Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (32 page)

“
You have little faith in
Gemma’s abilities, for all the powers you two share.”

“
I tasted the malice in
that curse, brother mine. Trust me, despite the will of all of us,
it will come to pass.” Luan turned quickly away and her voice grew
thick. “I wish, how I wish, that it were not meant to
be.”

“
Perhaps it is not to
be.”

“
Brother! You can stop it!
Pledge the boy, pledge him now, and save Gemma’s child!”

The man’s lips thinned grimly and he pushed
to his feet. “Luan, you are my sister, but you push too far in
this. This is neither the time nor the place for your argument. I
shall keep your advice in mind, but the time is yet too early for
the boy to carry the weight of such demands. Let him be a child.
Let him become a man, and then, we shall talk of his bride.”

Luan might have said more, but the warrior
left the room, the baby tucked proprietarily against his side.
Baird’s vision followed him down a dark corridor to the top of
heavy wooden stairs. To Baird’s astonishment, when the warrior
lifted the baby high, it was from the infant’s perspective that
Baird saw the expectant crowd below.

“
Behold, my people,” the
man bellowed. A sea of faces turned toward him as the hall fell
silent. “Behold, the Queen of Inverness has brought forth a son, a
son hale and hearty, a son to be the pride of his father’s
heart!”

“
All hail the Prince of
Inverness!” a man roared below and the crowd bellowed in delight.
Baird felt the king’s grip resolute around him, heard the rumble of
the man’s deep laugh.

For a heady moment, Baird was this man’s
child. He felt the power of the warrior’s love for him flow between
them and fill the baby with its potency.

It was stronger than Baird had ever guessed
such a feeling could be and left him buoyant with the promise of
what he, as this baby, might become. He could be a king himself, or
a fisherman, he could be a silversmith or a warrior, but whatever
he did, Baird knew that this man would be there to catch him if he
faltered.

That feeling was the greatest gift he could
ever have known. To have a family, to have someone to rely upon, it
was everything that Baird had ever wanted and everything that he
had been denied.

And this baby had done nothing to earn such
a powerful gift, nothing but come into this world, blood of this
king’s blood. Baird marveled at the power of the human heart as the
king held him high.

Then the dream faded with a snap.

Baird tossed in his bed, snatching at the
snippets of the vision without success. He sat up in frustration,
wide awake, and for the first time, he wished an unwelcome dream
had not ended so soon.

But the fire of the king’s love glowed in
Baird’s heart, like an ember left in the cinders of a once great
blaze.

What would his life had been like, if he had
known such a feeling when he was a child?

*

Aurelia awakened the next morning to an
insistent rap on her door. “Come on, princess, rise and shine.”

Baird.

She scowled at the window, the sky just
barely lightening, then rolled out of bed and shoved her arms into
the blue robe. Against all odds, someone still held the key to her
Dreaming. She had no understanding of what she had witnessed the
night before and that fact had left her irritable.

What good was a Dreaming that revealed
nothing?

Aurelia tore open the door and confronted
the man she suspected was at the core of her troubles.

Baird smelled delightfully clean, his hair
was still wet but already starting to curl in its usual wayward
fashion. He wore a plaid shirt and chausses of deep blue, his
hooked finger held his jacket over his shoulder.

But there were shadows beneath his twinkling
eyes. Aurelia was not the only one who had slept poorly. Sympathy
flooded through Aurelia before she caught her wayward response.

Curse Baird and his dangerous charm! The
last thing Aurelia was going to do was show him any compassion.

But Baird quickly proved her wrong.

He stepped closer, kissed her with an
audacity unexpected, then backed away and winked. Aurelia’s unruly
heart lunged all over her chest and she hated herself for so easily
falling prey to his kisses.

“
Daylight’s wasting,
princess, get it in gear.”

And with that, Baird turned and strode down
the hall, his long legs making short work of the distance. Aurelia
shoved a hand through her hair and tried to gather her thoughts,
only to have Baird turn back at the hall doorway.

