Beyond the Highland Myst(427)

He winced and stretched himself atop her, propping his weight on his elbows. Smoothing a wisp of hair behind her ear, he whispered, "Och, lass, forgive me."

"For what? Being a stubborn medieval man and refusing to believe me right away?" she teased.

"Aye, for that and many other things," he said sadly. "For not preparing you better. For being afraid to trust you fully—"

"I understand why you didn't," she cut him off gently. "Nell told me about your three betrotheds. She said they were frightened of you, and I realized the reason you didn't confide in me was that you thought I'd leave you."

"I should have believed better of you."

"For heaven's sake," she protested, "you'd just woken up to find yourself five centuries in the future. Besides," she admitted, "it wasn't as if I trusted you either. I tend to hide my intelligence. If I'd been more honest, you might have been too."

"Never hide it from me," he said softly. " 'Tis one of the many things I adore about you. But, Gwen, there is more for which I must seek your forgiveness."

"Marrying me without telling me?" she said lightly. "Have you any idea how flattered I am? We're really married?" she pressed. "Could we get married in a church too? Formally, with a long dress and everything?"

"Och, we're more married than the church could do, but aye, lass. I should like a church wedding," he agreed. "You'll wear a gown fit for a queen, and I'll wear the full Keltar regalia. We'll feast for days, invite the whole village. 'Twill be the celebration of the century." He paused, his silvery eyes flickering with shadows. "But there's still something more for which I must seek your forgiveness. There is the small matter of me abducting you and trapping you in my century."

She trailed her fingers lovingly down his chiseled jaw, then slipped her hands into his silky hair, grazing his scalp with her nails. They were nearly touching nose to nose, and his hair fell about her face, framing it. She tipped her head back for a quick kiss. Then two and three.

"Do you know," she murmured a few minutes later, "when you performed your ritual in the stones, at first I thought you had gone back to your century and left me behind in mine. I was furious. I was so hurt that you had left me. I thought you had begun to care for me—"

"I did!" he exclaimed. "I do!"

"My point is that if you'd told me everything that night in the stones, and had asked me to come back to the sixteenth century, I would have. I wanted to be with you wherever or even whenever that had to be."

"You doona hate me for not being able to return you?" He paused for emphasis. "Ever, Gwen. I can't return you ever."

"I don't want to go back. We belong together. I felt it the moment I met you, and it terrified me. I kept trying to find excuses to leave you but couldn't make myself go. I felt as if fate had brought us together because we were supposed to be together."

His smile flashed white in his dark face. "I felt the same way. I began falling in love with you the moment I saw you, and the more I learned about you, the more intense my feelings grew. That night in the stones when you gifted me with your maidenhead, when I gave you the Druid vows, I realized I would rather have a single night with you—even if it meant I was doomed to be bound to you, aching for you forever—than not know such love. I swore that if I were given the chance to have a life with you, I would treat you as befits a queen. That I would devote my life to making it up to you, what I'd taken from you. And I meant it, Gwen. Anything you want, anything at all… you have but to say."

"Love me, Drustan, just love me, and I'll not want for anything."

* * * * *

Later she said, "Why can't you go through the stones? You said they could never be used for personal reasons. What do you use them for?"

He told her, withholding nothing. The entire history, back to his ancestors, the Druids who'd served the Tuatha de Danaan, and about the war, and how the Keltar were chosen to atone and protect on behalf of all the Druids who'd scarred Gaea.

"The last time the stones were used, we sent two fleets of Temple Knights, carrying the Holy Grail, twenty years to the future so they might hide it away again."

"Did you say the Holy Grail?" Gwen squeaked.

"Aye. We protect. It would have been a war to end all wars had the king of France, Philip the Fair, gotten his hands on it."

"Oh, God," Gwen breathed.

"The stones may be used only for the greater good of the world. Never for one man's purpose."

"I understand." She paused a moment, then forced herself to go on. "I had to face a similar kind of situation once."