Rauth turned to lay a hand on his cousin’s shoulder and looked into his light eyes. “We will all be better for what is to come,” he said. “Gwynne most of all. And she will still be ours, our cwen. We will all be together again.”
“I only hope you’re right, Rauth. And that this life of ours is sustainable. But I have my doubts.” Lachlan turned to leave the room. He had done his duty, and now he needed to find his mate.
“Bring her back, cousin,” said Rauth.
“I will,” the other alpha said as he closed the door, sealing his fellow leader into the year 1348.
* * *
Trial By Fire 2
The ruins of Dundurn, 2014
Around Gwynne a cool breeze flowed and the smell of salt hung in the air. In the distance she could hear the cry of gulls scanning the sea for their next meal as the sun sifted gently through a few clouds overhead.
She lay still on the ground, Kapral’s corpse next to her. His head was twisted in her direction, eyes open as though in well-founded accusation. You killed me.
He’d been on the verge of giving her information. He could have told her what he’d meant, what her father had said to him that had been so important. How on earth had he even known the man? Her father was dead. Not only that, but he’d lived in twentieth-century New England, not fourteenth century Cornwall.
And now here she was, alone, isolated in what appeared to be her own time, given the state of Dundurn’s ruins. How had she arrived here? And how would she get back to the place centuries in the past that had so quickly become her home? Gwynne had no access to the portals that Lachlan had told her about, the doorways that the shifters used to move about through time.
In her memory she’d struggled with Kapral. No; struggled was the wrong word for it. She’d fought and won handily. And then there had been a moment when the world had spun out of control. Everything around her had gone blurry as though flashing by at the speed of light, and here she had landed, back in the place where Lachlan had first rescued her from the eagle shifter.
The most pressing question now, of course, was who or what the hell was she? For twenty-four years she’d been human, or at least that was what she’d believed. A little girl and then a woman, simple, normal.
Flesh.
Her hands, at least, were now back to their former selves: soft, white skin. But a few minutes earlier she’d seen them change into something utterly inhuman. What she’d seen had frightened her beyond words.
Much as it pained Gwynne to do so, she forced herself to recall the sight of the changed limbs, her stomach turning: long claws extending from the ends of strange, angular fingers. And a bizarre absence of her own soft flesh, which had been replaced by a coating of golden scales. Those temporary talons of hers had been strong enough to unintentionally murder a shifter. And now the only evidence of the entire incident was Kapral’s set of dead eyes, still fixed on her face.
She’d killed him. A man almost equal to Rauth and Lachlan in physical strength.
By herself.
Something, she knew now, had happened to her during the ritual, other than the most extraordinary sex of her life. It was clear that a physical change had occurred within her body. But she wasn’t like the two alphas, who had known nothing but the lives of shifters since their childhoods. She was a freak of nature. An outsider, as Bree had said. She didn’t belong with the wolves, but she most certainly didn’t belong in 2014. How would she explain this to anyone?
Perhaps, she told herself, she was pregnant, and maybe the chemicals and hormones were causing odd reactions within her body. But no. Pregnancy didn’t make women grow talons or gain enormous strength. It widened hips and swelled breasts. This had to be something else.
At last she stood, pushing herself up with her hands and expecting resistance or fatigue as she did so. But instead a strength seemed to grow within her, her body invigorated as though a new energy had grown within her and she was now ready to take on the world.
Looming about, less threatening than they had been when she’d first laid eyes upon them, were the ruins that she’d visited in the year 2014 before being taken away to the world of her alphas. The wreckage of the ancient Castle Dundurn that she’d grown to know so well in its former glory was in decay on every side of her. Here, within the crumbling walls that had once stood strong and proud, she’d been bathed by her servant, admired as a queen by many of the shifters who dwelled within, and loathed by one woman. But most gratifying and important of all, her mind and body had been worshiped by her two beautiful men, her mates, her lovers.
Unfortunately, she was almost seven hundred years away from them with no idea how to get back, and now her own world and time felt almost foreign. Wrong. She was an outsider in her own universe.
As she began to regain her composure, Gwynne noticed that her clothes were a little torn from the struggle with Kapral. She wasn’t sure whether the torn fabric was her doing or his. In the end he hadn’t put up much of a fight for a man who had once seemed so strong and vicious. But then, he wouldn’t have anticipated her new strength. She’d taken him—and herself—by surprise.
But the next attacker would know better.
Gathering her thoughts, she wandered in and out among the decaying walls where the odd wildflower poked out a colourful head between tall grasses. The beauty of the place felt suddenly isolating, as though Gwynne were stranded on an iceberg in the middle of the sea. In an era when cell phones and social media dominated the world, she had no means to contact another human being. Or even a non-human one.
What to do? Should she head down to the nearby town of Trekilling, to Mary, the proprietor of the bed and breakfast where she’d stayed, and pretend that her life hadn’t completely altered since they’d last seen one another? Or perhaps reveal that by the way, she might turn into an otherworldly creature at any moment?
