She looked back at Dageus.
He extended his hand to her. “I have to leave, Chloe-lass.”
“What? What on earth are you talking about?” There was no car nearby. Leave how? For where? Without her? He’d said “I have to leave” not “we.” Her chest felt suddenly tight.
“Will you come with me?”
The tightness eased a bit, but confusion still reigned. “I d-don’t understand,” Chloe sputtered. “Where?”
“I can’t tell you where. I have to show you.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” she protested.
“Och, nay, lass. Give me a bit more time and you’ll not think it so,” he said lightly. But his eyes weren’t light. They were intense and …
Listen with your heart, Gwen had said. Chloe drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She forced herself to push her preconceptions aside, and tried looking with her heart. …
. . . and she saw it. There in his eyes. The pain she’d glimpsed on the plane, but had told herself wasn’t really there.
More than pain. A brutal, unceasing despair.
He was waiting, one strong hand outstretched. She had no idea what he was doing, or where he thought he was going. He was asking her to say “yes” without knowing. He was asking for that leap of faith Gwen had warned her about. For the second time in less than forty-eight hours, the man was asking her to throw all caution to the wind and leap with him, trusting that he wouldn’t let her fall.
Do it, Evan MacGregor’s voice suddenly said in her heart. You may not have nine lives, Chloe-cat, but you mustn’t be afraid to live the one you’ve got.
Chills shivered up her spine, raising the fine hair on her skin. She glanced around at the thirteen stones encircling them, with funny symbols that looked like formulas etched on their inner faces. More symbols on the central slab.
Was she about to find out what those standing stones had been used for? The concept was too fantastic for her to wrap her brain around.
What on earth did he think was going to happen?
Logic insisted nothing was going to happen in those stones. Curiosity was proposing, quite persuasively, that if something did, she’d have to be a fool to miss it.
She blew out a gusty sigh. What was one more plunge, anyway? she thought with a mental shrug. She’d already been so completely derailed from the normal track of her life that she couldn’t get too worked up at the prospect of another loopy turn. And frankly, the ride had never been so fascinating. Drawing herself up to her full height, squaring both her shoulders and her resolve, she turned back to Dageus and slipped her hand into his. Notching her chin up, she met his gaze and said, “Fine. Let’s go, then.” She was proud of herself for how firm and nonchalant it had come out.
His eyes flared. “You’ll come? Without knowing where I’m taking you?”
“If you think I’ve come this far to be dumped along the wayside, you don’t know me very well, MacKeltar,” she said lightly, seeking strength in levity. The moment was simply too tense. “I’m the woman who snooped beneath your bed, remember? I’m slave to my curiosity. If you’re going somewhere, I am too. You’re not getting away from me yet.” God, had she really said that?
“That sounds as if you’re telling me you plan to keep me, lass.” His eyes narrowed and he went very still.
Chloe caught her breath. It was so similar to her dream!
He smiled then, a slow smile that caused tiny lines about his eyes to crinkle, and for a moment something danced within the coppery depths. Something younger and … free and breathtakingly beautiful. “I’m yours for the asking, sweet.”
She forgot how to breathe for a moment.
Then his eyes went cool again and abruptly, he turned back toward the center slab and wrote a series of symbols. “Hold my hand and doona let go.”
“Keep him safe, Chloe,” Gwen shouted, as a sudden, fierce wind kicked up through the stones, scattering dried leaves in swirling eddies of mist.
Safe from what? Chloe wondered.
And then she wondered no more, because suddenly the stones began spinning in a circle around her—but that wasn’t possible! And even while she was arguing with herself over what was and was not possible, she lost the ground and was upside down, or something, and then she lost the sky too. Grass and twilight swirled together, speckled by a mad rush of stars. The wind soared to a deafening howl, and suddenly she was … different somehow. She glanced wildly about for Drustan and Gwen, but they were gone, and she could see nothing at all, not even Dageus. A terrible gravity seemed to be pulling at her, sucking her in and stretching her out, bending her in impossible ways. She thought she heard a sonic boom, and then suddenly there was a flash of white so blinding that she lost all sense of sight and sound.