by LAURA HARNER
Alexander leaned on the table in front of the window, his hands gripped the edge of the wood so hard his knuckles were white. In a tight voice, he asked, “Tell me about Alysone?” His voice low and guttural, exposing much of the emotion Randi knew he tried to hide from her.
Randi smiled. “It took me a long time to figure that out. Lissa had been helping me ever since I got to this time. We grew very close, especially once Gabhran had gone off to fight for the Worthingtons. I had a dream or vision the night he was injured and ran to Lissa to tell her I could no longer sense him. I thought he was dead.
“I don’t know why everything started to click into place, but I realized Lissa matched the description of the woman named Alysone in the future, and after a few questions I was sure of it.” Miranda smiled at Alexander’s back. “She told me you were the only one that still called her Alysone. She also told me how much she loved you.”
He stiffened and turned to face Miranda, his face a tight mask. “Is there something about her I don’t know? Is she well?”
“Relax, Alexander, she has good news for you. I wish I could wait for her to tell you, but it’s probably important to what’s happening now.” Miranda paused just for a moment, pondering the best way to break the news, wishing she didn’t have to. “She’s pregnant with your baby, Alexander, and she loves you very much.”
“No! It wasna supposed to happen this way, she should not have been there,” Alex muttered, his voice full of pain.
“What do you mean? What wasn’t supposed to be this way? The time travel?”
“Oh Christ—Alysone. She was only supposed to be in a new location in this same time, she’s not supposed to change time. How can this be?”
“What do you know about her changing time? Do you know how it’s happening? Do you know who has been sending Gabhran from time to time?”
“Aye,” he replied bleakly “‘twas me.”
Chapter Thirty-two
“It was who?” Randi’s voice was a low and dangerous whisper.
“Me!” he shouted before turning on his heel and stalking out the door.
Randi collapsed against the couch and closed her eyes. How could that be, what did it mean? Could Alexander undo what he had done to all of them? But if he did, which parts would she really want undone? Would she still have Gabhran as warrior Laird or as a civilized doctor? Would they even know each other still, or would they be separated by time? Would she still carry their child? What about Alysone? This was not going to be easy.
With her eyes closed and thoughts whirling, Randi was surprised to see Gabhran standing just above her staring out to sea, his eyes sparkling with the sheen of unshed tears. He was magnificent, one hand on the hilt of his sword, the other propped on his hip. His black hair was unfettered, gossamer strands whipped in a tangle, blowing back from his face. His features were revealed by the starlight; heavy brow, sharp planes, strong jaw, cleft chin. His plaid was the Chieftain’s tartan, red and black with strands of green and blue.
“When I was young, ” he said, his voice a dreamy, whisky-rich baritone, “I was sent to train with the Gailtry, ‘tis where I learned my Druid arts. ‘Twas a wonderful place, a large sprawling farm near the village of Fairth. Ian and I ran wild over the outlying hills, climbed trees, found caves we thought had ne’er been discovered except by us, e’er the young explorers. We practiced sword play until our arms were nigh to falling off, bespelled each other and everything around us.”
He laughed quietly, sending nearly orgasmic shudders through her core, before he continued. “Once I spelled the Gailtry himself, turned him into a cat. Seeing as he was a shape shifter with a preference for becoming a wolf, he was not best pleased with me. Damned if the man didna turn my own spell back on me, and refused to free me from its effects for a week.
“Ian laughed so hard he cried, until I kept dragging my dead trophies to his bed while he was sleeping. He didna find the dead mice and birds on his pillow so amusing. I felt like I spit feathers for a month after that.” He laughed once more.
“The only part that ever saddened me about training with the Gailtry was missing my brother; I always wished we could have trained together. Och, I knew he trained as a Druid, I could sense his power, but ‘twas forbidden to speak with him about Druidry until the time was right. Now the time is right, and we are farther apart than ever.
