by Mariah Stone
He landed on his back, her warm and soft weight pleasant on top of him. The smell of her, flowery and musky from the exercise, combined with her breasts pressed against him and her legs spread, made him harden. She felt it. Her eyes widened, her lips parted, and her eyebrows snapped together.
What the devil was he doing, getting hard like that? He didn’t give a damn about anyone’s reaction but hers. He must have frightened her, probably triggered memories or something. But she didn’t look afraid. Her lips were so close, he could just lean forward an inch and kiss her.
She actually looked like she was…
Excited?
Realization widened her eyes, and fear flickered through them. She pushed herself off him, red-cheeked, her eyes watering.
Tamhas was at her side in a moment.
“Mistress?” he said, standing between her and Konnor. She hugged herself.
Konnor slowly stood. “I didn’t mean anything.”
“I dinna feel so good,” she said. “Mayhap ‘tis best ye continue yer training with Tamhas.”
She turned and walked away, retreating to her tower. Konnor helplessly watched her hunched form, feeling like shit. Tamhas looked at him, an angry snarl forming on his upper lip.
“Did ye hurt her?” he barked.
“No,” Konnor said, watching the entrance to the tower where she’d just disappeared.
“What happened?” Tamhas said.
What happened was he’d exposed her to something she was still not ready for. He should really stay away from her. The last thing she needed was a guy getting horny around her like that.
“I must have bruised her, after all,” Konnor murmured.
Tamhas stepped towards Konnor and stabbed his index finger at him. “Ye wilna touch her again.”
“Trust me, buddy,” Konnor said, picking up the stick. “I have no intention to.”
He turned to Tamhas and nodded at Marjorie’s stick on the ground. “Are we doing this thing or what?”
Scowling at Konnor, Tamhas picked up the stick. “I wilna go easy on ye.”
“I don’t want you to.” Konnor stood in a fighting stance, actually looking forward to blowing off some steam and trying to beat the shit out of this guy. Finally, sparring man-to-man.
As Tamhas came at him, thrusting the stick vigorously, Konnor thought she deserved to be loved and cherished. Someone needed to help her heal. That man wasn’t him. He wasn’t going to be here long and would head back to his real life as soon as he knew she was safe.
And until then, he’d make sure he kept his distance.
Chapter 16
Marjorie panted, leaning on the hard, cold rock of the wall.
Air. She needed air. There wasn’t enough of it, even up on the castle wall with the whole sky above her like an endless ceiling and the ground far below.
What had just happened? A man had gotten excited because of her. That was something natural for a normal woman. But she wasn’t normal. She was damaged. She was hurt. She was still broken.
She—the warrior who’d trained for years—had gotten scared.
It had been wonderful to spar with Konnor. He was a good partner, though obviously inexperienced in swordsmanship. But laughing with him, smiling with him, and just breathing the same air with him had made her feel alive. When the unmistakable, hard bulge between Konnor’s legs pressed into her lower belly, it had taken her breath away.
Not because she was disgusted or afraid.
Because she’d gotten excited. Something warm and pleasant had flashed in her core, a place she’d only known as a source of pain and torture before.
And that was terrifying. It was new and wonderful and completely unexpected. Was that the feeling all regular women had with a man? Was that a glimpse of healing for her?
And if so, why was it so frightening? Why did the hope mix with dread in her soul and tighten her lungs as though they’d shrunk to the size of a ball of yarn?
She knew why. She couldn’t trust another man after what Alasdair had done to her. She was dirty. Stained. Used like a worthless piece of cloth.
Tears welled and fell down her cheeks, leaving burning traces. She leaned with her back against the wall and slid down until she sat on the cold, dirty floor. She hid her face in her palms.
She wanted to be normal. She wanted to be a regular woman who could fall in love and be mindlessly happy. But how could she if deep inside she was still that tormented, abused lass, helpless and desperate.
