The Magic of Highland Dragons (29 page)

“Sorry lass”, he said as he lifted his head to give her a rueful smile. “I told ye I had been thinking of ye all day, and as a result I was already far too close. I couldna wait another second to be inside ye. But now… now that I have taken the edge off, I can love ye properly.” He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed, where he lay her down and stripped off all of her clothing, then his own. She smiled when she saw he was still hard, looking up to meet his gaze with a light still in her eyes.

“Aye lass, my desire for ye is no’ so easily sated. In fact, the need for ye seems only to grow stronger, each time I take ye.”

“Then you’d better take me again, husband.”

“But then I will only want ye more, wife.”

***

The next several days flew by as Faith busied herself learning all the ins and outs of the castle and how it was run, as well as the names and occupations of the people who called it home. She was learning a way of life very different from what she had ever known before, and though many things were quite the same, others were completely foreign to her. And so she treaded carefully for now, observing as much as participating. And in the evenings Bren would come home and they would eat dinner together before retiring to their chamber for the night. It was bliss, everything was so perfect that she should have known it would all go wrong. It went wrong that very afternoon, when she and Mathilde were upstairs in the lady’s solar, having tea and going over plans for some changes to the schedule of the keep. The only warning was a tingling sensation as all of the hairs on her body stood up. Then everything shifted in a sickeningly familiar way, and it went dark.

***

There was a blood-curdling scream from upstairs. Bren and Drust and a few others were on their feet and running for the stairs before whoever it was could draw a breath to scream again. It was coming from the ladies solar, and it was Mathilde who stood there in the center of the room, hands clasped to her cheeks, mouth open, ready to shriek yet again.

Bren reached her first, putting both hands on her shoulders and spinning her around to face him. The maid’s face was absolutely ashen, her eyes wide as saucers. “What is it? What’s happened?”

Mathilde sputtered, gasped, tried to draw in enough breath to speak. “She… she disappeared… she’s gone!”

Bren dropped his hands from maid’s shoulders, a slow sinking feeling akin to panic filling his chest. “Who’s disappeared?” he asked, but he already knew the answer.

“F… Faith. I mean… yer lady. She was here, and now she’s gone.”

Drust stepped forward. “What do ye mean lass, was she taken? Was there someone here?”

Mathilde shook her head. “Nay… I dinna ken. She just… disappeared… faded away, like, right before my eyes!”

Drust stared at her for a second in disbelief. “Oh fuck”, he said softly. Then he clenched his jaw and turned a reluctant look to Bren. “The ring.”

Bren stared at his brother, his eyes disbelieving, his whole world melting away around him. She couldn’t really be gone, she just couldn’t! In a few short weeks, Faith had become everything to him. His heart. His soul. His hope for the future. Without her… without her… no, he would not live without her.

Slowly his face changed, his features morphing into a mask of pure, mindless fury. He spoke through tightly gritted teeth, struggling to draw enough air into his lungs. “Nay. I will have her back.”

He turned and strode from the room. Drust spun on his heel and followed, as did the others. Bren was already shouting commands, strapping on his weapons as he went. Eian had appeared and one of the men was filling him in on what had happened. The color drained from Eian’s face, but then his features also settled into a hard line of anger and determination. Drust stepped into Bren’s path, the only way to slow him as he rushed to the stables.

“I am going with ye this time. Leave Eian here to mind the castle. This is my fight, as well as yers.”

Bren considered his brother for a moment. He knew he spoke of the attack on Creagmor that had taken their mother from them, and their childhood innocence. Mored had been responsible for that, as well. Drust was a strong warrior. He could take down an enemy with a cold certainty that Bren had rarely seen in any other man. He could use his brother’s skill… but…

“I’m going to Mored. To the caves, Drust. I will find that ring and have it back, or I will die trying.”

Drust gave him a grim smile. “Then I will die at yer side, brother. But I’m coming with ye.”

Bren nodded. There were no words left to say. Footsteps sounded behind them, and they turned to see that Dirc was coming towards them, followed by Eian, who must have run to fetch him. The old sorcerer’s face was laced with strain and worry.

“Is it possible?” Bren asked when he came to stand in front of him.

Dirc drew in a deep breath, and looked out over the hills, towards their only hope. “If ye can get the ring back, then aye, it’s possible.”

Bren closed his eyes for a moment and nodded, then turned to leave, but Dirc stopped him with a hand on his sleeve. “I said it’s possible, my laird, but it… it is no’ a certain thing, by any means. It might no’ work. I dinna ken all that much…”

Bren pulled himself free from the other man’s grasp. His face held a look of fierce determination. “As I have said, I will have her back, or I will die trying. Because if I fail… I’m no’ sure how long I will survive anyway.”

Dirc stared at him, shaking his head in shock. “Dinna tell me ye would take yer own life!”

“Nay. It would be taken from me, as sure as a dagger through the heart.”

Chapter 16
҈

She felt as if she had fallen onto a hard wooden floor. Carefully, she opened her eyes. It
was
a wooden floor. A very familiar wooden floor.
Oh God, no!

She sat up, her head still spinning a little, afraid to look. But there was no mistaking where she was: back in her apartment in D.C..

“No! No! No!” She crumpled down to the floor. “Bren, oh God, Bren, no!” She couldn’t help it, the tears came, fast and furious, punctuated with incoherent cries of pain and disbelief. She couldn’t get back to him! She didn’t know how. She had no idea if it was even possible. The sudden emptiness in her heart threatened to turn her inside out. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Tears flooded her eyes.

