“I’m afraid Malcolm told the truth. I did fight him off. I…I didn’t really know what to do or which way to turn. He came at me like he wanted to hurt me!”
Cora blinked at her, then gazed out the window. “Never ye mind about that. Ye did what ye had to do, and now ye’re safe. I’m sure Malcolm will understand. A woman in difficulties is liable to do all sorts of things. Malcolm kens that.”
“I hope so,” Ree muttered.
“Now listen, lass,” Cora went on. “He’s to come and see ye about an hour from now. Ye must tell him all ye ken about the pirates.”
Ree’s head snapped up. “Malcolm…is here?”
“Aye,” Cora replied. “He’s to come and question ye about yer involvement with the pirates, and ye must tell him the whole truth. It’s the only way ye can convince not just us but the Major too, that ye’re no one of them. I dinnae think I have to tell ye what’ll happen if ye dinnae convince us.”
“No,” Ree murmured. “I know what will happen.”
Cora sat down next to her and laid her warm, withered old hand on Ree’s. “Would ye like to tell me instead, just as a warm-up, ye ken, before ye see Malcolm?”
“He told me a lot of things,” Ree replied. “Niall Lewis, I mean. He told me all about the Lewises being immortal, and about the Gunns hunting them down and wiping them out. He told me the whole story about how the war got started between your two peoples.”
Cora gave a sad smile and lowered her eyes. A drop of moisture glistened from the corner of her eyes.
“He also told me how you’re trying to stop them from getting the Cipher’s Kiss,” Ree went on. “He told me you’ll stop at nothing to prevent them from creating immortal women they can reproduce with.”
“Aye, lass,” Cora breathed. “That’s the size of it. Ye’ve done right well. Now there’s just one more detail ye need to understand. There must be a reason he sent ye here to help him with that mission.”
“Yes, I know why he sent me.”
“Do ye?” Cora asked. “What reason is that?”
“I’m trained in chemistry,” Ree replied. “He must have thought I could help him concoct the mixture once he found the recipe.”
Cora’s eyes shone. “Good, lass. That’s the way. We’re yer friends, and we’ll no put ye wrong. Ye can count on us to protect ye from those marauders.”
Ree looked down at her hands. She couldn’t tell this kindly old lady that she never needed protection from Ned. Cora would never believe Ree could feel this way about a common pirate. Nothing would call Ree’s allegiance into question more than that, so she kept it to herself.
A small noise near the bedroom door made Ree turn around, and there stood Malcolm. She gasped. How long had he been standing there?
Cora stood up. “I’ll leave ye two alone to talk it over. I’ll see ye later, lass.” She left the room.
Ree leveled her most malicious glare at Malcolm. “You sent her in here to milk me for information, didn’t you? You knew I would talk more easily to her than to you, so you eavesdropped on our conversation rather than questioning me yourself. Don’t deny it.”
“I dinnae have to deny it. Ye just said so yerself.” Malcolm strode into the room. “So ye have some knowledge of alchemy. Dagar Lumani must prize ye highly. I dinnae ken why he dumped ye here, if that’s true.”
“He doesn’t prize me highly,” Ree shot back. “I’m just a tool to him. He obviously wanted to use my twenty-first-century knowledge here. He must have known I have information this century has never even thought of.”
“Then why did he dump ye here?” Malcolm asked. “That makes no sense.”
“You know that perfectly well,” Ree countered. “You’re interrogating me, the same way you interrogated me in the village. You blew a hole in the Prometheus and almost sank her with everyone on board, including me. They had to get the ship fixed.”
He turned around to confront her.
How she hated him at that moment! She never had a mortal enemy before today. Now she knew what it was like to hate someone to the point of wanting to kill them. She should have slit his throat when she pinned him to the cabin wall with his own saber. But where were these strange and very strong feelings, urges, coming from?
“So where did they go to get the ship fixed?” he asked.
