Evermore (Knight Everlasting Book 3) Read online

  Evermore

  Knight Everlasting Book 3

  by

  Cassidy Cayman

  Copyright © 2018 by Cassidy Cayman

  Kindle Edition

  Published by Dragonblade Publishing, an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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  Kilty Pleasures

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  Child of the Night Guild

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  Dark Gardens Series by Meara Platt

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Books from Dragonblade Publishing

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Enchanted

  Chapter 1

  Jordan McCurdy woke up flat on his back, staring at familiar wood beams and stone. He rolled onto his side and was faced with the leg of a bed. He couldn’t have landed on that instead of the hard stone floor? He rolled painfully to his side, trying to take in his surroundings. He’d been in that room many times before but now everything was different and new. New being the operative word.

  “Holy crap, it actually worked,” he groaned. He sat up and waited for the bout of dizziness to pass.

  The bed was sumptuously covered in layers of blankets and even a fur, reminding him how cold he was. Being from Louisiana, he wasn’t used to the northern England winters, even when he was in a heated hotel room. The castle ruins were a far cry from a heated hotel room. It wasn’t a ruin anymore, he quickly noticed. Everything around him was in perfect condition. And rather fancy on top of it. If his sister, Sophie, had ended up here, perhaps she hadn’t had such a bad time of it.

  Sophie! God, she was the reason he’d gone through all this. The reason he’d followed a crazy old man to England. Done countless research on things that made librarians either look concerned or roll their eyes when he asked for certain books. Tracked down someone who frankly scared the beans out of him and taken copious notes on every bizarre thing she told him. And finally, the reason he had stuffed his ex-football player body into an ancient wedding dress.

  He and Randolph had waited weeks for that damned thing to show up. Jordan had been about to give up and head back to the United States. He’d been out of a job for some months even before the news of his sister’s death. His parents had been preoccupied with their grief, but any day they’d start getting on him to come home and be responsible.

  He felt a slight twinge in his chest that had nothing to do with the tight, itchy dress. Would he ever see his parents again? Had he destined them to losing both their children? He shook his head and looked around for his backpack, praying it had made the trip through time with him. He spied an open book lying on the floor a few feet away and reached his long arm to grab it.

  If you’re reading this, you’re dead.

  “How ‘bout you tell me something I don’t already know?” he asked quietly, suddenly completely aware he was in a strange time.

  Alone for now, but this room was clearly inhabited. What if the owner returned to find him there? He could not, repeat, could not, end up in a dungeon or tower or whatever place they put trespassing, dress-wearing men in this time.

  He grunted with relief to find his bag halfway under the bed. It must have slid from his grasp when he came crashing through to this place. Time, he corrected himself. He was in the exact same place he’d been with Randolph, just hundreds of years apart. That little nugget of realization made him double over, fighting nausea. Randolph had told him there should be a—what was it called? Some sort of medieval restroom should have been in the room. He might need it the way his stomach was churning.

  He stripped off the dress and stuffed it in his backpack, putting on the sweat pants and shirt he’d packed. Randolph had told him it was a stupid choice. He’d lobbied to have a medieval costume made up for him. At the time, Jordan had only about one-quarter believed in the old man’s ramblings and they’d been spending money hand over fist so he’d nixed that plan. Now he wished he hadn’t.

  Well, he’d just have to get out of the castle without anyone seeing him. And getting out of the castle was his top priority now that he was actually here. Whatever his sister got caught up in, he meant t
o stay out of it. It seemed the only way he might be able to rescue her.

  He adjusted the straps of his pack onto his shoulders and looked around the room. The book still lay on the floor, opened to its rude welcome page. A rolled up scroll lay nearby. He scooped up both, thinking they might come in handy. He took a quick peek in the giant wardrobe, thinking it might have something to cover his modern clothes. It did, but it was all clearly for women.

  He rummaged until he found a black cloak. It barely came to his knees and it had some sort of gold design all around its hood. He draped it over himself anyway and pulled the hood up as far as it would go to hide his face. He chuckled a bit that he must look like the Hunchback of Notre-Dame. He sobered quickly, remembering that many people suffered such maladies in this time, unable to get proper nutrition or medical care. There were two more doors in the room. One led to a smaller, less comfortable looking bedroom and the last one led to the medieval bathroom.

