Silent Vows (22 page)

“Twice?” Liz questioned.

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“Well, we’re once and the candles are twice.”

“Lame. Stupid and lame.”

Undaunted, Tara continued, “We sit inside and seek advice. We look for promise, for hope and love, the gifts we’ve been given from God above.”

The flames drew higher around them, taking Myra by surprise. The others gasped.

“Close your eyes,” Amber told them all, her voice exceeding her tender years. “Help us connect and see as one.”

At her request, Myra felt her hand warm. She opened her eyes and noticed their hands sparked.

Liz jolted back, but Tara held firm and wouldn’t let her go.

Images flew into Myra’s mind. She saw Simon calling his mom. She felt Tara’s emotion as she held her pregnant belly. She watched everything through Lizzy’s eyes as Duncan laughed and held Tara. All the feelings welled up inside her. Joy, frustration, anticipation, and fear. Everyone’s fragmented thoughts threatened a headache of extreme magnitude.

“Let’s try clearing our thoughts, all these visions are giving me a headache,” Liz took the words right out of Myra’s thoughts.

Myra opened her eyes and glanced at the others.

So did Lizzy. “Ahhh, Myra?” Lizzy cleared her throat. “Are you doing that?”

One by one, the others peeked to see what Lizzy meant.

Below them, some two feet below them, was the ground they had all been sitting on mere minutes before.

“It’s not me.”

“Great. Well, it’s safe to say the circle thing has some validity to it.”

Myra peered over her shoulder and noticed her skirts hung to the floor but her legs felt like they 189

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were on solid ground.

“How the hell is this happening?” Tara slid a look to Amber, whispered an apology for her language, which was met with a shrug.

Undaunted, Amber closed her eyes and kept going. “Let us get back to what we were doing. ‘Tis not like we are hovering above the Keep, risking a fall to our deaths.”

“That’s a cheery thought.”

“She’s right. Let’s keep going.”

“I think we should all try and focus on one person, and see if our thoughts become one,” Tara suggested, “How about Todd?”

“Nay!” Myra glanced at Amber. “I don’t think that would be wise.”

“Oh, yeah, how about Fin?”

“How about Simon?” Lizzy suggested.

“Aye. Simon is safe.” Amber’s laugh brought a smile to Myra’s face. Her little sister was truly wise beyond her years. Myra glanced at Lizzy and Tara.

“Come now, I have eyes. I may be young, but I’m not dense.” Amber’s head shook in a mock of Simon’s
I’m not stupid
expression.

Liz shook her head, “I’ll have to remember that.”

Myra closed her eyes and felt their energy focus on Simon. There wasn’t any other way to describe it.

Amber started to giggle.

Myra saw the image of Simon in a bath when he couldn’t have been more than two. He splashed with a red plastic toy and squealed every time it went under water.

“I remember that,” Tara said. “Is that Elmo?”

“Yes. He was so adorable. Remember how he threw that toy at Dad?”

“I do.”

“Dad never laughed, not once.” Lizzy’s somber emotion welled within Myra. The pain of an unaccepting father broke her heart.

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Quickly, the baby pictures changed and the nightmare of Simon’s abduction flashed into Myra’s mind. Fear, desperation, and hate welled within her.

She heard Grainna’s voice rake over her soul.

The anxiety of a mother unable to help her child filled her with dread.

“Oh, God.” Tara gasped in panic. From the thickness of emotion, she knew every one of them swelled with a frantic need to flee.

Myra’s pulse quickened when a blond man took a knife to Simon’s neck.

A quiet sob escaped Liz. “Oh, no.”

“Enough.” Myra swiftly opened her eyes.

“Enough. ‘Tis done.”

“I’m so sorry, Lizzy.” Tara had tears in her eyes.

“It’s okay, he’s safe now.”

“I didn’t want to bring back all that pain.”

They floated, unmoving for a moment.

“It worked.”

Myra squared her shoulders. “It did.”

“Should we try it again?”

