Kira awoke to absolute stillness.
She also had a raging headache, a twitching nose, and, she’d bet on it, horribly swollen eyes.
Frog eyes. Red, bulging, and achy.
Even without the luxury of a peek in her bathroom mirror, she knew she must look like death warmed over served on icy cold toast.
She felt that bad.
Not an unusual occurrence in recent times, considering her irritation with the media hounds who’d persisted in dogging her every step since she’d owned up to the discovery of the Viking longship and its New England moorings. Since then, every new morning had seen her reaching for the aspirin and glass of water she kept on her night table. Sleepless nights spent tossing and turning, resulted in aching, puffy eyes.
Annoyances she’d grown accustomed to.
But the thick and furry covers tickling her nose were beyond the norm, as was the undeniable scent of dog. No, dawg. This was much more than a hint of dander on the cold, peat-tinged air. The smell was over-powering and definitely there.
A big, smelly dog odor as real as the massive, richly carved medieval bed in which she found herself.
The beast himself wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been there. The lingering evidence of a dog’s presence stood without question. The bed was also real, its heavily embroidered curtaining parted just enough to give her a view of tall arch-topped windows and the burgeoning morn. A new day that was not breaking over the crowded parking lot of Aldan, Pennsylvania’s low budget Castle Apartments.
Nor the small and cozy car park of the tiny Skye inn she hadn’t even spent a night in.
Indeed, she couldn’t be in a more different place if she’d stowed away on a rocket to Mars.
Kira’s heart began to pound and her mouth went dry. Her headache worsened and although she’d prefer not to admit it, rarely had she felt so miserable. If she didn’t soon feel better, she’d suspect she was allergic to time travel.
Or medieval Scotland.
Much as the notion displeased her.
There could be no doubt that she’d landed there. Even if she weren’t peering through the bed curtains at the proof, the lack of noise was a giveaway. There was a stiff wind, but that was about it. Eerie and atmospheric as would be expected in such a setting, the wind blew and moaned, racing past the room’s window arches. From somewhere above her, came the snapping of what might have been a banner flying from the parapets. She also heard the muffled barking of dogs and the rhythmic wash of waves on the rocks below.
What she didn’t hear was the twenty-first century.
The maddening blare of leaf blowers and you-ride-‘em-cowboy lawn mowers or deaf old Mr. Wilson’s television droning through her apartment’s bedroom wall. No rattling of garbage trucks or distant sirens. Not even the low hum of her computer or the weird pops and shudders her ancient refrigerator was always making.
She heard simply nothing.
She listened hard, the stillness almost too complete to believe. Half certain her admittedly wild imagination was conjuring the peace, she squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. The quiet remained. As did the whole medieval-y room, the doggy smell, and the great, dark bulk of Wrath Isle, so visible through the tall, arched windows.
Her stomach gave a funny little dip. Last she’d looked, Aldan, Pennsylvania couldn’t claim such a view.
Nor could Castle Wrath, leastways not in the ruinous state she knew it.
Her heart still thumping, she held the furry covers to her breasts as she peered through the gap in the bed curtains. In addition to the window alcoves and view, she was greeted by whitewashed walls and the erotically decadent tapestries that had so startled her the night before.
Her first true indication that she stood in the medieval bedchamber she recognized from her dreams.
Now, some hours later, she swallowed hard. The room’s not-so-savory-looking floor rushes and the torchlights in their heavy iron wall brackets took away any last doubt that she was in Aidan’s world.
Trapped there and naked.
Unless time traveling had not just given her a shattering headache, but affected her memory as well. She dug her fingers into the pillow, considering the possibility. To be sure, she remembered undressing beneath the covers, but a quick scan of the floor refused to reveal where she’d dropped her clothes.
Or, better said, where she’d flung them.
In particular, her panties and her bra.
Neither bit of crucially important underwear was anywhere to be seen. For the life of her, unless she was horribly mistaken, the rest of her clothes had gone missing as well. Everything was gone. Including her beloved hill walking boots, and even her bargain basement Swiss watch.
Nothing remained to remind her of her own left-behind world.
Even more alarming, Aidan had also vanished.
Heaven help her if she’d only imagined him.
Conjured his hot-eyed stares and his heart-stopping kisses. The old-fashioned, take-charge sense of chivalry she found so utterly endearing.
Woo her, indeed.
