THE HIGHLANDER’S CLOTHING looked like nothing Rachel had ever seen. His dark leather trousers and light-colored woven shirt had been hand-sewn, and not very well. She noticed patches in several places that were definitely functional instead of decorative. His long hooded cape had several rents in the wool, and his boots looked worn. His weapons were in better shape than his clothes. He carried two polished, sharp-looking daggers tucked in his belt, and a well-made leather harness across his chest. She’d never seen a man look more feral or dangerous, but he didn’t frighten her. Everything about him made her feel comforted, and safe.

“You’re awake,” he said and didn’t sound as if he was happy about that. He didn’t look it, either.

She glanced past him to see a tall wooden frame that he must have had holding the door shut. Strands of wool had been stretched from its top bar to the bottom. It seemed to be some kind of loom.

“You don’t have to barricade me inside here,” she said, and cleared her throat as her voice rasped on the words. “I won’t try to escape.”

“You’re no’ my prisoner. I but needed to sleep without worrying you would stray from the house.” He hesitated before he added, “You’ll want something to wear.”

She had a vague memory of seeing him toss her ruined clothes in a fireplace.

“Thank you. That would be nice.”

Evander frowned, and went over to open an old trunk. He sorted through its contents before he took out a dark brown skirt, a lace-up blue blouse, and a long cummerbund-shaped sash. He looked at them for a long moment before he straightened.

Fiona, forgive me, Rachel heard him say inside her mind.

“You can wear these things.” He brought the clothing to her. “I’ll make food while you dress.”

Once he left, Rachel surveyed the garments, which were all neatly hand-sewn, but had been made for Fiona, who had obviously been curvier and a few inches taller. She managed to get them on and figure out the crude fasteners, but the blouse billowed over the skirt, which dragged on the floor matting. She tucked and folded over the fabrics where she could, securing them with the sash, which she had to double around herself before tying it. Rachel glanced down at herself. God, she looked like a kid playing dress up with great-great grandma’s clothes.

Other things around the room hinted at a woman’s presence: a pot of dried flower stalks, two handmade cushions embroidered with spiral stitches, long faded ribbons neatly wound around some long wooden spindles, and several pairs of cloth slippers neatly lined up beneath the edge of a tall cabinet. A wooden comb with surprisingly fine teeth sat beside a silver plate that had gone brown with tarnish.

Fiona hadn’t just died in this room. She’d lived here.

Without a mirror or brush Rachel couldn’t do anything about her hair except work her fingers through the tangles. That was when she discovered that her hair had inexplicably grown out almost to her waist, and while it was still stick-straight it felt much thicker and stronger now. Completely bemused, she wove the heavy length into an untidy braid and looped the end to hold it secure.

The adjoining room appeared to be the main area of the cottage, and the first thing she saw was the big chair by the stone fireplace where she guessed she had fallen asleep on Evander’s lap. To the left of the hearth stood two chairs made from tree branches and log slices on either side of a stone table. Rachel felt numb as she approached it, and reached out to touch the green-streaked granite. The pattern of the stone matched exactly her mother’s honeymoon table, but it looked much newer, and stood supported by two massive tree stumps. If what Evander had told her was true, then in eight hundred years Rachel’s mother would find this table, and her father would buy it, and it would be shipped to California to become part of Avalon.

Rachel knew it might just be a huge coincidence, but it didn’t feel like one.

Evander came to join her, and set a small pot of steaming oatmeal on the table.

“I’ve no milk for the porridge,” he said.

“This is fine,” she assured him, and saw some wooden bowls, plates and spoons on a nearby shelf. “May I help and set the table?”

He eyed her. “You cannae lift it.”

“I mean do this.” She picked up two bowls and spoons and placed them by the oatmeal.

Evander said nothing as he portioned out the meal, giving her twice as much as she could eat before filling his own bowl. He then went into the back room and returned with a corked jug and two pottery cups, one of which he filled with a sweet-smelling cider from the jug.

