Love Beyond Destiny

by Bethany Claire

  For months, I’d been helping Marcus in his search to help Freya in whatever way I could. There was no way I was going to miss out on them finding out if there was still reason to hope or not.

  “I’ll feel better. I’m not letting you guys go without me.”

  Chapter 23

  No one breathed when Marcus and Brachan used their magic to open Freya’s casket. She lay buried in a secluded corner of the castle grounds in a place where no one ever went, surrounded by trees. As long as she remained in the garden, where the people who loved her could see her and speak to her, her grave was no different than any other.

  “I don’t think I can look. If she’s not…if she’s…” Marcus couldn’t even bring himself to say the words. I was quite certain I wouldn’t be able to stomach the sight of Freya’s skeleton, either, so I was grateful when Brachan reached out and placed a hand on Marcus’ shoulder.

  “Doona worry. I know what Freya means to ye. I’ll look.”

  I reached for Marcus’ hand, and we waited in silence as Brachan peered into her simple wooden casket in the moonlight.

  “Christ, Nicol is a lucky man. She is even more gorgeous in the flesh.”

  Marcus nearly collapsed into me with relief as I moved to wrap both arms around him. “She’s whole?”

  Brachan smiled. “Aye, come and see, ’tis as I expected.”

  With the fear about what we might see inside the casket now gone, we walked over to look inside together.

  “She looks like Snow White.”

  Marcus laughed as he nodded in agreement. “She really does. Now, let’s close this up and bury her again before Nicol decides to make his way back to the castle. He’d kill us if he saw what we were doing.”

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt such pure hope. “It means we can save her.”

  I looked over at Marcus and Brachan to see them exchanging a concerning glance that I couldn’t quite understand, but Marcus spoke before I had a chance to inquire what it was about.

  “This is a start, at least. At least there is now a real chance.”

  March 1652

  * * *

  For at least the fifteenth time that day, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t Olivia’s mother, and I couldn’t be as overbearing and protective as every instinct in my body was screaming at me to be.

  After two and a half months of endless flirting at every meal, Jimmie had finally gathered up enough nerve to ask Olivia to accompany him on—hold your breath—a walk.

  It wasn’t that I was worried about Jimmie’s behavior toward Olivia. I was actually quite impressed with everything that I’d seen from him. He was incredibly kind and attentive and seemed to be so grateful to Marcus and Brachan for bringing him here that his willingness to help with anything and everything that had to do with the two men was almost annoying.

  No, Jimmie would be the perfect gentleman. I imagined the most scandalous thing he would do to her was attempt to hold her hand, and I actually highly doubted that he would even work up the nerve to do that. Instead, I was worried about Olivia.

  I remembered all too well what it felt like to be twenty, and Olivia was so much more green than I’d ever dreamed of being. It was too easy to get swept up in any emotion that made you feel alive at that age. It wouldn’t take much for her to fall head over heels for just about anyone.

  “A walk, Silva! ’Tis what men ask lassies to do when they mean to court them. I know he likes me. I’ve kenned that for months now, but I dinna think he ever intended to do anything about it. Are ye sure I look all right?”

  I knew better than to say what I actually thought. She looked rather ridiculous. She had on her best dress, one so full on the bottom that it would drag the ground gathering up leaves like a vacuum cleaner. But she insisted that she felt most beautiful in this dress above all others and so I simply smiled and pulled her into a hug.

  “You look beautiful.” I hesitated, but then decide I couldn’t help just saying one tiny thing. “Liv…”

  She immediately held up a hand to stop me. “Only say something if ye intend to do so as my sister.”

  I could do that. I could say exactly what I wanted to, but in a sisterly way, surely.

  “That’s exactly what I want to do. All I was going to say is that you must remember that you are the most important person in the relationship, okay? This early on, you are the only person you should worry about. You’re trying to figure out if he would add any value to your life, not trying to convince him of the value you would bring to his—that should already be apparent. You’re test-driving the car, not him, okay?”

  She scrunched her brows together and looked at me like I’d just sprouted another eye. “What are ye talking about? I couldna make sense of any of that, but it all sounds rather self-important.”

  Admittedly, it was, but I’d found that at least for the first few months of a relationship, selfishness was vital.

  I sighed and tried to swallow the panic that rose up any time I thought about Olivia and love. “All I’m saying is, don’t get swept away. Don’t lose your head, okay?”

  Olivia laughed and pulled me into a hug that reeked of sympathy. “Have ye considered that mayhap ye hang on to yer own head a little too tightly, Silva? Marcus has been saintlike in his patience with ye. Ye already know what a good man he is, but ye are keeping him at a distance all the same.”

  I didn’t see it that way at all. “We’re just taking our time, Liv. Neither one of us is in any hurry.”

  She pulled away and crossed her arms at me. “Yer certainly not, but I promise ye he’s ready to repeat the events ye shared with him near on a year ago.”

  I blushed. “Hey now, who is trying to give whom advice here? You’re the one about to go out on your very first date.”