“
Chopper’s waiting,” he
whispered loudly, then ducked through the doors.

Chopper must be an impatient chariot driver.
Aurelia dove back into her room, washed and dressed as quickly as
was humanly possible, then flung herself down the hall in
pursuit.

Baird was waiting at the foot of the stairs.
Aurelia barely had a chance to wish him good morning, before he had
clasped her elbow to steer her outside.

“
You make great haste,” she
dared to say.

He grimaced. “No wind, it may not last.”

That made absolutely no sense. Aurelia
slanted a glance to her impassive companion and was not surprised
that, yet again, she could deduce nothing of his thoughts.

“
You would leave Dunhelm to
this Darian Mulvaney?”

Baird fired a very green glance her way.
“You don’t like him?” he asked with a smooth disinterest that
contradicted the gleam in his eyes.

Aurelia frowned and shrugged. “I am not
certain that he should have the ritual well to himself.”

“
Did you leave anything
there?”

Aurelia deliberately avoided his keen
glance. “Many have come to their demise there, either by accident
or plan.”

Baird looked at her hard then, as though she
had said something intriguing. Of course, the adventurer with the
feathered hat had died in the chamber in Aurelia’s dream.

Had Baird witnessed that dream as well? It
certainly had been disconcerting.

It was in that moment that Aurelia spotted
the silver dragonfly waiting for them. A man sat within it, his
eyes covered with shiny black shields not unlike those of the
insect in question.

He grinned and waved. “‘Mornin’, boss!”

The din of the contraption was
deafening.

“‘
Morning, Tex!” Baird
replied, but Aurelia balked when he would have led her closer. He
leaned down and murmured into her ear. “Afraid,
princess?”

“
I am afraid of nothing!”
Aurelia treated him to her most fearsome glare.

The cur’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “Into
the chopper, then.”

“
Chopper” was apparently
this strange device. It looked fearsomely unstable, but the noise
made questions impossible. There were no horses to pull the thing -
like the chariot of the day before - though Aurelia could not have
imagined that any sensible beast could have been persuaded to come
near this.

Baird had a dangerously daring gleam in his
eye. If he expected her to be afraid, then Aurelia would prove him
wrong.

She climbed into the chariot and tried not
to stare at its whirling wings overhead. Aurelia sat primly as
though there was nothing unusual at all in boarding such a
conveyance.

Then the chariot rose and wobbled
uncertainly just above the ground. Aurelia panicked. Dunhelm
dropped away beneath them with dizzying speed and as they moved out
over the sea, Aurelia fought against her rising terror.

Never mind Baird’s assurances - those were
no more than sweet lies to pacify her - he would see her killed!
Had he not slaughtered her only brother?

What if Baird had found the knife she had
forgotten beneath his bed? He would cast her out of this chariot in
the name of vengeance and see her dashed to pieces on the rocks
below.

Well, she would not go alone! Aurelia lunged
across the tiny chariot and latched onto Baird with all her
might.

“
You will not be rid of me
so easily!” she shouted.

The chariot lurched hard to Baird’s side of
the chariot and the ground danced sickeningly before Aurelia’s
eyes.

“
What in the hell?” Baird
bellowed.

“
Je-
sus
! Boss!”
roared the chariot driver. He struggled like a driver settling a
wild team, launching a torrent of expletives as he did
so.

Baird tried to extricate himself, but to no
avail. Aurelia locked onto his shoulders and was not about to let
go.

“
You will not cast me to a
gruesome death so easily!” she shouted at him.

“
You’re not going to die,
unless you keep this up!” he retorted.

“
Ha! I will not believe
your lies, you treacherous cur! My brother learned the price of
trusting you to your word!”

The chariot steadied, the driver heaved a
sigh of relief and glared over his shoulder. “I told you that these
small choppers are more unstable than the one we use in the States,
boss. What in the hell were you doing back there?”

