Shock coursed through Robert. Though his friend was little more than a decade his senior, the man lying in that bed looked to be ancient, his face ashen and drawn with his pain. Only his piercing blue gaze remained the same. A cough wracked his body, sending small flecks of blood to decorate his lips and the linen bedding where he lay.
Robert shook himself to action, crossing to Thomas’s side. “Aye, my friend. I’ve come as fast as I could.”
“I’ve a boon to ask of you.” Thomas paused, a strange gurgling sound coming from his chest as he strained to fill his lungs with air.
“Anything you ask. My debt to you is without bounds.” Robert fought the urge to take his friend’s hand. He recognized the signs of Thomas’s coming end all too well.
“I’ve a daughter,” Thomas rasped. “You must give me yer oath to protect her. When you carry word of my death, my father will be—” His words dissolved in another struggle to breathe.
“You need say no more, my friend. I will go to yer family and see to yer daughter.”
Thomas reached out, his hand wavering unsteadily in the space between them until his fingers clutched at Robert’s wrist. “It’s no that my father is an evil man. It’s just that Isabella is...” he struggled as if trying to find the words he wanted. “She is different, as was her mother. She’s but an innocent child, and with me gone she will need protection and guidance. It willna be easy. Your oath, Robbie. I must hear yer oath.”
“I’ll see to yer daughter’s safety. I swear it. On my honor. On my life.”
“Then it is done.” Thomas’s fingers slipped from Robert’s wrist. “Go now. Leave me in peace to meet my saints.”
A strange tightening of Robert’s throat prevented his speaking. He bowed his head respectfully and turned, leaving his friend for the last time.
Fighting for the emotional distance he regularly wore as part of his persona, he mounted his barely rested horse and set out for his return to Alexander’s court.
As close as they’d been, he’d never known that Thomas had a child. And what had he meant by saying she was different? What would he do with a girl child? He was a warrior. A good one, too. A knight to King Alexander III of Scotland. A family had no part in his plans. Someday, certainly, but not now.
Apparently his plans would have to change.
MacQuarrie Keep had been a fine place for him growing up, and though he would not return to his family home to live, he felt certain the child would be welcomed there.
With something of a plan formed, he pushed all thoughts from his mind. None of them mattered for the moment. When he finished the task his king had assigned him, nothing save death would keep him from his oath to see to the safety of Isabella MacGahan.
Chapter 1
SITHEANFARDACH
SCOTTISHHIGHLANDS
PRESENTDAY
As it turned out, death was exactly what had kept Robert from fulfilling his oath to protect Isabella MacGahan. Or more precisely, the death he would have suffered had Connor MacKiernan’s bride not whisked him more than seven hundred years into the future through the use of her Faerie Magic.
The battle they’d fought to overpower those who had sought to murder Connor and Cate had been hard won. Robert had paid with a sword to his rib cage that would have ended his life had he not had the expert medical care afforded him in this new time.
That had been almost ten years ago, and though he found this new world to be very much to his liking, his failure to carry out his oath to Thomas had haunted him since that day.
Leaning against the doorjamb next to his friend Connor, Robert pushed away the memories of his past as he scanned the people in this room. His new clan surrounded him here. MacKiernan, Coryell, Navarro—all as much a part of him now as if the blood of the MacQuarries ran through their veins. A good thing since he’d likely never have the family he’d imagined in his youth.
A fierce loyalty to each and every one of the people in the room surged up in his breast as he forced himself to concentrate on the urgent matters at hand.
“You don’t know them like I do. They’ll find me.” Leah Noble spoke up from the corner of the massive living room in Connor’s home. The teenager sank back into her chair, arms crossed defensively in front of her, almost as if she hoped to make herself invisible.
As a Faerie descendant, Leah carried the gift of the Fae Magic. That gift had made her the target of the evil Nuadians, renegade Fae exiled to the Mortal World. They’d held her prisoner for over a month, subjecting her to things no young woman should endure. She and her older sister, Destiny, had gone through hell before Jesse Coryell, with Robert’s help, had rescued them.
Now they were both here in Connor’s living room surrounded by those who would do everything in their power to change the women’s lives for the better. And considering how many of those present were also of Fae heritage, thatpowerwas considerable.
Destiny reached out a hand and Jesse captured it, pulling her to sit on the arm of his chair, close to him.
Robert smiled to himself at the seemingly unconscious action. Anyone with eyes could see that his friend Jesse had found his Soulmate.
“We’ll no let that happen, lass. Dinna you worry yerself about it.” Though Connor spoke with absolute confidence, his expression betrayed the concern they all felt.