Free Warrior’s Redemption by Melissa Mayhue Page A

what you ask for, little girl, because you just might get it.
    It was her aunt’s voice fluttering through her thoughts just before her knees gave way.
    The color draining from her face was his first clue.
    Malcolm sprinted the length of the table, taking Dani’s weight from Elesyria’s arms. Even as he lifted her against his chest, her eyes were beginning to flutter.
    “My fault,” she murmured. “Sorry.”
    “You’ve naught to apologize for, lass.”
    It galled him no end that this confused young woman should be claiming responsibility for a situation clearly brought about by the old Faerie who even now stuffed her face at his table.
    “How did she get here?” he demanded of Elesyria.
    The annoying Faerie had the nerve to look irritated at his question.
    “You already know the answer to that, Malcolm. My Goddess brought Dani to your time for your benefit. She even sent you the dreams that allowed you tofind her in the stone circle. She’s been brought here as a result of your actions and put into your keeping.”
    There had been the dreams. He couldn’t deny that. But how could this be because of him? There was no reason, unless . . .
    Punishment, perhaps? Punishment for his having failed to protect Elesyria’s daughter. Punishment for Isabella’s death.
    The woman in his arms pushed her hands against his chest, pulling his thoughts back to the present. Reluctantly, he lowered her to her feet, keeping a hold on her elbows. Just in case. Though her color had returned, she seemed prone to swooning.
    “Wait a minute.” Dani pulled her elbows from his grip and leaned her body toward Elesyria. “‘His time,’ you said. What’s that mean exactly? What time is this?”
    Elesyria paused, her hand halfway to her mouth with another bite. “Twelve . . . ninety-two? Ninety-three? I have trouble keeping up with how you Mortals delineate time.”
    “Twelve ninety-four,” Patrick interjected. “November, twelve ninety-four, to be precise.”
    Dani paled again and Malcolm grabbed for her elbows, but she shoved his hands away, instead dropping down onto the seat she’d earlier occupied, her hands splayed open on her cheeks.
    “Holy shit,” she breathed, turning her eyes on the Faerie. “Holy. Freaking. Shit. What were you people thinking? I can’t be here. I’m like seven hundred years away from where I belong.”
    “Be that as it may. This is where you must be tofulfill your purpose, my dear. That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?” Elesyria shrugged and popped another bite into her mouth. “
This
is where you belong.”
    Malcolm flickered his gaze between the two women, feeling as if they shared some enormous secret that they were willfully withholding from him.
    It didn’t matter. All that did matter was getting this woman back to her own home so he could turn his attention to all the other problems plaguing his life. It was time he took charge. Secret be damned.
    “Who are her people? Where are they? She’s obviously no from around here.”
    Dani snorted in a most unladylike fashion. “Give the man a blue ribbon for understatement of the year.”
    He decided to ignore her nonsense, continuing to address his questions to Elesyria.
    “Where is she from?”
    “
When,
Malcolm, not
where
. Don’t be obtuse.
When
is she from,” the Faerie corrected, smiling up at him as if it were all some wonderful jest.
    “When,” he repeated, having no clue what the woman meant.
    “When!” Dani asserted. “Unbelievable. I wait fifteen years for these damned Faeries to pay the slightest bit of attention to me and then when they do, they send me seven hundred years into the past.”
    “Into the—” Malcolm caught himself repeating her words and clamped his lips tightly together as understandingwashed over him. “Yer trying to tell me they’ve brought you here from the future?”
    Dani gave him a look, her lips pursed and her eyebrows raised. “So it would appear.”
    He sat down hard on the bench next to