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

by Heather Walker

  She didn’t know what was good for her. She would run all over creation in search of someone who understood her and could answer her questions. She would never acknowledge the bond between them.

  He was the only one who could understand her now. The Faery King couldn’t help her become a wolf. If James Stewart cared about Alexis at all, he would send her to Mull. He would explain that the Faery couldn’t guide her any longer. She was a wolf, and only other wolves could help her.

  When he got across the sound, he pulled the craft’s nose around to the east. He had to know right here and now what he was getting into. He sailed down the coast to the little finger of land jutting into the sea. There on its very tip stood Duart Castle.

  Sea mist swirled around its walls and turrets. Even from a distance, Christie saw men walking back and forth on the battlements. Farther down the coast, he passed two boys fishing from the rocks.

  Christie’s heart soared. He was right! That vision of destruction forty years in the future hadn’t really happened at all—at least, it hadn’t happened yet. He might still have a chance to avert disaster.

  He beached his boat not a hundred paces from the castle. His pulse pounded in his brain. He had to concentrate to keep his steps steady walking up to the castle entrance. The door stood open, and people came and went in the halls, exactly the way it was when he left.

  He paused at the kitchen door to inhale the smells of supper cooking. He was home. His soul wept at the memory of everything he suffered since he left these walls. He would never leave them again. He would die here, surrounded by his kin.

  A voice broke in on his thoughts. “Christie! Christie, lad, you’re home!”

  He turned around to see his cousin Clyde rushing at him full tilt. The two men collided, and they threw their arms around each other. Tears squeezed from Christie’s eyes when he buried his face in his cousin’s neck.

  Clyde pushed him off with a gruff laugh. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes and took Christie by the shoulders. “Let me take a look at ye, mon. Wheesht, you’re a sight for sore eyes! Where have ye been?”

  “It’d take too long to tell ye,” Christie replied. “Where’s my brother? Where’s Lachlan? I must see him afore I do anything else.”

  “He’s in his room, mon,” Clyde replied.

  Christie took off up the stairs before Clyde could say anything else. He found Lachlan’s room. He knocked on the door and walked in without waiting for a reply. He stopped inside when he spotted Lachlan standing at the window.

  Lachlan stood with his back to the door. A queer stillness surrounded him. Christie didn’t want to go near him. “Lachlan, mon. I’m back. It’s me, Christie.”

  Lachlan didn’t turn around. “You’re back, Christie? I’m right glad.”

  Christie cocked his head. “Lachlan? Will ye no’ greet me? I have been gone all these weeks.”

  Lachlan turned around, but he didn’t leave the window. Something strange encapsulated the man. It insulated him from everything around him. No one could touch him.

  “Lachlan?” Christie asked. “Are ye all right? What’s amiss, brother?”

  Lachlan turned back to the window. The surf lapped the beach outside, and he gazed out over the heaving sea. “I’m glad you’re back, lad. I missed ye.”

  He might as well have been talking to block of wood. Christie studied his brother from behind. He’d never seen Lachlan like this in his life. Lachlan always radiated power, energy, and magnetic leadership. He always knew what to do and what to say. He was a pillar among men, yet here he was, dead and lifeless even as he walked around and talked.

  Christie glanced around the room. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Lachlan shared this room with Ivy after they got married, yet the room itself gave Christie the shivers. It echoed as dead and empty as Lachlan himself.

  Christie’s hair stood on end. “Lachlan, mon, what’s amiss? Where’s Ivy?”

  Lachlan let out a shaky sigh. “I didnae ken how to tell ye, lad. She’s gone.”

  Chapter 20

  Alexis sat under a tree and waited for the sun to go down. She watched the stars come out, but she couldn’t enjoy it. Her heart ached for Christie. Of course it did. It was his heart. It wanted to go back to him.

  What was she thinking, letting him sail away like that? Why did she keep coming up with one lame excuse after another to hold herself back from him? One of these days, he wouldn’t ask anymore. He would leave, and he would stop caring about her.

  The night whispered secrets into her ear, and that only increased her anxiety. She couldn’t sit here any longer. She had to move. She had to get off into the forest and see what was going on in there.

  Another devastating power struggled in her being, but she didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t the visions, and it wasn’t the trolls, either. This was something new, and it didn’t come from the curse. It came from her deepest soul.

  This was her, whatever it was. This was a secret forgotten element of her being she would rather leave behind. She didn’t want to admit this was a part of her, but it was and it wouldn’t be denied.

  She could have lived the rest of her life in America without ever knowing she was Faery. If she never met Ivy and never cast that spell, she never would have known. She would have gone on with her humdrum existence. She would have continued being cautious, prudent Alexis Morgan.

  She could never be that again, and it had nothing to do with Faery. Faery didn’t touch her, but this did. She couldn’t keep living without letting this break out, but she kept shoving it down out of fear. She never wanted to find out what would happen when this broke the surface. When it did, she would never be the same.

  The full moon rose big and round and golden over the horizon, and Alexis stood up. She dusted off her clothes. She wished she had something nicer to wear, but where she was going, they would understand. They always did.

