A Kiss and a Dare

Garen McTaggart stood on the crenelated stone wall of Castell y Ddraig, his eyes squinting as he peered out at the moonlit landscape. The gloomy night suited his mood.

Someone meant to kill his dream and was doing a fine job of it. Damaged equipment, missing supplies, suspicious accidents, mounting bills, and a nearly depleted bank account. Cursing, Garen slammed a fist onto the two-foot-thick stone shelf created by the gap between two spiked merlons that made up the battlements.

Perched high and proud upon a stone fist that knuckled out from a towering bluff, the castle’s gray, lichened edifice appeared little more than a natural extension of the craggy outcrop to anyone gazing up from below.

Castle of the Dragon. An aerie fit for a king.

But Garen didn’t wish to be king. He simply wanted to own the castle, his yearning so strong and desperate that his stomach twisted at the seeming hopelessness of his current chances for success.

Memories drifted into his mind of his mother's stories of the area. Of Llyn Tegid, the moonlit, watery surface he saw glinting in the distance, and tales of how King Arthur grew up nearby, though few believed them. Before that, she had told him, another prince had occupied the valley, a selfish man who held drunken revelries and ignored the needs of his people. One night, a bird whispered a warning to an innocent fiddle player entertaining at the castle. The fiddler escaped into the hills, where he fell asleep. The following day, he looked at the valley and saw a lake where none had existed. Llyn Tegid. The prince and his wild companions had drowned. No sign of a castle or village remained.

Garen had loved those old stories of his mother’s homeland. They, and his father’s unfulfilled dream of being an architect, had resulted in Garen pursuing that career. Now, he lived and worked in North Wales, where castles abounded, and a man with the knowledge and skill to rebuild ancient structures could have a promising career doing what he loved most. When Garen found the crumbling castle on the bluff overlooking the valley on one of his trips from America, he knew he had to own it.

He shook his head and bent to rest his forearms on the stone crenel while peering over the edge and wondering how he had managed to go so wrong. How was he going to get out of the mess he’d created? So much rested on his shoulders. If he couldn't finish the reconstruction on time, he'd lose the castle, his business, everything.

The light from the full moon created deep, sinister shadows among the jagged boulders jutting from the sheer cliff below, and some looked almost like steps winding downward.

Garen frowned and studied the view more intently. Damn! Those were steps! They had to be. Why hadn’t he noticed them before, and where did they lead?

Spinning, he ran down the stairs to the castle’s inner ward, past the keep’s entrance and the old square tower on his left, where his workers slept. He skirted a forklift parked alongside the wall and raced through the gateway. A bridge took him over the spring-fed moat that cut across the peninsula, separating the castle from the rest of the knoll. He stopped where the ground fell away, and the water escaped over the cliff's side. Only a few feet of rocky ground fronted the castle wall on the far side of the narrow stream. With his back pressed to the cold stone, he leaped across and edged toward the steep, shallow steps that spiraled down the cliffside.

TWO

Gwenlyn Brychan watched the man descend the cliff. At last, her true love had come. Her heart raced as he entered the enchanted garden, the first person to do so in over seven centuries. The spell cast on the secret garden prevented any but her soul-half from entering.

Gwenlyn could hardly believe her eyes. Although she bore the blood of Gwynedd’s prince, Llywelyn the Last, no one would consider her an actual princess. Perhaps that was why she had fallen afoul of a black sorceress and landed in the unfortunate position she had occupied for the past several centuries since Lady Morvudd turned her into a frog.

"Go, my lady, and kiss him." Delyth the dragonfly's words sounded in Gwenlyn’s mind, a trick she and her two hapless companions had learned after being bespelled and left alone there, desperate and unable to converse. "You’ve no time to waste."

″Doth thou think I do not know this?″ Gwenlyn fired back. On her other side sat Sir Nigel, the newt. The three occupied their favorite spot—the slightly cupped hand of a statue beside an enchanted bog.

