Chapter 8 #3
“Aye, at the moment, ye’re bloody well right about that.
” He threw up both hands and turned away, shaking his head.
“I dinna ken how to feckin’ to do this.” He picked up a table and lobbed it at the wall, splintering it into kindling.
He threw back his head and bellowed, “I dinna ken how to feckin’ do this! ”
“How to feckin’ do what?” She rather liked that word, feckin’, and had a pretty good idea what it meant. It aptly applied to this situation.
He jerked around and faced her, looking ready to throw her against the wall too, but oddly enough, she wasn’t afraid. Deep in her soul, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would never harm her.
“I dinna ken how to make ye see,” he said, his voice as rough and ragged as hers.
Hopelessness shouted from him. “I dinna ken how to convince ye to open yer heart and mind, to see all that this place could be, if ye’d but give it a chance.
” He shook his head and rapped on his chest with his fist. “I dinna ken how to show ye all that we could be.”
“All I’ve ever known is that magic is pretend, that dragons are a myth”—she held up a finger—“that there is one reality, and time travel is fiction. Something you read about in books or see in the movies.” Even with the unexplainable burning ache she felt for him, she needed to wrap her head around all that stuff.
“You have to admit, you’ve thrown a lot at me and expected me to accept it as easily as if you told me it rains every day at two o’clock.
” The nauseating pounding in her right temple reminded her that her headache had persevered.
They had talked this thing to death and were getting nowhere.
“I need time, Magnus.” She leaned forward, holding her head. “And caffeine.”
He slowly lowered himself to the other end of the couch with the same weariness she felt. “What is caffeine?”
“Coffee. Tea. A fizzy drink that lists it on the label.” A drink with bubbles and ice would be so refreshing right now and decrease the likelihood of her puking from the ever-increasing migraine.
She curled up in her corner of the sofa and rested her head on its padded arm.
Closing her eyes, she remembered the dragon’s image rippling atop the water.
“Does everyone here have a dragon brother or sister?”
“Most humans here have a dragon kindred, but not every dragon has a spiritual twin from humankind. It depends on what each dragon’s destiny dictates. This is the realm of the dragon kindred. Remember?”
“Of course. How silly of me to forget.” She wrinkled her nose, hating how she sounded.
Bitchiness solved nothing. What was it her foster grandmother had always said?
You catch more flies with honey. She wondered if that applied to dragons too.
They had wings the same as flies. She draped her arm over her eyes and groaned.
She had indeed gone off the deep end. “I’m sorry. ”
“For what, lass?”
“Behaving…less.” She couldn’t explain it.
It was a thing she’d always been taught about taking the high road, rising above whatever bad was happening, making the best of things, and doing it with style.
“Do you have coffee or tea here?” The only history she’d excelled in was music history, and she doubted very much if that would tell her when coffee and tea were invented, but she was pretty certain they’d never heard of carbonated beverages even in an alternate reality of thirteenth century Scotland.
“As soon as Tern answers, I will share what she tells me.” He leaned forward, propped his elbows on his knees, and held his head in his hands.
Apparently, telepathy was a thing here, too? Oh joy. A new way to be left out of conversations. Rather than harp on that, she forced herself to move on. “Who is Tern?”
“Housekeeper of Kindred Fortress. Without her, the place would crumble to dust.”
“Is she a person or a dragon?”
“She is a feydragon who trained in the court of Queen Mab before returning to the Thirteenth Realm to take her mother’s place as housekeeper when it was her mother’s time to cross over into the never-ending sleep.”
“Is that what dragons call dying?”
Still holding his head in his hands, Magnus barely shook it. “Nay, lass. Dragons never die. They merely cross over into the final existence of the never-ending sleep. A place of peace. Of rest. Of reward for all they survived in their many hectrooms after hatching.”
“What is a hectroom?” She wished she could write all this stuff down. She’d never remember it all.
“A hectroom is approximately three hundred years in yer plane of existence.” He lifted his head, but didn’t look at her.
Instead, he aimed a sad smile down at the ground.
“When the Weavers told me that was where ye were from, I studied yer world so I might better know how to ease ye from yer plane into mine.” A derisive snort escaped him. “It would appear I nay studied enough.”
“I think there are just so many differences, it’s going to take me a hot minute to absorb it all.” She covered her eyes again, feeling sorry for them both. They were both as lost as last year’s Easter eggs that the kids had missed on the hunt.
“What is a hot minute?” he asked, then shifted on the couch, causing her to move her arm and look at him.
“And Tern has heard of both the coffee and tea ye mentioned. She is not, however, aware of a thing called a fizzy drink. She is sending Martha to us with the other beverages ye mentioned.” He rose from the couch, went to the door, and hit it once with the heel of his hand.
The metal portal rattled and clanked, then slowly swung open.
With obvious frustration that matched hers, he turned and looked back at her.
“Explain a hot minute, and I will see if that can be gotten for ye as well.”
She covered her eyes again and blew out a heavy sigh. “It’s just a saying that can mean either a really short time or a really long time. It just depends on how you use it in a sentence.”
“And how did ye mean it, lass?”
“I think it’s going to take me a while to learn everything about the Thirteenth Realm and commit it to memory.”
The couch shifted with his weight as he settled down beside her yet again. “But ye are willing to at least try to learn?”
Tucking her head into her arms, she curled into a tighter knot and wished this bad dream would go away.
Well, maybe not entirely. It would be a nice surprise to wake up and discover Magnus MacRaith as a normal Highlander in Seven Cairns looking for a little music therapy. Why couldn’t they have met that way?
“Yes, I’m willing to try to learn as long as you don’t feed me to a dragon.”
“Most here would never eat ye.”
“Most?”
“I canna vouch for those trapped in Thornpitch and under the mind control of Kcirred.” His tender touch on her ankle elicited a shiver. “But I swear I will always protect ye. That ye must never doubt.”
She couldn’t help but offer him a smile, a smile she really meant. “I know I’m safe with you. Not once have I ever doubted that.”
“Good,” he said so softly she almost didn’t hear him. “That is as good a place as any to start.”
Tomorrow will be better, she promised herself as she curled back into a tight ball of misery.
She’d drink her coffee or tea, go to sleep, and wake up to normal.
With a hand clapped tighter over her eyes, she really wished she could believe that lie.
Deep inside, she knew her definition of normal was about to get a major re-write.