She blushed. She hadn't known she was so transparent.
"Och, lass,'tis charming. Do you recall that I said I could show you a Scotland no other man ever could?"
She nodded.
"Well, this afternoon, lass," he said with a strangely wry note in his voice, "I'll be making good on that promise."
Some distance from the castle in which Chloe and Dageus were currently breakfasting, a man leaned back against the side of a nondescript rental car, talking quietly on the phone.
"I haven't had the opportunity to get close," Trevor was telling Simon. "But it's only a matter of time."
"You were supposed to take care of her before they left London," Simon's voice was faint on the cell phone, yet still rang with implacable authority.
"I couldn't get near her. The man is constantly on guard."
"What makes you think you can get dose on Keltar ground?"
"He'll drop his guard eventually, if only for a few minutes. Just give me a few more days."
"It's too risky."
"It's too risky not to. He has an emotional bond with her. We need his ties gone. You said so yourself, Simon."
"Forty-eight hours. Ring me every six. Then I want you out of there. I'm not willing to run the risk that one of our Order is taken alive. He must know nothing about the Prophecy."
With a soft murmur of assent, Trevor hung up.
* * *
Chapter 15
The day had been sunny and surprisingly temperate for March in the Highlands: mid-forties, a light breeze, the sky dotted by a few fat, fluffy white clouds.
It had been one of the most exhilarating days of Chloe's life.
After breakfast, she, Dageus, Drustan, and Gwen had driven to the north, taking the winding roads to the top of a small mountain, above the colorful, bustling city of Alborath, where'd she'd met Dageus's cousins, Christopher and Maggie MacKeltar, and their many children.
She'd spent the day with Gwen and Maggie, touring the second MacKeltar castle (this one quite a bit older than Gwen's). She'd seen artifacts that Tom would have blithely committed felonies to acquire: ancient texts sealed in protective cases, weapons and armor from too many different centuries to count, rune stones scattered casually about the gardens. She'd toured the portrait gallery lining the great hall, a painted history of centuries of the MacKeltar clan—what a wonder to know such roots! She'd brushed her fingertips to tapestries that should be in museums, furniture that belonged under much tighter security than she'd been able to see on the grounds. Though she'd inquired repeatedly and rather anxiously about their anti-theft system (which seemed criminally nonexistent), she'd gotten nothing but reassuring smiles, forcing her to conclude that none of the Keltars bothered to lock things up.
The castle itself was an artifact, meticulously preserved and protected from time's gentle erosion. She'd wandered through the day in a dreamy kind of stupefaction.
Now she stood on the front steps of the castle with Gwen in the rosy, early evening light. The sun was resting on the horizon and tendrils of mist were wisping up from the ground. She could see for miles from her perch on the wide stone stairs, past a sparkling many-tiered fountain, out over the valley where the lights of Alborath were nudging back the encroaching twilight. She could imagine how glorious the Highlands would be in spring, or better yet, the full bloom of late summer. She wondered if she might find some way to still be there by then. Maybe after her month with Dageus, she mused, she would stay in Scotland, indefinitely.
Her gaze skimmed the front lawn, coming to rest on the gorgeous, dark man who'd turned her world so completely upside down in just under a week. He was standing, some distance from the castle, inside a circle of massive, ancient stones, talking with Drustan. Gwen had told her the brothers hadn't seen each other in years, though she'd offered no explanation for their estrangement. Inquisitive as Chloe usually was, for a change, she'd resisted prying. It just hadn't seemed right.
"It's so beautiful here," she said, sighing wistfully. To live here, to belong in such a place. The rowdy enthusiasm of Maggie and Christopher's six children, from teens down to tots, was unlike anything Chloe had ever experienced. The castle was stuffed to overflowing with family and roots, the air rang with the sounds of children playing and occasional bickering. As an only child, raised by an elderly grandparent, Chloe had never seen anything like it before.
"That it is," Gwen agreed. "They call those stones the Ban Drochaid," she told Chloe, gesturing at the circle. "It means'the white bridge.'"
