Chapter 15

 

 

Vic couldn’t move. Her eyes widened, instinctively searching the impenetrable darkness for reason. Her body twanged with tension ready to snap, but she couldn’t summon the will to react.

Malcolm lay still behind her, his hand resting on her hip. All at once, it weighed a ton on her skin. His breath brushed the small hairs on the back of her neck and sent squirrels of electricity up her spine.

Did he really say those words? Did he really just tell her he was…? No, it couldn’t be. He couldn’t be. She refused to believe it. How did she explain him being there, then? Why would the Lewises keep him alive after they sank the merchantman if he wasn’t one of them?

“I’ve been an infiltrator in the Falisa for almost seven thousand years,” he murmured in her ear. “I’ve saved countless of my brothers by giving them advanced information about the Gunns’ movements and plans. My brothers have helped me keep the secret all this time. Not even Ree Hamilton found out.”

“Ree!” she croaked.

“Aye. Ree traveled back in time about three months ago,” he told her, “but ye already kenned that. She fell in love with Ned, and he sent her to yer own time to work on the Cipher’s Kiss with him. There was another woman from yer time as well, but we cannae determine who she was or what she was doing here.”

Vic’s mind whirled with all this information crowding to be understood at once. Another woman? That could only be Ellen.

Malcolm was Angui! He was working under the radar inside the Guild House. He was in charge of the Gunns’ activities in all Scotland, second only to Boyd. Now Boyd was dead. That left Malcolm in charge. No one would question him. No one would challenge him. He could do anything he wanted to subvert the Gunns’ plans.

Her body seethed one way and then the other. She had to get away from him. He was the enemy.

Wasn’t he? Lying next to him in this dark box, she wasn’t so sure anymore. The doubts of the last few hours came flooding back. She started to question which of these men she really trusted—Malcolm or Boyd. Malcolm belonged to the people she thought she wanted to destroy. Should she turn around and try to strangle him right now?

She couldn’t do that. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to.

“I’m sorry I had to lie to ye, lass,” he whispered. “I couldnae tell ye until right now. I wanted to. Believe me, but I couldnae.”

“Noah’s one of them too, isn’t he?” she asked. “He’s immortal.”

“Aye.”

“He’s there too,” she told him. “He’s in 2018. He works for our company as a builder. It seems like everyone around us is Angui.”

“I’m no’ surprised,” he remarked. “Ever since Ned met Ree, he’s been positioning everyone in America to pick up when yer company comes along to make the elixir. He’s betting everything on that.”

“What about your teams?” she asked. “What about the people you plan to send forward in time to stop them?”

“There’ll be no teams,” he replied. “I’ll no’ send anyone forward. Now that Boyd’s out of the way and I’m temporarily in charge, I’ll kill the project. I cannae run the risk of one of them recognizing me. They’ll tip off the Falisa who I am, and I cannae have that.”

She shook her head. “I can’t believe this! I can’t believe you’ve been undercover all this time. Seven thousand years? I can’t even fathom that amount of time. I still can’t wrap my head around immortality being real.”

“Aye. It seemed like naught until ye came along.”

“Why?” she asked. “What difference did I make?”

“Because ye’re one of them, lass,” he replied. “Ye’re one of the women we’ve been waiting and dreaming and praying for. Ye dinnae ken how our people have yearned for the day we’d have some women in our ranks again. We’ve dreamed of the day we’d face the Gunns with our women. It’s been a long, lonely time waiting.”

“Why were you such a jerk to me when I first got here, then?” she fired back. “You were hateful.”

“I was scared, lass,” he breathed. “I recognized ye the instant ye appeared. I met Ree, and I realized ye were one of the women from the future. I worried ye’d reveal who I was to Boyd, and then he convinced ye the Angui were evil and ye decided to fight us. I couldnae imagine anything worse.”

She shuddered all over. He really was Angui. He really was one of these immortal overlords bent on taking over the world.

“So that’s it, huh?” she asked. “You’re going to turn us into immortals like yourselves, and then you’re going to dominate the world the way you did before. That’s just great, but I won’t be part of it. You better understand that right now.”

“Ye’ll no’ be a part of it if ye dinnae want to be,” he replied. “If ye dinnae want to take the elixir, no one will tie ye up and pour it down yer throat. We dinnae want anyone with us who’s no’ willing.”

She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to hear this. She already felt herself falling under his influence. “How do I know you won’t take over the world the way you did before?”

“We dinnae want to take over the world, lass,” he replied. “None of us does. We simply want to live. We’ve seen enough violence and death in our time. If humanity doesnae accept us, we only ask to be allowed to live in peace.”

Vic’s soul rebelled against this. She would give anything to shut out his voice, but it kept eating into her deepest self where she couldn’t fight it.

“Just remember one thing, lass,” he went on. “When ye get out of this crate, ye’ll have the power to kill me and Noah. One word from ye, and we’re both dead.”

“What makes you think I’ll do that?” she asked. “What makes you think I would deliberately kill two men if I could do anything to save them?”

