Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
PORTIA
Everything in me screamed run as I pressed my back against the headboard. My ankle throbbed from my fall in the forest, but that was the least of my worries.
Because two dragons stared at me from either side of the bed. Two massive Highlanders who looked at me like they owned me. Two full-blooded dragons.
“You’re not real,” I whispered before I could think better of it. “You’re full-bloods, and the full-bloods are all—” I clamped my mouth shut.
“What?” the dark-haired dragon demanded.
I swallowed hard. “Dead.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Who told you all the full-blooded dragons were dead, lass?” His voice was low, almost dangerous. “Because they were very, very wrong.”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
“We won’t hurt you,” the blond said, hugging his book to his chest. “I’m Alban MacLean, but everyone calls me Albie.” He tipped his head toward the black-haired man. “And this is Tavish Ramsay.”
Of course there were two. I should have expected it the moment I locked eyes with Tavish in the hut. My people always mated in threes.
Albie was a sharp contrast to Tavish. His wavy blond hair swept back from a broad forehead, the strands a variety of shades ranging from honey to platinum. Brown eyes framed by thick, dark lashes regarded me with an intensity that made my skin prickle.
Mate, my dragon said in my mind.
Shut up, I told her even as I studied Albie.
His forest-green jacket couldn’t hide the muscle in his shoulders. His kilt was a similar shade, and a tailored brown vest and linen shirt with an honest-to-goodness cravat showed between the unbuttoned halves of his jacket.
And he wore glasses.
Gold wire-rimmed spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose, the metal glinting in the light. Confusion cut through my panic. Immortals didn’t have bad eyesight. We healed from almost any injury. So why—?
“You called Niall Balfour your father,” Tavish said, jerking me from my thoughts. “The Consort has no children.”
My stomach dropped, and the reality I’d been avoiding slammed into my mind.
The kilts.
The forest.
The men with the swords.
Tavish’s confusion about my father.
It all added up to one horrifying truth: I’d traveled into the past.
Except that couldn’t be true. I gripped the headboard as I gazed around the room, desperation urging me to find something—anything—to refute my conclusion.
The walls were whitewashed stone. A wooden folding screen stood in the corner.
Oil paintings in gilt frames depicted landscapes and a few stern-looking men in white wigs.
A thick mantel stretched above the hearth, the carved wood polished to a shine.
A brass candleholder on top held a half-melted candle.
My heart stuttered as I refocused on the men. Albie’s glasses were the closest thing to “technology” in the entire room, but they weren’t the kind I was used to seeing. The wire frames looked like a prop in a Dickens play.
He noticed me staring, and a small smile curved his lips as he touched the frames. “It’s an old injury. A witch’s curse left me blind in one eye.”
“You can’t heal it?” I asked, startled into forgetting my predicament. My people could fix just about any sickness with our tears. Not that I’d ever managed it. Just another item on the list of things I couldn’t do.
His smile turned rueful. “It’s not for lack of trying, lass.” He lifted his book. “I’ve searched for a cure for centuries.”
Centuries.
I scrambled off the bed and ran to the window, wincing when my ankle twinged.
The men rushed after me like they thought I’d leap through the frame.
They flanked me, one on either side. Albie was smaller than Tavish, his height maybe only an inch or so above mine, but he looked more than capable of stopping me if I decided to jump.
I gripped the windowsill and stared out.
A courtyard spread below, its perimeter dotted with stone buildings. Smoke curled from the chimney of the largest structure. Chickens pecked at straw scattered over the ground. Horses grazed in a paddock beyond the courtyard, their tails swishing at flies.
No garage. No cars. No paved roads. No power lines stretching into the distance.
“You have horses,” I said weakly.
“Aye,” Tavish said at my shoulder. “Albie keeps them as pets. Horses don’t like us, but it would raise suspicion if we didn’t own a few.”
“Yes,” I said, clinging to the sill so I didn’t fall.
My father was the only dragon shifter I knew who could bend horses to his will.
Most animals were skittish around dragons—a fact that had always disappointed Malcolm.
When we were younger, he’d driven Mum crazy trying to smuggle various animals into the castle.
He’d begged for a horse once, and Dad had to explain that even if we found one brave enough, the island was a poor place to stable it.
But people in the past kept horses all the time. They did it out of necessity.
I turned, my gaze landing on the book in Albie’s hands.
The writing on the leather cover was Gaelic script, the looping letters both familiar and indecipherable.