“
Everything’s fine now,”
Baird said evasively.

“
Oh, I get it! Lady’s
afraid of flying, huh?” The chariot driver grinned as though this
were a huge joke.

“
I am afraid of nothing!”
Aurelia shouted, her fingers nearly hooked into Baird’s flesh. “I
am half Viking!”

The driver laughed. “Right! And I’m all
Texan, but it took some talkin’ to git me into one of these babies
the first time.”

Aurelia glanced down at Baird to find his
corner of his mouth quirking in the half-smile she found so
beguiling. His eyes twinkled and were startlingly green at such
close proximity. Aurelia belatedly became aware that she was
sitting on his lap, her arms curled around his neck.

He looked straight into her eyes, the very
image of sincerity. “You’re not going to be flung to your death,”
he murmured so quietly that Aurelia had to read his lips. Her heart
began to pound. “Didn’t I give you my word?”

He had.

Aurelia licked her lips, not liking that she
had played the fool and provided his amusement. Her face heated
with embarrassment.

Baird slid his arms around her waist easily
as though she sat thus all the time. “You should have just told me
that you wanted to sit in my lap,” he teased.

Now Aurelia could not put distance between
them fast enough. She darted back to her seat, earning another
curse from the driver.

He glanced back with irritation. “Could you
all just decide where it is that you all want to sit? Go ahead,
make my life easier, it won’t break my heart.”

Aurelia had a hard time understanding his
drawling accent, never mind his words, but when she looked to Baird
that man winked mischievously. Aurelia turned quickly to the
window, her pulse pounding unevenly in her ears.

Oh, he had a dangerous charm!

They were over the sea now and it did not
seem that this shiny bird had any intent of falling out of the sky.
Fascinated by the fact that they indeed flew like a dragonfly,
Aurelia leaned away from Baird and looked out over the
landscape.

It was dotted with buildings of marvelous
construction that confused Aurelia once again. Black roads
stretched across the land, painted with brilliant yellow lines.
Shiny things, much like beetles but in myriad colors, shot along
these roads at alarming speeds.

Aurelia chewed her lip. She looked up to the
whirling silver overhead and once again felt overwhelmed by the
changes Baird had made in her world. It had to be Christian magic
at root, for there was no other explanation.

Or was there?

*

Aurelia found Kirkwall a shock after the
small towns near Dunhelm. Here there were countless chariots like
the one she had ridden in there, and buildings beyond number. There
were more people bustling about than she could have imagined and
many small ships bobbing in the harbor.

She kept silent as Baird inquired after her
sire, certain in her heart that Hekod would never have come to this
place.

Or would he? Was this not much as she had
long imagined Micklegarth? But no one had seen or heard tell of her
sire, after all. They trudged from place to place, without
success.

When Baird offered a meal called ‘brunch’,
Aurelia was glad to accept. The shop they entered smelled so good
that her stomach protested its empty state mightily. It was only
after she had finished eating her fill that Aurelia noticed the
curious glances of those around them.

And Baird’s wicked grin.

Baird did his a-viking again with the gold
card, launching a charming smile at the woman just to smooth the
way. Aurelia seethed that he should be tease her about her eating,
but waited until they were outside to have her say.

“
What is the matter?” she
whispered.

His grin widened. “They must be wondering
whether you’ve got a pair of hungry greyhounds under the
table.”

“
I have always had a
healthy appetite!”

“
And an awesome metabolic
rate.”

Aurelia did not know what that meant, but it
was not flattery, that was for certain. She would have strolled
proudly away from Baird, but a window snared her attention.

Aurelia froze and leaned against the glass,
her breath fogging it as she strained closer. It was not the window
itself that fascinated her - she had already wondered at that
marvel - but the item displayed. Aurelia touched the glass in
wonder.

It was her mother’s own silver bracelet. The
same bracelet that had graced Aurelia’s own wrist when she climbed
to the walls to help defend her father’s holding.