Prologue
MACDARA BROCH
SCOTLAND, 900 A.D.
“Father said when he and The MacDara proffered our troth to the sacred Heartstone—” The trembling girl, sweet Leannan, Grant MacDara’s chosen love, flinched as if her words were too terrible to speak aloud. “He said…it didna warm. Not even when they laid their hands upon it and chanted our pledge a second and even a third time.”
Leannan clutched at Grant’s hands, staring up at him with such anguish, he ached to wield the goddesses’ hammer and slay the source of her pain. Leannan’s pale hands felt bloodless—cold as ice from the loch or even worse, colder than death.
“The goddesses willna bless our union, Grant. We…” Leannan bowed her head. “We canna marry, m’dearest one.” Her voice broke as sorrow overcame her. “And our babe will surely be stricken from my womb.” She barely swayed from side to side. A heartbreaking sob escaped her with a soft hiccup.
“I canna bear it, Grant,” she forced out between shuddering gulps of air. “I canna bear the thought of such a life, but m’heart kens that I must let ye go.” She sadly shook her head. “Yer destiny doesna include me.”
The sacred Heartstone and the goddesses can just be damned and go straight t’whatever hell they wish. Grant Danann MacDara, second son of the goddesses’ druid clan, eased a hand free of Leannan’s desperate grasp and slid a finger beneath her chin. Gently, he lifted her face and brushed the whisper of a kiss across the trembling seam of her lips. “I dinna give a whit about the stone’s druthers or the goddesses.”
Building rage urged him to bellow, but he kept his voice low and calm. He had to. For the sake of Leannan. And for the babe. He kissed her again and forced a tender smile. “All I care about is a life with ye and our child.”
He slid a thumb across her cheek, wiping away the wetness of her tears. He’d make this right. They didna need anyone’s useless blessing. “We shall always be together, dear one. I swear it.” He drew her closer and cradled her to his chest. “And our child will be born braw and strong, aye? Ye will see the truth of it, m’love. I swear it.”
He’d take Leannan away. Away to somewhere safe. He tightened his arms around her softly shaking body and pressed a cheek to the top of her head. Athair would be furious and Máthair would be ashamed, but it couldna be helped. He was meant t’be with Leannan.
“We will build our lives elsewhere. I willna let ye go,” he quietly affirmed.
“We cannot,” Leannan whispered. “We must not go against the will of the goddesses.” She slowly pulled herself out of his arms and lifted her head. “We canna challenge the wisdom of the Stone.” She attempted a quivering smile. “MacDara blood flows in yer veins, dear one. We must heed the outcome of the rite or be cursed. Ye ken that well enough—or ye should.”
Muffled shouts and the warning blasts of the guard wall horns broke through the heavy shroud of doom filling the small torchlit room. Grant stiffened at the all too familiar signal that the men of the North had returned once again to attempt to take MacDara Broch. He grabbed Leannan by the shoulders and brought his face close to hers. “Bar the door behind me and keep hidden, ye ken? I’ll fetch ye once we’ve rousted the filthy bastards.”
Leannan framed his face between her small hands and ever so tenderly kissed him. Her sad, knowing smile nearly tore his heart from his chest. “Yer m’dearest love, Grant.” She paused and pulled in a deep breath, then slowly blew it out. “Hear me, dear one. M’love for ye is deep as the sea and true as the stars—for now and evermore, ye ken?”
The finality and despair in Leannan’s voice terrified Grant more than any murderous intruders ever could. He resettled his grip on her shoulders and gently shook her. “Stay hidden. I’ll fetch ye soon. I swear it, aye?”
“Aye, love,” Leannan finally answered with a soft touch of his cheek. “Go to yer kin now. Protect the blessed stone.”
Grant yanked open the door, then paused and looked back into the room. Leannan smiled again and nodded, her face aglow with such love and adoration it outshone the one blazing torch ensconced upon the stone wall.
I’ll ne’er see her again. The doom-filled premonition nearly choked him.
