“Not right now, you won’t.” A voice split through the storm, a voice Toren hated so much that the fire raging down the length of his body turned instantly to ice.
Toren pulled away from Kat, but kept her sheltered against his body. “Bana-bhuidseach! Witch!” he yelled at the ghostly image hovering.
“Call me what you will, but I am here to help.” The apparition looked the same as when he’d seen her five years ago. She was a crone, but her age shifted continuously. Her long white hair tangled with her flowing silvery robes as she floated. The dragonflies encircled her like a shield or a battalion ready to attack.
The witch looked at Kat even though Toren tried to shield her. The olc crone would have to go through him to reach her.
“Katell, Daughter of Gilla, the demons come for you,” she said indicating the storm roaring around them.
It took a moment to realize the witch was speaking to Kat. “Ye ken this witch?” Toren demanded, yanking Kat away to stare down at her.
Kat shook her head. “No,” she yelled above the wind.
When he pulled away from Kat and the witch could see her fully, the apparition gasped. “My dragonfly! You are wearing my dragonfly!” She held out a long, sharp finger toward Kat’s neck. “Take it off. It’s what has brought them to you!”
“What are you talking about?” Kat demanded. “Who are you? What demons?”
“The ones who killed your parents, girl.” The witch glanced around at the thrashing trees. “There’s no time to explain, take it off!” She pointed to the lake. “Look, they come.”
Toren stared out over Lake Jordan where a funnel cloud spun towards them. “Kat, give me the necklace,” he said as his fingers worked the catch behind her neck. He balled the necklace and stuck it into his jacket pocket. He’d rather go to Hell in that bloody tornado than hand it over to the crone. His gaze turned back toward the lake. “It still comes.”
“It’s too late,” the witch yelled. “They know she’s here. I have to hide her.” The witch’s head whipped back and forth as if she sought some hole to stuff Kat into.
He glanced sideways to Kat who clutched her arms against the cold wind in the scraps of her soaked undergarments.
Toren shucked off his suit jacket and draped her in it. She fisted it closed in front. A brief smile touched her lips when she nodded to him. A thank you, perhaps.
Her gaze moved to the witch. “You knew my parents?” she asked.
“I am Drakkina. I taught Gilla and Druce.” The witch’s words flew, her eyes still wild. “Gilla sent you with her magic to hide you from them.” She jabbed a long finger at the cloud. “You can’t let them take you. There’s more than your life at stake.”
In the frantic flashes of lightning, Toren studied the funnel cloud on its race across the large lake. It did seem to be headed directly toward them. There was something in the way the cloud sparked from within its swirls that looked unnatural. He sniffed the air. It smelled like stagnant death. Not the tangy scent of fresh blood during a battle, but the smell of death two days later, when the unclaimed, partly eaten corpses begin to rot. His warrior’s instincts thrummed, putting him in full alert. There was more threat here than a mere tornado. “They want her magic?”
“Yes, yes! The dragonfly, combined with her own magic, called to them when it touched her skin,” the witch spat. Her eyes bore into his, wide with hysteria. “They’ll kill her for it.” The crone closed her eyes for a brief moment as if trying to concentrate. “I will send you away like Gilla.”
She opened her pale blue eyes and looked straight at Toren. “Guard her, give me back my dragonfly, and I will leave you alone in the century you desire.”
“I doona trust olc magic.”
“My magic is not evil,” she replied. She obviously knew Gaelic.
“Then I doona trust ye.”
“You have little choice. Give it to me!”
“Nay!”
“There’s no time,” she said, throwing a wrinkled hand out to the funnel closing in on the shore.
“Hide her without taking the necklace,” he demanded.
“Stubborn troll,” she spat, then shook her head, pale eyes full of white anger. “Take it then with you, but give it back if you want me to leave you alone. And don’t touch it,” she yelled to Kat. “They’ll find you if you touch it.”
The tornado raced close enough that Toren could see the water being sucked up into the giant swirling twist. Voices, he could almost make out voices in the mist. Toren pulled Kat into his chest, shielding her from the debris flying through the yard, pummeling into the gazebo. Under the roar Toren could barely hear the witch’s chant.