" 'The white bridge,' " Chloe echoed. "That's an odd name for a group of stones."
Gwen shrugged, a mysterious smile playing about her lips. "There are lots of legends in Scotland about such stones." She paused. "Some people say they're portals to another time."
"I read a romance novel like that once."
"You read romance novels?" Gwen exclaimed, delighted.
The next few moments were filled with a hasty comparison of favorite titles, female bonding, and recommendations.
"I knew I liked you." Gwen beamed. "When you were talking earlier about the history of all those artifacts, I was afraid you might be the stuffy literary type. Nothing against literary novels," she added hastily, "but if I want to get all existential and depressed, I'll pick a fight with my husband or watch CNN." She was silent a moment, her hand resting lightly on her rounded belly. "Scotland isn't like any other country in the world, Chloe. You can almost feel the magic in the air, can't you?"
Chloe cocked her head and studied the towering megaliths. The stones were thousands of years old and their purpose had long been heatedly debated by scholars, archeoastronomers, anthropologists, even mathematicians. They were a mystery modern man had never been able to unravel.
And yes, she did feel a brush of magic about them, a sense of ancient secrets, and was struck suddenly by how right Dageus looked standing in the middle of them. Like a primitive sorcerer, wild and forbidding, a keeper of secrets, arcane and profane. She rolled her eyes at her absurd fancy.
"What is he doing, Gwen?" she asked, squinting. Gwen shrugged but didn't reply. It looked as if he was writing something on the inner face of each stone. There were thirteen, towering around a center slab that was fashioned of two stone supports, and one large flat stone placed atop it in the shape of a squat dolmen.
As Chloe watched, Dageus moved to the next stone, his hand moving with brisk surety across its inner face. He was writing on it, she realized. How odd. She narrowed her eyes. God, the man was beautiful. He'd changed after breakfast. Soft, faded jeans hugged his powerful thighs and muscled butt. A thick wool sweater and hiking boots completed his rugged outdoorsman look. His hair fell in a single braid to his waist.
I'm going to keep you forever, her dream Dageus had said. You've got it bad, Zanders, she reluctantly acknowledged with a little sigh.
"You have feelings for him," Gwen murmured, jarring her.
Chloe paled. "Is it that obvious?"
"To someone who knows what to look for. I've never seen him look at a woman the way he looks at you, Chloe."
"If he looks at me any differently than others, it's only because most women fall into bed with him the minute they meet him," Chloe said, puffing a curly strand of hair from her face. "I'm just the one who got away." So far, was the dry thought accompanying that.
"Yes, and that's all they ever do."
That got her attention. "Isn't that all he wants?"
"No. But most women never get past that beautiful face and body, his strength and his reserve. They never, never trust him with their hearts."
Chloe pulled her long hair back, twisting it into a loose knot, and held her silence, hoping Gwen might continue to volunteer information. She was in no hurry to admit to her pathetic romanticizing, which had only worsened throughout the day. All day long she'd been treated to glimpses of the incredible relationship between Gwen and her husband. She'd watched, with shameless longing, the way Drustan treated his wife. They were so unabashed
ly in love with each other.
Because he looked so much like Dageus, comparisons had been inevitable. Drustan had popped up oodles of times, toting a light jacket for Gwen, or a cup of tea, or an inquiry if her back ached, if she needed a rub, if she needed to rest, if she'd like him to leap into the sky and pull down the blasted sun.
Making Chloe think ridiculous thoughts about his brother.
Oh, yes, she had feelings. Treacherous, deceitful little feelings.
"Chloe, Dageus doesn't look for love from a woman, because he's never been given any reason to."
Chloe's eyes widened and she shook her head disbelievingly. "That's impossible, Gwen. A man like him—"
"Terrifies most women. So they take what he offers, but they find some other man to love. A safer man. A man they feel more in control with. Is he doing the same thing to you? I thought you were smarter than that."
Chloe jerked, wondering how the conversation had gotten so personal so fast.
