Free Highland Shapeshifter by Clover Autrey Page B

A hole as vast as the ocean tore inside his chest. A loud roar thundered in his ears.
    He was stuck here. In this hideous time. He’d failed. They’d all failed to maintain the balance of magic. Darkness had overcome the light and there wasn’t a cursed thing he could do to set it right.
    “Hey, hey.” The lass held his arm and was apparently taking the brunt of his weight on her. He hadn’t noticed he’d been slowly sinking toward the ground.
    The sudden slap on his cheek was more irritating than hurtful. He blinked up.
    Frightened violet eyes bore into his. “I don’t know what is going on with you and your brother. But you both need to leave my sister out of it and go back to your own time.”
    He laughed, that pained muddled type of sound that came out when a person was on the verge of losing it. “I can’t. That’s what I’ve been trying to do ever since I arrived in this gods forsaken time!” He blinked and pulled away from her, the hopelessness of the situation sinking in. He straightened to…he didn’t know what. He had nowhere to go. He stood naked in the alleyway, solely adrift, his breath pulling in huge painful drafts, and barely whispered, “I can’t. Not alone.” He needed Toren.
      “You’re stuck here.” Her voice softened.
    He felt himself nod, unable to say the words out loud.
    “Geez.” She blew out a breath behind him. “That’s why you’re looking for Charity.” Intelligent lass, she’d grasped the situation. “You knew he’d come to her. But how could you know?”
    “Ah, lass. She, Charity, she told me,” he answered flatly and winced at her gasp.
    She came around to face him. “That can’t be true. The only way you could—“ She clamped her hands over her mouth again, all her hand-won color draining from her face. “No.”
    Col didn’t say anything. She gave herself a bare moment of distress before her features hardened with resolve. Her hand clamped onto his wrist and she tugged. “You’re coming with me. I want to know everything. I knew it. I knew it this morning when she took grandma’s spell book. Damn it, Charity.” Great, she was back to swearing even without any mobster ogres around. What a day.
    Col went with her docilely. What else was he to do? He no longer had the means to help himself return home.
    “Wait.” He stopped suddenly, throwing the lass off-balance. Charity was going to cast a spell to return to the moment Toren appeared. Then she was going to impossibly go back to his century through the rift Toren created. ‘Twas a foolhardy addle-minded thing she had done, yet she had done it all the same. Mayhap all was not lost. “How long ago?”
    “What?”
    “When, lass? When did my brother come?”

    Chapter Ten

    “That’s not possible.”
    Lenore marched, more like dragged the shapeshifter—Col. Col Limont, ancient Guardian of Magic from the thirteen century, holy crap—to the car. Just another stroll through the alleys with a hot naked man in tow.
    The few people out in this part of town gawked, but Col didn’t seem to care as he rambled out his ordeal. Uninhibited or what? He stopped speaking the minute they came to the corvette and simply stood there staring. A huge smile played over his face.
    Lenore folded her arms. “It’s a car.”
    “’Tis a rare beauty of a car.”
    Lenore rolled her eyes. Guys and their love of chrome and leather apparently spanned across centuries.   Who would have thought?
    Reaching in, Lenore sorted through Gabe’s gym bag and came up with long basketball shorts and a gray T-shirt. Briefs would have been nice, but hey, the guy was an ancient Scotsman so probably was accustomed to going around commando beneath his kilt anyway.
    “Lenore,” she told him.
    He glanced up from pulling the shorts on, puzzled.
    “My name. Call me Lenore, not lass.”
    “Oh.” His lips quirked just before he drew the T-shirt over his head and climbed into the passenger seat, looking around at the interior, and nodded