“Bar the door and wait for me, aye?” Leannan’s quick nod didn’t ease Grant’s feeling that his life was about to change for the worse. He closed the door and waited. The sound of the heavy oak beam falling in place across the threshold made him feel a bit better, but the gnawing fear that Leannan was about to be lost to him forever refused to leave.
Shouldering aside a stone wall at the end of the hall, Grant ducked into one of the many secret passages leading out of the secluded maze of hidden rooms that existed under the main tower of the broch. He made his way to the center of the stronghold and hurried up the circular stairway to the sacred room, the room that housed the blessed Heartstone and the four weapons of the goddesses.
The walls shuddered and dust fell from the rafters just as Grant reached the final door to the chamber. The faint din of shouts and steel clashing against steel several levels below hastened his steps. “They’ve breached the wall. I hear them in the corridor,” he warned as he pushed into the room.
His mother, Sarinda, her middle round and heavy with her unborn child, turned from the narrow window and nocked an arrow into her bow. “Aye, son. ’Tis true.” She turned back to the window, took aim, and shot. “Yer father told Alec that the other clans will ne’er make it here in time to join their steel with ours,” she added while still watching the melee below.
Grant’s younger brother, Ramsay, pulled their mother away from the window just in time for his youngest brother, Ross, to slam a great bronze shield over the opening. Arrow pings and clangs of blades crashed against the metal as both young men leaned into the shield and held it fast over the window.
“They’re upon us for certain!” Ramsay shouted, baring his teeth in a determined grimace as he bore down and shoved a broad shoulder against the back of the shield. “And their numbers are greater this time.”
“Grant—yer hammer!” Alec, the oldest of the four brothers, heaved a massive weapon of wood and stone to Grant. The goddess hammer. Grant caught the hammer easily, wielding the lethal gift from the goddesses as though it were an extension of his arm.
He rushed to the window beside the altar where his father stood. The white-haired patriarch of the MacDara clan seemed oblivious to the invasion, wafting his gnarled and bent hands through the gray tendrils of smoke rising from a soot-covered dish nestled atop a heaping circle of glowing red coals.
“Where are yer damn goddesses now, Athair?” Grant shouted at his father as he landed the broad head of the hammer square in the face of the Northman about to dive into the room through the window.
His father didn’t answer, just kept mumbling with eyes closed and face lifted to the three dripping candles hanging above the bronze brazier of smoking herbs.
Black acrid smoke seeped in from under the room’s only door. Arrow hits and the thud of the enemies’ blades rattled the heavy oak barrier until the hinges and bolts threatened to give way.
Alec lifted his sword and backed toward the weakening portal. Grant knew immediately what his brother was about to do. Sometimes, ill-fated bravery and doomed courage were the best weapons against an enemy.
“Keep the Heartstone!” Grant shouted to his oldest brother, then turned back to the window to kill a few more intruders with some doomed courage of his own. He stepped up on the wide stone sill, sweeping his hammer up and down the walls of the tower, easily dislodging the enemies’ shoddy scaling poles lashed together with ropes.
Below, in the enclosed grounds surrounding three sides of the tower, a flutter of bright yellow and regal blue caught Grant’s attention. Such a precious vision of purity amidst the dark filth of furs, helmets, and shields couldna be missed. His heart stopped and he held tight to the blocks surrounding the window to keep from losing his footing.
“It canna be,” he whispered to himself. He swiped hair and sweat out of his eyes, blinking hard to clear his sight. His eyes hadna failed him. It was her.
“Nay, Leannan. Nay!” he shouted to the stumbling figure below.
He stared at the familiar airisaidh draped about the head and shoulders of the only woman he’d ever loved as she faltered deeper into the crazed horde. Ominous red stains had seeped through Leannan’s clothing, squeezing all breath from Grant’s lungs.
A snarling woman of the North with her dagger raised bore down on Leannan, ripping the airisaidh away from his love’s coppery hair just as she sagged down to her knees. The relentless warrior caught Leannan up by her braids, shouted something unintelligible, then slit Leannan’s fair white throat. His dearest love’s lifeless body sank into the bloody mud and the heartless marauder kicked her aside.
