Page 124 of Dark Victory

Then she recalled her sense that he was lost and that he needed her.

For one instant, she thought she saw him in a night-blackened forest, holding a sword in one hand. And evil surrounded him….

She inhaled, terribly frightened now. Tabby hurried downstairs, but only a housemaid was in the hall. She ran outside. It took her a moment to espy Rob on the ramparts. She called out to him, waving. He saw her and hurried down to the bailey. Tabby raced across the yard to him.

“My lady!” he cried, clearly relieved to see her. “Is Macleod with ye?”

Her heart lurched with more fear. “No, he’s not. Rob, how long has it been since he returned Coinneach to Melvaig?”

“’Tis been two days.” Rob’s blue eyes blazed and his face was grim. “I have heard Coinneach is arousing his allies an’ plans war on us now, an’ his mother is usin’ her magic to help him.”

Tabby went still. Criosaidh was still alive. Of course she was—she wouldn’t die until June 1, 1550, if Tabby had changed history. Now it seemed as if they would be rivals for the next two-and-a-half centuries. She shivered. She was a Rose. If she had to fight that witch for two-hundred-and-fifty more years, she would do so and she’d win.

“The MacDougalls are always plottin’ against us,” Rob added quickly, as if to reassure her. He then said, low, “He told me he would leap into the future to save ye in another time. I dinna realize he finally had his powers. I begged him not to go. What has happened to him? Why hasn’t he come back to us?”

“I don’t know what has happened. But I know he’s coming back—I am sure of it.”

Rob looked at her with worry but Tabby couldn’t reassure him. She kept seeing Macleod in that forest, and evil was stalking him. Where was he?

She reminded herself that he survived. She knew it because she’d just been in his arms.

It’s all right, she told him silently. I’m here and I’m waiting for you.

She couldn’t imagine defending Blayde for the next two-hundred-and-fifty years without him. Tabby felt sick. She held her stomach, thinking about how Fate—and history—could be changed. Maybe the gods were angry with her for what she’d just done at An Tùir-Tara. Now, she began to really worry. She’d just been with him on June 1, 1550, but he’d gone to Melvaig on June 19, 1550. If he was meddling at An Tùir-Tara and being punished for it after she’d been with him in the sixteenth century, their entire life could be destroyed.

A terrible headache began. She refused to think about being at Blayde for the rest of her life without him. Being able to leap into the past at any point in time meant that if someone made one slip, history could be undone and rewritten. But the Book of Roses stated emphatically that history would only change if it had been miswritten.

“He’ll return.” Rob was adamant, but his expression remained worried.

The day passed endlessly. Tabby found herself on the ramparts, waiting for him to return, as if he was traveling by horseback. At dusk she gave that up, because he wasn’t a mortal and he would return by leaping time. She paced the hall, unable to eat, until Peigi insisted.

She fell asleep in his great chair before the fire, his wolf-hounds at her feet.

And she dreamed about him. In her dreams, he was somewhere in the night, always walking, his face grim and set, his feet bloody and blistered. In her dreams, there were demons and wolves, and his sword dripped their blood. Sometimes she saw him wandering through the forests as the fourteen-year-old boy. When she awoke, he hadn’t returned, and she was even sicker with fear for him.

Something terrible had happened to him, she thought uneasily.

The sense she’d had before, that he was lost, escalated.

The hounds whined.

Tabby couldn’t even pet them. “C’mon,” she said hoarsely, feeling as if she hadn’t slept at all that night. She crossed the hall, the hounds racing her to the front doors, tails wagging. They began to bark in excitement.

Tabby opened the doors, the bright morning sunlight almost blinding her. Macleod was crossing the bailey.

He had come home. Tabby cried out in joy, flooded with relief. Then he stepped out of the shadows cast by the walls and her happiness vanished. She was stunned by his appearance.

His clothing had been reduced to rags and it hung from his body in tatters, revealing the fact that he had become terribly thin and far too emaciated for his large frame. He no longer looked like a knight or a bodybuilder—he looked like a marathon runner, and a sick one at that! He was long and lean now, all muscle and bone. Disbelieving, she realized his face was hollow and gaunt, too.

She started to cry and ran into his arms. He wrapped his arms around her in return, as if afraid to ever let her go again. Tabby clung desperately, so overjoyed that he was alive, and apparently unhurt—and that he was home. But what had happened to him?

In his hard, equally desperate embrace, she felt and understood the depth of his love for her.

“What happened?” she cried, looking up.

And the moment their gazes met, she realized what was wrong. He had no power.

She should have sensed his vast white power, because the hot waves always cloaked and cocooned her. It was gone.