CHAPTER EIGHT #4
He was so parched, it was like watching a dry sponge in the desert on a midsummer day; his body sucked up the white light instantaneously.
He leapt to his feet. “What do ye do?” He roared, furious and incredulous at once.
Allie sent more white rain showering down upon him.
He lifted up his forearm and blasted his energy, sending the white rain spiraling back toward her, and it fell uselessly to the floor, vanishing. “Ye think to heal me?” he cried. But now his aura had repaired itself and it blazed mostly red, orange and gold. No jagged black chasm divided it.
Her mind raced. Royce was suffering and he had been suffering for centuries. This wasn’t about her. The guilt she’d just witnessed was so vast, it had to be the product of something unspeakable.
Somehow she knew it was a woman. And that meant it was his wife. The idea hurt her impossibly—but she ignored it. Royce needed her—desperately.
He drew himself straight. His blazing gaze held hers. “Save yer healing power for those that need it.”
“You need it.”
His smile formed, cold and twisted. “I need no white light. Besides, ye hate me now.”
She hugged herself. “I don’t hate anyone, and I don’t hate you.” How dense could he be? She had given him her heart. No matter what he did, no matter how awful he behaved, she’d never be able to take it back, because she knew the man he’d become one day.
His gaze flickered.
“You are in pain. I can help. Why won’t you let me?”
He stiffened. His smile was forced. “I’m nay in pain. Ye imagined it.”
“Let me help,” she begged, and she went to him and tried to take his large hands in her smaller ones.
As if burned, he drew away. She’d sent a rush of white light into him before he could suspect what she meant to do. “Cease,” he shouted at her. He paced away.
He blamed himself for whatever had happened. She stared up at him. She had to know. She could help.
He whirled. “I dinna need yer help, Ailios,” he warned. “Leave me to my affairs.”
She tensed. “You can read my mind, can’t you?”
“Aye.” He stared without remorse at her.
She’d analyze that later. “If you can read my mind, you know what I want to know. Who is she?” she asked, sure he would explode.
His face was grim. “My wife.”
Allie tensed, even though she had expected the answer. “Where is she, Royce?”
“She’s dead,” he said without emotion. “Dead an’ buried, as she should be, these past eight centuries.”
Allie somehow nodded, shaken to the core. He was consumed with his dead wife—after eight centuries. How could she compete with that? What had Royce done—or what did he think he’d done?
And when his aura roiled and started to split, as the blue rose up, the color ruled by Uranus, the planet of change and transformation, the planet of Fate, everything became so clear.
She loved the medieval man as much as the modern one and she could never turn her back on either one.
He was breaking apart before her very eyes. She had to try to save him.
Trembling, she walked bravely to him and laid her hands on his chest. “How did she die, Royce? What happened?”
He seized her hands, hard. “So ye think to seduce me tonight? Ye wish to heal my bleeding soul with yer hot little body? Aye, fine, let’s go up to bed.”
Very softly, she said, “Be a jerk. You’re forgiven. You’re forgiven for everything you said today and for all of your despicable behavior. I understand what you’re doing—but you can’t change the subject.”
He started and dropped her hands. “Ye mean it. Ye forgive me for being a bastard. Ye don’t hate me. Ye would never hate anyone.”
“No, I can’t hate anyone—and I can’t hate you. And, Royce? You could pay me ten billion dollars—enough wealth to buy all of Alba in my time—and I wouldn’t sleep with you.”
He flushed.
She smiled sweetly. “The next time I sleep with you it will be because you tell me that you love me—and you mean it.”
His high color vanished. Their gazes locked.
He smiled slowly at her. “Ye challenge me?”
“No,” she said quickly, “I do not.”
“So ye retract yer words.”
She wet her lips. Her heart pounded wildly. This was so important, because one day, she wanted those words! “No, I do not.”
He nodded. Softly he said, “Then we won’t be sharing pleasure, will we? Not unless ye back down.”
“Maybe you’ll be the one to see the light.”
His expression became taut. “I will never say such words. Ye have my word on that.” He was so furious his aura spit fire.
“We are not rivals,” Allie insisted, meaning it.
He shook his head. “Then ye shouldn’t have challenged me.” And with those harsh words, he vanished.
Allie cried out. She had not a doubt that Royce had just leapt into the future—or the past.
She sank to the floor, terribly worried now. Royce was in the throes of unleashed torment and she was afraid he was vulnerable to his enemies in such a state, wherever he was. God, she hadn’t meant to confront the wounded beast in his den. It felt like a miracle that she had survived the encounter.
She hugged her knees to her chest. One thing had become crystal clear. This man needed her as no other ever had. And that meant she wasn’t going anywhere.