“This coming from a man who forgets the women he’s asked to marry him,” Rory mumbled.
“Hey,” Raibeart pointed the knife tip at him to enunciate his words. “I have a plan.”
“Plan?” Rory’s hands and feet tingled. “Can that plan please include cutting me free? I am losing feeling in my limbs.”
“The woman I’m meant to be with will say aye to me,” Raibeart explained, even though Rory didn’t ask him to. “I had a conversation with Fate once and learned a few things. I’m playing my odds.”
“Sure. That sounds sane.” Rory couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his voice. “No way that could backfire on ya.”
“Ya would be wise to do the same,” Raibeart advised. “Only, maybe not this one. She doesn’t seem to like ya very much. But she’s pretty. I might ask her when she wakes up. I gave her quite a stun, so it might be a while before she can answer.”
“Aye, six or seven hours, ya said,” Rory said between gritted teeth. “I’m losing feeling in my manhood.”
“That can’t be too pleasant.” Raibeart gave a dramatic shiver. “Never liked constriction myself.”
“Cut me free. Now. Please, now.” Rory fought for consciousness. The world was beginning to feel a little wobbly. His head drooped forward.
He felt tiny vibrations as Raibeart began sawing at the rope with the blade. The pressure on his chest eased, and he was able to inhale deeply.
“Enough games. Which one of ya tied me up with enchanted rope and sent this woman after me?” Rory asked, keeping an eye on the unconscious woman. “The last thing I remember was drinking earlier with all of ya earlier tonight.”
“That was two days ago. Your ma has been worried about ya, laddie.” Raibeart sawed faster. “Ya went to take a shower after ya spilled your liquor and didn’t come back out. Since a man can only play with himself for so long, we decided we’d better check on ya. The water was running cold, and it looked like ya had just melted down the drain. I told them not to worry. Sometimes a man has to run free, but ya know how the chickens gobble.”
The grip around his body broke free. Rory leaned forward. The rope slithered from around him, releasing him so that he fell onto his hands and knees. He took several deep breaths, willing the blood to flow through his limbs. The sensation of pins and needles prickled in places he’d rather not have such an unpleasant feeling.
“I don’t know who the mystery date is, but she has good taste in knives. I haven’t seen a scian this pretty since we raided that stronghold. Ya know the one,” Raibeart said.
“Actually, no, I don’t.” Rory crawled a few steps to get a better look at the woman’s face.
“Sure ya do. The Saxons had us pinned,” Raibeart said. “And someone, I’m not saying who, bespelled their clothing to run away. It was a chilly march home that autumn.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rory said though the story sounded vaguely familiar. It seemed like something from his elders’ younger days.
“Were ya not there?” Raibeart shrugged. “It matters not. If we have to slay her, can I keep the scian for my collection?”
“We are not slaying anyone,” Rory denied.
The woman looked as if she’d been beaten. He had seen her eyes bruise, untouched by any physical hand. Magick was at play here, and that magick—for some unknown reason—wanted him dead.
But why?
Rory didn’t personally have a lot of enemies that he knew about. He usually left the supernatural hunting to his cousin Niall if he could help it. As a werewolf and a warlock, Niall’s temper was better suited to the lifestyle. Yes, the MacGregor family as a whole had enemies, but he wasn’t exactly the highest target on that list. If he had to fight, he would, but he saw no reason to seek out danger.
The town of Green Vallis had been built on powerful ley lines. It was that nexus of power that called out his family, but it also lured other supernaturals. Not all of them had honorable intentions. Could it be something new had come to town to threaten him and his family?
“Do ya think she’s a warlock hunter?” Rory asked, trying to make sense of the attack. “Do ya think someone is using her to get to us?”
“Us?” Raibeart shook his head. “She wasn’t trying to get me. The ladies love me.”
“Can ya turn off your Raibeartness for a moment and help me figure this out?” Rory insisted. “She almost killed me. I would think that would warrant a little concern on your part.”
“But she didn’t,” Raibeart dismissed as if it were no big deal. Rory had to wonder about his uncle sometimes. The family accepted that he was off, but lately, it had been getting worse. “Why would I worry? I told ya. I talked to Fate. This was not your time.”
“Fate told ya when I was going to die?” Rory asked. “And ya didn’t think that information was worth sharing?”
“Knowing when ya will perish is not a blessing,” Raibeart said. “It’s an expiration date ya spend your life marching toward. I would not wish that on anyone.”
“But knowing also gives people a chance to make sure their affairs are in order,” Rory countered. “When did this Lady Fate tell ya I was going to die?”
How could he not ask?
“Uh, let me think, seventeen…”
“The seventeenth of what?” Rory prompted. He stared at the woman’s chest, watching it rise and fall with breath. Relief filled him. She was alive, unconscious, but alive. Whatever quarrel she had with him, they had time to figure it out.
“Seventeen ninety-eight.” Raibeart gave a decisive nod. “That’s your date.”
“Fate told ya I was to die in seventeen ninety-eight?” Rory frowned at his uncle.
“Aye.”
“So I am going to die two hundred and twenty-some years in the past?”
“Aye.”
“So now we can time travel?”
“Not sure. It was Fate. I didn’t question her predictions,” Raibeart frowned. “That would have been rude.”
“Did fate happen to be buying drinks during happy hour?” Rory rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“So you’ve met her?” Raibeart grinned. “They didn’t call it happy hour back then, and I was doing the buying. It was the only way to get her to talk.”
This wasn’t the first time Raibeart received questionable information from a drunk at a bar. Fate was probably a buxom seventeenth-century prostitute named Brunhilda who’d found an easy mark in his rich uncle’s imagination.
“Materialize some clothes.” Rory stood. “We don’t want her waking up to two naked men standing over her.” He gestured his hand down his body, magickally calling forth a kilt to wrap around his hips. Thank goodness he had his magick back. That had been a strange feeling being so defenseless.
Raibeart stayed naked. “I zapped her good. She’s going to be out for a while.”
So he kept saying, but there was no guarantee.
“Raibeart, please,” Rory pleaded.
“The garden troll chewed holes through my favorite kilt,” he said. “I’m waiting for your ma to fix it.”