“He said he was going to the fjords of Norway,” she replied. “He said he knew someone there who could do it. He knew you were looking for him here.”
“Am I supposed to believe that story?” he asked. “How do I ken ye’re no’ trying to protect him the same way ye protected him on board his ship?”
Ree jutted out her chin. “I did not protect him. I was merely protecting myself in case he attacked me.”
Malcolm eyed her suspiciously. Ree fixed a sincere gaze on him, urging him to question himself.
“Now, if you keep searching for him around Scotland, you’ll never find him,” Ree said in a confident tone. “He’ll have a clear run all the way to Norway, and he’ll come back with a ship that can fight you. Even if you do believe me, you’ll never catch him before he gets to Norway. He’s too far ahead of you. He beat you. Admit it.”
Instead of getting angry, Malcolm’s mouth twisted up in a wicked grin. “That’s what I thought. Ye care for him as much as he cares for ye. As long as ye’re here, he’ll come back for ye. All we have to do is wait, and when the Prometheus comes back to Aberdeen, we’ll be waiting.”
Ree stared up at him in horror. He’d trapped her, just like that. He cornered her into admitting she really wanted Ned to get away. If he didn’t know before, now he knew for certain whose side she was on. He would use her as bait to trap Ned and lure him to his destruction.
Malcolm turned to walk out the door. He got as far as the end of the bed before Ree rocketed to her feet and whipped around to face him. “So what are you going to do with me? Are you going to keep me locked up in this room for the next six months until he comes back?”
“We winnae keep ye prisoner,” he returned. “Ye’re free to come and go. Ye can walk about the streets as ye wish, so long as ye dinnae leave Aberdeen.”
“How will you stop me?” she asked.
“I’ll have ye followed,” he replied.
“Just like that?”
“Aye. Just like that,” he replied. “I dinnae mind telling ye, just so ye dinnae try anything foolish in the process. Ye’ll never see the men following ye, but they’ll be there nonetheless. If they can track the Lewises, I think they can handle a wee lassie like ye. Am I right?” He headed for the door again.
Ree’s mind went into a tailspin. This was all too much for her puny comprehension to cope with. She had to find a way out of this. She had to find a way to send Ned some kind of warning that the Gunns were waiting to ambush him when he came back for her.
“Malcolm, wait!” she cried.
He turned his bemused eyes on her. A delicate smile played on his lips, a smile of triumph and smug satisfaction. “Aye, lass?”
She let out a shaky breath. “I want to thank you for what you did for me back in the village. I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful to you for rescuing me. I regret attacking you the way I did on the Prometheus. I was still confused and thought you were trying to kill me.”
His eyebrow went up ever so slightly, but he recovered in an instant. “If that’s true, lass, then I expect ye to spend yer time in Aberdeen helping us bring these pirates to justice. If ye can do that, I may see me way to forgive ye for permanently damaging me shoulder.” He strode out of the room.
Ree sank down on the bed. What was she thinking, trying to butter up a shark like him? She already blew it by showing her hand. He knew how she felt about Ned, even if her feelings weren’t as clear to her. He had her exactly where he wanted her. She would be playing with fire to make him anything but her sworn enemy. She couldn’t use her body or her charms—whatever they were—to undermine him. That would be sinking too low, even for a desperate situation like this.
She sat on the bed and stared out the window at the bustling metropolis of Aberdeen. She couldn’t just sit here and wait for these wolves to destroy Ned and all his people. She had to act. Malcolm said she was free to explore the city. She just might be able to accomplish something. Ned wouldn’t come back for weeks, maybe even months, which gave Ree plenty of time to find out anything she could about the Gunns, their objective, and whatever resources they possessed to threaten the Lewises. Heck, she didn’t even have to guess at their resources. The Lewises were pirates, and the Gunns had the British Army on their side. They had influence over Major Kirk and the whole garrison. What did Ned have besides a ship loaded with a couple hundred men? They wouldn’t stand a chance.
