“Some metal fragments were embedded in my thigh,” he said. “They were afraid that I might lose my leg.”
“You were a soldier?”
“We didn’t change much, did we?”
Then he smiled that blasted lopsided smile that never failed to melt her heart. Begrudging him such a powerful weapon to use against her, Mikah stood and walked back toward the windows. In the reflection, she could see him follow, though this time he kept his distance.
Past lives. Souls lost. Sometimes she didn’t care what dozens of world religions believed, to her it all still reeked of crazy. That was part of the reason she’d been so determined to set Ian in the past, to move on. To deny Jason MacAuliffe’s very existence.
“If you grew up near Cuilean and were familiar with the history, did you know that Ian and Hero were going to die? The whole time?”
Jace frowned. “On some level perhaps. I felt a sense of unease but I couldn’t pinpoint it at the time. I was quite apart from myself, you understand, after I stopped fighting my fate. His life was my own.”
She nodded. She did understand that. Once she’d completely given herself over to that life, Mikah’s life and voice had faded completely away leaving only Hero. “Why did it even happen then? All the experts say that if you go to a past life you can change a wrong and make it right again. Why were we there to begin with if we weren’t there to change what had happened? What was the point of it all?”
Jace could hear the hurt in her voice, felt it as his own. For a long while, he’d wondered the very same thing. The guilt and sense of failure at not being able to stop the tragedy followed him for months afterward until he finally felt an understanding for it all. “I think we experienced what we did so that we might remember and recognize each other now, in this time when fate brought us together once more. Were it not for that journey, we would never have met in this life. It prompted you to go back to the castle, as I did. You said long ago that you always knew you would find what you were waiting for at Dùn Cuilean. Remember?”
She nodded.
“It brought us together again. Smith helped me to realize who you were. I was torn between talking to you and leaving you alone. Given that madness isn’t generally rewarded, I felt compelled to opt for the latter.” He flashed that lopsided grin again, and her pulse raced involuntarily. “I was determined to let the entire incident ‘go,’ as you said. I wasn’t about to chase the insanity.”
“So why did you?”
“Smith told me that you went to their tomb. Did you not read the inscription? “Until they meet again,” it said,” he explained. “Over the past couple of weeks, I came to the conclusion that those words were a command of sorts. I had to come. I had to see if the woman I fell so desperately in love with was truly here as well. I never would’ve made this journey to find you without having seen that. Still, given the circumstances, I almost didn’t.”
Mikah blinked in surprise. “What circumstances? Why weren’t you going to come?”
“Something else Smith said.” He shifted, putting space between them. “If you were…arehappy with your young man, I didn’t want to ruin that for you.”
“My young man?”
“Aye, that Waters fellow.” He gestured toward the door.
“Kris?” she repeated dumbly. “You think Kris…that Kris and I…?”
“Aren’t you?”
She burst out in laughter, earning a dark scowl from Jace. “I had that very same reaction from Kris before he left. Clearly, Smith was mistaken. Yet you two seem quite intimate.”
“He’s my best friend and I love him.”
His heart sank with her admission, yet Jace raised a skeptical brow. “In my experience a man and woman cannot maintain a purely platonic friendship.”
“Oh!” She giggled, her face lighting with familiar humor as she laid a hand on his arm. It was an expression that he hadn’t seen from her this evening, yet it was so reminiscent of Hero that he felt his heart lift, a smile form in response.
“Tell me.”
“Oh, Ia—uh, Jace! I can’t believe that you didn’t realize it, but Kris would have a much harder time maintaining a platonic relationship with you than he does with me.”
Jace’s mind blanked for a moment before her implication sank in. “What? You’re jesting.”
She shook her head, laughing again. “I hope you’re not homophobic. He truly is my dearest friend. He has been since grade school.”
“Nay, not at all.” He shook his head in amusement. “I guess it’s a good thing that I decided not to let that stop me from seeing you. Is it a good thing? We’ve been permitted a second chance that few ever have opportunity for. Can you take a leap of faith with me that this is how it was all meant to be?”
Mikah could’ve drowned in the intensity of Jace’s dark eyes. There was no pleading there, none of the desperation she so often felt about all of this. There was just that eternal calm, that unflappable self-assurance that was so much a part of the Ian she remembered. He would leave if she said no, she realized. Well, perhaps not right away. He would fight for what he wanted because that’s how he was, but he wouldn’t force her.
He would let the choice be hers.
