The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.
~ Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death” (479)
“If ye die on me, I’ll kill ye.” The sweet voice murmured the ironic and rather humorous threat close to Rhys’s ear. Warm breath tickled his skin, but his arm was too heavy to lift his hand and brush away the source of the tickle. Every part of his body was heavy, really. Trying to open his eyes was like trying to move a boulder—pointless. So he gave up trying. The minute he did, he felt as if he were floating on his back in a sea of warm water.
“Open yer eyes, or else,” the voice from before insisted.
There was a gentleness in the voice despite the threat, and he had to see the face that went with it. That voice had been with him while fiery pain ate at him, pounded his head, ravaged his body. That voice, the angel voice, had anchored him in the storm, encouraged him, helped him to breathe. Who was the angel? He strained to open his eyes but finally managed it. A face came into focus. A concerned face. A shockingly lovely face with eyes so soft and blue. He remembered that face now.
Maggie Irvine… Maggie… From where? Where did he know Maggie from? Work? The gym? The office?
He lost the thought, and his mind drifted to how surprisingly good he felt. As if he was high and floating on air. It was how he’d felt when he’d gotten his wisdom teeth out and then again when he’d had his shoulder relocated after their mom had left and he’d gotten in a fight with Reikart.
Wait… Their mom hadn’t left. She’d been taken. But to where? He couldn’t come up with the answer as the darkness closed in once more.
When he woke again, he had more clarity. He was sick, and he wasn’t in his time. And he’d kidnapped a woman named Margaret—no, Maggie. She’d called herself Maggie. He groaned, and Maggie appeared before him again, still looking like an angel but a damned tired one with dark smudges under her arresting eyes. He had a thousand things he wanted to say, to ask, but his throat was dry and his tongue felt thick. All he managed to get out was, “Don’t leave me.”
“Shh.” She leaned toward him and trailed a featherlight touch over his forehead. “I’ll nae leave ye,” she promised. “And do ye feel the fire? I started one, so ye best enjoy it before I have to smother it.”
For some reason, he felt he could trust the promise not to leave, trusther. Time was funny like that. No, travelingthroughtime was funny like that. Suddenly he couldn’t remember why he was so opposed to letting someone get close to him.
He awoke like that again and again after short spurts of sleep, and Maggie was there every time. But the stronger he felt, the more tired she looked. When he next woke, she was sleeping so close to him it was almost as if they were one. Her arm was slung over his chest as if to protect him, and her leg was thrown over his legs. Her head rested on his shoulder.
A feeling of protectiveness tightened his chest and made him blink. He was aware enough now to know he had no damn business developing any sort of feelings for this woman. He didn’t know her, for one thing. He was not in his time, for another. If he could help it, he also didn’t intend to stay here. He needed to get back to his own time and his family. But first he needed to track down his mom, and he needed Maggie to guide him. Would she come with him willingly? The darkness slipped over him before he could answer his own question.
When he awoke again later, Maggie had her hands cupped to his mouth and she was encouraging him to drink. He did so greedily. The water cooled his throat and loosened his tongue enough to murmur, “Need you.”
She pressed a hand to his cheek, and her lips curved upward. Her smile was as blinding as the sun. It was worthy of a postcard.
“I know,” she whispered. “Do nae worry.” But she sounded worried even as she said it.
The next time he regained consciousness it was as if Moses had stepped into Rhys’s head and parted the sea of confusion. The minute he opened his eyes, he knew things were different. The fresh scent of pine and the damp, earthy scent of dirt swirled in the air—along with something else. Sweat? His sweat? He lifted his head and arm at the same time, glad he finally had the strength to do both, and smelled himself. Jesus, he needed a shower. A warm one pref—
Not gonna happen in this century,his mind cut in to taunt. He was going to have to settle for a swim in the sea—an icy, ball-freezing cold swim if the air around him was any indication.
Maggie.
The word slammed into his brain, followed rapid-fire by the memory of her face, her gentle hands caring for his body, her soothing voice in his ear. He bolted upright, grunting at the dull pain but glad it was only dull. He looked around at the thick brush, the towering pines, the swaying branches, and fading sunlight. To his right was the sword he’d stolen, and a makeshift fire pit that had charred wood in it, and to his left was a small pile of what appeared to be food that Maggie must have foraged.
He studied the pile with narrowed eyes. He recognized garlic, hazelnuts, and elderflower, but the rest of the stuff… Reaching over, he picked up what looked like a blackberry and brought it to his nose. It had the sweet smell of a blackberry, and his stomach immediately started growling. He popped the berry in his watering mouth. It was the best damned blackberry he’d ever tasted. Leaning over, he grabbed the whole pile of berries and shoved them in his mouth at once, forcing himself to chew them and not swallow them whole in his hunger.
How the hell long had they been there? How long since he’d eaten a full meal? Had Maggie left him this supply of food because she’d left him altogether?
An angry but feminine bellow suddenly ripped through the silence as if his question had traveled on the air and reached the woman he was thinking about. He jerked at the sound, and his pulse jumped, adrenaline surging through him. It was as if someone had woken him with a cold bucket of ice water. His muscles twitched to life, blood coursing through his veins and synapses firing. He looked around, trying to ascertain where the voice had come from when a second scream slashed the silence.
Maggie! That is Maggie!
The terror in her piercing cry was like someone plunging a needle straight into his heart. He swooped down, grasped the sword, and ran toward her shouts, which were coming one after the other now. He shoved through brambles and shrubs and scampered over gnarled roots and fallen logs. He batted away branches, and when he couldn’t, he barged through them, not caring if he got scratched. The makeshift bandage on his abdomen fell away as he ran, but he felt no pain, only fear for Maggie. He barely knew her, but she had taken care of him, stayed with him when she didn’t have to. He owed her his life, and he damn sure wasn’t going to fail her now.
He jumped another fallen branch and then broke through a thick patch of trees into a clearing. A stream cut through it, and that’s where Maggie stood, looking like an avenging angel. She wore nothing but a léine. The outline of her every curve was on display, and her hair tumbled in wild, fiery disarray over her shoulders. She held a large rock in each of her hands.
A man stood in front of her. He was dressed similarly to the guard Rhys had stolen the plaid and braies from, but this man had a sword sheathed at his hip and a dagger in his hand. Rhys quietly closed the distance between himself and the water, trying to determine the best way to attack the man when the man spoke to Maggie.
“Yer brother thinks to order me like a dog,” he snarled. “But I’m going to prove who is the master and who is the hound now. And I’ll start by destroying his hopes. Ye are his hope, ye unplucked flower, so I will pluck ye and take ye back to the baron, who will thank me with much coin for returning ye to him.”
“If ye touch me, Loxton,” she warned, “I vow I’ll kill ye.”
