“If ye wish to call me Ned,” he began, “I’ll no’ try to stop ye.”
She turned around and fixed her eyes on his face, not a trace of fear present. “You are Ned. I don’t care what you say. You’re the same man.”
He shook his head. “I never heard that name until today, and I dinnae ken ye at all. I’m sorry to disappoint ye.”
“You have a birthmark on your right forearm that looks like a bird,” she blurted out. “You can make it flap its wings when you flex your arm like this.” She stuck out her arm and demonstrated.
Niall’s eyes flew open. “Who told ye that?”
“You did,” she replied. “You showed it to me. You told me you had two brothers, and that you studied languages. You told me you practiced fencing and combat with your brothers all the time, and that all your other family were dead. Is that true?”
He stared at her in amazement. How could she possibly know that? His mind ran through all the people he knew well enough who could possibly divulge that information. None of them would have told her. He shook his head and walked over to the table in the corner, sat down, and crossed his legs. “I dinnae ken how you come by that information, but if it’s a game ye want to play, I’ll—”
“I’m not playing a game,” she said. “But it seems that you are. You sent me back in time with a spell you picked up from the Gunns, and here I am. You must have had a reason for doing that, so tell me what it is. I think you better know, Malcolm Gunn is onto you. He knows what you’re up to, and he’ll find me sooner or later. You won’t get away with this.”
She talked big, but Niall detected a flutter in her voice. He took her apart piece by piece with his eyes. “I cannae believe ye’re in yer right mind after what ye just said, but ye’d best start by telling me everything ye ken about Malcolm Gunn. If I find out ye’re in league with him, I’ll slit yer throat and dump ye over the side before ye ever see his muckle ugly face again.”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
He didn’t frighten her—of that he was certain.
She caught her breath, then yanked out a chair and sat down opposite him. She leaned across the table, and the words tumbled out of her. “Listen to me, Ned. I know you. I’ve proven that, haven’t I? I met you in 2018, in America, across the sea. We met there, and we were talking, and you showed me your birthmark. You told me a lot of things about yourself, and then you cast a spell to send me back here. Don’t ask me how you happen to be in both places at once. I can’t explain that, but when I landed on the beach, Malcolm and the Gunns rescued me. They took me to their village, and when I told Malcolm what happened, he said that spell was known only to the Gunns. He said you must have sent me here on purpose, and now that you’re here, I can see he was right.”
Niall gazed into her eyes. She was telling the truth and wasn’t out of her mind. He’d spent enough time judging people and learning to read their expressions to know the signs. How was this possible? Traveling through time? It all sounded too outlandish to consider, yet here she was. She knew things about him no one should know. Malcolm Gunn certainly couldn’t have told her about his birthmark.
She nodded down at his hand resting on his knee. “Let me see your birthmark. Let me see if you’re really the same man.”
He hesitated. Should he? Should he confirm her madness? It wasn’t madness, though. He read the truth in her eyes. She was as sane as he was. Who in God’s name was she? Could he have sent her three hundred years into the past to meet him now? If there was any truth to the tale, he would have no choice but to explain everything to her. He would have to take her into his confidence or kill her here and now.
He made up his mind and pulled back his sleeve, revealing the birthmark on his forearm. He moved his wrist up and down, and the bird flapped its wings.
Ree threw herself back in her chair and stared at his face, seeming satisfied that they both knew the truth now, that he was the same man and really had seen her in the future where she came from.
Niall gazed deep into her eyes for a long moment, then burst out of his chair and paced around the cabin. “Ye say yer name’s Ree?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “Ree Hamilton.”
“What else did Malcolm Gunn tell ye?” he asked.
“He said the Lewises weren’t really Highlanders. He said you were from somewhere else, and that you were only posing as Highlanders. He said the Gunns know a lot about you, and they came here to stop you from encroaching on McLeod land. That’s about all he told me. Oh, and he said I had to find you and learn what you were up to and report back to him. That’s everything he said.”
