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limp. But when he reached them, they were gone.
    For one instant, Aidan stood in shock and disbelief. Moray had murdered Ian.
    Anguish began, and with it, more rage than he had ever felt. He howled, holding his head, and furiously, he leapt back in time. He would not let Ian die.
    He returned to that moment at Awe when he had found Ian in the great hall with his steward, but once again he had no power, and no one could see or hear him. He tried to assault Moray, but an invisible wall came between them and the past repeated itself, exactly. This time, he was a sick spectator as his younger self sat on his steed and watched his men destroying an entire innocent village.
    And this time, when he saw himself discover the woman and child, he rushed forward. “Do it,” he shouted at his younger self. “You must do it!’
    But the man he had been a moment ago did not lift his sword. “Run. Run now!”
    The woman and child fled into the forest. He watched as his younger self turned to face Moray, who held Ian tightly to his chest.
    And that huge, unnatural force began pulling him inexorably toward the trio. Aidan screamed in warning at Ian, at himself, but no one heard him. He saw the silver dagger flash.
    The anguish was even greater now, but so was the rage.
    He fell to his knees, howling and maddened, and then he leapt back in time again.
    And again.
    And again.
    And each and every time, it was the same. An entire village destroyed by his command, one small woman and child fleeing and Moray still murdering Ian before his very eyes, only to vanish with his dead child.
    And finally he gave up.
    He roared and roared, blinded by the grief. He cursed evil; he cursed the gods. He was below Awe’s curtain walls, although he did not recall returning from the village. And then, finally, the tower roof above his head collapsed. The entire wing of the castle started to crumble. He wept, openly and brokenly, as the stone walls rained down upon him. And when he was buried beneath his own castle walls, he became still and silent.
    Aidan waited to die.

CHAPTER ONE
    The Present
September 2008, New York City
    T HE ROAR OF HUMAN PAIN AWOKE HER .
    Brianna Rose sat bolt upright, awoken from a deep sleep, horrified by the sound. It was filled with rage and anguish and disbelief. And then the pain cut through her.
    She doubled over in her bed, clutching herself as if someone had actually slid a butcher’s knife through her chest. For one moment, she could not breathe. She had never experienced that kind of anguish in her twenty-six years. Panting hard, she prayed for the pain to end. Then, suddenly, it did.
    But as the torment vanished abruptly, a man’s handsome image flared in her mind.
    A new, terrible tension began. Carefully, Brie sat upright, shaken and stunned. Her loft was silent, except for the sounds of the cars and cabs driving by outside on the street, and the accompaniment of blaring horns. She trembled, glancing at her bedside clock. It was ten after one in the morning. What had just happened?
    All the Rose women were empathic to one degree or another. Their empathy was supposed to be a gift, but too often it was a curse, like now. She had been consumed with another human being’s pain. Something terrible had just happened, and she could not shake the dark, handsome image she’d just seen from her mind.
    Brie trembled, tossing aside the covers. Was Aidan in trouble?
    She became very still, her mouth dry, her heart thundering. She’d met him exactly a year ago, perhaps for two whole minutes. Her best friend, Allie, had been missing for weeks and she’d returned briefly to New York—from the Middle Ages—with Aidan’s help.
    He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Allie had explained about the secret Brotherhood and the men belonging to it, men who called themselves the Masters of Time. All were sworn before God to defend mankind from the evil in the night. Brie