That was why the continuum had begun shifting long before then. The day Matheson Gregor had saved his brother by becoming Cùram de Gairn a thousand years ago was the day Winter’s birth had been foretold.
She was pregnant, the crow had also informed her, but that didn’t mean she had lost her precious right of free will. The bairn she carried was the product of two powerful drùidhs,and both she and Matt were still able to choose their own paths from this point forward—assuming of course, she could indeed rebalance the energy with the help of her mighty pine. The crow had said hermighty white pine, as its energy was attuned to Winter now, and no longer to Daar.
“You’re awake,” Matt said, his lips touching her hair.
“Yes,” she acknowledged without opening her eyes.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Dreams. Do you ever dream, Matt?”
“I used to.”
“And when you used to dream, did you learn stuff in them, or did you wonder if they were only wishful thinking?”
He finally moved, sliding his leg off her thigh and his arm from around her, and propped his head on his hand just behind her shoulder. “You were having nightmares when I came in. You cried and even called out in your sleep.”
“Yes,” Winter said, rolling onto her back to look at him. “But the nightmares left the moment your arms came around me.”
He really did have a handsome smile, she decided. Winter wondered how much smiling Matt would be doing over the next three months, as she implemented her plan. Because if she dared to believe her dream, Cùram de Gairn wasn’t the only cunning wizard in this cave.
“So,” Matt said, brushing her hair off her face with his finger. “Are you flying out with me this morning?”
“Yes.”
He lifted one brow, obviously surprised by her simple and quickly given answer. “And we’re stopping in Las Vegas?” he thought to clarify.
Winter kept her own smile hidden and shrugged. “If you don’t want to let Father Daar marry us, then yes, I guess we should stop in Las Vegas.”
Both his brows slammed into a frown. “I’m not letting that crazy old bastard marry us.”
“Do you love me, Matt?” Winter asked calmly.
Two flags of red appeared on the sharp planes of his cheeks, peeking through his two-day growth of beard. “No,” he whispered, rolling onto his back and lacing his fingers behind his head. “I can’t ever love you,” he told the cave’s ceiling. He turned just his head to look at her. “I’m incapable of loving anyone, lass. I lost the ability to love centuries ago.”
“No,” she said, rolling toward him and laying her hand on his shirt-covered chest. “It’s not the ability to love that you’ve lost, Matt, but your ability to hope.”
His cheeks darkened, the color even more pronounced on the throbbing pulse of his neck.
“You need to have a heart to have hope,” he said gutturally. “And mine hardened and died a long time ago. Hope has nothing to do with anything.”
“No,” Winter disagreed again, kneading her fingers into his shirt. “You have your emotions mixed up. It’s hopelessness that’s made you mess with the magic to grant Kenzie’s wish. Your heart is still very much alive.”
He lifted one brow.
“Hopelessness is not the affliction of a soul incapable of loving,” Winter said. “It’s the exact opposite. Hopelessness can only affect someone who cares too much, loves too deeply, and who’s been hurt so badly that utter despair is all that’s left. But as long as there is life there is hope, and your heart is quite alive, Matheson Gregor,” she repeated as she leaned over, kissed his cheek, and lifted her head to smile at him. “I’m going to marry you today, and have your bairn. And it will be myact of free will and not youmaking my choice,” she said, giving his chest a poke—right over his very alive heart.
He suddenly sat up, and Winter let her hand fall to her lap as she also sat up. “If I can’t have your love, do I at least have the other vows you mentioned?” she asked when he rose to his feet and turned to face her. “As your wife, will I have yourtrust and loyalty?”
He had to think about that, and what he was thinking didn’t seem to be pleasant. He scowled down at her, two flags of color returning to his cheeks.
“Never mind,” she said with a laugh as she leaned back on her hands and looked up at him.
“We’ll work on them together, one vow at a time.”
His scowling eyes turned suspicious.
“How come Father Daar didn’t recognize you as Cùram?” she asked before he could say anything. “Or Robbie? Robbie shook your hand, even.”
It took him a moment to respond, as he was obviously still worried by her remark about their vows. He finally shrugged, then turned and walked to the boxes of supplies by the wall. “It’s not difficult to cloak myself from others,” was all he said as he rummaged through the boxes.
“Do you have a crooked old cane like Daar?”
He turned with a can of soup in his hand and started searching for the pot. “No. A staff is Pendaär’s choice for carrying his power,” Matt told her, popping the top off the soup and pouring it into the pot he’d found next to the boxes, where she’d put it last night after washing it.
“So how do you carry your magic around?” Winter asked, deciding she liked watching him work.
He set the pot near the dead fire, threw some wood in the pit, touched it with his finger until it lit, then moved the pot closer to the flame. Moving to his jacket he’d tossed down by the entrance, he pulled something from the pocket.
He turned to her, holding up a beautiful gold and black pen. “I discovered that the real power of this century,” he said, his smile almost reaching his eyes, “is not in the sword, but in the pen. So I carry my power in this fancy little fountain pen and use it to sign my name on contracts and very large checks.
In the past I carried the sword I found in the cave.”
Matt held the pen even with his chest, then suddenly rotated his hand. Before Winter could blink, the pen turned into a long, beautiful sword. Matt lifted the lethal weapon as he bowed, touching his forehead in salute. “Voilà,” he said, setting its tip on the ground and resting his hands over the hilt. “Are you impressed?” he asked.
Winter saw just a hint of the man she’d fallen in love with smiling down at her. The same smile, she vowed, that she’d see many more times in their lifetime together. “I’m very impressed,” she said with a laugh, getting to her feet. She visually examined the sword, then lifted her own smile to Matt. “Can I touch it?”
He swung the tip in an upward arc, caught the blade in his other hand, and held it toward her in his open palms.
Winter reached over and lightly touched the blade. She’d played with her father’s sword many times, but this sword was shorter by about a foot, shinier, and had colorful jewels encircling the hilt behind the intricately carved hand guard. The blade was a bit thicker and appeared to be forged from a different kind of metal. “It’s not at all like my papa’s sword,” she said, running her finger over the colorful stones. “What are these jewels?”
“They’re diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and tourmaline. And it’s not like Greylen’s sword because it’s at least four thousand years older than his. I’ve since learned that it was my great-great-grandfather’s.”
Winter looked up at Matt and frowned. “They didn’t have weapons this fancy that far back.”
“Not for warring, no,” he agreed. “But this sword wasn’t designed for battle.”
“But you said it’s all you carried when you kept running into wars while searching for Kenzie.”