Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  So she offered those words to him silently by pressing her lips to his, hoping they might roll off in the kiss and find their way into his heart.

  * * * * *

  Dozens of candles shimmered in the laird's bedchamber.

  Drustan had made love to her yet another time, so many times, she'd lost count. Gwen's body felt deliciously swollen by kisses and thorough loving from head to toe. In the candlelight, his dark skin shimmered golden, his silky black hair gleamed. She gazed at him, marveling. She had her Drustan back. She still couldn't believe it.

  "You really meant it when you said you were going to'toop me until my legs fell off,' didn't you?" she teased, wondering if she would be able to walk by morning.

  "By Amergin, Gwen, it was killing me watching you walk around the castle! I was obsessed with you. As much as you spied on me, I watched you. And had you stopped, I like as not would have begun stalking you instead."

  "A shame I didn't stop, then. I was getting rather sick of humiliating myself."

  He winced and stretched himself atop her, propping his weight on his elbows. Smoothing a wisp of hair behind her ear, he whispered, "Och, lass, forgive me."

  "For what? Being a stubborn medieval man and refusing to believe me right away?" she teased.

  "Aye, for that and many other things," he said sadly. "For not preparing you better. For being afraid to trust you fully—"

  "I understand why you didn't," she cut him off gently. "Nell told me about your three betrotheds. She said they were frightened of you, and I realized the reason you didn't confide in me was that you thought I'd leave you."

  "I should have believed better of you."

  "For heaven's sake," she protested, "you'd just woken up to find yourself five centuries in the future. Besides," she admitted, "it wasn't as if I trusted you either. I tend to hide my intelligence. If I'd been more honest, you might have been too."

  "Never hide it from me," he said softly. " 'Tis one of the many things I adore about you. But, Gwen, there is more for which I must seek your forgiveness."

  "Marrying me without telling me?" she said lightly. "Have you any idea how flattered I am? We're really married?" she pressed. "Could we get married in a church too? Formally, with a long dress and everything?"

  "Och, we're more married than the church could do, but aye, lass. I should like a church wedding," he agreed. "You'll wear a gown fit for a queen, and I'll wear the full Keltar regalia. We'll feast for days, invite the whole village. 'Twill be the celebration of the century." He paused, his silvery eyes flickering with shadows. "But there's still something more for which I must seek your forgiveness. There is the small matter of me abducting you and trapping you in my century."

  She trailed her fingers lovingly down his chiseled jaw, then slipped her hands into his silky hair, grazing his scalp with her nails. They were nearly touching nose to nose, and his hair fell about her face, framing it. She tipped her head back for a quick kiss. Then two and three.

  "Do you know," she murmured a few minutes later, "when you performed your ritual in the stones, at first I thought you had gone back to your century and left me behind in mine. I was furious. I was so hurt that you had left me. I thought you had begun to care for me—"

  "I did!" he exclaimed. "I do!"

  "My point is that if you'd told me everything that night in the stones, and had asked me to come back to the sixteenth century, I would have. I wanted to be with you wherever or even whenever that had to be."

  "You doona hate me for not being able to return you?" He paused for emphasis. "Ever, Gwen. I can't return you ever."

  "I don't want to go back. We belong together. I felt it the moment I met you, and it terrified me. I kept trying to find excuses to leave you but couldn't make myself go. I felt as if fate had brought us together because we were supposed to be together."

  His smile flashed white in his dark face. "I felt the same way. I began falling in love with you the moment I saw you, and the more I learned about you, the more intense my feelings grew. That night in the stones when you gifted me with your maidenhead, when I gave you the Druid vows, I realized I would rather have a single night with you—even if it meant I was doomed to be bound to you, aching for you forever—than not know such love. I swore that if I were given the chance to have a life with you, I would treat you as befits a queen. That I would devote my life to making it up to you, what I'd taken from you. And I meant it, Gwen. Anything you want, anything at all… you have but to say."

