Which was why Leviathan was here. From what Marek had been able to deduce, it had something to do with a mysterious goddess. Perhaps the one protecting his Broun.
“Destiny has to be Chara, right?” he muttered to himself. He grabbed some meat and followed Leviathan outside. “’Tis all that makes sense.”
Destiny was one of two Broun lasses left, and he was the only one remaining with MacLomain blood. There was still the lass named Alyssa, but it couldn’t be her based on what he’d heard. Not only was her physical description wrong, but evidently, she was drab and lacking personality.
Both of which were the opposite of his Chara.
“You will know soon enough who your destined Broun is,” Leviathan replied, as evasive as ever.
Not for the first time, he sensed the Viking knew precisely who Marek’s Broun was.
“Why not just tell me who she is?” he prompted. “’Tis clear ye know which Broun is meant for me.”
“Whether I do or don’t, it’s not for me to tell,” Leviathan replied. “My role is to assist you in any way I can.”
“Which some might say would be to tell me who she is,” Marek replied dryly, eyeing the Viking, curious what he was all about. “Aye, ye might be here to assist me, but that isnae the only reason for yer presence. Ye’re also here to help the mysterious ‘her’ ye referred to on Ethyn and Ciara’s adventure.” He considered his newfound friend. “The lass ye claimed all hope wasnae lost for?”
As usual, Leviathan went silent when Marek brought this up. Almost as if it bothered him more than he let on. As if the lass at the heart of the statement truly troubled him.
“If ye willnae talk about her, then mayhap tell me how ye intend to protect my Broun if I become possessed around her?” he inquired. “Are ye prepared to kill me? For I get the sense, I will fight until the end.”
Truth told, Leviathan was the only one he trusted to get the job done. He had both the skill and lack of personal connection to Marek. When traveling with his kin and their Brouns, Marek had asked Cray to do so, if need be, but knew his brother didn’t have it in him. They were far too close.
“I will do what I must,” Leviathan assured, glancing at the sword attached to Marek’s back. “As will you.”
He nodded, understanding that whatever happened, the Viking sword he now carried was likely his only hope. Ironically, the blade was given to Tiernan by the very same dragon who appointed Leviathan mentor to his descendants. A sword that had thus far aided the MacLomains against the Brotherhood.
It turned out Leviathan was right about it being time to go to the twenty-first century because, for the first time since Marek had started becoming randomly possessed, the ley-lines carried them there. Ley-lines that seemed pre-destined to lead him and his kin where they were meant to go on their adventures.
One moment they were walking through Scottish woodland, the next they were at the Stonehenge in New Hampshire. Snow fell, and wind blew, but it all seemed to fade away when his gaze locked on the sacrificial stone in front of him.
“I’ve been here before,” he whispered. “So, how did I never see it?”
Leviathan looked from the stone to him. “See what?”
“That stone.” Marek shook his head, not understanding. “’Tis the one.” He looked in the direction of the colonial with excitement, positive now that Chara was here. “’Tis the verra stone I met my mate in front of when she was but a wee lassie.”
Chapter Two
“HE’S HERE,” ALYSSA whispered. She dropped the sponge she’d been washing the dishes with and stared out the window over the sink. “Marek’s here...I can feel him.”
“I know.” Destiny joined her and peered out at the snowy woodland beyond the old barn in the direction of the Stonehenge. “I warned you it wouldn’t be much longer.” There was no missing the frustration in her voice. “That I was losing control.”
“You can’t blame yourself.” She looked at her friend, never more grateful to anyone. “You’ve done so much. More than most would.”
“And I would do it again and again.” Destiny rested her hand on Alyssa’s shoulder in comfort. “Are you ready, sweetie?” She looked at Alyssa with concern. “Really, truly ready?”
“I am.” She nodded, trying to sound surer than she felt. “Marek will keep me safe just like he always said he would.” She stood up a little straighter, determined. “And I’ll keep him safe if it’s the last thing I do.”
