And he was losing the fight. No wonder – he was shorter than the man wrestling him, and maybe half his width, and though he was putting up a valiant struggle, she could see him sagging beneath the soldier's onslaught. What was worse, she realized with a shock, was that the soldier had a knife clenched in his fist and was struggling with the slender man to raise it high enough – presumably to plunge it into his chest. The slender man's eyes darted over to her and widened in shock and surprise – and the solider pressed the advantage of that momentary distraction, wrenching his knife hand free and drawing it back, clearly about to cut the man's throat—
"No!" she cried, unable to stop herself.
The soldier whipped around, clearly not having realized that she was standing there on the edge of the clearing. His victim reacted instantly to his surprise, wrenching himself free of the soldier's tight grip and dancing backwards a few steps out of his reach. His huge green eyes alighted on Julia, a look of surprise and gratitude in them… and as she stared at him, breathless, he gave her a little nod. It must have been a trick of the dawn light… but as he looked at her, Julia could have sworn that the centers of those gorgeous green eyes glowed with their own inner light.
The soldier roared in frustration, swinging his knife up and charging toward the slender blond man – but it was too late. With an unearthly turn of speed, the man turned and ran, disappearing rapidly into the trees with an agility that was astounding. There was no path where he'd run – he simply dodged around the trees, his frame disappearing rapidly into the forest. The soldier tried to give chase, but stopped at the edge of the clearing, swearing as he drove the blade in his hand into the bark of the tree.
Then he turned on her, wrenching the knife free of the bark as he did so. She could barely make out his face under the helmet – only a pair of eyes, narrowed in frustration and rage, a hard, slate gray in color. She shrank back against the tree behind her, feeling a sudden conviction that she was about to be stabbed in the gut… that intervening to save the man with the silver-blond hair had been a terrible mistake. But as the solider approached, he tucked the knife away into a scabbard at his belt. A few feet from her, he stopped, folding his arms across his chest.
"There's no need to look as though I'm about to gut you," he growled, his voice every bit as exasperated as his body language.
Sure enough – yet another Scottish accent. Was there some kind of convention in town, or something? Some kind of… Scottish renaissance fair, or something? Her brother would have loved this. It was a shame he was halfway across the country in Colorado…
"Why'd you do that?"
"Do what?" she said, blinking. "Tried to stop you killing a man?"
"That was no man," the soldier said, shaking his head irritably. "Your voice. You're one of them."
"One of who?" Why the hell did everyone in this ridiculous place keep acting as though they recognized her, or something? She'd never felt more unfamiliar with a place in her life. "Who are you?"
"Galen Grant," he said, not unfolding his arms or making any indication that this was a friendly introduction. "Of Clan Grant and the night's watch. And who are you, who thinks she knows better about my work?"
"Oh, excuse me for not sitting quietly and watching you murder an unarmed man," Julia snapped. "Who was he, anyway? He was half your size and didn't even have a weapon and you were trying to knife him in the throat. It's not like I pulled you off him, anyway."
"You distracted me," the soldier growled, those gray eyes flashing. "I almost had him. If you only knew who…" He took a deep breath, and she saw him shutting his eyes for a moment as though struggling to take control of himself. "What's your name, girl?"
"Definitely not 'girl'," she said irritably, folding her own arms across her chest. She'd come here to help, and she was being met with nothing but blame and rudeness. Maybe the Julia of a few years ago would have tolerated that, but after a year spent dating an unbelievably rude man in the hopes that he'd changed, she wasn't having any more of it – not from anyone. Not even Scottish historical re-enactors. "And I'm not introducing myself to someone whose face I can't even see."
The man rolled his eyes behind the helmet – did he think she couldn't see that? But with a gruff sound, he reached up and pulled the helmet from his head, tucking it under his arm with one hand and running the other through his tousled black hair. He was younger than she'd thought, she realized, surprised – she'd assumed from the gruffness of his voice and the heaviness of his movements that he was in his forties or fifties at least, but that face couldn't have been much older than mid-thirties. The vexation in his expression was a lot clearer without the helmet in the way, though.
"There. Happy?"
"You're still being rude," she said archly, "but it's nice to see your face, Galen Grant. I'm Julia Andersen."
"Fascinating," Galen said, shaking his head. "Never thought I'd be the one to discover the next one. Thought we might have stopped at half a dozen."
"Now, a woman on the road said something just like that," Julia said, narrowing her eyes. "What the hell do you mean, I'm the seventh one? Have other people wound up here with memory loss?"
"That's right," Galen said simply, and she blinked, a little thrown.
"Oh. Well. Why?"
He heaved a sigh, rubbing his forehead wearily as he shifted the helmet under his arm. "Miss Julia, it's a long, long story. But your origins explain why you're such a damned fool about Unseelie Sidhe."
She blinked. "Neither of those words were English, were they?"
He rolled his eyes and didn't answer her. She could feel irritation prickling at her, beginning to take her body over like a fever… it was eerily close to how she'd felt back when her relationship with Joseph had just started. She'd mistaken it, at the time, for infatuation – a desire to make this man see that she was clever, and strong, and good, to prove herself to him. What the hell was wrong with her? Why had she been so conditioned to seek the approval of men? It didn't matter. This man didn't matter – except for the fact that he had answers that she needed.
