Highland Sorcerer (5 page)

Her chest rose, cinching on a tight
painful breath as images stirred within the tumultuous surge and
ebbs, coalescing into phantom forms within the smoke curling away
from bright tips of flame—wraiths of the past let loose.

As always, her grandsire stared back at
her through the hungry blaze, his blue eyes hard and penetrating as
though he could see her., though she knew he could not. He was not
real, no longer alive. He and his magic with him. Aldreth flinched
back even knowing 'twas nothing more than a spectral memory
emblazoned upon her soul. A magical conjuring of an event every
time she looked into flame, a lingering curse of the hated Fae,
that all in her bloodline forever forced to remember the shame of
Burnes Alduein.

In the fire, the apparition of her
grandsire, Burnes, turned away. Chains of gold trapped his wrists,
clinking along the crackle and hiss inside the large hearth.
Slender ethereal Fae stood around him, light robes whipping about
willowy frames in a breeze. Whipping about within a riot of
flames.

One of the Fae dipped his staff toward
Burnes.

"Ye have broken your trust."

The sorcerer lifted his head. "Ye dare
speak of trust." Defiance curled the corner of his lip.

The oldest of the Fae leaned forward.
An ancient being, though he looked a boy of twenty. The long
slender hand coiled tightly around his staff in constrained fury.
"Ye were the buffer between our realm and yours, endowed with gifts
beyond all other mortals, yet you willfully violated your oaths.
Had ye succeeded, our realm would be overrun with
darkness."

"Dark magic that rightfully belongs to
the Shadowrood. 'Twas trickery of the Fae these many centuries ago.
Ye first thrust the darkness from your realm to the world of
mortals, binding my clan as little more than a cork in the
passage."

"Enough." The Fae slammed his staff
upon the ground.

Burnes continued on. “Gifting an entire
clan of magic to forge a bond strong enough between them to be the
one bright hope of keeping the darkness at bay. The darkness that
ye brought into our world.”

The Fae moved closer. “I said enough.”
His light hair flew upward, pulling back from his wide forehead.
Aldreth gasped, helpless to look away though she'd witnessed this
moment a thousand times before.

"Death." The end of another of the
Fae's staff lowered to the ground.

"Banishment of the entire bloodline."
Another staff tilted downward.

"The balance must be maintained else
darkness return."

"A new bloodline will be
established."

"One that holds true." The fifth staff
lowered toward Burnes Alduein.

"One that holds true."

On a cry, Aldreth spun around and
through force of will tore her gaze away, closing out the final
scream of her grandsire as energy poured from the staffs to melt
the High Sorcerer of Alduein in a crackling concussion of
light.

They'd been wronged, she and her entire
clan, forced to live as outcasts among mankind. But the magic
inside Aldreth had been strong. She did not let it die out, but
instead sought wielders of the dark magic and learned ways to
enhance what was innately hers. She had made pacts with demons,
learned their secrets. She had become the most powerful witch this
realm had ever known and with the darkness her life had been
extended. Three hundred years she'd explored the earth and honed
her craft, while the embers of retribution burned within her bosom.
Her course was right and just. The Fae had wronged Burnes Alduein.
They had wronged her and her people.

She was the rightful heir, the last of
Clan Alduein, bred to maintain the balance of magic in this
world.

She'd first gone to Crunfathy,
disguised as a beggar woman, those many years ago. 'Twas a small
task to unravel the spell of their defenses and coat the High
Sorcerer's and his beloved wife's lips in poison. Took naught but
one kiss between them. To this day, none knew she was the cause of
their overlong illness and demise. She would have led the children
to the same fate, yet…

When she first glimpsed the child
Toren, felt the strength within him, she knew fortune would see
them rule together. He was destined to become one of the most
powerful sorcerers the world had ever known. He was destined to be
hers. So she had slipped quietly from the village to bide her time.
He had the blessing of the Fae. She came from the true
bloodline.

Yet his stubbornness to even consider
the possibility of a blending between them was maddening. He acted
like a lapdog, too loyal and obedient to question his masters
though the Fae kept the leash too short for Toren to see beyond to
the limitlessness of how powerful their magic could be together.
She would have to make him understand.

His capture had been easy, almost
disappointing. But with the aid of a demon, even a sorcerer as
strong as he had not a whisper of a chance.

She let her senses drift to Toren, deep
in her dungeon constructed solely for him and smiled. He would soon
be broken, pliant beneath her ruling. She'd thought of him under
her heels for years, savored this time she had of breaking him. She
would be patient and enjoy it until she owned him, magic, body and
spirit.

She felt him breathing on the cold
stone floor. It wouldn't be long before he welcomed the softness of
her bed, yearning for the difference. She felt him going off to
sleep so she let her essence follow the glowing lines of his dream
to follow where his mind might escape to in slumber. She smiled at
his tenacity. He'd thought to thwart her by finding a healer by
traveling through time and now it appeared he meant to find comfort
and solace in the dreamworld. She would have to work on that as
well. Soon he would come to understand that there was nowhere,
through time or dreams that she couldn't find him.

Aldreth weaved her own spell to see the
lines and angles of the trail he'd taken into the dreamworld.
Brilliant azures and greens too bright to look into for too long
hummed around her. His magic was so vibrant and full. She followed
him into the realm of sleeping.

He wandered his moor, tall and hale, a
figure cut of the strength of the mountains attired in his snowy
white shirt.

She coveted his power, aye. As High
Sorcerer of Limont Toren was the linchpin that held the magical
balance of an entire clan, which in turn, held the balance of magic
which flowed through the earth.