How she wished they were back at the beginning, just meeting for the first time, still that innocent little boy and girl. That they still had all their wonderful dreams ahead rather than this terrible darkness closing in.
Her thoughts returned to one of the many times they met within their dreams.
She was seven, and he nine.
“Lasses can protect lads, I suppose,” he had conceded, puffing up a little. “Though it really is best we braw laddies protect ye wee lasses. Especially we dragons.”
Though they hadn’t figured out much in the two years they’d known each other, they had at least established that she was from the future rather than just a figment of his imagination. While Marek had grown some since they met, he was still rather skinny. She didn’t have the heart to tell him, though.
“I’m sure you could protect me just fine,” she’d replied as they headed down to their favorite waterfall. A unique location where water poured down a mountain into a cave ceiling crevice above a pond.
“I don’t see why I can’t protect you too, though,” she had gone on. “I hear girls are every bit as strong as boys and often smarter too.”
“Smarter?” Marek thought about that. “My ma and grandma are rather smart, but I dinnae know if they’re smarter than their dragon mates. My da and grandda are fierce.”
“I don’t think fierce and smart are the same thing,” she’d pointed out, chuckling.
“They’re fiercely smart,” he’d corrected, looking at her as though she should have understood where he was coming from. Then, as he always did the rare times she smiled or laughed, he tried to make her smile more. “I think mayhap ye're fiercely smart too.”
“Why?”
“Because ye figured out ye werenae a figment of my imagination,” he reminded, quite impressed. “Which means ye verra well could be my destined Broun.”
“I know you’ll do whatever you can to keep Marek safe,” Destiny said, pulling her from the memory. She looked out the window again, troubled. “I’m just worried it might come at too high a cost.”
“The highest cost would be him no longer existing,” she said softly. “My life means nothing compared to that.”
Destiny sighed but left it alone, fully aware this was a no-win conversation. “Then, we must...”
Alyssa frowned, alarmed when her friend’s eyes narrowed, and her magic sparked. “What is it?”
“Another is with Marek.”
She prayed it wasn't a member of the Brotherhood. “Who?”
“A Viking.” Destiny’s eyes glowed for a moment. “Who’s not all Viking.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” Destiny rolled her shoulders as though relieving sudden tension. “He has a strange feel about him though...as if not entirely of this world.”
“They’re here.” She looked from the handsome, albeit fierce Viking with his dark, brooding looks to Marek when he appeared out of the woodland. Her heart leapt into her throat. “He’s here.”
It had been too long since she last saw him in a dream. So long that the sight of him made tears well. Though she knew he’d grown up into a truly handsome man with black hair and chiseled features, to see him in reality made her breath catch. Tall, broad-shouldered, and well-muscled, he was everything he swore he’d someday be.
“Should we?” she stuttered, looking at herself. “Should I?” She frowned and looked at Destiny. “Should you?”
“No.” Destiny shook her head, understanding Alyssa’s concern. “We should look as we
are for now. Until I know you’re out of immediate danger.”
She nodded, wishing it didn’t have to be this way. That she could race into Marek’s arms and tell him who she really was. That they had finally, at long last, found one another beyond their dreams.
“Here.” Destiny pressed the hilt of a dagger into her hand. “It’s not much, but it’s something. Sit at the table and keep it hidden underneath on your lap, okay?”
“But—”
“No buts.” Destiny made her sit, never more serious when her eyes met Alyssa’s. “Sit and do what you’ve done all along. Say very little and fade into the background. Do you understand?”
When Alyssa didn’t answer right away, Destiny repeated herself, grinding out each word. “Do. You. Understand?” She shook her head. “This is too important. You are too important.”
“I do.” She nodded, trying her best to contain her excitement. “I will.”
While it was one thing to act boring and mousy with her fellow Brouns, it was another altogether to act that way around Marek. After all, he was the one who first pulled her out of her shell. Who made her smile and laugh and feel alive.