“On the currents of my blood, on the currents of my yearning to save your humanity, send them, Earth Mother, now within my thread of power.” The witch looked at Toren. “Return the Highlander to whence he came.” With that she blew out a long breath that seemed to raise the temperature of the air around them. Then the crone began to waver before his eyes. “Hold her tight,” she called to him. Toren wrapped himself around her.
“What’s happening?” Kat screeched. “Everything looks blurry.”
Toren watched. It wasn’t just the witch that wavered. Everything did. And then he felt the melting, the same feeling he’d had five long years ago when the witch had stolen him from his time, from his world and thrust him for no obvious reason into the twenty-first century. “Hold onto me, lass,” he whispered roughly in Kat’s ear. “I think we are about to fly.”
“Fly?”
Toren felt her fingers grip his back like a terrified, feral cat. And then they softened, stretched thin into two threads wrapped together, snaking up through the maelstrom to leave the world behind.
Their bodies elongated, twisting into a rope, his thread and Kat’s thread, separate but twined so tightly that they couldn’t fall apart. They flew upward, snaking through a crack in the dense, sticky clouds. They soared, unable to talk, unable to interact except to hold on to one another with their whole bodies, their whole essences. Toren sensed fear from Kat and tried to push a feeling of calm toward her strand. It felt just like it had five years before when the witch had snatched him away from his business at court. The moon and stars, the sun and sky blinked past him so fast that they blurred together making him dizzy and furious. He was absolutely out of his own control and nothing angered him more. He should be the only one responsible for his destiny. His future was his choice alone.
And yet this crone, who was somehow connected to Kat, could change everything in his life. The more he thought of the bizarre circumstances the more fury built up inside him. Worry, fear, and the beginning of anger resonated from Kat’s thread. Toren tried to calm his thoughts to help her when the flashing ceased. Their threads descended over Hampton Court Palace, snaked through minute cracks in the roof, down through the sleeping rooms, until they came to rest in an antechamber, their forms quickly expanding back into flesh and bones.
Toren glanced around. He and Kat were alone, dressed as they had been when the crone sent them.
“She’s done it,” he hissed, his mind racing through memories of that night five years past. He stood exactly where he’d been when the witch had taken him.
“What has she done?” Kat asked, her voice full of numb bewilderment.
“Sent me back, back to the moment she took me.”
Kat clutched his arm. “And exactly when did she take you?”
Toren turned to the drenched woman still in her underwear under his twenty-first-century jacket. “Dress yerself, milady,” he said, his burr thicker than she’d ever heard. “Ye’re about to meet Elizabeth.”
Kat swallowed. “Elizabeth who?” she squeaked.
The double doors began to open and a loud voice proclaimed. “Laird Toren MacCallum of Loch Melfort to see Queen Elizabeth, Sovereign of all England and Scotland.”
Kat’s mouth dropped open. Who? What? Where were they? When were they? How were they? The questions banged into one another
in her mind like crazed bumper cars.
“Clothe yerself.” Toren’s voice broke through the mental fog. Kat instantly poured magic around her and Toren, covering them in Elizabethan court clothing. So her degree was of use despite what Roger at the bank said.
Kat leaned into Toren and touched his arm. Her nails dug in enough to catch his eye and she tried to keep the panic out of her voice. “As long as I touch you, they see you dressed also in Elizabethan clothing.”
“We canna be separated?”
As the doors began to swing inward, Kat spoke low over the heart hammering in her ears. “Not unless you want them to see how evil rainstorms trash Armani suits.” How utterly impossible that she was still able to joke in a moment like this. She’d just been sent back in time. Ridiculous, she must be dreaming. She’d had the melting, twisting-into-thread nightmare since she was a kid, but she’d never ended up at Queen Elizabeth’s court. Maybe a tree branch had struck and she was unconscious. She would play along until the Yellow Brick Road appeared and she’d skip to the Emerald City.
Kat willed her feet to move forward at Toren’s tug. Breathe, don’t forget to breathe. Little stars sparkled before her eyes. No fainting. Absolutely no fainting. Kat glanced around at the amazing statues and tapestries. She longed to stop and study them. The details were perfect, and a chill ran down her bare spine. Too many details for a dream. She had to concentrate on her costume, down to the smallest detail. She chose a gown she had studied because in her over-awed brain it was the one she knew the best, every pearl, every gold thread.