“’Tis called perry,” he told her, and offered her the cup.

Rachel cautiously sampled the cider, which tasted of pears instead of apples, and had enough kick to tell her it had been fermented. She handed the cup back to him.

“It’s a little too strong for me.”

He fetched her a cup of water, and finally sat down to eat.

The oatmeal had been sweetened with honey, which Rachel found delicious, but she ate sparingly as she waited for her stomach to protest. Over the last month she had been feeling nauseated nearly every time she ate. David had insisted on bringing her meals on a tray to her room. He’d also given her a glass of wine every night, assuring her that it would help her sleep. That must have been how he’d been dosing her. Drugs in her food, in her drinks, probably even in her toothpaste.

Rachel looked across the table at Evander, who was watching her intently. “Is something wrong?”

He reached out to flick his fingertip over her cheek, and showed her the tear he’d caught.

“The oatmeal isnae so bad, is it?”

“It’s actually very good,” she managed to say before her throat tightened. She set down her spoon. “May I ask you something?” Once he nodded, she said, “Why were you in the oak grove last night, Evander?”

“’Tis where I buried Fiona. She was my lady.” He nodded at her blouse. “The garments are—were—hers.”

Rachel took a sip of water before she continued.

“Was I… How did you know I would be there?”

“I didnae.” He stood and walked out into the garden.

Rachel stared at the door Evander had left open. She’d hoped he would tell her something that would explain why she had been brought here, and the reason he’d been planning to kill himself before he’d rescued her. She owed him the truth about her powerful new ability, too, but would he even believe she could read his mind?

She wasn’t even sure she believed it.

Rachel went out into the garden, where she found Evander sitting on a bench, staring at a patch of withered white flowers being crowded out by bigger, thorny yellow blooms. He looked just as big and tough and hard-eyed as when she’d first seen him, but she felt a wave of wordless emotion rolling off him that flooded her with regret and grief.

He was thinking of Fiona without words but with memories. Fiona walking through some sort of outdoor market with a large basket on her arm. Fiona, awash in bright sunlight, sitting on a stool and moving a shuttle through a loom. Fiona working in the garden while fat bumblebees buzzed around her. Her name, echoing inside his mind like a mantra: Fiona, Fiona, Fiona.

He’d loved her so much that nothing Rachel said would ever ease his pain. It made her feel a twinge of envy. She had never been loved like that.

“My mother grew roses,” she told him as she sat down beside him. The garden looked as if it had once been well-tended, but had been let grow wild for some time. “She raised them in every color, but she liked white the most. She told me once that they were the symbol of true love. I’m sorry that your wife died.”

“We never had the chance to marry,” he said and met her gaze, his own edged with anger. “Did the gods send you to me, my lady? Or did she?”

“I think you brought me here,” she said as she tucked her arms around her waist in an attempt to conceal how much her hands were shaking. “I saw you right after it happened.”

“After you crossed over?” he asked.

Rachel shook her head. “After my husband David stabbed me in the back, and buried me alive.”

* * *

Evander watched the rim of the morning sun appear above the ridge. Though it gilded Rachel with pale amber light, its distant warmth did nothing to end her shivering. Evander took off his cloak and draped it around her, tugging the hood up over her head. The moment he touched her he felt his skinwork move under his tunic, and quickly removed his hands.

“I couldnae bring you here, my lady,” he told her. “I’ve no’ such powers. You saw me only after I took you from the ground.”

“Then who would do this?” she asked. “I don’t know anyone here. My husband just wanted me dead.”

“You crossed over on the same night I came to the grove, and that I had no’ done for weeks. ’Tis no’ by chance, I reckon.” Evander eyed her. “Why did your husband try to kill you? Is he mad?”

“Just greedy. He wanted my inheritance.” Her expression grew bitter. “My father was a very wealthy entrepreneur, like, ah…”

“Nobility?” Evander suggested.

