He ran the cloth over her back. “Why?”
“Uh, because you could’ve got me pregnant with that one thrust.” She frowned. “Not to mention, what if I were wrong when I said we should go for it and have sex? What if it ruined my protective magic, disappointed the Claddagh ring, and proved you were meant for another?” She flinched. “Not good if you got me pregnant.”
“Everything’s good if I got you pregnant,” he countered, ignoring all the rest because none of it mattered. Not when it came to this. “Nothing in all the world in all of the pasts and futures would make me happier, Julie. ‘Tis simple as that.”
Her eyes lingered on his for a moment before she sank beneath the water then surfaced. She never did respond to his statement, but he knew how she felt. Relief that he felt the same as her. That she wasn’t alone in breaking the rules even when it came to children. That they were, so it seemed, very much in this together at this point, ring confirmation or not. Guardian Witch magic or not. She didn’t say anything more as he bathed her, but seemed as lost in the simple act of enjoying each other as he was.
“Tiernan,” she eventually began, but he didn’t let her get any further because he knew what she wanted. What she needed right now. Had needed since that knock on the door earlier.
So he scooped her up, dried her off then laid her on the bed again. She didn’t want foreplay. Just him where he needed to be. Where he was supposed to be. So he spread her thighs and thrust deep only to discover that a single thrust intended to take them even further this time.
Chapter Nineteen
SHE KNEW SOMETHING changed the moment Tiernan thrust, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was this. Him deep inside her. No more interruptions. Just him and her and pure sensation.
Pure love.
Because that’s what it was when he finally began moving and sex became so much more than she thought possible. Not just the incredible feeling of him sliding in and out, over and over, but the impact of his gaze on her. The desire and heartfelt emotion simmering in his eyes as they stayed with hers.
She wrapped her legs around him and gripped his forearms, drowning in the feelings he invoked. The fiery passion building between them with every thrust. With every roll of his hips. Sometimes he slowed, others times moved faster, depending it seemed on her expression or the sounds she made.
Enraptured by the way he made her feel, she closed her eyes and pulled him closer still, craving the feel of his slick skin sliding against hers. The moisture dewing between them as their pleasure grew. As they struggled to get closer, deeper.
Fueled by intense passion that only grew stronger, they moved faster until their movements became frenzied and desperate. She raked her nails over his back and ass, hungry for where he was taking her. The steep slope she was climbing. The deep dive she would be taking over the edge.
One that came so hard and so fast, she flew over it before she knew what hit her.
She cried out, vaguely aware that he had followed. Vaguely aware that he had pressed deep and throbbed inside her. That he thrust his hips ever-so-slowly still, staying deep, draining himself against her womb.
“I love you, Tiernan,” she whispered, finally feeling like she could say it out loud. That caring for him couldn’t be snatched away from her.
“I know, lass,” he murmured in her ear. “But ‘tis nice to finally hear aloud.”
“It is, isn’t it?” she said softly, finally opening her eyes only to realize they weren’t where they were supposed to be. The bed and ceiling were gone. Instead, she lay on grass with nothing but the night sky overhead. “Oh, my God!”
“Och,” he muttered, rolling off her. Thankfully, he was able to chant clothes on them without a problem. “We’re back at the Fir bhrèige.”
“This is good,” she murmured, convinced of it. She eyed the silent sentinels surrounding them. Fog drifted in heavy swirls around the monoliths. “I told you we needed to return to the Calanais Standing Stones, and here we are.” She met his eyes. “Here we are after being intimate, with your magic seemingly on track again.”
“Intimate in the heart of stones that have witnessed great magic, both light and dark.” He helped her up. “I dinnae know if that is good or not. How dangerous it might be.”
When she frowned in question, he went on. “Whilst ‘tis clear it helped us, it may have also made us vulnerable to whatever dark magic was here.”
“So sort of like what happened at the stones in Ireland?”
