Highland Protector (MacCoinnich Time Travels #5)(56)
Author: Catherine Bybee

Yes. It can get worse.

****

They piled into two cars. Helen and Simon followed in the R8 while Selma sped through traffic in her beater en route to the address on the portable navigation. “I’m coming, girls. Hang tight.”

The phone on the seat beside her rang. Unlike any other time, she didn’t think twice about answering it. “Hello?”

“This had better be good, Matilda.”

“Jake?” God it was good to hear his voice. “The girls. God…get there.”

He was silent for a moment. “What’s going on?”

“I feel them Jake. Something’s wrong. Really wrong.”

“This witchy shit doesn’t—”

She slammed on the brakes to avoid oncoming traffic. Horns around her blared.

“Dammit, Jake. Your daughters need you. Put the f**king phone down.” With that, she tossed the phone to the floor and blew through a stop sign, swerved around a pedestrian in a crosswalk, and gunned her gutless engine down the street within a block of the girls’ home.

She saw a wave of blue over the house and pulled her car to the curb. Behind her, the sports car pulled in and from it, Helen jumped out, a wolf at her side.

Simon.

“Wait here,” Selma told her friend. Helen didn’t need to get any closer until they knew it was safe.

Simon shook his head and bolted toward the house. The fact he didn’t need to be told which one it was bothered Selma on so many levels.

Simon ran in front of her, cutting her off with a growl.

Selma hesitated outside the splintered and cracked front door.

Simon pushed through and Selma waited for several seconds before she heard his bark.

Without hesitation, she shoved her way inside and nearly stumbled over the sight.

Blood splattered a path through the house, throughout the living room, the kitchen. Her head spun and she swallowed back nausea. Not the girls. Please, not the girls.

At the end of the blood bath lay two adults.

The man Selma didn’t recognize, but the woman was Lindsey. The wide deathly stare of their eyes and the carnage of their bodies were evidence of the vicious, lethal attack. Animal, if she had to guess.

From the stairs, she heard Simon bark.

She ran up and found Simon at the top. Seeing him naked wasn’t something she wanted to get used to but by now, she didn’t even flinch.

He stopped her from running into a closed door.

“They’re in there.”

For one awful moment, she thought he was shielding her from the unthinkable.

“Alive.”

Her body collapsed against him. From the distance, she heard sirens.

“An animal killed them. I need to leave here in a different form.”

Selma nodded.

“I’ll scout, but I think whatever did this is gone.”

“Whatever?”

“It wasn’t human.”

The charm on her neck started to thaw, as the noise of sirens grew closer.

“Go,” Simon told her. “They need you.”

Selma nodded and Simon shifted form and spread his wings. Without a thought, she opened a window and watched briefly as Simon flew away.

She opened the door to what had to be Kelsey’s room.

The color green penetrated every surface. “Girls?” she said once, then again a little louder. She headed toward the closet and felt the charm warm. “It’s Selma. You’re okay… I’m here.”

Without waiting for them to open the closet door, she inched it open to see the two of them huddled together, shaking. They rushed her, their large eyes opened wide as tears ran down their cheeks.

“I’m here, baby.” She kissed the top of each of their heads. “I’m here.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

From the corner of her eye, Amber saw Gavin take several steps back as her family moved in to surround her. Her father positioned his back to her to face her husband while Lizzy pushed forward.

“My God, we just left you,” Lizzy said.

“Only minutes ago,” her mother, Lora, said.

“’Tis been a few months in my time.”

From the hallway, footsteps announced new arrivals.

Duncan and Tara arrived first followed by Todd and Myra whose chambers were farther down a distant hall. Her family was a welcome sight, a relief beyond any she could imagine. So many questions swam in her head. So much doubt. Finally, Cian filled the doorway.

She’d missed them. All of them.

Lizzy turned her gaze toward Gavin. “Who is he?”

Amber met Gavin’s stare, said nothing.

“I’m her husband.”

Her father tensed.

“And you’re standing on opposite sides of the room… why?” Lizzy asked.

Amber lifted her chin, recalled Giles’s words. “I’ve learned he is a descendant of Grainna.” Every eye in the room shot to Gavin.

He looked at her, only her. His thoughts were a jumbled mess inside her head.

“We don’t know if that’s true,” he told her.

“We don’t know if it isn’t.”

He advanced on her and the men in the room moved to stand before her.

“I heard Giles. He spoke of a passage—of proof.”

“He recited from a book, Amber. That’s all.”

Gavin kept moving forward. Her father attempted to move in his path only to jump back from the shield.

Duncan drew a dirk and rushed. He too was pushed to the floor.

It took every ounce of willpower to stand still as Gavin used his shield to clear a path to her side.

Everyone in the room grew uneasy as they found themselves held back.

“Have I given you any reason to question me? My trust?”

“Grainna was a master manipulator.”

Is that what you think I am? His question sounded angry in her head.

He reached her and lifted his hand slowly to her face as if she were a frightened animal. Which she had to admit, if only to herself, she was.

“Don’t hurt her!” she heard her father growl under his breath.

“If I wanted to hurt her, Laird Ian, I wouldn’t have saved her.” Gavin’s gaze never left hers. His deep abiding stare soaked into her skull, leaving her head with pain. His long fingers skimmed around her neck in a near intimate caress. The heavy chain holding the sacred stone that afforded her the luxury of traveling in time fell into his palm.

His hand fell away with it.

He twisted and tossed the necklace at her father. “I’m sure you’ll want to hold onto this,” Gavin told Ian. “Amber, running off scared to times unknown can get her killed.”