Curse Breaker (Phoenix Throne Book 7): A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance

by Heather Walker

  Alexis couldn’t pretend it was all a dream if that house burned down. It all really happened. If that was true, which world was real? Was this house, this couch, and everything about this world a dream instead?

  Her mother set the magazine aside and trained her mascara eyes on Alexis. “I certainly hope the distraction you mentioned wasn’t a boy.”

  Alexis jumped. “What?”

  “Have you thought about protection, darling? I know you’re at the age when you want to experiment, and you’ve always been so cautious. I hate to think of you breaking out of your shell and having a bad experience. There are a lot of nice guys in the world, but it only takes one night, and then you’re stuck with the consequences.”

  Alexis gasped. “Mother!”

  “It’s true,” her mother replied. “What are you using for birth control? I mean, how do you know you didn’t get pregnant on that little trip of yours?”

  “I am not pregnant!” Alexis cried.

  “How do you know?” her mother asked. “When was your last period?”

  Alexis shot off the couch. “We are NOT talking about my periods, and I am NOT pregnant! I can’t believe you would start interrogating me when I just walked in the door.”

  “Now honey,” her mother chided. “I’m just concerned about you. You’ve never disappeared like that before, and now you show up run down and acting strangely. It’s just a mother’s instinct that something isn’t right.”

  “Everything’s fine!” Alexis snapped. “I’m just tired. I’m going to lie down. I’ll see you later.”

  She raced out of the room, rushing down the hall to her old bedroom. She knew she would find it exactly the way she left it the last time she was home. Her parents would never change it.

  She shut the door and lay down on the bed. The sheets and blankets even smelled the same. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t think about possibly getting pregnant from a one-night stand with Christie McLean. That was out of the question.

  She ran through all the possibilities. She couldn’t be pregnant, and it wasn’t just wishful thinking. She counted off the days since her last period. She was three weeks from her last cycle when she spent the night with Christie. She was long past her fertility zone, and she was due to get her period any day now.

  No, she couldn’t be pregnant. She thought of that before she ever slept with him. She wouldn’t have slept with him without protection if she hadn’t been certain she couldn’t get pregnant from him. That would be her worst nightmare.

  She tried to slow her breathing down, but too many questions crowded into her mind. What was she going to do with herself, now that she was home? Her mother was right. Alexis couldn’t put off speaking to the detective about the fire. How would she explain it?

  That was one good thing about the version of Scotland she just left. She didn’t have to explain the spell to anybody. People like Kincaid already understood. It was normal to them.

  She had to adjust to this world all over again. She did just fine before she ever knew she was Faery. She understood this world. Now that she knew something else could exist, this world of concrete and glass no longer made sense. No one on the planet would believe what she’d experienced and seen with her own eyes.

  In a way, she ached for that other world. She ached for James Stewart to tell her everything was going to be okay. She yearned for Ivy and Grace. They understood. They spoke her language. They didn’t think she was some kind of freak.

  She started to relax, and she drifted off. She was a lot more tired than she realized. She hadn’t really slept since she cast that spell. She’d been on the run ever since, just waiting for the next disaster to strike.

  Now she could rest. Nothing bad would happen to her here. Spells didn’t exist in this world. Logic and reason ruled. They would protect her.

  She fell asleep and dreamed she was in Scotland. She strolled along a high cliff overlooking a restless sea. The wind tossed her hair into her face and howled in the treetops. It kicked up whitecaps on the ocean surface far below.

  In the distance, islands dotted the horizon. Haze and mist cast the countryside in a mystical shroud. She dwelled in that shadow world of magic and mystery once again.

  While she stood there, a powerful figure strode up the hill toward her. The wind blew his kilt around his legs, and his black hair cut sideways across his face. He walked up to her, and Christie McLean smiled down at her. She smiled back. She was glad to see him.

  He put out his hand. In it was a large wrought-iron key. He stuck the key into her chest. A keyhole appeared that exactly fit the key, and he turned it. He opened a tiny window in the center of her chest, and they both looked down on the village.

  The same comforting sounds of voices, dogs, and chickens drifted out of the hole. They filled Alexis with that old familiar longing to go there, to rest in its simple joys and struggles.

  She looked up at Christie’s smiling face. He took her hand. She folded in half, and they both dove down that hole to the village.

  Alexis started awake. Her hand flew to her heart. There was no door in her chest leading to the village. Christie wasn’t here. She was in her parents’ house. She was lying on her bed in her bedroom. Her academic trophies and awards hung on the wall. Pictures of her college graduation lined up over her old desk.

  She got to her feet and left the room. She’d been gone too long, if dreams like that still haunted her. They would stop after she’d been back for a while. She went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. She took out the tuna salad and found a packet of crackers in the pantry. Some things never changed.

  She carried them around the counter to the living room. She headed for the couch when a glass obelisk sitting on the side table rocketed across the room and smashed into the opposite wall.

  Alexis jumped a foot in the air. She dropped the tuna and crackers. She screamed out loud. A potted rubber tree lifted off the floor in the corner and sailed past her head. It struck the big window where Alexis just looked out at the garden. The glass shattered and rained down on the floor with a terrible crash.

