Her bubbling laughterfloated on the breeze as she tossed her head and glanced back at him over her shoulder. Playfully bunching up her skirts, she scampered just out of his reach across the hillside painted purple with blooming heather.
The sight of her shapely legs stirred him. He itched to tickle his fingers up their silky lengths to what he knew would be her welcoming heat.
Her dark hair floated and bounced in the air behind her, the raven curls tumbling down her back as her ribbons cameuntied and fluttered away. The thrill of the chase flushed her cheeks with a becoming pinkness. Her amethyst eyes danced with laughter.
She teased him with a smile while shaking a finger with a fake warning to stay away. The curve of her full breasts swelled above the neckline of her gown. Their supple bounciness as she ran made him groan. He longed to embrace her, possess her, ached to bury his face between those wondrous mounds.
“You’ll never catch me!” As graceful as a red deer, she stayed just beyond his reach, effortlessly bounding across the hillside.
“Aye, my love. I shall have ye this verra day!” With a playful growl, he leapt around an outcropping of rocks, but his footing failed. Stones broke free, tumbling away and sending him over the cliff’s edge. Horror filled him as the ground disappeared out from under him.
Caelan woke with a start. The coverings from his bed tangled around his legs as he hit the floor. “Feckin’ hell!”
He beat the flagstones with both fists, pounding the cold rough surface that assured him once again he had been torn from his dream just as he was about to die.
“Emrys!” he bellowed while thrashing in the tangle of sheets to get himself to a sitting position and lean back against the bed. He scrubbed his face, trying to calm himself enough to reason. How many times had he chased that beauty? Why was it always the same? Where was the violet-eyed temptress who haunted him each night and always stayed just beyond his reach, leaving him aching with the need for her when he abruptly awakened?
“Again?” The white-haired man stood in the doorway, yawning and scratching his belly through his threadbare robes.
“Of course,again. Why else would I summon ye this time of night?” Caelan pushed himself up from the floor and yanked thebedclothes from around his body. “Either cast a spell to destroy the curse or find the damn woman before I go mad!”
He dragged his hands through his blonde hair, then swiped at the cold sheen of moisture across his chest. His vision hazed at the memory of the repetitive dream, making him swallow hard and absently rub his throbbing member. Another painful reminder he had failed yet again to catch her.
With stiff, hitching steps, Emrys made his way deeper into the room, still scratching his middle. “The curse is full upon ye and canna be destroyed with the magick I possess. There is naught I can do. Ye must find her and claim her.”
“Tell me where she is, and I will!” Caelan fixed a baleful glare on the old man. If the supposed all-knowing druid insisted on spouting such useless wisdom, he could haul his arse back to his room. “Well?”
“Ye are well aware of our efforts. We have talked with more clans than yourself and I have fingers. Searched across the Highlands and Lowlands. Even sent runners to the surrounding isles. Not a single maiden we brought here suited ye.” The ancient advisor hitched with a jaw-popping yawn, then raked his knobby fingers through his tufts of unruly white hair until the wild shocks stood even higher.
Caelan strode across the room, snatched his plaid from the chair at the hearth, and wrapped it around his waist. “Ye are supposed to be the most powerful in the old ways. More powerful than any among the clans. An all-knowing, all-seeing advisor to your laird. Why have ye failed me?”
The elder dragged out a chair from the small table in the corner and lowered himself into it. With his elbow propped on the table, he set his chin in his hand and fixed a narrow-eyed glare on Caelan.
“What?” Caelan couldn’t bear the look in the old man’s eyes. It made his gut clench. Emrys had a way of peering into a man and picking his soul to pieces.
“I searched through the Mirrors of Time. Did what needed to be done as ye bade me.”
“And?” He braced himself. An ominous sense of dread squeezed him, making it difficult to breathe. Whatever the old seer was about to say—it could not be good. “Finish your feckin’ thought, Emrys. I would know the worst of it.”
“I may have located the lass, but I dinna think ye will find it a comfort.” The druid shifted in the chair and groaned with another great yawn as he switched hands and propped his chin in the other one.
“If ye dinna cease making me drag the words out of ye, it will be a cold day in hell before ye find any comfort ever again!” Caelan slammed his fist on the table, rattling the candles in their stands and sending the melted tallow flying. Damn the old man. “Does it give ye pleasure to taunt your laird?”
With a heavy sigh, Emrys gathered his robes closer around his thin body. “The lass of your dreams does exist, but it pains me to tell ye that she nay dwells in this land or time.”
Caelan steadied himself against the table as he sank into the other chair beside it. “I dinna ken what ye are saying. She nay dwells in Scotlandorthis time? What the devil does that mean?”
Stroking his scraggly beard, Emrys tipped his head to one side and tightened his clear blue eyes into a thoughtful squint. “Near as I can tell, the woman dwells far into the future, and in another land that as yet is not even known to us.”
“That canna be so,” Caelan said. “If ye are trying to buy more time to solve this quest, ye best cease that foolishness, old man.” He leaned toward him, growling through teeth clenched so tightly that his jaws ached. “Dinna think to toy with me, ye ken?”
“I can show ye the truth of it in the mirrors. How many years have I faithfully advised ye?” Emrys threw out his narrow chest and glared back at him. “In all my days as the seer to the clans, never have I been so insulted and over a mere woman, no less!”
Caelan rose from his chair, strode across the room, and nearly ripped the heavy oak door from its hinges. “After you, wise one. Let us make for your chambers so ye can prove ye speak the truth.”
The room smelled of noxious,pungent herbs and something else Caelan preferred not to know about. He wrinkled his nose and eyed the shadowy walls. While he considered himself a fearless warrior and respected laird, he left the mysteries of magick and mysticism to the druids and wise cailleachs of the clans. Unlike some superstitious cowards who would see them driven out or murdered for their ancient beliefs, he left them to their ways as long as they acted for the good of others and tended to the needs of the land and the people.
He followed Emrys through the eerie room, the sputtering candles and torches doing little to dispel the shadows dancing across the cluttered corners. Bowls filled with murky liquids lined the shelves dressed in cobwebs and dust. Some containers held things he was determined to forget he had ever seen.
