A Highland Sorcery Christmas

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  He woke to voices, anxious, all speaking at once as the world ping-ponged around him. Not the world. The truck bed, moving, crawling at the pace of a snail really, along the broken hazardous roads. Why would they take a chance being out in the open like this? It was reckless. Ethan and Dez knew better.

  “I’m not thrilled with it either, luv, but there’s not much of a choice.” Roque’s warm accent whispered quietly beside him, hitching in and out above the truck’s sputtering motor.

  “I know, but…” Hesitancy layered Edeen’s reply. “Can ye hold the dragon that long? Since Geschopf, ye haven’t…”

  “I’ll be well enough. We can’t wait. While you and Lenore fight for the lad’s life here, that Sift bit him. The monster has the lad’s memories. We don’t know when in Alexander’s lifetime it went back to. It could kill him in his crib. Or as a young child snatched off his training wheels. That can’t happen. As much as we love the boy for himself, he’s also the one who figured out how to weaken the Sifts. Without Alexander, this timeline, this future, has no chance. None at all. Humankind will be no more. I have to get to Shaw. He’s the only one who can open a time rift and go back.”

  “Except for Alexander himself. He can do it.”

  “Not in the condition he’s in. While we’re debating this, he could simply vanish beneath our hands, killed in the past.”

  “Which would change everything, including us even being here.”

  “We’ll try the radios again. Maybe they’re back up.”

  “And if they’re damaged permanently? There’s no time.”

  Alexander felt the tickle of hair as the wind blew Edeen’s long strands over his arm. “I know, just…just be careful. If you feel the dragon taking over…”

  “It won’t.”

  “But if—”

  “It won’t. I can’t let it. Trust me?”

  “Always.”

  “That’s my Treasure.” Roque’s tone turned low, husky, one Alexander was sure he wasn’t meant to hear if they’d known he was awake.

  The faint stirring of magic expanded the air. Light grew beyond his eyelids and Alexander fought to open them. He wanted to witness this, having never seen his uncle transform into a dragon before. It was something he feared.

  He got his traitorous eyes opened just as the light faded and the truck bed rocked. A gleaming green dragon about the size of an elephant spread its impressive wings and shot off into the air.

  Chapter Two

  Scotland December 24, 2025