CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #2
Savagely triumphant, he dropped the sword, lifted Kael by his neck with his two hands, and he snapped it easily, cruelly, in two.
His head hanging uselessly, Kale snarled at him. “Your suffering just begins.” His red eyes ceased glowing, becoming lifeless.
He could not understand the words and did not even care to.
A terrible pain finally arising in his shoulder, he ran to his wife.
But now, the demonic evil gone from the hall, he became aware of the pure power that was taking over the space within the four walls.
He still did not understand it, but it was tangible and intense, somehow beckoning.
It somehow pulled at him; he wanted to turn and discover it… her.
Royce.
He turned all of his attention on his wife.
Brigdhe needed him, not the ghost-woman.
She had needed him for days and he had failed to rescue her until now.
He had failed in his duty to his wife. Nothing was as reprehensible.
She sat with her back to the wall, and when he knelt, she recoiled.
He stopped himself from reaching for her. She cried, “Don’t touch me!”
Now wary, he eased back. Of course she was frightened still. “T’is over now. I’ll take ye far from here,” he said.
“No.”
He tensed, searching her eyes, but she wouldn’t look at him now. “I’m sorry, Brigdhe,” he said grimly, meaning his every word. “I will find a way to make ye forget this terrible time.”
“Sorry?” Her tone was scathing and hatred filled her eyes. “Get away from me. He did this to me because of you. Stay away from me!”
Her words delivered the blow that Kael had not been able to wield.
He tried to breathe and failed. She was right.
Kael had used his bride against him. He had vowed to protect Innocence, but he hadn’t even been able to protect his own wife.
Being a Master was now irrelevant; what kind of man did that make him?
Guilt came, crushing him with its terrible weight. He had done this to her.
In that instant, his marriage ended. Brigdhe must never be endangered by him again. He did not blame her for hating him; if he dared to think upon it, he might realize he hated himself, too.
“Can ye stand?” he asked roughly. He refused to tolerate any sorrow now. He would only allow the guilt.
“Dinna think to help me now,” she cried furiously.
He stood and stepped aside, allowing Brogan, who had just appeared, to lift her and carry her from the hall.
He followed them, but only to the door, and stared after them.
Although he was determined to be a soldier, shame began and joined the festering guilt.
How could he make this up to her? He watched Elasaid kneel beside Brigdhe, Brogan having placed her on a pallet on the ground.
Reassured she would be well cared for, he slowly turned to the empty hall.
Royce. Help me. Please.
His eyes went wide. He’d heard the woman as clear as day. Now that the battle was over, Brigdhe safe at last and being attended, he felt her wrenching fear.
My spell won’t last much longer.
His eyes widened. It was as if she was speaking to him directly. Was she a witch?
“Ruari,” MacNeil said tersely, his tone one of command.
Ruari was certain he was in for a severe set-down, as he had been warned—ordered—not to hunt Kael alone. “Nay now,” he said, not even looking at him. He scanned the hall slowly, looking into every shadowed corner. “Did ye hear the woman?”
“Aye.”
And he saw a trapdoor set in the floor. He rushed to the door and lifted it, hearing the hissing of snakes. “Get me a torch!” he called.
MacNeil ran outside.
Ruari didn’t wait; he leapt down into the black hole. The woman’s fear consumed him, and with no difficulty, he turned and found her huddled against one earthen wall.
“Royce!” she cried.
Before he took a step toward her, she flung herself into his arms.
He did not move, shocked by the feeling of her small, soft body in his arms. He did not even know what this woman looked like and he wanted her instantly, with a terrible urgency. Something was terribly familiar, yet he knew he’d never met—or held—this woman before.
She was a Healer. In spite of her fear, he could identify the strong healing force of her power.
She clung, shaking, and whispered, “The snakes.”
He realized they were seething about his bare feet—and hers. He held her close with one arm and reached up. “MacNeil?”
MacNeil handed him a burning torch. Ruari took it, waving the torch, scattering the snakes away from their feet. Then he looked at her.
His heart vanished. The loveliest woman he had ever seen smiled at him, and love was shining in her dark eyes. She loved him. What was this?
He was almost certain he knew her; still, if they’d met, he’d have taken her as a lover, and he knew he had never had her in his bed. As his shock began to fade, something primitive, possessive and triumphant arose, while blood rushed into his loins. He smiled back at her.
Her eyes widened. “Oh,” she breathed as if she’d just made her own discovery.
He didn’t understand. “Let me get ye up.”
