Page 46 of Sinful Scot
“And the crowd ye see,” Dermot, Uncle Dermot, continued unaware that Rhys’s mental stability wanted to take a vacation, “well, the crowd ye see before ye is here to watch. They are a bloodthirsty lot. Soon the executioner will return.”
Uncle Dermot, Uncle Dermot.Why was this tripping him up so much? Maybe because he was about to die.Shit. Get it together. Rhys squeezed his eyes shut and opened them to the same damn scene. “Did you just call me ‘nephew’?”
Dermot let out a bitter laugh. “Aye. I still find it hard to believe—”
“You don’t say,” Rhys interrupted, unable to stop a flood of sarcasm.
Dermot frowned, Rhys’s snarky humor obviously lost on him. “I just did.”
Rhys did laugh hysterically then, but only for a moment before he locked his mounting instability behind a bar of hard self-control.
Dermot looked at Rhys quizzically. “I can nae deny it any longer. Yer description matches just what Shona told us.”
“My mom’s here?” Rhys asked, shock shoving all other emotions away.
“Aye.” Dermot nodded. “Well, at our home. She just appeared one night, looking like herself but older, and she told us an incredible story none of us wanted to believe, but it was the same tale yer aunt Grace told when she came home from Kinghorn looking for Shona. Grace said she had sent Shona home through time by using a chant and a special cross given to her by the fae who live in the woods surrounding Kinghorn. She was hysterical when Shona was nae there.”
He paused a moment before continuing. “She claimed that Shona had been instructed to travel to Edinburgh to deliver a note to the king and that Shona was witness to the king being killed. Grace insisted on going back to Kinghorn. She said the fae owed her two favors by their law for saving a fae woman and her child, and that she would get another cross for her other favor. According to her, the cross was required for the chant of time walking to succeed. We locked her in her room, thinking she’d gone mad. The next morning, Grace was gone. She had escaped her room, and that night was when Shona appeared.” Dermot sighed and shook his head. “It was much harder nae to believe Grace’s tale then, given Shona had aged years in the month she was at Court,” he said ruefully. “I was already set to leave that morning to rendezvous with our father at Burntisland. He sent word a sennight ago for me to meet him and Bruce there for the appointing of the Guardians of Scotland, so I planned to do that and then head to Kinghorn to retrieve Grace.”
“Grace is not there,” Rhys said. “She went out with a search party to look for Shona, and I believe the party was headed to your home.”
Dermot frowned. “That does nae make sense.”
“I wish I could help make sense of it,” Rhys replied, “But I didn’t actually meet her.”
Dermot studied Rhys. “How long have ye been here in…in our time?”
“Not long. A couple of weeks, but I didn’t think to wear my watch before I travelled through time to keep track of the hours and days,” he said dryly.
Dermot looked baffled. “What is a twatch?”
“Not a twatch,” Rhys said, actually smiling, which was crazy at a time like this. “A watch.”
“A what?”
“Never mind,” Rhys said, his brain still trying to deny the reality of what was happening. He was going to be hanged,killed.And all he could think of was Maggie. What would happen to her? Who would protect her?
Jesus Christ. Why hadn’t he realized he loved her sooner and told her?
“The executioner is returning,” Dermot said, all the color draining from his face. “I hope I do nae piss myself when they hang me.”
Rhys located the executioner making his way back through the gathered crowd.Christ.Rhys did not want to die.
“Tell me, Nephew,” Dermot asked, sounding weirdly calm. Terror did that to people. It made their emotions swing wildly. “Do ye know about King Alexander? Is it true what Shona claims?”
Rhys nodded. “As far as I know. History says it was an accident, but—” He watched as the executioner mounted the steps once more, and the crowd began to cheer.
The executioner, a tall man with black hair that matched his black cloak, held up his hands. “These two men, cohorts of the Devil—one Rhys McCaim and one Dermot MacKinnish—shall be hung until death doth ensue.”
“God’s teeth!” Dermot twisted his body in a futile effort to unbind his hands. A sheen of sweat broke out on the man’s forehead, and Rhys could see his pulse pumping rapidly at the side of his neck. “I think,” he said, fear making his words come out clipped, “we may actually die this day.”
Rhys looked at his uncle, still trying to process that fact, when a memory struck, a line from Wikipedia that Ian had read off his phone the night Rhys had come through time. “You won’t die today,” Rhys said, relief for his uncle filling him. Unless in this very moment, because of meeting Rhys, history was being changed…
Dermot whipped his gaze to Rhys, his eyes looking slightly crazed.
“You’re supposed to be hung in 1306,” Rhys rushed out, “for aiding Robert the Bruce, who will be your king.” The words sounded surreal to Rhys’s ears, and based on Dermot’s mouth hanging open, his uncle felt the same way.
Dermot exhaled a ragged breath, and then a tight smile came to his lips. “Well, I suppose,” he said, his voice shaky, “aiding yer king is a better reason to die than being accused of aiding the Devil. And I’d much rather die another day than today.” He gave a strained laugh.
