Page 90 of Dark Victory

Sam walked over and saw a landscape with ruins and she knew instantly it was Scotland.

“That’s Melvaig,” Nick said, pleased.

“And you know that how?” But Sam’s nape prickled. She couldn’t help being excited. If Nick was right—which he probably was—Kristin was connected to An Tùir-Tara, too. Which begged the question, just how old was she?

They’d gotten back the DNA comp results and Nick had been right. Kristin’s blood was tainted. She was only ninety-two-point-three percent human.

“It’s in our new Macleod file. He warred with the MacDougall clan for the first century of his life.” He glanced up at her. “I wonder if your sister domesticated him a bit. In 1325, he actually went to war as an ally of the MacDougalls.” He tapped the keys, opening Kristin’s Recent Items folder. His eyes widened. “Well, well.”

Sam leaned over. “She booked a suite at the Carlisle. For last night.”

He closed the laptop and picked it up as he stood.

“Why would she do that? My sister is at Blayde.”

“She must have met someone before she made her trip,” Nick said. His stare was penetrating. “Whatever you’re planning, don’t do it. I’ll check on Tabitha when I go back. Meanwhile, you’re on this. Find out who she met and what she wanted.”

“Okay,” Sam lied smoothly. She was good at lying. She had to do it on the streets all the time, like any undercover cop. Sometimes she played vigilante, and sometimes just mean, almost evil and ready-to-be-turned tough ass. Either way, lying was a good way to get in with the wrong people.

“I mean it. You’re too involved. Jan and I will nail Kristin. And your sister is fine.”

“She’s not fine. She’s in over her head. She’ll be fine in a few hundred years, when she’s superpowerful—assuming she makes it through the fires of Melvaig. And you damn well know it.” Sam was furious. “Nick, may I say that you are the most heartless SOB I have ever met?”

“I’ll see you at HCU.” He handed her the laptop and walked out, already on his cell, dialing CDA’s Medivac unit.

Sam breathed hard. As if she would take orders from Nick when she knew what she had to do. She knew how to get back. Or rather, she knew someone who could take her back—if he could be persuaded to help her.

He was a bastard and more heartless than her boss, but she knew exactly how to convince him.

Sam had already booked her flight to Glasgow under an assumed name. And she knew that Ian Maclean was in residence at his fine home on Loch Awe.

TABBY SANK ONTO THE BED. She was still feeling sick from the onslaught of so much hatred and rage. It had been even more intense than what she’d felt at the Met and at school. But mostly she was feeling sick because she was certain she had looked through the window of time again—and she had just seen herself die.

She would die at An Tùir-Tara.

Kristin had said she would be there. But she had already known it, hadn’t she? The déjà vu had been too strong. Somewhere in the back of her mind, in the depths of her soul, she had known that those feelings were hers.

But she’d assumed that the evil woman had died—not her.

Macleod sat beside her and seized her hand, his eyes blazing, his face hard. “Ye think too much! Ye imagined it! ’Twas nay yer death ye saw.”

Her temples pounded now. She was ready to throw up. “It’s okay,” she lied, trembling. “That’s two-hundred-and-fifty years away.”

He exploded. “Ye canna die in the fire! She dies!”

Tabby stared. “Are you sure it was Criosaidh that we just saw? She wasn’t crystal clear—”

He cut her off. “’Twas Criosaidh.”

Tabby looked at their clasped hands. Realizing how tightly he held her hand, he released her and stood. He began pacing like a caged tiger, restlessly, with repressed rage. Tabby wished she could read his mind.

Maybe it was better not to think about her death. It was a long time away. If it was Fate, it couldn’t be changed anyway.

But time travel made an infinite number of scenarios possible. She didn’t want to think it, but she did. She could be taken to the fires of An Tùir-Tara at any moment. She could die there tomorrow or the day after or the day after that.

She looked at Macleod. He needed her. She couldn’t die anytime soon, not until she’d helped him let go of his past, not until he took his vows and became the kind of man she knew he could be.

“Ye think of me now?” He was incredulous.