She nodded. “Something like that. David’s father worked for mine, and introduced us. I lost my parents in a fire a few months ago, and I–” She gave him a stricken look. “Oh, God. While he was burying me he said he thought about using fire again to get rid of my body. I think David murdered them.”

He took her cold hand in his. “Tell me everything, lass.”

Evander had to clamp down on his temper as he listened to Rachel describe how her husband had used and deceived her. He could see that the death of her parents had left her vulnerable to the murderous fack, who had obviously used her pain to manipulate her into marrying him. It made him wish he had the power to use the grove portal, so he might travel to the future, find David Carver, and gut the coward slowly. He would teach him what justice was brought to men who destroyed lives to serve their own greed.

As was never done to me.

Shame burned inside him as he thought of Tharaen Aber, the laird’s bodyguard, who had tried to stop him from running away with Fiona. He had intended only to wound Aber, but when his spear had pierced the other man’s throat, he had taken Fiona and left Aber to die. The fact that they had been old, bitter enemies, or that the clan would have killed Fiona for serving as a spy for the undead, did not justify what Evander had done.

When Rachel finished, he knew she had every right to go before the druid conclave and demand justice.

“Do you wish vengeance on your husband? It may be had, if you go to your people. I can take you to them.”

“It won’t change what David did,” she said, and hunched her shoulders. “The man I loved doesn’t exist. My parents are gone forever. I’ve lost everything, even the world I lived in. I only wish I knew what to do now.”

Evander didn’t understand her mercy, but he did her despair. Since losing Fiona he had been wandering aimlessly through each day, desperate to find purpose and meaning in an empty existence. He would have happily fought to his death to kill as many of the bastarts who had violated and forced Fiona to spy for them. He may not have had great affection for females himself, but he loathed men who used their weakness as a weapon against them. If he could use the portal to go to San Diego, and find Rachel’s husband, he would skin him alive, and enjoy every moment of it.

“I’m all right, Evander,” Rachel said suddenly. “Don’t worry, I’ll figure out what to do.”

The lass had no inkling of the world she had come to. He would have to look after her, at least in the beginning. Perhaps that was why he was drawn to the grove on the same night Rachel had been sent through the portal. The gods wished him to protect her. But why had they chosen him? Surely they knew he had no love for women, and even less since Fiona had died.

Rachel looked so miserable that he feared she might start weeping again. He did not care for women, but to watch one cry was the worst kind of torture. To prevent it, he stood and drew her to her feet.

“Come and walk with me.”

Evander led her from the garden out to the old, winding trail that led into the woods. Moss and lichen carpeted the path, and the last of the summer wildflowers painted the grassy slopes with blue, purple and white blooms. Thistledown drifted on the air, catching on their garments before their movements dislodged the floating seeds.

When Evander guided her out of the trees and onto the shelf of rock overlooking the rolling glen, Rachel inhaled quickly and pressed her fingertips to her mouth.

“Fiona named it Splang, for the way the light flashes on the water,” he said as he looked out over the shimmering surface of the fairy pool. “The little waterfalls freeze in winter, and then bring fresh meltwater when the thaw comes.”

A gray-faced red deer came out of the trees and delicately made its way through the fern to drink from the water’s edge, followed by a smaller, white-spotted fawn. They were joined by the rest of their herd, and began grazing on the lush grasses blanketing the banks.

Evander glanced at Rachel, who was staring wide-eyed at the deer. “What do you think of it?”

“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she whispered.

“The water is cold, but on sunny days you can swim, if you dinnae mind the company of trout and greylings,” he told her. “The deer can be bold, but I’ve no’ hunted them. Fiona didnae eat so much after we came here.”

Rachel stood on one of the flat-topped rocks. “Was she sick?”

“The plague took her from me.” The words came out of him ragged and harsh, and he turned away.

“I didn’t mean to pry,” she said quickly.