No, that wouldn’t go over so well in all likelihood. It seemed that the locals already feared the folklore surrounding the ruins; no need to give them something concrete to feed into their terror. Pitchforks and torches were nothing on the sort of punishment she could expect if she revealed her secret in her own time. People owned guns now, and there were police forces to contend with rather than the odd man with a pointed stick or a sword.
A hollow pit formed within her. Gwynne had never felt so desperately alone in her life; even when her father had died she had not allowed hopelessness to set in as it did now.
“Help me,” she muttered quietly to the empty air surrounding her as she paced with no destination in mind. “Someone.”
“I told you I would,” said a warm, soft voice from behind her. “I always will.”
* * *
Trial By Fire 3
“Lachlan.”
Gwynne turned to see him before her, dressed in clothing that was slightly too large for his frame. Rauth’s garments, no doubt. She wanted more than anything to run to him, to feel his embrace. To feel protected once again.
But she couldn’t. As soon as she laid eyes on him, a strange anger began to overtake her, as though a chemical had been immediately unleashed in her veins. Though she had left him to come to this place, it was his fault. He had allowed this to happen. His silence and secrecy had been a cruel manipulation and she couldn’t show him love, as much as she might feel it deep inside. Not right now.
Lachlan was unable to help himself, though, and quickly walked to her and enfolded her in long, muscular arms. The relief at seeing her standing before him was far too great to allow him to stand idly by. It was all she could do not to squeeze him back. But she needed for him to know of her pain, and in no uncertain terms. Now.
Roughly, she placed her palms on his chest and pushed him backwards. Lachlan took several large steps as he lost his balance and then let out a joyous laugh. His Gwynne would be all right.
“So it’s really happening,” he said, smiling. “You’ve grown strong.”
“This is funny to you?” she said, gesturing to her body. “I have n
o idea what’s going on, Lachlan. What you and your partner in crime have done to me. I don’t know how I got here, let alone what’s happening inside me.”
“No, of course I don’t find it funny,” he said, approaching her with care. “I have been worried sick, frightened for you. But now I am pleased to see you looking so invigorated, so powerful, my lady. You’re changing, Gwynne. You’re coming into your own.”
“What the hell does that mean? And stop speaking to me as though your replies make some sort of sense, when you know full well that they don’t.”
“Your déor, which has been dormant until now, is making itself known. Your animal is showing itself.”
“So you’re saying I’m one of you. A shifter. Of course I suspected it but didn’t want to believe…”
The thought filled her with fear. Her future was now inextricably altered. And her life, which had been one filled with happiness and love, had changed forever.
“Not only that,” said Lachlan. “You are the shifter. The most powerful one in existence.”
“So I’m not a wolf?” Gwynne knew the answer to her own question before she spoke it. Those were no paws of a dire wolf that she’d seen in place of her hands. Her déor wasn’t even a mammal.
“No, you’re not. We had our suspicions, but there was no way to be sure until it began to happen.”
“What? What’s happening to me?”
“In all likelihood you’re becoming a drake, Gwynne. That creature is in your blood.”
“A drake? What the hell is a drake?”
“A beast of fire. A dragon, in modern or mythological terms.”
“Oh, God.” Gwynne recalled the dragon in the portrait of Gwendolyn, the one looming in the background like a mystery, an icon from an unknown past.
“Did this happen because of the ritual?” she asked, her hands moving to the sides of her head. Suddenly she felt faint.
“Yes. When you mated with us, when we…released…inside you, The empowerment began. Your body’s balance changed. Rather like a virus spreading.”
“Oh, that’s nice. So you two did give me the plague after all.” Gwynne grimaced as though in pain. It was all too much.
“A plague of the best possible kind, I suppose, if you must put it in those terms.” Lachlan reached for her hand to comfort her, but she remained still, rejecting him through her icy refusal to budge, a stubborn wall of stone surrounding her heart.
“Don’t you think that it might have been a good idea to tell me this would happen?” she asked, her voice rising. “To let me make an informed decision about my own body, my own future, before tearing me out of my own century, out of my very existence?”
“No.”
“Jesus. This isn’t time for your mysterious, concise answers, Lachlan,” Gwynne growled. “I’m so fucking angry with you, I could...” She found herself wondering what she was actually capable of.
But in that moment, she knew: she could tear him to pieces.
“I am sorry for how we handled the truth, Rauth and I,” continued Lachlan. “But if you wish for utter honesty, I didn’t know that it would happen. I had only to hope. And even then it was a distant one. When I was with Lady Gwendolyn so many years ago it didn’t take; it didn’t work. She didn’t respond as you have.”
“Wait. You were with her? You slept with her?” Gwynne knew it to be an unreasonable question; she hadn’t even existed at that time. And yet everything out of Lachlan’s mouth was causing a fury to continue building inside her.
“I was with her, yes. Briefly. But on my own, without Rauth. It’s the three of us together that seem to be the key to your change. That is the ritual, after all. The ceremony is meant to involve two males.” As a bitter pain spread over Gwynne’s features, Lachlan’s insides felt torn up, assaulted by guilt and pain of his own. “But Gwynne, you must know: in my mind you are the same woman as Gwendolyn. You speak the same way; your faces are identical, even your scent. But now you are the better version of that lady. You and she are of one body and flesh. And soul. The only difference is that you survived when she did not.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better, I suppose,” she growled. “That it’s okay because it was me you were with. Only it wasn’t me, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t, not exactly. You know that it was before I knew you. And if I could take it back, I would, Gwynne. She died, and for what? It was my fault. I live with the pain of it daily.”
