Bannockburn Binding (Beloved Bloody Time) (14 page)

Lee grimaced. “I think Rob fled because of me.” He pushed his long fingers up against his temples, rubbing hard. “I think I scared him into leaving.”

“How?” Tally demanded sharply. Her imagination was painting all sorts of scenarios and images. Lee with his hand about Rob’s throat. Swords locked together. Threats. Blows. Worse.

Lee looked at her steadily, his green eyes frank. “He kissed me.”

Tally’s breath escaped her in a rush. “Not what I was expecting you to say,” she breathed. And even more images cascaded through her mind, swiftly building in eroticism. Lee and Rob together. Kissing. And more. She drew in a lungful of air, trying to dismiss the thoughts and looked at Lee. “
Rob
kissed
you
?”

Lee frowned. “I was as surprised as you are, Tally.”

“How long did you remain surprised?” Tally asked dryly. “Is that the point you are making? You responded and now Rob has departed for a highland glen where we’ll never find him because it was too much for him to cope with?”

“Exactly what was it you two were doing in that tent of his before I arrived, anyway?” Lee challenged.

Tally felt her cheeks heat. “Nothing I care to share with you.”

“Perhaps you should,” Lee replied coolly. “Because I don’t think
coping
was an issue for him. It’s something else that’s keeping him away.”

“And now you’re an expert on Rob MacKenzie?” Tally shot back.

Lee cursed. “He was aroused, Tally. How much plainer do I have to be? Those kilts don’t hide much.”

Tally sat back in her chair. This was too much to absorb. Too much to take in. The images were crowding her mind. Tally swallowed. Her throat was parched. “Did you…was it…did you like the kiss?” she asked.

Lee shrugged. “It was tentative.” Then his eyes narrowed as his gaze roamed over her face. “I didn’t know you had any voyeur tendencies.”

“I don’t,” she assured him hurriedly.

Lee cocked his head a little, his gaze not letting her go. “You seem overly curious about the kiss. Is it that you like the idea of Rob kissing me?”

Tally stood up abruptly and picked up the heavy shawl that she threw about her shoulders most mornings when she went outside. “I’m going for my walk,” she told Lee.

Lee grinned. “Enjoy the damp air,” he told her.

Tally strode out of the building, angry with Lee and herself and even with Rob. She missed Rob with an ache that grew with each passing day and the constant busy-ness of people from her timeline surrounding her night and day had begun to grate on her nerves just as it had bothered Rob.

These walks were refreshing.

She followed the meandering sheep trail that wound around the sides of the valley, letting her mind drift. The monastery was out of sight when she heard the muffled beat of hooves behind her and stepped off the trail to let the rider through. A galloping horse in this area could only mean trouble of some sort. Like the people around here had long ago learned, she wanted to stay out of trouble’s way.

She pushed herself up against the rocky slope, giving the yet-unseen rider as much room as possible. Then the horse appeared around the bend she had just passed and her breath caught in her throat.

It was Rob, bent over the neck of his horse and riding toward her like a man in battle, his eyes fierce and focused. He barely slowed when he reached her, but his arm caught her across the chest. She was picked up off her feet and put across his saddle.

“Put your arms around my neck,” he told her.

She obeyed, bewildered. “Rob, what on earth…?”

“D’ye trust me, Tally?”

She barely hesitated. “Of course I do,” she said fiercely.

“Good then. I’m taking you away from that army of experts who know nothing. You can be my wife and we can face whatever comes together and we’ll bring the barn into the world together, the way it should be done.” His lips brushed her cheek. “I have a plan, Tally.”

Her answer was to tighten her arms around him.

* * * * *

The Agency, unlike human-occupied offices, was continuously in operation. Staff took time for rest or to feed, as they needed, before returning to their work. For almost everyone in the Agency, their work defined their life.

A small kitchen did exist on the station, located close to the end where the positioning engines were mounted. It serviced the handful of humans that were sometimes aboard and the equally small number of psi working for the Agency.

Justin and Christos picked a table and invited Charbonneau to sit. “It’s usually deserted in here,” Justin explained.

The door to the room opened and let in another tall man—not nearly as large as Christos, but as tall as Charbonneau. He had glossy black hair shorn short, pale skin and dark eyes. The high cheek bones and defined, square chin were distinct. Celtic, Charbonneau catalogued. “You must be Ryan Deashumhain,” Charbonneau said, staying on his feet, as the man walked up to their table. He moved with the easy, panther-stride of one well used to his body.

“And you must be Constant Charbonneau Villeneuve. Please, sit.”

“Just Charbonneau will do.” He studied Ryan carefully. “You look as though grief has touched you lately.”

Ryan’s eyes widened just a little. Then the politically neutral expression fell back into place. “I suppose it was foolish to think we could keep it from you on such a small station. We lost one of our travellers yesterday.”

“By ‘lost’, you mean…?”

“He died,” Ryan said flatly. “Of stasis poisoning. One of the drawbacks of travelling that Brenden and Justin will teach you.”

Charbonneau considered the three vampires sitting around the table. “Then you’re not speaking of the woman who is stranded in ancient Scotland, but a second traveller.”

“Yes, a second traveller,” Ryan agreed. “You arrived here in the midst of a small crisis, Charbonneau. The last time we lost a traveller was well over twenty years ago and now we have one lost and one stranded. I hope this doesn’t repel you?”

Charbonneau gave a tiny shrug. “It seems you are in need of new travellers. One might say my timing is excellent, no?”

Ryan gave a small smile. “One might,” he agreed. “Justin tells me I may not have to relate too much of my story to you, after all. How much do you know of the founding of the Agency?”