But Gwen wasn't done yet. "Sometimes—and trust me, I know this from personal experience—a girl has to take a leap of faith. If you don't try, you'll never know what might have been. Is that how you want to live?"
Chloe fumbled for a reply, but came up empty-handed, because deep inside her that nagging voice that had so persistently begun asking recently "is this all there is?" was nodding sagely, agreeing with Gwen's words. Naught risked, naught gained, Grandda had always said. When had she forgotten that? Chloe wondered, staring at the ancient stones. When she was nineteen, and Grandda died, leaving her alone in the world?
As she stood there, atop the MacKeltar's mountain in the falling twilight, Chloe was suddenly back in Kansas again, in the silent cemetery, after all their friends had gone, weeping at the foot of his grave. Uncertain, poised on the brink of adulthood, with no one to help her make decisions and choose her way. She'd suffered the comforting delusion that he would live forever, not die at a mere seventy-three from a stroke. She'd gone away to college, never imagining that he wouldn't always be there, at home, puttering around his garden, waiting for her.
The phone call came during finals week her sophomore year. She'd just talked to him on the phone a few days before. One day he was there, the next day he was gone. She hadn't even gotten to say good-bye. Same as her parents. Couldn't anyone die a slow death from some disease, she'd felt like wailing (painlessly, of course, she'd not wish a painful death on anyone), and give her a damned sense of closure? Did they have to just go away? One moment, smiling and alive, the next, still and silent and forever lost. There were so many things she hadn't gotten to say to him before he left. He'd seemed so fragile in his coffin; her robust, temperamental Scot, who'd always seemed invincible to her.
Was that when she'd begun playing things safe? Because she'd felt like a turtle without a shell, fragile and exposed, unwilling to love and lose again? Oh, she'd not decided such a thing consciously, but she'd gone back to college and buried herself in a double major, then a master's. Without even thinking, she'd kept herself too busy to get involved.
She blinked. The grief was still raw, as if she'd never faced it, only pushed it into a dark corner, blocking it. It occurred to her that maybe a person couldn't shut out one emotion, such as grief, without losing touch with all of them. By shutting out pain, refusing to face it, had she missed innumerable chances to love?
Chloe glanced at Gwen searchingly. "It sounds like you're encouraging me."
"I am. He's going to ask something of you. The mere fact that he's going to ask it speaks more than any words could, of how he feels about you."
"What is he going to ask me?"
"You'll know soon enough." Gwen paused and sighed heavily, as if she were having a heated internal debate with herself. Then she said, "Chloe, Drustan and Dageus come from a world that's hard for girls like us to understand. A world that—though it may initially seem impossible—is firmly grounded in reality. Just because science can't explain something, doesn't make it any less real. I'm a scientist and I know what I'm talking about. I've seen things that defy my understanding of physics. They're good men. The best. Keep an open mind and heart, because I can tell you one thing for sure: when these Keltars love, they love completely and forever."
"You're freaking me out," Chloe said uneasily.
"You haven't begun to be freaked out. One question, just between you and me, and don't lie to me: Do you want him?"
She stared at Gwen in silence for a long moment. "Is this really just between you and me?"
Gwen nodded.
"I have since the moment I met him," she admitted simply. "And it doesn't make a bit of sense to me. I'm all possessive about him, and I have no right to be. It's crazy. I've never felt anything like this before. I can't even reason with it," she said, frustration underscoring her words.
Gwen's smile was radiant. "Oh, Chloe, the only time reason fails is when we're trying to convince our minds of something our heart knows isn't true. Stop trying. Listen with your heart."
"I doona like this," Drustan growled at Dageus.
"Did you give Gwen a choice?" Dageus countered, as he finished etching the second-to-last formula on the central slab. He need but etch the final one to open the bridge through time. He and Drustan had agreed that he should return to six months after last he'd been there, to avoid his past self, and in hopes that Silvan may have discovered something useful in the interim. "Chloe's a strong lass, Drustan. She held the point of my own sword at my chest. She fought off her attacker valiantly. She chose to come to Scotland with me. Though sometimes she hesitates, she fears nothing. And she's smart, she speaks many languages, she knows the old myths, and she loves artifacts. I'm about to take her to them. If for naught else, she'll forgive me for that," he added, dryly.
