“I dinna ken the answer, but I do ken that ye belong to Bren, and he to ye. That much a fool could see.”
Faith climbed the winding stone steps with Eian following close behind until they reached the third floor, and she stepped up into the narrow corridor. At its end, the moon hung perfectly framed in the single window, casting light on the stone floor. She took one last look at that enchanting sight before opening the door to her room. Not really hers, but the place where sheslept, anyway. Eian went in with her, lighting several candles and checking every corner and both windows before leaving. Mathilde and Fiona were already sound asleep on the bed. The other girls had not come up yet.
“I’ll be outside the door”, he told her. “Just call if ye need anything at all.”
She smiled.“Thank you.Eian?”
“Aye, lass?”
“Bren, where did he go? Will he be all right?”
Eian laughed softly. “Bren? Oh aye, he’ll be fine. He’s only gone to ride the Mac Coinnach borders and put things to right. Something happened to let Mored come so close without a sign to us, and Bren will find out what and fix it. Mored himself is likely long gone by now, and Bren willna meet up with him tonight.”
The first thing Faith did after Eian left the room was go to the window. Moonlight bathed the valley stretching out before her, and a soft breeze touched her face, bringing the tang of salt water mixed with the earthy scent of the forest. She stood there for some time, watching for any sign of movement, any sign that Bren was returning.Bren. Her thoughts flew back now to what she hadn’t let herself think about all evening. What she hadn’t had time to think of, with everything that happened after. What had happened between them. He had seen the ring, recognized it. It had meant something to him, she knew. Something important, significant. And then… then she had wanted him so badly her breath hitched even now, remembering. She had been as wild as the night, desperate, needing… and it hadn’t felt wrong to her at all. It had felt veryright.
She moved away from the window at last, stripping off her dress and stockings, lying down on her pile of quilts by the fire in just her shift. Would Bren come to her this night, when he returned from wherever he had gone? Her body grew restless,her breasts felt tight. Would he walk into the room at any minute and take her back to his bed, ready to finish what they had started? Her heart beat faster. Then she thought about something else she hadn’t yet had time to consider. He had power… magic… something she didn’t understand, could scarce believe. The thought excited her. She shivered all the way down to her toes.
She had forgotten for a short time. When he found the ring, when he kissed her, she had been overwhelmed, then completely without thought. But he had been there, in front of her, in her path when she had been running… away from him. He must have used his magic to do that. She clutched her hands to her chest, a slight prickle of uneasiness racing down the back of her neck. What other things could he do?He is a very dangerous man… the warning echoed in her mind. She lifted the ring from between her breasts and the red gem glinted with reflected moonlight. “But apparently he’smyman, so I’ll have to accept him as he is. Whatever he is.” She couldn’t wait to learn all of his secrets, because she felt sure that in time, she would know all of him.
Faith woke to full daylight, the sound of songbirds reaching her from the gardens below the window.I fell asleep.I can’t believe I fell asleep!Her gaze skimmed the room.The other women were already gone.
He hadn’t come to her. Disappointment washed over her at once, but was quickly replaced by excitement and anticipation. And, she had to admit, just the smallest amount of relief. Bren Mac Coinnach was overwhelming, both in his sheer size, and the intensity of his passion and emotions. When she was near him, the entire world seemed to compress down until he was all that was in it. She had been so afraid of losing herself to him and all that he was, but maybe she had been thinking about it all wrong. Maybe together, they could be evenmore, two halves of a greater whole. He would change her, of course, how could he not? But she would change him, too. She had never had such strong feelings for another person, and he had already irrevocably awakened a passion that she never even guessed was inside of her. But she would be all right. And if in the end he broke her heart, she was fairly sure he would break his own as well.
She sat up, stretched, crossed the room to wash and get dressed. Last night seemed far away and dreamlike, misty, crazy. Had it even really happened? She picked up the brush on the little table and began to run it through her hair.Magic, or as Eian had explained, a kind of control of the laws of physics, inherited, passed down through the generations of the Mac Coinnach Clan. Not so different than other controls humans exerted over the world around them. An incredulous half-laugh escaped her throat. A few short weeks ago, she never would have believed it. Oh, she would havewantedto believe it, but she wouldn’t have really been able to. Now… now her life had changed more than she could ever have imagined. She paused… brush held in mid stroke. Would she want to go back, if she even could? Back to America, back to the twenty-first century, back to her tiny apartment and her less-than-exciting job? The answer came to her in a flash, surprising her just a little, but removing any and all doubts she still harbored.
“No.”
***
Faith looked up from where she was sitting in the garden talking with some of the other woman after breakfast, startled and surprised to see Dirc gesturing to her from the edge of the wood. Now where hadhecome from? She hadn’t seen him in… well, nearly a week anyway. Not since he had left her at the castle, in fact. And so much had happened in that shorttime. There was so much to tell him, and so many questions to ask. She got up, excusing herself, and went to see what he wanted. He immediately pulled her into the trees, his face lit with excitement. He hadn’t shaved since he had been away, and a short beard covered his face, dark brown, liberally laced with white.
He took her hand, squeezing it as he spoke. “Faith, I’ve been to see yer father, and he is most eager to bring ye home. In fact, he’s coming for ye himself!”And if that doesna force the laird’s hand, nothing will.
Faith stared at him blankly. She didn’t consider even for an instant that Dirc was correct in thinking he had seen her father. He had to be wrong; after all, her father would not be born for hundreds of years yet. She shook her head.
“No, whoever you’re talking about can’t be my father. I never really knew my father, but he was a man in my time... hundreds of years from now.” She paused, her pulse jumping as she had a sudden thought. “Unless… you didn’t bring him back here, did you?”
Dirc was watching her with a fathomless expression. “Gods, ye dinna ken, do ye? She never told ye.”
Faith felt icy fingers race down her spine. “Don’t know what?” she asked uncertainly, not sure she really wanted to know, after all.
“I suppose, then, the task falls to me.” Asit usually does. Dirc let out a gusty sigh as if this was the last thing in the world he wanted to do right now. “Sit. Listen.”
She carefully lowered herself onto a fallen log, and he sat on a large rock opposite her. He leaned forward and grasped both of her hands in his. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her lip began to tremble, knowing somehow that what he was about to tell her would change her forever. It did.
“Yer mother”, Dirc began, “she came from a village not fifty miles from here. She was the daughter of a laird, born… it must be nearly forty five years ago now.”
Whatever Faith had been expecting him to say, it was not that. She pulled back a little in shock at his words. “No… no my mother was born in Colorado, in America… in the nineteen-sixties. You know that, you brought me here, and you asked me what century I had come from. I said the 21st, remember?”
Dirc shook his head slightly, carefully holding her gaze with eyes deeper and older than his face. “Faith, I am telling ye that yer mother was born here, in this time. She never belonged in the time ye lived in. Think. Feel. Ken for yerself that what I speak is the truth.”
Her eyes fell to the ground. She nodded slowly. No relatives. No old photos. No roots. Since she had grown up that way, she had never really questioned things. That was just how things were for her. Other kids had fathers and grandparents. She didn’t. But in a crazy way, what Dirc was telling her didmake sense. Against all odds and all logic, her whole conception of reality, she knew in her heart it was true. Her mother hadn’t belonged in the 21stcentury… and neither had she.
“Why?” she asked in a strangled whisper. “I don’t understand… why?”
“For ye… to protect ye Faith. Even I didna ken where they sent ye and yer mother, only that it was necessary to keep ye safe.”
“I… I was born here too?”
