A sickening weight settled in the pit of his stomach along with his parritch. “So, ye mean to leave me if ye can.”
Her eyes flared open wide. “That’s not it at all.” She rounded the table and hugged him. “I don’t think I could survive in any realm without you now. You’re…my home, my true north. I just need to see for myself if there is a doorway to my old time. This is all just so…strange.” She leaned back and gave him a pained look. “I guess I’ve never been very good at accepting circumstances until I’ve proven to myself that there are no other options.” She patted him on the chest. “And besides, she took all my stuff. I want to know where it all went. She can keep most of it, but some of those clothes were my favorites, and there are other items too precious for anyone to have but me.”
“It would be far safer if ye dressed properly for this time.”
“I knew you were going to say that.” She disappointed him immensely by returning to her seat. “I’ve never been much for skirts. They slow me down.”
“Maybe so, but in a gown ye would draw less attention to yerself. Less attention means safer.”
“I thought I was safe here at Wraith Tower.”
“Ye are, but I dinna want that tested.” He finished his ale and thumped the tankard back to the table. “I would rather not have to kill any servants because they turned traitor. Mynlis has chosen three maids to be yer personal servants. They will see that ye have everything ye need and dress ye as a grand chieftain’s wife should be dressed.”
Stricken with a sudden fit of coughing, Calia turned aside and thumped her chest. “Wife?” she squeaked in the middle of choking.
“Aye, mo chridhe. Our souls are reunited. Ye are my mate as I am yers.” Had she not realized they’d wed in the ancient way when they’d spoken the binding oath? “Ye knew that, aye?”
She drank the rest of her tea and refilled it yet again. “I guess I hadn’t really thought through all the technicalities and verbiage.”
Her way with words would take some getting used to, but that was a small price to pay. After all, she had much to learn about the seventeenth century and even more about the Ninth Realm.
“And does it really take three people to dress a person in this century?” She looked as if she’d just bitten into something sour.
“There is the care and upkeep of yerself, yer things, and anything else ye might need.” He didn’t know what a personal maid did. All he knew was that his first wife had needed five women to keep her sorted. “They are here to help ye. Ask them anything ye wish—except how to get to Seven Cairns. That they will not tell ye.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she defiantly lifted her chin higher. “One way or another, I need to go to Seven Cairns and speak with Mairwen. I have questions.” Squaring her shoulders, she adopted the stern aloofness from when they’d first met. “I need you to understand that. It doesn’t mean I don’t believe in our bond. It means I have loose ends that need to be tied.” To his relief, her expression softened. “This is who I am, Mathison. I came to Scotland with an entirely different plan than this. Everything I set up to take care of myself is now in some sort of limbo state. If I’m not going back to my time, I’d at least like to donate everything to the hospital that took care of Gillian.”
“If ye’re not going back?” He pushed up from the table, no longer interested in anything it held. “Why are ye so worried about things that dinna matter? We are all that matters.”
She blew out a heavy sigh while shaking her head. “I just want to make sure my ex can’t get his hands on anything when he thinks I’m dead. Believe me. He’ll try.” She threw up her hands. “Since Mairwen is so all powerful, she should be able to ironclad the legalities for me so everything goes to the children’s hospital—and I also want my favorite jeans and my Christmas hoodie. Gillian got one of the nurses to help her get it from the hospital gift shop for our last Christmas together. It’s the most precious thing I own—among other things.” Her soulful eyes brimmed with tears again. “There are other items, keepsakes of mine and Gilli’s time together. I…I need them.”
“Feckin’ hell.” How could he refuse her a trip to Seven Cairns now? Not when she longed for the last gift her wee bairn had given her. “I can attempt to summon Mairwen here, but I dinna ken if it will work. If it does, would that do ye?” He’d rather not risk a trek across the Ninth Realm with Calia—at least not yet, especially since Intuition had mentioned an old score to settle with Bansys.
To his relief, she brightened. “That would help immensely.”
“Let me send in yer maids to help ye dress appropriately, and then we will do what we can.”
“Thank you.” She closed the distance between them, slid her hands up his chest, and lifted her face for a kiss. “This means a lot to me.”
He kissed her long and hard, then forced himself to break the bond and lift his head. Biting back a groan, he set her aside and stepped back. “Ye can thank me properly later.”
She grinned. “Deal.”
Calia returned to the window while waiting for the maids who were supposed to transform her into a proper grand chieftain’s wife. Wife. That made her shudder. She’d never planned on assuming that title ever again. With her hand pressed to her heart, she allowed herself a little smile. Then again, she’d never planned on meeting someone like Mathison either. He was…indescribable, yet the most right thing that had wandered into her life in a long while.
Otto head-butted the side of her knee, nearly knocking her off balance.
She bent and gave him a big hug. “I didn’t realize what I was dragging you into, sweet boy. I’m so sorry.”
He wagged his tail harder, wiggling his entire back end. With a happy yip, he leaned in closer, then grumbled his comical combination of growls and groans that were his way of telling her all about it.
“I hope that means you’re happy here.” She straightened and stared wistfully out the window. He jumped up beside her, planting his paws on the ledge and fogging the pane with his breath. “I didn’t realize they had glass windows in the seventeenth century, but then again, you could fit what I know about this time on the head of a pin.” Perhaps that was what bothered her the most about this entire situation. She was as unsure of herself as a newborn kitten when it came to this century and place.
She eyed the thick stretch of woodlands that stretched beyond the massive stone wall set a few yards off from the tower. Such a formidable barrier had to be protection, but from what? Other clans or something else? The impenetrable barricade looked as though it wrapped around the entire tower and reached nearly to the level of her window. She had no idea what floor this was, but a glance downward confirmed it was pretty high.
A hazy, purplish outline of mountains ran along part of the horizon, and if she squinted, she could just make out a patch of sparkling blue between the jagged spikes. Must be a lake or the ocean beyond them. Was Ninth Realm’s Scotland built the same as hers? Intuition would know, but she still remained quiet. Calia realized she actually missed the voice in her head that she’d listened to all her life.
A light tapping on the door interrupted her musings.