All that power, his for the
taking if he would only reach forth and take from his people. His
people, Aldreth scowled, the pain of exclusion burrowing through
her.
His people
adored Toren. He merely need ask and they'd fling every ounce
of magic they had unspoiled into him like a magnificent vessel
capable of holding the magic of hundreds of gifted.

There wasn't another sorcerer on earth
who could take the balance of the world on his shoulders like Toren
Limont. She'd waited for his ilk for a long time, for that strength
of magic that should be hers.

So aye, she coveted the sorcerer's
power, but she also desired the man.

He was hers.

A rustle echoed upon the
air.

Aldreth looked to the side and her
heart turned brittle. A young maid dashed across the moor, trailing
mist behind her like gossamer threads.

The lines around Toren's mouth
smoothed. Something indefinable darkened the hue of Toren's light
eyes as he caught the maiden's hands within his. For that look
alone, Aldreth wanted to plunge a dagger into the woman's
heart.

So this was her?

His Healer Enchantress.

The one who had healed him and given
him added hope and endurance to withstand her.

Toren kissed the tips of the maid's
fingers and Aldreth's blood burned.

She could extinguish the lass where she
stood.

Except…

The maiden could prove useful. Aldreth
cared naught for the look of adoration upon Toren's handsome face,
but she could use it against him. She did not desire his love nor
adoration. She wanted to own him. She desired his obedience and
fear and if his pining for this insignificant woman led him to that
point…

Her heart sang, recognizing another
pawn upon the board. Allowing him to have the lass and then taking
her from him 'twould be one more reminder of how she ruled every
aspect of his existence.

With a growing smile, Aldreth sank back
into the shadows and watched.

Chapter Seven

Charity lifted one eyelid to peek
around her living room. Nothing was happening. She lifted her palms
higher and chanted out the Latin verse.

She'd been sitting cross-legged on her
living room floor, reciting the time-travel verse for a good twenty
minutes and nothing had changed. As a healer, her gift wouldn’t
allow her to open a rift and go back several centuries, nor could
any sorcerer anymore even if she could find one who was willing to
try it, but she should be able to manage a day. Maybe she wasn't
saying it right.

Leaning sideways toward the coffee
table, she read the incantation in her grandmother's pink spell
book again. No, she had the words right, even double-checked the
pronunciation.

Charity shifted back into
the lotus position and closed her eyes. Holding on a deep
inhalation, she let her mind drift to Toren, which wasn't difficult
since her thoughts had been filled with him since they’d met. She
couldn't stop thinking about him, especially after their dream
trail together. She exhaled and whispered the spell again
with
Toren Toren Toren
as her focus. She settled the moment Toren first popped into
her kitchen in her mind—concentrated on that as the spell’s focal
point. That was the moment she had to get back to. She needed to do
this.

Energy crackled around her. She felt
her hair lift off her shoulders and away from her face, caught in
the current buzzing through her. The vibration intensified, curling
around her stomach and tightening like a thick belt. She held fast
to the thought of Toren, squeezing her eyes more
tightly.

The Latin slipped around her tongue
more rapidly, her voice slurring.

She felt a sudden wooziness. She swayed
and everything settled and her momentum carried forward to step
out. Step out? She was on her feet?

Charity snapped her eyes open. She
stood in her kitchen. She wore shoes. Different clothes.

Oh my—

She’d done it. She’d traveled back to
that day. She was in the clothes she’d worn, the clothes she still
hadn’t washed Toren’s blood out of yet. Her purse was in her hand,
hovering over the counter where she was about to drop it. At least
she wouldn’t have to worry about running into her past self, since
the way this particular spell worked, her consciousness simply
reset itself into that moment of time, memories of the other
timeline intact, and then she would simply start reliving life
again from that point forward. It was the reason she had chosen
that exact spell, so she would remember what happened the first
time.

She gazed around the empty kitchen
expectantly, her pulse kicking into overdrive.

She set her purse down and…

A naked bleeding man materialized out
of thin air.

And dropped to the linoleum.

Hey. She'd just mopped that floor.
Charity shook her head. That had been her exact thought the first
time she'd lived this moment. The reality of replaying this
timeline and the memories of what had happened before were
overlapping in her brain.

Blinking, she frowned. She had to keep
it together in order to do what she had come back to this point to
do.

Her heart clenched, seeing him like
this. Toren was covered in welts and wounds, blood and grime across
his torso, hips and legs. His eyes remained closed though the thick
lashes fluttered with each pain-filled breath. His wrists were torn
and chafed from those dark bands that Aldreth had cuffed him
with.

Charity pulled a stack of hand towels
from a drawer and lowered beside him.

"Toren."

Dark lashes flashed open, his glassy
eyes focused on her, troubled and wary. Charity sighed. For him,
this was the first time that they met. He wouldn't understand how
she knew his name.

She lifted his head off the floor to
get a few of the folded towels beneath him and then smoothed a lock
of sweaty dark hair away from his cheek.

He flinched at the touch, and before
she knew what hit her, Charity was rolled onto her back with two
hundred pounds of disoriented naked Highlander on top of her,
pinning her wrist against the floor. Seriously? Again? Second time
around she really should have anticipated that.

His gaze tracked around her kitchen,
dark brows pulling down at the tall refrigerator before settling
back on her.

"Are ye the Healer Enchantress?" he
rasped and promptly passed out.

Oomph
. Charity's lungs felt flattened.