Forged in Dreams and Magick (Highland Legends #1)(93)
“Will I be in the fight?” I asked.
“No.” He stopped caressing, his hand gripping my back tight.
“What would you have me do? Where will I be?” I wondered.
“You want to see the battle, but I need to feel you’re safe for me to fight without distraction. You’ll watch from a high vantage point.”
“But you trained me to fight. I can help,” I countered. A sudden need to be involved erupted from somewhere deep within, the undeniable urge surprising me.
Velloc shook his head sharply. “Our numbers are great enough. One woman will make no difference to the outcome either way.”
His meaning hit me with the silencing force of a sucker punch to the stomach. He hadn’t meant the insult, but the gravity of my plight flowed heavy in my veins, weighing on my heart.
What if I didn’t matter? Could my presence be a giant fluke? Had I been nothing more than casual entertainment . . . a diversion to alleviate the boredom of those that created the game? Skopius and Orion had indicated that I played a vital role. They said my very existence mattered.
I pressed my lips on Velloc’s bare chest, breathing in his masculine scent as my thoughts coalesced. My journey had been more than a coincidental fall down time’s rabbit hole.
Nothing had been written in stone of my outcome. I still lived, affecting lives in two worlds. No way in hell would I simply lie down, letting the events unfolding around me dictate my fate.
Isobel MacInnes remained the same feisty woman who’d fought for her place in a man’s academic field in the twenty-first century. That fighter inside me would carve her place in every realm until my very last breath.
I spread an open palm across Velloc’s chest, feeling his heart beat strongly beneath my splayed fingers. Forces beyond my control may have landed me here, but I had a mission to accomplish.
The people closest to me had become my priority, but they’d also played a large part in shaping the woman I’d become. Iain, Velloc, Skorpius, and Orion—they’d all had a hand in changing me. Not only had I grown as a woman, I’d become a warrior.
Those yin–yang angels had said the role I played was as an observer.
Observer.
My.
Ass.
My lips, still pressed against his skin, spread into a confident smile. I inhaled the sweet scent of victory before it had been granted, knowing it would.
“Velloc, you couldn’t be more wrong.” The statement flowed out as a whispered conviction. “One woman will make all the difference in the world.”
CHAPTER Thirty-two
Extraordinary dreams—aspirations of a girl impacting historical record—dwarfed in the shadow of the giant reality that loomed ahead. Tens of thousands of Roman soldiers covered the land like ants spilling out in angry thunder over their disturbed hill.
I slid off Malibu’s back, my jaw falling open at an incredible sight that no camera had ever captured and no objective record had ever detailed. Emboldened by the sheer number of our allies, the protection of higher ground, and the cover of thick forest, I stepped to the edge of the tree cover, allowing the bright afternoon sun to bath my skin in her warmth.
That same light glinted off the metal backs of a sea of trespassers who foolishly staked their egotistical claim out in the open. In complete disregard, they stretched across the land like a napping sunbather on a deserted beach.
In spite of our nightly attacks, I suspected they had no idea of the magnitude of the force about to descend upon them. A patient and ready aggressor, Picts would lie in wait up to their nostrils in the middle of a marsh for days for the perfect time to strike. The na?ve Romans had no concept of the sleeping bear they’d poked.
A gentle tug at my hand pulled my glance over my shoulder. Velloc led me over to where Sennian crouched below the ridge. We joined him as he spied on the Roman troops. Several stands of trees camouflaged us from the kind of detection that only high-powered binoculars would yield.
“How will we attack?” I whispered into Velloc’s ear, uncertain of how my bold inquisition would’ve been taken by his commander.
Velloc spoke to Sennian as if unprovoked by my question. “I’ll meet with the other chieftains. Tonight we change the way we attack.” He slid a glance my way. “A well-fought battle defeats your enemy in mind as well as in body.”
I nodded. Fear of Pict warriors had been documented long before any confrontations had taken place. They’d been viewed as crazed aboriginals with magick on their side, and the Roman’s uncertainty of the strange and menacing foe had settled into their minds long before a weapon had ever been drawn. Defeat began on the psychological battlefield.
Not privy to Velloc’s discussions with the heads of the other tribes, I waited with the rest of his men. Nervous fingers stroked the blade strapped my thigh. In my other hand I held a spear, gripping and releasing the smooth wooden handle to a rhythm I’d developed in my head.
The slow adrenaline drip that my body naturally fed into my veins magnified the few hours of hard sleep I’d claimed. With the enemy so close, and the charged energy in the air all around us, alert didn’t begin to describe the heightened state of awareness I felt.
*
Gloaming descended, then faded away, diminishing light to the point where shadows no longer existed, and yet, were everywhere. Velloc had used the time to spread bluish woad on his fingers, streaking them across my face and running his hands in patterns across my body. The temporary tattoos marked me as his and would provide the protection of their gods. The blood-clotting properties of the herb would aid in healing if any of us were unfortunate enough to meet the edge of a blade.