Beyond the Highland Myst(345)
"Then you come with me of my will alone. So be it."
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Chapter 5
Nearly five hundred years, Drustan brooded. How could that be? He felt as if only yestreen he'd gone riding in the heather-filled Highland meadows of his home. His mind reeled from shock, and try though he might to deny it, he knew it was true. He knew it with a gnostic bone-deep knowing that was unquestionable. Her time felt different, the natural rhythm of the elements was frenetic, fractured. Her world was not a healthy one.
Centuries had passed, and he had no idea how it had happened. Probing his memory had yielded no additional facts. Five centuries of slumber seemed to have muted his memory, dimmed the events that had occurred just prior to his abduction. All he knew was that he'd been lured into some sort of ambush in which a number of people had participated. There had been armed men. There had been chanting and fragrant smoke, which reeked of witchcraft or Druidry. He'd obviously been drugged, but then what? Enchanted by a sleep spell? And if he'd been spelled, by whom? Still more important, why? The why of it would tell him if his entire clan had been targeted.
An icy finger of dread brushed his spine as he considered the possibility that they'd been attacked for the lore they protected.
Had someone finally believed the rumors and come seeking proof?
The Keltar males were Druids, as their ancestors had been for millennia. But what few knew was that they were not simple Druids, struggling with mostly incomplete lore since the loss of so much of it in the fateful war millennia ago. The Keltars possessed all the lore and were the sole guardians of the standing stones.
If after he'd been abducted, his father, Silvan, had been killed by his abductors, the sacred lore would be lost forever, and the knowledge they protected—to be used only when the world had dire need—vanquished utterly.
He glanced at Gwen. If she hadn't awakened him, he might well have slumbered for eternity! He murmured a silent prayer of thanks.
Pondering his situation, he realized that for now the how and why of his abduction were irrelevant. He would find no answers in her time. What mattered was action: He'd been blessed enough to have been awakened and had both the chance and the power to correct things. Yet to do so, he must be at Ban Drochaid by midnight on Mabon.
He glanced at her again, but she refused to look at him. Dusk had long since fallen, and they'd made good time, putting many miles between them and the horrifying, noisy village. In the moonlight her smooth skin shimmered with the warm richness of pearl. He indulged himself, envisioning her nude, which wasn't hard to do when she wore so little. She was all woman and brought out the most primitive man in him, a fierce need to possess and mate. Her nipples were clearly visible beneath her thin shirt, and he ached to suckle them in his mouth. She was a fiery wee lass with a spine of steel and curves that would lure even his devout priest Nevin's gaze. He'd gotten hard the moment he'd opened his eyes and looked at her and had been uncomfortably erect since. One flirtatious glance from her would return him to a painful state, but he didn't worry overmuch that she might cast him such a look. She hadn't spoken to him in hours, not since he'd refused for the hundredth time to release her. Not since he'd told her he would toss her over his shoulder and carry her if he had to.
It intrigued him—that she'd neither screamed, nor fainted, nor pleaded for release. His first impression of her had not been entirely accurate; although it was difficult to discern, what with her strange manner of speaking, she did possess a dash of intelligence. She'd demonstrated fine reasoning abilities while trying to talk him out of taking her along, and when she'd realized there was no possibility of him relenting, she'd treated him as if he simply didn't exist. Bravo, Gwen, he thought. Cassidy is Irish for clever. Gwendolyn means goddess of the moon. Quite a fascinating lass you're turning out to be.
Whereas initially he'd thought her an orphan or survivor of a clan massacre, a woman willing to barter her body to secure a protector—thus explaining her clothing and demeanor—it had since occurred to him that she might simply be typical of her time. Mayhap in five centuries women had changed this much, become tenaciously independent. Then why, he wondered, did he sense a silent sadness, a brush of vulnerability in her that belied her bravado?
He knew she thought that he'd dragged her off because he desired her, and would that it were that simple. There was no denying that he found her mesmerizing and was impatient to bed her, but things were suddenly much more complicated. Once he'd discovered he was stranded in the future, he'd realized he needed her. When they arrived at the stones—if the worst was true and his castle was gone—there was a ritual he must perform, his conscience be damned. There was a possibility the ritual would go wrong, and if that happened, he needed Gwen Cassidy standing by his side.