  The rubber tree landed on the porch outside. Alexis whirled around. At that moment, the marble countertop ripped off the kitchen island and hurtled across the room. It missed Alexis’s head by a fraction of an inch. It hit the pillar holding up the ceiling.

  Alexis whirled from one direction to the other. She couldn’t keep up with the place flying to pieces before her very eyes. She clapped her hands over her ears and clamped her eyes shut. She screamed until her voice went hoarse, but she couldn’t drown out the noise.

  The fridge dislodged from its corner and launched toward the broken window. Its bottom edge clipped the ruined countertop and cracked the wooden cabinet below. The fridge tumbled end over end on its headlong flight through the air.

  It never reached the window before it hit the chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The fridge slammed down on the glass coffee table where Alexis just read that magazine. It flattened the table into so much matchwood and broken glass.

  Alexis couldn’t watch this anymore. This couldn’t be happening here, too. This horrible curse couldn’t have followed her all the way back here. Nowhere was safe. She couldn’t even take refuge in this sterile world, a world without mystery or imagination.

  She would never be free from this. It would haunt her for the rest of her life. She closed her eyes, and the whole terrible reality vanished in a thought. Silence descended, and she found herself back on a lonely clifftop somewhere on the remote Scottish coast.

  Chapter 9

  Christie staggered down the long slope to the beach. He hugged his arms over his stomach against the pain, but he wouldn’t let himself stop. He found the boat where he left it.

  He had no supplies to load, so he could get underway without delay. He made a brief check of the rigging and found everything as he left it. He unfurled the sail and shoved the boat toward the water.

  The first heave sent a shooting stab of pain throug
h his guts. He winced and doubled over. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the rocky shore before he tried again. He had to get back home.

  He paused a moment to gather his strength. Then he leaned all his weight into the wooden prow and shoved. The boat slid a few feet before it stuck. It took him a lot longer to launch than he planned. His body wouldn’t obey him. He had no strength left, and his body ached all over.

  He collapsed over the gunwale when the water first lapped the tiller. He lay there panting and wiping the blood from his lips before he dared try again. Just a little further and he could rest on the trip back.

  He gritted his teeth. He knew the pain would come, but he prepared himself and gave the boat one last almighty heave. The water caught the boat and pulled it into the current. Christie hopped aboard and sank down on the rear bulkhead.

  He ran up the sail and turned her head for home. The wind puffed out the sail and he started the long tack down Loch Linnhe on the way back to the Isle of Mull. He never expected to be returning home so soon, but he had no choice. With any luck, Fergus would pass the message to the Urlus. Christie had done the best he could with what he had.

  The weather stayed fair all the way down the lake. He enjoyed the trip, even if the tragic consequences of his misguided adventure clouded his homecoming. He couldn’t survive long in this condition, but that no longer mattered.

  He would die with his kin around him. He could deliver the news to Lachlan that the Urlus were coming to their aid. The McLeans would bury him with Arch and Carson in the old cemetery outside Duart. He would lie with his parents and his kin in sight of his own home. Nothing else mattered.

  The weather turned when he left the lake. Powerful gusts blasted down the sound. The boat took all his attention to keep it on course. He lost sight of Mull in the gale, but he kept on south as best he could.

  He couldn’t exactly go wrong. He would land somewhere on Mull. He might have to hike a ways to get back to Duart, but he didn’t care. He would brave any hardship to get home.

  He bent his head against the wind and closed his eyes. He fought the tiller to keep the boat going straight, but he didn’t need to see. There was nothing to see anyway.

  The storm got stronger so he couldn’t control the tiller any more. The sheet creaked against its cleat until it snapped. It whipped in the wind, the sail flapping against the mast. The boom swung violently from one side to the other. The rope slapped back and stung Christie in the face.

  He cowered in the bilge and huddled under his arms for protection. His insides hurt like mad. He couldn’t rise to fight this storm. He couldn’t fight anything anymore. His fighting days were over.

  He howled his despair and grief to the horrendous wind. The salt spray mingled with his tears and ran into his mouth. He huddled there in the dark. Rain pelted onto his back and pricked him through his clothes.

  He must have passed out in the night, because he came to his senses in the bright light of a clear day. He poked his head up. He could barely pry his eyes open against the light. The sun glittered on a smooth glassy sea all around him.

  The Isle of Mull lay tall and dark and welcoming before him. The current swept him along its shores, and he recognized the little harbor village of Garmony. His heart revived. He wasn’t far from home, and the current carried him closer to shore all the time.

  The sun dried his clothes and hair. It infused his being with fresh hope. Maybe Lachlan would find a way to cure him of whatever malady started to eat at his guts when the Faery King imprisoned him.

  The King kept him locked up for a week. He brought Christie up to his throne room to demand one more time he work with Alexis to break the curse. Christie clamped his mouth shut and turned away. He no longer cared if he had to spend the rest of his life in prison. He hated the whole world. He hated everyone but his own Clan.

  After several attempts to reason with him, the King noticed Christie starting to deteriorate. He never discussed this with Christie, but after a while longer, he let Christie go. He never mentioned the curse again. He let Christie go his own way without a word.