“Aye, somewhat.” He shook his head. “Even now, I cannae pinpoint precisely where the dark magic emanates from.” His gaze went to the tomb. “Though ‘tis strongest there.”
She started for the tomb, curious if her newfound magic might help her discover more, but he grabbed her wrist and shook his head. “Nay, dinnae go near it right now.”
She started to respond but sensed something moments before she heard a strange sound.
“Did you hear that?” she whispered.
“Aye.” He pulled her close and narrowed his eyes at the ever-thickening fog drifts. “’Tis within the fog...or beyond it, further out.”
“It’s a woman’s voice.” She tilted her head and listened. “I think.”
“Aye, ‘tis,” he said. “’Tis a lass, and she’s coming closer.”
“She is...” Julie agreed. “From that direction.” She drifted toward one of the stones, still straining to hear. “She’s talking to someone, but I don’t hear anyone responding.” Seconds later, the voice became clear. “Oh, shit, it’s Chloe!”
She raced to the stone with Tiernan right behind her, but there was nobody there.
“I hear her clear as day though!” She walked around the stone, inspecting it. “Right here.”
“No, right here,” Chloe exclaimed, appearing on the other side of the rock. “What on Earth is going on?”
“Chloe!” She embraced her friend then held her at arm’s length. “Are you okay? How did you get here?”
“Where is here?” Chloe said slowly, looking Julie over. “And what are you wearing?”
Rather than wait for a response, her friend eyed the tall standing stone next to her with curiosity rather than fear like anyone in their right mind would. Because she most certainly wasn't where she had been a moment before, and that should scare the hell out of her.
But that was Chloe. Curious to a fault. Always looking for her next scoop.
“One second I was exploring the Stonehenge,” Chloe went on, “then a woman appeared out of nowhere.” She frowned, considering that. “I can’t quite recall what we talked about.” Her eyes widened. “But I do remember hearing a guy with a Scottish brogue on the other side of the rock I was standing beside. He was calling out for...” She looked skyward, trying to remember before her eyes widened. “Maeve! That was it.” She nodded once, sure of it. “Her name was Maeve.”
Julie and Tiernan frowned at each other before something occurred to her, and she looked at Chloe again. “Did the man sound like Tiernan?”
“Yeah, very similar, actually.” Chloe considered him for a moment. “Not sure the voice was exactly the same, though.”
“You think it was Aidan, aye?” Tiernan said into Julie's mind. “That somehow his dream at the stones in Ireland is connected to this?”
“He did hear Maeve on the other side,” she reminded. “As well as another woman’s voice he didn’t recognize.”
“What did he say?” Tiernan asked Chloe.
“Um...” She pondered it absently, still inspecting the rock. “He was telling Maeve he was there. To come to him.” Her brows drew together as she ran her fingers over the stone. “You know now that I think about it, he sounded desperate and sad.” She frowned and looked at them. “Why was he so sad?” Her voice dropped to a whisper, her words unexpected as she seemed to answer her own question. “Because he won’t be separated from her forever...He’ll find her again.”
“Maeve?” Julie asked softly, truly wowed by all this.
“Yeah...I think...” Chloe frowned again and shook her head. “Or maybe not.” She blinked a few times and focused on them, finally realizing how out of whack things really were. That she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. “Where the hell am I?”
“I think the ring is making all of this easier for her,” Tiernan explained. “Or her initial reaction would have been stronger.”
“Maybe,” Julie agreed. “But then this is Chloe. Her curiosity could walk her right off a cliff, and she wouldn’t realize it until it was too late.” She sighed. “Now, to figure out how to drop the bombshell that she fell through time instead.”
“’Tis best to share things in small bits,” he advised. “Let her ease into the bigger picture?”
“Ease into the bigger picture?” She glanced at him, amused. “Is that what I’ve been doing?”
“Nay, you’ve been part of the bigger picture from the verra beginning,” he replied. “You just didnae know it yet.”
