Forged in Dreams and Magick (Highland Legends, Book 1) (26 page)

We approached the sprawling village. Hundreds upon hundreds of stone dwellings and teepees spanned across the landscape and stretched back into the woods. The impressive size made our village look small-town to their big-city. An inlet from the
North Sea cut down the middle of their community. Wooden footbridges crossed the waterway in several locations.

Velloc boldly led our horses straight through the heart of the activity. Both women and men stopped to take notice of our arrival. Some wore animal skins similar to ours; others wore colorful fabric tunics and ornate jewelry and belts. Their blue-tattooed markings were somewhat different, many resembled birds. Recognition filtered into my brain.
Lugi—the raven people.

Scents of cooking meat filled the air as dusk dimmed the night sky. A procession formed, people following us either out of curiosity or defense. I opened my senses to their emotions and detected plenty of animosity amid the curiosity.

One long fire pit stretched along the path we walked. Game and foul roasted at various intervals on long wooden spits. We stopped our horses at the far end of the fire next to a man pulling cooked meat from a deer leg with his fingers. He fed it with tender care to a beautiful woman.

Velloc leaned toward me, speaking low. “This is Drust, chieftain of the
Lugi
.”

Velloc swung his leg over his steed and dismounted, nodding for me to do the same. I slid from my mare, stepping close to his side.

Drust looked built for war but remained relaxed as we approached. His long, wiry, brownish-red hair had been tied back. He dressed in garb similar to ours, only his coat of fur was clasped at the neck by an ornately crafted chain made of chunky gold links.

The woman had sleek, black hair, high cheekbones, tan skin, and bright, blue eyes. On her slender form, her striking dress had thin, braided straps of gold and black threads that held up a low-cut bodice and flowing, black skirt. A gold torque highlighted her long neck, and a golden cuff decorated one wrist and an opposite bicep.

I whispered to Velloc, “Is that the woman the box brought to him?”

He nodded in reply as we approached the couple. They leisurely turned their attention to us. The man regarded Velloc, squinting as he set and clenched his jaw. The scrutiny transferred to me, both of them giving me a thorough head-to-toe-to-head inspection. I’d been clothed in skins and fur, but nothing hid my wild mane of long, blond hair and curvaceous body in the midst of mostly dark-haired, leanly built people.

“You risk your life by coming here, Velloc,” Drust said, his low, gravelly voice steady.

I glanced at Velloc, catching his sardonic smile. “I risk my life at
no
time by coming here.”

Drust guffawed. “You have the confidence of a fool.”

“I know my abilities—my strengths to your weaknesses. Care to test and see which is right?” Velloc asked.

The man paused, stroking his sparsely bearded chin with a finger and thumb as he stared at Velloc. “No. We will spend the time catching up. I’ll deliver you to your tribe strapped to the back of your horse later.”

Velloc smirked.

Drust bristled, shook his head, and laughed again. “Come. Sit.” He pointed at another log positioned perpendicular to them on his right. Velloc took a seat next to the chieftain, and I sat next to Velloc. Drust growled low, glaring at the crowd that had gathered around us before they scattered.

Their leader regarded me with piercing, steel-gray eyes before shifting his attention to Velloc. “Tell me your assessment of the Romans.” Drust pulled more meat off the leg he held, feeding his woman. She pulled the bite from his hand with her teeth and kissed his fingertips.

Velloc summarized the events of the attack, and Drust indicated he’d sent a fifth of his forces to participate in the exercise. I kept my gaze fixed on the woman beside him as they talked. She appeared to be a few years younger than me. Her long, raven hair and sky-blue eyes revealed nothing about her origins. She blended with their people as if she’d been born into their tribe.

Velloc said, “Tell me about your woman. The box brought her to you. Yes?”

The chieftain scowled. “
I
invite you to talk and
you
choose a topic sure to incite to me. You know we hold that box sacred.”

Velloc maintained a low, measured tone. “I do. You know about the loss of my wife. You’d already found your woman. I took the chance to find mine.”

Both Drust and his woman turned their gazes to me again. She leaned forward, an expression of hope blossoming on her face as her eyes widened. Her lush, pink lips parted slightly.

“And .
 . . did you?” Drust asked.

“I did,” Velloc replied. “She has traveled to two different time periods. Once to .
 . .” He glanced at me, raising his eyebrows.

“The thirteenth century,” I supplied.

“Where she met and married her husband. The box then sent her to me, to be my mate.”

The woman toppled off her perch onto the ground and made no move to get up. She stared at her lap for long seconds before lifting her face to look at me in amazement. Drust leaned down to her, speaking in hushed tones meant only for her ears. She nodded.

She spoke to me in a language I failed to recognize. I shook my head. “I only speak English, some Gaelic, and Pict.”

She tried again in Pict. “You come from another time? From the future?”

I nodded. “Yes. My name is Isobel. I’m from the twenty-first century.”

Drust and his woman stared in wide-eyed disbelief. Their shock suggested their situation had to have been different. Disappointment edged out any hope I’d held that I might find a kindred spirit—someone to share in the celebrating and commiserating of our circumstances.

Velloc’s sharp mind missed nothing. “Your woman does not come from another time?”

“She does,” Drust replied. “Scota came from the past. From a land called
Egypt. We do not know the exact time period she comes from.”

I blinked.
Princess
Scota? As in, legendary Egyptian queen, mother of all of Scotland?

Pieced analysis of myths and legends theorized her father was pharaoh in the time of Moses. I stared at the woman. Her angular features were suddenly very Egyptian. My historically addicted mind went haywire with thoughts of the mysteries we could solve with a single slumber party.