They walked between several small groups of men through another doorway toward the throne. Kat swallowed past a tongue that stuck to the roof of her mouth. She walked toward Queen Elizabeth I.
The famous monarch had red hair piled up on her head, probably a wig, Kat thought. What year was it? It could be her real hair. The white makeup caked on her face gave a surreal look as if she were a china doll. Elizabeth wore a blue gown with bees embroidered over it. The ruff at her neck gave her the look of a floating detached head. The queen’s scrutiny burrowed into her. Toren bowed low and Kat tried to imitate the deep curtsies she’d seen in the Elizabethan movies.
“Yer Majesty,” he murmured.
Elizabeth flipped her hands. “Rise,” she ordered sharply, her etched coal eyebrows drawing together. “Who is this woman?” she asked disdainfully. “And why is she wearing my favorite gown?”
Kat’s mind whirled. The dress she knew the best had of course been one of Elizabeth’s. Shoot, shoot, gosh darn shoot! She took two deep breaths and started tweaking the mask. The dress had been cream, she changed it to a peach. The velvet fabric, she changed to silk. The embroidered pattern, she changed to miniature butterflies.
Kat bowed her head. “Forgive the similarity, Your Majesty.”
“Similarity? It is exactly…” Elizabeth’s voice trailed off as she studied the gown again. The silence stretched while Kat stared at the chipped Heavenly Pink nail polish on her big toe. “Yes, I see now. It is similar, but not the same.”
Kat raised her gaze to the stately woman.
The queen looked to Toren. She’d called him Laird. He was a laird, just like Lisa said. “I was told you had a gift to present, Laird MacCallum. Am I to assume that this woman is your gift?”
Toren hesitated. He must have had something to present when the witch, Drakkina, had taken him. Why had she done that? No wonder the man acted like the immortal Highlander. He was.
“Nay, Yer Majesty. I am to present ye with this necklace,” he said holding up the dragonfly necklace. “From Clan MacCallum to pledge our allegiance to ye.”
He was giving Elizabeth the dragonfly necklace? But it was Drakkina’s. The witch would be completely pissed! She said she’d zap him somewhere else if he didn’t hand it over. Where was Drakkina anyway?
Elizabeth nodded. A groom took the magical necklace and held it out. She studied it. “It is unique, exquisite. I send my thanks to your family at Melfort.” Her gaze shifted back to Kat. “But who is she? I had not heard that anyone besides your brother and sister had accompanied you to court.”
Again, Kat held her breath, waiting for Toren to fabricate something. This was his century after all. Did he expect her to give a plausible excuse for her appearance?
Kat felt Toren’s arm tense under the thin black dress shirt. He placed his large hand over hers. “Yer Majesty, I would present to ye my betrothed, Lady Katell…” Last name, she didn’t have a last name. “Lady Katell Di-Ciadaoin,” he said and bowed once more.
Kat curtsied deep. Sweet Jesus, where did he come up with that?
Elizabeth flicked her hands again to get them to rise. “Di-Ciadaoin? I have never heard of that family. It is a Gaelic word, is it not?” The stately monarch squinted her eyes. “A day of the week?”
“Aye.”
“Her name is…Katell Wednesday?” the queen asked, one coal eyebrow rising.
Kat glanced down at her day of the week underwear and groaned inside.
“Aye, it translates that way, but the name is Gaelic,” he answered.
The queen leaned back in her throne, both eyebrows raised, her lips pursed into a perfect red circle. “Either you are lying to a queen and ready to forfeit your head or you are fooled by her beauty and ready to believe whatever she says.” Elizabeth leaned forward. “She does speak, doesn’t she?”
Kat curtseyed once more. “Aye, Your Majesty,” Kat said using her best Pride and Prejudice English accent. “I just find myself without a tongue when I am nervous.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Nervous? You admit that you are nervous?”
“Immensely,” Kat said without hesitation.
The queen weighed her. “Well it is good that one of you is telling the truth.” She frowned at Toren.
