Page 55 of Shaw

Shaw sheathed his blade before he turned to his lady. “You couldnae see the longboat from the forest on Caladh.”

“Not that forest.” She took his hands in hers before she nodded toward Caladh. “I’ve seen the Stone Forest before you took me there, sort of. It was one of the places I could see through the tree window my aunt showed me when I lived with her. We could watch any time we wanted. That’s how I saw what would happen today.”

What she told him confused him even more. “She showed you this day from the future?”

“No, Shaw. Somewhere in Scotland I’m with her right now. I wasn’t born in the twenty-first century.” Julianne’s eyes shimmered with tears. “I’m from this time. Your time. We were supposed to meet a long time ago.”

As if silently agreeing with Julianne’s outlandish claim, MacLeir nodded, and then went to the rudder to turn the ferry into the wind. Shaw could not take her words as truth, of course. The lady was definitely mortal, but he would indulge her until they came close enough to the raiders for him to board the vessel and deal with them. Then, once they returned safely to the island, he would speak with Duncan and perhaps Lady Valerie and find some means of helping Julianne.

“It’s okay if you don’t believe me.” She rubbed at her eyes. “I can’t even myself. But what I remember is my aunt who isn’t actually my aunt saved me, and took me inside the trees to live in her world. Ordinary people don’t get older in there.”

Another terrible possibility came to him. Immortals like his sire could prevent mortals from ageing by taking them to an otherworld, and keeping them there. “Your aunt, she’s Fae?”

“No.” Julianne grimaced. “She’s older than them. The oldest of all kinds, really.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I have to jump us over to the Vikings’ boat now, so you can save the boys while I deal with the other problem.” When he gestured toward the barrier she added, “As soon as we leave MacLeir will cover the gap in the mist with his magic. There’s no more time to explain. Please, come with me.”

Shaw knew he should stop her. He could knock her senseless with little more than a tap, and leave her with the ferryman while he dealt with the raiders. Yet she was asking of him what he had always demanded of her. Even with all his doubts. Even knowing she could be slain the moment they jumped to the longboat.

I must trust her.

He tucked his arm around her. “Take me with you, then, my lady.”

“You’re such a sweetie.” Her eyes grew misty again as she pressed her cheek against his shoulder, and then the ferry dissolved into a blur.

Time seemed to slow as Shaw held her, suspended in the place between places, removed from all but each other. Julianne tilted her head back to meet his gaze, smiling through her tears as she radiated a lovely pale glow that caressed him with its soft light.

We’re probably going to die today, Bràmair. Her thoughts poured into his mind as if they’d never spoken in any other fashion.

That told him they had traveled between realms many, many times. Aye, Co-chèilidh. So we shall together, as ever we’ve done. If we survive, then shall you wed me?

She kissed him. If you need me to. You know I’ve been yours since the first moment I saw you in our first lifetime, my beautiful man.

A blurred image wrapped around them, that of a towering forest of snow-covered trees he did not recognize, and a night sky filled with so many stars the light was nearly the same as day. Julianne stepped out from behind one massive tree, her hair and eyes a dark brown. She wore crudely-stitched furs and carried a wreath of golden mistletoe to another tree, where she lay it atop its roots. A hunter with a drawn bow stepped into her view, his face the same as Shaw’s but his black hair cropped and his eyes a bright blue.

The ancient Julianne dropped onto her knees before the hunter Shaw, and bowed her head. Instead of shooting her or attacking her, he did the same, tilting his head so he could look at her face. When he bent closer, she smiled and kissed his cheek. The bow dropped from his hand as he returned the kiss on her lips.

It really is love at first sight for us in every life we live, his Julianne whispered to him, her brown and blue eyes gleaming with adoration.

Rough, bowed wood appeared around them, encasing them in the hold of a vessel, and the smell of unwashed bodies and terror filled Shaw’s head. Swaying lanterns cast shadows and light over a half-dozen small lads in chains cowering against the hull walls. The sight of the wounds showing through the grime and raggedy garments covering their skin made the beast roil inside him.

Julianne spoke to them softly in a language Shaw belatedly realized was Érieann. Whatever she said made all of the lads stop cringing and tug at their chains as they crept closer.

“How ken you their tongue?” Shaw asked her.

“I’ve been able to speak all languages since I lived with my aunt.” She looked into his eyes. “But this is one we both know.” A dim memory of another life with her, speaking that language around a fire in some crude hearth, flitted into his mind. She glanced back at the boys. “Listen, we’re running out of time, Chief. See if you can free them while I’m gone.”

Alarmed, Shaw reached for her, but she vanished before he could touch her. A wave rocked the longboat, knocking him into a post supporting the upper deck. As soon as he grabbed it to right himself he knew what he’d done. As he snatched his hand away and looked around for water, the ball of flames that burst from the wooden post spread up to the underside of the deck, and spread in all directions.

“’Tis any barreled water here?” Shaw asked the boys in their language, but they all shook their heads as they crowded around him. Smoke began filling the hold, making them cough; it would smother the life out of them in only a few moments.

Above them a hatch flung open, and the furious face of a raider appeared. He shouted something in Norse that didn’t sound like a promise of rescue.

Shaw ran over, climbing up the ladder as the Viking gaped at him, and got hold of his tunic to jerk him through the open hatch. As he landed on the lower deck one of the older boys kicked him in the head, knocking him out. He then seized a bundle of keys from the raider’s belt, and began unlocking the manacles around the other lads’ ankles and wrists.

The fire had crawled along the walls of the hold, and would soon engulf him and the boys. He knew the longboat was too far out from the island for the boys to be able to swim to shore by themselves, and they were too many for him to carry there on his back. MacLeir’s vessel was closer, and he could swim with them two at a time to hand them off to the ferrymen.

What he needed to do was take the boys out of the hold before the smoke choked them to death.

“You and the others, follow me,” he told the oldest lad, and climbed up the ladder to emerge on the upper deck, where a cluster of raiders stood around the hatch.