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Yeah, it was hard…and dangerous. But it was his own fault that he’d ended up here. He hadn’t believed Rogene about time travel. He’d grabbed her arm when she’d traveled through time. Sìneag hadn’t sent him here. She’d been as surprised as he was.

And if he hadn’t come through time, he wouldn’t have had time with his sister. Wouldn’t have shared this world that was so important to her. Wouldn’t have seen his nephew.

And he would never have met Anna.

As he stood up, sadness weighed on him, and he rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck.

He was lucky to be part of clan Mackenzie. They’d taken him in like one of their own. When he’d left Eilean Donan Castle, going on his adventure, Rogene had asked him to write to her, but writing was a struggle for him, especially with the quill and the ink.

Still, he should have tried. His only family in the world would never know what had happened to him. If he survived, by some miracle, he would make an effort and write to her.

He walked around and kicked at the dirt-packed floor with his shoes, tiny clouds of dust rising and playing in the beams of sunlight.

“I didn’t do too bad, did I?” he asked himself out loud.

This was a pretty incredible adventure he was on. Only a handful of people had experienced it.

And now that he’d met a woman he cared about, he wanted more. More time with her. More time with his family. More time to appreciate the life he had rather than wanting something different.

No, he wasn’t done yet. He wanted to live. He still had so much to do, to say, to experience. To give—his love and his loyalty and his protection. He still needed to see Anna through to Stirling, even if it meant her marrying another man. He would do anything for her.

He stood up and looked at the door. Desperation and fury tore him apart. His fists clenched, and with a roar, he ran at the door and hit it with his shoulder.

Pain burst through his bones as the door rattled, and he got kicked back by the hit. The guards yelled at him from the other side of the door. “What are ye doing, ye fool?”

It didn’t work, but what did he expect? He couldn’t just sit and wait for his death. He had to do something. He walked back and ran at the door again. More pain tore at him. More rattling, and he thought that perhaps he heard a hopeful crack of wood.

Again.

And again.

And again he stepped back and ran and hit the closed door. The guards yelled at him. Then laughed.

And he got angrier and angrier and more desperate.

This was how he’d been feeling for the past three years—trapped and mindlessly flinging himself against a closed door.

He was just breaking his own bones.

Not the door.

He stopped and slowly slid down the rough wall until he reached the floor. With his shoulder burning and aching, he didn’t feel the tears, only that something wet was falling on his hands.

His struggle would end tomorrow at dawn.

CHAPTER 20

The key clanked in the hole and the door to David’s jail opened. A crowd of people stood silent and dark against the predawn sky. A guard came in carrying a torch that hurt David’s eyes and brought the scent of smoke and steel.

The man grasped David by the elbow and led him out of his prison into the silent crowd. They eyed him with a quiet, dark apprehension. He was the source of the menace, the illness that God had brought into their midst. He had called the faeries, and God was punishing them all because of him.

Here it was. In this era of violence and misogynistic views and extreme religiosity, it was only a matter of time before his strangeness, his outlandishness would kill him.

How could he ever stay here?

Only for Anna. For Anna, he would…perhaps.

He searched the crowd for her face, to ensure that she hadn’t been harmed after she’d tried to free him. To see her one last time and know she’d be with him in his final moments. Maybe he could cry out a message for her to deliver to Rogene. That he loved his sister and he was sorry.