by Nina Croft
From the expression on his face, he was happy to see her. For all of about ten seconds. Then he was furious. And finally, he was worried, a frown drawing his brows together. Aw.
Fergus was slower to lower his weapon. He probably still blamed her for everything that had happened, and maybe he was right. If they hadn’t come after the Conclave, would any of this have happened? But they had, and she wouldn’t change it, even if she could.
First things first. She took a deep breath. “I love you.”
There, she’d said it. For a second, all expression was wiped from his eyes. Then there was a blaze of something—happiness? He took a step toward her. “I love you, too.”
“Shit,” Fergus muttered in a disgusted tone. “I feel like I’ve been transported to some shitty, crappy romance movie. Get a grip, people.”
Sadie ignored him. Just one kiss, and then they’d get back to business. She closed the space between them, stood on tiptoes, and kissed him. It was meant to be brief, but his hands gripped her shoulders, pulling her against him, and he took her mouth in a fierce kiss that went on forever. Finally, she had to come up for air. She pulled back, cupped his cheek. “I love you,” she said again. She was so brave.
“I knew. I just didn’t think it was enough.” He sighed. “You shouldn’t be here.” He stepped back, studied her, and his hand came out and touched the reflector device. “What’s going on?”
“Christa thinks it might block whoever it is from honing in on me.”
A wave of tiredness washed over her. Important stuff was done, and she felt wobbly. She’d told him she loved him. Once, she’d vowed never to say that to anyone. But it felt as though a weight had been lifted from her. Whatever happened, she was glad.
“So you can’t read my mind with that thing on?” Fergus asked.
“Why? Do you have some deep inner thoughts you want to share, Fergus?”
“Hah.”
“But no, I can’t read your mind with this on. So go ahead, release your inner thoughts.” She gave a small smile. “I know you’re jealous because Ethan loves me more than you.”
His lips twitched.
“Bloody hell,” she said. “Fergus has a sense of humor, after all.”
“Not a lot to laugh about at the moment,” he said.
No. She took a seat on the sofa and closed her eyes for a minute, gathering her thoughts. She opened them as she felt someone come down next to her. Ethan. For a minute, she allowed herself to stare at him.
“Is your shoulder okay?” she asked.
“Yes. Healing nicely.” He lifted it in an exaggerated shrug. “And working fine.”
“Good. And where’s Kaitlin?” She looked around the room, as if she might be hiding somewhere.
“Gone. She thought, in view of the whole potential ‘honing in’ thing, that she’d be better off away from the city. I gave her a shitload of money and a contact where she can get paperwork. She says she’s off to see the world.”
“God help the world.” But a smile tugged at her lips. “It will do her good.”
“You think she’ll be okay on her own?”
“She’s tough, and she’s bright. And it’s not as though she won’t be aware of anybody with bad intentions.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Actually, it’s the other people I worry about. She seems okay on the surface, but there’s a lot of anger bubbling away underneath.”
“I know. So does she. That’s why she wanted to get away. Get some space. Work it out.”
“She’s the best of the lot of us. She’ll be fine.” Unlike the rest of them. “What’s been happening? What’s the plan? Is there a plan?”
“So far, Lauren has been acting as though everything is fine. She’s backing my leadership, but Fergus believes she’s up to something. He accepted her offer. Told her he believes I’ve lost the plot.”
She turned her attention to Fergus. “Does she believe you?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe not. I don’t think she’s telling me everything.”
“In a week’s time, there will be a wake for my father,” Ethan said. “At his estate in Scotland. They’ll all be there. I plan to take out the four hereditary leaders.”
“Will that be enough?”
“I believe so. But I’m also setting the files to self-destruct almost simultaneously. I can’t do anything beforehand, in case someone picks up the activity and puts them on their guard. That will cut the ties to the assets and also freeze most of the monies. The remaining members will be in chaos. There are protocols in place for when one of the leaders dies—passing things on to the new leader. But there’s nothing to cover the possibility that they all go down together.”
“Are you okay with this?” she asked, searching his face. She’d gotten so used to reading his mind. Now she had to try and read his expression, and he was a master at hiding his thoughts.
“It has to be done. Three of them are truly evil. The other, not so much. But for it to work, for the whole thing to come down, they all have to die.”
“Collateral damage?”
“Hopefully very little.”
“And you?” The place would be packed, with guards as well as mourners. No way would he calmly shoot four people and walk away.
“I’m hoping to slip away in the chaos. Fergus is setting up a few tricks. Fake explosions. Gas bombs. Anything we can think of that will cause confusion.”
It wasn’t enough.
But they had a week. Maybe they’d come up with something.
“I have to get back,” Fergus said. “I managed to slip away, but they’re watching me.”
“How’s Max?” she asked as he turned away.
“He’s a pain in the ass.”
She grinned as the door slammed behind him. Then she turned to Ethan and the grin faded. “Alone at last.”
“I thought I might never see you again,” he said. “What changed your mind?”