“I need you, Miranda,” he said simply, turning to face her. “We need you. All the pieces are in your hands or are within your grasp. Find your own magick, lass. ‘Tis time. The Epoch of the Druid is upon us. You must return to me, Alex must join us, at the place I missed him most when we were lads. Never forget you are my eternal love.”
Randi’s eyes flew open, only to find Alexander staring at her intently.
****
When Gabhran woke, it had been from the strangest dream he’d ever known. He watched the woman sleeping in the chair while he tried to figure out what, if anything, such a dream meant. He suspected it was the effects of the drugs. Still, he reflected, searching for any hidden meaning.
He’d been standing on a cliff, looking out over the sea, wearing a plaid and armed with a sword! Then he’d been speaking of a place called the Gailtry Farm, telling a golden-haired witch about a childhood memory. Her hazel gaze met his, and filled him to over-flowing with love. Her name was Miranda, and in his dream, she was his eternal love. Had there been such a woman? Had he trained as a Druid? If there truly had been a brother, what was his name? Alex? Ian?
Everything about the dream felt familiar, yet strange, as though it had happened to him in another lifetime. Nothing in his memory felt quite right today. He had clearly been badly injured, and was now in the process of healing. How in the hell did I come to be shot?
Perhaps the woman with him had the answers. She was clearly in her second trimester, thin except for the pregnancy, with nearly white-blonde hair. She certainly wasn’t the woman in his dream. Miranda.
He watched her eyelids flutter, then she stirred restlessly. Finally, with a start she woke, her gaze flying to meet his. Good. Now that she was awake, he would question her until he got the answers he sought.
****
Elena was sitting in the middle of the bed, rising from the swirl of covers like a goddess from the sea. Her long black hair fell in waves around her naked body, rosy nipples peeking out between the silky strands and Faolan couldn’t get enough of her. He growled low in his throat, causing a ripple of anticipation to shiver through her. She lowered her chin, gazed at Faolan through half lowered lids, and wet her lower lip. In another age and time, it would have been called a come-hither look. Faolan hithered.
Afterward, lying sated in each other’s arms, Faolan heaved a sigh, and thought about what he needed to do next.
“What is it, Faolan?”
“I need to leave you here for a few hours, love, and you need to not argue about it. I have to shift to my wolf form and run the farm tonight, before I take you there on the morrow. I know ‘tis not in your nature to wait, but ‘tis something only I can do.”
Elena rolled away from him, and propped herself back on the pillows, an uncharacteristic frown on her face.
“Doona be angry with me, love. You know I am far more sensitive to the signs and smells of intruders as my wolf. I must run the perimeter of the farm.”
“I don’t know, Faolan. It’s going to take you an hour to get there, and an hour back. By the time you check the boundaries, you’ll be gone at least four hours.”
She hadn’t masked her thoughts well enough, he knew she was teasing him, and knew what she was about to suggest. He had a better idea. Faolan towered over her, then flipped her over suddenly, causing her breath to escape in a soft woosh. He pulled her up so she was on her hands and knees. Spreading her knees wide apart with his, he pressed his shaft into the cleft of the fleshy globes of her bottom.
“Doona move,” he said as he turned over and lay on his back, and slid his face between her legs. His tongue lightly b
rushed between her lower lips. “I might get hungry. ‘Tis probably best if I have a little snack before I go.” He laughed softly against her most tender spot.
“Ah, how did you kn— oh, oh,” she gasped under the ministrations of his tongue.
Elena raised herself on her knees above his mouth and he pushed his tongue deep inside her hot canal, gliding in and out. When she could take no more, she fell forward onto her elbows, and Faolan shifted his attention as he caressed her folds with long slow strokes of his tongue. He slipped two fingers deep inside her as he flicked and kissed her clitoris, and Elena came suddenly with a thundering crash, her muscles clamping down on his fingers, body shuddering with the intensity of her orgasm.
