Chapter 30
Two weeks had vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving Nancy to wonder if some of the time-traveling energy that had put her in this stressful mess had leached into ordinary time, speeding it up so that days felt like minutes, blurring together.
Now, screeching to a halt the night before her wedding.
And I’m still here.
Despite everyone going full-steam ahead with the wedding preparations, the castle was a riot of activity. The one person Nancy hadn’t seen much of was her groom.
There were glances across the table at breakfast and dinner, but aside from that, they hadn’t crossed paths. She knew he’d been holed up in his study with Jack, while she had been holed up in the library with Isla and, on occasion, Beathan when he was trying to avoid his sister.
“I already ken there’ll be guards stationed here and here,” Beathan said, marking the latest map. “I understand that me cousin is positioning archers in the rafters. And the chapel only has two ways in and out. If MacLeach wants to attack, he willnae get far.”
Hunter’s youngest cousin had been a godsend in terms of reassurance that everything would be okay. He hadn’t asked why she was worried; he’d just given her the resources and the information to offer comfort. Indeed, she was almost tempted to tell him the whole story, so he might understand better.
“Will you be armed?” she asked.
Beathan cocked his head. “It’s nae really the proper thing to bring weapons to a weddin’, but if ye ask it of me, I will.”
“I’d feel much calmer,” she admitted. “I’ll ask Hunter to make sure Jack is armed, too, though I imagine he’s already done that.”
Beathan paused and glanced at her, his brow creased. “Has there been a threat I daenae ken about, Miss Kane?”
She chewed on her lip in consternation, the truth dancing on the tip of her tongue. Before she could utter a word, however, a voice rumbled from the library doorway, “Everybody out.”
With a stifled gasp, her head whipped around.
Hunter stood there, leaning casually against the doorframe.
He looked as if he’d been out riding, his hair windswept, his eyes bright from the cold.
Dressed in his usual enticing uniform of a loose shirt and belted plaid, she felt her heart flutter in her chest…
and felt the sudden urge to get down on her hands and knees and crawl to him.
I missed you, her heart whispered. A dangerous thought.
If she missed him despite stealing glimpses of him over the past two weeks, how would she cope with not seeing him for a lifetime?
The ruby pendant around her neck seemed to thrum with an answer she couldn’t interpret. It had been doing that a lot, especially over the past few days, as they got closer to the 10th of June.
She’d have asked Eileen what it meant, but the sage old witch was still at Castle Culloch, as far as she knew. Maybe she’d gone wandering again, so she wouldn’t have to witness another twist of fate.
“Daenae make me repeat meself,” Hunter warned.
Beathan jumped to his feet and, taking his mother’s arm, led her out of the library with the haste of someone who knew the consequences of disobedience.
With their departure, Hunter pushed off the doorframe and made his slow approach, moving like a wolf stalking its prey.
Nancy thought he looked rather calm for someone who might die tomorrow, but then he’d already told her that death didn’t frighten him.
She’d assumed he was bluffing, but maybe she was wrong.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, swallowing thickly. “Isn’t it bad luck here for the groom to see the bride before the wedding day?”
He laughed darkly and sat down on the edge of the reading table, the wild mountain scent of him as intoxicating as any cologne.
And with his legs spread in a way that would have infuriated her in her own time, especially on public transport, she couldn’t help but let her mind wander to what was hidden beneath.
“I thought I ought to come and see if I’ll have a bride tomorrow,” he replied, his eyes burning with a familiar hunger, more intense than she’d ever seen it.
As if he, too, had missed her. So much so that he wouldn’t have hesitated to rip her clothes off and have her right here on this table if she but said the word.
“I’ve been narrowing down the list of suspects,” she replied huskily, showing him the two lists—one of the guests, the other of those with a grudge against him—to make sure there was no overlap.
“And going over the layout of the chapel, so no one can ambush you.” An awful thought came to her.
“Unless it’s the priest. Oh God, do you think it might be the priest? ”
He leaned in and lightly stroked her cheek. “Everythin’ will be all right, lass.” His fingertips trailed down to her chin, taking hold of it. “The only thing I need to ken is if ye mean to disappear in the night, using that jewel at yer throat.”
It was a question that she hadn’t had much time to think about, between checking maps, making lists, and discreetly making inquiries about the people on those lists, as well as taking care of Freya.
“I’m… not exactly sure how it works,” she admitted, touching the pendant.
“If ye did, would ye use it?”
She licked her suddenly dry lips, her breath catching as his gaze flitted to her mouth. “I don’t think we should marry tomorrow,” she said haltingly. “I can’t decide one way or the other until I know how this ends, but… I will be there tomorrow.”
