Page 64 of Blood of the Thistle

“I only meant there’s nae cause for tears now.”

She sighed, too weary to explain now what she cried about, even as she knew for certain that he bore some share of the blame as well, after having kissed her with such astonishing tenderness that she’d allowed herself to believe that perhaps she wasn’t quite so alone in this strange world. Would she even be crying now if he hadn’t kissed her? If he hadn’t proven to be just another cold, self-absorbed man who wasn’t interested in her after all?

“You’re right,” she conceded with resignation. “What’s the point? Crying won’t return me to the twenty-first century. Crying won’t remove the fear and dread my parents are knowing at this moment. Crying won’t make the fourteenth century any friendlier.” She drew an unsteady breath, trying to regain some measure of composure before continuing. “I might never get home,” she said, stiffly now. “I might never see my parents or my sister again. They’ll never know what happened to me. They’ll spend the rest of their lives wondering, having no idea of the hell I’m going through—lost in time, chased by a medieval English army, nearly kidnapped by some... some backwoods cult leader, and stuck with you, when clearly you wish I’d have landed in any century but yours—so forgive me if I need five minutes to cry about it.”

Bram was silent for several moments as the horse continued its steady pace through the growing darkness.

“I canna undo what has befallen ye, Anastasia,” he said. “But I can see ye safely north.”

Anna released a weary sigh, hating the small, traitorous part of her that warmed at the sound of her name on his lips, at the formal way he always said the whole thing. She rubbed her eyes once more, feeling utterly spent.

“Going north solves your problem,” she said. “Not mine.”

The words sounded harsher than she’d intended. She regretted them but let them stand. It wasn’t his burden to get her home; she knew that. But his answer laid the truth bare: he had a destination, a purpose. She was just a passenger with nowhere to go. Her grief over her family was a vast, crushing weight, but tangled within it was the smaller, sharper pain of the hope he had given her with that kiss, then snatched away. She lacked the strength to separate one heartbreak from the other.

They rode on without another word.

Neither attempted to repair the conversation that had dwindled to silence between them. The possibly weary horse carried them steadily north through the gathering darkness, his hoofbeats muffled upon the narrow woodland track as the last traces of twilight surrendered to night.

The silence stretched on for what Anna guessed was another twenty minutes before Bram finally drew back upon the reins.

“We’ll stop here.”

Anna barely glanced around, expecting it would be as it had been on any previous night, a small space inside the trees, hidden and safe. Tonight, she didn’t care if the ground was soft or the wind blew hard, being instead completely drained until nothing remained but exhaustion.

Bram swung easily from the saddle before turning to offer his customary assistance. Anna accepted it without thinking, placing her hands on his shoulders and allowing him to steady her as she slipped from the horse.

The instant her shoes touched the ground, she froze.

A strange pressure settled over her, so faint she might have dismissed it had she not felt it once before. The air itself seemed to change—thickening, acquiring a metallic taste at the back of her throat, like a bitten coin. The fine hairs along her arms rose. Beneath her feet came the faintest suggestion of a vibration, not quite a sound and not quite a movement, but something she sensed nonetheless, as though the very earth had begun humming beneath the soles of her espadrilles.

Her breath caught painfully in her chest as recognition swept over her.

She knew this feeling.

She’d felt something almost exactly like it standing outside the little bookshop in York only moments before the world she’d always known had simply... ceased to exist.

A gust of wind swept suddenly through the clearing, strong enough to lift the loose ends of her hair and send the grasses bending in one direction. Anna turned toward it, startled. Another gust followed almost immediately, colder than the first, stirring the branches overhead with a growing rush of leaves. The quiet chirring of crickets ceased so abruptly that she became aware of their absence.

Above the trees, the last of the evening light began to fade with unnatural speed. Anna looked upward. Clouds she could have sworn had not been there moments ago were gathering across the darkening sky, not advancing from any one direction but seeming almost to form overhead, spreading outward until the first stars disappeared behind them.

“Bram.”

She barely heard herself above another sudden rush of wind.

The mare shifted behind them, tossing her head, and Bram reached automatically for the reins.

Anna could only stare as the clearing changed around her. The air wavered faintly between the trees, distorting the trunks beyond as heat might have done on a summer road, though the wind sweeping against her face had turned distinctly cold. The branches overhead began to toss more violently, leaves showing their pale undersides, while dead leaves and bits of grass skittered across the ground at her feet.

Before she fully understood why panic seized her, her stomach dropped out from under her and she reached for Bram. Blindly, she closed her fingers around his forearm and held on.

“No,” she groaned, the word nearly stolen by the wind.

Bram’s expression sharpened at once upon seeing her face. “Anastasia?”

Another gust struck them, whipping her hair across her eyes and mouth. The pressure continued to build, filling her ears now, making the ground beneath her feet seem somehow less certain than it had been only seconds before.

It was happening again.