CHAPTER TWENTY
Aidan took her wrist. “Ye have to calm, Allie.”
“How can I calm? Apparently I was never born! What the hell does that mean?”
Aidan was as relaxed as she was not. “It means yer meant to go back to Blayde, to live with yer brother—the last place yer mother was seen.”
Aidan smiled. “Ye belong to the Brotherhood, lass. Ye willna vanish from time.”
Allie stared at him, thinking that he had to be right.
Somehow, what her mother had done had been wrong.
But if that was the case, what did it mean about her relationship with William Monroe?
Had the Ancients taken his memory of her away so that he wouldn’t suffer when she went back? He was her father, wasn’t he?
The door opened, revealing Sam standing there in a tiny top and low-slung fleece shorts, her short hair soaking wet, most of her midriff bare. She looked annoyed—and then her eyes went wide in disbelief and relief. “Allie!” She embraced her hard.
“You know me!” Allie said hoarsely, choking in relief.
Sam glanced at Aidan and her eyes went wide and then narrowed.
Aidan smiled the kind of smile that would instantly put most women on their backs, undressing her from head to toe, an easy enough task as Sam barely had any clothes on.
Sam checked him out as quickly and as boldly, then dragged Allie inside.
Aidan followed and she shut the door behind him.
Allie made introductions. “Is Tabby here?”
“She’s at a PTA meeting. We have been so worried!”
Allie just stared. So Tabby still existed—even though she’d eventually go to the past and live there. Or would she stay here?
“Allie!” Sam grabbed her. “We need to talk!”
“We can talk in front of Aidan,” Allie said.
Sam gave him a glance and then said, “The morning after the party, Tabby called you because you took off. And no one, no one, I mean frigging no one—” her voice rose shrilly, when Sam was as cool as Royce all of the time “—knew you! Not the housekeeper, not your father, not your brother. What the hell happened?”
“But you didn’t forget me,” Allie whispered.
“We’ve been freaked! We were afraid it was demons, and that Fate decided to make a few adjustments to the situation. But the gods never intervene when someone is murdered and you know it.”
“I’ve been in the fifteenth century, Sam. The CDA rumors are true.”
Sam stared at her and Allie stared back. Then she looked at Aidan. “He has power, lots of it—and it’s not demonic.”
“Yeah, he has power. There’s a secret Brotherhood filled with guys like him who have taken vows to protect Innocence no matter what,” Allie said.
“The Masters time travel as well as vanquish evil. They are descended from the gods, Sam.” She almost added, so was she.
“They’re almost immortal—and almost invincible. ”
“Holy shit.” Sam then said, low, “There’s a spell in the Book we never understood, Allie. It’s about Fate interrupted, and Fate corrected.”
Allie hesitated. Sam had referred to the Book she and Tabby lived by, handed down to them by their mother, a book only a Rose woman could use. It was filled with wisdom, magic, myths and spells. “I don’t exist here anymore. And that means one thing—my Fate is the past.”
Sam appeared dismayed and she hugged her, another totally uncharacteristic action for her, as she was the least touchy-feely person Allie knew.
The door opened and Tabby walked in. She saw Allie and rushed to embrace her. Allie realized she was crying. “It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. Sam, Brie and I have spent nights trying to figure out what happened to you and what it meant. Brie said you weren’t coming back! Thank the gods she was wrong!”
Allie hesitated. “This is temporary, Tabby. My life is the fifteenth century now.”
Tabby gaped.
Allie whispered, “I found him. I found the Emperor.”
Tabby gasped. “Then why do you look as if someone has died?”
Allie tried not to cry.
“Oh my God,” Tabby whispered. “I’m sorry, Allie. I’m so sorry.”
Allie sucked it up. “I need Brie. I have been trying to summon her, but I don’t think it’s working. Can you call her? I have to speak to her before I go back.”
Sam was already on the phone.
“Aidan? This is my other best friend, Tabby.” Allie realized Aidan was staring at Tabby in surprise.
Tabby did a double take and appeared confused. “Do I know you?”
“I dinna think so—Lady Tabitha.”
Tabby started. She glanced at Allie but before Allie could divert her—she didn’t think she should tell Tabby she was going to meet her destiny in another year and that he was very medieval—Sam said, “Brie left the office, like, ten minutes ago.”
“How do you know me,” Tabby asked uncertainly, “and why are you addressing me as ‘Lady’?”
The words weren’t even out of her mouth when a soft knock sounded on the door. Allie gave Aidan a warning look and ran to it, knowing it was Brie, her heart leaping wildly. She needed a final, definitive answer about Royce. She needed to know that he was alive and out there, somewhere.
