Forged in Dreams and Magick (Highland Legends #1)(7)
Without warning, the outer door flew open. Both of us snapped our heads at the intrusion. A burly man with long, black hair broke into our bewildering scene, speaking in what I swore was Gaelic. If not for my study of ancient languages and occasional talks with my seanair, I’d have been at a complete loss in understanding his rapid-fire speech. My limited experience with the dialect allowed me to piece together a few of the words he uttered: something about a woman needing Iain’s advice and a dispute requiring his authority to settle. The man pronounced Iain’s name more like Yo-an, rather than Ee-an like I did.
“Aye, Robert,” Iain replied to the intruder. “Tell Agnes I’ll speak to her on the morrow after noon meal. Have Fingall and Colum meet me in the near field. I’ll hear their grievance.”
Yep. I’d certainly lost it. Robert spoke in Gaelic, Iain replied in a Scottish brogue so thick I barely deciphered the words, and my delusional mind roughly translated it all into modern English-speak. Perfect.
Robert turned on his heel without so much as a glance at me.
I’d had enough of my silence. “What are you, their laird or something?”
Iain laughed nervously as he turned, focusing his attention on me once more. He stepped closer, searching my eyes, opening his arms, reaching out to me like my modern-day Iain had. Despite bearing all the same mannerisms of the Iain I’d always known, something about the man standing before me was subtly different, the specifics of how escaping me in my current confusion. He spoke slowly, as if I’d become a skittish deer he didn’t want to startle.
“Lass, I’m afraid I’m about to bear bad news,” he said, his voice soft.
My delusional man was going to tell me I’d died, wasn’t he? Well, damn, I’d died a virgin. How mortifying. Although, if my reality had been lost to some other realm, what was the harm in fooling around in my current one? I shook my head at my lustful thoughts. You are one step away from insanity, Isobel.
“I’ve died, haven’t I?” I asked.
Iain’s uninhibited laughter rang out, echoing off the stone walls. “Nay, Isa, you haven’t died. My kiss isn’t that powerful or, in any way, deadly.” His mirth subsided. He furrowed his brow as if discovering a problem. “But give me a few minutes, and you may wish you had.”
My struggle to understand his heavier brogue grated on every raw nerve I’d rapidly developed. I sighed. “Fine. Tell me this wondrous news, Iain.”
“Weel, I doona know really how to explain it, for I doona fully understand it myself, but you’ve . . . that is, I mean to say . . . we’ve . . . traveled back in time—back to my time.”
I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it, really. “So, if we’ve been magically transported to the past, why am I still wearing my clothes and boots”—I ran my hands down my body like Vanna White, finishing with a hand flourish at my pointed toe as I posed—“while you are straight off the pages of Medieval Highland GQ complete with kilt, brogue, and realistic scars? Where’s your crisp, white shirt and jeans?”
“Weel, see, I recognized the box the moment you showed it to me.” He inched closer, but I stepped back as a rising fear took hold. “I’d touched it during a matin’ ceremony long before ’twas my time, not knowin’ the power it held. It threw me forward in time. I dinna know it then, but I know it now.”
Something in me started believing the tale he told, and I began to shake. Maybe it was the sincerity in his voice, his body language, or the honesty in his eyes. Even more than that, what he said made sense in another way, connecting to a feeling I’d been having since the first moment I’d been exposed to the box: it seemed to have a mysterious, otherworldly quality.
My voice croaked as I stuttered, “How . . . how do you know it now?”
He shook his head, stepping closer until I felt trapped both by him and the unknown picture he painted for me. “All of me dinna travel to your world; a piece of me did, like I’d split in two. I’ve remained here in the Highlands with no awareness of the Iain you know. The Iain of your time, also me, had early childhood memories of this life, but lived as you lived. I doona know if ’twas our kiss and the box, or simply touchin’ the box that brought us back, but here we are.”
“Here we are? Here we are?” I began to shout as fear turned to panicked rage. “When are we Iain? What’s the date?”
“We’re in the thirteenth century, lass.”
Hearing him say it aloud made my breaths come in quick, shallow bursts as I began to hyperventilate. Too many thoughts ran through a mind thoroughly unprepared to adapt to such a shock. The room whirled around, and I grabbed onto his forearms, his solid body grounding me.
Clarity somehow came in the midst of my insanity. My voice fell to a whisper as I said slowly, “Kiss me again and touch the box.” The command sounded simple enough. I fought with myself, wanting desperately to go straight to Denial Land, but assuming what I’d heard held any thread of truth, I wanted to go back. Now.
He sighed and raised a hand, touching my fingers that gripped his arm like a vice. The gesture soothed me even though I didn’t want to be calmed. “I’ll do as you ask, but I doona think your plan will work.” He rendered his opinion without emotion.
He pulled me closer, and I breathed in the scent of him. If I thought modern-day Iain overpowered my senses, it only served as an appetizer to the main course. His pheromones spoke the same language as mine. Touches of pine and earth that had always been familiar to me were stronger now, including the base note of strong male essence that was pure Iain. In the small room, we stood within reach of the magical, time-warping box. Before either of us reached out to touch its surface, he grasped both my hands tightly.