That her soul-half had arrived rattled Gwenlyn enough without unwanted input from Delyth. Gwenlyn’s heart felt ready to leap from her throat, and her green, squatty body trembled. She ignored a traitorous impulse to run away. Or, in her case, hop away.

She was a frog, after all.

A fly landed nearby. On instinct, she snatched it up with her long tongue and swallowed it whole.

″My lady! ’Tis no time to fill your belly,″ Delyth chided. ″This be your only chance to reclaim your life.″

The fly stuck in Gwenlyn’s throat, and the resulting hiccup came out as a high-pitched belch.

Delyth shot her a look of disdain—not an easy feat for a dragonfly. ″Your future, mine, and Nigel’s rest upon this moment, Lady Gwenlyn. Seven centuries and more have we waited for this day to arrive. It shan’t come again.″

"You tell me naught of which I am unaware, Delyth," Gwenlyn snapped. "Can you not see you are unnerving me?"

"Forgive me, my lady, do," Delyth murmured contritely. "You know how clumsy and verbose I become when excited."

"Verbose?" Sir Nigel, the newt, mocked. "Bloody blatherskate is what she is. Blethers without stop and says naught worth the hearing."

"Better a blether than a liar," Delyth spat in return.

"Call me a liar, did ye, woman?"

"Nay, a falsifier is more accurate. One who twists a story to his liking till naught of truth be left."

"Oh, hush up, both of you," Gwenlyn snapped. "Fair sick am I of your quarreling." Guilt for her ill humor assailed her instantly. She rubbed her temples and studied the man.

Her soul-half. Could it indeed be so?

Garen froze at the foot of the steep path he had followed down the cliff from the castle above. A grotto opened behind the waterfall, thick with ferns and moss, where a woman stood at the edge of a small marshy pond.

Moonglow bathed the woman’s marble complexion. A brocade of lichens gowned her shapely form, and a dove crowned her head.

To Garen, she was beautiful.

He walked closer, oblivious to the stiff tussocks of marsh grass and boggy ground. Three times, he circled her. Thick tresses waved gently down her back to her knees, so realistically, he wanted to run his fingers through the strands. The elegance of her face made his throat ache as if a fist pressed against his Adam’s apple. Her features were dainty. Ethereal.

Struck by a sense of familiarity, Garen wondered if he had met her before, even though he knew it to be unlikely. The woman—who wasn’t a woman at all but a bird-blessed chunk of stone—may have lived once, but long before Garen’s lifetime, for the statue was ancient.

Thankfully, she was not human and safe to love. Marble women couldn't lie, rob, or cuckold a fellow.

Like a blind man, he reached out to read the braille of her sleek marble curves, lichen-encrusted niches, and mossy vales. Her face tilted as she looked at a sculpted dove on her shoulder as if listening to it coo. An impish, inexplicable smile curved her mouth, so he half expected to hear her laugh.

A movement took his gaze to her hand where three minuscule flesh and blood creatures sat in a row, like the three musketeers... or the three stooges. A frog, a lizard, even a dragonfly that must have a death wish, considering the company it kept.

They stared at him, but the frog's round, bulging eyes fixed him with an eerily human expression that made him feel as if it saw straight through his tarnished soul.

With a shudder, he turned away.

Clouds drifted above the mountains, nearly covering the face of the moon. No city lights dimmed the brightness of the stars. No airplanes blinked as they jetted past.

Garen could easily imagine having stepped into another time, leaving behind the modern, mechanized world where he’d been born. That he rather liked the idea surprised him. He’d never had a yearning to step into history before. But he found it seductively peaceful here.

Lowering himself to a clump of dry grass, he lay back, closed his eyes, and willed the serenity of the swale to soothe his over-stressed mind.

To Gwenlyn, the man appeared a giant, with shoulders nigh an ell wide, tapering to slim, narrow hips and long legs that oozed physical stamina. She sensed inner strength in him, a good trait. A woman wanted a man who could protect and respect her. But Gwenlyn also wanted a husband who would be a friend. Someone to laugh with and share woes and joys. The rigid lines of this man’s body and the set of his eyes hinted that he laughed infrequently and always went his own way.

