling to keep from throwing up.
Oh God. It had been the worst dream yet. Fragments swam in the corners of her mind, too vivid for her sanity. She lost the fight and ran to the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later she walked into the kitchen, still queasy and shaky. Cadan leaned against the counter with a steaming mug in his hand. Her eyes were drawn to his hair, slightly tousled from sleep, and the simple shirt that stretched over his broad shoulders. She could see no bulky bandages beneath the shirt.
Wow, he must really have healed overnight. He’d been a jerk when she’d tried to help him, but then, she couldn’t blame him for being moody when he was covered in stab wounds. He didn’t accept help easily, but perhaps that was because he so rarely needed it.
“Coffee?” His voice was still slightly rough from sleep and she hated what it did to her insides, especially after the dream she’d had.
“Um, yeah.”
His brow furrowed. “Are you all right? You look...unhappy.”
“Give me a moment.” Shakily, she took a sip of the coffee he offered her. Normally she would appreciate the big, beautiful kitchen with windows open to the fresh sea air. This morning, it taunted her. It was so normal in the face of all that was so strange in her life.
She stared out at the overcast sky that hung over an iron-gray sea and focused on her breathing. After a while, the soothing sight of waves crashing against huge boulders at the base of the curving cliffs pushed the pain of the dream away. The horror and guilt as well, though it was something that would never fully disappear.
“I was a bad person, Cadan,” she said when the worst of the pain was gone. With every new fact she learned, it felt like she was losing control of who she was.
He reached out to her, then pulled back. “Ah, lassie, why would you say that?”
“I dreamed that I killed a b
oy. A teenager. It was so quick, but as I cut his throat with my sword I just kept thinking, I’ll take what you love. I was so angry. So hurt.” The pain had bubbled like acid beneath her skin. “But it was horrible. I was horrible. Tell me you know what I’m talking about.”
She needed to know if she’d really killed that boy. Could she live with herself if she had? But she looked up at his face to see genuine shock. Her shoulders fell. This was one thing he didn’t know.
“Lassie, you weren’t a bad person. You may have made mistakes, but you weren’t evil.”
“There’s no excuse.” And there wasn’t, but she couldn’t help but appreciate his attempts to comfort her.
“Maybe no’. But it doesn’t sound like he suffered.”
A bitter laugh strangled in her throat. “It doesn’t matter how quick the death. It’s still my fault.”
“No’ yours.” He gripped her arms gently, but his face was fierce. His eyes burned into hers. “You aren’t the same as your past soul. You have some of her characteristics and memories. But you aren’t her. This isn’t your fault.”
“It sure feels like it. Every new thing that I learn about her life is more horrible than the last. I feel like I’m losing control of my life.” Her eyes burned. Damn it, she would not cry.
He rubbed her arms, concern darkening his eyes. “You’re no’. You killed a demon last night. You specifically disobeyed my orders—you’re too damn important to take such risks in the future, so doona do it again—but you are taking control.”
“I suppose. I didn’t feel entirely like me when I did it, though. I felt the same unfamiliar skill take over my body. It’s like my body remembers something my mind doesn’t.”
“I’m no’ surprised, and you’ll figure out what it means. But I’m serious. Doona take risks like that again. What you were reborn to do is too important to risk for some demons out on the road.”
“You would have been killed.”
“I’d have been fine. But thanks for the help.” She met his eyes, dark and deep beneath his furrowed brow. This aspect of her past might have thrown him for a loop, but he still knew more than she did. And was keeping it from her.
“Sure. Will you show me where the library is now? I’d like to start researching.” And maybe she could weasel some more information out of him if she could find any clues in the library.
~~~
Cadan nodded, relieved that the devastated look had faded from her face. He walked to the windows to shut out the sharp scent of sea air and the oncoming storm and then led her out of the kitchen and down the hall toward the library. Though he’d had a home here for most of his long life, he’d razed and rebuilt the main house every hundred years or so, attempting to erase memories as the years tolled on. By the thirteenth house, he’d finally figured out that he was trying to rebuild the home he’d lost so many years ago to the Romans.
He’d stopped building after that, choosing instead to modernize the thirteenth house, built in the early nineteenth century. The ridiculousness of it all had him spending most of his time at his flat in Edinburgh these last two hundred years.
He pushed open the door to the library and she preceded him inside. She stopped in the middle of the expansive room and looked around at the towering shelves of books that had kept him company for centuries. Her shoulders relaxed.
“You like it here,” he said.
She nodded. “I’ve always loved books. They gave me a way to temporarily escape my nightmares.” A shelf of particularly old tomes caught her eye and she walked toward it.
“Use your mornings here to research your past. But in the afternoons, we’ll be in the gym on the other side of the house.”
“All right.” She turned to face him and held up her wrist. “Do you think this tattoo could be a clue to my identity?”
“No’ likely. I think the tattoo was meant to draw you to Edinburgh.” To me.