The same could be said for the Lewises camped on McLeod land out on the Isle of Lewis. Just calling them Lewis was a joke. They weren’t Lewis. They were Angui, but the locals didn’t know that.
The McLeods had complained loudly enough to attract the Gunns, and it was only a matter of time before the Redcoats moved in to quell any unrest. The British wouldn’t stand by and let some interlopers cause trouble on another Clan’s land.
Ree might question her own loyalties—might not know which side her bread was buttered on—but she did know one thing. She had to help Ned. She might not care one way or the other who triumphed in this sordid little war between the Falisa and the Angui, but she couldn’t deny that she cared about Ned.
He needed the Cipher’s Kiss. She was free on the streets of Aberdeen. She might be able to find something that would be useful to him. That thought gave her some peace of mind. At least she had a purpose now.
Chapter 15
Ned woke long before dawn. He huddled shivering in the crack and watched the sky lighten. Thousands of images from his life paraded before his eyes. He relived them all in vivid detail.
What was the point of living forever without the people you cared about? He’d thought that same thought so many times in his life, and he always came back to the same conclusion. Much as he would like to hide away in this crack for the rest of his natural existence, he had to go back to the people he cared about. He loved his men like his own brothers. They’d spent centuries together. They’d protected each other and nursed each other’s wounds. He’d watched them bleed and starve and die. He would give anything for them.
Then he flashed back to the early days of his life when he lived in luxury with his wife and children. The whole world served his beck and call. He commanded untold wealth and power. He ruled whole continents. The world spread its riches at his feet, and he’d never even noticed. Then came the day he’d lost it all, and everything had gone downhill from there. Now he was an outlaw, wanted by many and hated by all. If humanity ever found out about the war between the Angui and the Falisa, whose side did he really think the humans would take?
They would never allow the immortals to rule them again. They would join with the Gunns to wipe out every last immortal on the planet. They would hunt them into cracks and crevices. They would send in dogs to drag them out, and they would decapitate them the same way the Gunns always did.
That thought alone drove Ned into the open. He wouldn’t die like a rat in a hole. He would go down fighting, especially now that he held a piece of the puzzle in his sporran.
He crawled to the mouth of the crack and looked down. Of course there was no one there. The sea breathed against the rocks and left its foaming curtains shimmering in the tidal pools.
Ned studied the cliff face. He couldn’t get down that way. He would have to climb up, even if it meant being seen by someone. The sooner he got it over with, the less likely some random passerby would report him to the Gunns.
He groped for a handhold and eased himself out onto the cliff face. Once he got all four limbs secured, he started climbing. He scrambled up into a meadow damp with early morning dew and then made all haste back to the beach, where he found a fisherman heading over to Flotta. The man asked for no explanation, and Ned didn’t offer one. As the fishing boat reached the shore, Ned climbed out and raced across the island. He slowed his steps when he got closer to the inlet where he’d left the Prometheus and her crew. He hid behind a low hill and studied the surroundings before he showed himself. He had to ensure he wasn’t followed.
Peeking over the hilltop, he was relieved to see men bustling about all over the ship. Norris marched among them, bare-chested as always, pointing and issuing orders. The men lifted planks into place, and the hammer of tools echoed across the water. All appeared to be in order. Gilias and a few others stood nearby in deep discussion. No doubt they were deciding what to do about Ned’s disappearance. He couldn’t allow that to continue.
He stood up behind the hilltop so they wouldn’t see him, brushed off his clothes, and combed back his hair before he set off for the ship.
Gilias and Duncan whipped around to stare at him when he approached.
“The devil, man!” Gilias thundered. “Where in heaven’s name have ye been all night? We’ve been worried half to death.”
“I just went into town to have a look around,” Ned returned. “Ye needn’t assign me to the grave before me time.” He walked past them on his way to review the repairs.
Gilias rushed to catch up with him. “Ye went into town? Have ye taken leave of yer senses? Do ye ken what could have happened?”