  "Love me, Drustan, just love me, and I'll not want for anything."

  * * * * *

  Later she said, "Why can't you go through the stones? You said they could never be used for personal reasons. What do you use them for?"

  He told her, withholding nothing. The entire history, back to his ancestors, the Druids who'd served the Tuatha de Danaan, and about the war, and how the Keltar were chosen to atone and protect on behalf of all the Druids who'd scarred Gaea.

  "The last time the stones were used, we sent two fleets of Temple Knights, carrying the Holy Grail, twenty years to the future so they might hide it away again."

  "Did you say the Holy Grail?" Gwen squeaked.

  "Aye. We protect. It would have been a war to end all wars had the king of France, Philip the Fair, gotten his hands on it."

  "Oh, God," Gwen breathed.

  "The stones may be used only for the greater good of the world. Never for one man's purpose."

  "I understand." She paused a moment, then forced herself to go on. "I had to face a similar kind of situation once."

  He kissed the tip of her nose. "Tell me. I want to know everything about you."

  She rolled onto her side, and he stretched out on his, facing her. Their foreheads touched on the downy pillow, golden hair tangled with black silk. He laced their hands together, palm to palm. She told him all of it, which she'd never told another living soul. She confessed to her Great Fit of Rebellion.

  There had been a time when, like her parents, she'd adored doing research. The pressure of their expectations had not seemed such a burden to her then. From the time she'd been able to talk, they'd made it clear that they expected her to be their greatest achievement, with a genius that would surpass theirs and enhance their reputation.

  And until she was twenty-three, she'd toed the line they'd dearly defined. Her love of learning, of stretching her imagination to the furthest possible limit, had seemed adequate compensation for a strange childhood. She thrived on the rush of excitement whenever she discovered an alternative way of looking at things. And for a glorious time in her adolescence, she basked in her parents' approval and committed to joining them at Los Alamos and working by their side one day.

  But as she'd grown older and learned more, she realized the danger of certain knowledge. And one night, as she'd worked in the lab, she had a terrifying realization. For years she'd been playing around with a set of theories, working toward a hypothesis that—if it held water—would change the way the world viewed everything.

  Her parents had been delighted with her progress, demanding constant updates, pushing her harder and harder.

  So engrossed had Gwen been in proving her hypothesis—for the sheer joy of proving it—that she hadn't given thought to all the possible ramifications until it had been nearly too late. In a moment of blinding clarity, she suddenly glimpsed all the potentials should she complete her work.

  The fundamentals of it would make possible weapons to exceed all weapons. Infinite possibilities, not just to destroy the earth but to alter the very fabric of the universe. Too much power for man to own.

  Late that very night, the lab at Triton Corp. caught fire.

  Everything was destroyed.

  The fire chief and arson investigator spent weeks picking through the rubble before writing it up as accidental, despite the unfathomable heat that had caused the foundation to explode.

  There'd been too many chemicals stored on site to prove anything, and the burn patterns had been
oddly random. A veritable study of randomness, her father had observed coldly when she'd informed him that all her research had gone up in flames and she'd failed to keep back-up Zip disks in the safety box at the bank as he'd taught her.

  Five days later Gwen quit school and moved out into her own barren little apartment. Her father had refused to let her take so much as one piece of furniture.

  She'd never looked back.

  "I set fire to the lab I'd been working in and burned everything. I dropped out of my parents' world and took a job settling… er, disputes."

  His eyes were glittering when she finished. He was stunned by what she'd just confided. Doubly stunned that fate had brought him such a woman who was his match in every way. Intelligence, passion, honor, courage to defy and do what she knew was right.

  What children they would have, what a life they would have!

  "I am proud of you, Gwen," he said quietly.

  She smiled radiantly. "Thank you! I knew you'd understand. And that's why I understand about the stones."

