Dark Truth (The Time Bound Series Book 3) Read online

  DARK TRUTH

  THE TIME BOUND SERIES: BOOK 3

  LORA ANDREWS

  DARK TRUTH

  The Time Bound Series: Book 3

  Copyright ©2019 Lora Andrews

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior consent and written permission from the author. Thank you for respecting the rights of the author.

  Edited by: CMD Editing

  Cover design by: Lou Harper Designs

  For more information:

  www.loraandrews.com

  For updates on new releases, promotions, and giveaways, sign up for my MAILING LIST.

  To Lucy, for loving Ewen as much as I do ;-)

  Lauren, Ryan, and Rachel,

  For picking up the slack so I could finish this book. Love you guys!

  And lastly, Lee

  For always believing in me.

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Quote

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Thank You!

  Dark Truth Deleted Scene

  Updates and more...

  Also By Lora Andrews

  Better three hours too soon, than one minute too late.

  —William Shakespeare

  ONE

  Ardgour, Scotland, 1450

  A BETROTHAL?

  Was he mad?

  Ewen exited the keep. Stone and dirt crunched beneath his bare feet as he made his way across the courtyard and through the area that would one day become the gatehouse. The sky was dark, but dawn crept upon the horizon.

  “Bah! Alliance, my arse.” This betrothal wasn’t about peace. This was about manipulation. This was his father’s way of positioning the clan and Ewen exactly where the old bastard wanted him—on the Cameron border serving as a daily reminder of the bloodshed that would follow should Alan Cameron step out of line.

  He could still put an end to this madness. Donald had yet to send the rider with the còrdadh, the agreement that would bind him to the Cameron lass. But his brother’s words ran through his mind. You live on the sidelines, watching others gain that which you desire. You guard, you protect, you gladly give your life for my people, and yet you do no more than what is necessary for yourself. Do you think I don’t see the longing in your eyes when you look upon my interactions with Mari? Think you I dinna understand the pain that dwells in your heart?

  Ewen ran a hand through his damp hair. When he’d closed his eyes as a lad of ten and six, he never envisioned a Cameron spinster for a wife. Nay. When he’d closed his eyes, he saw a beauty with eyes the color of highland bluebells and silky, flaxen hair he dreamed of twining through his fingers.

  Isobel.

  Christ. After all these years, his heart still festered with her betrayal. It still beat in denial of all he’d lost. He ground his teeth and came to a stop outside the stables. Color exploded across the sky.

  Perhaps his father had the right of it. Perhaps it was time to bury the past.

  Time to move forward.

  “I knew I’d find you here, lad.”

  Ewen startled and spun his body to the left.

  With his black robe rustling in the breeze, Brother Rupert leaned a wide shoulder against the stable door and motioned to the horizon. “When you were a young boy, you would oft do the same when sleep failed to claim your mind.”

  “Aye, well I remember.” Ewen smiled. “It’s good to see you.”

  “I’d prefer it be under different circumstances.”

  Affection warmed Rupert’s golden eyes—eyes that could turn fierce and instill fear in a broken boy with a restless soul. Ewen had no doubt the good brother could still give chase across the fields to club a wayward lad or two if the need arose. Ewen grinned. He had the phantom scars to prove it.

  “These deaths are unnatural.”

  Snapping to the present, Ewen glanced at the field. “Is it witchcraft or something darker?”

  Rupert shrugged. “There are others versed in the religions of old, but from what I know, this ritual is ancient, older than much of what we have recorded at the abbey.”

  A ritual? “You were not in Mull to make this assessment. Other than a circle drawn in the earth, there is naught to indicate Druidry.” Two separate incidents. Two naked youths drained of blood laid out in identical positions inside a roughly drawn circle.

  “No,” Rupert acquiesced, “I was not, but I have witnessed this work before.”

  “It’s the same then?” Ewen ground out. “The wretch who killed my mother murdered these innocents?”

  “It would appear so.”

  Ewen expelled the breath he’d been holding.

  Rupert crouched. Pressing his forefinger into the dirt, he drew a cross with an oval loop at the top. “The crux ansata is a representation of eternal life and is often depicted in Egyptian literature as such. Engravings on tombs and temples show the gods of Egypt holding the crux ansata while bestowing divine power upon their Pharaohs.” He tapped the earth beside the symbol he’d drawn. “But Egypt is not the only land where this symbol held prominence.”

  Rupert drew a circle around the cross.

  Ice crawled through Ewen’s veins. The victims, with their arms arched over their heads, resembled the crux ansata within the circle.

  “Before the time of the Druids, there lived a great race, people who lived side by side with the gods, in a world said to have marvels beyond our imagination. A civilization—”

  “Ewen!”