Could such a man indeed be the other half of her soul?

The braies reached the ankle instead of stopping at the knee and were not cross-gartered. He’d tucked his white, short-sleeved under-tunic inside his braies and wore no outer tunic. Still, he was comely. Sable hair waved back from a proud, intelligent face. Dark brows capped deep-set eyes like a stormy sea, rimmed by thick lashes. Sun-bronzed skin, dark with stubble, stretched tautly over prominent cheekbones and a strong chin; the nose showed signs of being broken.

"His garments are passing odd," she mused.

"You forget, milady, centuries have passed since we came here. Canna expect folks to dress the same forever."

Lost in her examination of the man, she suddenly realized Nigel had spoken to her. "I beg pardon, Sir Nigel. I was wool-gathering."

"I said, ’ee looks a braw lad, milady. He’ll give ye many strong sons; that one will."

Were she human, she might have blushed at such a bold suggestion.

Her friends began to argue about the true identity of Gwenlyn's soul-half. She ignored them.

She liked the man's firm, well-defined lips. The thought of kissing them made her belly pulsate as if the fly she’d eaten performed cartwheels inside.

An alarming thought occurred to her. "Think ’tis possible he might be Cadwaladr?"

"Nay," Sir Nigel assured her. "Cadwaladr may have been yer husband, in name at least, but surely a foul oaf such as he could never ha’ been anyone’s soul-half, let alone yours, milady."

"You have it aright, Sir Nigel," Delyth put in. "Why, had the man an ember of lust for you, my lady, he’d ne’er have allowed his brother, Cynan, to wed you as Cadwaladr’s proxy. Nor would he have permitted your virginity to waste away in an empty bed like he did."

"Unfair you are, both of you!" Gwenlyn’s keen sense of justice prompted her to champion her husband, regardless of her feelings for the man. "Cadwaladr fought in the Holy Land at the time of our nuptials. Cynan stood proxy for his brother only because he was here and Cadwaladr was not."

Sir Nigel managed what might have been a frown. "Be ye wanting Cadwaladr as yer soul-half?"

"Nay! Never!" Gwenlyn shuddered at the thought. Although she was betrothed to the man at the age of eight and grew up in his home, her heart harbored no fondness for him. He’d had little to do with her.

"Gi’ on with it then, lass," Sir Nigel urged. "He'll nae stay put forever, and ’tis eager we are to return home, ye ken."

Gwenlyn sighed with anticipation. Soon, she would know how it felt to kiss the stranger. The thought of wearing dresses again, running, dancing, and playing her harp thrilled her. Her mood lifted. Not having to spend the winter months buried in mud would enthuse her. Once human again, she could find a way to break the spell on Delyth and Sir Nigel. All would go well, she silently promised.

It must.

Closing her eyes, she prayed for courage to every saint she could recall and, for good measure, to the old religion's gods. Thus emboldened, she drew a deep breath, opened her eyes, and tensed to leap.

The man stood and turned toward the path

"God’s blood!″ Delyth exclaimed. ″Stop him, Nigel! He cannot leave.″

″Me?″ he shot back at Delyth. ″Ye be the one who can fly. Get in front of the mon. Attack him if you must!″

Gwenlyn thought the newt asked overmuch of a dragonfly.

Then Delyth’s face took on a steely look. In a whir of sound, she took flight. ″Useless lout. Cannot rely on him for aught,″ trailed behind her.

″Pagh!" Nigel broke into a run. "Ye be only a delaying tactic to give me time to reach the mon."

Gwenlyn did not wait to see what her friends would do. She tensed her long hind legs and took the leap she had already prepared to take. The wind rushed over her mottled green hide as she flew through the air. Exhilaration filled her tiny frog’s body. Never had she jumped from so high a place or for so long a distance. Unhappily, she missed her mark and tumbled ingloriously to the ground. Stunned, she sat there while Nigel scurried past.

"Here now, milady, nae time to rest. Our Delyth has him on the defensive."