Och, aye, she would. He could put texts in her hands that would make her weep with the joy of a true bibliophile and guardian of relics. They shared that: Her chosen profession was to preserve the old things, and she hadn't been satisfied with merely preserving, she'd studied it all, much as he had in his role as Keltar Druid.
"Gwen knew what I was."
"But she didn't believe you," Dageus reminded. "She thought you were mad."
"Yes, but—"
"No buts. If you'd haud yer wheesht a moment, you'd hear that I intend to give her a choice."
"You do?"
"I'm no' entirely without scruples," was his mocking reply.
"You're going to tell her?"
Dageus shrugged. "I said I'd give her a choice."
"The honorable thing would be to tell her—"
Dageus's head whipped up and his eyes sparked dangerously. "I doona have time to tell her!" he hissed. "I doona have time to try to convince her, or help her understand!"
Silvery gaze warred with copper.
"You do realize that once you take her through, she's going to know that you're a Druid, Dageus. You'll no longer be able to pretend you're naught but a man."
"I'll deal with that. She knows there's something no' quite right with me."
"But what if she…" Drustan trailed off, but Dageus knew he'd been about to voice the fear that he'd been forced to face when he'd sent Gwen back.
"What if she runs screaming from me? Cries 'pagan sorcerer' and hates me?" Dageus said with a chilly smile. ' 'Tis my worry, no' yours."
"Dageus—"
"Drustan, I need her. I need her."
Drustan stared at the scarce-concealed despair in his brother's eyes, and had a sudden flash of insight: Dageus was walking a razor's edge, and he knew it. He knew he had no right to take Chloe, verily, he knew he had no right to have brought her this far. But were Dageus to give up on those things he wanted—to accept that, because he was dark, he had no promise of a future, no true rights to anything—he would have nothing left to live for. There would be nothing to keep him fighting another day.
And which would win then? Honor? Or the seduction of absolute power?
Christ, Drustan thought, a chill seeping through hi
s veins, the day his brother stopped wanting, the day he stopped believing there was hope, he would have to face the fact that his only choices were to become utterly evil… or…
Drustan couldn't make himself finish that thought. And in Dageus's tortured gaze, he could see that his twin had figured this all out long ago, and was fighting the only way he could. If Dageus's desire for Chloe was the thing standing most firmly betwixt he and the gates of hell itself, Drustan would chain the wee lass to his brother himself.
A bitter smile curved Dageus's lips, as if he sensed Drustan's thoughts. "Besides," Dageus said with light mockery, "at least I know I can return her. Gwen had no such assurance, yet you took her. If aught goes awry with me, I promise to send Chloe back, one way or another." It would mean he was dying, for that was the only way he'd let her go. Even then, she might have to be pried from his fingers as the life fled his body.
"All right." Drustan nodded slowly. "When will you return?"
"Look for us three days hence. 'Tis as close as I care to pass myself."
They regarded each other in silence, much unsaid between them. Then there was no further opportunity, for Chloe and Gwen joined them in the circle.
"What are you doing?" Chloe asked curiously, peering at them. "Why are you writing on those stones, Dageus?"
Dageus looked at her a long moment, drinking her in greedily. Och, she was beautiful, so unselfconscious, standing there in her slim blue trews, sweater, and hiking boots, her hair a riot of curls tucked into a loose knot that was already falling out. Huge eyes, wide and full of innocent joy. She wore Scotland well. With a flush in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes.
Eyes that, in a short time, might regard him with fear and loathing, as the lasses in his century would have, had he ever revealed the extent of his Druid power.
And if such comes to pass? his honor prodded.
I'll do aught I can to seduce her back out of it, he thought, shrugging, using every underhanded trick I've got. He'd give up when he was dead.
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