Because they were too old to understand, I realized.
My father kept similar books in Castle Beithir’s library, the yellowed parchment safely tucked away under glass that stopped it from crumbling to dust. But Albie’s book looked new, the deckled edges a pristine cream.
“What year is it?” I rasped through a dry throat.
Silence fell. The men looked at each other, unspoken communication passing between them.
“I’m not crazy,” I said. Although, maybe I was…
Or maybe I was hallucinating.
I tightened my grip on the windowsill. The stone under my fingers felt real enough.
Tavish turned back to me, a frown between his brows. “It’s 1742.”
The room tilted. I sagged against the windowsill. 1742. Over three hundred years before I was born.
I’d time traveled. Something had pulled me through the stones, stranding me in the past with two full-blooded dragons who thought I was theirs.
But I couldn’t be mated—not to men from the wrong time. What if I couldn’t get home? What if I was stuck in the past forever, trapped in a world without electricity or phones or—
“You have to let me go,” I blurted. In my mind, my dragon roared her disapproval. Panic spiraled higher in my chest. I tapped my magic, tensing as I tried to slip into shadow form.
Nothing. My dragon wouldn’t budge.
Tavish folded his arms. “Not happening.”
“You can’t hold me prisoner.” I was outnumbered, yes, but I wasn’t some helpless female they could push around. “No cell will hold me. I’ll take shadow form and leave this place.”
He smirked. “Then why haven’t you done it?”
Dammit.
I lifted my chin. “I will.”
He raised a brow.
“Eventually,” I muttered.
Something old and very possessive glinted in his blue eyes. “If you think you can evade us, go ahead and try.” He leaned forward, and a lock of black hair slid over one massive shoulder. His voice slipped into a low, menacing register. “We’ll catch you, and we’ll take great delight in the chase.”
“Tavish…” Albie murmured, mild reproach in his tone.
I waited for my magic to surge—for heat to pump through my veins and rise under my skin so I could twist into smoke and fly out the window.
But it didn’t come. Instead, a different kind of heat built low in my body.
It pooled between my legs, making me press my thighs together in a bid to stop it.
But it was no use. My nipples tightened, and the heat became an ache.
Tavish’s nostrils flared, satisfaction joining the possessiveness in his gaze. “Aye, you know you belong to us. Your body knows it.”
Humiliation scalded my face. I gripped the sill so I didn’t surge forward and punch him in his smirking mouth.
Albie cleared his throat. “You have nothing to fear from us, lass.”
“Never,” Tavish added. “Not from your mates.” He stressed the last word, the “T” sharp as a whip.
“You’re not my mates,” I said.
“Aye, we are.”
A growl rumbled in my throat. “The second I find a knife, I will—”
“What’s your family name?” he demanded. “Why do you claim kinship to Niall Balfour?”
For a second, I considered lying. But they’d undoubtedly scent any falsehoods. Plus, I was stuck in the wrong time, and they were my only resources at the moment. If I had any hope of getting home, I had to accept all the help I could get.
I drew a deep breath and let the truth tumble out. “My name is Portia Balfour, and I’m from the year 2048. My fathers are King Cormac and Niall Balfour. My mother is Queen Isolde.”
The men stiffened.
“Queen?” Albie asked, a mix of surprise and disbelief in his voice.
Understanding dawned at once. In 1742, all the female dragons were dead, and my dad was consumed by madness.
Tavish frowned. “Maybe you hit your head when you fell.”
Anger and desperation flooded me. I pushed away from the sill.
“I don’t have a concussion. I’m Cormac’s daughter.
Hundreds of years from now, Niall will find my mother on the demon plane and claim her.
Then she and Niall will pull my dad from the fire.
The Curse is broken. The monarchy is restored.
” I looked between the men, willing them to believe me.
“My brother, Malcolm, is heir to the throne. And I’m… ”
I stopped. Who was I? A dragon shifter who couldn’t control her beast? A burden my parents were desperate to see mated so I could save our species?
“I’m…” The word stuck in my throat.
“Ours,” Albie said softly.
I looked at him. His brown eyes were warm and steady behind his glasses. He didn’t look at me like I was crazy. He looked at me like I was exactly where I belonged.
“You have to help me,” I whispered. “I need to get home.”
My stomach chose that moment to growl. Loud and insistent, the sound echoed through the quiet room.
Albie smiled. “Why don’t we get you something to eat? I find that even the most vexing problems are easier to solve over a good meal.”