Gwenlyn looked up. The man towered above them, his head nigh out of sight. Despite the darkness and the forest of grass that marred her view, she saw Delyth dive at him. She expected to see the dragonfly dart aside at the last moment. As she so often did, Delyth miscalculated. She smacked into his broad forehead, slid down the slope of his nose, and then retook wing. In truth, Gwenlyn had never seen her friend move with more grace.

Finding a rock, Gwenlyn hopped up and launched herself from its top. She caught a glimpse of the man in mid-air, swearing and swatting at Delyth’s renewed attack. Another leap showed Nigel slithering through the tall grass and vanishing under the hem of the man’s breeches. Her soul-half began to dance awkwardly around the garden, one hand over his breeches as if afraid Sir Nigel might bite him in a sensitive spot.

The man’s feet went out from under him on the dewy grass. Gwenlyn heard a faint crack when he landed on his back. He lay very still. Hopping over to him, she saw that his head had struck a rock. Blood seeped from the wound into the mud.

Peeking out from under the waist of the man’s breeches, Sir Nigel asked, "Be he injured, milady?"

Gwenlyn stared at him. "Oh, Nigel, I fear he is slain!"

Garen awoke to a new day's cool, damp air and sunlight. He lay still, watching the mist from the falling water writhe through the air, adding to the eerie, preternatural silence and wondering why he was sleeping outdoors.

A stray thought floated into his head. At last, she will be mine.

He frowned. Who would be his? His fiancée, Leeza? Seemed a silly thing to think. She was already his. Well, almost, with the wedding only weeks away. Where was he, anyway?

Rising onto his elbows, he groaned as pain lanced the back of his head. His probing fingers found dry, crusted blood and a knot. Had someone struck him, or had he fallen?

He’d had a crazy dream in which a dragonfly and a lizard attacked him. There had also been a purple and green dragon lurking in the shadows as he lost consciousness. Garen rarely remembered dreams, but this one had been frighteningly vivid. He might believe he was drunk or high on something if he didn't know better.

He must have fallen asleep in the damp, wiry marsh grass that prickled through his clothes. He shivered with cold. Mornings in the Welsh mountains were rarely warm. His childhood had accustomed him to harsh living conditions but couldn't make him like it.

"Nee-deep."

Garen blinked at the frog squatting on his chest. It had been in the dream, too. Was he still dreaming?

The tiny wart factory leaped at him without warning, smacking into his mouth.

"Ugh!" Eyes shut in disgust, Garen scrubbed at his lips. He couldn’t say what alerted him to the change. In a time shift he’d have sworn only happened in films, the frog had become something else: long, heavy, and seductively warm.

He opened his eyes and stared into guileless, violet-blue irises beneath slender, arched brows on the face of a porcelain-skinned angel. As soft and shiny as silk, ebony hair flowed from her head to the ground like black rain, creating a sensual cave around them that smelled of earth, woman, and seduction. The atmosphere struck him as markedly intimate—physically, sensually, and spiritually. She was the most achingly beautiful woman he had ever encountered, with an inner glow that transcended corporal beauty. It showed in her eyes and smile and soothed his entire being.

He felt a sudden urge to make her a part of him so he could always carry her with him, like a photo in a wallet. The sense of connection between them reached clear to his soul, a link as old as time.

She squirmed, and a hunger sparked within him that had nothing to do with food. Her body heat seared him through his clothes. His hands slid down her bare arms and the smooth slope of her naked back to a tiny waist and flared hips. Not a stitch of clothing covered her.

Kissing her seemed not only natural but necessary. He lifted his head and placed his lips on hers. Her taste reminded him of rich dark chocolate with a hint of peanut butter, his favorite sweet.

The air grew dusky as if twilight had arrived early instead of dawn. The mist settled over them, and the sense of intimacy intensified. Need overcame caution. Tilting his head, he again brushed his lips over hers. The mewling sound she made fueled the fire building inside him. The world softened and turned dreamlike.

