Highland Protector (MacCoinnich Time Travels #5)(39)
Author: Catherine Bybee

“You have an idea?”

“I can only do what it is we understand. We’ll ask the Ancients for their guidance, for their protection while these two souls fight their way back.”

“Back from where?”

Mrs. Dawson narrowed her eyes to Helen. “From death.”

Her words grounded everyone in the room.

Giles and Helen gathered handfuls of candles from the library and returned to the third floor room.

Simon stood beside Amber, his hand on her forehead. Helen placed the candles around the room, and Simon lit them with a wave of his hand.

“Now what?” Giles had been a part of a few group effort protection spells, but never with anyone as powerful as Simon.

Simon grasped Amber’s limp hand and offered his other to his wife. Helen lifted a hand to Mrs. Dawson. Giles completed the loop by grasping Mrs. Dawson’s and taking Kincaid’s.

“Just listen, and believe we can make a difference,” Simon told them.

Before Simon opened his mouth, the flames rose, bringing heat to the room.

“In this day and in the hour, we ask the Ancients for their power. Surround these two with each other’s protection. Draw from us for their resurrection.”

In Giles’s hand, Kincaid’s began to shudder and heat, making holding him nearly impossible.

“If the Ancients will it so, give us a sign and let us know.”

The words no sooner left Simon’s lips than Giles’s hand turned red-hot, forcing him to let go. When he moved to grasp his friend again, he found he couldn’t. He opened his mouth to apologize but found Simon in much the same state. The warrior shook his hand and blew on his palm.

“It worked.” Giles shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was.

Mrs. Dawson patted his back and offered a smile. “It’s time I found a bed. Wake me if anything happens.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Giles said as he lent a hand to help her down the stairs. “Did you see this happening?” he asked her once they were half way down the first stairwell.

“No. Not this.” She took another step, limping her old bones down. “I just knew none of us would sleep well this night.”

“So it wasn’t a premonition?”

“Not in the way you’re thinking. More of a global feeling.”

At the first landing, she paused to catch her breath.

“What is your global feeling now?”

Mrs. Dawson patted his hand, sent him a placating smile. “Asking me to predict the future, Mr. Giles?”

He lowered his gaze. “Asking if they’re going to make it?”

She released a short laugh. “There is wisdom that comes with age, I think,” she said nearly to herself. “Amber is arguably from the strongest line of Druids known…Kincaid…well, I don’t know his parentage, but Lora did tell me Amber’s savior would be a very powerful man. Do you believe our Kincaid is that man?”

A warm feeling washed over him. “Yes. Kincaid is one of the strongest within our band of warriors. Never wavering. If anyone can save Amber, it’s him.”

Mrs. Dawson’s wrinkled face squished together in thought. “Then we have to believe they are meant to be…the question is if he acted in time.”

That very thought had run through Giles’s mind repeatedly since he uncovered the need for Amber to bond in order to survive. With Kincaid’s reluctance to step up, he constantly worried the man would wait too long, and look what happened. They were both comatose, Kincaid bonded to Amber and Amber had been close to knocking on death’s door.

“I can’t help but wonder why I’ve not seen any of this happening in the books. I’ve read so many tomes and none of them talk of Amber and Kincaid specifically.”

“That might be because Kincaid was too late…”

Giles cringed.

“Or, more relevant to your direct concern, I like to think the reason is the Ancients have hidden this brief moment in time to allow Kincaid and Amber the free will to decide for themselves what path they should take. No one, no matter what time they are from, wants to think their life is predetermined down to their mate.” A coy smile spread over Mrs. Dawson’s face. “I’d like to think the fact we found the two of them nearly naked means some of their free will has spoken already.”

Giles’s shoulders started to fold in slowly until he laughed. “I didn’t realize that. I was too focused on the fact Amber wasn’t moving…and Kincaid was bonding to someone who’d already passed.”

Mrs. Dawson hummed out a sigh. “Not everything is as it seems. Had Amber truly passed, he couldn’t have bonded with her. ‘Where two hearts beat, there is now but one’, the verse speaks for itself.”

“Of course.”

Mrs. Dawson started down the second flight of stairs and Giles moved to help her again.

“So they are both alive?.”

“And healing…”

“But if Kincaid was too late?”

Mrs. Dawson hesitated. “Then the reason the books don’t speak of them is because they don’t exist in your future.”

Yet, even as the words left the wise woman’s mouth, he couldn’t help but think somewhere…somehow…even that information would have been written somewhere…by someone.

“I hate the not knowing.”

She paused, met his gaze. “Then think of Amber’s mother. Lora sent her daughter here to survive. This was her only chance, and now that Kincaid is bonded to her, she must live.”

Giles felt his jaw grow tight. “But what of Kincaid? He can perish and Amber not be affected. She would carry his gift, his protection…and he could die.”

One-sided bonds didn’t last. If there was one thing written in time, it was the fact that when one bonded with an unwilling partner, the bonded one followed their love until the end, which often came too soon, and the other moved through life more powerful, but slightly incomplete. If Amber lived, and Kincaid died, she would fulfill her mother’s premonition.

Giles helped Mrs. Dawson to her room, offered to fetch her water…something…

She waved him off, and he fled back to the upper story of the mansion

Helen had pulled a chair next to Amber’s side of the bed while Simon paced.

“I can stay. There is no reason for all of us to stand in wait,” Giles told them.

They both turned on him. Simon spoke first. “Do you think you’re the only one invested in the two of them?”