  They kissed slowly and passionately, as if they had all the time in the world. Then Drustan said softly, " 'Tis said that if a Keltar should use the stones for his own selfish reasons, the souls of the lost Druids—the evil ones who died in the battle—wait to take possession of such a fool. That they're trapped in a kind of in-between place, neither dead nor living. I know naught if it's true, nor dare I chance it. To reawaken such violence, such madness and rage—" He broke off. "There is much about Druidry even we doona understand. We doona tamper with the unknown. When Dageus died in the other reality, I could not break my oaths." He blinked and looked startled. "Dageus," he muttered, pushing himself up.

  Gwen sat up with him. "He's alive, remember? You sent two hundred guards with him."

  He rubbed his forehead. "Och,'tis damn odd having two realities in here. I can see why the mind instinctively resists it. I hold all the grief of him dying yet the awareness that he hasn't." He blew out a breath, frowning. "Yet."

  Gwen searched his eyes. "You're worried about him."

  "Nay," he said swiftly, "I have my beloved wife—"

  "You're worried about him," she said dryly.

  He raked a hand through his hair.

  "Has the battle happened yet? You never told me what date he died."

  "Two days hence. The second day of August."

  "Could you get there by then?" she pressed.

  He nodded, clearly torn. "But only if I ride without pause."

  "Then go. Bring him safely home, Drustan," she said softly. "I'll be fine here. I can't bear to think that he might die if you're not there. Go."

  "You dismiss me from your bed so soon?" he growled teasingly, but she glimpsed a brush of vulnerability in his eyes. She marveled that such an intelligent, attractive, passionate, sexy man could suffer insecurity.

  "No. If it were up to me, I'd never let you go, but I know that if Dageus doesn't come home safely, I'll hate myself. We have time. We have the rest of our lives," she said, smiling.

  "Aye, that we do." He stretched himself over her, suspending his weight on his palms, and kissed her with only their lips touching. Long and slow and delicious. The hot silk of his tongue swirled languidly against hers.

  When he sat back, he was grinning.

  "What?"

  "Anya. I can both secure my brother's safety and tidy up that bit of business. No lass of five and ten will tolerate 'magic' well. I will induce her to break the betrothal, bring my brother home, and toop you till you can't move. For a sennight, nay, a fortnight—"

  "You will come back, love me, then we'll get down to figuring out who plans to abduct you, because we still have a big problem, you know," Gwen corrected him as a chill of concern marred her dreamy contentment. She was so elated to have her Drustan back, had been so lost in their lovemaking that the danger he was in had completely slipped her mind. She pulled the coverlet about her waist and sat cross-legged, facing him. "Who abducted you, Drustan? Do you remember anything at all?"

  His silvery eyes darkened. "I told you all I could recall about the abduction in your century. I never glimpsed my abductors. By the time I neared the clearing, whatever drug they'd given me had rendered me nearly unconscious. I couldn't even open my eyes. I heard voices but couldn't identify them."

  "Then the first order on the agenda is that I will personally prepare all your food and drink for the next month," Gwen announced.

  He arched a brow. "I doona think I care to let you out of my bed that long."

  "There's no way you're drinking or eating a thing that hasn't either been prepared by me or sampled by someone first."

  "There's an idea," he mused. "After all,'twas only a drug, not a poison. Our guards have been known to serve such a function in times of danger."

  "I asked Silvan who might wish to harm you. He said you have no enemies. Can you think of anyone?"

  Drustan pondered her question. "Nay. The only possibility I can think of is if someone thought to steal our lore, but that still doesn't explain why someone would enchant me. Why wouldn't they have killed me? Why make me slumber?" He shook his head. "I thought that once I got back here, I would see some hint of the threat. But still I can't imagine who it might be."

  "Well, when the message comes, you won't go. We can send the guards to the clearing. What day were you abducted?"

  "The seventeenth day of August. A fortnight after Dageus was…" He trailed off, his concern etched on his face.

  "Go now," she urged. He looked so worried. "We can talk about it more when you return. Go bring your brother home. Silvan and I will put our heads together and list some possible suspects while you're gone, then when you and Dageus return, we'll figure it out."