  The shout carried across the field from the direction of the glen where many of the villagers lived. Looking up over Rupert’s head, Ewen saw Connor’s lad running over the hill at breakneck speed.

  “Ewen,” the boy shouted, waving frantically.

  Ewen sprinted to the pale-faced boy whose chest shuddered with heaving breaths.

  “She’s in the glen. Mama saw her in the glen. There are demons in the woods.”

  “Calm down, boy. Your mother saw who?”

  “Her,” he said, gulping air. “The one who—”

  The raven-haired lass.

  Christ, no. Not another death.

  He grabbed the boy by the shoulders. “Run to the keep and alert Ian. And do not leave until it’s safe to do so. Go.”

  Ewen ran to the stables. Onc
e inside, he mounted his horse and shouted to Rupert, “Follow the lad. Make sure he alerts Ian. Tell him to send my guard. Relay all you’ve told me to the laird.”

  Before Rupert could finish saying, “Go with God,” Ewen had galloped from the stables and raced across the fields toward the sighting. Behind him, the keep faded into the distance, disappearing into the hills he loved. He slowed, his neck prickling with a warning as he scanned the woods.

  Where is she?

  Attackers burst from the forest, their battle cries ringing in the air.

  Without hesitation, Ewen reached for his claymore and jumped off his horse. Had he chanced upon a surprise attack to the keep? Or had they been lying in wait for him?

  The charge eased to a slow amble as the men fanned upon approach. They wore no armor over their dirty léines, which ruled out most mercenaries. Any hired soldier worth his mettle would come prepared and honed for battle, not dressed in tatters and wielding crude blades.

  Ewen rapped Saor’s near side, cueing the warhorse to gallop a safe distance from the impending clash. He didn’t recognize these strangers, but there was a flatness to their expression he knew all too well. The look of men resolved to their fates, which made them all the more dangerous.

  Desperate men had naught to lose.

  Axes raised, they advanced. All bluidy ten of them.

  Six men he could easily overtake, but ten? Did they think him immortal?

  Growling, he met the first thrust and countered, parrying like a madman. He used elbows, fists, feet, and any other God-given limb against the encroaching threat, blocking most strikes until a blow to the back of his head knocked him to the ground.

  Dizzy, he jumped to his feet and almost laughed at himself. He’d lost his bluidy mind over two strange deaths and a dark-haired woman. Only a halfwit sprinted into a precarious situation without first scouting for a trap. And here he’d gone wearing only his léine. No helmet. No armor. Just his sword and a dirk. What an idiot.

  Two of his assailants lay unmoving on the ground. He focused on what was left of the savage crew and dodged the blade swinging for his stomach. Pivoting to the right, he grabbed the ax wielder’s arm on the upswing, and sunk his blade into the man’s liver, then shoved the body at the two others daring to charge him. Seizing the slain warrior’s weapon from the ground, he whirled to meet the next opponent.

  The sky darkened. Lightning flashed and tore across the heavens as a howling wind funneled around Ewen’s feet, bringing with it a torrent of icy air. The storm manifested from nowhere, startling his attackers who paused and focused on the swirling cloud—a deadly error Ewen used to his advantage. Ignoring his prickling skin, he thrust his sword into one man, withdrew, and thrust into the next. The crackling thunder muted their dying cries.

  Five down. Five to go.

  Holding the ax in his left hand, Ewen swung the sword in a wide circle above his head. The wild-eyed barbarians stared at him from beneath a raging, rainless storm.

  “Who sent you?” The wind clashed with Ewen’s voice.

  Two of the remaining five warriors stepped forward in unison while the other three stood back, gazes on the growing tempest above.

  “No answer?” he asked over the thunder.

  The larger of the two men, a mountain of a brute as wide as he was tall with black slits for eyes and a loose mass of tangled dark hair, broke away from his partner to move to Ewen’s left. The shorter man, red-haired, bearded, and squat, inched to Ewen’s right, gripping the handle of his own ax until his knuckles bleached white against the brown wood. He came to a stop about two arm’s length from where Ewen stood in a battle ready stance.

  Ah, so the plan would be to tire him out while the others waited in the wings? Redbeard, the weaker fighter, would attack first, and while Ewen countered, his friend, the Mountain, would cleave Ewen’s exposed backside. Not a bad plan, provided they’d correctly gaged their opponent’s dominant side, and by the way Redbeard watched Ewen’s sword hand, they’d assumed him to be right-handed.

  Ewen smiled.

  They’d assumed wrong.

  “I’ll give ye one last chance.” The wind whipped dirt into Ewen’s face. He squinted. “Drop your weapons, confess the name of your captain, and withdraw from these lands to never return.” He shrugged. “Refuse, and I promise you I’ll feel no remorse relieving you of your heads.”

