The Maybe Game, Chloe swiftly came to realize, was the cruelest game of all, far worse than the What-Might-Have-Been Game.
The Maybe Game was parents who left for dinner and a movie and never came home again. The Maybe Game was a closed-casket funeral and a four-year old’s imagination when confronted with sleek, glossy boxes and the attendant, bewildering rituals of death.
The Maybe Game was an empty freaking room full of blood and no answers.
Maybe Dageus had used the power of the Draghar to free her, to kill the sect members, and magically transport their bodies elsewhere so she wouldn’t be confronted with the horror, where he’d then killed himself to make certain the Prophecy would never be fulfilled.
That was what Drustan believed. And deep down inside her heart, that was what Chloe believed as well. In her heart, she knew Dageus would never risk freeing the ancient evil to walk the earth again. Not even for her. It had nothing to do with love. It had everything to do with the fate and future of the entire world.
She’d endlessly replayed in her mind that moment when the knife had whipped away from her neck and gone hurtling through the air.
It had gone in his direction.
But maybe, another insidious little voice kept insisting, he and the sect of the Draghar had vanished one another . . . er, inadvertently, and . . . they would all come back. Eventually. Stranger things could happen. Stranger things happened on Buffy all the time. Maybe they were locked somewhere in mortal combat or something.
Maybe, her mind tortured her, he’s still alive somewhere, somehow. That was the most excruciating maybe of all.
How many years had she believed that her parents would one day walk through the front door again? When Grandda had come to take her to Kansas, she’d been terrified to go. She still remembered shrieking at him that she couldn’t leave because when Mommy and Daddy come home they won’t know where to find me!
For years she’d clung to that agonizing hope, until she’d finally been old enough to understand what death was.
“Oh, Zanders,” she whispered. “You can’t play the Maybe Game. You know what it does to you.”
She had no idea how many days she huddled in her tiny apartment, completely withdrawing from the world. She didn’t answer the phone, she didn’t check her E-mail or mail, she rarely even stirred from bed. She passed her time mentally reliving every precious moment she and Dageus had spent together.
She’d had the most incredible month of her life, she’d met the man of her dreams and fallen head over heels in love. She’d had the promise of a blissful future. She’d held everything that she’d ever wanted right there in the palms of her hands, and now she had nothing.
How was she supposed to go on? How was she supposed to face the world? To get dressed, to maybe brush her hair, to go out on the sidewalk and see lovers talking and laughing with each other?
Impossible.
And so the days crept by in a bleak fog until one morning she woke up obsessed with wanting the artifacts he’d given her, in her apartment. Needing to hold the skean dhu, to wrap her fingers around it in the same places his had once rested.
Which meant leaving her apartment. She tried to think of some other way to get them, but there was none. Only she could access the safety deposit box.
Numbly, she dragged herself to the shower, got sort of wet, then sort of dry, then stumbled to the suitcase she still hadn’t unpacked. She tugged on rumpled clothes that may or may not have matched—frankly, she didn’t care, at least she wasn’t naked and wouldn’t get arrested, which would have forced her to speak to people, something she had no desire to do—and took a cab to the bank.
Within a short time she was ushered into a private room with her safety deposit box. She looked at it for a long while, just standing and staring, trying to summon the immense energy necessary to root around in her purse for her wallet. Eventually, she rummaged about for the key and unlocked the long metal box.
She opened it, and froze, staring. Atop her short sword, skean dhu, Keltar brooch, and intricately etched first-century arm band, lay an envelope with her name on it.
In Dageus’s handwriting.
She closed her eyes, frantically shutting the sight of it out. She hadn’t been prepared for that! Merely seeing his handwriting made her heart feel as if it were breaking all over again.
She took several slow, deep breaths, trying to calm herself.
Opening her eyes, she reached for the envelope with trembling hands. What on earth might he have written to her so many weeks ago? They’d only known each other five days before she’d left for Scotland with him!
She untucked the flap and withdrew a single sheet of paper.
Chloe-lass:
If I’m not here with you now, I’m beyond this life, for ’tis the only way I’ll ever let you go.
She flinched, her whole body jerking. Several long moments passed before she managed to force herself to keep reading.
I hoped I loved you well, sweet, for I know even now that you are my brightest shining star. I knew it the moment I saw you.
Ah, lass, you so adore your artifacts.
This thief covets but one priceless treasure: You.
Dageus
She squeezed her eyes shut as fresh pain lanced through her. The knot in her throat swelled, the burning behind her eyes grew excruciating—yet, still, she refused to cry. There was a perfectly good reason that she hadn’t cried since the night he’d disappeared. She knew that if she cried, it would mean he was really gone.
Which also seemed to imply, in perhaps a less than logical way, that as long as she didn’t cry, there was hope.
Oh, God, she could picture him! She could see them both, standing in the bank that day. He was tall, dark, and too gorgeous for words. She was so excited, so thrilled and nervous. So fascinated by him.
So distrustful, too, of the dastardly, impossibly sexy Gaulish Ghost. She’d watched every move he made, to be certain he really put her precious artifacts in the box before he locked it and gave her the key.
