“Louis!” she gasped. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
He seized her by the shoulders in an iron grip and, keeping his voice to a low rumble, spat, “I dinnae ken who ye are, and I dinnae care. Dinnae call me by that name here, or I’ll break yer neck where ye stand. Do ye hear?”
Her eyes popped wide open. “What’s the matter? You’re Louis Kirk, aren’t you?”
Louis glanced around once. Whoever this woman was, he couldn’t have her blaring his name to the four winds. He wrenched her arm and hustled her into the trees. He rounded on her, foaming in smoldering rage. “Who are ye? What do ye want with me?”
“Louis!” she panted. “My name is Ellen Burke. I’m…I’m a friend of Ree Hamilton and…” She thought hard trying to remember everything at once. “I’m a friend of Ree Hamilton, and Niall Lewis, and Malcolm Gunn and…and you. You know those names, don’t you?”
He glared at her in alarm. What in the name of God was going on here? His fingers clenched so tightly on her arm that she winced in pain. “Ye better start talking, and fast. How do you know those names? Tell me quick, or I swear before God, I’ll do something ye’ll no’ like at all.”
“Please listen to me, Louis,” she blurted out. “It’s all true. Ned…I mean Niall Lewis…he sent Ree Hamilton here from the future to help him find the Cipher’s Kiss. You met her at the garrison. He and Malcolm and you sent me here too. I have to warn you. The Falisa know about you, and they know about Malcolm. They sent someone here from Orkney to assassinate you both. They knew you would both be here at the Aberdeen garrison at the same time, and I—”
He gritted his teeth, and volcanic fury boiled out of him until he couldn’t stop it. How dare she? He bent close to her eyes and hit her hard with the words. “I dinnae believe ye. Ye’re trying to trick me somehow.”
She closed her eyes. Her ragged breath shuddered through her lithe frame. She gathered herself to try again. “Urikki. Urikki Dragusha.”
He froze. “What did ye say?”
She inhaled a shaky breath. “Urikki Dragusha. That’s your name.”
“Who told ye that?” He barely got the words out.
“You did. Listen to me, Louis, please. You told me in San Francisco, in America, in 2018. You told me so I would be able to convince you that it really was you who sent me. Niall Lewis is Dagar Lumani, and Malcolm Gunn is Luppaki Hoxha. How do you think I know those names? You told me.” Her voice cracked under the strain. “You said I could trust you. You said you would remember.”
He glared down at her, his face twitching all over with warring emotions. Fury and surprise and fear and confusion all struggled to get out at once. Was it possible? Could she be telling the truth? How had she learned those names? None of the Angui would have told her without good reason.
He whirled away, striding a few paces, and stopped with his back to her while he tried to make sense of it all. Whether he believed her or not, he had to take this warning seriously. The Falisa had found out about him, and Malcolm too?
Wherever she got her information, she knew all about him and the Angui and the Falisa. She’d taken a huge risk coming here to warn him. When he managed to speak, his voice croaked with buried agony. “Ye’ve delivered yer message. I’ll get word to Malcolm one way or the other. Dinnae ask me how. Ye can go back to yer own country. Ye dinnae belong here.”
She let out a rush of breath and passed her hand across her brow. “Tell me about it!”
“I’ll take ye back to the garrison. Ye can find yer way from there.”
“No!” she cried.
He spun around to face her. “What’s the matter? Ye cannae stay out here.”
“I can’t go back to the garrison.” Her gaze skated around the woods as she shifted from one foot to the other.
“Why no’?” he asked. “Do ye have some place to stop for the night?”
“No, b-but…” she stammered. “If I’m going back to my own time, I don’t need to stay overnight. I just can’t go back to the garrison. I just came from there, and it’s—”
He frowned at her. “Explain yerself, lass. Why can ye no’ go back to the garrison?”
“He was there, okay?” Her arms flew out to both sides, and her voice echoed through the woods. “He came there to find you. He was sitting in your blinkin’ office with his feet up on the desk. I mean, not literally, but he might as well have been.”
