Bannockburn Binding (Beloved Bloody Time)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  He leaned back against the cold rock of McLeary’s crag now and felt a silent, profound contentment. He had found many such moments in the last few months, and continued to be surprised and grateful for each of them. He had stopped looking ahead to the shadow surrounding their child’s birth.

  He was no longer the same man that had once been a captain in his cousin’s army. These long weeks with Tally and Lee and the endless conversations about the huge variety of things they had spoken of had changed him. They had changed his thoughts, broadened his mind and deepened his love in a way he had not thought possible.

  “Did you think they would not leave us alone, when we asked them to?” Tally asked. Rob was sitting close enough for her to slide her hand through his hair.

  “For as long as it suits them. You think I didn’t understand they’re just biding their time? They’re humouring a lass with child to avoid upsetting her too much. But you were telling us about Romania, Tally.”

  Tally’s past, which was somewhere in his future, lay far to the east of them, in the land she called Romania. There, she had been born, lived and been made a vampire.

  Now, as the last of the day’s sunshine warmed them, Tally’s soft, perfect voice spun more tales of wonder from the far-off land of her birth and the many places she had seen since.

  “There was a count that lived in Transylvania, to the south of us,” she said. “They called him Vlad the Impaler and over the years all sorts of stories sprung up about him being the original vampire. Which is ironic, really, as he wasn’t a vampire at all. Just a sick, in-bred aristocrat with delusions of dark power. But he added to the mystique around the vampire race and humans loved it. The movies, the books….”

  For a moment, Rob thought she had lapsed into silence as she remembered something from that time. But as the silence lengthened, he opened his eyes and sat up to look at her.

  She was sitting quite still, staring straight ahead at nothing. She looked peaceful and composed. Despite her tranquility, a cold hand clutched at Rob’s heart.

  Lee glanced at Rob, then tried to peer around at Tally’s face, too.

  “Tally,” Rob said softly.

  When she didn’t respond, Lee spoke louder. “Tally!”

  She drew in a breath and looked around, blinking. A frown etched itself between her brows. “What…? Oh.” She touched her fingertips to her temple. “Oh….” she repeated, more softly. She bit her lip.

  “What just happened, Tally?” Rob asked.

  She looked like she might cry.

  Lee wrapped his arms around her and rested his head against hers. “This is the beginning, Rob. What we warned you might happen.”

  Rob’s heart—his entire body—seemed to turn cold. “The…stasis poisoning?”

  Tally moaned and closed her eyes. It was answer enough.

  “But what happened then? You looked like you were just caught up in memories.”

  “She wasn’t,” Lee said. “It can happen this way.”

  “But you said it would be later,” Rob argued. “That the first signs would be things that happen to old people. Liver spots, wrinkles.”

  Silently, Tally held out her hand toward Rob, palm down. The back of it held two small light brown spots. Her hand shook badly.

  Then he remembered breakfast that morning. Tally had been sitting at the table with her hand flat on the tabletop, where the candlelight would fall upon it. She had been examining her hand in the light. She had seen the spots then.

  Fear wrenched at him, worse than any battle field fear he’d ever faced. Here was an enemy he couldn’t run through with his sword. “How much time?” he said. His voice was hoarse.

  She put her hand back in her lap. “I don’t know. Soon.”

  He looked at her round belly. She was large, but not near large enough. Babes born early had a devil of a time thriving, even if Morag knew a way to bring on her labour….

  He tried to find something to say. But all that would come to him was the terrifying knowledge that as long as Tally stayed, she would die.

  “Go back,” he croaked. He cleared his throat. “You have to go back. Call Nayara, your people. Go back to your time. You won’t…you won’t die there.”

  Tally turned her face into Lee’s shoulder. Lee gripped the back of Rob’s neck, hard. “She can’t go back.” His voice was low, rough. “If she goes back before the baby is born, the baby will die.”

  In all their discussions about the baby and the limitations of her time here in his world, this had never been spoken of. Rob stared at Lee, his heart threatening to creak to a stop. Soundless noise battered at his mind. “Die?” he repeated. “How could he die if she lives?”

