“I couldn’t tell you who I was until I knew who you were.”
“Who else could I be?”
Ah, but there were so many choices.
“Did all this happen near here?”
“Aye. By the old burnt-out farmhouse.”
“Samuel’s farmhouse? That’s just through the woods. Did you meet Samuel?”
“No. The house had already burned down.”
“Where did you stay? You had to sleep.”
“I got work on a horse farm a few miles away, so Druan wouldn’t notice me.”
“Not notice you? Wearing a kilt on a farm in America?”
“I didn’t wear the kilt here, only on the ship.”
“You had it on in the time vault.”
“I’d ripped my trousers the night before, tracking those halflings. The kilt was all I had clean. By then, it didn’t matter. I was going to suspend Druan and go home.”
“Suspend? Put him in the time vault?”
“It’s easier said than done, but aye.”
“What do you do with the time vault then?”
“It’s complicated.”
She stared at him, but let it go. “Is everyone in your clan a warrior?”
“Not all. The duty is handed down from father to son, on the son’s eighteenth birthday, but we’re always preparing, even as lads. At eighteen we enter formal training. After a year we go into battle. An older warrior fights alongside us for the first year. We’re released from duty at twenty-eight, unless we choose to remain.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.” Or a hundred and seventy-eight. “I was put in the time vault in 1860. August 1860.”
“Just before the war,” she mumbled.
The war. His stomach twisted.
“That’s one hundred and fifty-one years. The book said one hundred and fifty. Why didn’t someone wake you last year?”
“My clan probably thinks I’m dead.”
“What about the women? Do they hunt demons?”
“You can’t be serious. Females don’t fight demons.” They kept the home fires burning.
“So if I wanted to hunt demons, I couldn’t, because I’m a girl?” Bree scowled and crossed her arms, covering her breasts.
“Why would a lass want to hunt demons?” The notion was laughable, but he didn’t dare do it with her scowling like that.
“For the same reason a man would. You act like women aren’t as good as men.”
“If anything, they’re better. That’s why they need to be protected—”
“I don’t want your protection. I want your respect.”
“You remind me of Alana.” Except she was perfectly content not hunting demons.
“Alana? Your wife?”
“My sister.”
“Your sister?” Bree sounded relieved, then sad. “How old was she?”
“Thirteen.”
A wistful look clouded her face. “I had a sister. A twin. She died.”
“I’m sorry.” Would she have been as reckless as Bree if she’d lived? As beautiful?
“You weren’t married?”
“No. We don’t usually marry until we’re finished with our duty. Females are a distraction. We’ve enough to worry about as is.”
“How old were your brothers?”
“Ian was twenty-five. Tavis was twenty-six.”
“Why do you think they didn’t come?”
“A battle, the weather. I’ll never know.”
Her eyes filled with sympathy. “It must have been terrible for your family, wondering what happened to you,