Slipping out from under her, Faolan knelt between Elena’s legs and buried his throbbing cock to the hilt, rotating his hips, causing her to continue shuddering around him until he finally stilled to let her recover. Elena’s raven-black hair spilled down her back and sides, and it made Faolan wild with desire. He helped her to rise onto her knees, her back pressed against his chest, her hair spread between them, silky against his thighs. Faolan pumped languidly, holding her hips to him with one hand while the other drew strands of her hair across her stomach, brushing her nipples, caressing her neck.
Without saying a word, Elena projected an image directly to Faolan’s mind; one of his favorite memories of the first night they’d made love. He had slammed into her that night from behind with barely restrained intensity, gripping her hair in his hands, driving them both.
With a groan, Faolan followed her silent request, and grabbed her hair in one hand and pulled it to the side. He bit her hard before covering her neck with open mouth kisses. He pushed her forward, grabbed her hips with both hands and began to pound into her, and she met his every thrust, hips pushing back, little grunts escaping both of them with the force of his stroke. Faster and harder they went, until Elena threw her head back and arched her neck.
“Now, Faolan. Oh God, I’m ready now,”
Faolan grabbed a fistful of her hair close to her scalp, as he lowered himself to cover her, his mouth hot on her neck. Just as he felt her muscles start to spasm around his shaft he released his seed, filling her with pulse after pulse of his essence.
Elena made the beast within him wild and then gentled him with her love.
He left her sleeping when he went to check on the farm. He would not risk her safety again.
****
Alysone gulped a little at the look on Gav’s face. She didn’t think this version of Gav was going to settle for vague statements and half-truths. She would either have an ally or be back in the mental hospital when they were through. On the other hand, she didn’t need to give every detail, maybe she could trigger his memories by starting with the biggest truths first.
“My name is Alysone, although you have always called me Lissa. You have a brother named Alexander, and the three of us have known each other since we were very young.” Lissa stopped for a minute, letting him absorb the information, hoping it would trigger memories.
Gabhran slowly shook his head.
Lissa went on, her voice gentle, “There’s a lot you have forgotten, Gav. You were shot in the back and badly hurt. That’s why you feel so bad. You have a best friend named Ian, and it was his brother that shot you. Does any of this sound familiar?”
Gabhran closed his eyes for a long moment, but blinked them open when she continued.
“You are in love with Miranda, and she loves you very much. Try to reach for those memories. She has blonde hair, not like mine, darker, and very long. Close your eyes, can you see her?”
Again Gabhran closed his eyes. This time she waited before speaking. Suddenly his posture changed, as if he’d found the memory he’d searched for.
“I remember Miranda,” he exclaimed, his eyes wide with wonder before his brow furrowed in consternation. “But it doesna make sense. ‘Tis as though she is here with me now, then she seems to be something from the past. From the long ago past. What the bloody hell is going on, Lissa?”
“Aye, I know, Gav, it feels as though you’ve lived in different places and different times, does it not?”
He eyed Lissa guardedly. “Aye, why do I feel that way, and how is it you know so much about it?”
Here it was, Lissa thought, he would either believe her, or she was going to be out of here and on her own and God only knew where ‘here’ was. “You and I seem to have traveled through time to live in different places, live different lives. You once told me you were always a doctor in each of your realities, as you called them. This is the first time we have traveled together, that I know of. We have to figure this out and find Miranda, find Alex,” she finished with her hand on her stomach.
Gabhran was again silent a very long time, then he spoke slowly, as if fragmented memories shuffled and jostled for his attention. “Oh, God. I learned spells, the memories…pictures…” He trailed off and continued to stare, seeing something in his mind.
Lissa waited.
When he finally looked up and met her gaze, his eyes were clear, his resolve firm.
“We need to find a place called Gailtry Farms, north of Inverness.
****
Alexander sat down across from Miranda, his long black hair pulled into a leather thong, his face felt tight, grim. He would tell this woman everything, and if she were part of a larger plot, to somehow destroy his clan, he would kill her. He had deep-listened to her, sensed the innate goodness of her soul, her love for his brother. Aye, there was still something she was withholding, some other love, but he would set that aside for the moment.
