His voice cold, he said clearly, “If your plan is to take Gwen’s life for MacWilliam’s, be warned that I will be forever done with you and your schemes. Finished. I will refuse any more assignments. If I cannot return to the moment before you take her, I will actively seek out danger, so that I may join her in the afterlife. You will not take her from me and continue to use me to your liking. This woman is mine to protect, and you will not take her from me.”
The Maiden blinked slowly. “Reilly O’Malley…are you declaring her to be your soul mate?”
The Crone smirked, but he held his reaction in check. Whatever the Fates claimed to do, they could not read minds, nor control free will. Reilly understood better than any that destiny was merely a set of paths, set out by the Fates, allowing a person to choose which direction his life will lead. One of the paths was the easy one. That path ensured a smooth road, with as few bumps as possible. A charmed life, people called it. If the person took one of the other roads, then life became longer and more difficult. Reilly had watched as people who made the right choices along the wrong path reap the rewards at the end of the tough stretches, and those rewards were all the sweeter for the trials they overcame.
He was never allowed to choose his own path…until now. Suddenly, with great clarity, he understood what his punishment would be.
He was going to choose his path, and come hell or high water, they were going to make him do it without their aid.
“Well?” the Crone demanded, crossing her arms. Her staff pointed away from them, clutched tightly in her gnarled knuckles, almost vibrating. “You took the fate of another in your hands before. You have the power to do so again. Claim your mate, and she will be spared. For now.”
He looked down again at Gwen, who had buried her face into his jacket.
He looked back at the Fates and gave a decisive nod. “Aye. I’m claiming my mate, and her name is Gwendolyn Allen.”
The Maiden nodded and the Crone lifted her staff above her head. “Be warned. She demanded we give you three weeks, so three weeks you shall have.”
The Maiden added, “Use it well. If she does not claim you as her soul mate by the twenty-eighth night, it’ll be her place in time for MacWilliam’s.”
“And if she does claim me?” Reilly challenged, though his heart was beating hard.
The Maiden smiled easily. “We’ll not reveal all our secrets so easily, warrior. But be warned, Reilly O’Malley. You shall do this without our aid. And you must not take her free will from her, either, or else our agreement is void. Do you agree to these terms?”
Reilly nodded once, tersely, and the Crone slammed her staff to the ground. The fog surged, encasing the two Fates.
The mist dissipated almost immediately, and Reilly caught Gwen as she crumpled.
Chapter Nine
The eerie-green of the lichens in twilight captured his attention first, then the impressive trunk of the tree to which it was attached. His eyes traveled up, adjusting to the fading light of day, and he saw the notches he’d placed there as a child, as he learned how to climb it. The branches, thick and sturdy, jutted out proudly, as though welcoming him home again. As was his custom, he slowly refocused his senses: first, he allowed the chill in the air to reach his skin; they’d need a fire tonight. He then attuned his ears to the sounds of the forest, listening for either the stealthy slip of an enemy’s knife from its sheath, or the welcoming song of the birds as they sang their lullabies.
A feeling of peace settled over his soul as he looked down at the small body coming to in his arms.
He drew in a deep, cleansing breath, trying to assimilate the sensation of having his past and present collide.
“What the hell…?” She glanced at him. “What are you wearing?” She glanced down at herself. “What am I wearing?”
He helped her to her feet. The deep garnet brought out the fire-red streaks of her long curls, which rained freely down her back. The strands at her temples were braided and tied together behind her head, highlighting her pixie face and vibrant green eyes.
“You are…” Struggling to find the right words, he stood to his full height, and allowed himself the pleasure of truly seeing her. “Captivating.”
She blushed prettily. “Thanks, Ry.” After a couple of seconds, she paled. “What the hell just happened to us?”
He busily checked himself for his weaponry. Thankfully, all of it seemed attached to the places he’d attached them to, so he was relatively happy about that.
He was not relatively happy about anything else.
“The Fates,” he answered succinctly. “You just met the Crone and the Maiden. Who knows where the Mother was.”
“Maiden, Mother, Crone,” Gwen whispered. “I remember that from my Greek studies class! In those stories, they never moved from a hearth, where they spent their time snipping pieces of yarn to end people’s lives.”
He let out a sigh. “It’s close enough to the reality that you don’t really want to know more.”
She finally noticed their surroundings and her eyes widened. “Um…where are we, again?”
He swore suddenly, then gave her a look of pure agony. “My bike!”
Confused, she shrugged her shoulders, as if to say, Is that really the issue at hand here?
He dragged his hands through his hair. “They better protect that bike. I love her.”
Gwen merely watched him fret about his Victory, but she didn’t know how much time and energy and money he’d sunk into that motorcycle. Love wasn’t a strong enough word.
“Reilly, I know you’re missing your baby right now, but could you please focus for a minute? I’m still a little fuzzy on the details. You know, like where the hell are we?”
“When. The better question is when are we? And I’m not entirely certain.” He patted himself down, relieved to find that though the Fates took his keys, they’d left his more practical metal. He shoved his hands through his hair; he hadn’t wanted to introduce Gwen to the less savory side of medieval Ireland, if that was indeed their time period at the moment, but he knew better than any that danger could be just behind the next tree. “Promise me you’ll never fear me, Gwen.”
