Abby had wished him to her side? With Magic. Faerie Magic. This changed everything. If Abby had the power of the Magic, and she’d used it to bring him forward to her time, she had to know it. Her pretense of having no knowledge of how he’d gotten into her home, into her bed, was just that. Pretense. Which left him only one question for which he needed an answer.
“Why?”
“Why, why, why, indeed! You have so much to learn, Guardian.” The apparition sighed impatiently. “You question me like a small child would question his mother. Perhaps, as any good mother should, I will simply show you and allow you to learn for yourself. The lessons we experience for ourselves are our best teachers, are they not?”
In the space of a heartbeat, the apparition was gone, leaving him floating there in the vast nothingness. Alone, with the great roar of absolute silence pressing in on his ears.
Silence, broken by a gasp.
It was his Abby, he knew immediately. He heard the beating of her heart as if his head lay nestled against her breast.
He felt her.
“Abby!”
His hand fisted as a stinging pain sliced into his palm, but he knew instinctively it wasn’t his pain he felt, it was hers, just as it was her fear speeding up the beat of his heart.
She was frightened and in pain.
The Earth Mother’s words floated to him again.She needed you and she wished you to her side.
She’d needed him enough to call him to her, and he’d abandoned her. Now she was frightened and in pain because he’d failed to aid her, just as he’d failed to aid his kinsmen.
Colin’s eyes flew open on a roar of rage.
Someone had dared to hurt his Abby!
The door of the stone RoundHouse flew open and Odirn leaned inside. “Guardian?”
Colin ignored him, instead reaching for the bowl at his side and tipping it up to his lips. The shock of the cold water running down his cheeks and onto his neck banked his anger but did not extinguish it.
He rose to his feet, pulled off the now-soaked robe, and tossed it to the floor before stalking out the door to claim his plaid.
He’d made it halfway down the path before he glanced at the hand he yet held in a fist.
There, in the center of his palm, the skin splayed open, strangely white against the crimson of his own blood oozing out.
Someone had dared to hurt Abby. And whether or not she’d tricked him, what was important now was that she needed him.
No one in either the Fae or Mortal world had the power to stop him from going to her this time.
Thirteen
How long he’d stood motionless in the shadows of the woods he couldn’t be sure. What Colin did know was that Abby had gone into the large house at the edge of the forest well over two hours ago and though all those who had accompanied her inside had reappeared and headed into the center of the village, she had yet to come back out.
An unaccustomed sense of indecision rolled over him in a wave, and he briefly considered going inside to find her for himself.
No. He had a plan and he’d stick with it. He’d wait here as he’d originally decided he would until she came outside. Then he’d confront her, preferably with others around. He’d reasoned it would be harder for her to angrily refuse to talk to him if there were observers.
Not that he had reason to suspect her of being iratewith him other than what he’d experienced in the visions that had plagued him prior to his decision to confront her.
But since so very little had gone according to his expectations in the past few months, he felt the need to err on the side of caution.
He’d fully expected Pol to insist he remain in Wyddecol, but once he had shared his vision from the RoundHouse, Pol had surprised him by handing him a packet of paperwork detailing all they’d learned in their investigation and showing him exactly where to find Abby.
He’d expected a fight and gotten none. He didn’t want to blunder into the reverse here.
The front door of the big house opened and at last Abby emerged. Her long brown hair was pulled up and fastened at the back of her head, the curls jauntily swinging back and forth. She looked to be in a hurry, the thin shoes she wore flapping noisily against her feet with each step she took.