CHAPTER NINE #3
Tabby closed her eyes and thought, Good over Macleod, good around him. Good everywhere, barring dark intent. Circle formed, protecting him.
Macleod seized her arm, ruining her concentration. “We have no time fer magic now!” he said, already hurrying her toward the hall and staircase.
The guard began speaking on his radio, behind them.
“Halt right now, before I blow your fucking head off.”
Tabby knew it was the bad cop and she was horrified. She tried to halt. Macleod tightened his grasp on her, saying, “Come!” He started to run, dragging her with him.
Tabby screamed, “He’ll kill you!” She was certain he could not survive a bullet to the back of his head.
“Fuck you,” the cop snarled, behind them.
Macleod roared, turning, flinging his arm as the gun fired, but no power blazed. Tabby cried out as the bullet hit him high on the chest, but he only flinched, when a mortal would have gone down.
The cop’s eyes went wide. “One of them,” he said, about to shoot again.
Macleod moved faster than the human eye. His dagger, which had been in his boot, beneath the jeans, landed in the cop’s heart as the gun went off again. The bullet went astray, hitting the wall, as the cop collapsed.
The guard shouted, “He’s killed Frankie!” He ran up the hall toward them, gun in hand.
Macleod marched forward, his face savage. Tabby thought he meant to murder the guard with his bare hands. She screamed at him. “He’s an Innocent! Don’t!”
But then he tore his dagger from the cop and straightened, staring at the guard. The security officer hesitated, his face pale, his gun trained on Macleod.
She had to save him.
And suddenly the morning became still, silent.
Suddenly she was so calm, so detached. “Good over Macleod, good around him. Good everywhere, barring dark intent. Circle formed, protecting him,” Tabby chanted.
The air shimmered around Macleod. Vaguely she heard the sirens outside and booted steps pounding madly up the stone stairs.
Tabby focused her entire being on the spell as the guard pulled the trigger. Only a loud click sounded.
The guard blanched, clearly in disbelief.
Had her spell worked? “Macleod, we have to run,” she said, trying to shake herself free of her trance.
Macleod lifted his arm and, this time, his energy blazed, hurling the guard backward. As Macleod strode back to her, a man materialized between them in a whoosh of golden dust that formed into a huge, towering golden Highlander. Otherworldly power filled the hall.
“Ye took yer time,” Macleod said.
“Aye, I wondered how ye might manage this crisis,” the golden Highlander said calmly. He nodded at Tabby as if he knew her.
“I willna go back without Tabitha,” Macleod warned.
Tabby tensed, coming fully out of her trance now. Only two things were clear—Macleod was leaving and she could not go with him. “No, wait. I am not going back to Blayde with you.” He was leaving. She forced her dismay aside. She could not go back in time with him!
He reached her, seizing her hand and pulling her hard to his side. His gaze locked with hers. “Hold on verra tight.”
Panic overcame her. “Macleod, no!” She had never meant “no” more.
But he nodded at the golden Highlander and suddenly Tabby was crushed to his chest and they were hurling toward the high ceiling above. She screamed.
Blayde, Scotland
June 10, 1298
TABBY COULDN’T BELIEVE she would survive the pain.
She had gone through the universe, probably at the speed of light.
Maybe she wouldn’t survive—maybe she was dying, even though she lay on the damp ground in Macleod’s arms, moaning.
Every bone in her body had been shattered into a zillion pieces, or that was what it felt like.
If the pain didn’t stop, she would explode and die.
He spoke against her ear. “’Twill pass soon, Tabitha.”
Tabby didn’t think the torment would ever pass. She wept against what felt like wet grass, grateful that his arms were around her.
“Will she survive?” Macleod asked, sounding worried. He didn’t release her.
“Aye. If ye let me touch her, I can heal her quickly enough.”
The golden Highlander could heal her. Tabby somehow moaned.
Tabby felt strong but gentle hands on her and great warmth began seeping into her, through her.
She continued to cry, but started to realize that the pain had become tolerable.
In fact, her broken body began to throb with the force of a headache.
She was no longer crying. She dared to try to take a breath and it felt like a miracle when she could breathe deeply.
More warmth filled her, a powerful healing light. “Take yer time, lass,” the golden Highlander said softly.
“Ye can take yer hands off her now,” Macleod said.
The pain vanished. Tabby opened her eyes and saw the brightest, bluest wildflower she had ever seen, inches from her nose.
