Chapter 15 #2
“You cannot do this to me,” Bodach sobbed the words. “I am going to be King in Elphyne. I will rule over all universes. I will destroy you and this miserable realm.”
As he ranted and raved nothing changed. The mound of dirt the revenants threw into the grave eventually silenced him, and then he lost consciousness.
Bodach woke with a pounding head and the taste of ashes in his mouth, and screamed.
Rory opened his eyes to the sound of water splashing.
Overhead a canopy of trees made lace of the sun’s light, and the comforting scent of the forest filled his head.
The golden glow from the brilliant sphere above him, that he had not seen for nine centuries, made him squint.
He didn’t wish to move again for a thousand years, and if he had been alone he might have slept that long.
The sweet caress of the cold breeze on his skin made him sigh with delight.
Then he recalled what had happened after he had used his power for the first time in his life and looked at his forearm.
His skin work had completely vanished from his flesh. Rory knew he still possessed dark druid blood in his veins, along with the ominous magic it contained. Now that he had been tested, however, he knew he would never abuse his power.
“You can’t nap through your first day of freedom,” a low, amused voice said.
He turned his head to see Harper sitting on a large rock an arm’s length away.
She looked as if she had been rolling in the dirt, with snarls in her long red hair and a small cut on her chin.
He had never seen anyone or anything so beautiful in his life, but behind her water poured over a cliff, and the sight of that made him go still.
“Home.” The earth trembled under him as he spoke the word, and he dropped his voice to a whisper. “My home.”
“Not the first one in the forest where you lived with your mom. We’re in the highlands where you and your brothers built Dun Talamh.
Looks like the spell trap tossed you away from the castle when Tasgall broke the enchantment.
” She rose and came over to him, holding out her hand.
“There’s a village over there. Kind of pretty, too. ”
Rory nearly pulled her down atop him, but instead stood. “Shall you help me with living in your world?” he murmured.
“This is not my world, Blue Eyes.” She twined her fingers with his. “Although it is now, I guess.”
He walked across the meadow with her, and followed an old path through the trees that thinned out until the forest ended and a familiar-looking village of simple cottages and barns came into view.
On the green commons a number of the clan’s vassals had gathered with mortals he recognized as their kin from the twelfth century.
They appeared to be talking, laughing and embracing as if reunited after a long separation.
“Where did we land?” he whispered.
“I don’t know the name of the location. That’s the village of happy people, far as I can tell.” She leaned against his side. “I think they’re related to the folks who work in the castle. Oh, look, there are more coming.”
“We’ve returned to my time.” Even as he muttered that his gut clenched. “’Tis the twelfth century again.”
“Seems like. Home sweet Middle Ages.” She nodded.
He pressed her hands between his. “We shall go to the druids. I shall beg them help you and the other ladies return to your time.”
“Not a great idea.” She grimaced. “You weren’t there, of course, but when things got hairy Esme made a wish that I think came true. I’m pretty sure I’m immortal now.”
“No, ’tisnae possible.” Rory caught her face between his palms, and the shock of the enormous change in her energy made him laugh loud enough to shake the whole forest. “By the Gods. ’Tis truth. You’ve the same power, but ’tis much more like the melia.”
“You still have your mortal weakness, so no shouting for joy, okay?” Harper chided.
He sobered at once. “Dinnae you wish return to your time?”
“If there’s some way we could go back to the modern world, I don’t think the druids will let us take you guys with us,” she countered.
“Also, it’s easier for me to hide the fact that I’m immortal in your time.
The other ladies made it here, too, and I’m guessing they won’t want to go back.
I’m staying because of you, Blue Eyes. I love you. ”
Rory dragged her against him and kissed her.
What a fool she’d been, Elspeth thought as she slowly came awake.
No candles, torches or lamps illuminated the work room she now shared with her husbands, but it didn’t matter.
On either side of her lay her two men, big and warm and holding onto her.
Her memory seemed blurry, so she couldn’t quite recall how they had ended up in this big bed instead of the one they'd made on the floor. She wasn’t even certain they had been together at the end when the castle had shaken so much she’d been convinced they’d all be buried alive.
Love for each other had saved them if they still lived.
Yet how could they when the spell trap had been destroyed?
Mayhap we’ve gone to the next life, and may share that as husbands and wife.
“I should dearly like to ken what our lady now ponders,” Ulf said to Ben in a low, amused tone.
“I ken she’s roused from her slumber, or I’d kiss her awake.
Mayhap she wishes light a lamp and take a long look at us?
For she remembers that we’re naked by her command, I reckon—and didnae she demand to ken what we did together before she came to us? ”
“Sweetheart, I think our lover is dropping hints again.” Ben leaned over her as if trying to peer at the hunter’s face. “We’re finally where we want to be, so why don’t you tell us what you want? You know Ulf and I will do anything to make you happy.”
“Speak for yourself, Husband.” Ulf sniffed as if offended. “I’ve wants uncounted. Shall I never ken what ’tis to suck your cock while Els rides me?”
The way they teased each other and her always made her face grow hot, for despite nine hundred years of taking lovers, this strange marriage was entirely new for her.
She closed her eyes and pressed her hands against her hot cheeks.
What they had done together still seemed scandalous even to her own thinking.
Yet their sweet jesting worked as well as kisses and caresses to arouse her until she fair trembled with need.
She seemed to recall a fair amount of laughter during their first time together—or had that been just a dream?
When she opened her eyes again, she saw a faint thin light had come at last into the workroom from a large rectangular hole in the opposite wall—only it was no longer the chamber she recalled.