“Not now,” Lizzy appeared weary to the bone.

“Not today.”

Myra attempted to lighten the mood. “Any idea how we get down?” she asked.

A knock on the door resulted in Amber removing her hands from the others, and with it whatever levitated them disappeared.

With a thud, and more than one bruised butt, each of them fell to the floor.

“Mom? Are you in there?” Simon yelled and knocked again.

“Just a second.”

Lizzy scrambled to blow out the candles. “Quick, put them away,” she ordered.

“Hey?” Simon let himself in the room. “Did you need me or something?”

Liz glanced behind her, at Myra and the others 191

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in the room. “Why do you ask?”

“I heard you calling me. It sounded important.”

“I didn’t call you, Simon.”

“Yeah you did.” He pointed to his head. “In here.”

****

“Damn, not again.”

Frustrated, and unable to get back to sleep, he tossed his blankets off and pulled on his pants.

The fire in the hearth had dwindled to nothing more than coals and the room chilled at the edges.

He found it amazing how quickly he adapted to life in these times.

He reflected on how Myra acted with every new experience in his world, how awestruck she had been with a simple hamburger. He remembered how big her eyes got when he drove her in his Mustang and her laughter when the waves from the ocean crashed over her toes.

“Damn.” He tugged on a shirt and left the room in search of a drink.

Like a teenager sneaking booze from the liquor cabinet, Todd felt a pang of guilt over splashing some of Ian’s stash into a glass. Lucky for him, the feeling didn’t last long. It was his damn daughter who caused his anguish.

And Ian’s damn rules.

The flicker of light caught him by surprise when he left Ian’s study. Everyone was asleep, or so he thought.

Myra sat and toiled with a small plate of food in her lap. Her long and shapeless nightdress pillowed over her legs, which she curled up under her. Only the pink of her toes peeked out. Her beautiful toes.

The door creaked when he closed it. Myra jumped at the sound.

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“I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Her face slid into a grin when she realized it was him. “I thought I was the only one awake.”

Todd lifted his glass. “Couldn’t sleep. You?”

“Nay. I’m a bit restless these days.”

Todd fidgeted for a while and kept glancing toward the stairs, expecting someone from the family to interrupt them, as they always did.

“Do I make you nervous?” Myra asked in a low voice.

“Is it that obvious?”

“It is.” Nodding toward the stairs, she said, “I’m sorry for my family’s pressure on you.”

“No pressure. Unless they catch us together.

Then I would think that
pressure
would be an understatement.”

“They can’t fault us for talking,” she told him.

He took the hint and sat across from her a safe distance away.

“How is your training?”

“Tiring. I have an understanding of why men in this time are solid muscle.”

“You are fit, even for your time.”

He sipped his drink. “Lifting weights isn’t the same as working with your weapons. And riding the horses is a chore all in its own.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.” Myra sat her plate of food on the table.

“Grainna forced that hand, Myra. Not you.”

“True, but if we had never met, you wouldn’t be involved.”

He sat his drink on the table, raised his voice.

“Is that what you think I want? To never have met you?” When she didn’t answer right away he added.

“Do you wish you had never met me?”

“Nay!” she pleaded. “Every sleepless night I 193

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think of you. Of us. Never have I regretted anything.”

“Sleepless nights?”

“Aye, every one.”

Todd could see the lost sleep in her expression.

The dark circles under her eyes and the dreamy way she gazed at him elevated his heart rate to a thundering speed. As he stared longer and watched her lip curl between her teeth, he lost it.

Without words, he stood and crossed over to where she sat.

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Picking up her hand, Todd helped her to her feet. His fingers lifted back the length of her hair while one lazy finger swept over her cheek. Her gut clenched with his simple loving touch.

“I can’t sleep. Everyday I work harder trying to find the point where fatigue will dull me to dreams, but nothing works. You are there when I close my eyes. These lips...” He smoothed his fingers over them as he spoke. “They torment me.” He gently urged her head back, exposing her long neck. “Your skin calls to me.” He dropped his mouth to her beating pulse, tearing a gasp from her.