She inhaled and the most amazing, freshest scent of earth, grass, flowers and pine filled her nostrils, so strong it could have been a perfume.
Then she identified the tang of the sea.
Her mind clicked into high gear. She was in the Highlands.
No, she was in the medieval Highlands…because Macleod had brought her back with him.
Tabby slowly sat up. Macleod steadied her, but she didn’t look at him. The tall golden Highlander stood behind them, and her gaze veered past him, too. She was in medieval Scotland. Oh, my God.
As dark as ebony, Blayde was situated above them on a stark hill, its walls and towers butting up against the sky and the sea.
And it was familiar. She knew Blayde.
The headache began. The fortress changed, flames shooting from the parapets, the towers, the ramparts. Men, women and children were shouting, screaming, crying. An inferno blazed and she saw Macleod as that skinny fourteen-year-old boy, stumbling down the hill, away from it.
Tabby inhaled and blinked. Blayde became a dark shadow on the hilltop again, silhouetted against the Highland skies. Nothing should be familiar, not Blayde as it was just then or as it had been in 1201, when it had been razed to the ground, but it was.
She inhaled again, shocked at the fragrance of the summer afternoon. She could smell every blade of grass, every petal of gorse, every pine needle and cone, every wildflower. But then, there was no pollution in 1298.
And the afternoon was filled with birdsong. Dozens of different types of birds were chirping, and she heard the buzzing of insects, too.
A rasping sound made her turn her head and she saw a magnificent young buck, rubbing his immature antlers on a tree. There was no noise pollution here, either, she thought. Being in historic Scotland would be incredible—under other circumstances.
She trembled and turned, meeting Macleod’s gaze. “So you brought me back to 1298.”
“Aye,” Macleod replied, his gaze holding hers. “With MacNeil’s help.”
Now Tabby recalled every moment they’d spent at the Met. She trembled with anger, getting to her feet. She had said no. She had told him that she would not go back in time with him. But he hadn’t listened. Of course not.
She looked at Macleod’s chest. Now he was an incredibly incongruous sight, in his sweater and jeans, standing in front of a castle in thirteenth-century Scotland.
The blood on his sweater had already dried, perhaps from the speed of time travel.
The sweater was torn from where the bullet had struck him.
“Are you hurt?” she asked tersely. She thought she knew the answer.
He shook his head, his expression a bit wary. “MacNeil healed me, too.”
“Good.” With that established, she saw red. She did not want to be there! He had ignored her completely. Her hand lashed out, as hard as she could, and she struck him across the face.
His eyes widened as the slap resonated like the crack of a whip in the quiet afternoon.
“How dare you!” she cried, shaking with fury. “I was very clear. I said in plain English that I would not go back in time with you!”
He rubbed his jaw. “’Tis the second time that ye’ve hit me.”
“So what?” A part of her was shocked that she had struck him again.
But mostly, she was so angry she didn’t care—even though the ground seemed to shift a bit beneath her feet.
“Oh, wait! You’re a savage brute so now you’ll beat me for my sins?
Because that’s what big macho medieval jerks do to their women, right? ”
The ground moved violently beneath them. “’Tis nay safe in yer time.”
“Like it’s safe here?” she shouted. She simply didn’t care that his temper was igniting.
“I dinna wish to leave ye behind to fight the deamhan ghost alone,” he snapped.
“And that makes you my hero? I don’t think so!
” He darkened. A wind kicked up. “I am not a piece of baggage, to be shipped here or there at your whim! I am a modern woman, and modern women control their choices, their lives, their Fates. Damn it, Macleod, I do not want to be here. I do not belong here. Send me back.”
He folded his massive arms across his huge chest and glowered steadily at her. “Nay.”
That single word, spoken in an uncompromising tone, was like ice water. She did not speak, panting and breathless, staring at him. He had abducted her and he wasn’t going to send her back. She saw it in his eyes and in every set line of his face. It was unacceptable.
But maybe this was what she deserved for going to bed with him! She’d known all along that doing so was wrong, that it was like opening a Pandora’s box.
She turned to the golden Highlander. Tabby knew she should take a few deep breaths and find her inherent good manners, but she said abruptly, “In my time, men are imprisoned for what you did. It’s a felony and we call it kidnapping.”
The golden Highlander looked as guilty as a twelve-year-old boy caught red-handed with the neighbor’s pretty daughter. “I’m very sorry, lass,” he said softly. “But Macleod needs ye fer a bit. An’ no one decides their own Fate.”