  "I doona wish to leave you."

  Gwen sighed. She didn't want him leaving her either. She'd only just gotten him back again. But she knew that if she had a brother, and if her brother had died in some other reality, she'd need to be there to make certain he didn't die this time. She couldn't bear it if anything went wrong. Drustan needed to be there, and he needed her to encourage him to go.

  "You must," she insisted. "I can't ride well enough yet, and I'd slow you down. You might not make it in time if you take me."

  Raking a hand through his hair, he slipped from the bed, looking impossibly torn. His gaze swept over her; her skin flushed from lovemaking, lips swollen from kisses. She sat cross-legged amid the violet velvet coverlets, a creamy goddess rising from a purple sea. "A lovelier vision I've ne'er seen," he said huskily.

  Gwen beamed at her magnificent Highlander.

  "I'll be back, lass. I'd bid you doona move a muscle so I could find you looking just the same, but I fear it will be four or five days before I return."

  "It might take me four or five days to start walking right again," she said, blushing.

  He flashed her a grin of pure male satisfaction, dressed swiftly, kissed her a dozen times, then slipped from the chamber.

  Then poked his head back in. "I love you, Gwen."

  Gwen fell back on the bed, sighing dreamily. Love. Gwen Cassidy had a heart and was loved.

  "Say it," he said anxiously.

  She laughed delightedly. "I love you too, Drustan." His neediness about hearing the words was adorable. Her Highland hunk had such a charming vulnerability.

  He smiled brilliantly and was gone.

  * * * * *

  In Drustan's absence, Gwen, Silvan, and Nell listed potential suspects: all the occupants of the castle, certain questionable personages from the village of Balanoch,

  Drustan's ex-betrotheds, and several neighboring clans. After much discussion, each was ticked off for lack of a possible motive.

  "Is it possible the Campbell had anything to do with it?" Gwen asked. "Because they killed Dageus in the other reality," she clarified.

  Silvan shook his head. "I doona see those two events being related, m'dear. Colin Campbell has ne'er come against us, and his holdings are vast enough that even now he has
difficulty protecting his territory. Besides, there's the issue of enchantment. 'Twould take another Druid or a witch to do such a thing. The Campbell have no such arts."

  Gwen sighed. "So what are we going to do?"

  "The only thing we can do—take all precautions. We'll triple the guard rotations. I'll send them out combing the countryside. And we'll wait. Now that we know there is a threat, it shouldn't be too difficult to avert. Drustan will go nowhere unaccompanied. Robert, our captain of the guard, will serve as his taster."

  "And in the meantime," Nell said, taking Gwen's hand, "we women-folk will set our minds to happier things, mayhap select the room ye wish to use when ye have wee bairn."

  Silvan turned a beatific gaze upon them. Gwen didn't miss the way his gaze lingered overlong on Nell. Nor did she miss the heated glance that passed between them.

  Hmmm, she thought. Seems they finally came to their senses, without my help.

  She might have been mortified had she known just how she'd helped them.

  "Aye, now, there's a sound plan," Silvan said. "And rest easy, m'dear. We'll avert the threat."

  For the next few days, Gwen immersed herself in plans for the future. Drustan was a strong man, smart, and his castle well fortified. Now that they were aware of the impending threat, they would indeed unmask the enemy, and life would be all she'd ever dreamed it might be.

  * * *

  Chapter 23

  Besseta's eyes were dark with terror as she watched the MacKeltar guard thunder past the cottage. The news she'd overheard in Balanoch earlier today was true! The guards were returning with Drustan's betrothed! She hadn't even known they'd ridden out to fetch her—thanks to Nevin's refusal to discuss the goings-on at the castle.

  Now she had arrived—the woman who would kill her son!

  Trembling, Besseta crept away from the window and nearer the fire. She rubbed her hands together, trying in vain to dismiss a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. The chill was in her heart, ne'er to be thawed lest she secure her son's future.