“I know the public version very well,” Charbonneau said. “That the first vampire to feed from a psi-filer inherited the psi’s talents. He found he could not only teleport from place to place, but back through time to places he remembered, as well. Vampires had a hard life back then. It was just after the Revelation and the Censure was in full swing. So he jumped back to his past and destroyed the vampire who had made him, at a time before he had been made, when he was still human.”

Ryan smiled. “It’s very dry, recited that way.”

“Killing off his maker,” Brenden said, “started a time wave. A very large one, a tsunami—like we were speaking of, earlier. This one was nasty…do you remember it?”

“Doesn’t everyone who was alive then?” Charbonneau said. “For an hour I thought I was ill to the point of death. From Pritti’s demonstration, I now know that it was the effects of the size of the time-wave that went through. And after, I found the world had changed. The plague of the twenty-second century was wiping out all life as we knew it. It attacked any living creature, decomposing the DNA from within and it did not spare man, psi or vampire. Then, two days later, another wave came through and the world was back to what I remembered it should be. No plague, just a living hell for vampires who had been revealed.”

Ryan nodded. “They were strange days indeed. Do you know what happened in those two days, that caused the second wave to come through and change everything back?”

“Only what I have read about,” Charbonneau replied. “The vampire who had changed history had a friend, a lover, who shared his blood and learned what he had done. So she also jumped back to the time when he destroyed his maker. She killed her lover before he could do it.”

There was a small silence. Ryan pushed a hand through his hair. “I suppose, for those that are not part of the history, it would be that cut and dried.”

“You were there?” Charbonneau asked, shock touching him.

“I am a friend of Nayara’s and have been for centuries.” He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “We phrase the public history as dryly as you recited it, without the names, because humans still have trouble dealing with the fact of our long lives. They would be uneasy if we blandly announced that the current president and the CEO of the Agency are the same two people who established it, two hundred years ago.”

“Nayara Ybarra…killed her lover?”

“Yes. His name, by the way, was Salathiel.” Ryan pronounced the name the biblical way, with the emphasis on the second syllable, making it sound like sal-lay-thee-el. “Salathiel was also my friend.”

Charbonneau held out his hand. “You must forgive my ignorance and bad manners. I meant no disrespect or offence.”

“None taken.” Ryan leaned forward. “Pritti and Tinker tell me you know next to nothing about vampires, that you have trouble thinking outside human terms and limitations. You have not mixed with vampires throughout your life?”

“I have passed as human and acted as human, as stringently as I could manage, always.”

“And now, suddenly, you have come to us.”

“And you wonder why,” Charbonneau finished.

“It is a natural question. Normally, we have to carefully track and recruit our travellers. They have never come to us, even though everyone knows where to find us.”

“Why can I not simply be the first one to do so?”

“Oh, you are the first,” Ryan shot back. “And you’re avoiding my question.”

“Yes.”

“You will not share your reason?”

“Not yet.”

Ryan considered this for a long moment. “All right,” he said at last, sitting back. “I will wait. For a while,” he added. “This is all new to you, I know. We will allow you some time to adjust, to get to know and trust us.”

“Thank you.”

“For now, we continue your lesson. Do you know how the Agency was established?”

“Only from the history books and your own company’s sales literature. You will forgive me if I’m wary of quoting from those sources again.”

Ryan grinned and this time the expression was full of warmth. “
Touché
.”

Christos chuckled, deep in his belly.

Justin spoke clearly. “Ryan was the first to figure out that it is possible to take someone back with you when you jump through time.”

“How did you figure that out?” Charbonneau asked. “That first time you tried it…the risk involved. How could you even be sure it would work?”

“I had to try,” Ryan said flatly. “After Nayara killed Salathiel, she was unable to get herself home. So I brought her back through time.”

Charbonneau actually felt himself jump a little in reaction. The unspoken drama and emotions pulsed behind Ryan’s words. “You were there…” he began and stopped.

“Yes,” Ryan said softly. “Nayara jumped ahead of me. I followed, because I feared for…what might happen. Nayara had to be brought home.” He took a breath. “So I did.”

“And the whole world got down on its knees and thanked vampires for saving its ass,” Christos finished.

Charbonneau blinked, for that was not what he recalled from two hundred years ago.

“Well, they damn well should have,” Christos added, when Ryan and Justin simply looked at him. “Instead, the world slaps statutes and codes and acts together, and invented the Historical Defence Bureau to watch us, instead. We’re the ones that straightened things out.”

“We’re also the ones who screwed history up in the first place,” Ryan said mildly. “Have you heard of Godfrey Reynard?” he asked Charbonneau.

“No.”

“We don’t spread his name around too far. He wanted it that way. He was a businessman. Human. He saw the commercial potential of being able to take people back into history. He worked with me and Nayara to set up the Agency, acting as a mediator with human governments. Between us, we structured the Chronometric Conservation Agency to monitor and regulate time, history, time errors, waves and tsunamis. The
Historical Defence Bureau is the Worlds Assembly’s oversight organization that controls the functions of the Agency.”

“Watch dogs,” Christos growled.

“The Bureau allows humans to sleep at night. We are forced to get along with them in order to survive.”

“And Chronologic Touring Incorporated?” Charbonneau prompted.

“Chronologic was Godfrey’s idea,” Ryan said. “He was the entrepreneur. Chronologic is where the Agency makes the money it needs to keep operating.”

“If he was the entrepreneur, what does that make you?” Charbonneau asked.

“I just put his plan into motion,” Ryan returned. “I supposed that makes me an administrator.”

“More like visionary,” Christos added. “He gave vampires a life, respect and a place in society. He dragged us out of the Censure years.”

Ryan waved a hand at Christos, silencing him. “That’s not relevant to this discussion.”