Chapter 12
Allia paced her room and rallied herself to make a decision, any decision.
Here she was, right where she’d been only weeks ago, except now she was going to have a baby.
Oh yeah, and her heart was broken, too. No, broken wasn’t quite the right word.
More like turned inside out and ripped to shreds.
God what she wouldn’t give to have Eian here right now, holding her, making everything all right again.
She missed him so deeply that sometimes she felt like she could barely breathe with the hollow ache in her chest. But she had to be strong, for her child.
In the back of her mind, she was still hopeful that Eian would come back, eventually, but she suspected it would only break her heart more to see him look at her with disgust. Especially if she couldn’t make him believe she never knew who her father was.
She could stay here; Leon would take care of her.
Far from the gruff and heartless man she had thought he was at first, she saw now that Leon had only ever had her best interests at heart.
Or… she could go back to the 21st century and raise her baby alone, or maybe someday find a man that she could love even a little bit.
A companion. Either way, she was keeping the child that she already loved and cherished with all of her heart.
In truth, having Eian’s child with her was the only thing keeping her from completely losing her mind.
In her dreams at night, she kept seeing a cherubic little boy, with his father’s deep brown eyes and unruly mop of wavy brown hair.
The love that welled up inside of her was just enough to keep her going.
Eventually, she made her choice. She would go back, or forward as the case may be.
The distance was bound to make everything clearer, and she would have time to think.
She had given it a week, and he hadn’t come back.
That most likely meant he wasn’t going too, and she just couldn’t stand the uncertainty, or the looking out windows every few minutes and hoping.
It would drive her mad, eventually. Before she could change her mind, she headed for the stone circle, not even bothering to bring anything with her.
Though a horse would have been faster, she walked the couple of miles, surprised when she arrived there so quickly.
She strode right up to the stones, running her hand along the largest one as she passed it.
The granite was hard and smooth, as if people had been touching it like so for thousands of years.
Perhaps they had. She looked around once more as if to say goodbye to a life she wished she could have lived, then took a deep breath. Now or never.
The voice was distant at first, so she wasn’t sure she had heard anything at all, but when she turned to look, she saw a figure running toward her, waving his arms and calling to her.
“Wait! Waaaiiiittt!”
She watched him approach for a moment before she realized it was the very same man who had been calling out to her the last time she was here, only then it had been too late for her to stay.
He was wearing the robes of a sorcerer, and he seemed very keen to stop her.
Curious, she bided her time and let him get closer.
He ran up to her, then bent over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
“Dinna…..go….wait…”
She gave him a few more seconds to recover from his head-long sprint. “Who are you?”
With one last gasp, he finally stood up, brushing some dust from his robes before he addressed her. “I am Dirc, sorcerer to the Mac Coinnachs. And ye, lass, shouldna go through that portal.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Why not? I have nothing left here now. I… I need time to heal.”
“Aye lass, ye do, on that we agree. But if ye leave now I’ll have just wasted a bluidy year of my life trying to make things right for those three stubborn arse brothers so the bluidy prophecy can happen and we can finally all live in peace!
Ye dinna ken how difficult this had been, especially with the last one…
though I always kenned that lad was trouble.
It actually went better than I thought it would…
until now.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then shook his head as if he had dismissed a thought.
“You mean Eian?” she asked, though she knew by now that’s exactly who the old man was talking about.
“Oh aye, the very same.”
She gave an exasperated sigh and threw up her hands. “Don’t you know he left me? He just… left! I don’t even know where he went. He didn’t even give me a chance to explain…”
Dirc shook his head impatiently. “Aye, the lad’s an imbicile, believe me, I ken that… but tell me lass, do ye no’ still yearn to have him with ye, feel like ye’ll die without him?”