Gwynne went silent for a moment then, remorseful at her coldness. But the anger was still within her, defeating other emotions, bubbling up beyond her control.
“You’re telling me that you and Rauth will be with others now—that the ceremony has to involve you two and one woman. Are you going to have sex with every woman around now, the two of you, to make them into shifting guinea pigs in your little science experiment? Will you fuck Ygrena, my servant?”
“No, of course I’m not saying that.” Now Lachlan placed hands on her shoulders, surrendering to the reality that she might punch him, or worse. “Gwynne, I would not have brought you back to our era had you not been of special blood. And before that, I wouldn’t have sent your mother forward in time; separated you from the world you should have known. You were the one we needed. From the very first, it was always you.”
“Needed for what? So I could protect your herd of horny dog-men from a bunch of flapping assholes in the sky?”
Lachlan laughed then. He couldn’t help himself. Her modern colloquialisms always amused him, even when she was seething. It was further evidence that his cwen was all right; that she was herself.
“Of course not. We need you to help us protect humans. To protect our country, our world. To keep shifters secret. So that in your time they would be a legend, a myth that had faded out of common speech rather than a truth. So that there is no reason to fear us. You were not with us when it all happened. You haven’t seen the war rage as I have.”
Gwynne spoke slowly now through clenched teeth. Nothing that her lover was saying appeased or calmed her.
“How is it, exactly, that you think a dragon shifter will help keep your kind a secret? I would assume that I’d stick out like a sore thumb. Dragons aren’t meant to exist, or have you conveniently forgotten that fact?”
“They existed in my time. Don’t forget; a lot has happened over the course of seven hundred years.”
“Yes. People have become less barbaric, less dishonest and less stupid, for one. They don’t lie to strange women in bars, lure them back to 1348 and then change them into monsters.”
“Perhaps not,” conceded Lachlan. “But Gwynne, don’t forget that you’re from my time. You were not meant to be born in the modern era.”
“No, so you tell me. And about that,” she said. “How did I get here just now? I mean, you told me I couldn’t time travel like you can. You said I couldn’t use portals.”
“That’s another aspect of what makes you exceptional,” Lachlan said, walking a few steps away from her as he spoke, his fingers outlining a stone near one of Dundurn’s intact doorways; a portal to his own time. The air before him appeared to shimmer, liquid floating, inviting his entry. Very few could use them but Lachlan had the gift, and now Gwynne had an even greater one.
“You don’t need a portal,” he said. “You will find, as your powers build, that you can move through time as few have been able to do. Even a few minutes ago when I saw you disappear I knew what had happened: you leapt on your own. Your mind led you here. But I had to run into the castle to get to you, to our own portal. You see, you have become more powerful than me, in a sense.”
“So I can go to whatever time I want? Without help?”
“Perhaps, eventually. For now, it’s likely that you’ll be limited to your era and ours; the two that your body and mind know. Your two homes.”
Homes. Gwynne thought of the word. Her home in New England was gone. And her home with Lachlan and Rauth had been turned upside down. They had lied to her. They’d ta
ken her body and used it. Was there even a home to speak of now? Her mind reeled again, thoughts combatting one another. She’d wanted this life. She’d asked them to take her body. She’d wanted them. God, why did it all have to be so confusing?
“How do I get back to Dundurn in your time?” she asked, her voice almost monotone. Her rage had come to a head and she felt almost numb. As though she wasn’t capable of further emotion.
She had no idea whether going back was an option now, or if she even wanted to.
“I’ve never been able to control my movements through time without the portals,” said Lachlan. “What you’re talking about is leaping, and few people have ever been capable of it. I have never witnessed anyone doing it, not until I watched you go. But I once knew of someone who said that it was a question of focus, much as it is to shift from your body into your déor’s.”
“Well, given that I haven’t figured out how to do that willingly either, I can’t quite imagine working out time travel.” Gwynne’s voice was filled with frustration and resentment aimed towards her new abilities. “It’s not like baking cookies, with a nice recipe and a set of instructions.”
“I can help you with your déor, at least, Gwynne. To make the transition into the life of a shifter. You may even find that you enjoy it.”
She glared at him, her eyes narrowing. Her rage frightened her, its intensity building again, far beyond the reaches of her control.
“Haven’t you done enough?” she snarled, surprised at her own tone. It reminded her of Rauth in its animalistic nature. She was like a jaguar in defensive mode, snarling at a threat. “What makes you think I want that? To change from my body, the one I’ve had all my life and am only now learning to live with and to accept? And suddenly you tell me that I can turn into a monster, a beast, and you act like I’m learning to ride a fucking bicycle and I should be happy about it because it’s a nice new experience.”
“I…” Lachlan took another step towards her and then froze, his face a mixture of pain and shock.
Sought by the Alphas Complete Boxed Set: A Paranormal Romance Serial Page 14