  He must have known Christie would go straight home, and that’s exactly what Christie did. Now he lifted up his hands in praise to God for bringing him alive to his own shores again.

  The boat nosed into the beach, and Christie bent his back to haul it up. He didn’t bother to secure it or tend to the rigging. He could do that later if he did it at all. He turned his steps inland and headed up the beach.

  A fisherman was leaning against his craft a short way up the shore. He looked up from repairing his nets when Christie approached. Christie didn’t recognize him. The man could have come over from the mainland for a day’s fishing or to visit relatives.

  Christie didn’t care who the man was. His heart burst with love for everyone he might see on this island. He was never so happy to get home, even if walking hurt.

  The man hailed him. “Where have ye come from, and where’re ye going?”

  Christie jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I have just come over from the mainland, and I’m on my way home to Duart. Is all well down the coast road?”

  “Duart!” the man exclaimed. “Duart, ye say?”

  “Aye. I must be getting on. It’s a fine day to venture out. I wish ye luck.”

  He hurried away before the man could reply. Christie struggled up the slope to the coast road. His heart rode lighter than his feet on the long hike down the road. He climbed over hills and into valleys. He made his way up the last long rise and paused to rest at the top.

  He scanned the distant horizon. He saw the peninsula where he knew he should see Duart Castle, but he didn’t see the walls and turrets against the horizon. This illness, whatever it was, must be making his eyes weak. He pushed on his way. Nothing could dampen his enthusiasm.

  He planned what he would say when he got home. He envisioned his reunion with Lachlan and his cousins. They would hold a council of war, and they would all be relieved to learn the Urlus planned to come to their aid.

  Christie could rest once he got inside those familiar walls. He would start to heal. Lachlan would send for wise women and healers from all over the island. They would figure out what was wrong with Christie.

  He must have contracted something in that prison. He would recover in the sun and sea air. A man didn’t need much else to live a healthy life.

  He turned a corner and stopped. The ocean lay on his left. He gazed over the rocky fields and moors onto the peninsula, and his heart fell into his shoes. Duart Castle should have stood up tall and perfect and shining before his eyes. Instead, he found himself staring at a pile of rubble.

  The surf still beat against the rocks beyond the castle’s devastated remains. The rocky field still stretched out where its entrance door once stood. Everything was the same, but the castle was gone.

  Christie stared at it in disbelief. This couldn’t be real. What could destroy that castle in so short a time? He’d been gone a matter of days. His Clan would have defended the place against any threat. They couldn’t have let it fall. They couldn’t have. Christie wouldn’t allow it.

  He started forward, but his heart quailed at what he saw. Fighting men should have patrolled the peninsula. They should have guarded the castle from anyone coming along the road to approach it, but he saw no one. Not a living soul disturbed the place.

  Birds sang in the skies. They and they alone gave life to the desolation. The farther he walked, the more his heart pounded. This couldn’t be. He refused to believe it. He had to find Lachlan. He had to get some explanation to make sense of all this.

  He stopped again at the foot of the castle. Not one wall remained intact. The glowing pale stone in great heaps. A bird landed on one of them, teetered its wings at Christie, and flew away.

  He climbed the path. Not even the entrance steps remained. He got halfway up when another wrenching spasm seized his guts. He bent over and crammed his elbow into his stomach until the attack passed. He coughed and sw
allowed down the blood in his mouth.

  The pain in his mind and heart eclipsed the pain in his body. He wanted to stab his own eyes out rather than look at this terrible destruction, but he couldn’t stop staring at it. This couldn’t be Duart. This couldn’t be his Clan seat and the source of his family’s power going back countless generations. It couldn’t come to this—not now.

  How many battles had he and his brothers fought to keep this place alive? How many men had they sacrificed to defend their land and their way of life? How many enemies had they slain—and for what?

  He collapsed on his knees where the castle entrance used to be. He wanted to die right here. Nothing remained for him to live for without this. A stone dislodged from the pile and pattered away down the hill somewhere. The sound gave him one last shred of energy to rise to his feet.

  He had to find Lachlan. He had to find his cousins, wherever they were. They weren’t here, so they must be living somewhere else on the island. Lachlan would have moved them all somewhere else for safety. Lachlan must be running the Clan from some other town.

  Christie struggled onto his unsteady legs. He would go back to the beach and question that fisherman. He would know where Clan McLean kept their seat nowadays. He would find someone who could direct him to his family.

  He turned, but before he walked away, he decided to take one circuit around the ruins, just to get a good look at it. He set off. The forest seemed to grow closer in than he remembered, but that could have been another trick of his sickened brain. He headed up the shoreline where the waves pulsed against the rocks.

  He got all the way around the other side of the castle when he spied a lone figure seated under a scraggly old tree. His heart leapt. Here was someone who could tell him what was going on. He headed for the person.

  When he got near enough, he saw it was a shriveled old woman leaning against the tree trunk. She held a length of tartan plaid wrapped around her shoulders and over her head. She gazed across the rocky shore to the waves surging against the coastline.