“For the love of Pete,” a strident voice right next to her said, “if your kinswoman told me what a ninny you were, I wouldn’t have been so quick to say I’d help. Get up and tell me what that mess in my yard was all about. Who in blazes is after you?”
“American?” Maggie pushed herself to a sit and stared at a buxom woman of about five-foot-eight. She was dressed in a floor-length denim skirt and a green T-shirt with a witch atop a broomstick. Beneath the picture were the words, My Other Car is a Broom. Bare feet with bright red toenail polish peeked from beneath the skirt. Red curls stuck out from her head in all directions before trailing down her shoulders and back. A pair of sharp, brown eyes radiated displeasure. The woman looked to be in her forties, but looks were often deceiving with witches. Power flowed around her like a gown. She fairly crackled with it.
“Once upon a time I lived in the States, but that’s not important.” The woman hunkered next to Maggie and laid a hand over hers. Maggie felt the spell, welcomed it because it cleared her head and settled her stomach.
“Thank you.”
“I’m Mauvreen, and you’re welcome. Come into the parlor and have some tea and biscuits. You can tell me what’s got Mary Elma so fired up.” She shook her head disapprovingly. “After that, you’ll sleep for a spell. You need it. You’re dead on your feet, woman.”
****
Lachlan flung magic about himself, but it didn’t even slow his descent. One moment, he’d been kneeling and lacing a boot. The next, something slammed into his body out of nowhere and shoved him down into darkness. He hadn’t had even a moment’s warning it was coming. The sense of falling was absolute and disorienting.
“Kheladin.”
“I canna help. Something shackles my wings.”
His next thoughts were for Maggie, and he sent a mental entreaty to every Celtic god close enough to listen to keep his mate safe from harm. A bone-crackling thud sent pain ripping through him. For long moments, he was afraid he’d broken something and would need to cast magic to heal himself. He stretched his arms and legs experimentally and blew out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
Thanks be to the gods, I only got the wind knocked out of me.
Lachlan pushed to his feet and summoned his mage light. It took more effort than he thought it should, but it finally sputtered to life. He gazed at his surroundings. Stone walls stretched as far as he could see on both sides of him. A low stone ceiling dripped water. Red eyes stared at him in the reflected glow from his light. Rats.
What was this place? He bent closer to examine the stonework. Clearly manmade. Someone had carved this tunnel, or at least reinforced it so it wouldn’t collapse. Corridors led in either direction.
Where am I?
Recognizing the stupidity of racing off half-cocked, he forced himself to catalog what he knew, which wasn’t much. He felt for Maggie’s energy but couldn’t sense her at all. Maybe that was a good thing, unless the same magic that captured him had dropped her in a totally different location. Mage senses on full alert, he turned in a circle, emitting power like a dowsing rod. Though he took his time, Lachlan didn’t know any more when he was done than when he began.
He turned his mind inward to the dragon. “Do ye recognize aught?”
“Nay. Mayhap if we traded places…”
“There isna enough space. We’re in some sort of underground tunnel system. I’ll mark where we are and walk in one direction until either we’re above ground or hit a dead end.”
“Canna we use magic to leave here?”
Lachlan considered it. The prospect was tempting, but the problem about using magic to travel was he needed a firm destination in mind and some sort of connection with it. He could try for Maggie’s home but didn’t want to rain disaster down on her. If he weren’t careful, Rhukon, or whoever the author of the current disaster was, would snare her too.
If they hadn’t already.
“Do ye think the black wyvern is responsible for this?” Lachlan asked sidestepping Kheladin’s query about magic for now.
Snorting, whuffling dragon laughter filled his mind. “Who else? He doesna like to lose, and we made him look like a fool in front of his cohorts.”
“Can ye sense him—or the red—anywhere near to us?”
Kheladin was silent so long, Lachlan started to ask again, when he heard. “’Tis strange. I doona sense either Connor or Rhukon, yet I do detect other dragons. Many dragons. Just as it was afore Rhukon captured us in the sleeping spell.”
“Ye must be mistaken. How could that be?”