Ned whipped around to stare at her again. There she sat, as composed as ever. She’d spoken those words with such flippant disregard, let them fall off her tongue like they meant nothing.
“How can I ken I can trust ye?” he asked.
She snorted. “If you don’t think you can trust me, that’s your business. I don’t trust you, either.”
His cheeks colored. He already knew he could trust her. In the space of a few minutes, he trusted her more than men he’d known all his life. She’d divulged information men would kill for, that she couldn’t know if she wasn’t being truthful. He’d done something in the future to earn her trust, and now he was reaping the benefits of it.
So Malcolm Gunn sent her to spy on him. Whether she reported the Lewises’ activities back to the Gunns remained to be seen.
She turned in her seat to face him. “So what are you doing here? How did you get back in time?”
He crossed the cabin to the aft windows and gazed out at the sea behind the galleon. Every instinct told him to get rid of her, to dump her in the ocean and forget he ever met her. That was what an intelligent man bent on a serious mission would do. She was a liability. He couldn’t do that, though. She carried a treasure trove of knowledge, not only about the future, but about him and his position. What would happen if he trusted her—really trusted her? What if he told her the whole truth? This could be the start of something big.
Ree leapt up from her chair. “You’re not going to tell me, are you? Whatever. I don’t care. If you’re gonna give me to your men, you better go ahead and get it over with. I don’t want to hang around as some kind of toy for you to play with. I’d rather skip the whole cat-and-mouse game, if it’s all the same to you.”
He put up his hand to stop her. “Wait, Ree. Sit down. Please.”
She glared at him for a moment, then sat down, crossed her arms over her chest, and looked the other way.
Niall walked back and forth in front of the windows, taking a long time to steel himself even though he knew what he had to do. He’d never taken this step before, and his heart quailed. He was scared for the first time in he couldn’t remember when. He was scared of the outcome. He was scared to expose himself like this to a total stranger.
He couldn’t hesitate any longer. Like her, he wanted it over and done with so he didn’t have to wait around and wonder. He threw himself down in his seat, put one elbow on the table, and leaned forward.
“Ye’ve told me yer tale, and now ye’ll hear mine. If ye dinnae think me raving mad when I’m done, then perhaps we’ll have something to say to each other about what happens next.”
Her eyes met his. “I’m listening.”
He took a deep breath. “I’m…well, we…the Lewises…we’re…”
She waited. “You’re what?”
He waved his hand. “Ye said ye traveled three hundred years into the past to get here. If that’s true, and I’m here and I’m there at the same time, then I must still be alive in three hundred years, mustn’t I?”
Her brow furrowed in confusion. “What are you saying?”
“I’ll be alive in three hundred years, and I was alive three hundred years ago. I was alive three thousand years ago, Ree. Our people cannae die. I mean, we cannae die natural deaths. We can be killed by violence. That’s what the Gunns do.”
Ree frowned, then clos
ed her eyes and shook her head. “Are you…are you telling me you’ve been alive for three thousand years?”
“Actually, about seven thousand years, but that’s by the by,” he replied. “We cannae get sick. We dinnae age. We keep living until somebody comes along and kills us. We used to be the greatest race on the planet. Then the Gunns arose, and they set about getting rid of us. They’ve very nearly succeeded. Now there are only about a thousand of us left all over the world.”
“Are you telling me you are—what do you call it…?”
“Immortal, Ree. We’re immortal.”
“Are the Gunns immortal too?” she asked.
“No, they aren’t,” he replied. “They’re just as human as everybody else, but they have a secret society handed down from one generation to the next, dedicated to ridding the world of us once and for all. That’s why they’re here in Scotland, to stop us.”
She stared down at her hands in her lap. “That’s what Malcolm said.”
“So now ye ken, Ree,” he said. “Ye ken as much about me as I ken about ye.”