“If ye truly believe the Angui want to rule the world and enslave humanity,” he remarked, “if ye truly believe we should all be destroyed now to save humanity from that, then ye’d best make yer stand right here and now. Ye must tell the Gunns who and what I am. If I survive, I’ll flee and never be able to work for them again. They’ll leave a record of who I am and what I look like, and they’ll never stop hunting me down until they kill me, just like they’ve killed all the others.”

“What others?”

“The other Angui. We used to number in the millions. Now there are no more than a thousand worldwide, and the Gunns kill more and more every year. Ye hold me life in yer hands, lass. Ye must understand that.”

“So that’s why you got me locked in a crate with you?” she fired back. “So you could throw yourself on my mercy? Is that it?”

“No, lass,” he whispered. “I got myself locked in a crate with ye to beg ye to help us. We cannae survive without ye. Ree is already working to help us. We need ye too. I need ye.”

A silent scream boiled out of her core. She wanted to beat him with her fists and shriek, No! but the change that had started on board the trawler had already taken hold and wouldn’t let her go. This man almost sacrificed his life for her. She couldn’t get the fight on board the merchantman out of her mind. She couldn’t believe it was all an act. She saw his face. He was fighting for his life. Whoever he was, he’d stood by her and protected her a lot more than Boyd ever had. Malcolm had warned her. Malcolm had defended her, not Boyd.

Ellen and Ree already worked with these men. Vic couldn’t ignore that simple fact. Those two had always blazed the trail for all five friends to follow. That groove in Vic’s being wouldn’t die. If Ree and Ellen joined these men, they must know something Vic didn’t. Then again, Vic already knew. She only had to hold Boyd and Malcolm up for comparison to get her answer.

The days she spent hating Malcolm died hard, though. She didn’t want to let go of her resistance to him and everything he said. What if he was lying? He wasn’t lying. She understood that to her bones. She could trust him.

Boyd’s handsome consideration took on a different cast in her memory. His glorious shining smile, his glittering eyes, his smooth fingers stroking her hand—how slimy and hideous they all seemed now compared to Malcolm’s rough honesty.

He must have revolted against her arrival as much as she revolted against him. She threatened everything he’d spent centuries building and even his life. No wonder he’d tried to push her away.

She let out a shuddering breath. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want ye to come to America with us,” he replied. “We’ll work on the Cipher’s Kiss there. Now that Boyd is dead, and they’ll think I’m dead too, the Falisa will elect a new Guild Master. Ye can help us more than anyone.”

“How? I don’t know anything.”

“Ye ken more than I do about the world ye came from,” he replied. “Ye can help me set up the Falisa to be ready when the time comes for Ned and Ree to make the elixir.”

“Shouldn’t you ‘survive’ so they can elect you Guild Master? Wouldn’t that be the most direct way for you to watch them, influence the outcome,” she asked.

“No, they winnae do that. I’ll never be Guild Master.”

“Why not?” she asked. “I thought you were second-in-command to Boyd.”

“I cannae prove my parentage,” he told her. “Boyd had an unbroken line of descent to the original Falisa who poisoned our women. The documents of his family records are available in the Falisa archives. I dinnae have that. I’m just a working stiff. I can only climb so high. They’ll elect one of the real Gunns, probably Boyd’s cousin Allain Gunn.”

She turned her head slightly to look over her shoulder, but there was nothing to see in the dark. What was that in his voice when he talked about the war between his people and this ancient society bent on wiping them out? “So were you there when it happened? You were there when they poisoned the women?”

He spoke so softly she barely heard him. “Aye. I was there.”

“What happened?” she asked. “How did they do it?”

“They poisoned the water supply.”

“I mean, what happened to you? Where did you go? What happened after all the women were dead?”

He stiffened behind her, and she felt him lean away as far as the box would allow. Maybe she’d made a mistake bringing it up.

After several moments, he rolled closer and murmured into her ear in a fevered rush, “It happened in the space of a week. It crushed our civilization. One day, everything was thriving and peaceful and prosperous. The next thing we kenned, it all came crashing down. The men who were left behind came out of their houses, and the whole society vanished in a few hours. All the slaves and servants and tradespeople left the city. The men and their sons packed up and evacuated. Within twenty-four hours, they left the city deserted, all except the dead bodies.”

A sickening, crawling sensation stalked up Vic’s skin. “Did you go with them? Did you evacuate with them?”

“No, I didnae evacuate.”

Something in those words stabbed through her rib cage. If she ever entertained the notion that she might turn away from the Gunns in favor of the Angui, those words pushed her over the edge. She already belonged to him and anything he wanted her to do. “What did you do?”

“I was left alone in the house,” he replied. “I was only four years old at the time. I lived with me mother and me aunt and me older sister and me grandmother. They took care of me after me father died. I was alone in the house when the plague hit. Me mother took sick and went to bed. I crawled into bed with her like I usually did, and I fell asleep in her arms.”

“Did you wake up to find her dead?”