She thought about whether to tell him. What to tell him. But she’d cleared it with Jake. No more lies. “Do you want to sit back and relax?”
“Why? Am I going to need to?”
“Maybe.” She thought about it. “Probably. Okay, definitely.”
“Now I am intrigued.” But he relaxed back in the seat, turning his head so he could watch her. A smile tugged at his lips. “I can’t believe you’re here. Part of me doesn’t want you here. But most of me…just can’t believe it.” He blew out his breath. “So talk.”
Hmm? Where to begin?
“When we broke away from our government controllers nine months ago, our major aim was to find out where we came from. Jake believed that only by understanding that, could we gain leverage to stay free and move on.”
“And what did you find?”
“Not a lot, at first. For three months, all we had to go on was an article about a Caucasian tribe being found in the Mountains of the Moon over a hundred years ago.”
“Malcolm Rayleigh? I found the article.”
“Yes. Kane put us onto it. Kaitlin had been contacted by him before we broke out. He’d sensed Sam’s distress and offered to help, but only if we got away. But afterward, we could find no sign of him. Then some of us were captured and everything went to shit. Jake kidnapped the colonel’s daughter, people started dying—anyone who had any connection with us. It seemed like someone was trying to wipe out any knowledge of us.”
“Kane?”
“Yes. He’d infiltrated the Conclave. Through the colonel, he got information on the next person up the line and so on, to a General Webber. He used Webber to eliminate our contacts. He tried to kill the colonel and Christa and failed. We eventually went after him. Traced him to Uganda and had a showdown.”
“But you obviously came to some sort of agreement. You’re working with him now.”
“Jake nearly killed him, but at the last moment, he couldn’t do it. Jake’s a good man. He wanted to find a better way. And Christa had come up with some information. Obviousl
y, Kane was trying to keep everything quiet. She set it up so if anything happened to us, all this information would be made public.”
“What was the information?”
This was where things got a little unbelievable. “Christa is a geneticist. She was working on a longevity project funded by the Conclave. But she was also doing her own research—apparently our DNA is fascinating.”
“I bet it is.”
“So anyway, she reckons—and she spouts all this complicated stuff about phylogenic trees as proof—that the original tribe actually came from the future, not the past.”
“What? Say that again.”
“She explained it to me, but honestly I didn’t really understand. Something about us being the leaves and not different branches. Our DNA has modern markers that it wouldn’t have if we’d been isolated for so long, which was the original theory.”
“So she thinks you came from the future?” He sounded skeptical, but really, who wouldn’t?
“Not us, but the ancestors of the original tribe.”
“How?”
“Good question. And I’m getting there. When she confronted Kane with this theory, he didn’t seem surprised. Then he took us to this cave where there’s a machine. According to Kane, it’s been there as long as he remembers and he’s a hundred and fifty or so.”
“I saw the cave. One of your people was guarding it.”
“Yes. Kane’s people have guarded the cave and the machine for as long as his people’s memories go back—thousands of years.”
“And he thinks it’s a time machine?”
She nodded.
“Really? A time machine? And has he tried to use it?”
“That’s not allowed. They have all these legends and laws tied in with this mission they’re supposed to do, and one of them is—don’t touch the time machine.”
“Very convenient.”
“But don’t you see? It’s an actual machine. It looks a little like a rocket. There was nothing like that around in 1878. So where did it come from?”
“And you know for a fact it was there then?”
“Yes. I’ve seen into Kane’s mind. We can’t lie like that.”
“And you’ve seen the machine?”
“Again, yes. In fact, we persuaded Kane to investigate it a little. Christa tried to open it, but it just started this timer thing. A countdown, she thinks.”
“A countdown to what?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? The mysterious mission. All will be revealed when the time is right. Blah, blah, blah.”
“You don’t sound like you believe it.”
Did she?
“I was skeptical at the start. But Christa is convinced, and she’s the smartest person I know. And I’ve seen it and…I know it seems unbelievable but…”
“Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation is likely the correct one.” He rubbed his forehead. “But what does it all mean?”
“I have no clue. But there’s more. Sort of tied in, but not.”
“Are you getting all the shocks over in one go?”
“I guess.” She took a deep breath. “I can see the future.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“Just bits and I have no control. But I saw you, before we met. I’d been dreaming of you for months before that night at Forrester’s.”
“What was I doing in these dreams?”
She looked him in the eye. “You told me you loved me. We made love. Over and over. I thought you were safe. My dream lover. Something I could have that wouldn’t be taken away. And then, there you were. One of the bad guys. I was supposed to kill you.”
“A shock.”
“Totally.”
“What else have you seen?”
“Not a lot. That night before the party, I had a vision. I saw everybody dead in the ballroom. But they weren’t dead, they were unconscious.”
“Scary.”
“Maybe. But I talked it over with Jake and Christa. If time travel is possible, maybe seeing the future isn’t so weird at all. And I don’t think they all come true. I don’t believe the future is set. Maybe I’m seeing possible futures. Maybe it’s some sort of racial memory. Then the night after you left…”
“You had a dream?”