“What does that mean?” He moved closer, searching her face.
“A trap,” she murmured as his hand turned, sliding slowly down her throat. Not a threat, but the soft grip of possession.
She bit her lip, confused as to how something so simple could rouse such hot desire within her. It probably should have alarmed her, but it didn’t. In fact, she almost wanted to feel him squeeze a little harder, just to see what it felt like.
“Tomorrow, we set the trap for whoever is trying to kill you,” she explained, her throat bobbing against his palm.
“If you survive, we’ll… talk about how we want things to go.
If you die, I won’t want to stay in this place.
I won’t be able to stand it. If you die, I might have to take Freya with me.
Raise her in the future, or… something, where a bee sting won’t kill her, the way it killed my mom. ”
She expected him to blow up, telling her that she wouldn’t be taking his daughter anywhere. Instead, a soft smile curved his lips and brightened his eyes, his expression the closest thing to awe that she’d ever seen.
“Ye’d do that?” he asked.
Nancy nodded. “I would. I know she has family here who adore her, but I don’t think I’d be able to leave her behind.”
Releasing her throat, he reached down and grasped two handfuls of her skirts where they bunched at her hips, and pulled her to her feet. She stood without hesitation, her breath quickening as he tugged her toward him, one arm sliding around her waist.
“Then it’s lucky ye daenae have to bear that responsibility,” he told her. “Ye cannae worry about tomorrow, lass. I’d trust ye to take care of me daughter, but I need ye to trust me to be who I am.”
Nancy lifted her hands to his face, cradling it. “How can I not worry about tomorrow?”
“Because I’m tellin’ ye nae to,” he replied silkily. “And ye must obey.”
“I don’t think I can, this time,” she sighed. “My mind won’t let me.”
He pulled her into his chest. Even sitting on the edge of the table, his towering height made them level with one another, face to face. His other hand left a tingling trail up her spine before it came to rest on the nape of her neck, where he tilted her head up, his brow touching hers.
“Then we’ll have to do somethin’ about that mind of yers,” he murmured, his mouth so close that she barely resisted the urge to kiss him, and kiss him hard, as if tomorrow was the last day they would ever have together. “Ye see, lass, I’ve had an epiphany of me own.”
“You have?” she breathed, needing him more than she had ever needed anything.
He smiled. “I daenae think ye were sent here to find out about yer parents. Aye, maybe that was part of it, but I think ye came here to change what ye saw on that tapestry. I think ye kent it was ye, somewhere deep down.”
Those last two words were spoken slowly, his hand sliding over the swell of her backside, some light pressure on her neck bringing her lips closer to his until there was barely a gap between them.
It had crossed her mind more than once that the time travel energy had hoped to kill two birds with one stone when it sent her back here: revealing the truth about her parents and changing the course of the Hawk’s history.
If Hunter thought it too, then maybe there really was some truth to it, and it wasn’t just the tenderest, most fragile hope in her heart alone.
After all, at any point over the last eighteen years without her mom, that magic could have found a way to transport her to the past. It could have transported her while her mom was still alive, but it hadn’t.
It had waited, biding its time until circumstance took her to that museum. And she didn’t believe in coincidence.
“Tomorrow, we’ll lay the trap, just as ye said,” Hunter continued.
She hung on every word, her stomach tightening with the desire to feel his kiss one more time.
“Tonight, however, ye’ll be a good wee bride and let me worship ye as ye deserve.
Ye’ll let me silence yer worries while ye scream me name.
And ye’ll come to me wearin’ yer weddin’ gown, so that if there’s the slightest chance that I do die tomorrow, I die with a smile on me face. ”
Breathing hard, her pendant softly vibrating, she wished he hadn’t said that last part. In the tapestry, he had died with a smile on his face. Yet, as he almost brushed her lips with a teasing kiss, she knew that even that wouldn’t be enough to stop her from going to him tonight.
“Come to me at a quarter to midnight,” he said, pulling away, denying her, such that she thought she might explode with overwhelming need. “That way, I can claim ye on our weddin’ day, and remember how ye moan and move and claw at me when I’m fightin’ to the last for us both.”
He got up off the edge of the table and, with a pleased grin that frustrated her as much as it tempted her, he sauntered out of the library.
And as she stood staring at the open doorway, her heart racing and her breathing ragged, her skin flushed as if she had a fever, she found herself even more determined to save him.
You bastard. She smiled, fanning herself. How am I supposed to lose you now?