She struggled to breathe when a knock came at the door, and Destiny answered it. How was she ever going to do this? How was she going to act the part? It had been hard enough running out of here every time Marek or his brother showed up, but this was truly going to test her.
“What are you?” Destiny asked, just beyond sight, no doubt speaking to the Viking. “Why are you here?”
Alyssa heard his response but wasn’t sure what to make of it. He was something called an ‘Ancient’ from Scandinavia and here to help?
Though desperate to join Destiny and see Marek, maybe even touch him for the first time, she stayed put while her friend conversed with the Viking. What seemed liked hours later but was likely less than a minute, Destiny finally let them in.
“This is Alyssa,” Destiny said to the men as they entered the kitchen. “Alyssa, this is Marek and Leviathan.”
“Hi,” she squeaked, then stopped breathing when Marek’s eyes narrowed on her. His gaze lingered in confusion before he nodded hello, then looked at Destiny again. Meanwhile, not surprisingly, considering her stunning beauty, the tribal looking Viking never took his gaze off her friend.
“This is to be expected,” Destiny said telepathically when she felt Alyssa’s crushing let-down at Marek not somehow recognizing her. “He looks my way because I’m so much a part of you. Don’t forget that, okay?”
“I just thought maybe he’d see past your magic,” she replied. “That our love was strong enough that he’d recognize me no matter what.”
“Whisky before we chat?” Destiny perked a brow at the men, not intimated by their sheer sizes or various weapons. But then why would she be? She could probably down them both with the flick of her little finger.
“Aye.” Marek frowned at Destiny. “You’ve a lot of explaining to do, lass.” His gaze returned to Alyssa and lingered a moment longer this time, almost as if he recognized her. Rather than smile as if he’d figured it out, his frown deepened. “Namely how the two of you have avoided everyone not once but twice now.” He gestured at their hands. “More than that, why you’re both wearing a Claddagh ring when there’s only one Maclomain left who can possibly be your mate.”
Alyssa noticed that, as he eventually did in their dreams, Marek said ‘you’ instead of ‘ye’ to make it easier for her to follow. She also noticed that Leviathan had angled himself in such a way that Marek could only get so close to her and Destiny. Which meant things were progressing quickly. Marek was becoming more and more dangerous to everyone around him. Especially to her, or so she'd been told.
She refused to believe it, though.
He was her Marek. Her best friend and one true love. Determined to remind him of that, to show everyone he'd never hurt her, she did the opposite of what Destiny had requested. She set aside the blade and tried to pass Leviathan if only to walk by Marek. If only to stand close to him just once.
Before she could, Leviathan and Destiny blocked her, clearly surprising each other.
“What is this?” Marek frowned at them in confusion before his gorgeous light gray eyes flecked with blue narrowed on her. “Why are they stopping you?” As if for a moment, he saw her clearly, he blinked several times before he shook his head. “And where the bloody hell is Chara?”
She nearly said, “Right here,” but bit her tongue. If she told him, there was no way to know what would happen next. How protected they would be from the Brotherhood if even part of her identity was revealed.
“I saw Chara’s stone at the Stonehenge,” Marek went on. “So I know she’s here.”
He tried to step around Destiny and Leviathan, only for them to block him. They glanced at each other uneasily but didn’t let up.
“’Twas the verra stone Chara appeared beside in my dream when she was but a wee lassie,” Marek continued. His gaze was firmly locked on Alyssa now, as though his mind could see what his eyes couldn’t. “The stone that made her so sad.”
“It was an awful stone,” she whispered before she could stop herself. She never took her eyes off him. “But you made it into something else...you made it better.”
“Damn it,” Destiny cursed, her eyes suddenly aglow as if she were overwhelmed by something. Fighting something.
The ground trembled like an earthquake.
“Run, Chara!” her friend roared like Marek once did. “Run before it’s too late!”
But just as she knew it would be, ‘too late,’ had already come and gone.
