Page 4

–Aspen–

ONE SECOND, I was in New Hampshire, touching the spiral carved into the aspen tree. The next, I was looking at a rugged castle on a cliff with a sparkling sea behind it before everything snapped away into darkness. Seconds later, blurry prisms of light came and went, and it felt like someone lifted me. Carried me.

Flew with me.

Was it a dragon? Was he a dragon? My dragon?

“’Twill be all right, lass,”

a masculine voice with a Scottish brogue said.

“I will get you to safety.”

“Are you him?”

I tried to whisper, wondering if he was my Scot, but all that came out was mumbling. Or were they solid words? I couldn’t tell.

“I am Kenneth,”

I swore I heard him say, but I wasn’t sure. Instead, I felt cocooned in something warm and comforting before I was flying again. Soaring perhaps to what sounded like horse hooves. Or was that what dragon wings sounded like?

No sooner did I think it than I stopped flying and heard a distinctly masculine, almost animalistic rumble I had never heard before. One that vibrated deep within me before I heard the flap of wings and felt their warmth before they pulled away.

“Don’t go,”

I tried to say, but nothing came out, so I struggled to open my eyes, only for everything to blur before the most gorgeous set of eyes I had ever seen snapped into focus. Framed by thick ebony lashes, they were an intense dark sea green with flecks of sage.

“Are you him?”

I whispered.

“Who?”

came his deep, delicious-sounding voice with a brogue. It seemed to wrap around me and pull me close as if I knew it well. Loved it well.

“Him,”

I whispered because I could only see his eyes and hear his voice. I could only envision a man born of my imagination and the fairytales of my youth.

“Are you my Scot of Yesteryear? The one Storm told me about?”

I tried to say more but lost my voice when I felt rather than saw him pull away as if my questions put him off. I put him off. Maybe even the sound of my voice or my appearance.

All I knew as darkness descended again was I had somehow let him down. I had failed the hero born of Storm’s letters and my imagination, and it hurt in ways I didn’t expect. A crushing weight settled in my chest and sank me deeper into the darkness until I broke free and raced through what seemed to be a mystical forest in a long, red, flowing dress toward a golden light. Ran past crimson autumn leaves as if eager to get to or away from something or someone. Desperate to get wherever I was going, I pushed my muscles even harder, only to feel something lift me.

I bolted upright from a sound sleep, startled, confused, and more than a little disoriented, and took in the chamber around me.

“It’s okay,”

came a soft, feminine voice before a lovely, older woman with golden eyes and shimmering white hair, yet relatively youthful skin, rested a comforting hand on my arm.

“It will be all right, Aspen.”

“How do you know my name?”

I said hoarsely, my throat bone dry. She was wearing a linen dress with a red and black plaid draped over her shoulder and tiny braids woven into her hair.

“You don’t sound like you look…you sound more like me.”

“I can when I want to because I’m originally from your century.”

She urged me to sit up enough to prop pillows behind me. Then, she brought a cup of cool water to my mouth and told me to drink to soothe my throat.

“My name is Chara MacLeod. Wife to Marek MacLeod and mother to the current laird, Broderick MacLeod.”

“The laird’s mother?”

I croaked, first sipping, then gulping down the water, surprised by how thirsty I was. All the while, I took in my surroundings and tried to regain my composure, praying the first person I officially met here wasn’t, of all people, my Scot’s mother.

And by here, I most definitely meant the medieval period in a very medieval castle with arrow-slit windows splashing shards of sunset orange across small fur throw rugs and scant but simple wooden furnishings. I would know because, thanks to Storm’s letters, I’d made a point of researching this era. Several unlit torches rested in wall brackets, and a melted-down candle sat on my bedside table. Although a cool wind blew in the scent of sea salt and spruce, I also detected fainter scents like horse manure and wood smoke.

“I would say I am your Scot’s mother,”

Chara said, her voice so gentle and her unique eyes so kind the tension I felt upon waking began fading.