She frowned. “Why would I ever fear you? Because of your unhealthy love of a machine?”
He tugged the sleeve of his tunic up, revealing a sheathed dirk tied to his forearm. “Nay. Because of this.”
He slowly tugged up his other sleeve, revealing an identical dirk. Then he showed her each thigh, each calf, and the ones tucked inside his medieval boots.
“Well,” she managed.
He would’ve like to flatter himself that her sudden short breaths were a reaction to his baring all sorts of places on his body to her, but alas, her gaze remained fixated on the various bits of steel on his person.
The Fates had certainly dressed him well for his unexpected fall through time. He was grateful they hadn’t stripped him of his knives, though he would do almost anything at the moment to feel the comforting weight of his sword against his back.
By the time he was finished revealing the various weaponry on his person, her eyes were glossy, and he worried that she would start running. But she needed to know. He needed her to understand.
“Every one of these blades has ended at least one life. A life who had tried to take mine, or the life of someone who is under my protection. There may be more lives taken with this steel, but it is never for naught. Do you understand, lass? I kill not for the sport of it, but for the survival from it. We may be in a dangerous time, and the best policy is to act first and ask questions later.”
She was about to see a side of him that she’d never seen. She might have been aware of it; his very first charge, Brianagh O’Rourke, often told him his chivalry was only a veneer to his uncivilized side.
Bri was not wrong.
Gwen’s face softened. “Reilly, fear is the exact opposite of what I feel when I’m with you. You would never hurt me, and I am so honored you would even think to pro
tect me with your weapons.”
“With my life,” he corrected her.
She smiled, though serious. “I couldn’t have asked for a better guardian, then. Thank you. I’m not scared, Ry, not with you.”
He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, and though he kept his face impassive, inside, he smiled with relief. He unsheathed his most wicked-looking dagger and held it loosely in his hand.
Couldn’t be too careful, especially as he wasn’t quite sure when they were.
“Are we near Brianagh again?”
He shook his head. “Nay. We’re about a three-days’ walk from the O’Rourke castle.” He smiled at her, allowing a bit of his dimple show. “Welcome to my other home, Gwendolyn. Looks like we’re visiting a bit sooner than even I expected.”
She started to reply, but her eyes grew large and she made incoherent noises and pointed behind him.
She didn’t need to, though. The glancing blow off his back told him all he needed to know about what stood behind him. He took a chance and trotted out his medieval Gaelic. “Truly, lad?” he asked.
“Not a lad,” the man replied, also in medieval Gaelic. “I’ll be wanting my dirk back, ye know.”
Well, there was proof enough of the general time in which the currently found himself. He had a suspicion, of course, based on his and Gwen’s clothes, but he didn’t trust the Fates. He could admit to being grateful they didn’t send him somewhere like 17th-century England, where, garbed as they were, he would’ve had to use most of his wits and all of Gwen’s charm to extricate them from a stay somewhere unsavory.
The very medieval bloke in front of him was dressed in MacDermott colors.
By the saints above, how Reilly loathed the MacDermott clan. They caused no end of unnecessary grief and annoyance to all they crossed paths with.
The man was eyeing him speculatively. “You’ll pay for walking upon my clan’s land; I’ll be taking all you’ve got.”
“All I have is what you see,” Reilly replied easily, ignoring the slight burn on his shoulder blade. “A dirk worth nothing.”
The man looked past him. “Oh, you’ve got something else, I’ll wager. You’d be an O’Malley, and I’ve never been one to trust one of your ilk. I’ll be having your weapon, and your woman there too.” He drew his sword casually. “I won’t make her scream loudly if you’ll hand her over without complaint.”
Reilly’s dagger found its mark before the man finished his sentence.
The man’s eyes opened wide, and he staggered back. He looked down at the dagger protruding from his chest, and his mouth formed a silent O before he fell over.
Quickly, Reilly yanked the knife from its resting place, cleaned the blood on the man’s tunic, and grit his teeth.
He’d wondered how he was to protect Gwen without a sword. Well, the Fates certainly gave him the opportunity to answer that question.
He pulled the sword from the dead man’s fingers, then braced himself to view the horror on Gwen’s face. Slowly, he turned.
If he thought her pale a few minutes ago, her face was now a ghostly white.
“I think I need a drink,” she whispered, then promptly fainted.
He swore, then vaulted over a log and felt her head and body for any signs of broken bones. It seemed like she’d missed hitting anything important, but she was fully unconscious.
Reilly rubbed his hand, hard, over his face, and swore again. He needed to hide the man’s body, and fast, before anyone happened upon them. He could handle one, but an entire clan? The rules were kill first, and don’t bother with questions, ever. If an O’Malley was found with what he suspected was a MacDermott, especially a dead MacDermott, his head would be removed from his shoulders without much fanfare.
He took another breath, looked heavenward for a moment, then dragged the man off into the woods. He returned swiftly, then decided the past wasn’t the place he wanted to woo Gwen.