  “Ye are attempting to give advice, but I doona need it. The reason ye are so worried about me losing my head is because ye know ye are far more prone to such behavior than I am. I know I’m young, but I’m more sensible than ye’ve ever believed me to be. Open yer heart just a little. Have a bit of fun. Lose yer head. ’Tis my advice to ye.”

  There was a knock on Liv’s cabin door. Her date had arrived.

  As I watched her leave, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d just been schooled by my little sister, rather than the other way around.

  Chapter 24

  May 1652

  * * *

  Normally, journaling helped him. He cherished the way putting his thoughts down on paper helped things become more clear, but lately even that did nothing to relieve the stress that seemed to be mounting in everyone around the castle.

  Nicol had been away for months. No one knew where he’d gone, but every few weeks they would receive a letter letting them know he was alive. His absence had sent Machara into a tailspin. While their captive faerie wasn’t truly capable of love, every horrible thing she’d ever done was out of her obsession with Nicol. The fact that she could no longer sense him enraged her. As she raged, she weakened, and with her failing, Freya was now only visible for a few nights each week. Once she’d even been gone for three whole nights, and everyone in the castle had begun to despair that she was truly gone.

  It would kill Nicol if he returned to find that Freya had gone to meet her final death without him being able to say goodbye.

  To make matters worse, their continued search for anyone with powers stronger than their own—including Ross—had been unfruitful. Even Raudrich, who’d reached out to Sydney for help in the twenty-first century, had turned up nothing. She’d made the trip to Morna and Jerry’s to ask for the old witch’s help, only to find that they’d gone on an extended vacation to Australia and wouldn’t be back until September.

  Marcus sighed as he threw his quill across the old library before standing to run his hands over his face. He needed a shift, something to give him hope that things were capable of changing.

  Even his relationship with Silva seemed to be at a standstill. He was crazy about her. Every day
, she took ownership of a bit more of his heart, but he was under no illusion that he’d been so successful in laying claim to hers.

  They spent time together every day. They would kiss and cuddle and laugh, but there was something about the way she held herself around him that told him she wasn’t ready for more. Each night, he would bid her goodnight and retreat back to his room inside the castle.

  His dreams were filled with his need to bury himself inside her.

  “You look like hell.”

  Marcus pulled his hands away from his face to see Laurel enter the library. He opened his arms to her on reflex.

  “I feel like hell. This has not been the best of weeks.”

  He relaxed a little as his best friend’s arms wove around him and she squeezed tight.

  “It’s been a stressful few months, and it’s time for you to tell me what’s been going on.”

  He was certain she meant with Silva.

  “Laurel, you know I love you, but I just don’t feel comfortable discussing my girlfriend with you. You two have become quite good friends, too. It just doesn’t seem right.”

  Laurel stepped away and moved to sit down at the table next to his journal. He hurried to slam it shut.

  “I don’t mean with you and Silva. I want to know what you, Brachan, and my husband have been trying to do these last few months. For the life of me, I will never understand why everyone sees the need to be so secretive around here. And why do you guys never involve the only people that every history book written about this place says will be the ones to end this—the women?”

  Marcus shuddered at Laurel’s assumption.

  “Is that what you think I’m trying to do? It has never been my intention to be secretive. I just don’t know if what we’re trying to do is ever going to be possible, and I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up until I knew for sure if it was.”

  Laurel said nothing as she stared him down. He knew she wasn’t going to let him out of her sight without a thorough explanation.

  “I’m trying to save Freya.”

  Still, Laurel said nothing.

  “We’ve learned that it might be possible. If we can find someone with druid power far stronger than any of our own.”

  Marcus could see the moment Laurel’s wheels began to spin in her mind. It instantly made him wonder why he’d not been speaking with her about this all along.

  “Are you saying that it’s possible for someone like you guys to possess enough power that they could break Freya’s tie to Machara before Machara is actually defeated?”

  He sighed and collapsed into the chair next to Laurel’s. “No. But if he was here at the moment Machara was defeated, he could free Freya then.”

  Laurel bit at her lower lip as she nodded.

  “So, all of this is moot until each of us nine women have played our part?”

  He nodded. “Yes, and I have no idea what to do about it. I guess I keep hoping that if we find a druid with enough power, he will know of a loophole around it—that he will be able to free Freya before she disappears into nothing even if the remaining women haven’t yet played their part in Machara’s demise.”

  Laurel made a clucking noise with her tongue as she drummed her fingers on the table in thought before speaking. “How likely is that?”

  “Not very.”

  “So what has to happen? Let’s talk it through.”

  He smiled at Laurel’s matter-of-fact attitude about it all. “I don’t know. We know that nine women have to defeat Machara, but there’s no way for us to know who they are. Obviously we know two of them were you and Kate, but who else? I’m afraid that if we use magic to find them, it will ruin everything. It has to be mortal women—we can’t interfere with magic. I guess we just have to wait until seven more women show up here.”

  Laurel shook her head and looked at him with an expression he recognized keenly as disappointment.