They both started at his words, recognizing that he wasn’t just saying that because he wished it but voiced what their magic told him to. The truth they could see clearly now that they’d been intimate.
“It turns out you’re on a bit of an adventure,” she said to Chloe, focusing on her friend when she was super eager to discover what other truths might be revealed about her own role in all this. “You’ve sort of...” How to phrase this? Come on, Julie. You’re used to dealing with time travelers. Not like this, though. “Well...have you ever watched Dr. Who?”
“Can’t say I have.” Chloe’s eyes remained narrowed as she tried to figure everything out. “I’ve heard of it though...time travel show, right?”
“Yup.” She was about to say more when Chloe shook her head and blinked several times again.
“Wait...right....” Chloe peered at her ring, understanding dawning out of nowhere. “Time travel...this.” Her eyes shot to Tiernan, taking in his medieval attire before she did the same to Julie and whispered, “Holy hell, the dream...”
“You said the magic of the ring is easing her into things,” she said into Tiernan's mind. “But is it safe to say whatever Adlin and likely Grant did to it beforehand is affecting her transition too?”
“Aye, I’d say so,” he replied. “At least in part.”
“In part?”
“Aye, ‘tis hard to know what else might be influencing her,” he said. “Mayhap the stones or even more likely, the MacLomain she’s destined for.”
“Or Hamilton,” she murmured, referring to Aidan.
“Or Hamilton,” he concurred.
“What dream, Chloe?” she said aloud. Her friend was back to gazing around.
Chloe’s eyes grew more concerned by the moment, the dream evidently not a top priority anymore.
“I need to find him,” Chloe said more to herself than them. “I think I have a message for him.”
“A message for who, lass?” Tiernan said.
“Him.” Chloe’s suddenly haunted eyes met his. “The guy on the other side of the stone.”
“You sound like you know him,” Julie said.
“I just need to find him,” Chloe kept saying, turning again and again, looking from stone to stone. “He’s just on the other side...I know he is.”
Tiernan and Julie glanced at each other in confusion and concern moments before Chloe locked onto the stone next to the one she had appeared at and strode that way.
“Chloe, stop!” Julie pursued her, but it was too late.
Her friend had vanished.
Stranger still, seconds later, someone else appeared in the very same spot.
Chapter Twenty
“BLOODY HELL,” AIDAN exclaimed, appearing where Chloe had stood moments before. “Am I still dreaming?”
“I dinnae think so,” Tiernan replied, as curious as Julie about what was happening. “What do you last remember, Cousin?”
“Drifting off to sleep,” Aidan exclaimed, “at the king’s holding.” He shook his head. “Then I was dreaming about the Stonehenge in New Hampshire. There was a woman there. I couldnae see her, but...” He paused, the curious look on his face nearly identical to the one Chloe had just worn. “She was trying to tell me something.” He nodded once, sure of it. “She had a message for me.” He gazed around. “Then I was at another Stonehenge before I ended up here.”
“What Stonehenge?”
“I dinnae know with certainty because there was so much fog.”
“There was here too,” Julie murmured. “Now it’s gone. Just like Chloe.”
“Chloe?” Aidan looked at them in confusion. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
“My guess?” Tiernan said. “Because you dreamt of her though you’ve never actually met.”
He filled his cousin in on everything that had happened.
“She mentioned Maeve?” Aidan said softly. “Truly?”
“Yeah.” Julie eyed him. “When you had that dream about the stones in Ireland, did you call out to Maeve? Did you ask her to come to you?”
“I might have called out to her.” He shook his head. “But I’m certain I didnae tell her to come to me.”
Tiernan and Julie glanced at each other again, of the same mind.
“I think we should tread verra carefully when it comes to those we see or hear beyond Brouns in our dreams.” Tiernan gestured at the Stonehenge. “Especially at any of these locations, past or present.”
Aidan considered him, catching on fast.
“You think though I called for Maeve, one of the warrior monks was using my voice to summon Chloe somehow,” he surmised. “That her curiosity would draw her though ‘twas not her name.”