He’d only made one mistake. Hiding her clothes wasn’t the way to her heart. Nor was leaving her behind in a strange, doggy-smelling bedchamber, even if she did know the room from their dreams. Too many big, hairy people here seemed to want a piece of her, and not the way she knew their laird did.
Those against her also carried swords.
And being medievals, they’d know how to use them.
Medieval Highlanders were especially bloodthirsty. Everyone knew it.
Kira bit her lip, her pulse beating rapidly. It was one thing to be in ancient Skye with Aidan at her side during the day and guarding her come nightfall, and something else entirely to be here alone.
Nearly as distressing, she was hungrier than she could recall being in her entire life. And – gasp, horrors! – she felt an urgent need to visit what she knew medieval people called the jakes. If the fates were kind, she’d find one of the miniscule water closets tucked away in a discreet corner of Aidan’s oh-so-lairdly bedchamber.
If not, she’d have to find something to wrap around her nakedness and go looking for one. But first she took a deep breath and peered around the room one more time, just to make sure the canine wasn’t lurking in some dark and musty corner, waiting to pounce.
Not that she didn’t like dogs.
She loved them.
But the ones she’d seen barking at her in the bailey weren’t the garden variety, toddle-down-the-sidewalk-looking-happy kind of dogs she was so crazy about. The shaggy, fang-toothed beasts that had gathered beneath the gatehouse arch had struck her as anything but friendly.
Shuddering at the memory, she slipped from the bed, certain she didn’t want anything to do with such monsters. She could still feel their agitated stares.
Or someone’s.
It was a disturbing sensation that came at her from two places: the other side of the closed oak-paneled door and, oddly, from outside the tall arched windows.
The back of her neck prickled and she grabbed a pillow, holding it in front of her just in case the room was outfitted with one of those peekaboo squint holes she knew could be found in medieval castles. Half afraid that might be the case, she crept around the corner of the huge, curtained bed, relief washing over her when she spied the mound of clothes piled on top of Aidan’s massive iron-banded strongbox.
Not her clothes, unfortunately, but clearly meant for her.
If she could figure out how to wear them.
Not sure that was possible, she picked up what could only be an arisaid. “A yarusatch,” she breathed, pronouncing it as she knew was correct for the female version of the ancient belted plaid.
Whether she could say the name properly or not, it still looked like an overlong bedsheet. It was finely made of a white-based plaid shot through with thin stripes of black, blue, and red. There wasn’t any way she could manage to drape it on without ending up looking like a ghost.
Despite the heavily carved silver brooch someone had thoughtfully tucked into its folds.
“I think I’ll pass.” She shook her head, then carefully refolded the cloth and placed it on the bed. Celtic shoulder brooch, and all. Exiting the room dressed like Casper in drag would only have Aidan’s scowling-faced clansmen growling at her again.
Sure of it, she examined the other garments, pleased to see that they appeared easier to slip into. A basic woolen gown in a rich shade of dark blue and an emerald green overdress that could only be made of silk. The fabric spilled across her fingers, cool and luxuriant to the touch. The third gown, clearly a lightweight cotton undershift, proved equally delicate.
Regrettably, it also appeared to be the only underwear in the pile.
Kira frowned. Hoping it wasn’t so, she searched through the garments again, only to have her dread confirmed. Underwear as she knew and appreciated it apparently didn’t exist in Aidan’s world, even if he could afford fine silks and silver brooches.
At least there were shoes.
She stared at them, not surprised she’d overlooked them, for in the shadow cast by the bed, the deer-hide cuarans were difficult to see against the floor rushes. Little more than longish, oval-shaped slippers laced all around with a thin leather cord, they would have reminded her of moccasins if they didn’t look so ridiculously big.
Large or not, she had to go, so she pulled on the silk undergown and the remaining clothes as quickly as she could, pointedly ignoring the arisaid and its brooch. She also tried not to notice how awkward the soft-soled, giant cuarans felt on her feet.
She wouldn’t think about her lack of underwear.
Instead, she steeled herself and took a few trial steps in the clumsy shoes. Nothing like her comfortable hill walking boots, they flipped and flopped with every step, making it next to impossible to walk. The long, loose skirts swishing around her legs didn’t help matters. Frowning again, she hitched them above her knees so she could embark on her quest to find a latrine.
She had a pretty good idea where one might be located, but when she pulled open the door, sweeping through it proved impossible.
A tartan-hung boy stood there, a huge platter of food clutched in his hands. He gasped, his face beet-red and his eyes darting any which way but in her direction.