Konnor was right. In a way, she was in a crystal coffin after being poisoned by evil, trapped somewhere between death and sleep. Could a prince really wake her up? Could Konnor?
“Lass?” Isbeil’s voice said, and Marjorie raised her head. The woman stood at the entrance to the tower, leaning against the hard stone with one hand. Her dark eyes pierced Marjorie—the perceptive eyes of a healer, and the caring eyes of a friend. She was the closest thing Marjorie had to a mother, even though her stepmother, Domhnall, Owen, and Lena’s mother, who had died a few years ago, had been nothing but supportive and loving.
Isbeil and Owen were the two people who’d helped her heal after she’d gotten back from Dunollie Castle.
“Isbeil…” she whispered and felt her face grimace as a another wave of wailing hit.
“All right, all right. Ye calm down,” Isbeil soothed. “I am coming. Ye ken how I dinna like the height.” She began to slowly make her way towards Marjorie without lifting her feet from the floor, instead shuffling them against it. She still held on to the wall. “A man isna meant to be so high above the ground,” she mumbled. “Why couldna ye have chosen to cry somewhere in yer room, lass? I’m coming. I’m coming. Dinna ye fash.”
Marjorie watched the short woman approach, her wrinkled face stony in concentration. The simple, brown dress swiped the floor as she wobbled towards Marjorie on her short legs.
Ah! How could Marjorie sit and cry and feel sorry for herself when the old woman was going above and beyond for her? Hastily wiping her tears away, she stood and hurried to Isbeil. She supported the old woman under her elbow. Isbeil was holding her fist to her chest.
“Are ye all right, Isbeil?” Marjorie said.
The old crone looked up at her, her weathered, wrinkled face suddenly lit up in a wide grin of empty spaces and remaining yellow teeth.
“Aye, lassie,” she said and clapped Marjorie’s hand that supported her. “I am. And so are ye. See, when ye’re too busy caring for others, somehow ye forget to indulge in yer own sorrow.”
Marjorie scoffed. “I should have ken ye’d just trick me.”
“I didna trick ye. I dinna like this height one bit. What happened?” Isbeil covered her hand with her dry and warm one. “Is it that time traveler?”
Marjorie’s face fell. “Time traveler? Ye dinna believe him, do ye?”
Isbeil cocked her head to one side and raised her chin to look behind the merlon. “I went to the ruins, lass, to look for the rock he mentioned.” She looked sharply at Marjorie. “‘Tis there. Flat, large, and with a handprint. A handprint in a rock as though it used to be clay and someone laid a hand in it.”
Marjorie let go of Isbeil’s hand. “That dinna mean he traveled in time.”
Isbeil sighed and pressed her fists against her hips. “Nae that alone. But I felt it—the faerie magic. Aye, that place is saturated with it. ‘Tis like the scent of lavender. And when I touched the rock… It shifted the air as though a great many invisible butterflies were flapping their wings around the rock. And although I didna see the faerie herself, I kent she was there, mayhap watching me from behind a tree.”
A chill went through Marjorie. Was the old healer finally mad? Marjorie didn’t know how old Isbeil was, but she’d been wrinkled and aged for as long as Marjorie could remember. As small children, Marjorie, Craig, Owen, Domhnall, and Lena had huddled together by the brazier in the great hall, listening to Isbeil telling her Highland stories. Her small black eyes reflected the orange flames, her mouth dark aga
inst the leather-like skin. The children had been afraid to go near the loch for at least a year, afraid that a kelpie would come out of the water and take them.
“Are ye thinking the aul’ Isbeil’s lost her mind?” Isbeil said with a sad smile.
Marjorie didn’t reply. Isbeil was family. Her whole life, Marjorie knew she could trust the woman like she could trust herself. And although she didn’t believe in the legends and stories of faeries and ancient heroes, she’d been raised on them, drinking them in like her mother’s milk, alongside the stories from the Bible.
