Page 21 of Bewitched Before Christmas
Chapter Eleven
Christmas Future…
It was happening again. Lachlan tightened his arms around her as the room faded around them. His vision darkened, and he closed his eyes, expecting to be dragged back to that earlier time, the stone room, his mother and sisters, the cold that seeped into his bones, the hunger gnawing at his belly. Instead…
The castle. But there were decorations, a huge tree with a star on top that brushed the ceiling of the great hall. Candles twinkled and colored streamers festooned the walls. A Yule log burned in the open hearth. The sound of laughter and talking filled the room.
What was happening?
He didn’t know these people. Except, there was Darius across the room, with a blond woman he didn’t recognize. And then Lola stepped into sight. His mind scrambled to make sense of what he was seeing.
Could this be the future?
She’d survived. And something inside him relaxed. He’d been trying not to think about what she had said. That her life would be forfeit. He would not allow that to happen. But this was magic. He was out of his depth, and he had to save her but he had no clue how.
Yet here she was. And this certainly wasn’t the past so it must be going to happen.
A lightness filled him. He hardly recognized the emotion—but that was happening a lot lately.
Hope.
Hope for the future.
Lola was looking straight at him, smiling, her expression radiant. Then she caught sight of something behind him and her expression faltered.
He turned slowly, then shock held him immobile. A man stood in the doorway. Tall, dressed in black, with black hair pulled back in a ponytail, stubble shadowing his cheeks, a scar ran down the left side of his face, through his eyebrow, across his cheekbone, to his upper lip, tugging it into a permanent sneer.
As Lachlan stepped toward him, the vision wavered.
“No!”
He tried to hold on, but it was slipping away, faster and faster. And then it was gone…
And he was back in the present. Lola was still in his arms, and he lowered her to the floor. She squeezed his arm. “You saw?”
He glanced down, shook his head to clear the vision. She had a worried frown between her eyes. “Yes, I fucking saw.” He ran a hand through his hair. It wasn’t possible. Not fucking possible.
“What is it, Lachlan?”
He turned away, paced the room. Drew back his fist and punched the wall.
“Ouch,” she muttered behind him. “The man? The one in the doorway? Who is he?”
“You mean whowashe? That was my brother, Gabe.” Foster brother, but they had been closer than real brothers. Brought together by death and hardship and the struggle to survive.
She nibbled on her lower lip. “That doesn’t make sense. That was the future, not the past. He should be dead.”
“I saw him die. I saw him fall on the battlefield at Culloden. He took the blow meant for me. He saved my life, and he died. I know he died.”
He turned away, pressed his fingers to his forehead, forcing his mind to go back to that horrific day. The stench of blood and gun smoke. Death. He’d seen Gabe fall under the sword blow and had tried to fight his way through to him, over the bodies. He hadn’t seen the man who shot him. The musket ball had taken him in the shoulder, spun him around. The next thing he had known was Darius, looming over him, asking if he wanted to live forever. And he had said yes. So he could find Gabe, save Gabe. “I went back. As soon as I could. As soon as Darius would let me. But the body had vanished. So many disappeared, buried in mass graves. I came back here, but the place was deserted. Hehadto be dead. I would never have stopped looking if I'd thought there was any chance.”
He sank onto the sofa, his head in his hands. “We promised to always protect each other.”
“You tried. You did your best.”
“It wasn’t fucking enough.”
She sat beside him, placed a hand on his knee and a small measure of peace flowed through him. The fog cleared a little from his mind. “What happened? How did he survive? How could he still be alive in the future?”