Fingers clasped around him, pulling him closer.

Her nightgown trailed off her shoulder where Todd sent a blaze of heat in the wake of his tongue.

Her head rolled back and her eyes closed. Heat shot to her stomach and lower. Any concern about where they were or being caught escaped her mind.

Slowly, her hands drifted down his back and skimmed over his tight bottom. His reaction was instant. His lips found hers with crushing need, bringing with it hunger for more.

Familiar hands stroked her sides, his tongue danced with hers in a rough exploration of every crevasse, every valley.

Hands grasped her hips, urging her against the stiff pressure of his erection. He caught her cries of 195

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pleasure with his mouth. Tension gathered with every suggestive movement of his hips against hers.

Tasting him, feeling him, having him was a need beyond any hunger she had ever felt.

He stopped her hands when they tugged at his shirt, and held them close to his heart.

Slowly, he ended their kiss.

She searched his eyes and asked, “Why did you stop?”

He looked to the stairs. “You know why.” He curved a hand around her face.

Her father’s words echoed in her mind,
Unless
you plan on marrying this evening, I suggest you step
aside.

The threat of a forced marriage stopped him, she thought. Her father would have them married if he caught them like this. The thought didn’t disturb her, but it obviously distressed Todd. Could she live with a marriage of force and not of love?

Myra stepped back and broke their contact.

“You’re upset.” Todd concluded. “Your father would...”

“I know what my father would do.” She pulled her pride together and stood a little taller.

“He would have my head if I put you in a questionable situation.”

“Is that what I am to you? A questionable situation?”

Todd stepped back. “You’re more than that.”

“Am I?”

“You know you are.” His anger matched hers.

“How do I know? Because you want me, desire me?” “That and more.”

Myra waited for him to explain, but he didn’t.

“Let me know when you are ready to tell me what
more
is, Todd. In the meantime, I’ll be sure to not place you in a ‘questionable situation.’ I wouldn’t 196

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want you to be forced into anything.”

She marched past him to the stairs, but he caught her before she took the first one. “No one forces me to do anything I don’t want to do.”

“Really?” she pulled out of his grasp. “Look around, Todd. It appears to me you have been forced to stay here.”

“Do you think I didn’t know what would happen when I jumped into the stones? That I didn’t know I might never see my life as it was before again. I knew exactly what I was doing, Myra, and I did it anyway.” He took a step back. “I chose to do it anyway.”

Her hands covered her arms in a struggle to keep warm. “Why?”

“Because of you, dammit! I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” He turned away. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow will be another long day.”

****

Far outside the reaches of the MacCoinnich family, Grainna paced the grounds of a forgotten home. It in no way resembled the Keep, but neither was it a hut. Its grounds overgrown with vegetation, its walls crumbled in disrepair. Even the roof leaked.

The overgrowth made for great camouflage and surprise when people passed by.

Their recruitment for her army came slowly.

Only one or two at a time could go undetected from the groups of people who passed by. Much like a lion stalking prey, those who lagged behind their pack Grainna picked off, men and women alike.

The minds of the people she abducted were easily manipulated, much like those in the twenty-first century. For those who had stronger convictions, she bent them to her will by means of force.

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Grainna wasted little time negotiating. If they were too difficult, she simply killed them.

Over two months had gone by, and in that time she found only two people with Druid blood running in their veins, bastard blood amounting to very little power.

She considered keeping them alive and using their skills to her advantage, but her hunger for youth was too strong. Ending their pathetic lives in a ritual she had perfected over time returned some of her strength and youth, but none of her powers.

The youth was fleeting. Yes, her body surged when their life-force drifted into her, but the temporary vitality faded quickly.

This only added to her desire to regain it all.

The blood of a Druid virgin would remove her curse in one quick act. It would be permanent.

The rain fell in sheets, causing her bones to ache. She watched Michael push the man he tried to train to the ground.