Still, he’d managed to slip the letter in at the last moment without her seeing it.
Even then. He’d wanted her even then. He’d said, even then, that he would never let her go.
“Ma’am?” a brisk voice interrupted. “My apologies for disturbing you, but they just informed me that you’d arrived. Is Mr. MacKeltar with you?”
Chloe opened her eyes slowly. The bank manager was standing in the doorway. She wasn’t ready to talk to anyone yet, so she shook her head.
“Well, then, he asked me to give you this, should you come to collect the contents of the box without him.” He handed her a set of keys. “He said he wanted you to have”—he shrugged, regarding her with open curiosity—“whatever it is these keys open. He said it was paid for, and if you didn’t wish to retain ownership, you could sell it. He expressed his conviction that it would keep you quite comfortably for the rest of your life.” He scrutinized her intently. “Mr. MacKeltar has fairly sizeable accounts in our bank. Might I inquire as to his intentions about those?”
Chloe took the keys with a trembling hand. They were the keys to his penthouse. She shrugged, to indicate that she had no idea.
“Are you all right, ma’am? You look pale. Are you feeling sick? Could I get you a glass of water or a soft drink or something?”
Chloe shook her head again. She tucked the letter in her pocket and slipped the carefully wrapped skean dhu in her purse. The rest of the artifacts she would leave in the bank until she had what she felt was a safe place to keep them.
They would never be sold. She would not part with so much as one precious memory.
She eyed the keys, feeling strangely numb. How carefully he’d planned, how far ahead he’d been looking, even then. Leaving her his penthouse, as if she could ever bear to live there. Or sell it. Or even think about it.
“Ma’am, I’ve noticed that we have no next of kin listed in Mr. MacKeltar’s files—”
?
??Oh, hush, just hush, would you?” Chloe finally managed, pushing past him. She was dying inside, and all he cared about was whether his bank might lose Dageus’s money. It was more than she could stand. She left both box and bank manager without a backward glance.
She wandered the city for a time, pushing blindly through the masses of people, with no concept of where she was walking. Head down, she walked while the sun passed the noon hour, descended behind the skyscrapers, and slipped to the horizon.
She walked until she was too exhausted to take another step, then she slumped down on a bench. She couldn’t bear the thought of going back to her apartment, she couldn’t bear the thought of going to Dageus’s penthouse. She couldn’t bear the thought of being anywhere, or even being for that matter.
Yet . . . she mused, perhaps it would help. Perhaps merely being surrounded by his things, smelling him on his pillows again, touching his clothes—
Would be agonizing.
At complete odds with herself, she got up and began walking aimlessly again.
Night had fallen and a full moon graced the sky by the time Chloe found herself entering the elegant foyer of Dageus’s building. She hadn’t exactly made the decision to go there, she’d simply walked until her feet had taken her someplace.
So, she thought dismally, here I am. Ready or not.
She trudged past the security desk, numbly waving the keys at them. They shrugged—they really should be fired—she thought as she keyed the elevator to the forty-third floor.
When she stepped into the anteroom, her legs got shaky and, in her mind, she was reliving it all over again. The first day she’d stood at his door, clutching the third Book of Manannán, calling the man she was to deliver it to every nasty name she could think of. Worrying that some bimbo might damage the tome. Scoffing over the gold hinges. Entering his home and seeing the claymore hanging above the fireplace—the artifact that had lured her to her destiny.
Getting caught beneath his bed. Pretending to be a French maid.
Being kissed by him that first time.
Oh, what she wouldn’t give to be able to go back in time and live it all over again! She’d settle for any one of those days. And if she had it to do all over again, she’d never resist his seduction. She’d drink greedily of each moment.
But such a wish was futile. Neither she nor anyone else was ever going back in time again.
Drustan had told her that the night Dageus had disappeared, he’d felt the bridge in the circle of stones go dead. He’d said it was as if an energy he’d sensed all his life was simply gone. The next day, he and Christopher had discovered that the tablets that held the sacred formulas were also gone, as was their recall of the ones they’d committed to memory as part of their training.
Whatever Dageus had done that night, he’d accomplished one thing he’d wanted. The Keltar no longer bore the duty of guarding the secret of time travel. They were finally free of the immense responsibility and the temptation. Able, at last, to live simpler lives.
How Dageus would have loved that, she thought with a sad smile. He’d wanted nothing more than to be a simple man. To wear his clan colors again. And though he’d never said it, she known he’d wanted children. Wanted his own family as much as she had.
How could life have cheated me like this? she wanted to scream.
Steeling herself for the onslaught of yet more painful memories, she unlocked the door (wonder of wonders, he’d actually locked it when they’d left) and pushed it open. She went straight to the fireplace and ran her fingers over the cool metal of the claymore.
She had no idea how long she stood there in the dark, bathed only by the faint light of the full moon spilling in the wall of windows, but eventually, she tossed her purse to the floor, and dropped down on the sofa.
Later, she would brave the rest of his penthouse. Later, she would drag herself up to his magnificent bed and fall asleep, wrapped up in the scent of him.
Chloe-lass: If I’m not here with you now, I’m beyond this life, for ’tis the only way I’ll ever let you go.
