Joanna's Highlander (Highland Protector #2)(49)

It was three-sided. A small pyramid-shaped rock that was approximately four feet tall and about that wide at the base. Gray stone, some kind of quartz. Maybe. Striated with clear and opaque crystals. Not limestone or granite for sure. Something grainy and worn, as though it had been chiseled free of the earth at the time of creation. A familiar Celtic symbol was centered on each of the three sides. Searching for something stable to latch on to in her current sea of panic, Joanna spoke aloud to herself. “I know this one. Triple knot. Uhm…tri-something.” She swallowed hard, squinting against the mounting pressure and energy closing in around her, and doing her best to breathe. “Triquetra! That’s it.”

As soon as she’d said the word, the knot began to softly emit a warm reddish glow. A humming sound from deep within the stone grew louder as the glow spread across the three sides of the rock, covering it in a shimmering ruby-colored aura.

Holy shit. It’s gonna explode. Joanna felt an impossible-to-ignore urge to reach out and touch the Heartstone. “I must be out of my fucking mind,” she whispered as she stretched out her right hand and rested her fingertips on the rock. “This thing is…is…alive.”

And warm. She spread her fingers and pressed her hand harder onto the rough surface but instead of feeling crudely chiseled stone, her hand passed through it. Her ears popped, then filled with the howling sound of a gale-force wind. She was spinning. No. She was falling. Joanna reached out to steady herself. No. She wasn’t falling, but the rock was gone and she was no longer in the chamber. She was in a stone room, like a castle, or a dungeon or something. Block walls. No windows. No light except a flickering torch.

Voices. Grant—a much younger Grant—and some woman. Joanna turned in time to see a lovely young woman in medieval dress take Grant’s hand and press it to her abdomen as though wishing to share the movement of her unborn child. Grant was dressed in ancient style as well, and he wore the strange clothing as though he was accustomed to it. Jealousy stabbed through Joanna as she saw how they looked at each other. These two loved each other. Was the girl Grant’s wife? Then she noticed the young woman looked so sad and Grant looked so…worried.

Joanna tried to move closer, but she was still locked in place. She could hear the murmur of their voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. And then there were loud horns and drums. Men shouting. Women screaming. Dammit! Joanna squinted harder at Grant and the young woman. They were fading from view. The woman was crying now and Grant looked as though his heart was breaking. Just as she reached out to touch Grant’s shoulder, she started spinning again.

A different room. Choking black smoke. Shouting. Crumbling stone and dust. Joanna turned in time to see a much younger Alec MacDara shouting to his brothers and handing them their weapons. Grant’s father stood at some sort of altar with his hands raised to the heavens. He was wearing strange robes and mumbling unrecognizable words.

Grant had his hammer, swinging it like it was part of his body, knocking snarling brutes back out the window just as fast as they breached the room.

“No, Grant. Don’t!” Joanna reached for him just as he climbed out the window. He’d fall. She had to make sure he didn’t fall—finally, she was able to move. She rushed to the window, leaning out to see him standing on the ledge. He was staring at something down in the courtyard, frozen, his face a deadly pale shade as though his entire world had just collapsed.

Joanna followed Grant’s line of sight and spotted her. The young woman. The girl carrying Grant’s child. She recoiled as a snarling female warrior slit the woman’s throat and threw her poor, lifeless body down into the bloody mud. Oh my God. Oh my God, no! She heard Grant’s bloodcurdling roar and reached for him just as he dove off the ledge. “Grant! Grant—no!”

Then everything went dark.





Chapter 16


“What did the damn stone do to her?”

“I dinna ken, son.” Sarinda stood at the foot of the bed, a washbasin balanced on one hip and a jar of dried herbs in her other hand. “Dwyn has gone to consult with the goddesses. He agrees that the child should have awakened by now.”

“I ne’er shouldha taken her there.” Grant returned to the chair beside the bed where he’d waited since late yesterday for his sweet Joanna to come back to him. She’d cried out for him right before collapsing in front of the Heartstone. Unconscious. Unresponsive. Barely warm to the touch. He’d carried her out of the tunnels through Castle Danu, then brought her to his home. He would stay at her side until she returned to him—or, goddess forbid it, left him permanently.

“She’ll worry after her tour group. After Lucia and Tyler.” Grant scooped up Joanna’s pale, limp hand and held it. “She’ll fret about everything and accept the weight of everyone’s problems as though she caused them. I would take all her worries away, Máthair, if she’d but let me.”

The gentle weight of his mother’s hand rested atop his shoulder. “I know, son.” She gave him a reassuring squeeze as she bent and pressed a kiss to his temple. “Ye’ll have yer chance. The Heartstone would ne’er do her permanent harm. Ye ken that in yer heart, if ye but remember the truth of yer teachings.”

“All I ken right now is that the damn stone and the cruel goddesses are determined to ensure I know nothing but sorrow.” Grant tenderly smoothed a tress of Joanna’s hair behind her ear and rubbed the back of one finger down her cool cheek.