The Sunstone Brooch : Time Travel Romance Katherine Logan (no david read aloud TXT) 📖

“Why not?”

“I want a picture of it.”

Austin patted his shirt and pants pockets. “I have my phone somewhere. I’ll take one, but did Erik put it there?”

“I reckon so,” Tavis said.

Ensley turned her glassy eyes toward Tavis. “Erik said to take him and Tesoro home.”

Her voice held no emotion or inflection. And Tavis was pretty sure she had no idea where she was or what just happened to her.

He lightly traced the Yggdrasil. The blood had dried, but it was hot to the touch. Tavis brushed her nose, cheek, and chin with the back of his hand—all cold next to his skin.

“What’d he tell you about this mark?”

She put her hand to her forehead. “I’m chosen.”

Tavis knew there was more because Erik said the same thing when he drew the mark on Tavis’s forehead a dozen years ago. He didn’t know how many others were marked, and Erik never answered when Tavis asked.

“Find his cloak,” Ensley said, slurring her words.

Tavis pushed Ensley’s hair back from her face. “How do you know about his cloak?”

“I found a piece of it”—she ran her fingers across her palm—“and it healed my blister.”

Tavis knew what Ensley said was true. Something similar happened to him. But his injury wasn’t a blister. It was a cut on his head, and it wouldn’t stop bleeding until he used a scrap from Erik’s cloak.

Where was the cloak now? With JC? If that was true, Erik already knew his death was imminent, and he couldn’t risk the cloak falling into enemy hands.

He signaled to Austin to take Ensley away. Then he knelt beside Arthfael, the horse Ensley named Tesoro, and examined the horse’s mortal wounds. Tavis stroked his long neck, remembering his birth. Erik had been so proud, and he knew the stallion’s destiny would be remarkable. He’d been Ensley’s first line of defense, giving Erik time to get here.

“Did you get a telegram from Elliott?” Remy asked.

Tavis went to Erik’s body to help Remy prepare it for the trip home. Tavis looked into Erik’s blue eyes—the same color as his own—and then solemnly closed them.

“There was a telegram waiting for Ensley,” Tavis said to Remy. “JC sent it from Chicago. He also shipped clothes to her. The boxes are waiting at the depot in Medora.”

Tavis crossed Erik’s calloused hands over the gaping chest wounds. It would take Remy hours to sew them up. Hours Tavis didn’t have. The Council members were probably already sensing their chief’s death. He had to leave soon.

“So JC’s okay?”

“I don’t know. I got a strange telegram from Elliott. He said he, Meredith, and Emily were taking JC home and that we’re to go to Kentucky to bring Kit and Cullen home with us.”

“Why didn’t they go with Elliott, and why would they take JC home?” Remy’s eyes narrowed, and then he said, “Unless…”

Tavis heard what Remy didn’t say. It confirmed what Tavis thought might have happened, and it was like a spike to his heart.

“I spent the trip back here thinking about that. And I tried to read between the lines of Elliott’s telegram.”

“What’d you read?” Remy interrupted again.

Tavis hesitated a moment, unsure if he should tell Remy, and then decided that was stupid. Remy expected and deserved complete honesty from him, and vice versa.

“You’re not going to like this.”

“Shit, bro. Spill it.”

Tavis rolled in his bottom lip then released it. “Based on my experience, I believe the Illuminati found JC and tortured him.”

“Fuck. No!” The muscles directly under Remy’s eyes quivered. It was Remy’s tell when he was tense, concerned, and maybe scared. “What kind of experience you got, man? I got experience, too, but I couldn’t come up with something like that. What kind of proof have you got? And if you doan have any, you damn well shouldn’t be telling anybody that. It’s pure fiction, and it’ll give me the willies. So stop it!”

“Sorry. But you asked. I don’t know if Elliott was taking JC’s body home, or they were taking a broken man home. If it’s his mind, JC might never recover.”

Remy stopped midstitch to still his shaking hands. “Fuck! I doan like the direction this conversation’s going. And how the hell could the Illuminati find him here?”

Tavis brushed the dried clumps of blood and debris off Erik’s trousers. Then he straightened the Viking king’s legs. While doing that, he looked for Erik’s brooch and found it pinned to the inside of his trousers.

“Do you see his other leather ankle boot?” Tavis asked Remy.

Remy looked up from what he was doing and glanced around. “It could be anywhere. Look under those leaves.”

Tavis walked around the clearing and found it under a pile of leaves and branches. The strap had broken. Tavis reknotted the leather thong and slipped the ankle boot on Erik’s foot. He remained there, sitting on his haunches, looking up at the Viking king, recalling his early impressions of Erik’s broad, muscular shoulders. Tavis didn’t believe at the time that he would ever be as large as Erik. He shook his head at how dumb he’d been. By the time he entered the Naval Academy, he was bigger and broader than Erik and most of his classmates.

“JC was in the Far East recently,” Tavis said. “I don’t know what he was doing there. It’s possible he had a run-in with the Illuminati and left enough breadcrumbs behind for them to follow him home and then here.”

Remy cut the thread and put the needle aside. “Are we in danger?”

Tavis couldn’t help but crack a crooked smile. “You mean more than usual?”

“Hell, yeah. Braham’s fixation with security at Mallory Plantation is enough to make us all paranoid.”

“I believe the Illuminati’s tentacles may have already reached Ensley. Her father’s car crash was suspicious, and so was her mother’s heart attack. The woman was healthy and in great physical shape when she died.”

“You’re promoting a fucking conspiracy theory?”

“I might be, but on its face, it is suspicious. I believe the Illuminati wanted Ensley’s ranch and somehow manipulated her into selling it.”

“How’d