“And before you wonder if you had pondered that aloud, you didn’t. I caught your thoughts.”

Before I could respond, hoping I could find my voice this time, she urged me to drink another glass of water, her voice slowly but surely taking on a more medieval octave as if easing me into my surroundings.

“Quench your thirst first, lass. ‘Tis no small thing for a dragon to travel back so many centuries for the first time, seeking her fated mate. It can be more jarring for our inner beasts than you might imagine.”

Her eyebrows swept up.

“Especially for one who has yet to embrace every side of her, from the witch to the dragon.”

I meant to speak but drank the water down, partly because she had asked me to and undoubtedly possessed magic herself and because she was right about at least one thing. I was super thirsty until I had downed the last drop.

“Better, aye?”

Chara said when I was finally able to swallow again without it hurting.

“So it seems,”

I murmured, glad to find my voice finally sounded normal.

Where some might be jittery and nervous about where they had found themselves, I was the opposite. Mostly. I expected my arrival here to be different. More like the pictures Storm had painted with her words and my imagination had brought to life over the years. Yet I knew deep down there was no hope of it going that way.

How could it without the most important part?

An adventure and vast change might still lie ahead, but not what was supposed to have been at the heart of it. Despite Chara insinuating her son was my fated mate, just as Storm’s letter had said, it didn’t matter.

“He doesn’t want me here, does he?”

I said bluntly because that was my style. Fanciful fairytales aside, I preferred facing reality head-on rather than avoiding it.

“Your son and laird, Broderick, doesn’t want me here.”

I finally knew his name and liked it a great deal, only to discover I might just as easily end up disliking it because it wouldn't be part of my world. He wouldn’t be part of it. There was no fairytale to be had within these walls. No dashing hero of Yesteryear for me.

“Nay,”

Chara replied just as bluntly, sinking any hope I knew better than to feel. She surprised me when she brushed a lock of hair away from my eye, comforting me like my mother used to.

“But then, my son has not known what he truly wanted for some time, so you cannot blame yourself, Aspen.”

“How do you know my name?”

I was going to ask her what she meant about Broderick, too, but it suddenly seemed too personal, as though I should be asking him, not her.

Rather than tell me how she knew my name, a small, almost whimsical smile ghosted Chara’s face before she urged me to stand.

“Whilst I would rather you rest longer and take nourishment here, you’ve been sleeping for nigh on two days. So ‘tis time to move lest your inner beast grow restless and do things you cannae control. You must dress, come below stairs, and dine with us. Be around your kind.”

“By my kind, you mean?”

I prompted her, shocked when Chara pulled back the furs, and I discovered myself in a deep red linen dress.

“You know what I mean because you feel it stirring inside you at this verra moment, do you not?”

Chara apologized for using magic to dress me in era-appropriate clothing.

“After you dine, we will see you bathed before sending you off for another good night’s rest.”

What she didn’t say, but I sensed, was I had already been bathed, or perhaps it was her magic at work because I felt clean. Being an avid hiker, mountain climber, runner, and overall active person, I usually wore my hair tied back, but she urged me to leave it down.

“How do you feel?”

she asked as I stood, not tentatively, but with my usual energy. If anything, I felt stronger than normal. Healthier when I was probably the healthiest person I knew.

“I feel great,”

I assured, shocked, given the past few days.

“Surprisingly enough.”

“Good.”

She wrapped a red and black plaid around me, tucking it here and there like hers, and looked me over with approval. More than that, I could have sworn she blinked back tears before nodding once.

“Wearing MacLeod colors or not, you truly are beautiful, Aspen.”

She urged me to follow her before I could thank her or ask why she suddenly became emotional. While some might be tentative, given it had been confirmed they weren’t wanted by the person they thought they were here for, I was too much of an adventurer and curious about the rest of the castle.

About all of medieval Scotland, for that matter.

