The kilts.
The forest.
The men with the swords.
Tavish’s confusion about my father.
It all added up to one horrifying truth: I’d traveled into the past.
Except that couldn’t be true. I gripped the headboard as I gazed around the room, desperation urging me to find something—anything—to refute my conclusion.
The walls were whitewashed stone. A wooden folding screen stood in the corner. Oil paintings in gilt frames depicted landscapes and a few stern-looking men in white wigs. A thick mantel stretched above the hearth, the carved wood polished to a shine. A brass candleholder on top held a half-melted candle.
My heart stuttered as I refocused on the men. Albie’s glasses were the closest thing to “technology” in the entire room, but they weren’t the kind I was used to seeing. The wire frames looked like a prop in a Dickens play.
He noticed me staring, and a small smile curved his lips as he touched the frames. “It’s an old injury. A witch’s curse left me blind in one eye.”
“You can’t heal it?” I asked, startled into forgetting my predicament. My people could fix just about any sickness with our tears. Not that I’d ever managed it. Just another item on the list of things I couldn’t do.
His smile turned rueful. “It’s not for lack of trying, lass.” He lifted his book. “I’ve searched for a cure for centuries.”
Centuries.
I scrambled off the bed and ran to the window, wincing when my ankle twinged. The men rushed after me like they thought I’d leap through the frame. They flanked me, one on either side. Albie was smaller than Tavish, his height maybe only an inch or so above mine, but he looked more than capable of stopping me if I decided to jump.
I gripped the windowsill and stared out.
A courtyard spread below, its perimeter dotted with stone buildings. Smoke curled from the chimney of the largest structure. Chickens pecked at straw scattered over the ground. Horses grazed in a paddock beyond the courtyard, their tails swishing at flies.
No garage. No cars. No paved roads. No power lines stretching into the distance.
“You have horses,” I said weakly.
“Aye,” Tavish said at my shoulder. “Albie keeps them as pets. Horses don’t like us, but it would raise suspicion if we didn’t own a few.”
“Yes,” I said, clinging to the sill so I didn’t fall. My father was the only dragon shifter I knew who could bend horses to his will. Most animals were skittish around dragons—a fact that had always disappointed Malcolm. When we were younger, he’d driven Mum crazy trying to smuggle various animals into the castle. He’d begged for a horse once, and Dad had to explain that even if we found one brave enough, the island was a poor place to stable it. But people in the past kept horses all the time. They did it out of necessity.
I turned, my gaze landing on the book in Albie’s hands. The writing on the leather cover was Gaelic script, the looping letters both familiar and indecipherable. Because they weretoo old to understand, I realized. My father kept similar books in Castle Beithir’s library, the yellowed parchment safely tucked away under glass that stopped it from crumbling to dust. But Albie’s book looked new, the deckled edges a pristine cream.
“What year is it?” I rasped through a dry throat.
Silence fell. The men looked at each other, unspoken communication passing between them.
“I’m not crazy,” I said. Although, maybe I was…
Or maybe I was hallucinating.
I tightened my grip on the windowsill. The stone under my fingers felt real enough.
Tavish turned back to me, a frown between his brows. “It’s 1742.”
The room tilted. I sagged against the windowsill.1742.Over three hundred years before I was born.
I’d time traveled. Something had pulled me through the stones, stranding me in the past with two full-blooded dragons who thought I was theirs.
But Icouldn’tbe mated—not to men from the wrong time. What if I couldn’t get home? What if I was stuck in the past forever, trapped in a world without electricity or phones or?—
“You have to let me go,” I blurted. In my mind, my dragon roared her disapproval. Panic spiraled higher in my chest. I tapped my magic, tensing as I tried to slip into shadow form.