Julie glanced at Aidan with surprise. “How do you know Chloe’s that curious?”
He shook his head, troubled. “I dinnae know. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“’Tis hard to know what happened to you at those stones in Ireland, Aidan,” Tiernan went on, staying focused. “But something doesnae feel right about it.” He cocked his head. “You were pinned to the stone in your dream, right?”
“Aye.” Aidan nodded. “’Twas alarming.”
“No doubt.” Tiernan pondered that. “You said something came in your dream, Cousin. Something dark. Might it have been the warrior monks’ magic at work? Or should I say, did it feel like verra ancient, powerful magic? A sorcery unknown to us?”
“Not warrior monks but the disinherited,” Julie corrected. The stone in her ring flared to life. “That’s what they should be called because that’s what they are.”
Tiernan looked from her to the ring and nodded. She was right. Their magic had just confirmed it.
“I couldnae tell much other than something dark was closing in,” Aidan supplied, disgruntled. “I might have sensed more if my magic wasnae so off.”
“Yet it was dark magic,” Tiernan said softly, feeling the magic of Julie's Claddagh ring. Hearing its message. “’Twas the same power that was in the woodland yesterday when we were attacked.” He looked at Julie. “’Twas also around wee David...”
“Possessing him,” she whispered, then shook her head, speaking about what the ring's magic had been trying to convey when they dined with David earlier. Something they had tried to figure out then set aside when they became intimate. “No, not possessing him but those around him.” She frowned. “Not to say whatever it was didn't have David cast beneath some sort of spell because he certainly wasn’t himself.”
“Nay.” He was more concerned by what he suddenly knew with certainty when a blocked memory came rushing back. “That was one of his own guardsmen that turned on him, wasn’t it?” It was so clear now. “The one I killed after I thought you were stabbed.”
“Yeah, pretty sure it was.” She narrowed her eyes. “But how is that possible? Others had to have seen him. It would have been talked about. They would have looked for more traitors, right?”
“If, in fact, that man had been seen for who he really was,” Aidan said. “Whic
h I can assure you he wasnae because I clearly saw a rebel clansman as did the others.”
“A rebel clansman,” Tiernan repeated, thinking it over. “What were his tartan colors?”
Aidan frowned. “Come to think of it I didnae see any colors.”
“Then how can you be sure he was Scottish?”
“Because he was dressed like a Scotsman,” Aidan began then frowned and blinked as though realizing something. “Which, in retrospect, doesnae mean he was Scottish.” He shook his head. “Yet he verra much struck me and everyone who fought on behalf of wee King David as one of our countrymen.”
“Which would be pretty clever of the Disinherited if they wanted to continue causing dissent among their enemies,” Julie pointed out. “More than that, if they wanted to show others how much unrest the country suffered under its current leadership.”
Tiernan crossed his arms over his chest. “So, you think they were pretenders?”
“Why not?”
“Why not indeed,” he murmured. “Grant said he had sensed one of the nobles had changed but wasn’t sure how. Mayhap ‘twas specifically his influence in the woodland.”
“Without a doubt,” came a familiar voice before Grant appeared.
This time he appeared older, his hair sprinkled with white. He muttered something about quite enjoying his younger self again but that his ethereal form was like ashes on the wind lately. “’Tis as we suspected. The nobles, or should I say whatever is manipulating them, are accessing ley-lines that should not be theirs to access.”
“That’s why the lines looked different,” Julie whispered. “Darker.” She was putting the pieces together. “They’re definitely using some of them to travel like I do...not that I know exactly how I do that yet.”
“Aye, they’re using them for just that, lass,” Grant confirmed, grim. “And they first accessed them here at these stones.” He homed in on the rock behind Aidan then looked at him in surprise. “It brought you here then?”
“So it seems,” he replied. “In a dream against my will at that.”
A Scot's Pledge (The MacLomain Series: End of an Era, #1) Page 13
