Pursuit (Through Time 1)

* * *

Chance and Trevor eyed their surroundings. They stood in the central hall of an old English Tudor-styled house. It was furnished with dark mahogany pieces of the time. Other than that, nothing about the place felt right.

There was no sign of life.

They had their swords ready and moved in unison in a slow circle, but Chance knew it was for nothing. Pestale wasn’t there.

“What trickery is this?” Chance asked of himself out loud. He had a really bad feeling. Why would Pestale trick them into believing he was here in the past? And then it dawned on him, “Trevor, he has gone to our time—he has gone after m’lass!”

Terror rushed through his veins. Was he destined to lose his beloved, just as his father had—at the hands of another man? NO! No …

He shouted the words, “Tabhair ar ais,” and with a sudden shift they were walking through the same tunnel Royce had traveled only a short while before.

“I doona like this time travel—it doesn’t feel right,” Chance grumbled worriedly. “We haven’t time for this. I need to shift to her.”

“I agree,” said Trevor. “The queen always said time travel was dangerous even for the wisest amongst us. She said … the temptation to change and alter things that had no business being tampered with was too great.”

“Aye … ye mean if I went back to the day Lana was killed and saved her? Something bad would come of that?”

“I think so. No one knows, do they, what would happen if we changed the past,” Trevor said thoughtfully.

“Aye, well then, if I could I would. I would stop her from being killed, and I canna believe anything bad would come of that.”

“No, but if she was meant to be lost to us, Chance, then we might lose her a day later … a month later … who knows,” Trevor suggested.

Chance sighed and pointed with the sword he still held. “Aye then … time to step out of this time portal … and kill the bastard before he gets to Royce.”

“I believe it is a magical wormhole, not tunnel,” said Trevor.

Chance didn’t answer as they took their first steps into their time and found themselves on the edge of the Lower Lake in Killarney.

“Now—where would m’lass go?”

Trevor gave it some thought. “The nightclub—the nightclub where he abducted those poor women from!”

They regarded one another and then shifted.

* * *

Royce’s only concern was for David and his family. She couldn’t think past that; all she wanted to do, at any cost, was to get Pestale away from them.

She shifted, sure he would follow her at t

his point, and stood on the busy main thoroughfare of Temple Bar, waiting for him.

It was still early evening; dusk had not settled, and the crowds had not moved in yet. No one noticed her sudden appearance or Pestale’s for that matter when he arrived only a few moments after her.

Her eyes narrowed as she studied the tall, black-haired Dark Prince, and he smirked at her. He looked like evil waiting to happen. She felt repulsed as he reached out and took her elbow to steer her towards a quiet pub on the corner of the main thoroughfare and a short, one-way street.

“What did you think you were doing, Princess?” He clucked his tongue. “You know better than to try and escape me. You aren’t cloaked in black magic, and your scent—your delicious scent—is so easy to track.”

She knew how to disguise her scent, but she hadn’t wished to. She had wanted him to follow her. She knew he was too far gone. It wouldn’t even occur to him that she was protecting David and his family by steering him away. He didn’t think along those lines.

He pushed her roughly towards the pub. “Hush now … no quiet mind links with your lover, the Milesian. We can’t have that, now can we?”

“What makes you think I would listen to you—do anything you ask?”

“Because you don’t want me to harm that boy—what was his name? David—ah, that’s right. Young David. You broke your queen’s rules for David. You healed him. I watched you heal him.” He reached and caught a lock of her hair. “It was the first time that I saw you … and knew you had to be mine.”