Chapter Three
THOUGH EVERYTHING INSIDE Marek screamed that he race in the opposite direction, that he let her get away, no, urge her to, he just couldn't. Not now that he’d locked eyes on her for the first time beyond a dream.
The closer he had drawn to the colonial, the more certain he’d become Chara was here. Yet, when he walked in, neither woman looked like her. Not precisely anyway. Where Destiny possessed his lass’s vibrant beauty on the outside, Alyssa, despite her obvious façade, felt more like his lass. There was no other way to describe it other than to say for all her mousy personality, she felt like Chara had in a way that wasn’t obvious.
Now, as he fought Leviathan to get to Alyssa, who wasn’t running but standing her ground, he knew something was suddenly off within him. Something sinister was trying to take hold. Or so he thought until Leviathan managed to dislodge Marek’s sword. Fast, so fast he barely saw it coming, the Viking punched him hard, and he hit the floor.
He blinked, trying to focus, but everything faded, and he once again dreamt.
“Marek, are you coming?” Chara called over her shoulder, racing through the woodland ahead of him. She was eleven, and he, thirteen. “If you don’t hurry up, I’m going to beat you!”
“Och, never!” He raced after her, but as always, slowed just enough to keep even as they barreled toward the waterfall. She got to the cave’s ceiling first and leapt into the crevice right before he dove in after her.
When she burst up from underwater moments before him, laughing, her golden eyes seemed to sparkle. Some might say because of the way the sun cut down through the crevice, but he knew better. It was her inner magic shining when she was happy. Because she definitely possessed magic no matter how shrouded it often seemed.
“I thought maybe you wouldn’t come this time.” She kept smiling at him. “I’m glad you did, though.”
“Why would I not come?” He couldn’t help but smile in return. “Ye’re in my dream.”
“Or,” she shrugged a shoulder and sat on a rock ledge at the edge of the pond, “you’re in mine.”
She had decided about a year before that such was a distinct possibility.
“Why would we be in Scotland, though?” he countered as always, sitting beside her. “And why, again, did ye think I wouldnae come?”
“Because you’re changing.” She pouted before eyeing him with amusement.
“You keep getting taller and taller, and you’re just...changing.” She deepened her voice a little. “And you sound funny.”
“’Tis because I’m becoming a man,” he provided, wondering what she made of that. “Just wait. Like I've often said, someday I will be tall and mighty.” He cocked his head, still wondering about what else she’d said. “What does any of this have to do with me not coming to meet with ye?”
“It has everything to do with it.” She rolled her eyes and gave him a pointed look. “Pretty soon, you’re going to want to smile and hold hands with a girl, then, you know.”
He cocked the corner of his mouth, knowing far more than he did at seven. “Aye, make bairns.”
Chara sighed and shrugged, seeing no hope for it. “So, it’s only a matter of time before you don’t want to play anymore.” She made a face like it was disgusting. “All for some girl who wants to hold hands.”
“Nay.” Marek shook his head. “I told ye long ago ‘twould be ye I hold hands and smile with, Chara. That ‘twould be ye who becomes my mate.” He shrugged. “So there’s nothing to worry about. I will always come and play until we hold hands and smile, then make wee bairns.”
She bit her lower lip as if holding back a giggle before her eyes rounded on his forearm. “What’s that?”
“What is what?” He looked to where she gestured only to spy a small mark. “I dinnae know. ‘Twas not there before.”
“It looks like two words.” She peered closer. “I think it says...”
“Wake up,” a voice cut into his dream. “Wake up because we don’t have much time.”
This go around, Marek didn’t wake up swinging at Leviathan but awoke rather calmly only to find himself sitting in a chair in the colonial’s living room. A fire crackled on the hearth, and the wind howled outside. More noticeably, though, whatever had tried to take ahold of him was gone. That didn’t stop the panic when he recalled what had happened. How he’d nearly been possessed right here in this very house before the Viking knocked him out.
A Scot's Retribution (The MacLomain Series: End of an Era Book 5) Page 2