“I doona know, yet I trust what my magic tells me. Pity ye canna let me look for myself.”
“As soon as I get us above ground,” Lachlan promised. Confusion jockeyed with uncertainty. He didn’t know what had happened, but he had to act—and quickly before whatever attacked them struck again. He and the dragon were vulnerable in the relatively narrow tunnel—open to strikes from both sides. It wasn’t a defensible position. The warrior in him knew it.
Since one direction seemed as good as the other, he started walking. If the earth beneath his feet trended downward, he’d retrace his steps and go the other way. He walked for a long time. Lacking any other way to mark his progress, Lachlan counted steps. He’d reached six hundred thirty when the tunnel’s floor developed a definite slope to it, an upward cant.
He dared to let himself hope he’d chosen wisely. Before Rhukon ensorcelled him, Lachlan always considered himself a lucky man and a blessed one. Now he wasn’t so certain. With effort, he pushed his doubts and fears aside. They wouldn’t help him, wouldn’t return him to Maggie’s side.
After fifteen hundred steps, the air began to smell cleaner, less dank. The rats, constant companions on his journey so far, thinned out, apparently preferring the darker, damper segments of the tunnel. Either his mage light was getting brighter, which meant his magic was strengthening, or…
He doused the light and shut his eyes to defuse the afterimage. When he opened them, his mouth split into a grim smile. Daylight. It was a way yet, but it spilled into the tunnel and provided pale illumination.
After close to three thousand steps, he marched from the tunnel into a thick forest. “Okay,” he murmured, borrowing one of Maggie’s words. “I’m out, but this forest could be anywhere.”
He cast magic about himself, hunting for anything living and gasped. Kheladin had been right. There were dragons here, along with wolves, bears, coyotes, and a few, isolated pockets of people. He headed for the closest place he sensed men. They’d tell him what he wanted to know. In less than half an hour, he came upon a clearing with a small house. Not knowing whether he’d be seen as friend or foe, Lachlan cloaked himself with magic and approached carefully but stopped long before his presence might’ve alarmed the people he saw milling about. The dwelling’s mud and stone walls and thatched roof answered his questions more poignantly than any person could have. If that weren’t enough, a horse burdened with a plow yoke corroborated the unpleasant truth.
Lachlan faded back into the forest, the dragon clamoring in his mind. “Kheladin. Be quiet. We’re back in the sixteen hundreds. Or maybe it’s the fifteen hundreds or fourteen hundreds.”
“How—?”
“I doona know, and it doesna matter. Rhukon went to great lengths to separate me from Maggie, so he could sidestep the prophecy.” He pounded a fist into his thigh, cursing his own stupidity and inattention, and sank into the dirt at the base of a large tree. If he’d been at the top of his game in that blasted store, and not thinking about burying his cock in Maggie, he might not be in this predicament.
He thudded his fist into packed earth and then did it again and again until his hand ached. Lachlan marshaled his weary mind. Right now he was reacting, when what he needed to do was think.
The Morrigan must be mixed up in this. The Celts mastered time travel eons ago.
“Maggie.” Her name leapt from his mouth in a breathy whisper, half entreaty, half prayer. “How will I
ever get back to her?”
“If we’re really back in our own time, let me out. I can find our castle from the air.”
Lachlan recognized a good idea when he heard one. He’d barely stripped off his clothes when he felt himself shift.
Chapter Seventeen
Maggie woke to the soft murmur of voices. For the barest moment, she had no idea where she was and just enjoyed stretching out her limbs. Truth—cold and ugly—pushed the breath from her lungs, and she leapt from the bed. Jolted back to reality, she stared at the neat guest room Mauvreen had led her to and the double bed with its cheery patchwork quilt where she’d literally passed out.
Bet my witchy host had something to do with that.
Maggie hurried from the room. She had no memory of how the house was laid out, so she just followed the voices and hoped to hell the house wouldn’t play any more tricks on her since she was inside. It took a number of twists, turns, and half flights of stairs before she found the main floor. Memory returned in filmy wisps. She dashed into the parlor where she’d had tea, but it was empty. A door on its far side stood open. Through it, she saw Mary Elma and Mauvreen sitting by an enormous stone fireplace drinking something out of heavy, ceramic mugs.