  She started down the hill to a patch of trees lining a stream. She followed it to a grassy knoll where the hills rose to the sky on the other side. She hadn’t been here before, but she never worried about what would happen. She was going home. She was going where the people always had to accept her. They would never turn her away.

  She crossed the knoll. Where it dipped down to join the next hill, she spotted a string of lights bobbing from the tree branches. Delicate music drifted on the wind to her ear. She walked down and found a large group of people milling around on the grass.

  All the ladies wore enormous hoop skirts glittering with gold and silver trim. The men mostly wore uniforms, but a few wore dress kilts with sparkling decorations. Some wore crowns.

  Alexis walked into their midst. Everyone smiled at her. She got under the lamplight where tables loaded with food and drink lined up near the edge of the woods. The Faery King and his entourage stood around the champagne fountain.

  His eyes widened when he recognized her. “My darling lassie Alexis. Where have ye been? We have all been worried sick about ye.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” she replied. “I was worried sick about you, too.”

  “Lassie?” he asked. “Why were ye worried about us? We’re all right, as ye can see.”

  “I found out about those temporal portals you asked me to research,” Alexis replied. “In my research, I thought you had been hit by one. I thought the castle had been ruined and the people dispersed, but I see your realm is still alive and well.”

  The King started. “Really? Well, it appears you’ll have a very interesting report to give me when the party’s over.”

  “I think so,” she replied.

  “Then ye must enjoy yourself now while ye have the chance. Get something to eat, and in an hour or two after the guests have had a few to drink, ye and I’ll slip off alone together and have a chat about it, shall we?”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty.” Alexis already felt her heart lightening.

  He cocked his head at her. “Ye dinnae look happy to see us again,
lassie. I hear ye have been working with young McLean on this one.”

  She stared down at her fingers knit together. “Yes, I have, but he’s gone now.”

  “Oh? Where has he gone to, then?”

  “Back to his home on the Isle of Mull,” she replied. “He had some concerns about his family’s safety—similar concerns to what I had about you. He wanted to go see for himself, and he wanted to stay there, so he went.”

  “It would seem,” the King went on, “that ye two managed to work together better than expected. Am I right?”

  Alexis couldn’t look up. “Something like that.”

  “Well, lassie,” he replied, “he’s a fine lad. Ye could do a mite worse.”

  Alexis blushed, but she couldn’t say anything. She didn’t want to talk about Christie, certainly not to the Faery King, of all people.

  He noticed her discomfort. He moved in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. His lips made contact with her skin, and a lightning bolt shot through her that shattered her whole world. Before she could stop it, that volcanic energy exploded from inside her and sent every piece of her being flying in a million directions at once.

  She saw it happening, but she couldn’t stop it. That primal wildness buried in her soul split her skin off her. It dropped away like a discarded jacket, and something black and nameless erupted out of the depths to take its place.

  A ragged bellow of rage and pain cracked from her throat. Once she gave it voice, it swelled louder and louder until it covered the whole world. No amount of roaring could ever express what was happening to her.

  Her skull cracked open. Her brain poured out of her and formed a pointed snout. Her eyes burned in her sockets, and she laid her ears back against her skull. Her back twisted forward, and she dropped onto her hands. Her legs bent around the wrong way.

  All her muscles coiled to spring. An almighty surge of power rippled down her spine, and she launched herself at the Faery King as a gleaming silver-backed wolf. She opened her jaws to tear him to pieces. Why did she hate him so much and want to kill him? She couldn’t understand it. She couldn’t understand any of this. It happened all by itself with no help from her.

  She struck the King with all her might. She knocked him backward into his crowd of admirers, and he landed on top of a bunch of screeching ladies. Alexis didn’t notice them. She focused all her blind fury on the King.

  She pounced on his chest and made a desperate dive for his throat. He was a lot stronger than he looked, though. At the last second, he seized her by the throat and wrestled her back.

  His fingers tightened around her windpipe. He cut off her air, but he couldn’t cut off her rage. She slathered in his face and tried to rip his face off. When he held her at a distance, she kicked her claws against his body.

  She did her best to scratch him to death, but she only succeeded in shredding his fancy tartan. Her hate-intoxicated brain registered from a great distance that his clothes protected him. They withstood the punishment better than regular cloth. Some Faery charm held her claws away from him.

  She made another monstrous lunge for his throat. At that moment, something stabbed her in the chest. A massive shockwave blasted her off the King and sent her flying backward. She collided with a tree and hit the ground running.

  She charged back into the mix, but she couldn’t get anywhere near the King now. Three ranks of Black Watch soldiers materialized out of the crowd. They all brandished what looked like spears.

  Alexis never stopped to think. She hurtled at the men in a foaming rage. The Faery King stood behind them, and she fixed her eyes on him. He smoothed the wrinkles out of his kilt and exchanged a laugh with his companions at Alexis’s expense.

  Nothing could make her madder. She launched herself at him alone, but those soldiers got in her way. One of them stabbed at her, and another blinding crash sent her winging away.

  She bounded to her feet, but this time, she gauged her strategy before she charged in to her own destruction. She tried to skirt around the soldiers guarding the King, but the men only turned to face her once more.