"Listen," he said abruptly, surprising her with a slight softening of his scowl. "I'll walk you back to the Keep, alright? You'll be wanting food and shelter and a change of clothes. I can explain on the way."
"Explain what?"
That was the ghost of a smile around the corners of his eyes, she knew it. "How you got to sixteenth century Scotland, lass."
Chapter 6
That was a joke, wasn't it? She stared at him curiously as he fiddled with his helmet, affixing it to his belt somehow so that he could walk with both hands free. Still waiting for an explanation, she followed after him as he headed down the path she'd come down at the sound of the struggle between the blond man and this soldier. Galen Grant, he'd said his name was. What did he mean, sixteenth century Scotland? Was that the era that he and his friends seemed to be re-enacting? Was the blond man another actor – had she unwittingly interrupted a scene they were rehearsing, or something? She had more questions than she knew what to do with … but she waited until they emerged from the trees, back out onto the dirt road that ran along the lake. He set off in the direction she'd been walking, and she fell into step beside him, glad to know she'd been walking in the right direction before she'd been distracted by the shouts in the forest.
"Sixteenth century Scotland?" she prompted him after a minute or so of walking.
He glanced at her with a grunt. "Aye."
"What do you mean by that, exactly."
"What I said."
"You're not the best conversationalist, has anyone ever told you that?" She rolled her eyes, suppressing her irritation with the sullen man at her side. Maybe she should have fallen into step with the friendly woman she'd talked to before heading into the forest. Or maybe, even better, she should have chased after the gorgeous, slender blond man with those unearthly green eyes…
"You've been transported back in time," Galen said bluntly.
That was enough
to get her attention immediately – even if it meant she snorted laughter. "Sure. Alright. What is this – historical re-enactment, or…?"
"Magic," he continued bluntly, his eyes fixed on the road.
Oddly enough, it was his seeming complete disinterest in the topic that was making the smile fade from her lips, killing the urge to laugh at such a ridiculous suggestion. Time travel…? What the hell was he talking about?
"Faeries are real, magic is real, you've been transported back in time from whatever bizarre future world you women seem to flock from. Does that about cover it?"
"Not even remotely," she said faintly, accelerating to catch up with him – she'd stopped in her tracks at the suggestion of time travel, but his pace had not slowed. "What – sorry, you're saying I've been transported —"
"What's the last thing you remember?" he said bluntly, his eyes still fixed straight ahead as his helmet banged and jostled against his hip. "Before the Loch, I mean."
"Before the water? Uh – I was in the Adirondacks, taking photos. I'd just decided to call it for the day. I could hear some hunters off the path, laughing and shouting, and generally behaving like drunken morons —" Was that a twitch of a smile on his grave face? "—and then I heard a gunshot, and I dove to the ground, and then…"
"Then you woke up in the Loch," he said, shaking his head. "Aye, that's the story we've heard half a dozen times now."
"With the hunters?"
"Not that part. The part where you've been living a normal life, gotten your fool self just about killed, then woken up in the depths of Loch Ness."
There were about four questions crowding their way out of her throat, and she felt like she was choking on her tongue as she picked one at random to ask. "Loch Ness?"
He glanced sideways at her with a brusque little nod. "Aye, that's her," he said, giving the body of water to their right a little nod, for all the world like an acquaintance they were passing on the road. "A friend and ally to Clan Grant, all things told. As is the Monster."
"Holy shit," Julia breathed – then covered her mouth with her hand. She'd always been raised not to swear around acquaintances… not that Galen seemed particularly concerned with the niceties of etiquette. "If that's Loch Ness, then I saw…" Holy shit, she thought faintly, feeling dizziness rise up – she reached out without thinking to take hold of Galen's shoulder to steady herself, pausing on the road as she waited for her vision to clear and her balance to come back. To his credit, he stopped immediately, his gray eyes watching her carefully as if concerned she was about to faint. Maybe she was. "I saw the Loch Ness Monster," she said faintly, as if saying it out loud would prove how ridiculous it was and somehow snap her back to reality.
"Oh, you did? Lucky," was all Galen said, shrugging his broad shoulders. "She's been very cagey of late. Something to do with an injury she sustained a few years ago… nobody but Maggie's seen hide nor hair of her since. You said you saw her?"
"Yeah," she said faintly, her hands going automatically to her camera before she realized that of course she hadn't been able to get any photos of the creature. "Before dawn. It – she – was out there in the lake –"
"She gets curious," Galen said. "You all right now, lass? Shall we keep walking?"
She nodded mutely. She still felt dizzy, but she had a suspicion that that had more to do with learning that she'd met an honest-to-God cryptid that morning than it did with any kind of physical malady. They continued walking in silence – she had a suspicion that Galen had slowed his pace a little, but he offered no indication that that was the case. "Medieval Scotland."
"Aye, that's what the others call it."