  “When we jump back to our natural time, the symbiot emerges from stasis. As soon as it emerges from stasis, it would instantly return us to ‘normal.’ It works to keep us healthy so that it might thrive. All aging stops and any flaws in our condition are corrected. Illnesses, disease, injuries all vanish. In many ways, we stop living. We become a perfectly preserved copy of our human selves. Unchanging, unaging. Metabolism halts.” Lee paused. “Everything halts,” he finished, with a shrug.

  Rob battled to hear. To understand. He grasped the minor distinction. “It makes you healthy?” he repeated. “There’s nothing unhealthy about bearing a child. It must surely let the baby live.”

  “But no-one knows if it would,” Lee said, his grip on Rob’s neck tightening. “This has never happened before. No-one knows what would happen if Tally jumped back while still carrying the baby. She could arrive back in our time and find the baby had completely disappeared. Then there’s a good chance it would remain unchanged inside her and never be born.”

  Rob swallowed and his throat clicked dryly. “But Tally will die if you stay here.”

  “Not yet,” Tally replied, lifting her head. “And maybe I’ll live long enough to let our son be born.”

  “Maybe?” He found himself on his feet, staring down at her. “You’re dead if you stay and the baby may well be, too?”

  “It was always a gamble and one with bad odds,” Lee said softly.

  He closed his eyes, trying to find balance amidst the swirling feelings.

  “But I chose to stay, anyway,” Tally said gently.

  “And me, too,” Lee added.

  Just like that, the fury and fear was gone. Rob knelt in front of them and gently laid his hands on either side of Tally’s belly. “You stayed for the child.”

  “And you, Robert MacKenzie.” A single tear slid down her cheek, but she was smiling.

  “Then we’ll just have to make sure you live long enough to take our son to his new home,” he told her. He stood up. “I think it’s time you let Nayara and her team visit.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ryan sat at his desk, experiencing a sour rush in his body. His reaction alone brought fear.

  The vampire symbiot acted as an instant preservative, maintaining their bodies in a permanent state of perfect health, so most emotions vampires experienced weren’t felt in the body the way humans felt them. Emotions were blunted, without the sickly surges of adrenaline, the thudding of a taxed heart, or the trembling of limbs that tried to cope with the stress. But sometimes, if the emotion was strong enough, adrenaline could spike hard before the symbiot could bring things back to perfect harmony. Being unused to it, the vampire felt that spike of adrenaline every bit as strongly as a human in crisis.

  Ryan knew the reasons for the nausea he was feeling but it didn’t help him deal with it any better. He clutched at the desk and all he could do was recall the words his future self had spoken. “It’s coming,” he had said. And the one that caused the adrenaline to spike hardest. “Your love for her is doomed.”

  “I haven’t got too far into the legal history of the Agency yet,” came a male voice from the external door. “But the little I’ve already learned tells me that what you just did then is quite illegal.”

  Ryan wasn’t surprised to find Charbonneau movin
g into the room. “You were listening,” he accused, not bothering to hide the tremble in his hands.

  “The door was unlocked, but I could hear voices, so I waited. The voices were loud. It wasn’t so much that I listened, but that I couldn’t not listen. While I listened I heard the same voice from two locations inside the room. What they spoke of made me pause. The mention of the end of life as we know it tends to perk one’s interest.”

  Ryan remembered that he had sent for the man to speak about his motives for joining the agency. Laughter tugged at him. “The reasons for calling you here seem a little shallow now.”

  “So I gather.” Charbonneau moved further into the room. “What is coming, then? What makes you so afraid?”

  “Can I trust you, Frenchman?”

  “Spoken like a true Irishman.” Charbonneau pushed his hands into his pockets. “Who is the ‘she’ your visitor referred to?”

  “No one. It’s not important.”

  Charbonneau tilted his head to one side, considering him. “Nayara?” he asked softly.

  Ryan fought to hide his reaction. The prediction was still too fresh, though. He jumped as if he had been goosed.