Something within her knew that if Isbeil told her Konnor was a time traveler, he was, no matter how mad it sounded. Together with the strangeness of Konnor’s speech, his clothes, the words he used, his manners, even his hair, it all suddenly came into a complete picture, and she knew.
“Nae, Isbeil,” she said. “I believe ye.”
He had traveled in time. He told the truth. And somehow, the wild mixture of hope and dread in her soul tilted to the side of hope. And Konnor entered the very secure and guarded circle of people she could trust within her soul.
Only that fact meant that sooner rather than later, Konnor would need to return to his time and disappear from Marjorie’s life forever.
Chapter 17
Marjorie’s pulse jumped as someone came into the great hall. She glanced over her cup of ale, hoping to see a certain head of brown hair and a pair of broad shoulders that made her mouth go dry. Instead, it was Alpin, one of the warriors.
Damn it.
She hadn’t seen Konnor since their sword training. Where was he? It was evening meal time, and almost everyone was here in the great hall, filling it with the hum of voices. Her great chair was hard and smooth under her fingers, and the warm air was filled with the scents of food and stuffy from the amount of people.
Everyone looked exhausted, but unlike yesterday and the days before, the atmosphere was cheerful. As though after a hard day of work, they’d seen some progress. Eyes were brighter, shoulders straighter, chins higher. There was even the occasional laughter here and there.
It was more than Marjorie could have asked from them, given that many of them could die defending the castle very soon.
A tall man came in. No crutch.
Konnor.
He was tall and so handsome her stomach squeezed, and her knees went weak. He glanced at her, nodded curtly, and went to sit at one of the tables with other warriors. Without talking to anyone, he rounded his shoulders over a bowl of stew and ate. Marjorie gestured to Muir, who always kept an eye on her.
“Aye, mistress?”
“Please tell Konnor to come eat with me.”
His eyes hardened, but he didn’t protest. “Aye.”
Marjorie’s heart fluttered like a bird in her chest as Muir came to Konnor and leaned to speak into his ear. Konnor glanced at Marjorie, his mouth set in a line, but he nodded and stood up with his bowl and hobbled to her.
Muir watched him approach, and he wasn’t the only one. It felt like every pair of eyes in the hall were on Konnor and her.
Konnor took the seat next to Marjorie’s and looked at her expectantly, his impossibly blue eyes hard.
“You wanted me?” he said.
Oh, she did. She craved his presence near her like the warmth of a fire in the freezing, dark depths of winter. The intensity of it both scared and excited her. She’d never wanted to be near someone like she wanted to be near him. In the few days she’d known him, she’d become more attached to him than she’d ever been to anyone. How could she have grown to care so much for someone in only a few days? And what did this all mean?
Despite everything, she couldn’t distance herself from him.
“Aye.” She cleared her throat. “Drink?”
He nodded, and she poured some uisge from a jug in a nearby empty cup. He cocked his head as way of thanking her and downed the contents of the cup. Then he grimaced.
“Hmm.” He looked at the cup dubiously. “Again with the moonshine.”
Marjorie hid a smile. “I talked to Isbeil. She went to the ancient fortress to see the rock for herself. She found it and believes yer story about falling through time.”
Konnor raised one eyebrow and leaned back. “Oh, yes? And what about you?”
Marjorie straightened her shoulders. “I do, too. She’s never been wrong in her life. She knows those things, magic and such.”
“So you didn’t believe me before?”
“Nae. Nae completely.”
“But you believe her?”
“Aye.”
She wanted to add that she was sorry but stopped herself. She didn’t owe him an apology for suspecting he might be a threat. But she loved the glimpse of trust that had emerged between them after he’d saved her from the MacDougalls, and she wanted to keep it.
He sighed and poured more uisge into his cup, a small smile on his lips. “Look, I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t have believed someone talking about time travel, either.”
Relief eased the tension in her chest. “But now I want to ken everything about yer world. Tell me about the future.” Eager to hear his stories, she shifted to the edge of her seat and tangled her hands together on the table.