“Oops!” Kira dropped her skirts at once, the near collision only causing the boy to flush all the deeper. Delicious smells wafted up from his food tray, making her mouth water, but other urges took precedence.
Even over politeness.
“Sorry.” She forced a smile as she tried to squeeze past him. “If that’s breakfast, I thank you. Just put it anywhere and I’ll dig into it when I get back.”
“There’ll be no need to be a-getting back as you willnae be going anywhere.” A burly, great-bearded Highlander stepped from the shadows, the steel glinting all over him underscoring the authority of his deep, don’t-argue-with-me voice. “The laird gave orders you are no’ to leave his chamber.”
A second man snorted. Every bit as well-built and ferocious-looking as the other, he snatched the food tray from the boy’s hands and narrowed his eyes at her, suspicion rolling off him. “If such as you even eats real food, you can break your fast alone. We’ll keep watch that no one disturbs you.”
Kira bristled. “You are doing that.” She lifted her chin, set her hands on her hips. “I have to go to the ladies’ room. The loo if that makes more sense to you.”
Apparently it didn’t because the two men merely stared at her, blank-faced and clearly not willing to budge.
Realizing retreat wasn’t an option, she held her ground. “Your laird wouldn’t wish me to be so discomforted,” she said, trying for a more medieval tone. “He’d-”
“Lord Aidan isn’t here.” The man with the food tray stepped closer, seeming to swell in size as he towered over her. “He’s charged us to see to your care, and we have by bringing you sustenance.”
“We can take it away as easily,” the other informed her. “If the offerings don’t please you.”
Kira pressed her lips together, trying hard not to shift from foot to foot. “It isn’t that.” She glanced past them down the dimly lit passage, wondering if she could make a run for it. “I have to-”
“I think she wants to use the jakes,” the boy chimed, his embarrassed gaze flicking from one angry-looking Highlander to the other. “The laird said she might need to-”
“The laird isn’t himself of late.” The first man grabbed her arm and dragged her back inside the room. “If she has suchlike needs, the pot beneath the bed will suffice.”
“Not with you looking!” Kira jerked free of his grasp and glared at him. “With no one looking,” she added, rubbing her arm as the dog shuffled into the chamber. A great shaggy beast, he plopped down beside the fire, his milky gaze watching her every move.
“No one,” she insisted, folding her arms.
The second man plunked her breakfast tray on a table near the window embrasure. “Watch your tongue, lassie. The laird loses interest in wenches sooner than an autumn wind blows leaves from the trees.”
Kira sniffed. Not about to show any weakness, she put back her shoulders and strode over to the hearth where she ruffed the dog’s head, taking courage from her firm belief that such an ancient creature, however fearsome-looking, was well past the days of biting.
Proving her right, he licked her hand.
Kira smiled, as did the red-faced boy still hovering on the threshold.
The two burly Highlanders frowned. “We’ll be outside yon door,” the first one said, jerking his head in that direction. “You willnae be winning o’er the rest o’ us as easily as old Ferlie.”
As if on cue, the dog bared his teeth and growled at him, his protectiveness earning a scowl.
“The laird ought be returned by nightfall,” the second man announced, already moving toward the door. “See you dinnae cause us any trouble lest you wish to meet his dark side.”
Then the two men were gone, closing the door behind them, and leaving her with a full-laden breakfast tray, a moony-eyed, geriatric dog, and a pee-pot she couldn’t wait to get her hands on.
Fortunately, once she knew where the thing was, it didn’t prove difficult to find. Not that she could imagine ever growing overly fond of such quaintness. All things considered, there were worse annoyances in her world.
Leaf blowers came to mind.
Or the persistent shrill of the telephone whenever she sat down to concentrate on one of her stories for Destiny Magazine. By comparison, a medieval chamber pot was definitely the lesser evil.
Even the dog, a creature that looked like a cross between an Irish wolfhound and a donkey, no longer seemed quite so daunting. She’d reserve judgment on his buddies down in the bailey.
“You’re not quite a Jack Russell, but I like you,” she said, watching him watch her.
Still feeling someone else’s gaze on her, she shivered as she washed her hands with cold water from an ewer and basin. She hadn’t noticed such amenities earlier, but enough gray morning light was now seeping in through the windows for her to quickly spot what she’d missed. Not just the ewer and basin, but also a small earthen jar of lavender-scented soap and even a comb. A short, folded length of linen she assumed was a medieval drying cloth.
Whether it was or not, she made good use of it.