“Forgive the abrupt announcement,” Toren said. “I had met Lady Di-Ciadaoin when I journeyed through the Lake Country several months ago. Her family died of a plague leaving her alone. During my time helping her we developed an attachment.”
“Well she is quite comely,” Elizabeth assessed, as if speaking about good horseflesh.
Kat wondered if she’d ask to inspect her teeth.
“I see why you might be enthralled.” Elizabeth looked Kat up and down again, and Kat hoped that her costume was authentic enough to pass the inspection. “Tell me Lady Di-Ciadaoin, your accent is quite strange. From where does your family hail?”
“The Di-Ciadaoin’s moved…” Toren began, but Elizabeth held up a ring bedecked hand.
“Even though I seldom tire of listening to your rolling, deep timbre, I must insist on hearing from the lady, MacCallum,” she ordered without moving her gaze from Kat.
Think, Kat, think. In the sixteenth century, where would I come from with an odd accent, but without any further knowledge of any other language except for three semesters of French? Kat bowed her head. Costume and weapons were her expertise, not geography. “My father sought wealth in the Caribbean, Your Majesty. He traded merchandise along the routes.”
The queen’s eyebrow rose. “Your father was a pirate?”
“Nay, Your Majesty. An honest merchant trying to find honest fortune without a benefactress.”
She nodded. “A pirate, but perhaps a polite pirate.” The queen smiled sarcastically at Toren. “You wish to wed a pirate’s daughter?”
“Aye.”
“That may be difficult as I already have a petition sent to me this morning for you to right a wrong and wed another.”
Kat glanced at Toren from the corner of one eye. Right a wrong? By wedding?
Toren opened his mouth, but Elizabeth waved her hand again. “We will talk of this predicament alone. You are my favorite laird.” She smiled like a Cheshire cat. “But honor, duty, and justice are essential to my throne.” Elizabeth looked at Kat. “I will talk with you later, Lady Di-Ciadaoin.”
“My lady does not ken the labyrinth of your palace. I would escort her to her quarters,” Toren said.
“And exactly where would those quarters be?” the queen asked. “With you?”
Good question, thought Kat. The woman was as quick and clever as history remembered.
“Nay, with my sister, the Lady MacCallum,” he answered.
“Soon to be Lady Campbell,” Elizabeth added.
Toren’s hand tightened over Kat’s. “That is another discussion I wish to have with ye, Yer Majesty.”
Elizabeth stared at Toren for a moment and then signaled to a guard holding a pike near the double doors. “Take Lady Di-Ciadaoin to Lady MacCallum’s quarters.”
Kat’s fingers bit into Toren’s arm. She couldn’t let go of him or her magic would dissolve around his body. “No,” she stammered. “Nay.”
“No?” The queen’s eyes snapped.
Blood drained out of Kat under the blade of her glare. Even sitting, Elizabeth Tudor was a force so strong as to make men tremble.
It wasn’t difficult for Kat to give way to the stars that floated before her eyes. Her penchant to near fainting was also proving helpful in this sixteenth-century nightmare. Kat blinked slowly, grabbed hold of Toren’s arm with both of her hands, and let her knees buckle underneath her imagined gown. Down she went in a mirage of skirts and embroidery. She even heard the swish of the silk against the stone.
Kat vaguely sensed Elizabeth rise. “I had hopes that this woman would be different.” Toren scooped Kat up into his arms without even a grunt or groan. “A woman to match you, Toren MacCallum, must be strong of spirit, not one of these bird-witted maids.”
“Yer Majesty,” Toren murmured, and bowed his head before backing out of the room.
Kat listened to his imaginary heels cracking against the stone floor while she fumed. “Bird-witted,” she whispered against his chest.
Toren turned a corner and lowered her feet to the floor. He held a grin. “Bird-witted maids doona tend to be thieves.”
“I only steal to keep the children together,” she said defensively, as she let hair fall in front of her right cheek. If he could see through her magic, he must be able to see the scars. “And after this nightmare is finished, I’ll come up with something else.” She looked down at her toes.
Masquerade (The Dragonfly Chronicles Book 3) Page 6