  Yikes. He swayed a little as he peered down the hole in the board. It was a sheer drop of at least forty feet. He wasn’t the best with heights and backed out of the tiny room, slamming the door shut behind him. He cringed at his forgetfulness. He was so used to everyone at the castle being so wrapped up in their parts of the renovation process that they never paid him any mind.

  Now he was an interloper and he needed to be quiet. He also needed to get the hell out. He realized he was stalling because he’d learned a lot about the Middle Ages while he and Randolph waited around for the dress to appear. He knew how ruthlessly people defended their property. He’d spent a great deal of time poring over the deadly weapons. He didn’t want to come face to face with one of those ruthless knights wielding one of those deadly weapons.

  He closed his eyes and thought about his younger sister having to face this same situation. All on her own, with no handy backpack full of supplies, no one waiting to help her. The only way he could find her and help her was to not become a prisoner.

  Sucking in a breath, he opened the door a crack. There was a stairway in one direction and a closed door in the other. Yes, he knew that was another bedroom. They were currently figuring out how to fix a hole in the floor of that room. Except it wasn’t currently, it was hundreds of years in the future. Or not at all if none of those builders and historians hadn’t been born yet. He shoved down another bout of nausea at the terrifying strangeness of time travel. This moment was all that mattered and at this moment he had to get his butt down those stairs and out of the castle. For his little sister.

  “You’re not a weakling,” he said under his breath, trying to psych himself up. “You’re probably taller than half the guys here because you actually got vitamins. You’ve been in your share of skirmishes.”

  Football skirmishes, where no one had a battle axe, mace, or crossbow. Fed up with the unaccustomed feeling of cowardice, he took off down the stairs without another thought.

  He made it to the ground floor and was faced with two more doors. He knew the one led to the outside, but when he pressed his ear to it, he heard a commotion that wasn’t exactly inviting. The other one led to the great hall and a known exit, so he carefully pushed it open and peered around the heavy wooden slab. It was surprisingly empty, which was a positive, but the exit he knew of was now a huge fireplace, complete with a roaring fire. Definitely a negative. He couldn’t risk getting trapped in there so he turned to the other door.

  A gust of cold air whipped around the edge as soon as he opened it, along with the sounds of an uproar. People and horses were crowded at the main gate. He couldn’t make out what had everyone so excited, but it was keeping their attention off him. He ran along the wall, looking for an exit.

  There wasn’t a moment to notice how different everything was, except for the fact the thirty foot high wall he skulked along hadn’t been there in his time. All he wanted to see was something that looked like it might lead to the other side of that huge wall. He spied an opening clear on the other side of the bailey and crouched in the shadow of a barrel.

  There was no way he could sprint across the entire courtyard without being noticed. And yet, everyone was still engrossed with what was going on at the gate. The blood stopped pounding in his ears as his heart rate and adrenaline levels went back to normal. A woman was making a fuss, screaming about not wanting to do something.

  “This is your only chance, man,” he muttered.

  Adjusting the hood of the stolen cloak, he made his way past the gathered crowd. Amazingly, no one so much as glanced his way. He was just some poor, hunchbacked servant who was as good as invisible. Emboldened, he edged his way to a break in the onlookers and nearly fell onto his ass.

  The woman who was screaming and flailing around in the mud just inside the castle gate was none other than Fay Driscoll. Randolph, her uncle, had shown him countless pictures of her. She had been the first victim to put on the cursed gown and drop dead. About a year after that, Jordan’s sister, Sophie, got herself a college grant to go out to England and help restore Grancourt Castle, which she eagerly jumped at.

  Fay’s death would have been nothing more than a sad story except that Sophie, who was probably overachieving as usual, found a strange and ancient book. A book that had been written and signed by Fay. But, no, not while Fay was visiting there in the twenty-first century. The book was dated 1398 and testing had proven it was at least that old.

