Dark Rival. Brenda Joyce

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СКАЧАТЬ filled his blue eyes. “Lass, I will take ye home. I just need to think a moment because ye need a Master to aid ye now, here, in yer time.”

      She didn’t know what he was talking about. “Take me back in time!” she cried, trembling wildly. “I am not going home! I need to go back in time, to earlier today or even to last night. I’ll tell him what will happen—we’ll stop it this time! I’ll go back in time to stop his murder!” This was the answer; of course it was. To go back in time—and prevent his death.

      Aidan paled. “Ye canna go back in time an’ change the future…t’is forbidden.”

      “Who cares?” she cried. “I must stop Royce from being murdered! You must help me!”

      “I canna break such a rule.”

      “What?” She was shocked. And then she was furious. “You hate rules. They’re a cage for your soul!” He would refuse her now? What was wrong with him?

      “Lass, the rules I break are the petty ones. MacNeil will take my head if I take ye back so ye can change this day.” He was dark and grim now. “Besides, Royce wished to leave this life. I have heard him say, many times, that he’s tired o’ the fight. Ye’ll nay change his mind, not in a single day.”

      Allie stared at him, incredulous, disbelieving. Her mind spun and raced. He wasn’t going to take her back to earlier that day or yesterday; she could see it in his eyes. Royce had wanted to die. She had to accept that, even if she couldn’t understand it. And he wasn’t going to change in a single day.

      She breathed hard. Her senses told her that Aidan knew Royce well and he was telling her the truth. Instantly Allie changed her plans. To undo his death she needed time with him—time to convince him he had a future worth fighting for.

      And she wanted time with him—a lifetime—even if it was in the primitive past.

      He must have sensed what she intended, because his eyes went wide. “Nay.”

      “I haven’t asked you yet!”

      He shook his head and then drained half of her drink.

      “Take me back with you.” A wild determination hardened.

      He stared back. “To 1430? Royce will have my head.”

      “No, you don’t understand. When we met the other night, he came to me from the fifteenth century. He left me here—but waited for me for almost six hundred years. Don’t you get it? There’s a reason we met that way. He loves me. I love him. You’re going back—take me to him. Take me to him in your time!” she begged fiercely.

      He inhaled. “Lass, lust an’ love are hardly the same.”

      She seized his hand. “I am going with you!”

      And Aidan hesitated.

      Allie knew an opening when she saw one. “Please. I will do anything, anything, to go back with you to Royce.’

      “Ye offer me yer bed?” He was incredulous.

      “Anything…but that!”

      He shook his head, still ready to refuse. “Ye willna like my time. Ye willna like Royce very well in my time, either.”

      “You can’t deny me. Please.” Her grip tightened. Panic began. He had to do this for her.

      He looked into her eyes. “Are ye certain, Lady Allie? Are ye truly certain? What if yer wrong? What if Royce doesna love ye as ye love him?”

      “I am certain!” she cried, clinging now to his large hand with both of hers.

      He drained the drink, murmured, “Royce left ye here fer a reason. I dinna ken,” and pulled her into his embrace. Allie held on tight. And they were flung across the room, through the walls and into the universe—back to 1430.

       CHAPTER FOUR

       Carrick Castle, Morvern, Scotland—1430

      SHE OPENED HER EYES, the torment finally receding. Allie somehow breathed. This time had felt even worse than the previous one and she was amazed she was alive. While in the throes of bone-breaking pain, she’d thought she would actually die. Now she became aware of a pounding headache threatening to split her skull. Allie stared up at a high ceiling with timbers. High on stone walls, stunning stained glass windows radiated from the sunlight outside.

      “Rest a moment more.”

      She blinked and saw Aidan standing above her, arms folded, and all recollection returned. Royce had been murdered and she had gone back in time. Grief rose up, choking her, but she fought it. Instead she thought about the fact that traveling through time was hell. She hoped to never do it again, at least, not until there was no other choice in order to return home. And the gods only knew when that would be.

      She sat up, still somewhat weak and very shaken. Her body felt as if it had been stretched out like elastics and pounded with hammers. But since the night before the fund-raiser, when she’d tried to bring that girl back from the dead, her body had been through hell. Making love to Royce had to have taken its toll, too. “Did we make it? What time are we in?” she managed to ask. She sounded hoarse.

      He gave her a look. “T’is May 15, 1430.”

      She started. “And you know that how?”

      “I dinna have to look at a calendar, lass. T’is almost two weeks since I followed Royce to the future.” He added, “I decided to give Royce some time to forget ye.”

      Allie got to her feet. “He isn’t going to forget me in a week or two. He waited six centuries for me, remember?” She glanced around. They were in a beautiful church or chapel. There were rows of highly polished wood pews on either side of the knave, and an altar at the far end. She stared, confused, at a beautiful, gilded, bejeweled crucifix with Jesus hanging there. “Why are we in a Catholic church?”

      “We’re in Carrick’s chapel. Everyone’s Catholic, lass, even the Masters.”

      Allie just looked at him. The Masters were blessed by the Ancients, not Christ; he had to be wrong. But she didn’t really care. Her heart began to accelerate and she started down the knave, toward the oversize wooden door.

      She heard Aidan following.

      But before she could pull the heavy door open, he laid his hand on it, keeping it closed. “Have a care, lass,” he said.

      She turned. “I haven’t forgiven you, but thank you for bringing me here. Now, let go. I have to find Royce.”

      Aidan said softly, “I’m very sure he willna be pleased to see ye.”

      Allie dismissed his comment as absurd and pulled open the door. She stepped into Carrick’s inner ward—and she faltered.

      She had asked to go back in time. But she hadn’t really had a chance to think about what to expect. Vaguely she recognized the courtyard, even though it was not cobbled. She saw the entrance to the largest building across from her and knew СКАЧАТЬ