  “Six more women. Surely, you’ve already decided that Silva is one of us. But that’s beside the point right now. What if this druid—whenever you find him—can’t free Freya without Machara being defeated? It could take another decade for six more women to show up here. Freya—if recent weeks are any indication—doesn’t have that kind of time. We have to figure out another way.”

  He appreciated Laurel’s determination, but as far as he could see, their hands were tied.

  “I wish there was one, but I already told you, we can’t use magic.”

  Laurel smiled and pushed herself away from the table. “We don’t need magic, Marcus. Don’t you remember how much Kate studied all of this before she came here? She was able to figure out that we were both supposed to be here by the clues in all that she found to read.”

  “I’ve read every book in this library. Nothing has helped.”

  Laurel shook her head in dismay. “Obviously. These books wouldn’t help, would they? How would the books written in this time give clues about the women who are supposed to come here in the future? The answer is they wouldn’t. We need the books from the future. The ones Kate read and studied at my apartment.”

  “And how do you suggest we go about getting those?”

  Laurel smiled. “Isn’t it obvious? It’s time for you to make a trip back to Boston.”

  Chapter 25

  “Has the gardenia angered ye, or is there something else that troubles ye?”

  I jumped at the sound of Freya’s voice behind me. Dropping the small set of shears in my hands, I turned toward her voice and held back the tears that threatened to spill at the sight of her.

  “Ach, I can tell by yer face that it has been some time again, aye? How long was I gone this time?”

  Brushing the soil from my hands, I stood and followed her over to one of the garden’s many benches.

  “Just two nights this time. Still too long.”

  “Aye. If only we had known such an extended absence from Nicol would weaken Machara so. Mayhap we should have sent him away a long time ago.”

  I frowned as I lowered myself next to her. “Don’t say that. No one is ready for you to go.”

  She smiled sadly. “O’course not. I am not ready for it, either, but my time shoulda been the moment Machara killed me.”

  I desperately wanted to tell her what we were trying to do for her. Part of me believed that if we could just give her some hope it might allow her to hang on, but I knew how dangerous false hope could be. So I said nothing. It didn’t take long for her to change the subject.

  “What is on yer mind, lass? I doona believe ’twas me ye were thinking of when I spotted ye.”

  There was no reason to lie to her. I knew if anyone could give me advice, it was Freya. She was the castle’s unofficial shrink.

  “I think I’m allowing my fear to screw up something really special.”

  Freya didn’t miss a beat. “Ye mean with Marcus?”

  “Yes.”

  She reached out to lay her hand upon my own, but I felt nothing as I watched her ghostly hand lower to mine.

  “I’ve seen the way he looks at ye. I’ve seen the way the two of ye are together, and I see nothing amiss. Just what is it that ye believe ye are destroying?”

  I sighed as I thought back on each night Marcus dutifully left my cabin, never asking or pushing me to let him stay. I wanted him to. My dreams each night after he left were indication of that, but something stopped me every time I thought about pulling him back inside with me.

  “It’s been months, Freya. Months. And we’ve not been…” I hesitated, unsure of whether such conversation would make her uncomfortable.

  “Ye havena tupped?”

  I laughed at her frankness. “Well…yes, exactly. It’s not him. I feel quite sure he would have done so anytime, but I’ve been pretty clearly closed off to it.”

  Freya smiled and shifted so she could look at me straight on. “I doona pretend to know much of such matters. Nicol is the only man I’ve ever been with, and it has been so long since I felt his touch, I am not so
sure I remember what ’tis like. But it seems only natural to me that ye would be hesitant to be with another after losing yer husband.”

  I looked down as I spoke. “But you see, Marcus and I actually have already been together.”

  “Aye.”

  I jerked my head up in surprise. “You know?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “Doona worry. Marcus said nothing, but ye are the woman from the night of Raudrich and Laurel’s wedding, aye?”

  “Yes. So you see why I’m so confused. I have dreamt about our night together more times than I care to admit. Why, then, am I so hesitant to repeat something that’s already been done?”

  Freya lowered her chin and looked up at me from underneath her lashes as if to say that it should’ve been blindingly obvious to me.

  “Ye dinna love Marcus then, but ye are deeply in love with him now.”

  I knew she was right. I covered my face with my hands and groaned.

  “What are ye thinking, lass?”

  “It feels so different than before, Freya.”

  Her gaze was entirely patient as she gently prodded me into telling her more. “How do ye mean?”

  “Before Ross came into my life, I was very practical in relationships. I took my time. I took care of myself. I always preferred it if the man was far more into me than I was him. I dated guys, but I never loved any of them. Ross changed all that.

  “In a single instant, all of my resolve went out the window. He consumed me, and I was happy to let him do so. I loved him quickly and deeply, in a way that always felt dangerous, but I was powerless to stop myself from falling for him. It was as if in the course of a month, the person I’d been before Ross was gone. His love changed me that quickly. And when he left me, it shattered everything.”

  I realized as I finished that it was at least some progress that I didn’t break down in tears when I spoke about him. It was the first time since the new year that I’d mentioned his name.