Charity fell back on her butt.
Toren's gaze tracked around her kitchen, the lighting and modern appliances, then back to her. "Your past. I believe."
The past. And he wasn't talking like a-week-ago-last-Wednesday past. No, the guy was a full-on sorcerer powerful enough to not just transport himself through space rifts across far distances—but through time as well.
At least several centuries worth, if not more. Holy freaking cow.
Her chest lifted in rapid pants, squeezing air from her lungs in pain-riddled bursts. She was going to hyperventilate. Might as well go with it. The massive healing had already taken a lot out of her anyway. Hyperventilate away because right about now passing out would be for the best. It really would. She'd wake up and the time-traveler would be gone. Poof. Back to his own time and—
"Lass, are ye well?"
Lass. He said “lass”. And “ye”. Ohcrapohcrapohcrap.
She inhaled a deep breath, let it out slowly and nodded.
He smiled encouragingly, coaxing her to relax. Ah man. Don’t smile like that. Do not smile. It was hard enough to think as it was. Her head was pounding, her stomach dropping slowly to her toes. She was going to throw up. She knew it. Which would hurt. She’d tossed her cookies with a headache before. It really hurt. Then she’d also have to clean it up with a basketball slamming against the inside of her head. Not fun.
She pushed down on the rising tide of nausea with a vengeance. Get it together, Greves. So he’s a sorcerer from the past. It happens, right? He'd suffered torture, broken bones, traveled through a time rift that it must have taken an inordinate amount of magic to open, especially considering he’d have to have bypassed those spelled bands with the glowing symbols holding him prisoner to a dungeon wall. A dungeon wall. She pressed her fingers to her pounding temples.
He endured the agony of a quick healing—was too exhausted to drag his naked self off the floor—yet he was making sure she was all right. She needed to just suck it up and pull herself together. And no puking. She would not puke.
Some healer she was.
"Okay, okay. I got this." Shaking, she blew out another breath, steadied herself against a sudden wave of dizziness, and flipped her hair out of her eyes. "Soup”. Blah. She doubted she could look at soup and not think of… No, tea. I'll put on some tea." She got up, spinning about the small space, much too fast. She grabbed onto the counter and let the bout of weakness pass before she grabbed up the tea pot and shoved it under the faucet. "Would you like some tea?" The water tinkled into the pot.
He watched her warily. His nose crinkled, making little creases in the dirt dusting his skin as though he hadn't had anything to smile about in a long time before he’d come here. Of course he hadn't smiled. He'd been pinned to a freaking dungeon wall.
Charity's hands shook when she flipped on the burner and set the tea pot to heating. What was she doing, leaving a poor exhausted sorcerer on the floor?
She sighed, hesitant to get near him now that he'd been healed and she'd shared in his memories—and wow, that had been…wow.
Get a grip. She was his caregiver at the moment so she'd better start giving care.
Stiffening her spine, she turned back to him and those eyes drew her right in. A startling bright blue flecked with soft gold. They were intense. That little something fluttered in her belly again. Crap. She did not need this.
"Here. Let's get you cleaned up."
She stooped low in front of him to get her arms beneath his and her gaze dipped then snapped back up to his face.
"Um, hang on." She went into the living area to grab the chamois blanket off the back of the sofa. A battering ram was banging against her skull.
He was standing when she spun back around.
"I can manage." His soft burr held amusement.
"Uh-huh. Okay, yeah." She shoved the blanket at him. He grabbed it. Smooth muscles rolled beneath the grimy arm when he pressed the blanket to his stomach and left it dangling. He was way taller than he'd looked on the floor. The top of his head brushed the arched doorway between rooms. Charity's legs turned to rubber.
"Shower's this way."
He squinted. Oh yeah, medieval guy. "Bathroom." What did they call them? Did Scotsmen even bathe in anything besides lakes back then? "Uh, garderobe?"
"Bath room." The bland expression clearly conveyed he wasn't an idiot. "A chamber for bathing. Aye."