“I dreamed we died.”
For a moment he was silent, and she wished she could get inside his head. She could see the turmoil in his eyes. “What? When? You said the future isn’t set. It might not happen.”
“You don’t understand. It was strange, bittersweet.” She swallowed as she remembered the vision, the feelings that had wrapped around her, engulfed her, warmed her. “We were lying on a mountain top, a vast, beautiful land all around us. The air was sweet with the scent of flowers. The sun was going down, and far away, two crimson moons were rising above the horizon.”
“Two?” He thought for a second. “We weren’t on Earth?”
“I don’t know where we were, but somewhere far, far away.” Distant in time as well as space. “You looked almost the same as you do now, but you were old, very old.” Thousands of years. “And we were tired, but happy, and we knew it was time to go. And we held hands. And you told me you loved me.” She’d woken up sobbing into Josie’s shoulder. Not sad, just melancholy and filled with the knowledge that everything must one day end. It didn’t have to be full of regrets. The lucky ones could choose when and where.
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Deep stuff. Anyway, I’m sort of hoping that one comes true because it means that at least, we’ll survive the next week or so.”
“That would be good.” He still appeared a little dazed. She had given him a lot to think about.
“Do you believe me?”
“I want to, but it sounds beyond unbelievable. Does it make a difference? The time travel, I mean. Can it help you find out who these people are? Why they want you dead?”
She’d thought about it a lot. Jake had sent her the video, and she’d watched it on the plane. She’d cast her mind back to that night at the party. Their clothes. Their weapons. And an idea had come to her. One she’d discounted as crazy but which wouldn’t leave her alone. “The ‘why’ I have no clue. But as for the who? This is going to sound crazy.”
“And what you’ve said so far doesn’t?”
She smiled. “I think they might be from the future.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kaitlin felt a pressure at the base of her skull as she climbed the steps to board the plane. She didn’t slow her pace, just kept walking, onto the plane, down the aisle. But as she slipped into her seat, she peered out through the small window at the airport below. Nothing.
The sensation increased as she fastened her seat belt.
Time to go.
It seemed to take forever for everyone to board, find their seats, and stow their luggage in the overhead lockers. All the while, the feeling grew stronger, as though something was trying to push into her brain.
She was being hunted.
Part of her wanted to run, get off the plane where she was trapped. But she forced herself to remain seated. This was her best bet of escaping whoever was closing in on her.
Or would be, if they would get moving.
Finally, everyone was seated. The engines rumbled to life, vibrating beneath her. They slowly started to move.
“Welcome to Flight 8164 to Malaga. Takeoff is in two minutes.”
She vaguely listened to the spiel over the speakers. They were going so slowly. She wanted to scream at them to hurry up. The pressure was building. Almost painful now.
She dipped into the head of the nearest steward—to check if everything was normal. There was nothing odd in there, just the usual crap, and she forced herself to breathe deeply.
At last they were accelerating. She looked out at the runway as they slowly lifted into the air. Was that someone in the distance, their concentration fixed on the plane?
She closed her eyes, blanked her mind, felt the pressure drain away.
>
By the time the plane leveled out, it was gone, vanished as though it had never been there. She was free. And thanks to Ethan’s generosity, she had new clothes, a new haircut, and a new name—Katy Prescott. And she was on her way to Spain for a little winter sunshine.
She sensed a mind focus on her somewhere behind her. She turned in her seat and glanced down the aisle. A young guy. She slipped inside his mind. He thought he recognized her, that she was a supermodel. Hah. She liked him.
His name was…Ryan. He was Australian and was taking a year off after university to visit Europe. He thought she was…gorgeous.
When the seat belt sign went off, she unfastened herself, got to her feet, and turned around. He was pretty gorgeous himself, with overlong dark blond hair, blue eyes, and a long, lanky body. He looked young, but maybe that’s what she needed. An image of Kane flashed in her mind, all long, lean muscle and golden skin. Dark blue eyes that had seen everything the world had to offer. She shook her head and dismissed the image.
No more hundred-and-fifty-year-old control freaks for Katy.
She was going to have fun with some people her own age.
So how did she do this? She decided whatever else she was going to be, Katy was not going to be shy. She was aware that one day, and not too far away, she would go back. The members of the Tribe were her family, the only home she had ever known, and she loved them.
But right now, she was going to have a little fun.
She closed the short space between them, leaned on the back of his seat, and smiled. “Hi, I’m Katy.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was one in the morning. Ethan had been waiting all day for Fergus to contact him—his father’s funeral was set for the day after tomorrow. Now at long last, the screen flickered to life and there he was. The bruises were just about gone, but his friend didn’t look happy.
“What’s happening?” Ethan asked.
“There’s something weird going on,” Fergus said. “I just don’t know what. But she’s too confident.”
Ethan sat back in his chair and considered the problem. Sadie had offered to try and get close to Lauren, read her mind, work out what the other woman was planning. But that wasn’t happening.