Hell, mythology had nothing on reality. Scota hadn’t married an Egyptian general. The woman hadn’t been a woman warrior who’d led an army into our land, defeating the mystical Tuatha Dé Danann. She’d been snatched out of her time and dropped into Scotland by the same magick that had brought me here.

“Scota, I’ve heard of you. I think perhaps legend has your story wrong. Was your father
Smenkhkare
?”

“
Smenkhkare
. Yes,” she replied, amazed.

At least the legends had some things right.
“Then you come from around the fourteenth century BC—almost fifteen hundred years ago.”

Velloc interrupted, keeping us on task. “Drust, we need to learn all you know about the box. Isobel needs to go back to her time, and she cannot without the box.”

Drust’s eyebrows furrowed as he growled, “You no longer have the box?”

Velloc shook his head. “At dawn today, it was stolen from us.” He pinned a hard stare at Drust. “You know the thief. I feel it as certain as the heart beating in my chest. You treasure highly what you’ve
not
come after me to recover. I find your lack of retaliation . . . interesting.”

I had no idea Velloc suspected something more behind the story of the artifact than he’d led me to believe. The mental chess he played with Drust fascinated me; that the subject happened to be the one item guaranteed to allow me passage between worlds had me hanging on every word.

Drust’s molten-metal eyes narrowed, focusing on me. The man conveyed cunning in two seconds flat—I practically heard the gears turning in his head. He leaned forward, speaking in a low, steady intonation as he slowly shifted his eyes to Velloc. “It does not concern me what your woman wants. If she comes from far in the future, she is more valuable
here
than anywhere else. Isobel will help us scrape the Romans from the land and dump them into the sea.”

Velloc nodded and smirked. “Yes, she will.”

My mouth dropped open at Velloc’s agreement and lack of my defense. His painful grip above my knee silenced a building, explosive protest. Despite my instinctive reaction, I remained quiet, trusting him.

The men continued to talk, but my sudden state of mental paralysis tuned them out. As they droned on about the information I’d shared with Velloc and their best strategy for defeating the enemy, fear gripped me cold and hard in the pit of my stomach, making me feel nauseous.

My wants and needs flowed like oil, not mixing with the local water, spiraling down the drain. Their discussion focused on fighting the enemy and protecting their people. The impending war that already encroached on their doorstep took precedence over any desire I had. I’d gone from an era of women’s rights to a time when a woman’s place was bearing and raising children.

I shot upright, unable to care about my safety with speaking protocol in a culture that deferred to men and their leaders. Anger at being disregarded had simmered into a churning boil.

My clipped words held venom. “I’m helping
no
one
until I’m assured of getting my box back.” I glared at Drust in defiance, and his nostrils flared. Oh, yeah. I’d pissed him off.

The brazen outburst, coupled with my demands, trampled over the respect I should’ve shown. But I didn’t care. Seething fury had hurled good sense straight into the scorching fire pit behind me. Seconds ticked by, sounder logic seeping into my brain as Drust unfolded, rising to his immense height.

The man’s eyes narrowed, his brows furrowed, and his lips flattened into a grim line as he stalked forward until the chieftain towered over me, his hot breath trekking across my cheeks. Velloc made no movement, but peripherally, I saw him tense like a coiled snake ready to spring.

Drust’s fierce growl dictated out proper etiquette. “You stay seated in my presence. You do not speak unless I’ve given explicit permission.
You
are a guest . . .
or
prisoner
. . . at
my
pleasure.”

The word
prisoner
soaked my smoldering brain like an icy rain shower and put things in the proper life-or-death perspective. Hotheadedness would not only get me nothing, it would likely get me a whole lot of nothing I wanted.

On a deep sigh, I lowered my eyes, showing him the respect he demanded. “Yes, Drust, forgive me. My emotions got the better of me.”

Drust backed off a step, snorting. He glared down from his imposing height, waiting.

Velloc scowled. His deep, constrained breaths gave me no indication of the target of his anger, but my mind, wide-awake as an espresso junkie’s, knew he fumed beneath the surface.

The smart girl in me turned and lowered myself back down next to Velloc. My impetuous, insolent ass intended to stay there, roots shooting down into the log, mouth sealed shut. Velloc loved me, had my interest at heart when circumstance allowed, and would negotiate on my behalf when and where he could.

Drust remained standing and paced back and forth between Scota and the end of the fire pit. “I need to know more than how many Romans. We need to know when they plan to strike. To anticipate their position at different times gives us an advantage—our cleverness to their size.”

He stopped before me. Silver eyes bored into mine. “You will tell me these things.”

The paradox of an unbelievably difficult position settled into my very lucid thoughts. I hadn’t expected a pop quiz, but a photographic memory only helped if I could provide them with pertinent facts. Unfortunately, the Roman’s accounting of the engagement was, at the very least, completely biased. Plus, providing what little known facts I had—as history purported them—could skew events in favor of the Picts to disastrous, history-changing proportions. Even if the Romans claimed victory only on paper, they survived and returned in numbers large enough to have
Rome believe their accounting.

On the other hand, how did I know historical record hadn’t already included my influence? My situation left me no way to confirm whether disclosure would change the layout of time, or if my mere existence in the worlds I’d visited already had. Serious brain cramp and a dose of anxiety stopped my fruitless suppositions.

I looked up at Drust. “I’ll tell you all I can, which is more than you know. My accounting of Roman records will give you the edge you seek. However, I’ll do so
only after
you share the information we want.”

Equal parts humor and respect lit up Drust’s features as his gaze danced from me to Velloc. The unexpected response made me tighten my lips down to prevent laughter from bursting out. Drust returned to his seat and shook his head, laughing.