He chuckled. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything. The words ye mentioned, the hospital, phone, ambulance… How do people live? What do they eat? Drink? How do they dress?”
He leaned closer to her, and she shifted towards him, too.
“I do have something very important to say,” he said and raised the cup. “You Scotsmen make a much better whiskey than this in my time.”
He threw the cup back and groaned.
“Whiskey?”
“Well, it’s not like this moonshine in the future, I can tell you that for sure. The stuff is exquisite. I suppose history needs a couple of hundred years before you guys can catch up.”
“Good. Ye like a Scots drink.” She waved her hand. “What else?”
“There are huge machines”— he leaned closer and his scent reached her— “called airplanes that fly in the air. They transport people across the ocean in a matter of hours.”
Marjorie’s head spun. Machines? Oceans? Airplanes? What were all those things?
“Are ye telling me people can fly?” she said.
“With the help of technology. Yes.”
Goose bumps covered Marjorie’s skin. She imagined something like a dragon from stories and people sitting on its back. Aye, that would be a fast way to travel.
“What else?” she said, moving an inch towards him.
“A hospital is where sick people get treated. They have cured many diseases you guys have now, and people live much longer in the future. Older people get their hips replaced with artificial ones made of metal. Dying in childbirth is not as big a threat as it is in your time. Thankfully. Organs that don’t work can get replaced.”
The noises in the great hall quieted. She stopped seeing anyone else in the room. Only Konnor existed sitting before her, and those images he created in her head. Marjorie listened with an open mouth, her imagination running wild. It all sounded like skilled witchcraft being widely accepted and practiced. Colin would love to see it all.
“Do people in the future develop magic skills?”
Konnor laughed softly and shook his head. Marjorie smiled with him. He had the most beautiful smile. His teeth were so white, and dimples that were invisible on his usually stern face formed on his cheeks.
“I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you,” he said. “It’s just so adorable you said magic.”
She wasn’t offended. She hadn’t thought he was laughing at her. He reached out and brushed his knuckles against her cheek. The touch sent a current of pleasant tingles through her.
“It does sound like a witchcraft,” he said. “But it’s not. It’s science. Technology. The world has developed so much since all this.”
He looked around, and Marjorie cleared her throat, suddenly aware she was
sitting way too close to him. Their heads were practically touching.
She moved farther away from him, sorry the magic spell had to be broken.
“What about houses? Horses? Or do people fly everywhere in your time?”
“No. Instead of horses, we have cars. They’re like your carriages. Like carts with roofs and a steering wheel. They drive fast, sixty to a hundred miles per hour, and they make it easy to move from place to place.”
Marjorie burst out a small laugh. “But is that nae witchcraft? A cart that moves on its own?”
He laughed, too, and she echoed him.
“You need to see it for yourself,” he said.
Marjorie’s smile fell. She would really love to see all this magic. Was that even possible?
“I’d be a very fortunate person to ever get the chance.”
“Well. I’m fortunate to be able to see your time. When I get back…”
Suddenly, the good mood was wiped off his face, too.
“What then?” she said.
“No one will believe me if I tell them.” He chuckled.
She swallowed, her leg shaking under the table. “Do ye have a wife? Children?”
His mouth flattened in a mournful smile, and he looked down. “No.”
“Oh.”
Something within her rejoiced that he didn’t, but there was a tension in his voice that told her there was more to this.
“Why nae? Ye’re a good man… Strong and capable…”
And handsome and stubborn and so sweet.
He looked at her, and she could see his shields were lifted, and longing and endless pain gazed from within his eyes.
“I wouldn’t want to inflict my darkness on any woman or child.”
She inhaled sharply, studying him, trying to understand what darkness he spoke of. He looked away, and when he met her eyes again, the shields were down.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “But it might interest you to hear women have equal rights with men. They work, earn money, they can choose whether to have children or not. There’s excellent birth control.”