He furrowed his brow at her even more. Was she insane? “What in the world are ye on about? Who was in me office?”
“The Falisa…Obasi Jelan,” she exclaimed. “He said his name was Wallace Gunn. He came there to apprehend you, and when I said I was looking for you and Malcolm, he… Well, he sort of guessed I was…”
Louis waited for her to say something, but she wouldn’t even look at him.
She waved her hand. “You go back to the garrison, and you’ll find out all about it.”
“I cannae go back to the garrison, either,” he replied. “I was on me way to leave Aberdeen when I ran into ye.”
Her head whipped up. “You were leaving? Why?”
He took hold of her arm and marched her deeper into the woods. “That’s me own concern, and since ye’re going, ye neednae bother yerself with it or me. Ye go on back now, and that’s all there is to that, but first, ye’re going to tell me all ye ken about Obasi Jelan and the Falisa and what happened between ye two in me office at the garrison. Ye’re no’ going anywhere until ye tell me all.”
She yanked her arm free. “Let go of me, you prick. I came here to help you, so you better treat me with respect before I kill you myself. You can start by explaining what you’re doing in those clothes, because the last I heard, you were a major in the British Army, not a Highlander.”
“Ye can trust I have me own reasons,” he fired back. “Reasons I dinnae fancy sharing with some stranger I dinnae ken from a hole in the wall. Go on. Cast yer spell, and whatever’s waiting for me back at the garrison will have to remain a mystery for all time, for I’ll no’ go back there again in this life. Likely ye laid some trap there to kill me. Maybe ye’re the Falisa agent sent to assassinate me. That would be just grand.”
“How dare you accuse me of that!” she roared. “Do you know what I risked coming here? Do you know… Aw, what’s the point in talking to you? I hope you get caught. I hope you get your throat cut by some Falisa.”
“Ye’d like that, would ye no’?” he bellowed. “Ye’d like it if Wallace Gunn cut my throat. Ye’d probably like it if he killed Malcolm too, and maybe all the rest of the Angui in the bargain. Is that what ye came here for? Go on and admit it, for I cannae stand a liar. A liar’s bad enough, but a woman liar is the worst monster under the sun.” Even as the words passed his lips, he regretted saying them. Anyone could see this woman was a harpy when she got mad, and now he’d pushed her one step too far.
She drew herself into a compact fizzling dynamo of electric power, shivering in rage, and narrowed her black eyes to pinpricks. She quivered all over, and her lips trembled as she almost whispered, “Wallace Gunn will never kill another Angui.”
“What do ye mean?” he asked. “Did ye no’ tip him off that I was at the Aberdeen garrison?”
She spun away and strode into the trees, stopping a few paces away with her back to him.
What did she mean, Wallace Gunn wouldn’t kill anybody again? He studied her from behind, unable to figure her out. Okay, so he probably shouldn’t have lost his temper at her. He shouldn’t have accused her of being Falisa. That was a low blow, and he had no reason to doubt her word. If she had been Falisa, she wouldn’t have warned him they were after him, would she?
He stood back while his anger cooled inside him. Now that he’d let his brain work, he started to wish he hadn’t reacted the way he did. He studied her closer. She stood almost as tall as him, and her wiry body contained not one extra scrap of superfluous flesh. Her muscles were strung tight as a bowstring ready to twang. He scanned her up and down and noticed
a stain on her dress hem. A dark, jagged line darkened the lace a deep red before it petered out to white a few inches away. Was that…? Yes, it was blood. He frowned.
He shrugged the tension out of his shoulders and walked up behind her. “I’m…I’m sorry, lass. I shouldnae have accused ye of being Falisa. I beg yer pardon for that. Ye took me by surprise, is all. I was in the act of fleeing for me life, and I got mixed up with ye, and ye had to go and start spouting those names all over the place. I lost me head, is all. Will ye accept me apology for that?”
She didn’t turn around but growled through gritted teeth, “You’re an ass, you know that? I never should have bothered coming here to save your sorry stinkin’ hide.”
