Chapter 7 #3
His expression hardened into a darker scowl. “I dinna ken if there is a way for ye to return. Only Mairwen knows the answer to that. We would have to seek her out at Seven Cairns or wait for her to appear to us here.”
“Seven Cairns?” That didn’t make sense. The Highland village was in her time. “If we can go to Seven Cairns, then we can go back.”
“Seven Cairns exists in every reality. ’Tis a gateway. A way station of sorts. Mairwen, in fact, most of the villagers are all Divine Weavers, those who the goddesses assigned to ensure the blessed weave of the Highland Veil remains strong and intact.”
Calia leaned forward with a groan, dropping her head into her hands. “Why me?” she whispered, then held up a hand. “Never mind. Fated mates. Right?”
“Aye.” He stepped closer, moving with the smooth stealth of a panther. “The connection. The pull between us. ’Tis our souls reaching out to one another to rejoin.”
She pulled her feet up into the chair and hugged her knees. “I can’t do this. Connection or not.”
He dragged a chair directly in front of her and sat, blocking any means of escape should she even think to try it. “But ye feel the connection, aye?”
“I cannot do this. I do not belong here.” She refused to admit the draw he had, the way he pulled at her as if he was a lodestone, and she a shard of metal.
She’d never felt such a need to be with someone before—and not just physically.
Even with all the inexplicable craziness of this situation, when he was near, her churning emotions evened out like sea waves calming after a storm.
She was still upset as hell, but not unmanageably so.
“I do not belong here,” she repeated. Maybe if she said it often enough, she’d magically return to her time.
Kind of like Dorothy clicking the heels of her ruby slippers together and saying, “There’s no place like home. ”
She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to her knees. “If we’re fated mates, why couldn’t you stay in my time? Why did I have to come here?”
“Because I rule the shifter clans of the Realm. Or at least I did before the curse. The only way the goddesses allow me to be in yer time is if I remain on holy ground.”
The more he talked, the more confused she became.
She lifted her head, squinting against the headache that had returned with a vengeance.
“Okay…three questions spring to mind. Are you telling me you’re some sort of shifter?
What curse? And holy ground? What the ever-loving fu—” She cut herself off.
Breaking her streak of not using colorful language was not the answer.
It had always bothered Gillian whenever she slipped, and she’d promised her sweet daughter that she’d do her best to change.
He folded his hands as if praying for guidance. “Aye, I am the chieftain of the wolf shifters as well as the grand chieftain of the Ninth Realm. The royal blood of the black wolves flows in my veins. Ye have already met my wolf. Ye took him in and fed him.”
“That ginormous black dog was you?”
“Wolf, lass, and aye, that was me…or my wolf, to put a finer point on it.”
She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, willing herself to stay strong not only against the pain but her rising hysteria. “You realize I’m going to need to see this,” she said as she opened her eyes.
“Aye.” He rose from the chair, shed his jacket, and unbuckled his belt.
As he set aside the endless yardage of his black kilt, she realized he was stripping. “You get naked before you shift?”
His eyes gleamed with molten steeliness. “Wolves dinna wear clothes.” He kicked off his boots and stripped off his black tunic, revealing a muscular stretch of laddered abs along with the impressive package that hung a bit lower.
Swallowing hard against a sudden rush of heat that burned through her like wildfire, Calia tried not to stare. The man was a perfectly chiseled titan. Her eyes burned with the need to blink, but she hated to miss a single second of this view.
But then he changed. The lush black coat of the stray dog of Seven Cairns came first, then he fully morphed into the wolf with such smoothness that it was as though the man was a liquid poured into the mold of a wolf.
It wasn’t the grotesque, bone-popping changes of werewolf movies.
It was a transformation from one form into another.
And now she understood why she’d felt she had seen Mathison’s eyes before. They were the only thing about him that didn’t change. The wolf before her possessed the same icy blue-white eyes as the man. She stared at the animal she’d thought was a stray dog. How could she have been so easily deluded?
The wolf took a step closer and whined, pulling at her heartstrings.
She hugged her knees tighter to her chest, fighting the urge to open her arms to the familiar beastie she’d been more than ready to adopt into her and Otto’s inner circle. “Okay. I believe you. Change back so you can explain the curse and the holy ground part of your earlier statement.”
With amazing ease that made her blink to make sure she was seeing things right, Mathison changed back and once more stood before her in all his naked glory.
“The goddesses ordained Seven Cairns and its surrounding borders as holy ground at the beginning of time. The magic wards at its boundaries prevent or at least slow evil from entering the village,” he said while making no move to get dressed.
“As I explained earlier, the holy ground of Seven Cairns is set apart from time and realities. It exists whenever and however it wishes. The village of yer time has yer time’s conveniences, while the Seven Cairns of my time seems locked in the seventeenth century. ”
“A way station straddling the strongest crossing of the ley lines.” She’d read a book about that while deciding to emigrate to Scotland.
Realizing he seemed perfectly comfortable standing there in the nude, she fought to focus on his face rather than staring at his delectable expanse of ripped body.
“Would you mind getting dressed, please?” She closed her eyes again and concentrated on massaging her throbbing temples.
“Mynlis has herbs that might help with the ache in yer head, lass. And tea. A strong pot of tea might help ye as well. Shall I send for them?”
From the rattling clack of belt buckles and the muffled whooshing of cloth being shaken out, he was dressing; she didn’t risk opening her eyes to find out. She could only control her lust up to a point. “That would be nice. Thank you.”
“After yer tea and the herbal for yer head, I will explain the curse as best I can.” The bedroom door clicked.
She opened her eyes and glanced around the large room. She’d already known he was gone even without looking or hearing the sound of the bedroom door. Whenever he left the room, it was as though the space exhaled and became colder.
With a despondent groan, she sagged over onto her side, curled around her pile of clothes, and pillowed her head on the arm of the chair. She so needed this to be just a bad dream.
“He is safe,” her intuition whispered. “And he is our mate. We need him as much as he needs us.”
“Leave me alone,” Calia whispered back while trying to remember the study she’d read on mental illnesses that caused you to hear voices.
She’d always trusted her inner voice before, but here, it was louder, spoke to her a great deal more, and was counter to everything she believed.
Maybe stress made it worse. If that were the case, her intuition would soon be strong enough to take over.
She can have it. Calia couldn’t handle much more of this life.