Of course she did. All females did.

“I dinnae mind it. What more would you ken? How thin she grew, how any sound made her flinch, how she looked upon me when I wished to comfort her? Or mayhap how she died. How the pox scourged her lovely skin. How she burned with fever after fever until it filled her chest and cut off her air?”

“I shouldn’t have asked,” she said, her eyes filled with sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

Evander didn’t want her compassion. “Dinnae be. Fiona was my mistress. Before we came here, I visited her in secret. Men of my clan are no’ permitted to have such wenches.” He looked back at her. “But I didnae care.”

Pain flickered across her face. “You can’t choose who you love.”

“Love? I facked her, Rachel. I treated her like a hoor, and she loved that. She made me think she loved me.” He gave her his back again. “’Twas all a lie. She spied for our enemies, and became my lover so she might use me to find my clan’s hidden stronghold.”

Her footsteps drew near. “Evander–”

He held out his hand to stop her from coming closer. “Her masters ordered her to capture and kill me, but she exposed herself, and I took her prisoner.” He turned around to face her. “I am no’ a forgiving man. I hated her for her betrayal. I wanted her to suffer at my hands. I meant to beat her to death, that very day.”

Instead of looking outraged or frightened, Rachel simply watched him with her dark velvet eyes.

“And then she told the truth of what she was,” he continued. “Her masters had murdered her father, and taken her when she was but a lass of fourteen. They violated her, and then used her fear of more to make her spy for them. ’Twas that, or die an ugly death.” He looked down at the grazing herd. “When she was ordered to end me, she couldnae bring herself to do it, so she planned an escape. She meant to take me with her to Britannia, and keep me as husband.”

“She really did love you,” Rachel said softly.

“Aye,” Evander said and finished the sordid tale by telling Rachel what he had done to free Fiona, and how he had left Tharaen Aber to die. “I knew I couldnae save his life,” he added, “and to stay would have ended ours. So I took Fiona and fled. We remained in hiding for a time, and then came here. A year later I buried her in the grove.”

Rachel came a step closer. “Evander, please, look at me.”

“I am a traitor and a murderer.” He didn’t want to see the disgust on her face.

“You loved her.” She came around him, the hood falling back from her face as she looked up at him. “My parents might still be alive if I hadn’t fallen in love with David. Does that make me a killer, too?”

“Dinnae be daft.” He felt a yank, and glanced down to see his tunic in her fist.

“You think I couldn’t kill?” The softness vanished from Rachel’s face. “My husband did unspeakable things to me, but that’s nothing compared to what he did to my parents. The two people I loved most in the world died horribly. David found a way to set fire to their bedroom while they were sleeping. He burned them alive, Evander.”

He covered her hand with his. “Lass, dinnae torment yourself.”

Rachel released her grip on his tunic. “I can’t go back to my time, because if I do, he’s dead. I’ll kill him. I’ll take a knife and stab him in the heart.” Her chin started to tremble. “I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone in my life. This is what he’s done to me.”

Pulling her into his arms should have felt awkward, but once again holding her felt as natural as breathing. Evander felt her tension ease, and his own anger and shame dwindle. That she would understand his regret, and show him kindness instead of contempt, baffled him. He understood the cold fervor of her hatred for her coward of a husband, and would even hold him down so she could skewer him.

“Aren’t you going to tell me that with time I’ll get over it, and forgive him?” she muttered.

“Why should I do that?” he countered. “A knife to the heart is wiser. If you do, then he’ll no’ harm another lady.”

The pleasure of having her so close spread through Evander. He could blame the many months of solitude he’d spent here, but it seemed more than that. Simply touching Rachel made him feel stronger and surer, as if she were somehow steadying him.

The gods desire balance in all things, but the spirits cannot, his tribe’s shaman had told him on his Choosing Day. If you offer yourself to the war spirit, and it takes you, you will never again know peace.