He held out his right hand, fingers splayed, and murmured the ancient Celtic words the Fates had given him the night he swore his loyalty to them. More guttural words, long forgotten by all living beings, burst from his lips, and he quickly twisted his outstretched fingers into a tight ball, curling in from his smallest finger to his thumb, and…
Nothing.
He cursed. Did those witches strip him of his time travel ability? He and Gwen couldn’t be stuck in the past; they had too much to live for in the future.
He knew he was without aid, and that his decisions needed to be more measured now.
His instincts kicked in then, and he knew he had to get them away from the MacDermott border and closer to the O’Malley stronghold. He raced into the woods again, keeping Gwen’s unconscious form in sight, and gathered a few plants that smelled altogether revolting. He ran back to her, crushing them in his hands as he did so, then tucked them under her nose. He praised himself on not flinching too much when she vomited all over his boots.
It was going to be a long night, for certain.
• • •
Gwen blinked slowly, the sound of Reilly’s voice realigning her senses. She wiped her mouth, immediately embarrassed about losing the contents of her stomach all over Reilly’s leather boots.
She focused on them. They were not the riding boots he’d had on earlier. There were no laces to the shoes he now wore; instead, they looked like they’d been stitched out of large pieces of leather and crisscross tied, all over, with smaller straps of leather.
Ry’s words filtered to her brain, but they arrived in a different order than how he spoke them. She raised her eyes to him, still unable to process what was happening, but wanting very much to do whatever he said. He sounded anxious.
That couldn’t be right, though. Reilly was never anxious.
He was saying the words again, and she concentrated hard to understand him.
“Gwendolyn, we need to move. We’re too close to the border, and we risk discovery on unsafe land.”
She nodded, swallowing past a very dry throat, and wished for water. He understood what she needed, and he helped her up.
“We will stop by a stream a bit further on. Hurry, Gwen.”
They began walking at a pace mall walkers the world over would envy.
“Too fast,” she managed.
He shook his head. “Nay, lass, not this time. If you can’t keep up, I’ll carry you.”
Well. She didn’t care to be carried. She picked up her pace.
“Was it real, Reilly?”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand, for which she was grateful, and replied grimly, “Unfortunately, aye. I suspect he was a MacDermott. There’s a large clan war happening in this time, if we’re in the time I think we’re in, between the MacDermotts and the O’Malleys. He was going to kill me and take you.” He slid a look to her. “Your fate would’ve been worse than what was promised to Eleanor.”
Gwen felt the bile rise again; with effort, she pushed it back down. Ellie had been kidnapped in medieval Ireland, where she was almost forced to wed a very unpleasant, very forceful, and very nasty man. Ellie had been shell-shocked for quite some time after that affair, and had flashbacks every once in a while.
Gwen had enough flashbacks of her own, but she was rational enough to know that Reilly did what had to be done. Death was never easy…yet it was sometimes necessary.
It was that man’s life or Reilly’s. There was no gray area there, and, understanding the difficulty of that stark contrast, Gwen understood the necessity of it. The brutality of the times.
It wasn’t so different from her time. She’d had many dreams where she redirected that grenade back to the ones who threw it at their caravan, and she knew that, if she had been given that chance, she probably would have done just that.
Their lives, or her friends’ lives. Black and white.
“Thanks,” she finally whispered.
He nodded curtly. “Keep up, lass.”
Mentally girding her loins, as it were, she put everything ou
t of her mind and hurried onwards.
An hour or so later, after being bodily placed on a sturdy log, Gwen felt a little more like herself. She looked around and wondered if Reilly knew where they were. Imposing evergreen trees stretched toward the darkening sky above them while birds called out their goodnights to each other.
“Are we in the right place?”
Reilly began gathering twigs and fallen branches. “Depends on what you mean by the right place.”
“All right then. Are we in a safe place?”
“For the moment, aye, I believe so. In the morning, we’ll head to my mother’s cottage, see if she’s in attendance. We’ll make out plan from there.”
She propped her chin in her hands. “Okay. So, tonight, what’s next? Shelter?”
“Aye.”
“Fire?”
“Aye.”
“Anything else?”
He grunted, and she rolled her eyes. “Easy, Ry. Don’t overwhelm me with details.”
He slid her a sideways glance. “I’m merely looking out for your delicate constitution.”
She snorted. “I had a bit of a shock back there. All that walking helped clear my mind.”
He nodded briskly. “Good. We’ll also need dinner.”
“When you time travel, do you always get to choose where you’re going? And do you get there every time?”
He huffed out a laugh as he dumped some sticks in front of her. “Now I truly believe that you’re back to normal. Can we postpone the questions?”
“Nah,” she replied with a smile. “Talking helps pass the time, right?”
“Oh, aye, of course it does,” he returned dryly. “Aye, I usually end up where I want to be. I’m never off by more than a day or two, and I haven’t gotten my location wrong in more years than you’d believe. But this time, I had naught to do with when, where, or how we got here.”
“Yeah…about that. How exactly did we end up here? Why were two Fates visiting you in Mayo? And why couldn’t I hear or say anything? I didn’t like that very much.”
Falling Through Time: Mists of Fate - Book Four Page 16