  She had to get near him. She had to kill him. She had to vent this fury that wouldn’t stay buried another instant. She eyed the crowd, and when she couldn’t see any way to kill him, she turned her ire on them.

  She had no idea what she was doing. She couldn’t understand why she hated these people so much. She wanted only to kill. Even that didn’t articulate what was going on inside her.

  Nothing mattered in the world but getting that blackness out of her soul and into the world. The pressure built up behind her over generations wouldn’t leave off. It forced the power through a tiny opening with such unstoppable strength she couldn’t hope to hold it back.

  She didn’t want to hold it back. She wanted to become that flood of primordial energy. She wanted to feed it and give it a channel into the world. She wanted to ride the tidal wave breaking through her until she no longer existed.

  She wheeled to her right and plunged into the crowd. She ripped anything to which her mouth came in contact. She raced here and there. She snapped her teeth and snarled in spitting, murderous rage.

  The guests hurried out of her way. She couldn’t get near them. When she took a running jump at a particularly dapper old man, he sidestepped her and she went crashing into the drinks table. The champagne fountain hit the ground and shattered into a thousand pieces.

  Ladies screamed, and men fled. The Black Watch rushed into the crowd and surrounded Alexis. She spun around to face them, but they encircled her on all sides. When she tried to catch a glimpse of the King through the sea of bodies, she saw him nodding to his admirers.

  She flew into a rage and charged. She didn’t even see the soldiers blocking her way. One of them hit her with his spear, but instead of flying off somewhere, he pinned her to the ground.

  The other soldiers rushed in together. They all stabbed her at once. Concussions blasted through her mind. The world went dark, and she lost consciousness.

  Chapter 21

  Christie strode down the long hall toward the south entrance. His cousins Clyde and Colin flanked him. Aiden and Ronald Montgomery followed at his heels. “What in the name of Christ is going on around here? Can’t a man take a trip over to the mainland without the whole world going to Hell?”

  “There was naught we could do about it,” Ronald replied over his shoulder. “The Lady didnae say naught to us about it until that very morning. She kept it to herself until she was already walking down the steps.”

  Christie came to a halt in the castle entrance and rounded on his last remaining lieutenants. “Tell me how it happened. I want the exact details, down to the expressions on their faces.”

  The men exchanged glances. Finally, good solid Colin McLean spoke up. “It’s like this, mon. She came down here one fine morning, all chipper like. You’d never ken there was naught amiss, with her or the Laird. They were all smiles, and kissing each other like any other morning, except she seemed more happy than ever.”

  “Happy!” Christie thundered. “How could she be happy?”

  He only had to look at his kinsmen’s faces to see the answer. No one argued with Colin. Lachlan and Ivy must really have been happy.

  “The Lady, she called us here, right to the spot you’re standing now,” Colin went on. “She told us, one and all, what she meant to do.”

  Christie held up his hand. “Are ye really standing there and telling me Ivy went back across the portal to her own time and her own world, after all the trouble we had to get her back in the first place? What did Lachlan say?”

  “She convinced him she was doing it for her protection, her and the bairn,” Ronald told him. “She said with all this going on, it wasnae safe for them here any longer. He didnae like it, but he went along with it. He didnae have any choice. She was determined, and ye ken how she gets when she’s determined.”

  “Did any of ye stout lads offer to ask when she was coming back?” Christie asked.
/>
  “I did,” Aiden replied. “She said she wasnae coming back. She said she was going, and she would stay there.”

  “We were all of us just as stunned as ye are now,” Colin went on. “No one kenned what to say, and that just gave her the opening she needed. She took the Laird outside. They stood on the steps awhile, kissing and talking real low so no one could hear them. She couldn’t stop smiling at him. I’m telling ye, lad, ye never saw her so happy, not even on their blessed wedding day.”

  Christie threw up his hands and spun away. “I cannae believe this. I cannae believe he would ever let her go.”

  “I cannae believe she would be willing to go,” Colin remarked. “Ye ken how she was—I mean, how she is. She speaks her mind, that one. If she didnae want to go, she would have just stuck her big toe in the ground, and not Lachlan nor any man alive could budge her. Ye never saw her light this, lad. She was happy—happier than any woman has a right to be that’s leaving her husband, probably for good. She might have been goin’ on a wee holiday. I dinnae ken. None of us kenned what to think. I dinnae think we still do.”

  The others nodded in agreement. Ivy—gone! She was six months pregnant, and she went through a portal to her own time, just like that. Colin was right. That was not like her at all. It wasn’t like Lachlan to let her go, either. Those two couldn’t be separated, and now Lachlan was up in his room and wouldn’t come out. He’d lost his heart.

  Christie shook that thought out of his head. He couldn’t get distracted thinking about losing a heart. “How did she open the portal?”

  The others looked at each other. “I dinnae ken,” Aiden replied.

  “Did she work the spell?” Christie asked. “Did she get a wizard to do it for her?”

  “No, mon,” Colin replied. “She did naught.”

  “She must have done something,” Christie fired back. “She couldnae go through the portal without someone opening it for her, now could she?”