“You’re not my Royce,” she said, her eyes now huge.
Again, her meaning was so strange. Did she belong to someone else?
He did not care. Soon she would find out that he was very different from other men, but not strange or exotic.
He waved the torch at the snakes again, and then laid it carefully down.
He grasped her by her tiny waist and handed her up to MacNeil.
A moment later, he gave MacNeil his hand and was hauled upward to stand beside the small woman and the Master.
He stepped closer to her, so MacNeil would understand he would not be allowed to poach.
“Are ye hurt?” he asked her. Real concern arose. “Did Kael touch ye?”
She shook her head. “No.” She glanced at MacNeil. “Where is Moffat?”
“I dinna ken Moffat.”
She tensed, paling. “Is Kael dead? Is Brigdhe okay?”
Her speech was odd—she was a foreigner. “Kael is dead,” Ruari said. “My brother is takin’ Brigdhe from here.”
She faced him, breathing hard. “Go to your wife. Do whatever you have to do to make her forgive you. This was not your fault!”
“My marriage is over,” he said.
She whirled back to MacNeil. “Moffat is hunting Royce—in the fifteenth century! Please, find him and warn him.”
MacNeil seemed to understand her, but astonishment rose on Ruari’s part.
Did this woman mean that he was being hunted in the future?
Her dress was very fine, very strange. Did she belong to him in another time?
Oh, that did please him. But he thought of the deamhan in the robes he had seen earlier, and he instantly knew that had been Moffat.
“Moffat was here when I first broke into the fortress,” he said. “He leapt.”
She cried out. “I have to find Royce!”
MacNeil said, “If he is here, he has no powers.”
She blanched.
“I will make certain he goes safely back to his time—an’ you must go back, as well,” MacNeil said.
Ruari stepped between them, fury beginning. “The maid belongs to me,” he warned.
“She belongs to the future an’ ye’ll let her go,” MacNeil said as firmly.
“I dinna think so.”
“Stop,” she cried. She stepped between them and said urgently, “MacNeil, please warn Royce now. Moffat has murdered him in 2007—I am so afraid for him!”
MacNeil nodded, then said to Ruari, “Ye have but a moment with her.” He strode out.
She wrung her hands and then, slowly, turned to him.
Their gazes locked. Looking into her dark eyes, he wanted to possess all of her, not just her body. “Are ye mine? In what time?” he demanded. “The fifteenth century?”
She nodded. “Yes, we’re together in 1430.”
He was dismayed. “That’s in eight hundred years!”
She nodded, staring at him as if soaking up every detail of his face and hoping to memorize them.
He went still. How could he let this woman go back to the future? So much desire roared. But even as it did, he thought that he must not have any real involvement with any woman, ever again. Still, he hardly needed to be fond of her to spend the night with her.
His mind was made up. They would share one careless night. “I need ye, lass. I canna wait eight hundred years.” He pulled her close, so she could feel his very swollen shaft as it pulsed between them. “Tell me yer name.”
“Ailios.” Tears rose. “I love you so much. You’re so different—you’re the same! Royce, you’re so young!”
He started at her bold declaration, then even more triumph began. He was loved by this brave, pure woman! “I’m nay too young, Ailios, an’ I’m glad to show ye.”
She smiled and touched his face. “But I’m not yours yet. And you don’t love me yet. You love Brigdhe. You’re married still.”
Had the day been less grim, her words would have amused him.
“Ailios, I’m a warrior. Warriors dinna have soft hearts.
I’m fond of Brigdhe—t’is my duty to be fond o’ her.
But it doesna matter now. My marriage ended the day Kael captured her.
” And just so she did not get the wrong idea, he added, “I willna marry again.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I thought you loved her,” she gasped.
“Ye speak so strangely,” he exclaimed, finally smiling ever so slightly. “Ye may ken me in the future, but ye dinna ken me now.”
She flung her arms around him and buried her face in his chest, as if what he had said had pleased her greatly. His heart thundered. The pressure increased in his loins. This was very different. It might not be so easy to walk away from her when they were done.
“Then I am the only woman who has ever had your heart,” she whispered, looking up at him, her smile saucy. But her gaze remained moist.
“Ye talk too much,” he said, tilting up her chin. He felt her tense.
“Ruari, let me heal you.” Even as she interrupted him, he felt a wonderful warmth seep into his shoulder. It was so pleasing he went still, surprised.
She smiled, her small hands on him now. “Hmm, you like that, don’t you?”