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.”
“Then wear your second favorite,” Rory said, exasperated. “I swear you’re worse than Jewel sometimes.”
Jewel was Kenneth’s daughter. She’d been born with unlimited power, and she used it as any toddler would—to force everyone into playing tea party and princess fashion show with her. Like all the men in his family, Rory knew he’d been blessed with a handsome face. However, he wasn’t sure any person could look good impersonating a cake topper in giant petticoats and chafing taffeta.
“Don’t make me regret saving ya,” Raibeart warned. “That Jewel is a blessing.”
Rory kneeled beside the woman and slipped his arms under her. She moaned as he lifted her from the ground. “Which way back to the manor?”
Raibeart had a horrible sense of direction, so Rory fully intended to walk the opposite way.
“We can’t take her to the manor.” Raibeart shuffled his feet back and forth, thrusting the knife into the air at an imaginary foe. “Your ma and Margareta won’t like ya bringing trouble into the house. They just refinished the floors after someone let the gremians in.”
“That was ya who let the gremians in,” Rory said.
“Aye, and they weren’t happy about it,” Raibeart maintained.
“We can’t leave her here.” Rory shifted her in his arms. “Do ya see a purse anywhere? Maybe she has a wallet with her address. With luck, she’ll think tonight was a weird dream.”
Raibeart dipped to look underneath her body as he searched the area. He picked up a rolled black cloth and dug inside. “Got an apron.”
“What’s in it?”
“Pen. Notepad with an order for six hamburgers. Wad of cash. Mostly ones.” Raibeart put everything back into the apron and rolled it up. “No ID. No phone.” He deposited the apron onto the woman’s stomach. “I could go for six hamburgers. Ya hungry? You’re buying.”
“We can’t leave her out here. I’ll take her to the motel. Maura will let me use one of the rooms.” Rory’s sister and brother had recently purchased the local motel. Ironically, the last owner had named Hotel in the misguided hope that it would trick people into thinking it was classier than it was. Whenever the MacGregors moved to a new town, they intended to buy up as many