“Gran!” Maggie loped into the room.
“Child.” Mary Elma shot to her feet.
Maggie didn’t see her cross the large room, but somehow she ended up in her arms. Maggie clung to her as if she were drowning, embarrassed by tears she couldn’t control. They splashed from her eyes as if someone turned on a spigot.
“There, there. Pull yourself together.” Mary Elma stroked her back. “I was about to waken you, anyway. There’s not a minute to waste.”
Something in her grandmother’s tone got through. Maggie remembered that tone from her childhood. It didn’t leave any room for argument—or self-pity. She disentangled herself from her grandmother and straightened her shoulders. Mauvreen thrust a mug into her hands. “Drink this.”
“What is it?” Maggie sniffed the fragrant liquid.
“Booze.”
Maggie turned her gaze on her grandmother’s friend. “A bit early, isn’t it?”
Mauvreen shrugged. “As they say, it’s always five o’clock somewhere.”
Maggie remembered telling Lachlan that, and it brought a fresh spate of tears.
“Drink it.” Mary Elma’s words were more command than suggestion. She drew herself up to her full height of six-foot-two and frowned at her granddaughter. “You have to learn to pick your battles, child. This isn’t one of them.”
Maggie’s lips twitched into half a smile. “For once I agree with you.” She moved the mug to her mouth and sipped. Yes, there was definitely alcohol in the mix, but it contained herbs and other things too.
“Better.” Her grandmother’s mouth curved into a wry grin. “We only poison our enemies.”
Enemies!
“I’ve got to find Lachlan. Do you know where he is, Gran?”
Mary Elma’s grin flattened into lips pursed in a hard, flat line. “Yes.”
“That doesn’t sound good.” Maggie’s hands shook enough, she worried she’d drop the mug.
“It’s not,” Mauvreen seconded. “Grab a seat. We need to strategize.” She flicked fingers at the cold hearth, and it blazed to life. “Fires are good for many things, not the least of which is dispelling chill shadows from fell deeds.”
Maggie sank into a deeply padded, needlepoint chair. The two other witches dragged their matching chairs close. “How long did I sleep?”
“A few hours,” Mauvreen said. “You needed rest, so I saw you got some.”
“I suppose that’s why I have absolutely no memory of getting from the parlor to that bedroom I woke up in.”
Mauvreen quirked a brow but didn’t say anything. She exchanged glances with Mary Elma who said, “We can give it to her straight. My granddaughter’s a doctor. While she may have been foolish about her magic, she’s far from squeamish.”
Maggie took a large swallow from her mug. The drink had something in it that strengthened her, made her less shaky. “Give what to me straight?”
Mary Elma skewered her with bottomless, dark eyes. “Did you consummate your bond with Lachlan?”
To her dismay, Maggie felt herself blush. “Yes. More than once, if it matters.”
“Did you meet the dragon?” Mauvreen asked.
“I not only met him. I rode him.”
Mary Elma clapped her hands together. “Better and better. This won’t be as difficult as I feared.”
Maggie twisted her head from side to side to ease the iron bar of tension sitting between her shoulder blades. “Stop talking in riddles. Just tell me where Lachlan is and how I can get him back. Are we all going to go fight Rhukon or something?”
“Tell me what you know about Lachlan and Rhukon.” Mary Elma sat straighter in her chair. “In fact, start at the beginning, and tell us everything.”
Maggie raised her cup again, drank, and was surprised she’d drained it. Mauvreen plucked it from her hand, refilled it from a kettle Maggie hadn’t noticed sitting atop the hearth, and gave it back. “All right.” Maggie nodded. “A few days ago, I’d taken off some time in the middle of the day. I was walking near the intersection of…”
Her story took much longer to tell than she expected, since one witch or the other interrupted with requests for either more information, or clarification, over and over again. “…Anyway, that’s about it,” she finished.
“Fascinating.” Mauvreen’s brown eyes glowed.
