Kiss of the Highlander

Page 26

Her audacity would serve her well in the trials to come, and there would be many. He poked at his memory fragments, which were still frighteningly incomplete. He had two days to reclaim perfect recall. It was imperative that he isolate and study every detail of what had happened prior to his enchantment.
With a heavy sigh, he turned his back to the fire and stared out into the night at a world he didn’t understand and had no desire to be a part of. He found her century unsettling, felt bombarded by the unnatural rhythm of her world, and was comforted by the knowledge that he wouldn’t have to spend too much longer in it. As he listened to the unfamiliar sounds of the night—a humming in the air few would hear, a strange intermittent thunder in the sky—he reflected upon his training, sifting through neatly compartmentalized vaults of information stored in his mind.
Precision was imperative, and he subdued a surge of unease. He’d never done what he would soon have to do, and although his upbringing had prepared him for it, the possibility for error was immense. His memory was formidable, yet the purpose for which he’d been trained had never taken into account the possibility that he would not be at Castle Keltar when he performed the rite, and thus would not have access to the tablets or any of the books.
Although it was widely believed that Druidry had waned—leaving only inept practitioners of lesser spells—and that the ancient scholars had forbidden writing of any kind, both beliefs were myths that had been cultivated and spread by the few remaining Druids themselves. It was what they wished the world to believe, and Druids were ever adept at illusion.
On the contrary, Druidry thrived, although the prone-to-melodrama British Druids scarce possessed the knowledge to cast an effective sleep spell, in Drustan’s estimation.
Many millennia ago, after the Tuatha de Danaan had left the mortal world for stranger haunts, their Druids—mortals and unable to accompany them—had vied among themselves for power.
There had ensued a protracted battle that had nearly destroyed the world. In the horrifying aftermath, one bloodline had been selected to preserve the most sacred of the Druid lore. And so the Keltar’s purpose had been mapped out. Heal, teach, guard. Enrich the world for the wrong they’d done it.
The fabulous and dangerous knowledge, including sacred geometry and star guides, had been carefully inked in thirteen volumes and upon seven stone tablets, and the Keltar Druids guarded that bank of knowledge with their souls. They tended Scotland, they used the stones only when necessary for the world’s greater good, and they did their best to quell the rumors about them.
The ritual he would perform at Ban Drochaid required certain formulas that must be without error, and he was uncertain of three of them. The critical three. But who would ever have believed he would be trapped in a future century? If they arrived at the stones and Castle Keltar was gone and the tablets were missing—well, that was why he needed Gwen Cassidy.
Ban Drochaid, his beloved stones, were the white bridge, the bridge of the fourth dimension: time. Millennia ago, Druids had observed that man could move in three ways: forward and back, side to side, up and down. Then they’d discovered the white bridge, whereupon they could move in a fourth direction. Four times a year the bridge could be opened: the two equinoxes and the two solstices. No simple man could avail himself of the white bridge, but no Keltar had ever been simple. From the beginning of time, they had been bred like animals to be anything but.
Such power—the ability to travel through time—was an immense responsibility. Thus they adhered unfailingly to their many oaths.
She thought him mad now; she would surely abandon him if he overburdened her mind with more of his plans. He couldn’t risk telling her anything else. His Druid ways had made too many women flee him already.
For what time they had left together in her century, he’d like to continue seeing that glimmer of desire in her gaze, not revulsion. He’d like to feel like a simple man with a lovely woman who wanted him.
Because the moment he finished the ritual, she would fear him and mayhap—nay, assuredly—hate him. But he had no other choice. Only the ritual and a fool’s hopes. His oaths demanded he return to avert the destruction of his clan. His oaths demanded he do whatever was necessary to accomplish that.
He closed his eyes, hating his choices.
If Gwen had awakened during the night, she would have seen him, head tossed back, gazing up at the sky, speaking softly to himself in a language dead for thousands of years.
But once he’d spoken the words of the spell to enhance sleep, she slept peacefully until morning.
SEPTEMBER 20