Just as she’d do justice to her breakfast, even if she wasn’t quite sure what everything was. Determining to find out, she sat at the table, pleased to recognize oatcakes and cheese, while a green-glazed pottery bowl appeared to be filled with mutton stew. Another dish of the same type held what she suspected might be spiced and pickled eels, a delicacy she doubted she’d try. A small crock of honey and a jug of heather-scented ale rounded up the offerings.
Not too shabby, and certainly more edible-looking than some of the health food her sister Lindsay tried to palm off on her at times. Even if just looking at the eels made her feel like gagging.
Her new four-legged friend suffered no such aversion. His scraggly ears perking, and wearing the most hopeful look she’d ever seen on a dog’s face, he pushed to his feet and crossed the room to circle the table, eyeing everything on her breakfast tray as a potential tidbit.
“Okay, Ferlie.” She handed him an oatcake. “You win this battle, but the war’s not over.”
Pasting on a smile for his benefit, she helped herself to one as well, smearing her own with the soft cheese and honey. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts at trying to stay upbeat, waves of ill ease kept sluicing through her. The odd prickling at the back of her neck had increased tenfold just since she’d sat at the table.
Someone really was staring at her.
And she could no longer deny where the sensation was coming from. Not now, sitting so close to the source. Chills running up and down her spine, she stood, her gaze on the tall arched windows.
Whoever – or whatever – was staring at her was out there, beyond the opened shutters.
“Aieeeeeeeeeeeee!” The piercing scream, a woman’s, proved it.
Heart pounding, Kira ran into the window alcove, horror slamming into her when she leaned out the first arched opening to see a woman bobbing in the rough waters beneath Wrath Isle’s deadly, perpendicular cliffs.
“Dear God!” She clapped a hand to her throat, disbelief and shock stopping her breath.
The woman thrashed frantically and appeared to have a rope tied around her waist - a rope with dead seabirds dangling from its entire length.
Not trusting her eyes, Kira leaned farther out the window, but there was no mistake. Even through the scudding mists, she could see that the poor woman was encircled by dozens of seabirds-on-a-rope, their buoyant white bodies keeping her afloat as the swift current swept her out to sea.
“Eachann!” the woman wailed, her voice full of despair. “I cannae reach the rocks!”
“Help! Anyone! Please!” a second voice cut through the morning, louder and deeper. A man’s cry, his terror sounding even greater than the woman’s.
“Hold, lass, I willnae let you drown!” he yelled, and Kira saw him then, dashing back and forth along Wrath Isle’s cliff-tops.
Waving his arms and staring her way, he clearly hoped someone at the castle would see or hear and send help. A boat and men to rescue the woman Kira knew instinctively was his wife.
No, she was the man’s life.
His everything, and his anguish seared Kira to the bone.
Waving her own arms, she called to them. “Hang on! Help is on the way!” she shouted, even as she whirled and raced for the door.
She reached to yank it wide, but needn’t have bothered for it flew open in her face. Her two guardsmen stood there, hands fisted on their hips and glaring at her.
“Have you lost your wits?” The bigger of the two stared at her as if she’d sprouted horns. “Making a din and ranting like a mad woman. The laird-”
“The laird will have your hide if you allow a poor woman to drown!” Kira gave him an adrenalin-powered shove and streaked down the corridor, shouting as she ran. “Help! Someone get a boat! There’s a woman in the water!”
“Ho! Come back here, you!” The men bounded after her, their pounding footsteps spurring her on. Hitching her skirts, she careened around a bend in dimly lit passage, the flapping, oversized cuarans making her clumsy.
“Damn!” she swore when one of them went sailing off her foot. Snatching it, she raced on, but the guardsmen caught up with her, the bigger one grabbing her arm.
“Foolish wench! That was ill done.” He glowered at her. “Think you we’d no’ aid a drowning woman?”
“If she saw one.” The other man stood panting, fury all over him. “I dinnae believe her.”
“Of course, I saw her,” Kira insisted, trying to jerk free. “She’ll soon be dead if you don’t stop arguing and go save her!”
The bigger man shot the other a glance. “I’ll no’ stand by and have a woman drown. I say we make haste to look for her.” Hefting Kira off her feet, he tossed her over his shoulder and hurried for the stair tower. “Someone in the hall can keep an eye on this one until we return.”
“She’ll have slipped away by then,” the other scoffed, huffing after them. “She’s lying. No woman within these walls is fool enough to fall off the cliffs.”
