Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(129)
Author: Kristen Ashley

* * * * *

Colin felt Sibyl lift her knees and he buried his face in her neck, her movements allowing him to thrust his c**k even deeper inside her and she quietly panted.

“Colin, I think I’m going to…”

And then he listened with profound satisfaction to the glorious sound of his sweet, beautiful new fiancée’s orgasm.

* * * * *

Royce Morgan found his own release moments later and after he did, the rain came.

* * * * *

Colin Morgan came back to himself after his intense cl**ax and vaguely heard the rain against the windows.

* * * * *

Then, magic shafting through time, the two worlds collided.

And for a brief moment, all time stopped.

Chapter Thirty

History Shifts

Royce lifted his head. With great reluctance, he had slid out of Beatrice but he did this with utmost care, not wishing to cause her pain after her pleasure. At the same time he lifted his head, he moved his hand to smooth her lustrous, dark hair.

But his hand arrested for her hair was not dark.

It was blonde. It was the same colour as his own.

“You.” He watched the dazed pleasure fade slowly from her familiarly unfamiliar eyes as she focussed on him.

He knew her.

“Oh my goddess!” She jerked beneath him but he kept his weight firmly on top of her.

He wanted answers and, this time, he was going to get them.

And what Royce Morgan wanted, he found a way to get.

“Where is Beatrice?” he demanded, his hand, instead of smoothing, gently but firmly fisted in her silky, golden locks.

Her eyes turned panicked. “I don’t know,” she answered, blinked, her body shifted slightly under his and then she rapped out a string of quick questions, “What are you doing? What are we doing? What were you doing with Beatrice?”

His voice held an edge. “Bring her back, I want her back.”

“Colin is going to kill me,” she muttered, what he considered absurdly, and she did this as if to herself as she tried to wriggle out from beneath him.

Considering he’d just consummated his union with his beloved bride, he’d done this soundly and with great pleasure for the both of them and now, mere moments later, another being was lying na**d beneath him, Royce lost patience.

Therefore he did not check himself and roared, “I want her back!”

She shook her head, “I can’t… I don’t know how to bring her back.” Then she stated urgently, “Royce, please, you must listen to me, did you just make love to Beatrice?”

“You are a witch,” he declared and started to pull away, to bring them up. He couldn’t have this conversation lying na**d atop her. But she wrapped her soft limbs around him and something in her eyes, her familiar, beloved eyes, halted him.

“Listen to me,” she begged, her words both urgent and panicked. “Did you just make love to Beatrice?”

“Yes,” he snarled.

And to his surprise, her face cleared immediately and she sang, “Hallelujah!” just as tears sprung in her eyes. She tilted her head back and she shouted it again. “Hallelujah!”

He stared at her, everything about her was so familiar, even her sweet touch of lunacy.

“Are you mad?” he asked softly, finding his angry confusion had melted away and he was suddenly concerned.

She pulled her arms from his body, put both her hands to his cheeks and gave him a quick kiss. When she pulled away, he noted she was crying freely but she still went on. “No, I’m not mad.”

She looked at him with love shining in her eyes. Somehow, even though he didn’t know her, she loved him and he felt that knowledge sear straight through his soul.

His hand loosened from her hair and almost against his will, he found himself wrapping a tendril around his finger.

“You have my hair,” he murmured, staring at it.

“And you, in my time, have Beatrice’s hair,” she whispered and his eyes moved to hers at this bizarre pronouncement. “I’m from another time, years from now. Royce, your and Beatrice’s love is so great, you and she come back and become Colin and me. We fall in love all over again.” Her voice lowered in pitch but heightened in intensity. “And you are so like him. And today, he asked me to marry him.” She said this last while a funny, adorable smile played on her lips.

He felt something inside him shift as he listened to her words.

She was so like Beatrice.

She blinked and he knew something was happening. Her face changed, disappointment filled it and then urgency replaced that. “Before I go, you must listen. In the copse of trees…”

He saw her hair darken slowly and he couldn’t help himself, he watched in fascination.

“Royce! Listen!” She was beyond urgent. Now frantic, her hands tightened on his face and his eyes went from her changing hair to her. “They’re waiting for you, in the copse of trees, outside Lacybourne. They’re going to slit your throat, Beatrice’s too. You must stop them.”

His body tensed at her words and she felt it. Her arms wrapped around him again, protectively, lovingly, in a way the warrior had never felt before, not even with Beatrice (although, Beatrice had no way of knowing her life, or his, was in imminent danger or she would have done the same, exact thing).

She held him tightly against her. “I tried to tell you this morning… or… some morning. That morning when I was there… here. I know you think I’m mad but you must believe me and you must stop them.”

Her hair was almost, but not quite, nearly to black.

“I do not think you are mad,” he told her but she wasn’t listening.

“Promise me!” she cried.

He nodded. He would not die this night nor would his Beatrice. And he wanted this woman to know that. He wanted her to trust him, to believe and he wanted that fear out of her eyes.

He nor his bride were going to die this night, he would be sure of it.

At his nod her entire body relaxed.

She trusted him.

Completely.

“I’m Sibyl, by the way,” she told him. “And don’t worry; I don’t think I’m coming back.”

And then she smiled magnificently, one finger tenderly touching his cheek. Royce had seen a great number of heart-stopping smiles from his wife but this smile was all Sibyl’s own.

She kept speaking. “And if you’ve been granted the gift of a longer life, try not to boss Beatrice around too much. She’ll find it immensely irritating.”

He knew in that instant, she was Beatrice even though she was not.