“No,” Grant rasped out, paralyzed by the gruesome sight. “No!” he finally shouted, then lunged off the steep ledge, hammer raised to take as many Northmen as he could straight to hell with him. He no longer cared if he lived or died. Only one thing mattered. Revenge.
The world exploded with bright light, then all went black.
Voices. Women. And Alec.
Lying on his side, Grant rubbed his face with one hand, then forced his eyes open. What…Where…He dug his fingers into the soft green grass, then slowly rolled to all fours and pushed himself up to his knees. Lifting his face, he squinted against the stark brightness of the clear blue sky, then raised one hand, spreading his fingers against the touch of the cool, refreshing breeze.
I must be dead. Good. The painful memory of Leannan’s murder was the last thing he recalled. Then renewed hope flooded through him. But if I’m dead, I can find her. Surely, the goddesses brought her here too. Grant forced himself to his feet and looked around.
He stood at the edge of a meadow adjoining a wood and if he were still alive in Scotland, he’d say it was early summer. Warm sunshine. Birds singing. His favorite time of year.
“I approve,” he said aloud. No one answered. No matter. The goddesses had finally done something right. This was a good Otherworld.
His parents and two of his brothers lay nearby. They all looked at peace, sleeping soundly among the rolling dips and hillocks of the long grasses gently rippling across the meadow.
I heard Alec. And women. Mayhap they can help me find Leannan. Grant tilted his head and concentrated, listening and silently praying he’d hear them again so he could find them.
A man’s voice. Grant jerked, facing the direction of the sound. That sure as hell wasna Alec.
He took one last glance at his sleeping family, then hurried toward the wood. I must find Leannan.
A brilliant glow burned in the center of the large copse. A light so bright it looked as though the sun itself had descended from the heavens and nestled among the trees. Oak trees. Ahh…a sacred wood. Grant pushed through the underbrush, his spirits lifting ever higher as he plowed deeper into the grove.
This place had to be the Otherworld. He’d be with his sweet Leannan through all eternity. He came up short as a blinding wave of light surged and stopped him at the edge of a clearing. He shielded his eyes against the powerful brilliance and bowed his head. It had to be the goddesses themselves.
“We have brought ye—our faithful servants and protectors of the stone—to a place where ye will be much safer. More at peace. We grew tired of the repeated attacks. There is no need for such violence.”
The orb of light echoed as though three females spoke in unison—each of their melodic voices perfectly pitched to enhance and complement one another. “And fear not—we’ll not be leavin’ ye here without proper guidance. We’ve chosen a fine advisor t’see ye well settled and ensure that ye thrive and guide our other druids of this time. Ye’ll find several druid clans are here, already well established, and at the ready to help ye.” Quiet laughter rippled through the glade like the tinkling of delicate bells. “You—our most beloved line of druids—must not die away. Ye must lead the others once ye’ve learned the ways of this place. Prosper here. Multiply. Keep our stone safe for eternities t’come.”
Multiply? The gut-wrenching realization that he was still alive pushed Grant to his knees. He rested one hand against the trunk of a nearby tree and fisted his other hand against the unbearable ache growing in his chest. This isna the Otherworld. Leannan is gone.
Grant bowed his head and closed his eyes. The unknown male he’d heard earlier spoke again from the other side of the blinding light floating in the clearing.
“I am Dwyn MacKay. Yer neach-teagaisg. The teacher who shall guide ye through the wonders of this new place. I am guardian and tutor to all the druids here. I shall see to it that the MacDara clan does well and continues their legacy to the goddesses and humanity as the protectors of the Heartstone—the sacred stone of hope and love itself.”
“And this place is?” Grant’s brother Alec asked.
“Twenty-first-century North Carolina. Welcome to the future, m’lad.”
“Sons a bitches,” Grant whispered with a low growl. He shook his head against what he’d just heard, then rolled back against the tree and slid to sit on the ground.
“I’d rather be dead.”