The Dark Highlander

Page 71

Disjointed bits of conversation flashed through her mind: talk of portals and ancient curses and mythical races.
Chloe stared at Dageus’s chiseled profile, sorting through facts that were suddenly imbued with a terrible significance: He knew more languages than anyone she’d ever met, languages long dead; he had artifacts in mint condition; he was searching books that centered on the history of ancient Ireland and Scotland. He’d stood her in the center of a circle of ancient stones and asked to her to go somewhere with him that he couldn’t tell her about, but had to show her, as if only seeing was believing. And in that circle of stones a powerful storm had risen and she’d felt as if she were being torn apart. There’d been a sudden climate change, the scenery currently included full-grown, century-old trees that hadn’t been there before, and there was an elderly man claiming to be his father—in the sixteenth century.
And while they were on that topic—if any part of her current circumstances was actually real—what was his father doing in the sixteenth century, for heaven’s sake? She latched onto that lovely little bit of blatant illogic as proof that she must be dreaming.
Unless …
What if I told you, lass, that I’m a Druid from long past?
“What?” she snapped, glaring up at him. “Am I supposed to believe that you’re from the sixteenth century too?”
He finally looked at her then, and said stiffly, “I was born in fourteen hundred and eighty-two, Chloe.”
She jerked as if he’d struck her. Then she started laughing, and even she heard the note of hysteria in her voice. “Right,” she said gaily. “And I’m the Tooth Fairy.”
“You know you felt something about me,” he pressed ruthlessly. “I know you did. I could see it in the way you watched me sometimes.”
God, she had. Repeatedly. Felt that he was strangely anachronistic, felt a bizarre sense of ancientness.
“You’re strong, Chloe-lass. You can accept this. I know you can. I’ll help you. I can explain it to you, and you’ll see that ’tis no’ … magic, but a sort of physics modern men doona—”
“Oh, no,” she cut him off, shaking her head vehemently. A hiccup terminated her laughter abruptly. “It’s impossible,” she insisted, rejecting it all in one grand unilateral sweep. “This is all impossible.” Hiccup. “I’m dreaming, or … something. I don’t know what, but I’m not going to”—hiccup—“think about it anymore. So don’t even bother trying to convince—”
She broke off, suddenly too light-headed to continue. The trauma of the storm, the absurdity of the conversation was all too much. Her knees felt as if they might buckle beneath her. Really, she thought dimly, there was only so much a girl could be expected to handle, and time-travelling Druids just weren’t part of it. More of that helpless laughter bubbled inside her.
As if from a far distance, she heard Silvan say gruffly, “ ’Tis good to be seeing you again, lad. Nellie and I have been sore fashed o’er you. Och, the wee lass is going, son. You might catch her now.”
When Dageus’s strong arms slipped around her, Chloe tuned out the voices and embraced the mercy of oblivion, because she just knew that when she woke up again, everything would be all right. She’d be in bed, in Gwen and Drustan’s castle, having had one of those strangely intense dreams about Dageus.
I like the sex dreams better was her final peevish thought, as her knees gave way and her mind went blank.
Adam Black was dozing—not sleeping, for the Tuatha Dé Danaan did not sleep—but drifting in memory and time when the nine members of the council appeared behind his queen’s dais.
He sat up abruptly.
One of them spoke into the queen’s ear. She nodded and dismissed them back to wherever it was the elusive council made their home.
Then Aoibheal, queen of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, raised her hands to the sky and said, “The council has spoken. It shall be trial by blood.”
Adam tensed to rise, but caught himself, and forced himself to sink back down on his cushioned chaise. He waited, measuring the reactions of the others gathered in the forest bower on the isle of Morar where the queen was wont to hold her court. Drowsing beneath silken canopies, the others stirred languidly, their melodic voices humming softly.
He heard no protests. Fools, he thought, it’s a wonder we’ve survived this long. Though immortal, they could be destroyed.
When Adam spoke, his voice was dispassionate, bordering on bored, as befitted his kind. “My queen, I would speak, if you will it.”