So I followed Chara down a long, arched hallway, wide-eyed, trying to take in everything, from the ancient-looking furnishings carved with roaring dragon faces and clawed feet to the tapestries lining the walls depicting dragons soaring over angry seas or into blazing sunsets. Preferring the outdoors to indoors, I had never cared much about interior design, but I could admit this spoke to me somehow. Called to me in a way only my aspen tree ever had.

“This way.”

Chara veered down another corridor.

“We won’t eat in the great hall with the clan tonight but with my immediate kin so you can become acclimated. Unfortunately, my younger son, Tavish, is away fighting with his cousin, Sloan, but the others are here.”

Oddly, both names seemed as familiar to me as Broderick’s did now that I had heard it. Almost as if I had known it all along. Them all along. In fact, the more I walked through the halls, the more familiar they seemed, as if I had walked them in a dream. I slowed when we approached a door on our right before Chara did, somehow knowing it would lead us into a smaller hallway, and I was right.

“Your inner beast is settling in just fine now, isn’t she?”

I swore Chara said, but when I asked her why she would say that, she seemed confused, claiming she hadn’t said anything.

I was about to counter her but couldn’t find my tongue when a door loomed ahead, and the same sense of anticipation I’d had approaching the colonial in New Hampshire washed over me again. The same anticipation when my Seedling Turned Letter found its way into my palm.

“’Tis all right,”

Chara said gently, clearly sensing me in ways that told me she possessed some seriously potent magic.

“They willnae hurt you.”

While I heard her words and felt the truth in them, the memory of my father flared up, and I couldn’t help but wonder if all dragon shifters were like him. Suffice it to say, I knew, at that moment, staring at the door, my mother was right. He had been half dragon, and so was I.

All of his daughters were.

Just like that, I felt the sting of pain and abandonment all over again. Sensations that all four of us had experienced in our youth. Sensations I'd refused to feel again, so I had kept my father at arm's length after that. Now, here that pain was again, only this time because of Broderick, and somehow, it felt even worse. More cutting in a way that made it difficult to keep putting one foot in front of the other as the door loomed closer.

Even so, I wasn’t a coward and had no place to go but forward, so I followed Chara into the small dining chamber and faced what lay ahead with the same courage I had every other impactful moment in my life. Rather than sitting at the rectangular trestle table laden with wooden platters of scrumptious-smelling food, four men stood chatting in front of a sizeable fireplace with yet more dragons carved into it.

I might be brave, but I swallowed hard as we approached, and they turned our way. Though tall for a woman, they towered over me, all four broad-shouldered and well-muscled, their strong builds hardly hidden beneath their léines, or tunics, and plaids.

Even though Chara introduced me to everyone, including her husband, Marek, with his silvery hair, scarred temple, and aged good looks, before moving on to Lucas, with his blonde bearded handsomeness, and Kenneth, with his dark hair and equally good looks, my gaze was glued to the fourth man’s eyes.

To a deep sea green with swirls of sage that locked with mine.

Although I knew he spoke to me, I didn’t hear his deep, rich voice with its burr as if he were speaking aloud, but within parts of me I didn’t know existed, reverberating so intensely it seemed to heighten my awareness. Wrap around me. Pull me close. Sexually awaken me. Although his lips moved, I couldn’t hear past the way he made me feel as I finally saw him for the first time in his entirety.

As I saw just how painfully handsome my Scot of Yesteryear was.

With hair midnight black like mine, the five o’clock shadow on his strong jaw accentuated his chiseled, masculine features, making it impossible to look elsewhere. Unbelievably enough, he was a fraction taller and broader than the others, and it suited him. Suited the power I felt radiating from him, making it clear why he was in charge.

His inner dragon was powerful and would have it no other way.

Then, I sensed so much more. His inner compassion. A sense of humility that made his people love him. A man capable of great love…that had felt great love. Could it have been for me? Did he somehow know of me as I’d known of him? Despite what Chara said, was I wrong for thinking he didn’t want me here?

As it turned out, I got my answer moments later.