Page 16 of Beloved Enemy
Slumping against him, even as she was tense with worry, she asked again, “Why won’t you tell me what year it is?”
"We mark the year as thirteen hundred and two since the birth of Christ,” he said tersely. “I dinna appreciate the question at first.”
Charlotte’s mouth gaped and the blood drained from her face. A cold sweat prickled her skin, and her heart pounded with a mix of horror and disbelief, her hands trembling uncontrollably. The horse beneath her seemed to tilt, and she gripped Reid’s arm for support, desperately trying to ground herself in the moment.
A soft whimper escaped her lips as her mind grappled with the disorienting notion that she had somehow traveled back in time. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes tightly, hoping it might dispel the sudden nausea and overwhelming horror, and she waited, hoping that Reid Nicholson would burst out with laughter, admitting he was only kidding.
However, when she opened her eyes, the reality remained stubbornly present, and Reid Nicholson sat stoic and silent behind her.
Disbelief, naturally, was at the fore of the tumult of emotions, but all of them were riotous enough so that she slumped once more against Reid, her body weary from the disturbing upheaval.
Thirteen hundred and two.
“Ye are nae from this time?” He asked, though in truth it sounded more like a statement than a question.
“Christ,” she cursed softly, “please don’t speak so casually as if you run across people...like me—or shit, as if it’s, as if such a thing is even possible. Let me just keep pretending I’m crazy.” She dropped her face in her hands, trying to decide, seriously now, which option was less frightening, when something occurred to her. Tossing back her head, she asked, “How canyou...how can you ask so nonchalantly if I’m from another time? As if you’re familiar with so far-fetched a scenario?”
Her chin trembled as she waited for his response, which was slow to come.
“I ken a woman once,” he revealed in a quiet voice, “who sounded as ye do. She....she spoke of a time not yet lived.”
Charlotte nearly rolled her eyes. “Yeah, it’s called the future. We all sometimes dream of what might be, or talk of future plans—”
“She said it was where she’d come from,” he added.
Though his voice was laced with skepticism, there was a hard edge to his tone, suggesting he wasn’t too keen on the subject matter.
Charlotte didn’t care. “You’re saying you’ve met someone from the future?” She stopped short of adding“Before me?”—the words were too absurd to say aloud. And she worried that mentioning it might make him think thatshebelieved she was also from the future, which was an idea she was desperate to avoid.
“I dinna have any other explanation for what I saw and heard,” he said.
Charlotte was stunned. “You...you think it’s possible? Seriously? To travel through time?”
“I dinna,” he said, “nae even after I met the woman, Autumn, nae even when she vanished...into nothingness, and took my friend with her. But now, with ye....”
Chapter Four
Snippets of conversation, one he’d had with Autumn, and one he’d witnessed between Autumn and Marcus, returned to him.
We loved in another time that is not yet lived,Autumn had said to Marcus.
Travel through time?She’d asked when Marcus had inquired,How’d ye do it?
Someone—or something—keeps moving me around.
She is nae a witch,Marcus had insisted to Reid only moments before they’d vanished.
Truth be told, he believed they’d been lost forever, their fate unknown, that they had simply slipped into oblivion, into the unknown. But now he had to consider—was thrilled to ponder the very idea—that Marcus and Autumn were not simply gone but moved—Jesu, but it sounded absurd, unreal—to another time. Mayhap they hadn’t ceased to exist but were living in a different time. The very idea brought him a small measure of comfort.
And yet....
He prided himself on being a man of logic and reason, grounded in the harsh realities of war and survival, and what he could see, touch, and understand. He didn’t give either time or attention to such nebulous, arcane ideas as the ability to move through time.
Yet, despite his staggering skepticism, he couldn’t entirely dismiss the notion. Scotland was a land steeped in ancient traditions and mystical beliefs. People revered the old ways, and tales of the otherworldly were woven into the very fabric of their culture. Reid had grown up hearing stories of the fae, enchanted stones, and sacred wells that held mysterious powers. Even now, some clans still called upon druids and seers for guidance,seeking their wisdom and the favor of the gods. Always, it had been said that the line between reality and the supernatural was thin in Scotland.
And aye, he’d like to sit with this a while, sit quietly and contemplate the extraordinary premise and that Marcus lived somewhere, but the lass would not allow it. She didn’t offer any insight into the bizarre phenomena but spent the next few minutes expressing her unwillingness to accept the possibility and her desire to get back whence she’d come.
“This is just ridiculous,” Charlotte muttered, shaking her head. “Time travel? Really? I mean, seriously, how does that even happen? One minute I'm in the twenty-first century, and the next I’m...here? This has to be some elaborate prank or something. I just want to go home, where things make sense, where I can just...I don’t know, order a coffee and use my cellphone, which of course is dead now. Not be stuck in some medieval time warp with people who think witches are real. I’m not buying it, not for a second. I feel like I’m in the middle of a sci-fi movie. There has to be a way back. I can’t stay here. I won’t stay here. I have a life, a job, friends...I just...I just want to go home.”
