Hoyt unhooked the brooch that held it in place, let it drop.
“Sword and dagger. A lot of weaponry for a sorcerer.”
“There’s to be a battle.”
“Do you think so?” That amusement rippled again, coldly. “I can promise you’ll lose. What I have here is called a gun. It’s quite a good one, really. It fires out a projectile faster than you can blink. You’ll be dead where you stand before you can draw that sword.”
“I haven’t come to fight you.”
“Really? The last time we met—let me refresh my memory. Ah yes, you pushed me off a cliff.”
“You pushed me off the bloody cliff first,” Hoyt said with some heat. “Broke my bloody ribs while you were about it. I thought you were gone. Oh merciful gods, Cian, I thought you were gone.”
“I’m not, as you can plainly see. Go back where you came from, Hoyt. I’ve had a thousand years, give or take, to get over my annoyance with you.”
“For me you died only a week ago.” He lifted his tunic. “You gave me these bruises.”
Cian’s gaze drifted over them, then back to Hoyt’s face. “They’ll heal soon enough.”
“I’ve come with a charge from Morrigan.”
“Morrigan, is it?” This time the amusement burst out in laughter. “There are no gods here. No God. No faerie queens. Your magic has no place in this
time, and neither do you.”
“But you do.”
“Adjustment is survival. Money is god here, and power its partner. I have both. I’ve shed the likes of you a long time ago.”
“This world will end, they will all end, by Samhain, unless you help me stop her.”
“Stop who?”
“The one who made you. The one called Lilith.”
Chapter 3
Lilith. The name brought Cian flashes of memories, a hundred lifetimes past. He could still see her, smell her, still feel that sudden, horrified thrill in the instant she’d taken his life.
He could still taste her blood, and what had come into him with it. The dark, dark gift.
His world had changed. And he’d been given the privilege—or the curse—of watching worlds change over countless decades.
Hadn’t he known something was coming? Why else had he been sitting alone in the middle of the night, waiting?
What nasty little twist of fate had sent his brother—or the brother of the man he’d once been—across time to speak her name?
“Well, now you have my attention.”
“You must come back with me, prepare for the battle.”
“Back? To the twelfth century?” Cian let out a short laugh as he leaned back in his chair. “Nothing, I promise you, could tempt me. I like the conveniences of this time. The water runs hot here, Hoyt, and so do the women. I’m not interested in your politics and wars, and certainly not in your gods.”
“The battle will be fought, with or without you, Cian.”
“Without sounds perfectly fine.”
“You’ve never turned from battle, never hidden from a fight.”