“You can’t look for Anna without something to give you strength,” Shay said.
“I’ll eat later,” Tavis said.
“You might as well give up now, man,” Ronan said, putting the tray on Tavis’s lap. “You’re outmanned by those two.”
A disrespectful way to speak about lasses, Tavis thought.
Brodie nodded in agreement. “You’d have a better chance stopping a steamroller.”
Streamroller? Did they all speak so strange? But he’d slept for generations. Times had changed.
“But Anna’s injured.”
“We’re searching for her,” Faelan said. “You need rest. You look like a lion tried to chew a hole in your shoulder.”
“Tomas is on his way,” Duncan said. The one who looked enough like Faelan and Tavis to be a brother, making Tavis miss Ian all the more. His family. They were all gone. But he’d known going in that this would be the cost. They would have suffered as well. Ian carrying a burden no man should carry. Had he managed to live a good life? Marry his Bessie, have bairns?
And poor Alana, losing Da and two of her brothers close together. And Ma. He hadn’t even gotten to say good-bye. She must have been sick with grief. Had Ian told her the truth? How had she managed? What would she think to see them together now? Two of her sons, living well beyond their normal years?
“Tomas is the medic.” Duncan laid a small black box type thing on a table. He’d been holding it to his ear. He must have seen Tavis frowning. “This is a cell phone. You can talk to people on it.”
And he was the one with the addled brain, Tavis thought, and then decided Duncan must have been jesting. Poor time for frivolity.
A man entered the room and was introduced as Tomas. He had light hair and a kind smile.
“That was fast,” Ronan said. “What’d you do? Take the helicopter?”
“I was already on my way to the castle,” Tomas said. He checked Tavis over, the exposed parts anyway, while everyone watched. But after days on end alone, going out of his mind with loneliness, he didn’t mind the company. In fact, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to be alone again. Anna’s face came to mind. She’d saved his life. Where are you?
Tomas gave him medicine for the pain and declared that he would heal nicely, but he needed rest and food. But he’d slept so much in the dungeon, he didn’t want to waste any more time sleeping. Not with Anna still out there.
“Do you want to rest?” Faelan asked. “Or are you up to talking? We all have questions.”
Tavis answered their questions, but his mind kept drifting off, wondering where Anna was, if she was hurt. He realized Faelan was speaking to him.
“What did you ask?”
“Why is Quinn buried in a coffin where my time vault was?”
“Frederick and Isabel offered us the crypt and a grave for Da and Quinn, but we couldn’t tell them you were already in the crypt. So we put Quinn in the hole where your time vault had been buried.”
“We found your dagger and thought it was your coffin. We were told you were buried at sea.”
“That was Ian’s idea, so no one would come looking for me and find you. We weren’t sure who to trust.”
“But the clan already knew about the crypt,” Faelan said. “They just couldn’t find the key. Isabel and Frederick had it.”
“Ian must have decided the Council could be trusted if he told them where you were.”
“Da? Where is he buried?” Faelan asked.
“In the graveyard. I’ll show you.”
Faelan nodded. “After you’ve rested.”
“We know how you got inside the time vault,” Brodie said. “But how did you get out?”
“A man. He said his name was Angus.”
“Angus.” Faelan’s jaw was tight, and the others looked similarly disturbed.
“He took me to a house. He said Druan was looking for him. For me. He thought I was you. Where is he?”
“He’s dead. Druan had him killed.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think I properly thanked him. He was brave.”
“He was,” Declan said. “Anna still hasn’t recovered from his death.”
Anna?
“She and Angus had a thing,” Brodie said.
A thing? What was a thing? Like lovers?
“How did you end up in the fortress?” Cody asked.
“Tristol must have followed Angus and me. I was still weak from the time vault, and Tristol grabbed me, bloody bastard. I woke up in the fortress.”
“You must have been there since around the time Angus died,” Declan said.
“I don’t know. I was unconscious part of the time. Anna arrived two days ago, I think.”
“How did you escape?” Shane asked.
“There was another prisoner there. He showed us a way out of the fortress and helped us escape. We were attacked outside by wolves, but the creatures didn’t follow us through the veil.”
“The stone wolves?” Ronan asked.
“Stone? These were real,” Tavis said. “But bigger. Fierce things.”
“I ran into them too,” Ronan said. “They had me up a tree. Who was the other prisoner?”
“I don’t know. He was strong. He held off Voltar while Anna and I escaped.”
“Held off an ancient demon?” Brodie said.
“The guards called him a hybrid.” Tavis didn’t tell them he feared Anna had been forced to mate not just with him, but the hybrid as well.
“What kind of hybrid?” Faelan asked.
“They didn’t say, but I’ve never seen anyone move like him. Like a streak of light.”
“That’s how the vampires move,” Ronan said, his jaw tight.
“I don’t think we could have gotten out of there without him,” Tavis said. “He gave us our talismans. The guards had taken them.”
“Where did the vampires come from?” Bree asked.
“They seemed to belong there,” Tavis said. “Must have been there with Tristol. Voltar’s demons came in and slaughtered them.”
“So maybe the demons and vampires weren’t working together when we saw them in the Albany castle,” Ronan said. “The vampires must have been there to spy on Druan. But why? For Tristol? What does he want with vampires?”
“I didn’t even know bloody vampires existed,” Tavis said. They must have hidden well.
“No one did,” his brother said. “We thought Michael’s vampire hunters destroyed them ages ago. I guess they weren’t all wiped out.”
Ronan looked troubled. “I should have known.”
“No way you could have known,” Cody said, nudging Ronan’s shoulder.
“I should have.”
“Vampires killed his brother Cam two years ago,” Cody explained to Tavis. “The clan thought he was taken by demons.”
“Sounds like this hybrid is part vampire,” Sorcha said. “Wonder what the other part is. Maybe they were going to turn you into some kind of hybrid. Did they say what they were doing?”
Tavis felt his face growing hot with anger and shame. “They were going to use me for…breeding.”
“Breeding?” Ronan asked. “Breed you to what?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t get that far.”
“If Tristol and Voltar thought you were Faelan,” Bree said, “then they really wanted Faelan. Why?”
“The Mighty Faelan,” Niall said. “The most powerful warrior the clan’s known. Why not?”
“Oh my God,” Bree said. “I knew Faelan was in danger.”
“Don’t worry yourself.” Faelan patted Bree’s shoulder.
“Worry.” Bree’s face was flushed with anger. “I’m going to kill the bastards.”
Bollocks. She was just like Anna. Were all women like this now?
“You won’t touch Tristol or Voltar. I forbid it.” Faelan’s scowl was fierce, but it didn’t seem to affect his wife.