  “Nayara,” Charbonneau repeated, confirming it. “Ah, the plot thickens.”

  Ryan pushed himself to his feet, finding energy he didn’t know he had left. The need to feed and rest was racing at him now. “I’m afraid we will have to postpone the interview. Thank you for coming.”

  Charbonneau spoke as if Ryan had not just dismissed him. “You can trust me for the same reason.”

  Ryan stared at him, his growing anger abruptly wiped away. “A woman?” he said softly.

  “One I will not speak of.” Charbonneau’s gaze would not let him go. “I think I have waited almost as long as you, Ryan Deashumhain. Perhaps even longer.”

  Ryan found it hard to look him in the eye with this sensitive revelation hanging between them. But as delicate as it was, it was a key that would let Ryan trust him. “You’re older than we think,” Ryan said.

  “I may well be,” Charbonneau agreed with a smile.

  “Later, right?”

  “Yes, later, you will understand.” Charbonneau drew himself up straighter.

  Ryan held up a hand. “I must feed soon,” he warned.

  Charbonneau studied him. “It’s just shock,” he said clinically. “The need will pass in a few moments and you’ll feel normal again. You’ll certainly have to feed in the next day or so, but you’ll last at least another twelve hours.” He smiled, one corner of his mouth lifting. “You’ll have time to apologize to Nayara before you rest.”

  Ryan pushed his hand through his hair. “I would give anything to be able to knock back a glass of whiskey, right now.”

  Charbonneau’s smile broadened. “Scotch, for me.”

  Ryan found himself smiling with the man and realized Charbonneau’s assessment was correct. The imperative demand to feed was already diminishing. “One night, when you’re ready, we should slip back to a little dive I know in New Orleans, about two hundred years ago. It serves the best damned whiskey in the universe. They keep my favourite under the bar.”

  “You go there often?” Charbonneau asked.

  “To them, I’m there every week. For me, I don’t get there often enough.”

  “What is the place called?” Charbonneau asked curiously.

  “Stress relief,” Ryan said flatly.

  Charbonneau grinned. “I could drink to that.”

  * * * * *

  Nayara crossed the room to where Rob was sitting at the table, whittling at kindling with his dirk, as he watched Tally writhing on the bed he could see through the doorway. Lee stood at the stove, staring moodily at the few flames left in the red coals.

  Morag sat on a stool by the bed, watching her ward with a worried expression.

  Nayara settled herself on the bench next to Rob’s elbow and laid her hand on his wrist. “I need to speak with you, Rob.”

  “Aye, I suspected you might.” He kept hacking at the stick in his hands. “Is she going to die?”

  “Not if we can help it.”

  He looked at her, his hands lowering. “And the babe?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Rob, I have a doctor waiting. Well, two doctors. People who are trained in healing. One of them understands human medicine. The other is—” She hesitated, aware that naming Fahmido’s specialty would prod Rob’s sensitive nerves.

  “An expert on vampires?” Rob finished for her. He grimaced. “More experts.”

  “We need them now. Natália needs them. The human doctor is an obstetrician and gynaecologist—a specialist in pregnancy and childbirth. One of the things I can arrange is for him to bring along the drugs he needs to induce Natália’s baby.”

  Lee turned to face Nayara, the first real animation he had shown all day. His eyes glittered with some unnamed emotion. “It’s too early,” he said flatly. “You can’t induce now.”

  Nayara held out her hand. “The ob-gyn says it’s risky, but not impossible. You’re just a general physician, Christian. He is one of the very best specialists in Los Angeles. If we can let him examine her…” She bit her lip. “If you will let me bring him here.”

  “To bring on the delivery?” Rob asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “Yes,” Nayara said, pleased he understood the nuances.

  “Then Tally can begin the birthing now? As soon as he gets here?” The hope in his voice was almost painful to hear.

  “If that is all right with you, Rob. The baby will be premature, but not dangerously so, not for our time, and Natália’s time grows short. The poisoning is taking her.”

  “Then of course it’s bloody well all right with me,” he growled. “D’ye think I’m so daft I’d deny them a chance to live?”