“No.” His throat cracked from the pain of speaking. “I woke up to find her jerking all over the place and screaming to wake the dead. She wouldn’t stop convulsing everywhere. Her legs spasmed until she kicked me out of the bed. I was screaming and crying for my auntie and my grandmother, but no one came. I watched the plague flay her flesh off her bones. A great bubble swelled out of her neck and exploded blood and pus all over my face. It ripped her throat open. Then another one came out of her stomach. One after another, they destroyed her body before my eyes. I was too petrified to leave the room.”

Vic froze in place, the horror invading her mind. She had to stare at the awful scene the same way he did. She had to see what he saw.

“By the time it was all over and she was dead, there wasnae any sound anywhere else in the house,” he rasped. “I sat there for five days. I was so hungry and thirsty I couldnae think straight, but I couldnae bring myself to leave the room. When I finally realized I would die if I didnae do something, I found my sister and auntie and grandmother dead in the other rooms. I felt numb as I got myself something to eat from the kitchen. When I went outside, the whole city was deserted.”

Vic’s throat constricted. She couldn’t breathe, but she swallowed down the pain. Holy Christ, what was this she was listening to?

He cleared his throat to go on with the story. “I stayed in the city for almost six months until I couldnae find food anymore. Then I wandered off somewhere. I spent about ten years living like an animal on the plains, just hunting for food and trying to stay alive. I went mad in a lot of ways before I grew up enough to realize I could go live among other men.”

“How did you wind up back with your own people?” Vic asked.

He chuckled under his breath, but the sound contained no mirth. It chilled Vic’s heart. Nothing about this story was funny, and yet it all lived under Malcolm’s skin. That scared, traumatized little boy from the story—that was Malcolm, the big, strong, sturdy, steady, protective man lying next to her.

“I didnae wind up back with me own people,” he replied. “That’s the strangest part of the whole thing. I went to live in the nearest town, and I got taken in by the Gunns. They didnae call themselves that in those days, but they were still the same people. They didnae ken who I was, and I didnae ken who they were. I kenned naught about the plague or the Angui or any of it.”

“Really?” she gasped. “How did you find out?”

“My adoptive father sent me on an errand to the market. While I was there, I met a tall man with curly black hair who took an interest in me. I didnae ken why at the time. He met me there every day for a month until he’d heard me whole story.”

A squiggle of excitement ran up Vic’s spine. “Who was he?”

“It was Niall—Dagar Lumani is his real name.” He started to relax. “He recognized me. He said I looked like me father, and when I told him what happened, he regretted no’ coming to find me. He and the others were too distraught to think on anything but evacuating. He was sorry for leaving me behind, and he told me all about the plague. He wanted to take me away from the Falisa then and there, but I didnae want to go. I wanted to stay in me own home. I was comfortable there, and he got the idea that I should keep me eyes and ears open and report to him what I saw the Falisa doing.”

“So is that how you started working for them?”

“Aye. That’s how it started.”

An overpowering need took over Vic’s being to put her arms around this man and comfort him after what he’d been through. She wanted to soothe him and make it all okay, but she couldn’t turn around. Without hesitating, she picked up his hand off her hip, laced her fingers through his, and pulled his arm around her as she snuggled back against him inside the crate.

He stiffened, and his whispered voice in her ear betrayed his pain. “Dinnae do that, lass.”

“I want to.” She hugged him closer, hooked her arm over his, and kissed his knuckles.

He resisted her touch, but when she wouldn’t let him go, he softened.

The minute she’d wrapped him around her in the luscious dark, she knew it was right. The little boy from his story, the grown man she’d seen fighting for his life in the cabin—she embraced them both to her heart. She belonged here in this comfortable circle of his arms. His solid frame surrounded her and protected her from any danger waiting outside.

He held himself distant but didn’t try to fight it. He murmured low into her ear, “Ye dinnae ken what ye’re doing, lass.”

She knew exactly what she was doing. He might not want it, but she did. She didn’t understand all the tangled threads making up this complicated situation, but she understood this. She wanted him right now. If it came to nothing in the light of day, that didn’t make any difference.

She let go of his hand and reached around behind her. She grabbed his hip and pulled him closer to her. She wanted him near her, as near as he could get. She touched his kilt, and his iron body shifted on the hay. He rocked toward her once before he caught himself and resisted against her touch.

When he murmured in her ear this time, his voice was spiked in a high-pitched note of agony. “Dinnae do this, lass. Dinnae do this to me.” His forehead fell on her shoulder, and as soon as the words escaped his throat, he relaxed against her. His arms molded to fit her body. He leaned into her back, and his hips pressed into her ass from behind.

Only when he gave in did the mind-exploding intensity of her desire envelope her in all its power. His hair brushed her cheeks, and his steamy breath floated into her ear to explode in rockets of pleasure. He wanted this too. His raw, injured heart held him back, but in the end, his desire drove him toward her with equal strength.

She gave herself to it and to him. Her heart soared at his touch, and she rested against his bulk.