“Yes, isn’t it?” Mary Elma agreed.
The circular conversation sucked her dry but didn’t tell her anything she wanted to know. It grated on Maggie. She waited while the witches stared at one another, presumably communicating telepathically. She tried to listen in but couldn’t. After about five minutes, Maggie cleared her throat, but the other women ignored her. Finally, she’d had enough. “Hey! I need to know where Lachlan is. At least an hour ago Gran said there wasn’t a moment to lose. I want to get moving.”
“Oh you do, do you?” Mary Elma focused intently on her. Maggie forced herself to stare right back. “Alrighty, child. Lachlan is back in the middle of the sixteenth century. He’ll be right at home there, since he lived through those times. I imagine his castle is intact. Dragons still fly free, which should please Kheladin.”
Maggie’s eyes widened until the room lost focus. “What? You must be mistaken. How could he possibly have traveled hundreds of years into the past?”
“It isn’t as if he did it on his own,” Mauvreen cut in. “We’re certain he had help. An assist from the dark side, as it were.”
Because sitting felt far too confining, Maggie set the cup down and bolted to her feet. After pacing the length of the room twice, she ended up in front of her grandmother and put her hands on her hips. “Can you do that?” she demanded.
“Do what, child?”
“Time travel. It’s what we’re talking about.”
Mary Elma shook her head. “No. It’s not one of my skills. There hasn’t been a witch who could bend the strands of time for centuries.”
Maggie digested the words. “What I just heard was it’s not on the current menu of magical skills, but it’s something we could do in the past.” Her grandmother nodded. “Is it something I could learn?”
I can’t believe I said that. I’m not equipped. It’s too dangerous. I could die somewhere, lost in time…
Mary Elma got to her feet. She moved to Maggie’s side and draped an arm around her waist. “All those things in your head are true. Even if you’d taken to magic when your moon blood first flowed, you’d have a hell of a road mastering time travel.”
Her thoughts jumbled into eerie, kaleidoscopic images. “Someone understands the mechanics of time travel,” she said slowly, “because their casting moved Lachlan.”
“The Celts,” Mauvreen muttered with a bitter edge. “They don’t often use it, but they figured it out millennia ago. A
t least I think they did. Scuttlebutt for the years I’ve been around was they at least know how.”
“Idle rumor,” Mary Elma broke in. She rolled her eyes. “But probably with more truth in it than not. The Celts aren’t big on sharing their secrets with witches. Dragons command that particular magic too. They need it to visit Fire Mountain.”
Even if she wasn’t a witch but a far more powerful magic wielder, Maggie wasn’t at all certain Ceridwen, Gwydion, or Arawn would help her. “Lachlan mentioned some sort of Celtic Council gathering to plan a war strategy.”
“Humph. You didn’t mention that when you told us what you knew,” Mary Elma snapped. “What else did you leave out?”
“Never mind.” Mauvreen flapped her hands at the other witch and returned her attention to Maggie. “Do you know where they’re meeting?”
“Somewhere outside Inverness.”
“Close enough,” Mauvreen muttered. “Has to be Inverlochy Castle, where the Celtic Council always hangs out. Let’s go. The local witches will likely know about the meeting, even if they’re not included.”
“We can take my car,” Maggie offered.
Her grandmother snorted. “We’ll get there our own way. It’s faster—and more unobtrusive.”
“Yes,” Mauvreen said. “Come here. Mary Elma and I talked about this while you were asleep. We’re going to share blood with you. It will hasten the development of your magic, particularly in light of your carnal connection with Lachlan.”
Fear and indecision pounded through her. “Once I do this, it’s like signing the coven’s pledge, isn’t it?” Her ambivalence about her witch heritage throttled her like an out of control tsunami, narrowing her airway. Never mind what she’d told her grandmother about racing to coven headquarters to sign on.
The two witches closed on her, one from either side. “That darkness that nearly had you in my yard,” Mauvreen hissed. “It hasn’t left. It’s still here. The other side needs you here and Lachlan right where they chucked him.”
Flight of Dragons Page 59