He had to grin at that, but he made sure to keep it out of his voice. “Ye’re right. I ought to wish ye never had, but I’m too grateful for me life. I thank ye. I ken the risk ye took to do it and—”
“You don’t know the first thing about it,” she snapped over her shoulder. “You’re too stupid for words. Just go on your way and leave me alone. You can give Malcolm the warning yourself, and I’ll go home. I’m finished with you.”
He gave up and walked away, down the path. If he’d kept his composure, he would have realized from the beginning what kind of woman she was. Anger never accomplished anything with that sort. Once he left, she would calm down. In a few minutes, she’d be back in her own world. He arrived at the fringe of trees lining the sidewalk, but before he emerged from the park, he caught sight of a flash of red between the bushes and ducked down behind the foliage to watch.
Soldiers charged past him shouting orders back and forth and pointing at the garrison. A constable ran around the corner, headed that way too. People exchanged snatched conversation as they rushed to the scene.
Louis observed the hubbub from his hiding place, and his heart flipped. Cold dread snuck through his insides. She tried to tell him. She tried to warn him, and he just wouldn’t listen. She was right about him being too stupid for his own good. Why didn’t he listen?
He hopped up and hurried back down the path, praying to Heaven she was still there. If she went back before he got there, he would never forgive himself. She probably wouldn’t forgive him, either.
His shoulders slumped in relief when he spotted her still standing on the same spot with her back to him. She must be really mad if she hadn’t cooled down enough to leave yet.
He eased up behind her, hating to bother her again. What an idiot he was to make an enemy of her. He must really have trusted her in far-off 2018 if he told her his own name and the names of his friends. He hesitated a long moment before summoning the will to speak. “What did ye do to him, lass? What did ye do to Wallace Gunn back in me office?”
She turned around to face him with a very different expression on her face. She peered up at him in search of some hope, some opening, some hint that he understood. She opened her mouth once, but no sound came out. Her eyes darted sideways into the woods before she brought them back to focus on him.
He took a step closer, grasped her hand, and rolled her fingers in his. “It’s all right now, lassie. Ye dinnae have to tell me. It doesnae matter anymore. Just forget it.”
She tried to speak again and choked.
His heart ached watching her. He imagined the worst that could have happened back at the garrison to make her react like this, and he had to go and accuse her of treachery. He hated himself, but that wouldn’t help them now.
“Never ye mind,” he murmured. “It’s done, and where ye’re going, no one kens what happened. It’s naught. Ye go on. Yer friends’re waiting for ye back home.”
She swallowed hard and nodded down at the ground but made no attempt to extricate her hand from his grasp.
So he was right. Whatever had happened must have been bad, and now Wallace Gunn would never bother any Angui again. She must have killed him—and badly too, to get blood on her dress like that. He shuddered at the thought. He had to get her out of here before she got caught. The danger to himself paled in comparison. He wanted nothing more than to protect her.
She cleared her throat. “There’s one more thing I have to tell you,” she croaked.
“What’s that, lass?”
“There’s a wizard in Aberdeen somewhere with knowledge about the Cipher’s Kiss.” The more she talked, the better her rusty voice worked until it flowed smoothly. “Obasi was going to meet him while he was in town.”
Louis couldn’t help but grin. “I ken the wizard ye mean, but I cannae go hunting the Cipher’s Kiss now. I’m leaving town and besides, he’s a Falisa sympathizer. If Wallace or one of the other Falisa didn’t kill me first, he’d do it himself.”
“Well, that’s easy,” she exclaimed. “I’ll go talk to him. He won’t know anything about me.”
“Ye cannae do that,” Louis replied. “Ye’re leaving too. Ye just said so.”
“If there’s a way to find out about the Cipher’s Kiss, I should do it,” she countered. “We can’t let an opportunity like this pass us by.”
He shook his head. “I cannae stay. Time’s of the essence. I have to leave town as soon as possible.”
She only talked faster. “Go ahead. I’ll talk to him myself. Just tell me who he is and where he lives.”
“Will ye listen to yerself?” he fired back. “Ye just said ye’d go home where ye’re safe. Ye cannae stay in Aberdeen after what happened. Do ye ken what would happen if ye got caught?”