Yep. She'd insulted him.
"Sorry."
He smiled, showing a hint of white teeth this time. The tingly feeling increased. He had to stop doing that.
Apparently history was wrong on a whole lot of hygienic habits or Toren came from great calcium-enriched stock, which going by his size wasn't too hard to believe.
They stood there awkwardly facing each other. Charity waited for him to make a move to follow her. He lifted a shaky hand and tottered.
"Oh hey." Charity sprang forward, ignoring the wobble to her own step and placed a hand to his chest, the other at his back to steady him. The muscles beneath her palm tightened as his arm draped over her shoulder. He leaned into her, though she suspected he didn't give her his full weight, which was good since she was about to go down any minute in a heap of exhaustion.
"Ye have my gratitude, Lady."
She maneuvered him past the sofa and into her small bathroom. "Charity."
“Aye. I’ve taken of your charity. You’ve been most gracious.”
“No. I mean, yes. But no. That’s my name. Charity.”
"Charity." The way he said it rolled deliciously along his accent. "Apt description of you. Clan Limont is in your debt, Lady Charity."
"The entire clan?" She grinned, trying to hide the fact that she was completely unnerved by his height and muscle tone and beautiful smile…and all those emotions she knew he carried deep down inside him. "And I'm not a lady. It's just Charity."
He sagged against her more heavily and she guided him onto the closed toilet seat. The bathroom seemed considerably smaller as she stepped between his legs to turn on the spray in her shower/tub combination.
Toren leaned forward to study the flowing water. Reaching out, he cupped a hand beneath the spray and let it trickle between his fingers. Dirt immediately turned the stream of water falling from his hand a light brown.
"'Tis warm." His voice held all the wonder of a three-year-old seeing his first gumball dispenser.
Charity's chest tightened and she had the sudden urge to show him all the modern conveniences in her house and witness his eyes light up at the beep of her microwave or flush of the toilet or fizzle upon popping open a soda can. Talk about sensory overload. She rethought the idea. Better be careful. Poor guy had never even seen a movie. Just the ring of a cell phone could really freak him out.
For now, get him clean. "Want to get in?"
His nod was so eager, Charity laughed. "All right then."
Still too weak to stand for a long time, she helped him get into the tub, blanket and all, and lean back where he immediately closed his eyes. Long lashes blended with the smudges across his cheekbones. It was the most peaceful she'd seen him yet.
She slid onto the toilet seat lid, grateful to sit down and just breathed in and out for a while, letting the dizziness from getting him into the tub subside to a faint lightheadedness. Her limbs were dead weights.
Her bathroom contained an assortment of soaps, lotions, shampoos and conditioners in an array of containers and baskets—all test products, some created by herself for the herbal shop she and her sister owned.
Most of the dirt was off Toren, the water running clearer down the drain, so she pushed the stopper down and turned off the shower’s spray and let the faucet run to fill up the tub.
Wanting something gentle, yet also with added healing properties, she squeezed her favorite blend of liquid soap into a wash cloth and went to work.
The Highlander didn't so much as flinch, trusting her ministrations. Charity's heart gave a tender little pull. Af
ter what he'd endured in the dungeon, she was amazed he could trust anyone. Then again, if he had dipped into her emotions when she’d felt his, he would know she had no intentions for harm.
He sighed, pulling her from her troubled thoughts. She poured her favorite shampoo into her hands and began lathering his long hair.
One blue eye opened to squint at her. "Ye intend to have me smell of flowers?"
"Blue Tansy actually and any scent will be an improvement."
His lips twitched at that and Charity's mouth went dry. With most of the blood and dirt gone, she took a long look at him while rinsing the shampoo. She wouldn't call him exceptionally handsome, not in a pretty boy sort of way at any rate. But there was something about him, something rugged and masculine that called to the woman within her.