What she saw made her clamp a hand over her mouth to stop a scream and jerk the linens up and over her head.
“Ulf,” Ben said, climbing quickly out of the bed
“Aye.” The hunter had already rolled out of bed and had a dagger in his hand. “Take our lady out of here, Husband. The fack?”
“We’re home,” the healer said softly.
Elspeth huddled under the unfamiliar coverlet, too fearful to look again at her surroundings. Indeed, if Benedict and Ulf had not been there, she might have begun screaming.
“’Tis the afterlife?” she asked, her voice shaking as much as her body.
“In a sense, yes, love.” Ben pulled back the coverlet and kissed her brow. “This was the life I left behind in my world.”
Before she could stop him he walked across the strange chamber of smooth white walls and went to draw aside the long tapestries that seemed to be made of silvery mist, revealing the enormous window behind them.
“Come and have a look,” he said, smiling at her and the hunter before he began making light appear from the oddest lamps she had ever beheld; this without flame or firesteel.
They showed furnishings of wood and steel and something that had no color that resembled sheets of ice.
Across the flooring a huge cloth had been spread that had countless tiny loops of yarn.
On the walls hung paintings of seas and shores and boats so flimsy-looking they had likely sunk on their maiden voyages.
Ulf wrapped the bed linen around her before he picked her up and carried her over to Ben. She hid her face against the hunter’s broad chest, soothed by the warmth of his skin but terrified to see anything more of this Gods forsaken place with its glaring lights and unfathomable objects.
“’Tis naught to fear, Wife,” the hunter told her. “We’ve come to the time we truly wished to share. ’Tis Ben’s world in the future, and from what I see, ’tis glorious.”
Slowly she lifted her head, and then gasped as she saw a curving shore of gold and white sands and brown, rocky boulders bordering an endless turquoise sea.
Large boats with beautifully colored sails drifted through the calm waves, and beyond them larger vessels crossed from one side of the horizon to the other.
“’Tis California, then?” she asked Ben.
He nodded. “This is my beach house in Carmel. We’ve landed in my time.”
He went into an adjoining room, and returned wearing a long robe and holding two others. “Come and see the rest of our new home.”
Elspeth hardly knew what to think as the healer guided them through a series of huge, airy chambers with such finely made furnishings as she’d never before beheld.
As he walked, Benedict explained what things were, and then in what he called his kitchen he made a pot of tea on top of a strange huge silver box fitted with four dark spirals, one of which grew red hot with the turn of a knob.
On the small, pretty table where he dined sat a glass bowl of strange fruits that looked as if they’d just come from the garden.
Ulf made a soft sound, and then asked Ben, “What troubles you, Husband?”
“The house. It’s just the way I left it on the day I went on the tour of the castle.” His jaw tightened. “That was three years ago, and yet everything here is the same.”
“The Gods chose to return you to your life on that day,” the hunter guessed. “At this time, Lady Ava and the other women, they’ve no’ yet crossed over. Bodach yet lives in this world, too.”
Ben nodded, and busied himself filling three mugs with an amber brew he’d made so fast Elspeth wondered if his kettle had been enchanted.
“Sit and have some tea,” he told them. “I’ll make a call.”
After he left them Elspeth sank down on one of the chairs by the table and cupped the smooth white mug of tea in her hands.
She couldn’t eat, her throat had grown so tight, but a few sips of the tea relaxed her enough to look around the kitchen.
By the time Ben rejoined them they had refilled their mugs and were cautiously looking through the cabinetry at all the strange crockery and gadgets.
“Okay, this is very weird,” the healer said as he sat down and took a long drink of his tea.
“I called a friend of mine in law enforcement to ask if he could get a number for Agent Ava Travars in Dallas. He said no one by that name works for the FBI. He also couldn’t find an Olivia Gibson, Grace Johansen, Esme Martinez or Harper Ensley. None of them exist in this time.”
“What of that facking goblin?” Ulf asked.
“There’s no Renard Beaumont in California. McKeran’s Castle was shipped over from Scotland and rebuilt here, but it belongs to a private research group devoted to stopping unnecessary land development in northern California.” He shrugged. “They’ve never allowed tours on the property.”
Elspeth suddenly understood. “The McKeran, they’ve returned to Scotland and their time, and took the castle and their ladies with them. ’Twas what they wished. The enchantment, it removed them all from this time.”
“How can you know?” Ben countered.
She gestured around them. “Ulf and I wished to come here with you, to your time. We never spoke of such, but ’tis the only era in which we might safely live together.”
“I never thought about that,” he admitted.
“We must take care to learn what work we may do to earn coin,” Elspeth said. “I may work as a chamber maid, and Ulf can hunt for our food.”
The healer winced. “It might help if first I tell you that I’m a very rich man, and both of you never have to work again for the rest of your lives.
You can be in charge of this house if you’d like, but I have a housekeeper who comes in three days a week.
As for you,” he said, eyeing the hunter, “you can’t hunt here unless you have a license, and we’ll talk about that later. ”
“Aye, and you’ve much more to teach us, Benedict.” The hunter lifted his mug. “I shall take charge of making brew.”
Ben grinned. “We’ll make a trip to the supermarket tomorrow, where you can pick all the oranges you want. First we have to figure out clothes and shoes for you two.”
“First we must embrace,” Elspeth said firmly, standing and holding out her arms. As her men came to her she held them both close. “Thank the Gods for you both, and this life we may share in Ben’s beautiful new world.”