[Runes of Argyl 01.0] The Runes of Argyl Trilogy
Page 164
“Matthew! Watch out!” Lily screamed as the blade of an English sword was raised beside him, poised to sever his head. Lily watched in horror as Matthew turned from the defenseless king to his assailant, and engaged him in swordplay. While his chief bodyguard was busy in this fisticuffs, King Robert was left completely defenseless. Lily broke ranks with the other archers without thinking, and proceeded to run to his aid.
When she was only fifteen paces from the imperiled king, an English officer poised himself to run him through with the sword. Reflexively, Lily loaded her weapon, and the infantry officer met his end before he had the opportunity to smite the King…she had saved him.
At that moment, Matthew was successful in removing the head of his attacker, and the Scottish forces, seeing their King restored to the saddle of a horse, took heart and fought like wild men, smiting every Englishman within reach and forcing the forces of King Edward of England to fall back. Thanks to Lily, the day had been won, and King Robert’s throne was secure.
“Robert would go down in history as the man who unified Scotland, and legends would grow about him that only one person on that field knew—Lily. Lily, the one whose arrow had ensured that he would survive the day, had ensured that the legend would grow.”
Chapter 7
“And then what happened?” Rose asked a few three quarters of a century later.
“Matthew came over to me, and kissed me, thanking me for saving the King,” Lily answered simply.
“Wow…” Rose exclaimed softly.
“What?” Lily asked.
“You know that by doing that, you basically saved the U.S., right?”
“What?”
“Yeah…I don’t know if you remember or not, but King James the First of England—
“The guy with the Bible?”
“Yeah. Well, before he became King of England, he was known as King James VI of Scotland…he became King of England when Queen Elizabeth died.”
“Okay, so?”
“He was a grandson of some kind of Robert the Bruce’s.”
“I never thought of that,” Lily answered.
And she hadn’t. After Matthew had kissed her in the midst of the victorious Scotsmen who had officially earned their independence from England, too much had happened between Lily and Matthew that the implications of her arrow had not fully registered to Lily.
Together, they had ridden back to Culcreuch to much fanfare. The entirety of the Clan Galbraith celebrated the exploits of Matthew and the strange woman at a feast held in the dining hall of the Culcreuch Castle. A few days later, and edict came from King Robert, granting ownership of a large tract of land in the area of Stirling Castle, the title of Baron, and the right to include the motto “Friend of the King” on his personal coat of arms from then on.
Matthew had asked Lily if she would accompany him to his new home…and she had agreed. The tension between them was palpable when they had first arrived, and finally, Lily had had enough of waiting for the erstwhile gentleman to make a move, and like the 21st century woman that she was, she made a move for him.
“Matthew…what do you want from our relationship?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you want to see happen between us?”
“I—I don’t know what to say, Lily,” he answered.
“Well, if you don’t know what you want, there is no way that I can know. You need to know this, however: I have a life in my own time, and I will go back to it…unless I have a damn good reason to stay here.”
Matthew considered this for a minute, and finally asked, “What would be a good reason?”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to go.”
“Well, if you don’t want me to go, then why do you want me to stay?”
“Because in the last few weeks, I have fallen in love with you.”
“That is a damn good reason, Matthew,” Lily said, wrapping her arms around his neck, and pulling him in for a long kiss. At first, Matthew seemed unsure of himself, until Lily pushed him into one of the empty chairs, and began removing her clothes in front of him. When she stood there, wearing nothing but her undergarments, she turned to him and said, “Aren’t you going to take yours off?”
Matthew, finally realizing what Lily was saying, hastily began to remove his clothes as well. When he was completely naked, she instructed him to sit back down in one of the chairs. When he was seated comfortably on one of the velveteen chairs, she kneeled before him, lightly touching the tip of his lance with her tongue. When he let out a low moan that only Lily could hear, she giggled naughtily, making it plain that there was definitely more where that came from.
She continued this for a few minutes, waiting for Matthew to nearly burst from longing, and only then did she take him into her mouth. Slowly, with painstaking precision, she used her tongue to wet every inch if his large member. All the while, however, she was becoming more and more hungry as well, and after licking and sucking on his potency for a few minutes, she finally stopped and stood back up.
“Why did you stop?” Matthew asked in a voice that was pleading with her to resume.
“You’ll see,” she said, grinning mischievously. Slowly, so as to continue the process for as long as possible, Lily removed the last vestiges of clothing that hugged the firm curves of her body before finally standing completely naked before her lover. “Do you like what you see?” she asked in her most seductive voice.
“V—very much so,” Matthew answered, breathing in deeply the scent of her arousal which hung potent on the air. Lily turned around, exposing her rear to him, and sat, slowly taking in the inches of his dagger into her wet, quivering sheath. Her folds expanded and stretched as she learned to accommodate him, and when comfortable, she began to grind on him, slowly taking him in and out of her and relishing every amazing second of it.