Or it could be that he was clean and sleekly muscled and naked and he'd traveled across space and time to seek her gift as a Healer Enchantress… Plus she knew him. Really knew him. She’d felt all the things that were important to him. And frankly, she hadn’t been sure guys like him really existed. Not in her century at least.
She switched the water back to the showerhead, moving his head under the spray to the best advantage to rinse out the shampoo.
Toren's eyes flew open and then tightened. He curled over. His hand splayed across his stomach.
She slapped off the spray.
"What is it? Are you hurt?"
Had she missed something during the healing?
His jaw clenched. "She's pulling me back."
"What? The woman who beat you?" Charity grabbed onto his arm as though that could keep him there. The witch could entrap him again? She had assumed he’d escaped, was free of her. "Can't you stop it? Close off the rift somehow?"
Which shouldn’t a rift be opening? How was the awful woman pulling him back? Only sorcerers had power over a rift.
The charms. The glowing runes on his bands. They were back in time attached to the stone wall, but maybe they still held power over Toren though he was here. Maybe a rift didn’t have to be opened. But, Gods, sucked back through time without one? That couldn’t be good.
He shook his head tightly as though the smallest movement caused him great pain. His hand gripped the rim of the tub.
Charity clutched her own fingers over his to anchor him to the here and now. The thought of him being yanked back to that horrible bitch's clutches terrified her. But he was spelled to those bands. Just because he could slip out of them traveling through time, they were still spelled to him. She knew it, felt the knowledge from his memories, though she didn’t understand it earlier. "Just hold onto me. Stay here."
Agonized eyes locked onto hers. "'Tis not possible." His hand flexed beneath her palm, rock hard, riding out the terrible pull on his body.
How much could one man go through? Think. Think. What could she do to stop this?
She didn’t want him to go back to that. Not to a woman who would just hurt him all over again. He didn’t deserve that. No one deserved that. But especially him. He was too kind. Too honorable and protective. Protective. He endured the torture for someone else. She felt that, though he’d buried it deep.
"Yes it is. Anything is possible. Just fight it."
His hand slipped from beneath hers and he brought both palms up to her cheeks. They were callused and wet, but Charity didn't care. Her head pounded. There was a rawness to Toren's voice that scattered shivers across her arms. "Ye've helped me, Charity. Ye have. Ye've given me a blessed reprieve so I've the strength now to keep fighting. D'ye understand?"
No she did not understand. Not at all. Things like this didn’t happen. Her throat closing, she couldn't answer. She didn’t want him to go, to be sucked back. She wanted to help him. She’d never wanted anything more in her life. Nothing seemed as important.
She nodded, his hands moving with her movements, fingers curled in her hair. His jaw clenched, his chin lowered to his chest, bearing down on a wave of pain. His form flickered in and out like an old television on the fritz.
That had to hurt. On a cellular level. Would he even make it back in one piece?
"No, no, Toren, stay. Hold on."
He was losing. His lips clamped tight. The veins in his neck and forehead bulged.
She couldn’t stop this.
Charity grabbed onto his wrists, sought deep within her center and pulled. She dived for every ounce of her healing power, everything that made her who she was, the divine feminine within her—her gift and her strength. It roared through her with an intensity born of desperation—blistering and feral—which she clamped down on and controlled, riding the current like a wild animal that she flung out, releasing everything she had to pour into the man.
If she couldn’t keep him here, she could at least give him the last bit of her magic to give him the strength to endure, possibly escape those glowing bands.
A surge of wind tunneled through the bathroom, whipping the shower curtain and hanging towels.
Eyes wide, Toren's head jerked back. "What are you—?" He gasped, every muscle in his body going rigid, chest expanding on a pain-filled inhalation, dark wet hair lifting in the frenzied charged atmosphere.
"Charity—" he screamed on a gush of breath, his form blurring.
He disappeared beneath her grasp and her hands whipped out, closing around air.
The wind died. Water splashed out of the faucet. Throbbing pain pounded inside her head.
He was gone. Charity’s hands curled around air.
Sapped of strength, she slumped to the floor.
Chapter Three