“I ken what could have happened,” Ned replied. “I ken it better than you do, I’ll wager. I’m back now, though, and all’s well. How long before we can put her afloat again?”
“Norris says sunset today,” Duncan replied.
“Excellent,” Ned exclaimed. “I kenned he wouldn’t put us wrong.”
Gilias cocked his head to one side. “Are ye sure ye didnae get recognized in town? Are ye sure no one followed ye back here?”
Ned looked away. “Well, even if they did, it’s neither here nor there.”
“It’s either here or there,” Gilias fired back. “That’s the last thing we need with a ship out of water and the hull in pieces. If they come attacking us here…”
“They winnae come attacking us here,” Ned returned, though he put only half a heart into it. He didn’t want to hear his friend and first mate voice the same misgivings that plagued him.
“I dinnae care what ye say,” Gilias snarled. “I’m arming the lads to defend the ship if they do come.”
Anger bolted through Ned’s chest. He spun toward Gilias to put him in his place, but was stopped by Duncan’s frown. That expression was enough to melt Ned’s heated anger. Ned’s shouldered slumped and he released a sigh. He’d messed up. All these men could pay for his mistake if the Gunns found out the Prometheus was here.
Gilias bellowed to the men, and the activity took a different turn. Some of the crew who worked with Norris broke off, climbed aboard the ship, and started bringing weapons up from the hold. Gilias marched back and forth, organizing the men into watches. One watch would guard the perimeter of the inlet in case the Gunns attacked. Another watch would work with Norris to repair the ship, but they would keep their weapons handy to repel any incursion. The third and final watch would remain inside the ship. They would eat and sleep and rest while the others worked.
Ned didn’t argue with any of these preparations. Gilias had taken over as captain while he was gone and the men obeyed him to the letter. Ned stood back and let them carry out his plan. He caused this problem. He didn’t want to make it worse by throwing Gilias’s authority into question just when the men needed it most.
He could hope and pray he got away clean, but Gilias was right. The Gunns would never quit until they found out where Ned went. He couldn’t just vanish into thin air. They knew he was on the island, and he couldn’t get off of it without a boat. They would search their own island, and when they didn’t find him, they would question the boatmen on the shore. They would turn up the man who carried Ned to Flotta and then search that island too.
Adrenaline burned his guts as he thought the situation
over. If he and his men could get the Prometheus afloat and out into the ocean before the Gunns found out they were here, so much the better. Otherwise, there would be blood on this beach. The Lewises might never escape.
He climbed on board and went to his cabin. How lonely and dreary and cold it felt now that Ree was gone. He never wanted to see that cabin again. He poured himself a whiskey and tossed it down. He wanted to get very, very drunk and forget all his problems.
He wasn’t captain anymore. He never wanted to be captain again. Let Gilias take over. He took another shot from the bottle and left the cabin. Everything about the ship disgusted him now. The lower deck reminded him of Ree’s fight against Malcolm. The poop reminded him of the time Ree talked to him there.
He climbed back down to the ground and went for a walk. He walked back and forth across the fields so he wouldn’t see or know anything about the ship, and stayed out there until the sun went down. Birds winged over the fields, and insects popped in the grass around his feet. The sky darkened, and the stars came out, but he still didn’t return to the inlet. With any luck, the men would repair the ship and put to sea, leaving him behind. He alone would meet the Gunns when they came. They would wipe him out and…
Ned’s head whipped around. That was it! That was the answer he sought. He hurried back over the fields to the inlet, but before he got there, he spotted a black line crossing the horizon. It resembled a troupe of ants marching between blades of grass. His hand migrated to his saber, but he had to think. He had to execute his plan before it was too late.
He raced back to the inlet to find five men manning the windlass hooked up to the ship’s prow. Norris was nowhere in sight. That could mean only one thing. The ship was repaired, and the men were preparing to launch her.
Pirates of the Angui (Cipher's Kiss Book 1): A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance Page 12