Thanks to the large size of Matthew’s organ, it did not take long for Lily to feel the powerful waves of ecstasy that accompany a coming orgasm, and so she began to move faster, slamming Matthew into herself repeatedly.
“Oh my god!” she exclaimed, her eyes rolling in her head, “that feels so good!”
Matthew must have liked her vocal nature while in the throes of passion, because even through the clenching of the walls of her hollow, she could feel him stiffening as she rode and grinded on him. Finally, together, the two lovers both achieved release and collapsed on the chair, with Matthew holding her while they both fell into sleep.
***
“So…you slept with him?” Rose asked.
“Yes, of course!” Lily answered. “And we are going to get married!”
“How long do you think you were gone?” Rose asked.
“About five months…why?”
“Because in my time, you’ve only been gone for a week.”
“Wait, what?” Lily asked.
“Yeah, you weren’t even scheduled to be home until next week.”
“So you mean that I can use this necklace to stay there for a year if I want to, and still come back here every week?”
“Yeah, I would think so!” Rose answered. “Why?”
“Just because I’m living full time in 14th-century Scotland doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you, ho,” Lily answered. “I could come here and stay for a month, and the necklace could take me back so that I would only be gone from then for about five minutes if I want.”
“Seems like it!” Rose answered. “What’s your point?”
“My biggest fear about living in the past is that I have been worried about how hard it would be to keep in contact with you.”
“Well, with this necklace, you can come see me any time,” Rose said with a genuine smile.
“That’s great! Oh, I love this necklace!”
“Well, you may have control over time and space, but I have to get to work,” Rose said.
“Okay!” Lily said, standing to hug her friend. “When do you want me to come see you again?”
The two women waved at each other, and Rose drove away. Lily, on the other hand, found a secluded spot, and whispered the words tempus imperium while grasping the necklace that she still had not taken off. When the gateway appeared before her, Lily stepped through it: back to both her past and present…to her one love.
Together, she and Matthew grew to an old age and had eleven children, the oldest of which was a girl. When Lily reached an old age and was ready to die, she gave her 14th-century daughter the necklace and started the legend of the necklace, thus continuing the loop.
THE END
Touched Through Time
Samantha Leal
Copyright ©2015 by Samantha Leal. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic of mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Table of Contents
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1.
The clock on the nightstand ticked loudly in time with Ryan’s snoring. Miranda closed her eyes and tried to breathe through it, determined, somehow, no matter what, that she would relax and get to sleep. It was nearing 4:00am and this was now the sixth night in a row that she had lay awake worrying about the future and she was sick of letting it beat her. Life was really kicking her ass and now it was starting to ooze out of her pores. The stress was overpowering and she felt full of adrenaline and fear constantly.
She turned to stare at Ryan and her heart sank. Even when he was asleep and in the most vulnerable position possible, he still looked dangerous and mean. She rolled over as quietly as she could, trying to not move the mattress too much for fear of waking him. If she did, she knew what it meant. Another black eye or shouting down. She didn’t dare breathe until she was sure she had gotten away with it and then relaxed down onto her pillow and exhaled. The clock read 4:06… It had been a long night.
It hadn’t always been this way. Only months before, Miranda had been blissfully happy. She was late twenties, happy in her career and starting a relationship with a guy who was not only gorgeous, but seemed to adore her. He’d been impossible to resist when she had finally given in and accepted the opportunity to go out on a date with him, but as time passed and Ryan’s hold got stronger, the charm disappeared and made way for possessiveness, insecurity and ultimately mental abuse. Miranda was crushed, but after being the strong and confident woman she had been, she found herself slipping inside herself and becoming more and more isolated. Her friends seemed to have forgotten she existed and she found herself relying more on Ryan when really she should have been pushing him away. When he eventually turned around in the middle of an argument and socked her in the eye, it wasn’t much of a surprise. She had been expecting it and hated herself intensely for being so weak. She’d let him get away with it all and now she was stuck with him. He had moved into her apartment, and she was too scared to ask him to leave. She didn’t even know how she would broach the subject, and now, here she was tossing and turning all night, terrified of waking him because she didn’t have to nerve to evict him and move on with her life.