Bees hummed around them as they stood close together in his mother’s herb garden, bathed in the aroma of calamint and lavender. Cats played at their feet. Beyond the hedge, the laundress and dairymaids heckled guardsmen practicing with their lances.

She belonged to another.

But so long as she stayed within the circle of his arms, her warmth soothing the turmoil inside him, he did not care. Just once, ere he went off to fight in that distant land of infidels from which he might never return, he meant to experience the heaven of her kiss.

What? They weren't standing, and his mother never had a garden.

Garen drew back and peered at the woman he held, feeling out of focus, disoriented as if someone had taken over his mind. Unnerved, he fought to regain normalcy.

She sat up, and her hair swung forward to cover her breasts. A good thing, for they only intensified the temptation. The fierceness of the need threatening his control startled him. He prided himself on always being in command. Besides, this wasn’t Leeza he lusted over, but a stranger whose name he didn’t know. What the devil had come over him?

Calling on every ounce of restraint he owned, he lifted the woman from him and plunked her onto the grass. Then he rose and retreated as far as he dared on a cliff that dropped off so sharply. When he regained control of himself, he turned to her.

She looked stunned, confused, and hurt.

He averted his eyes from her long, naked legs and tugged on an ear lobe. Okay, now what? He didn’t want to be rude, only to escape. But he’d kissed her, so it seemed fitting to introduce himself. "Hi, I’m Garen McTaggart. Do you come here often?"

No response. Maybe she already knew his name. In case she hadn't heard of him, he added, "It’s my construction company rebuilding the old castle up there," and waved a hand at the sky.

She responded only with a sort of hiccup. "Nee-deep."

Well, that was weird. He scratched his head as if a good scalp massage could bring his brain back to full function and tell him how to handle this bizarre situation. When his fingers hit the knot above his nape, he grimaced. Damn, he needed a pain pill. Putting his hands on his hips, he stared at the woman.

"You speak English, I hope?" Garen asked.

"Nee-deep."

Oh, great. "How about Welsh? Cymru?" He spoke a little of the language. Very little.

"Nee-deep."

Garen sighed. He hoped she didn’t have a speech impairment. She was far too pretty to be so burdened. She smiled, and his stomach did a rollover. Her eyes shone like polished gems. My heaven, but she was beautiful. Sunlight pierced the trees to dance leaf shadows over her creamy skin.

Naked skin.

Cursing, he scanned the glade for her clothes. He couldn't guarantee his behavior if she weren’t covered in about a nanosecond. After all, he was only human. Finding nothing else, he decided his T-shirt would have to do and began pulling it over his head.

"Ooh, ooh!"

He froze, his head buried in the depths of his jersey.

"Ooh!"

What was she doing, admiring his bare chest? Women told him he had an admirable body, but none had ever carried on like this. He yanked off the shirt, and his heart sank a little. She wasn’t even looking at him. She was staring at her legs, arms, and hands and stroking them as if she’d never seen anything like them.

"Are you okay?" He wondered if any mental hospitals might be missing a patient.

She continued to touch herself, lost in narcissistic heaven.

"Uh, look... " He sucked in a deep, cleansing breath. If she didn’t stop soon, he’d have to replace her hands with his or go mad. "I have to get back to work, but I can’t leave you here... undressed, so take this. Please." He held out the shirt.

She didn’t move. Her mouth opened, but the sounds that tumbled out sounded like an odd combination of Shakespeare and Donald Duck, with a few hiccups tossed in. Then she hopped to her feet and threw herself into his arms. Her hands slid into his hair, and he trembled. He’d always been a sucker for a woman’s fingers on his scalp. His eyes began to glaze over with lust. In desperation, he pushed her away. "Stop!"

She was uncommonly forward. Had he been set up? Did she want something from him? She'd find he wasn't gullible. "Look. Whatever you want from me, you won’t get it. I’m flat broke, okay? Besides, I’m engaged."

She looked confused, so he added, "To be married."

Her face fell, and she hugged herself.

"Aw, heck," he muttered. "Don’t be hurt. You’re lovely, and I’m ten kinds of a fool to turn you down, but—"