Brie stood in the doorway in a shapeless brown suit, looking flushed, as if she’d walked the twenty blocks from CDA to the loft, her brown hair pulled tightly back, tendrils sticking to her damp skin. She wore her heavy black I’m-A-Brain glasses, but they were crooked. They embraced and clung.
“I heard you calling!” Brie exclaimed breathlessly. “What are you doing here? You can’t be here!” she cried. Then she looked past Allie and saw Aidan. She turned redder and glanced aside. Then said, “I have missed you so. I have thought about you so much!”
“Everything has happened so fast and I didn’t know how to get word back to you guys.” Allie held her by the upper arms. “Everything Tabby saw in the cards was right. And you were right—he was there, that night at the fund-raiser. Brie, please. Is Royce alive?”
Brie shifted her weight, as she usually did when nervous. “Allie, you know I can’t see on demand.”
“Please!” Allie cried, and instantly, she knew she was on the verge of hysteria. Her grip on Brie tightened. “Try to see…try for me. I can’t believe he’s gone forever!”
“I don’t know,” Brie cried back, strained. “I only know that I saw him coming for you. A big, golden, beautiful man, a warrior. You were meant to heal his heart—and he was meant to take you to your Fate. That’s all I know!”
“Allie,” Aidan interrupted. “Yer hurting the lass.”
Allie released her. “I’m so sorry!”
Brie wiped one of her cheeks with her knuckles—she’d started to cry. She was terribly empathetic. “I know your heart has been ripped out. I’m sorry, so sorry!”
Allie fought not to weep. “How can this have happened?”
Brie put her arms around her. “You can’t fight Fate.”
Allie looked at her. “After eight hundred years, he was finally coming around. I was healing him.”
Brie didn’t seem to hear her. “Allie? You need to go to a place called Carrick—you need to go now!”
HE AWOKE, not for the first time, aware that his strength was returning. And as he did, he heard the woman as she pounded food with a stone, and he sensed the man outside of the cave where he had been taken. He could smell meat roasting.
Saliva gathered.
He began to recall what had happened.
Moffat had chased him through the ages. The many leaps had exhausted him. He had landed without thought in this long ago, primitive time. He opened his eyes and adjusted his gaze to the dim light in the cave.
The woman wore a deerskin and she did not look his way, grinding leaves rhythmically with her stone. Her face was strange, with huge cheekbones, a wide, flat nose, small eyes. She was small, too, like Ailios, but so was the man.
He had gone so far back in time he did not know the date. But then, these people had no calendar.
She looked at him and smiled.
He read her mind. She thought him a god; so did her man. But now, he remembered appearing in their midst. Just before losing consciousness, he had sensed their shock and fear.
The man appeared, also clad in a skin, grinning. He was pleased with the tribal kill—two deer.
More saliva gathered—he was starving. He recalled the woman feeding him some kind of bland gruel while giving him sips of water. He sat up. Both people turned to stare.
He smiled at them, testing his body, searching it for strength and power. He sent a blast of light energy through the cave and was pleased when the dirt and leaves lifted and swirled.
The cave people’s eyes widened.
“Thank ye fer carin’ fer me,” he said. His strength and power were rapidly returning. He flexed his hands, standing.
They got on their knees submissively.
They were in awe, still afraid. It didn’t matter. He had lain in exhaustion for days—he wasn’t sure for how long—and he had to go home. But before he did, he’d make sure they had enough stores to last the winter.
Royce stepped out of the cave.
“I DINNA THINK WE SHOULD be here,” Aidan said. “I think ye should go directly to Blayde, yer brother’s home.”
Allie paused outside Carrick’s twenty-first-century front walls, which were covered with blooms. Why had Brie insisted they go to Carrick?
“He’s nay here,” Aidan said sharply. “Ye have yer hopes up.”
She did have her hopes up, but Allie wasn’t going to admit it.
They’d taken a commercial flight to Scotland, to avoid the physical stress of leaping.
Allie had no funds, so Tabby had paid for the airfare.
Their goodbyes had been tearful. While Allie knew she’d see Tabby again, she’d probably never see Brie or Sam.
On top of losing Royce, it was simply too much.
“Stop being so brave,” she had told Sam fiercely. “Find someone to help you hunt the demons so you don’t have to do it alone!”
Sam had been amused. “I have Tabby and Brie,” she said flippantly. “Besides, maybe I’ll join CDA.”
In a way, Brie was her best friend, even though she was so shy, introverted and bookish. Allie had hugged her, not meaning to say anything. But then she’d whispered, “Stop hiding behind your job, those glasses and those awful suits.”
Brie had smiled sadly. “I’m not you…. I love you, Allie.”