Beyond the Highland Myst(377)

Gwen remained frozen, in shock, bruised and wind-burned and aching.

She didn't trust herself to take even one step on a leg that moments ago had not been her leg at all but her leg and something else, something the bristling scientist was still pacing back and forth in a white lab coat protesting stridently. She wasn't certain any part of her would obey simple orders, so knotted up was her mind.

"Drustan," she called weakly. Then louder: "Drustan!"

A terrible silence greeted her. She shivered uncontrollably, belatedly remembering she was nude. Woodenly, she pulled his plaid around her and scrambled across the slippery ground toward the fire.

But there was no fire. The storm must have put it out.

She dropped to her knees on the hail-covered ground, clutching his plaid, huddling within it for warmth. Dazedly, she glanced about and was astonished to see the hail was so thick on the ground that it looked as if the heavens had opened up and simply iced the top of the mountain. It could take hours for it to melt in the warm autumn night. And then she fell still and thought no more about the strange storm, as she replayed their entire encounter through her mind, finally seeing the pattern.

He had said he would prove to her that he was telling the truth, but he could only do it at the stones. He'd said that if she didn't believe him, she would be free of him. She now realized he'd always chosen his words cautiously, couching double meanings.

Now she understood exactly what he'd meant. "You left me," she whispered. "You really showed me, huh?" She snorted and started crying at the same time. "Incontrovertible proof. Uh-huh. Ever the doubter here, that's me."

He'd bullied her into guiding him through her time to the stones, made incredible love to her, proved his story true, then returned himself to his own time—leaving her in the twenty-first century, alone.

He hadn't been deranged after all. She'd had a genuine time-traveling sixteenth-century warrior in her arms, and she mocked him at every turn. Treated him with disbelief, even patronized him on occasion.

Oh, she'd screwed this one up royally. She'd fallen for him at terminal velocity. In the space of three days, she'd grown attached to him as she'd never thought possible. She'd been building a life with him in her mind, rationalizing away his delusions, weaving him into her world.

And he'd left her. He'd not even offered to take her with him!

Would you have gone? Would you have said yes? the scientist asked dryly. Plunged into a century you knew nothing about? Left this one behind for good?

Hell, yes, I would have said yes! What do I have here? I was falling in love, and I'd go anywhere, do anything for that!

For a novel change, the scientist within her had no caustic comeback.

Gwen cried, feeling suddenly old, regretting the loss of a thing she'd not truly appreciated and understood while she'd held it in her hand.

She had no idea how long she lay in the clearing, replaying things through her mind, lingering over their lovemaking, seeing everything in a different light.

When she finally sat up, she was trembling. Her knees were frozen from huddling on the ice, and her toes were stinging. I feel, MacKeltar. You taught me that. I hope you're happy with yourself—showing me I had a heart by hurting me.

She pushed herself up and slipped around the circle, searching for her clothes in the dark. Shaking off a fresh desire to weep, she blew out a breath. Where the hell were her boots? For that matter, where were her backpack and her flashlight? She was starting to suffer a severe nicotine craving; emotional distress always made her crave a cigarette.

How was she ever going to get over him? How would she cope with the knowledge that the man she'd lost her heart to had been dead for hundreds of years?

Panic gripped her as she circled the stone slab, searching for her belongings. They were gone. Could the freakish and violent windstorm have carried it all off?

Stunned, she glanced about, then up at the sky, and caught a glimpse—for the first time since Drustan had disappeared—of what lay beyond the stones.

Where previously there had been nothing, tons upon tons of stone rose up from the earth.

She gaped in astonishment, her gaze drifting from tower to turret, to bigger stone tower, past walls capped by those toothy stone things one saw on castles everywhere in Scotland, and to yet another turret and a square tower again. Blinking, she looked left to right and back again.

An alarm went off in her brain, but she couldn't respond to it. She couldn't respond to anything. She started hyperventilating; tiny breaths slammed into each other and piled up in her throat.

A monstrous castle lay beyond the circle of stones.

Huge, forbidding, yet beautiful, it was fashioned of massive gray stone walls that vaulted smoothly skyward. A center rectangular tower stood tallest and had two smaller round towers flanking it. Wings spread east to west consuming the horizon, with large square towers at the farthest east and west ends. A milky fog dusted the ridges and capped the turrets.