He is the finest fighter in the tribe, Evander’s father had snapped at the old healer. Do the work and leave the tranquility to the women.

“Thank you,” Rachel said, sighing into his tunic.

A wreck of a man like him would only bring her more grief, Evander thought, and abruptly released her.

“’Twill be well, my lady. When you have rested I will take you to a druid settlement.”

“Wait,” she said, fear etching her pale features. “Why can’t I stay with you?”

Now that she knew what he had done, she should have been eager to leave him, not afraid to.

“I am not fit to be with you, my lady. The druids are your people. You belong with them.”

“I don’t know them, and I don’t want to go to them.” Her dark lashes swept down. “If we were brought together for some purpose, shouldn’t we find out what it is first?”

He felt a curious pleasure to know she preferred him over the magic folk, as if she’d given him a boon. Still, he could not look after her, not as hurt as she was. She needed careful tending.

“The druids willnae harm you. They can show you how to live in this time, teach you what you are, and what you may do. I cannae help you with that, lass. I’m Pritani, no’ druid kind.”

“I have nothing to go back to but a first degree murder charge, so I’d rather stay here. I’m not completely helpless, you know. I’d be happy to clean, and garden, and cook for you.” Her cheeks pinked. “If you’ll teach me how. I’m a very fast learner, so it won’t take long. Please?”

In that moment Evander wanted to kiss her pretty mouth, and carry her back to his bed, and show her exactly how she could please him. As young and sensitive as she was, he knew he could drive her wild with delight. He also knew that if he kept her at the cottage, in time they would likely become lovers.

Yet she had been cruelly used by her husband, while he had buried his shattered heart with Fiona. But what if he lost his temper with her, as he had with Kinley Chandler? The laird’s lady had been a soldier. Rachel had been nobility. He knew nothing of her world, nor she his.

“You shouldnae be here with me,” he said finally. “Nor I with you.”

“I won’t try to take Fiona’s place,” Rachel said and touched his sleeve. “I know I can’t. But we can be friends, and keep each other company. It has to be better than you living alone, or me with a bunch of people I don’t know.”

“You dinnae ken me,” he reminded her.

She smiled for the first time, and it transformed her features from lovely to breathtaking. “Then give me a chance to.”

In that moment Evander could not have denied her anything. Nor did he want to let her go and return to his wretched solitude.

“Aye, so I shall. Only you mustnae leave the cottage unless I am with you.”

Below them a large red stag uttered a stuttering call, and the rest of the deer herd followed him as he fled into the trees. Evander saw the cause for their hasty retreat when a small, dark-furred marten bounded up to the edge of the pool. It drank until it had drenched the amber bib of fur under its pointed face. With a flick of its long, bushy tail, it bounced over to a pine to scamper up into the branches.

Rachel watched it until it disappeared. “That was adorable, whatever it was.”

He could tell her that the sinuous, furry assassin had been revered by the Talorc tribe, who emulated its supple grace and swift, lethal strikes in their fighting styles. Martens were night hunters, and his people believed that seeing one in the daylight meant the gods had bestowed special protection over beholders. But Rachel was not Pritani, nor did she know he was an immortal who had lost his tribe a thousand years ago.

The realization hit him like a hammer to the chest. Throughout his long existence Evander had always been regarded as an unrivaled warrior, but that had never endeared him to anyone. During his first, mortal life his tribe had used him like the terrible weapon he was. The warrior’s life had hardened him to such a grim, joyless being that his betrothed had run off with another. After being reborn as an immortal, Evander had been respected by the McDonnel Clan for his talents, but never well-liked. He imagined even Fiona had loved him in spite of who and what he was. He’d never known the pleasure of being ordinary, and accepted, or appreciated for anything other than his ability to kill.

Yet Rachel knew nothing of him. With her, Evander could simply be a man.

“’Twas a marten,” he told her, smiling a little. “They are the best hunters in the forest.”