“Well, I wouldn’t have been drawn here if my former soul wasn’t British, right?”
“Aye, you were British. Arthur’s Seat has the strongest magical energy of any place in Great Britain. Reincarnates are often led there by their catalyzing events.”
She sighed. “Research it is, then.”
“How will you start?” He looked around the room, brows drawn. What could she find here? He’d stay with her, help her, and hopefully discover her task before she did. She was braver than he’d originally thought, but the idea of her risking her life made him ill. It was unacceptable.
Tonight, he’d come down and hide the texts that were more likely to give her answers. Then, when he had a moment, he’d see if they held anything useful.
“I’ll flip through books and see if anything reminds me of my dreams. Clothes, weapons, tools, furniture. With history, you can never tell what little piece of evidence will put the whole picture together. Hopefully something will jog my memory.”
Jog her memory? Of his own face, perhaps?
~~~
Clothes and weapons were only a few of the clues her dreams provided. The man who had held her as she died was the other part of the mystery. But it had all happened so long ago that she couldn’t remember his face or even his hair color.
“How much do you remember of your past?” she asked. And how much harder would it be for her to remember hers when it was so much older than his?
“All of it. No’ all in great detail, but I remember more than I care to.” He sounded weary, as if the weight of the past bore down upon him. He was so strong, so steady that she couldn’t imagine anything hurting him. But muscle and bone couldn’t protect the heart and the mind.
She didn’t know how to respond, so instead she watched silently as he walked across the soft carpet toward one of the shelves. He reached up and withdrew a delicate volume, then settled himself in a chair in front of the windows that looked out upon the sea, an air of lethal grace about him despite the delicate book he cradled in his hard warrior’s hands.
Her gaze jerked away from him. She needed to stay focused on her own past if she had any hope of getting out of this, not on the devastatingly sexy and very possibly damaged man sitting across from her. But it was hard not to think of him when she liked everything that she learned. She shook the thoughts away and got to work.
Four hours later, after looking through countless texts, her heart sped up with the thrill of discovery. This was why she liked studying history. For the moment when a puzzle piece fell into place and her mind ran a mile a minute while her lungs and heart tried to keep up.
But this was even bigger than that. It felt like a lightning strike. She’d found something. She was dead certain of it. “Cadan.” Her voice trembled. “Come look at this.”
Within moments, he was standing behind her. “What—what’s that?”
“Verulamium.” She read the text beneath the picture of the tumbling stone ruin. “I don’t know why it’s important, but it is, I can feel it, and we have to go there.”
“Nay. Absolutely no’. Too dangerous.”
“Look at what it says beneath the picture. It’s a first-century Roman settlement that was destroyed by the Celts. That falls within the period of my dreams. And it feels familiar. Just like I’d hoped.”
“Feels? That’s no’ very scientific.”
She twisted in her chair and scowled up at him. “Seriously? A magical tattoo and the appearance of demons sent me across the ocean to discover that I’ve been reincarnated and you’re harping on science? Having a feeling that Verulamium is important is no less crazy than that.”
“It’s all the way in the south of England. I’m no’ taking you all the way down there. Demons would be all over you as soon as we stepped off my property. Now, it’s well past lunch and almost time for your self-defense lessons.” He spun on his heel and walked toward the door and she hopped up to follow.
“This is the first clue I’ve had, and you’re making me ignore it? I am one hundred percent sure that this is important. I really do feel it.
”
“It’s no’,” he said. “Verulamium is a Roman fort. You weren’t a Roman, I’ll tell you that much. Going there is too dangerous. It’s my job to keep you safe and going to Verulamium is no’ going to happen.”
Her brow creased as she looked at him. If his face was hard, his eyes were diamond. Why was he so resistant to go to Verulamium when she was sure it would help? Was it really just about keeping her safe…or was there more to it?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“That’s what you’re wearing to learn to fight?” The husky voice announced Cadan’s entry to the arsenal that he called a gym.
Bracing herself to turn around to face him, Diana stared blindly at the honey-colored wood of the walls that would have been inviting if they hadn’t been a backdrop for gleaming weapons of copper, iron, and steel. Wicked and threatening, even in this lovely room.
But then, they were what she’d come here to learn about now that the late lunch she’d shared with Cadan was finished. Finished, but not before she’d confirmed that she was actually starting to like him, despite his shiftiness about her past.
Now she was here, wearing too-tight yoga pants and a tank top—both had seemed like a good idea when she’d pulled them out of her bag. Due to the fact that planets could orbit around her butt, she didn’t normally wear things like this outside of gardening in her very private yard. But she didn’t have much else in her bag because of her hasty packing. And it hadn’t seemed like the worst idea, considering that she liked him. But now that she was here, and she had to turn and face him…. Well, it didn’t seem so clever anymore.
To buy time, she pointed to the wall hung with weapons made of brightly colored metals or stone and without turning around, asked, “What are those?”