“I want to be with someone who has ambition, someone who has the same goals and interests as I do, and isn’t so insecure. We want different things. You’ll understand that someday.”
He patted her hand like she was a child, then Shawn walked out, not once looking back.
As she rose to leave, the sting of abandonment and rejection sliced through Daisy. She was suddenly eight years old again, forgotten at school while her parents gallivanted around Tokyo. Utterly alone and overwhelmingly aware that she just wasn’t enough.
CHAPTER 2
Boston
Present Day
The pounding in his head,and the foul stench assaulting his senses woke Callan, as he rolled over and decided that from this day forth, and not in any particular order, that he despised not only Samhain but mercenaries, strange storms, and unhinged women with red hair named Agnes.
The dream had been most agreeable, so real Callan swore he could still feel the spray from the waves and the sun on his skin as he and his half-brother William, Lord Blackford, raced their horses across the shore below the castle. Who would have ever thought a Scot and an Englishman would gladly call each other brother?
A snort escaped as he blinked several times to clear his blurry sight, the brick wall rough against his back as he pushed against it to sit up, utterly perplexed by the odd surroundings.
“Where the bloody hell am I?”
He reached for his ever present St. Christopher medal, only to find it gone. Had one of those damned mercenaries robbed him whilst he’d been knocked senseless?
The last thing Callan remembered was standing on the battlements with Lucy and William, in the midst of a terrible storm, after the lass had stabbed Agnes, then shoved the vile creature over the parapet to meet a well-deserved end.
Never get between a mother and her child.
The linen shirt he wore was wrinkled, blood-stained, and dirty, and as Callan shifted, the stench of his own self lodged itself in the back of his throat, making him cough. The rip in the sleeve where the mercenary’s blade struck as he’d stepped between the man and William was stained the reddish brown color of old blood, as if the injury had occurred a long time ago.
As he moved his arm, there was no pain, and when he rolled the sleeve up past his forearm to look at the wound, much to his amazement, he found the injury already healed. Nothing remained, but a slightly raised pink line that felt smooth under the pads of his rough fingers, as if he had been wounded a month ago, instead of, he squinted up at the clear blue sky, thinking, a mere day ago?
As the wind blew down the strange alley, he remembered the cold as the fates had taken hold of him, hoping they wouldna take him deep underground to faerie, for Callan had long had a fear of being trapped under the dirt, of being kept there for all eternity.
The formidable stone walls of Blackford Castle were no more. In their place loomed enormous buildings stretching higher than any castle tower he’d ever seen.
Strange noises rang in his ears and multi-colored lights flickered all around as Callan trembled in his dirty and bloodied plaid. He should have been soaked, but nay, ’twas if there had never been a great storm. He shook his head to clear the terrible sounds, grateful he was alive. Cold swept through him, not from the surrounding air, but from the aftermath, ’twas the same as the feeling after a battle.
The sun warmed his face, and he took a deep breath of the foul air. At least he would not catch an ague. As he shifted, his boot scraped against a black road unlike any he had ever seen. Was he in purgatory then? Or mayhap the faeries had come and taken him away to live with them in some cursed place?
Callan’s hand went instinctively to the hilt of his dagger, only to find the sheath empty. Frantic, he patted his boots, but the jeweled daggers, a gift from William, were also gone, the fine leather sheath empty.
His medal was gone, he was weaponless, yet the two small bags of coins in his sporran remained. So he had not been robbed by bandits. But if not, where were the blades? Did the faeries take them as payment for bringing him to this wretched place?
Cautiously, Callan pushed to his feet, steadying himself against the wall. His head swam and stomach roiled as he slowly breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth several times until his legs were steady enough to hold him up.
It wasn’t hot enough in this place to be hell and he thought purgatory would be full of those he had killed or his sins come back to torment him. Neither was before him as he staggered out of the shadows of the great buildings and into utter madness.
The sight that met his eyes stole his breath away. A strange black road bustling with people and... what sort of horseless metal carriages were those?
They moved on their own, spewing smoke, fouling the air, and making a terrible racket as the people inside them laughed and talked. So many colors and things for Callan to feast his eyes upon. The strange way these people spoke as they hurried on to some unknown destination hurt his ears, yet there was something in the odd tongue, the cadence, if not the accent, of their speech that reminded him of Lucy.
He froze as a metal beast emitted a bellow, nearly colliding with him.
“Watch it, you idiot.” A man yelled, the anger in his voice letting Callan know he was most displeased. He clenched his fists, ready to retaliate, but the stinking beast carrying the man sped away, leaving him bewildered.
As he wandered down the street, taking in everything around him, Callan noted the strange attire people wore as they spoke into small, glowing thin slabs of something he could not name.
The noise was overwhelming, a constant thunder of sounds he couldn’t identify, making his heart beat faster and faster. He paused in front of a shop unlike any he had ever seen, catching his reflection in glass that was so smooth it was like the surface of a loch on a still day.
There were all kinds of odd things in the shop, the uses of which he had no idea as he merely shook his head and moved onward, desperately seeking anything familiar.