  “No,” Christian said, his voice low. “Rob, no. You don’t understand the risks.” He crouched down in front of Rob and looked him in the eye. “You have to trust me. This seems like a miracle solution to you, I know, but it’s not. There’s all sorts of dangers Nayara isn’t telling you about.”

  Nayara had caught from the edges of Tally’s mind the fact that Rob and Christian were lovers, but this was the first time she had been faced with the fact in reality. They really were lovers as well as being Tally’s lovers. Nayara could see the bond between them even though they were doing nothing more complicated than look at each other.

  It was a true ménage, then. Nayara realized she felt a tiny touch of envy. It had been at least two hundred years since she had seen a ménage relationship at work. That it was her own was the cause of the envy.

  It had always puzzled her that vampires did not naturally coalesce into more ménages than she had seen in her lifetime. It was a perfect relationship for long-lived, high-demand high-risk-living vampires. That Christian and Tally had found a human from such an ancient era to complete their ménage was quite astonishing. It meant Rob MacKenzie was a very unusual man. His mind had to be quite extraordinary to have coped with all the changes and ideas that Natália and Christian would have thrust upon him in the last few weeks.

  Rob put the dirk aside now and laid his hand on Christian’s shoulder. “It’s not our decision, Lee,” he said, his voice low and gentle. Nayara recognized the tone with a jolt. It was the tone a leader used to settle restless men before a battle with long odds. She used that tone herself.

  A very unusual man, indeed.

  “We have to ask Tally,” Rob added.

  Christian shook his head. “She can’t speak!”

  Rob’s fingers dug into Christian’s shoulder. “She can speak to you,” Rob said, his voice still low and calm.

  Christian swallowed, staring at Rob.

  “She can speak to you and you can tell me. All of us,” Rob added, glancing at Nayara.

  “You know we haven’t done that since you…since Bannockburn, don’t you?” Christian replied. “It didn’t seem fair.”

  “I know,” Rob replied. “But
now it will help us all.”

  Christian pressed his lips together. “All right.” He got to his feet and moved into the bedroom. Rob followed him in. Morag stood as the two men approached the bed, but Christian patted her shoulder and she sank down onto the stool once more, wringing her hands.

  Nayara moved over to the doorway and rested her shoulder against the frame.

  Christian settled himself on the edge of the bed and picked up Natália’s hand. Instantly, Natália’s agony-filled contortions lessened. Nayara suspect Natália was trying to hide her pain from her men so they would not be troubled. It would be just like her. But she could not hide it completely. Her body jerked and twitched as she lay on the bed, her eyes on Christian.

  Rob stood at Christian’s shoulder. “They want to bring on the birthing, Tally,” Rob said. “Lee’s against it, for medical reasons and because he’s afraid for you and the babe. I think you should get to choose. It’s you who will be taking the risks.” He rested his hand on Christian’s shoulder again. “Lee will have to explain the risks to you, because I want this to happen. I want to end your pain and I would minimize them.”

  Admiration filled Nayara for Rob’s clear-headed thinking even at such an emotional and crisis-filled time.

  “Wait,” Christian murmured. He reached toward Natália’s face, as if he were about to stroke it, then pulled back. Simply holding her hand would be causing a degree of pain. Even the slightest drag of fingertips across her flesh would be worse. Christian sat back again, his shoulder against Rob’s hip. “You’re sure, Tally?” he asked.

  She nodded, her chin moving a fraction of an inch. Her dark eyes shifted, lifting up to Rob. Her mouth curved up into a small smile, even as her eyes filled with tears.

  “Tally wants us to induce the baby,” Christian said heavily. “She doesn’t care about the risks to herself, but she wants me to monitor the baby and protect him at all costs.”

  “I bloody well care about the risks to her,” Rob returned sharply. “You do both, Lee.”

  “No.” Christian looked up at Rob. “You don’t understand, Rob. This is a patient privilege. Tally gets to decide this matter, no one else. It’s her body, her choice. If there is a life or death decision to be made at some point, that is the decision she wants made. The baby over her.”