“Bah!” the first man disagreed. “She could’ve slipped on the rocks down at the landing beach. Perhaps one of the laundresses or-”
“No.” Kira twisted in the man’s arms. “She fell from the cliffs of Wrath Isle.”
The man carrying her stopped short. “That cannae be.” He frowned, dropping her to her feet. “No one lives on Wrath Isle. It’s emptier than air, a scourged place.”
“I didn’t see her fall from there, but I know she did.” Kira was sure. “I saw her husband running along the cliff-top. She called him Eachann.”
The big man’s eyes rounded. “Eachann, was it?”
“Yes.” Kira nodded.
The two men exchanged glances. “Would there have been anything else you noted about the woman?” the big one wanted to know. “Something, odd-looking?”
Kira swallowed. She didn’t like the way they were watching her. “The woman had a rope tied to her,” she said anyway. “A rope with dead seabirds attached to it.”
“By the gods!” The big man jumped back and made the sign against evil.
The other turned white as a ghost. “I told you there was something no’ right about her.”
“No, please.” Kira looked from one to the other. “You must help the woman. She’ll drown if you don’t.”
“That’s no’ possible.” The big man shook his head. “Eachann MacQueen’s wife already drowned. Her life-rope broke when he lowered her down the cliffs to gather seabirds. Happened nigh onto a hundred years ago. The bards’ still tell the tale.”
Kira’s blood froze. She should’ve realized she was far-seeing the tragedy. But the woman’s cries had sounded so real. She’d tasted the man’s terror, alive and coiling around her, squeezing the breath from her.
Somehow, having already gone so far back in the past, she hadn’t expected to catch any glimpses of an even more distant time.
Apparently she’d guessed wrong, and although her two tormentors hadn’t yet said the w-word, their opinion of her was plain to see.
“I am not a witch.” She put up her hands, palms outward. “Please don’t be afraid. I can explain everything.”
The big man shook his head and took another step or two backward.
The other snorted. “Aye, and you will, but no’ to the likes of us. It’ll be the laird who’ll want to know how it is you saw something that happened before any of us were even born. Lest you’re indeed a faery or one of those other creatures we’ve been forbidden to call you.”
“I’m neither,” Kira protested, her eyes flying wide when the man pulled a dirk from beneath his belt and began prodding her down the corridor, away from Aidan’s bedchamber.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded, scooting along ahead of his jib-jabbing dirk all the same.
Bravado only went so far and hers stopped at a knife edge.
Apparently the two guardsmen’s willingness to speak to her had also ceased because a glance over her shoulder showed them stony-faced and tight-lipped. Not that she needed any clues as to her destination. They were herding her into a narrow side corridor, a sloping, dank-smelling passage with a small, unpleasant-looking door at its end.
Kira’s heart began to thunder and her mouth went dry.
She’d seen such passageways on her long-ago tour to Scotland and she knew exactly where they always led.
“O-o-oh, please!” Pride forgotten, she dug in her heels and braced her hands against the cold, slime-coated walls. A sharp prick of the dirk to her back saw her moving again. “Please don’t take me down there,” she pleaded. “I won’t bother any of you, I promise. Just let me go back to your laird’s room. Please. You won’t even know I’m around.”
One of the men snorted.
The other opened the door and dragged her across its threshold. Mercifully, darkness hid the things she knew she didn’t want to see, but the squish-squish beneath her feet was bad enough. Especially since one of them was again bare. As for the scurrying sounds of what could only be rats, she’d just do her best to pretend she hadn’t heard them. Or the drip-drip of what she was sure would be fouled and rancid water.
The smell was blinding.
She shuddered, thinking that now would be a very good time to be zapped out of medieval Scotland.
Instead, she found herself shoved into a pitch-black cell, the heavy-sounding door slamming shut behind her before she could even blink.
“Wait!” She spun around to pound on the door as one of the men slid home the drawbar. “Please listen to me!”
“Och, you’ll be heard soon enough,” one of the men assured her. “As soon as the laird returns from warring.”
“Warring?” The ground dipped beneath Kira’s feet. Medieval warfare could take ages. Heaven help her if he didn’t return. “Where did he go? I thought you said he’d be back by evening?”
No answer came.
Panic gripping her, she strained to see through the small hole in the door, but it was impossible. Or the men were already gone, leaving her alone in Castle Wrath’s dungeon.
So she did what Bedwells were famous for when faced with adversity.
She blew out a breath and began pacing, doing her best to not to scream.