Her eyes widened. "Others?"
"You're not the first, lass. You're the seventh, in fact, though – hold on. Anna, Nancy… Elena… oh, that lass Kay, and Helen… oh, and Karen who dealt with the cowpox plague. Aye, you're number seven, Julia."
"Sorry – let me just – so you're telling me that six women from … from my time… have been teleported back here?"
"Over the last few years, aye. They've all settled in well enough, too. I can imagine it's a terrible adjustment for them," he said, rolling his eyes. "Terrible adjustment for us, too. They always seem to bring some kind of chaos in their wake."
"Like what?"
"Well, when Karen arrived, there was a cowpox outbreak in the village – and then Sluagh. Kay seemed to bring a plague of Wisps that we lost a handful of good men fighting. I've still got the scars myself," he added, tapping at his shoulder with a thoughtful look on his face. "When Nancy arrived, there was a plague of goblins. Even Lady Anna's arrival was heralded by a great wolf with eyes of coal we had to hunt and kill. You future women bring nothing but trouble."
"Future women," she said faintly.
The scenery she was taking in suddenly had a different energy entirely. Could it be true, what he was telling her? Was she currently the victim of an unbelievably complicated prank? Somehow, she thought, someone playing a prank would have had more energy in their voice… Galen was speaking as though he didn't care whether she believed him or not. Overall, he sounded like her appearance here was an inconvenience to him more than anything. Irritating, that… but at the moment, he was her only source of more information, so she resolved to be nice to him. At least, as nice as possible.
"How – how did we get here? Just… chance?"
"Life or death situations, from what I understand," Galen said with a shrug. "In their cases, something in their own time was just about to kill them when the Sidhe snapped them up and brought them here."
That was a familiar word – hadn't he said it earlier? "What are the Sidhe?"
"Who," Galen corrected her immediately, shooting her a glance. "The Fair Folk. The Lords and Ladies. It's in your interest to speak of them with respect, Julia."
She blinked, surprised by the sudden passion in his voice. "Who are they, then?"
He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I'm no expert, let me say that first. But the Sidhe are… well, they're something like the royal family of the Fae, though that's not a particularly good analogy either. They're immortal, unearthly, very beautiful… and very kind. It's likely you dreamed of them on your way through."
"I didn't –" she started, but then she frowned. A brief image came back to her – an image of long, slender figures with long limbs, seemingly composed out of pure light, creatures it was difficult to look at for long, impossible to understand… "Do they look like… big tall bright figures?"
"Aye, that's them," he said softly, a slight smile on his face that disappeared when she looked at him. "They're allies of ours – or at least, we try to make sure that remains the case. Between the villagers and all the chaos lately, it's been tense. And your arrival doesn't bode well," he added, shooting her a dark look.
"I didn't exactly choose to wake up in the lake," she pointed out, raising an eyebrow. "Sorry I didn't just drown and make things easy for you."
"Oh, the Monster wouldn't have let you drowned."
"I was ashore before I saw her."
"That's what you think." He glanced sideways at her again. "The Burgh – that's the gateway between our world and the Fae – is at the bottom of the Loch, lass. That's where you'd have popped out. And it would've been the Monster that brought you to the surface and made sure you got to land. She's a good girl," he added softly, with the affection generally reserved for a beloved pet. "Clever as anything."
"The Loch Ness Monster saved me from drowning," she said blankly. "Sure. Why not."
Chapter 7
She realized that Galen had stopped walking. Frowning, she looked up – and felt shock run through her like lightning. There, right in front of them, stood… no, it was impossible. No way. Her breath caught in her throat, Julia stared up at what she was seeing, hardly believing it was real. An enormous castle stretched up into the sky, carved out of black stone, cut out against the steadily brightening blue sky like a drawing from a children's book. Why, it even had little turrets and cren
ellations on the top, she thought faintly… as well as a thick stone walls that seemed to run around its base.
"Castle Urquhart," Galen said softly, and she could tell by the tone in his voice that it was a sight he was proud to show off. And no wonder. The castle was huge – perched on what looked like a small island in the Loch that reached up out of the lapping waters below. Galen was walking again – she hurried after him, almost stumbling as her eyes remained glued to the castle. How were they supposed to reach it if it stood on an island like that? The answer became clear as they moved around the castle, and she saw that the island wasn't a true island – it was connected to the mainland by a narrow land bridge, jutting out of the water like the island itself. At the other side of the land bridge was a huge gate in the walls that surrounded the castle, and as she stared, she realized with a start that there were several men atop the wall, staring out over the surrounding countryside.
It was an absolute fortress, she thought with wonder, staring at it as she and Galen headed steadily closer. There would be no way even a huge army could claim a castle like that… she thought back to what her brother had always been rattling on about, about medieval battle tactics and armies, about the strategic importance of castles. They were usually built on hills, high points that allowed them to see the territory all around – but she supposed you could see plenty from this one. Most of the Loch, for example – though she couldn't see the opposite shore from here, she had a suspicion that it might be a different story from the top of the castle.
Woken By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance-Highlander Forever Book 7 Page 3