  Jordan hadn’t known any of that until his sister died and Randolph started spewing all sorts of nonsense at the reception after her funeral. A cursed dress had transported Randolph’s niece to another time according to that little book. Randolph believed Sophie, overachieving as always, had tracked down the dress, put it on and had also been stolen away to the past. Jordan might not have always been the nicest to Sophie, but she was his baby sister and he’d been gutted at losing her. Fearing the grief he was sure would take him down, he eagerly latched on to the old man’s insane idea and followed him to Grancourt Castle. He would have done anything to outrun having to admit to himself he was no longer a big brother. Even one-quarter believe a mad story about time travel.

  And now here he was, staring straight at Fay. Alive. Perhaps not well, what with the screaming and kicking at anyone who tried to get near her, but definitely alive. Another young woman, probably closer to his age than Sophie’s, elbowed her way through the crowd. She said a few words to Fay that Jordan couldn’t make out, but Fay immediately got herself under control. She stood up and hugged the woman, who breezed away again. Jordan was riveted on Fay. He forgot he was wearing modern day sweats and a lady’s cloak. Forgot he was a stranger who had no way to explain his existence, let alone give a valid reason for why he was within the castle walls, should he be caught. Fay Driscoll, the girl who’d died in the twenty-first century of a freak heart attack, was standing not ten feet away from him.

  He shook himself like a dog, needing to break free from his trance. He knew it was all true because he was there. But seeing Fay in the flesh really drove it home. That meant his sister might be alive as well.

  One of the castle workers who was shielding him moved away. Feeling too exposed, he made to take off back to his barrel. But then he saw her. His throat closed up and his eyes filled with tears. Sophie! She was bedraggled and tired looking, and in the clutches of a monster.

  The man was hideous. Scarred and scowling, towering over everyone and clutching her tightly to his side. Why was no one saving her? He lunged forward to pry the beast’s hands off her but stopped himself in the nick of time. He would be no help to her if he was a prisoner. For all he knew, that man was the owner of the castle in this time. The sick bastard—so many thoughts crowded his head, he had to shut them all out at once to risk being overloaded. Whatever that creep had done to her, whatever he might be planning on doing, Jordan was going to make him pay.

  How? He had not a single clue. First he had to get out of the castle, find Lyra, and figure out his place here. That might take days. No. Unacceptable. He’d trade everything
he had in his backpack for a weapon and come back and demand justice.

  He followed along behind a group of servants until he could get back to the shadows of the barrel. The gate was still open and Fay, now with some man’s arm solicitously around her shoulder, was heading toward the great hall. Sophie was still clutched to the side of the beast, practically being dragged along beside those two. All his nerve endings hollered for him to go after her, not lose sight of her. Now that he knew she wasn’t dead, how could he leave her? He took a breath and tried to think of everything Randolph had told him during their weeks of studying, watching, and waiting.

  He had no power here. No one was on his side. Justice here was nothing like what Jordan knew. In fact, Randolph had repeatedly told him he may as well view medieval times as having no justice, at least as far as he would be concerned if he were caught in a wrong situation. And any situation in which he was caught by anyone should be considered a wrong one.

  Get out of the castle, get to the forest. Find Lyra, who had promised to help him. She was the reason he even one-quarter believed any of it. Seeing what she could do had made him believe. Yes, he had to calm down and find Lyra. That was his main objective. His sister had been in this place for two months without him, she’d have to make it a little bit longer.

  The gate was still open and most everyone had gone back to their regular activities. He tentatively edged his way along the wall until he was directly next to the gate. He could see the muddy path leading to a larger road. The layout of the place was so different to what he was used to, he wasn’t sure which way to run to get to the forest. His heart jackhammered in his chest as he silently gave himself a countdown.

  Three, two, one. He took off out of the gate and around the wall, his feet going so fast he thought he might leave the ground. He kept running, not looking back. Praying an arrow wouldn’t pierce him in two.

  Chapter 2

  She woke to find herself standing behind the stables, a horse saddled and ready beside her, its reins in her hand. Everything around her wavered in the way that it did when she was able to wake up. It wasn’t ideal. In fact, she didn’t care for it one bit. But it was better than the other option.