“You ken as well as I, my lady mother, the marriage you just witnessed is a sham. Traveling with me on the morrow only puts Abby’s life in danger. Besides, she disna belong in this time and she certainly disna want to be here. The Fae made a grave error in sending her with me.”
Rosalyn stared up at the ceiling, and for a moment he wondered what fascinated her so. Until she turned back to him, eyes blazing. It was not interest in the architecture but a pause to gather her wits and control her tongue. He’d used the same type of pause often enough himself. He should have recognized the signs.
“You question the actions of the Fae as if you’ve never been witness to their work before. I’ve simplyno the patience to guide another of my sons down this path, Colin. I’m too old and weary for it. I’d ask you to use yer own wits, lad. Dinna be so thick-skulled. You’ve seen the work of the Faerie Magic too many times no to recognize what’s happening here.”
“What are you saying?”
“They’ve made it as plain as the hand on yer arm, lad. They’ve all but rubbed yer nose in it. All of us can see it well enough. You said yerself when you were swept through time to the future, it was to this woman. Did you never stop to question why? Did our troubles with Caden and Ellie teach you nothing at all? Abby is the one who’s meant for you, son. She’s yer Soulmate and the Magic has shown you this not once, but twice. Dinna be such a fool as to turn yer back on what’s gifted to you by the Magic.”
His Soulmate? Impossible. “I canna accept that as truth, mother. The Faerie Queen herself warned me I’d no find my own Soulmate in this lifetime.”
In this lifetime. . .
The words had barely cleared his lips before the implication of their meaning hit him. Was it possible that Abby had changed the Faerie Queen’s decree by wishing him into her time?
His vision in the RoundHouse came back to him then, his own question from that day echoing in his mind.Why? Why had Abby needed him? Why had she summoned him to her time? He’d demanded the information from the Earth Mother and she’d laughed at him, as if the answer should be so clear he should have no need to ask.
Perhaps it was that clear. Perhaps it had been there staring him in the face the whole time. Perhaps he’d simply been too dense to see it.
Abby had wished for her Soulmate, and the Magic, responding to its highest calling, had drawn him seven hundred years into the future. Into another lifetime.
A lifetime where his Soulmatedidexist.
It might be possible. But if it was true, that made it even more important that he not take her with him to Methven. There was no way he would risk the safety of his Soulmate.
“If you believe this to be fact, how could you encourage Abby to ride out with me on the morrow? You have to be aware of the danger. Sending her back to her own time is the only way to keep her safe.”
His mother nodded, her expression sober. “I ken what you say, my son. But you canna turn yer back on what the Magic would have you do. There’s a reason she’s to go with you as much as there’s a reason she was sent here in the first place.”
“Besides.” Ellie had risen from her seat and stood behind him, her hand lighting on his shoulder. “From the marks I saw on that girl, I don’t see how she’d be any safer in her own time. At least here she has you to look after her.”
“What marks?” She’d said nary a word to him of injuries.
“Bruises on her arm, scrapes on her neck. God only knows what else.” Ellie shrugged and headed for the door, following the direction Abby had taken earlier.
The memory of the scene in the glen, Flynn forcing himself on Abby, colored Colin’s thoughts red with fury.
Flynn. He’d all but forgotten the Fae.
Too bad the Nuadian pig wasn’t here in his time. He’d be more than happy to show him how they dealt with his kind in this century.
Twenty-five
I’m married.
Abby dropped a hand to her midsection as she made her way up the narrow stairs, hoping to calm her nervous stomach.
Say a few words andpoof, married.
Not that there was any need to stress over or second-guess what she’d just done. After all, it wasn’t like it was a real marriage or anything. Just some words she’d said so she could make sure she didn’t lose contact with the only person who could get her home again. Besides, a marriage didn’t really count if she hadn’t even been born yet.
Unless she ended up stuck here. Trapped in medieval Scotlandandmarried.
Not that having Colin for a husband would be such a horrible fate. If she allowed herself to be totally honest,which wasn’t the most comfortable thing to be right now, she could think of only one thing that kept him from being a pretty decent candidate for husband material: he lived in the wrong century. And worse? This was where he wanted to be. Where she’d promised to stay with him until he’d completed his quest to save his friends.
Her step slowed at the thought and she stumbled, grabbing onto the cold stone wall to keep from slipping on the topmost stair.
She really had to let all that go. She couldn’t think about it right now. Accepting time travel and Faerie Magic would mean accepting other things that shook her whole world. Things like her being some Faerie half-breed. Things like finding The One only to learn they could never be together because they existed seven hundred years apart. The whole of it was simply too bizarre, too depressing, for her mind to comprehend without some gigantic cry fest at the end, and truly there was no time for wallowing in self-pity.