“There must be a way.”
He waved over her shoulder toward the woods. He had to get rid of her before some other disaster struck. “Go. Ye’ll no’ be safe until ye return to yer own world, and I cannae stand by and put ye in danger. We’ll find another way to question the old man. We’ll send someone he doesnae ken—a human. Niall has a young boy on his ship. We can send him.”
Ellen sighed. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it. It’s just…”
“What?”
She stole another glimpse at his face. “You told me back in San Francisco…”
Louis waited, but she didn’t say anything more. “I told ye what?”
She shook her dark head and looked down at the ground. “There’s something more. I can’t leave yet.”
“I dinnae understand ye, lass,” he replied. “Did ye no’ just say ye’d go?”
“I don’t understand it, either,” she cried. “I wish I did, but you told me… Aw, forget it. It’s too crazy. I only know I can’t leave just yet.”
“If ye dinnae leave, ye cannae stay in Aberdeen,” he remarked. “Ye must flee.”
She bowed her head and nodded again.
He couldn’t linger here another moment. He grabbed her hand one more time. “Come on. This way.”
Chapter 9
Ellen hurried through the park after Louis. She had no idea where they were going, but she didn’t care. He didn’t say so, but his expression told her he understood. He’d divined what happened back at the garrison. She didn’t have to explain.
She couldn’t explain to him why she had to stay, either. He told her before she left something would happen between them here, something a lot more serious than meeting in the woods. That hadn’t happened yet. Not that she wanted something to happen. Did she? Why should she hang around and get involved with him? When he’d talked to her in Ree’s bedroom, he made it sound like a done deal. It had already happened, and now she had bypassed her chance at escape so she could make it happen.
She didn’t understand, but here she was, racing between the thick undergrowth in a headlong flight to some unknown future…a future with him. She must be out of her mind, but the thrill of excitement and rightness in her guts wouldn’t be denied. She had to see it all through, know once and for all if she was ever meant to be truly loved for who she was.
He stopped behind another curtain of trees and crouched breathless and taut to sneak a surreptitious glimpse out at the street. Ellen scanned their surroundings. A tavern sat opposite. A painted sign above the
door read The Mountebank. While they watched, a coach rolled up to the door.
“What are you looking for?” she whispered.
He swiveled around to face her, and his expression scared her out of her wits. “Now listen to me, lassie,” he hissed. “Listen well, for both our lives depend on ye following me instructions to the letter.” He paused just long enough to make sure he had her full attention.
She hardly dared to blink.
“Whatever happens, ye must never call me Louis Kirk. Understand?” he whispered. “Forget ye ever kenned that name. Louis Kirk doesnae exist anymore. Ye must call me Leith Kirkpatrick. Ye must also never use the name Angui or the name Falisa. Ye must call the Angui by the name Lewis, and the Falisa ye must call Clan Gunn.”
Ellen’s throat tightened. She couldn’t speak above a hoarse squeak. “Okay.”
“The name Lewis is fighting words around these Highlands,” he went on. “Do ye understand that? I could get away with using the name Louis as a British officer, but never as a Highlander. Never allow that name to pass yer lips if ye value yer neck and mine.”
She tried to ask what caused all this danger but couldn’t make her voice work.
He studied her for a moment, then pursed his lips. “Tell me something.”
“What?”
“How did ye find out about Obasi coming to find us?” he asked. “Who told you?”
“Malcolm told me,” she replied. “He found a letter in the Falisa archives. He says he was in charge of the Falisa in Scotland—I mean the Gunns.”
He nodded and went back to peering through the bushes. “That explains it.”
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Tell me. I have a right to know what’s going on. Why are you on the run, and in disguise?”
“Obasi would have caught him unawares,” Louis replied, “but he wouldnae have caught me. I have me own sources of information. I found out he was coming and ran for it. I had to save me own skin, so I changed into this.”
“How did you find out?” she asked. “I thought the Falisa kept their activities secret from everyone.”
Spellbound by the Angui (Cipher's Kiss Book 2): A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance Page 6