Highland Protector (MacCoinnich Time Travels #5)(12)
Author: Catherine Bybee

Kincaid swallowed. Not that he feared for his life. He didn’t.

Colleen on the other hand, did. That was obvious.

The air in the room hung heavy, like a thick fog threatening the shore for weeks on end. Kincaid cut through it, met the eyes of his brothers, and ignored his rising heartbeat.

“Destiny is not something one can avoid,” he said and, because he felt it deep in his soul, he told them, “I will see you again.”

“Fuck!” Rory mumbled under his breath.

“Until then.” Kincaid focused on Rory, met his green-eyed gaze. “Until then.”

He turned toward Colleen and saw the blue aura surrounding her. From it, he saw one tiny strand. When he focused, he noticed it turn red, then white-hot. That was his path…his destiny.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

He nodded.

Then, as if he wasn’t already uneasy with his solo journey, Colleen, who never smiled, offered a half-ass grin.

The energy of her power and his circled around him as he focused on the white strand that would lead him where he needed to be.

The lids of his eyes started to drift closed so he could remove everything except the single thought of his path, but then Colleen’s rapt attention forced his eyes to hers. Beyond her, he saw a white light in the form of a woman. Her hair flowed down well past her hips, her soft glow welcomed him into her warmth. The woman opened her lips and spoke, but it was Colleen’s voice he heard. “You cannot change who you are…but you can shape who you will be.”

Before Kincaid could utter one syllable the world around him dropped away.

The familiar shift in time was a comfort. He remembered the first time, the exhilaration, the way the light flashed around him like a vortex, and the way the shift shoved his stomach up somewhere near his neck. He swallowed it down then and didn’t even feel it now. The weightless feeling was nothing more than falling into a body of water after a high dive. No fear. No worries. He would land as he always did, alert and ready to battle or observe.

He felt the pull of his exit approaching and waited until the last second.

He jumped and found himself slammed back into the vortex, falling.

What the hell?

The ink in his arm sparked hot and he kept falling. Without thought, he attempted to jump again and ended up on his ass in the shift.

Instinctively, he shielded himself and waited. The journey wasn’t letting him go. He knew he’d flown past Giles and his intended target, but he was powerless to stop.

The world stilled, briefly and the shore of a rocky cliff came into focus. There, he witnessed two teenage boys kicking water and a young woman lifting her heavy skirts, joining them in the fun.

Before he could smell the salt air, the world shifted again. He landed between the dark shadows of stone walls. There stood a clan…men and women alike. They held hands with one focus. The youngest, the young woman from the beach with her dark hair swept over her brow…her eyes shot like daggers across the room.

When Kincaid managed to look away, he lost his ability to breathe. The world dipped again.

On some level, he realized he was being shown a series of events, but he couldn’t process any of them before he saw another scene.

He was in the Keep. Felt the familiar walls as if it were his own bedroom. The turret where he and his men had last been wrapped around him like a blanket. Only this time the blanket had a hood and he couldn’t see past the folds of material.

Nausea built in the back of his throat in hot waves.

“Enough!” he yelled to anyone listening.

He slid faster than he’d ever before and slammed onto the floor. Birds chirped in his head as the world came to a crashing halt.

“Oh, shit!”

Kincaid heard the shout through his fall, rolled onto his shoulder, and came up on the balls of his feet with his blaster in his hand.

Feet away sat a man with a primitive weapon pointed directly at him. To the man’s right, a bottle tilted on its side. The smell of hops and barley filled the air.

“Who are you?” Kincaid demanded.

The man inched his finger toward the trigger of his weapon. “You just dropped into my living room. Who the f**k are you?”

He didn’t release the man’s attention. Flat screen TV, not a vid scan or halo projection. Not the tube type either. Leather chair, not the synthetic fabric of the twenty-second century. The air felt cool…artificially cold. Wow, is that Freon?

Kincaid had never been in this century, avoided it like a rampant case of Pox. Grainna lived in this century…at one point or another. For that, he felt his heart beat reach dangerous proportions.

He stood to his full height, felt his shield like the invisible armor that it was.

“Freeze, Mother Fucker.”

Kincaid made nice, lowered his weapon, and lifted his hands. “I come in peace.”

His adversary squared his shoulders and gave a curt laugh. “You’ve watched too much late night television.”

Actually, he only watched the news. Which he had to admit was late at night. But he didn’t think that was what the man was referring to.

“Who are you?” he asked again.

Kincaid narrowed his eyes. “Does it matter? I just dropped into your living room. Does that happen to you often?”

The man’s jaw twitched and Kincaid grinned. His ease of the situation told him he’d seen the like before.

“Damn Druids. Life was easier when I only had to deal with drug dealers and lowlifes.”

The nausea that rolled in his gut, now settled and Kincaid released a rare laugh.

“It’s not funny. Damn good thing my kids are with the ex. This would have put them on the therapy couch for years.”

The man’s weapon now pointed toward the ground.

Kincaid took a chance, lowered his shield far enough to extend a hand. “I’m Kincaid. From the future. I’m looking for a friend.”

His unexpected host glared at his offered hand. “He’s not here.”

“I can see that. But you must know where he is, or I wouldn’t have been brought to you.”

The man released the c**k of his gun, holstered it, and rolled his eyes. “Just when I thought life was going to get back to normal.” He took Kincaid’s hand, shook it hard once. “I’m Jake. Jake Nelson.”

Through a hooded gaze, Kincaid observed Jake Nelson as he moved about his home, switching off his television set and snatching an old phone from a cradle. He punched in a series of numbers and held the devise up to his ear.

“Who are you calling?”