She had no idea how long she had been huddled on the floor, in shock and weeping. It could have been minutes or hours, but now Faith stood up, carefully, holding her aching head. Then she sat down numbly on the sofa, as if her legs could no longer hold her up. This could not be happening. She had been happy, so happy! Hours went by and still she didn’t move from the sofa, her mind replaying the last few weeks. In that short time, she had both found her father and fallen in love. And gotten married. Now she was nearly five hundred years in the future. Bren, he would have died hundreds of years ago, without her. Her father was gone too. So were all the other people she had come to care about.

The castle would be in ruins now, cold and lifeless, slowly being reclaimed by the earth as if its halls had never been filled with life and laughter. The hollow ache inside suddenly grew stronger, threatening to crush her. Then the tears came again. No weeping this time, but great wracking sobs, the very sound of her heart breaking. Until there was no more left inside, and she slept.

The next day, she did much the same, and on the third day, she managed to rouse herself enough to eat some canned soup, and realize she was going to have to go on with some sort of life here. Her will to live was too strong, because after all, if she died now, and her memories with her, Bren Mac Coinnach would truly be gone from this earth. Perhaps she could go to Creagmor and walk among the ruins, she thought desperately. Maybe he had even left some sort of message for her there.

Determined, at least in this small moment of strength, she called and left a message at the Smithsonian, apologizing for missing work, explaining that she had been very ill, that she would be back at work on Monday. She checked her computer to find that today was Wednesday, though she didn’t think to check the date. She had four more days to pull herself together. Then she went back to sobbing on the sofa.

The next morning she woke up feeling ill. Too much crying, not enough food in her stomach. Her head pounded and throbbed from all of the hours of tears. She forced herself to eat more soup, since she didn’t have much else in the apartment in the way of food. She was going to have to go out and get some groceries. Tomorrow, though. She just wasn’t up for it today.

Tomorrow came, and in the morning she felt sick again. In the very back of her mind, she wondered if she could be pregnant. It was far more likely that she was only making herself ill with all the crying and not eating much, but… there was a chance, wasn’t there? If she had Bren’s baby to take care of, even if she couldn’t have
him
, it would at least give her a purpose, an anchor. Not wanting to get her hopes up… so very careful not to get her hopes up, she took a shower and dressed herself, painstakingly folding the gown she had been wearing when she had come back, and putting it away in a drawer. It seemed too much to look at it right now. Then she went out to the grocery store, which was luckily only a short walk from her apartment. She chose a few things she thought she could eat, and then she paused, undecided for a moment. She finally turned and went down the pharmacy aisle. She stood in front of the shelf for several long moments, staring at the row of pregnancy tests. Making her decision, she put one in her basket.

When she got back to the apartment, she took the test out of the bag with shaking hands. She was afraid to use it, so afraid… because if it turned out to be negative, she really would be completely alone again. She knew she would take the test; she had to know, one way or the other, but her heart was pounding right out of her chest. She brought it into the bathroom, even before she had put away the rest of the groceries. A minute later, she put the white plastic stick down on the table and stared at it as the pink color moved across. Her heart was pounding even louder now, if that was possible, and her hands were shaking so badly that she had to grip the edge of the table. The first line appeared, and she held her breath, her knees going weak, every second feeling like an hour. Was it? Oh God, it was! A second line, clear as day. She had Bren’s baby here with her. She fell to her knees and cried again. Her heart might be breaking, but at least she wouldn’t be alone, and at least she still had a part of him to hold on to. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

On Monday morning, Faith walked into the museum, swiped her card at the door to the basement, and started down the stairs. She walked numbly down the long hallway, and pulled open the door to the cataloging room. Brian was there, bent over the table, writing in the record book. He looked up when the door opened, and she took a deep breath.

“Hey Faith, I missed you last week. Skipping out, or were you legitimately sick?” He took in her appearance. “Never mind, you definitely look like you’ve been sick. Are you all right?”

She stared at him blankly. “But I’ve been gone for over a month…”

“What?” His face took on a puzzled expression, which quickly changed to a worried one. “Really, are you okay? You’d better sit down. You don’t look so good.”

He jumped up to pull out a chair for her, and she did sit down, and dropped her head into her hands. She was back almost where she had started. The last month was… gone. As if it never was.

“Faith? What’s wrong? What the hell happened to you? You
really
don’t look so good.”

She looked up and managed a wobbly smile. “You would absolutely not believe me if I told you, Brian. I don’t think I even believe me right now. I really never expected to see you again, you know.”

Brian paused, but then he pulled a chair over next to her and sat down, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Well, tell me anyway. I think you need to talk about it. I’m a really good listener, you’ll see. What happened? Start from the beginning.”

“Okay. But Brian I swear you’re going to think I’ve gone crazy.”

He smiled. “Crazy isn’t so bad. I have an uncle who’s crazy, and he’s the most interesting guy I know. Now talk.”

She took a deep breath, trying to decide whether he’d have her committed if she told him everything. But what did it matter, anyway?

“All right.”

She lifted her head, and looked down at her hands on the table. “It was after you left, the… the other night. I finished the box I was working on, and I took out the next one. It was mostly pottery, but there was also a ring. The box was labeled ‘Scotland’, and the ring looked Celtic.” She paused, sniffing, and gave him a wobbly smile. “You know that’s my favorite. I was so curious about the ring that I brought it home with me. I thought it had to be in the box by accident, and I wanted to look it up in my reference books, and then bring it back the next day. It wasn’t something I’d normally do, but I just… I don’t know, I felt like I
had to
.”

Brian nodded encouragingly. “It’s okay, I really might have done the same thing. It’s not like anyone around here would miss it for a day or two.”