And there it was. He’d said it himself in the letter he’d left her.
Chloe made a small, helpless choking sound.
And finally the tears came in a hot rush. He was dead. He was really, truly gone.
She curled into a tight knot on the sofa and wept.
28
Chloe was awakened some time later by an unfamiliar, persistent noise. It took her several moments to pinpoint the source, to understand that the scrabbling sound was coming from the door of the penthouse.
Rubbing her eyes, she pushed herself into a sitting position on the sofa. She’d cried herself to sleep and her eyes were swollen, her face crusty with tears. She peered into the darkness toward the door and listened intently.
Oh, God, she thought, horrified, it sounded like someone was trying to break in!
She listened a few more moments. Yes, that was it. She could hear the metallic grating as someone tried to pick the lock. She counted her blessings that she’d bestirred herself from grief enough to flip the inner lock when she’d come in.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, she thought, suddenly exasperated, what is this? My year of misery? Is every bad thing that could possibly happen to me, going to?
She was not going to be victimized again. Period. Chloe Zanders had had entirely enough. There was only so much a girl could tolerate. She was suddenly dangerously furious at whoever was outside that door, daring to mess up her life even further.
How dare anyone give her more grief?
Dimly aware that she might not be acting quite rationally, but beyond caring, she slipped from the sofa, snatched the claymore from the prongs above the hearth and crept toward the door.
She briefly contemplated pounding on it, in hopes of scaring the intruder away, but swiftly decided that as isolated as the penthouse level was, the intruder might break in anyway and she would have sacrificed her advantage of surprise.
So she stood quietly behind the door and waited. It wasn’t long before she heard clicks as the tumblers slipped and the lock turned. Sucking in a shallow breath, she balanced on the balls of her feet, crouching low for a solid stance, and raised the heavy sword with both hands.
The door opened slowly and a dark shape slipped in.
Swiftly, and perhaps harder than she’d intended, Chloe whipped the blade of the sword to his throat. She heard a swift intake of air, and suspected, as sharp as the blade was, she’d cut him.
Good, she thought.
“Och, Chloe-lass, please put the blade down,” Dageus said softly.
Chloe screamed.
Keltar mates ne’er come easily to their men. Some travel distances too vast and strange to fathom, others travel but a short path, though a far distance in their hearts. Most resist every step of the way, yet for each Keltar, one woman will make that journey. ’Tis up to the Keltar to claim her.
Silvan lay the tiny tome he’d found in the chamber library upon his lap. It was the only tome he’d risked removing from the chamber before sealing it. Now, ensconced in what had once been his bedchamber and private sanctuary—the tower library one hundred and three steps above the castle proper—he’d finished reading it. The book did not name its scribe, as did most in a request for a blessing upon he who’d scribed the words therein, and was comprised of only a few dozen tiny sheets of parchment. Yet those few sheets, a compendium on the mating of the Keltar males, had been fascinating.
And why haven’t you claimed your mate, old man?
The answer to that was complicated, he brooded, glancing about the tower chamber.
Fat pillars of candles scattered across several small tables burned brightly, flickering in the warm night breeze, and he smiled, looking around his peaceful haven. As a lad, he’d delighted in everything about the tower, the spiraling stairs, the stones walls with their myriad cracks and crevices covered with thick tapestries, the breathtaking beauty of the view from the tall window in the spacious circul
ar room. As an old man, he found it no less enchanting.
He’d sat in this same deep chair gazing out into the night as a man of a mere score of years, then two, and now three plus a few odd ones. He knew every wrinkle and rise of the land beyond his window. As much as he loved it, however, the solitude he’d sought as his salvation had in time become his prison, and he’d been more than ready to leave it a few years ago when he’d wed Nell and moved down into the castle proper.
Still, there were evenings, like this one, when he craved the lofty heights and a quiet place to think. Dageus and Chloe had left nearly a moon before, and he wondered how much time would have to pass before he finally accepted that he would ne’er know what had become of his son. Though he believed Dageus would do aught that must be done, not knowing the final outcome would plague him to the end of his days.
And Nellie too. The atmosphere in the castle had been somber indeed since they’d gone.
Nellie. How she’d blessed his life. Without her, he’d have lost both his sons and been living alone high atop the Keltar mountain.
Anon, he would blow out the candles and make his way down the winding stairs. He would go first to the nursery where their sons would be slumbering by now. He would sit beside them as he did every eve, and marvel over them. Marvel over the second chance at life he’d gotten when he’d least expected it.
He flipped open the tome to the page where his finger held the place.
The exchange of the binding vows will seal their hearts together for all eternity, and once mated, they can never love another.
And that was the crux of his problem. He’d not fully claimed his mate because of the age difference betwixt them. He knew he would die before her. Possibly long before her.
And then what? She wouldn’t remarry because he was gone? She would spend the next score or two of years alone? The thought of her lying with another man made him nigh crazed, yet the thought of her lying alone in bed for so many years made him equally crazed. Nellie should be loved, cherished, petted, and caressed. She should be savored and . . . and . . . and—och! ’Twas an impossible conundrum!