She raised her eyes to his face. “You’re nuts. You know that, don’t you? Do you really expect me to believe you can’t die and that you’ve been alive for thousands of years?”
“How do you explain it?” he asked. “You were talking to me in 2018, and now ye’re talking to me here. Ye’ve seen yerself that I’m the same man.”
She shook her head. “String theory being real I can accept, but immortality? It’s impossible.”
Niall stood and went to the window. “It started in ancient Phoenicia,” he told her, gazing out to sea. “Our people were around a lot longer than that, but that’s where we reached the height of our power. We kept slaves—a certain race known as Falisa. It means gold. I don’t know what they’re original name for themselves was. They mounted a rebellion against us. We quelled it and exterminated the ringleaders. We always dealt with insurrection in the harshest manner possible. That was the only way we could keep power.”
She snorted, her hand on her forehead.
He spun to face her, his eyes narrowed. “The few that were left fled to India,” he went on. “We thought nothing further of the matter, but they handed down the stories from one generation to the next, keeping their vendetta alive. Somewhere along the way, they came up with some herbal concoction, a poison, to dump in our water. Dinnae ask me how they found it. Some witchdoctor must have given it to them. Eight hundred years ago, a few men snuck into our territory and dumped it into the water supply, then disappeared before we ever kenned what was afoot. The next thing we kenned, a deadly disease had swept the country. It wiped out all our females in one stroke, leaving only the men alive.”
Ree stared at him with wide eyes. “Are you saying you’ve been only men all this time?”
“It broke our power, and our civilization collapsed. We scattered to the four winds, and we’ve been bent on finding the solution ever since.”
“What solution?” she asked.
“Finding women to increase our numbers,” he replied.
Ree jumped up and whirled away, waving her hands in the air. “Whoa, whoa. Are you telling me you’re trying to…? Whoa! No way! You can’t be thinking of… What exactly are you suggesting?” she rambled, pacing quickly around the cabin.
“I’m no’ suggesting anything,” he countered. “We’ve been searching all these centuries for a potion to turn human women into immortals like ourselves. We cannae reproduce with human women. Meanwhile, the Gunns keep hunting us down. They ken they can kill us if they try, and they’ve done a bloody good job of it so far. I suppose in three hundred years, our numbers will be even fewer. We must find the potion soon, or we’ll die out completely.”
Ree stopped in the middle of the room, rested her hands on her hips, and glared at him. “So what are you telling me? You’re looking for a potion to turn human women into immortals so you can…breed with them.”
“Not just any potion,” he replied, stepping toward her with eager eyes. “There is a specific concoction known as the Cipher’s Kiss. While the Gunns go about hunting us down and wiping us out, they’re trying to find the recipe to stop it from falling into our hands. Wheesht! Maybe they already have the potion and keep it hidden from us. I dinnae ken. They know as long as they can keep it away from us, we’re doomed.”
“So you sent me back in time to help you?” she asked. “How exactly is that supposed to work?”
“I have no idea why I sent you back in time.” He chuckled. “I only wish I kenned.”
“Well, I can’t help you. This is the craziest tale I’ve ever heard.”
Niall waved to the chair across from him. “Sit down, Ree. Please.”
She eyed him from across the cabin. Even when she capitulated and sat down, she held her distance. She didn’t trust him, and she didn’t want to believe him. That was okay. He could live with that. At least he’d gotten it out into the open. Now they both knew where they stood.
Chapter 6
Ree surveyed the man in front of her. No doubt could remain that this really was the same Ned Lewis she’d met back home, but she couldn’t begin to comprehend the story he’d just told her. How could he or anybody else be immortal?
He was right about one thing, though. No other explanation made sense. He was just as alive and young and hearty in 2018 as he was in 1740. How could that be possible if he wasn’t immortal?
