“Yet it seemed mine did.”
I should leave now, as this wasn’t a casual get-to-know-you conversation, but an interrogation designed to unveil my truths. Yet I felt ensnared in his steady blue gaze and couldn’t seem to make myself go. If I didn't know better, it was almost as if my inner beast wanted him to get to the heart of the matter.
Get to the heart ofme.
But then, deep down, I’d felt that way since I allowed Grant and Adlin to convince me to stay the night in this cave of all places when I could have pushed back harder. A cave where Tavish had spent the first night after I died, grieving my loss.
And I knew because I had visited him from the Hereafter.
It was impossible to describe how much that memory pained me. Not only because of what I experienced being separated from him so abruptly in death, but from seeing the same agony reflected back at me on his mournful face.
Yet despite our pain, somehow I knew we would reunite someday, and that sustained me as time wore on. I visited him as much as I could without him ever realizing it until I left the Hereafter at some point, though exactly when was still a mystery. Then I went through the process of being reborn, and with some time and space between us, I eventually remembered him in this life, no matter how odd all that might sound.
The circle of life was far stranger than anyone realized.
More than that, the various aspects of time travel.
As it were, technically speaking, I was alive in two places at once, but I wasn’t. One life had ended, and another had begun. The pact, conveniently or perhaps intentionally, had ensured we were about the same age when we crossed paths again.
Now here we were reunited, even if I wasn’t the same woman he remembered. Somewhere inside, I still was, though. She was still there, just different. Evolved in some strange way, given the vast differences in our centuries. Not to mention, the biggest difference of all.
I was half dragon this time.
“And have you shifted again?” Tavish wondered, pulling me back to the here and now after confirming I didn’t try to fly the first time I shifted. “Because your ease and willingness to shift again for me and King Robert implies you have, as typically people dinnae quite know how they did it the first time. Especially those who shifted for the first time later in life rather than as a bairn.”
“Ididshift again,” I said before I could stop myself, fully aware now my inner beast was indeed trying to reach out to his and take matters into its own hands. Worse yet, I realized I had drunk half my whisky without recalling when, making it clear my dragon was trying to disarm my human witchy half. “But only once to confirm I did in fact have the gem.”
“And where did you shift not just once but twice?” Tavish wondered, his eyes still locked on mine, daring me to keep telling half-truths because years before the gem manifested over my chest in my era, hehadseen me shift in dreams right here on Scottish soil. Dreams weren't cold, hard reality, though, and the troublesome gem had eventually made that clear.
“Where would you shift,” he went on, “because I thought dragons were as discreet about their presence in your era, as they are here?”
“We are,” I confirmed smoothly enough, trying to drag my eyes away from his, but it was impossible. He mesmerized me in a way that was far too dangerous. Yet I was still of a sound and logical mind, determined to protect not just my sisters and unborn nephews but the whole of Scotland. “And I did.” I shook my head. “Where doesn’t matter. All that matters is I did it where I wouldn’t be seen.”
While I thought he would persist and want a direct answer, instead, he cleverly switched directions again. “I recall with vivid clarity where I was the first time I shifted.” Somehow, without me understanding how he did it, he seemed to look deeper into my eyes, firelight flickering in his steady gaze as thunder rumbled overhead, and it began raining. “’Twas an eve much like this in woodland close to my castle.”
“That surprises me,” I said, yet again, before I could stop myself, because it just prompted him to keep asking questions.
His pupils flared in justifiable interest because what did I know about where a wee medieval dragon might shift for the first time?
“Why?” he asked, no doubt thinking the same thing.
“Why what?” I returned, feeling more and more disarmed by him and unable to say why, because I was the powerful witch in this situation. Yet somehow, someway, he was ensorcelling me. After all, not only was I drinking the whisky I had beendetermined to avoid, but at some point, he'd moved to the seat Adlin had left, putting him far too close to me.
“Why are you surprised I shifted in the woodland on a night such as this?” he prompted.
Think, Ellie, I preached to myself. Say something that makes sense. But for the life of me, I couldn’t spin a tale like I usually could.
Instead, I said something that skirted far too close to the truth.
Chapter Six
–Tavish–
IF I HAD gathered nothing else after Grant drifted off and Adlin went to sleep, and the evening wore on, it was things weren’t as they seemed between Ellie and me. There was far more to her than met the eye, and I couldn't explain how I knew that or why, except my inner beast was driven to uncover the truth about her. Determined to draw her dragon to the surface if it were the last thing it did.
And strangely, it knew just how to do that.
Moreover, my dragon seemed to have some sort of sway over hers I don’t think either of us had expected. So much so, I had been able to see past her lies, because theywerelies, and bewitch her for lack of a better way of putting it. Which was odd, to say the least, given she was the witch, and I sensed a relatively powerful one at that.