Her hazel eyes were full of confusion, distrust, and a trace of hope, a volatile mixture on which to build a partnership, but they didna have a choice, as he saw it. She waited silently while he summoned food and drinks be brought to them. This was going to take a long time.
Finally, when he ascertained she had no other pressing needs for the moment, he sat across from her and locked his gaze with hers. A shiver of anticipation visibly ran through her, recognition of the immense power in the room.
“Tell me, lass, do you believe in fairy tales?”
Chapter Thirty-three
There was an island near the Isle of Skye, existing in a dimension that was completely invisible to humans. A portal to other worlds and to underworlds. Utopia, Valhalla, Heaven. The island was a place where time very nearly stood still, where a human day could pass in the blink of an ancient one’s eye. It was a place of refuge for Queen Morrighan of the Tuatha Dé Danaan and all of her race, at least for those who were of the Seelie Court.
Queen Morrighan was a vision of platinum and diamonds, shimmering from head to foot in a light so blinding even the other Fae had to look away at times when she was feeling particularly strong emotions. Her hair was silvery white, flowing to her ankles, her eyes iridescent slivers of light, her features nearly feline in their angles. She was dressed in translucent lace that covered everything yet hid nothing from view.
Languidly reclining on a velvet chaise lounge of turquoise blue, in the center a large marble, open-air pantheon, the Queen glanced at the members of her Royal Seelie Court. Although many of the Seelie were off pursuing their own pleasures, she was attended by some of her more faithful advisors, a few who also courted her physical favors. After tens of thousands of years, she wearied of their ceaseless pandering, and wondered why some of the Court members did not venture into the worlds open to them. She realized many of them undoubtedly suffered from the same ennui that affected her at the moment. She was bored.
In a musical voice that a human might have thought was bird song, Queen Morrighan spoke to her royal consorts. “Where is Princess Rhyannan? She has not attended me for some time. I wish to have her here.” A long time in Faery could be thousands of years in human time, for the concept of time was vastly different in the two realms and between the two races.
The members of the Court looked at each other, jealously wondering who wou
ld provide the Queen with the answer she sought, resentful of the attention soon to be paid to Rhyannan. The politics and gossip would start anew.
Each member of the Court, indeed of the entire Tuatha Dé Danann Royal Houses, both Seelie and Unseelie were powerful immortals, capable of shifting time, traveling through dimensions, and altering realities. Yet none was as powerful as the Queen, and when no one immediately answered her question, she thrust painfully into each mind present, seeking an answer.
The Queen captured Kheelen faster than the faery was able to shift and froze him in place, his knowledge blazoned from within despite the maneuvers he enacted to disguise it. The Queen sorted through the images she stripped from his mind. In less than a moment she discovered his treachery, but her justice this day was not to be swift. She would play with her prey first.
She eyed Kheelen speculatively. He was wearing his customary human glamour, and appeared as a blond and bronzed, broad-shouldered man with golden eyes. He liked to think of himself as one of those muscled men who rode boards in the oceans, and could often be found lying in the sand on beaches around the world, surrounded by dozens of admirers. Women and men vied for the honor of stroking his hair, rubbing exotic oils onto his velvet skin, bringing him small tokens of their desire. Those he favored with his charms were never the same when he was finished with them.
The Queen knew that Kheelen had always had a special fondness for Rhyannan, and they had passed many a pleasant century in a comfortable and non-binding alliance. Occasionally they traveled alone, but most of the time they ventured together, and as with all Fae, they would have a tacit understanding that they were always free to pursue more personal interests.
White-hot anger emanated from him in waves as the Queen projected the images from his head onto the dais at the center of the marble courtyard. Members of the Court were treated to full-sized images of Kheelen and Rhyannan traveling together, casting fey winds, and more intimate moments. The Queen seemed particularly fond of viewing their lovemaking. Kheelen snarled, bound to her side, unable to move.