The job had been the last straw. She didn’t even know how it had happened, but she was on disciplinary leave from her office for misconduct. She was an assistant at a law firm and although she knew it hadn’t been her who had spoken to the press and leaked details of a certain high profile case, she was somehow in the firing line as the secretary of the acting partner… and now she had been suspended without pay whilst the investigation was ongoing. There had been no warning. She had simply been called into the boss’s office and told that she had to take her things and go home. They didn’t even ask her if she had done it or not, they just informed her that someone had provided evidence that it had been her. She still couldn’t think of who it could be, and she began to think that she had been picked at random just to take the fall for whoever was really guilty. Maybe she was just the easiest target. The day she had come home in tears and told Ryan what had happened had been one of the worst of her life. All she wanted was some guidance, support and someone to listen to how unjustly she had been treated, but Ryan snarled at her and called her a stupid bitch. She was devastated and had gone to bed crying, just wishing she was somewhere else entirely.
She knew she wasn’t going to get out of the situation by lying awake and worrying about it, but she couldn’t help it. Miranda had always been a dreamer who thought the best in everyone, and now here she was with a boyfriend who bordered on evil and someone in her midst at work who was trying to set her up and get her fired. She had always worked so hard at doing the right thing and respecting and treating people well that she thought everyone else was like her… how wrong could she get?
Ryan let out a loud snore and Miranda jumped. As he stirred, she bit her lip in fear and clamped her eyes closed tight. The last thing she could handle when she was that sleep deprived was him waking up and yelling at her.
She peeked towards the doorway and thought about the spare bedroom down the hall. Did she dare try to climb out of bed, creep down the hallway and climb into it? Maybe she would be able to switch off easier if she was alone in there… but she knew it would only lead to an argument in the morning.
You’ve really gone and got yourself in a shitty situation, she thought. Put up and shut up. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes again. There was no point in worrying. And after thinking over the disciplinary and investigation at work again she decided that when her alarm sounded the following morning, she would get up, get dressed and make her way down there to set the record straight. She had been too timid to make a fuss before now, but she was sick of being walked all over and if it was one thing she didn’t want to mess up, it was her career.
Tomorrow, she thought, tomorrow I’ll tell them they’ve got it wrong. Tomorrow, everything will be better.
2.
Ryan woke early, dressed, and left her in peace. She was glad she didn’t have to spend the morning being pleasant with him when she really just wanted him to get out of her house. She had debated on a few occasions over just changing the locks while he was out at work, but now she didn’t have an income, and she needed him there to help pay the bills. She had squandered her savings on a series of lavish vacations with her friends a year before when she was single and with no responsibilities, but now she was regretting that decision because she was trapped. Financial freedom would have meant being able to get rid of Ryan, but she found herself dependent and it hurt her pride more than ever.
She pulled on a tight suit dress and a little black jacket, slipped her feet into her black court shoes and pinned one half of her hair back over her shoulder with a little silver clip. She looked groomed and elegant and she was sure that after spending the past three years of her life working at the firm, at least one of the partners would listen to her when she told them that none of it was true. She applied her lipstick and blotted it before making her way towards the door. “No more moping around,” she said aloud, “It’s time to take back control of your life.”
One of the downfalls of living and working in a small town was that everyone seemed to know your business. As Miranda crossed the street outside of her building and made her way down towards Main Street, she saw at least five friendly faces who all seemed to want to talk to her about what had happened at work.
“So are they clearing it all up for you, Sweetheart?” one of her neighbors, Mrs. Paver asked her, “I mean of course you didn’t do it… They must know that?”
“Well, I would hope so,” she said confidently. “I’m actually just on my way over there now to discuss a few things.”
“Terrib
le business,” Mrs. Paver said as she shook her head, “I’m sure they will catch whoever is responsible.”
“Well, as long as they accept that it wasn’t me,” Miranda smiled hopefully. “Have a good day Mrs. Paver.”
She trotted off down the street, hoping she wouldn’t have another run-in with a nosy neighbor. Even though most of them were harmless, after everything that had happened with her job, she couldn’t help but feel sometimes that they were more interested in the gossip surrounding her than her actual feelings.
Her heart began to beat faster as she approached the tall modern building on the corner of Main Street. Blake & Fox Law had stood tall and proud there since they had razed and rebuilt the building in 2009. Miranda started there in 2011 and had been a dedicated and valued member of the team up until the press ran a story about one of their most notorious clients. The journalist cited a source close to the firm who had provided them with the details that were not only confidential but also unknown to many people in the firm. Sure, quite a few people would have been able to view the information about the case, especially the PAs who were working on the correspondence and providing admin support, but with Miranda being the acting partners’ number one, the blame seemed to instantly fall on her.
“You viewed all of the documents more than anyone else,” Mr. Blake had said when he’d called her into his office, “We have no choice but to suspend you without pay pending an investigation.”
“But I didn’t do this,” Miranda had pleaded, “You know this isn’t me!”
“I’m sorry, but we can’t discuss this any further.” He had shown her the door, and she had left dumbfounded. That had been a week ago and now she was sick of being in the dark. She needed answers and she wasn’t going to be brushed off again.