One other minor detail nagged at her mind. Ned sent her back in time because she was a chemist, to make her help his people find and formulate the Cipher’s Kiss. It was why he’d wanted to work for her company in the first place. He’d manipulated her professionally and then gone in for the personal kill too. He hadn’t really cared about her at all. He just wanted her as a chemist—nothing more. Her heart spasmed at the thought. She was nothing more than a means to an end. At least accepting that Ned hadn’t been attracted to her left her no worse off than before she’d met him.
Her mind drifted back to the village. The carnage. The slaughter. The horror of it all still plagued her. She prayed Malcolm and Cora somehow survived, but highly doubted it. Her heart sank at the thought of their demise. But whether dead or alive, Malcolm Gunn must have known the whole story. He knew the Lewises were immortal, and his Falisa society wanted to annihilate them once and for all. He knew all about the Cipher’s Kiss, and she’d told him Ned had sent her here for some reason. If he had survived the village onslaught, he would put the puzzle pieces together before long, regardless of whether she informed him of Ned’s activities. Maybe he’d already figured it out and was only waiting to see which side she supported.
Ned went back and forth between gazing out the window and looking at her. He’d told her where he came from and explained how he could be in the past and the present at the same time. Now what was she supposed to do? Should she help him? Should she pretend to help him?
Malcolm could have been the only one to send her back to her own time. She’d have to find out if Malcolm was still alive and pray that he was. But first, she’d have to deal with Ned.
She went over her conversation with him. She hadn’t been asking him about the Lewises when he clammed up and cut her off. She’d been asking him about himself—where he came from, where he grew up—that sort of thing.
As if in answer to her thoughts, Ned spoke in an undertone, almost as though he was speaking to himself. “Did you ken the name Gunn comes from the Runic language of Northern Europe? It means the Prize. Isn’t that poetic? They took that name for their mission. Their prize is exterminating us. They win when the last of us dies a painful death.”
“So is all of Clan Gunn part of this society?” she asked.
“Aye,” he replied. “They keep increasing their numbers while we dwindle away to nothing. They took wives and husbands and had children. Then they inducted their children into the Falisa too. That’s how they hand it down to the next generation. They ensure all their members care as much about accomplishing t
heir mission as the original rebels did. All of Clan Gunn is part of it, and they’ll never quit until they succeed.”
Ree let out a heavy sigh, and her chin fell to her chest. She wanted to hold this man at a distance but couldn’t. Even if all her hopes lay in pieces at her feet, she couldn’t leave him helpless. No one deserved to watch their people be destroyed for some ancient curse.
She could help these men, but should she? How did she know who was right and who was wrong? These immortals had done some nasty things to the Gunns, and now the Gunns were doing nasty things to them. And was it all really just vendetta, or were these immortals a continued threat to mortals? Having just barely accepted that immortality was possible, she’d not even begun to consider the ramifications.
“Just tell me one thing,” she asked, brows raised. “What do you call yourselves? What’s your real name for yourselves?”
Niall gave her a serious stare. “We’re called the Kin of Angui. It means the spider, because we have our web all over the world. That’s what we call our race, and my real name is Dagar Lumani, but ye dinnae have to call me that if ye dinnae want to.”
She bit back a smile. “Ned’s easier to say.”
His gaze snapped to her face, then he broke into the glorious smile that had melted her heart in the first place. “Ye can call me whatever ye like.”
“Ned it is, then.”
Ned nodded and headed back toward the window. “There’s one thing I cannae figure out, though,” he remarked.
“What’s that?”
“If ye’re right,” he said, gazing out of the window, “and I sent ye back on that spell, then the question is where I learned it. I certainly didnae learn it from the Gunns.”
Ree blinked. “Where else could you have learned it?”
“From ye,” he replied, turning to face her. “Ye must have told it to me.”
“What?”
“If ye dinnae teach me the spell, I’ll no’ be able to send ye back,” he pointed. “Ye must have taught me that spell so I could send ye back.”
Pirates of the Angui (Cipher's Kiss Book 1): A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance Page 5