  But he already knew how it would play out, didn’t he?

  He sighed when Redbeard made his move. Ignoring his advance, Ewen charged to the left to meet the Mountain’s attack. He blocked the incoming ax strike with his sword, and back swung with his left hand, his ax connecting with Redbeard’s abdomen. Lightning flashed overhead. The Mountain smashed his shoulder into Ewen’s exposed left side, but Ewen was braced for the impact. He dislodged his ax, kneed the brute in the groin, and pummeled his temple with the flat of the ax handle. The man sank to the ground.

  Seven down, three to go.

  Two of the three men standing on the field turned and ran for the trees.

  Damn, he needed survivors to question.

  Ewen vaulted over the body at his feet and charged the last man before he could turn tail and run. He dropped his weapons and grappled the man to the ground, pinning his right arm around his opponent’s meaty neck. He quickly slid his left arm behind the man’s head to lock his grip. Compressing his biceps, Ewen squeezed until the man stopped squirming beneath him.

  Easing off the unconscious man, Ewen turned him onto his back. Something green on the man’s shirt drew his attention. Heather? A linear plant with needle-like leaves on a reddish-brown stem was attached to the man’s léine below his left collarbone. Some clans still adhered to the ancient principle of using plant badges to identify their dead upon the battlefield—a practice not used by the MacLean’s, nor any of the highland clans Ewen had experience with.

  He raised the evergreen to his nose and sniffed. Not heather, but crowberry.

  Rupert came running over the hill, shouting as he pointed to the sky. The winds intensified into a churning vortex that drowned out the monk’s voice. Before Ewen could stand and take cover, the cyclone hurled a large object that slammed into the center of his chest and knocked him flat to the ground.

  TWO

  CAITLIN LANDED HARD, crashing against something warm—or at least something warmer than her ice cold skin. Her head throbbed. Spasms fired in the muscles of her back and legs, clenching and releasing until she felt like she’d been put through a meat grinder.

  Crap…maybe she had.

  Groaning, she rolled off whatever she’d fallen onto and prayed for the cramps to ease. She had no idea where in time she’d been cast, and the thought cleared her mind faster than a bucket of cold water thrown at her face. Scrambling to her feet, she stumbled then swayed, hit by a wave of nausea that forced her to her hands and knees. She vomited what remained of the lovely Gala dinner she and Ewen had enjoyed hours earlier. Before Bres and his magic had destroyed everything, and everyone, she cared about.

  Wiping the back of her hand across her mouth, Caitlin stood and took stock of her surroundings. Off in the distance, the sun rose behind a mountain range. Grass and dirt cushioned her knees. A field? She was standing in an open field with…

  Are those bodies?

  Big, dead warrior bodies strewn upon the field like loose trash? Where—or when—had the portal dropped her?

  “Doona move.”

  At the sound of a deep masculine voice behind her, Caitlin stilled.

  Wait… It couldn’t be, could it?

  “Ewen?” She spun around. Six-foot-three with piercing blue eyes, Ewen MacLean stood with his arms crossed over his massive chest, his jet-black hair blowing wildly about his shoulders. There was a gash on his forehead, and on the left side of his tunic, blood seeped through the yellow fabric.

  “You’re hurt.” She rushed forward until his icy stare stopped her dead in her tracks. Oh, god. He doesn’t know me. Her heart twisted. She had just left him
bleeding to death in the twenty-first century with a dagger protruding from his chest. But here, whenever here was, he was alive and breathing. That was all that mattered.

  She swallowed and stepped back.

  A middle-aged man, slightly taller than Ewen and wearing a long, black robe, approached. Stopping beside Ewen, he glanced at the sky, then her, then averted his eyes and nudged Ewen to do the same. That was when she remembered she was stark naked and covered in Ewen’s blood.

  Her hand flew to her neck. The pendant. It was gone.

  And so was the stone.

  “Oh no. Oh, god, no.” She dropped to her knees, frantically searching the grass for the stone. Where could it be? She squashed the panic rising in her throat, her fingers raking through the earth. Bres’s dagger lay on the ground where she dropped it after crash-landing, but there was no sign of the Tempus Stone.

  Or the pendant.

  Maybe it fell off. Ewen had thrust the stone in her hand when he’d thrown her into the portal but the pendant had been magically sealed around her neck. The amount of force required to rip it off her body would have taken her head with it.

  Something else was going on. Her grandmother would have had both the stone and the pendant in her possession when she traveled from the fifteenth century to the twenty-first. Caitlin wasn’t a physicist, but somehow she didn’t think it would be possible for the stone and pendant to exist in this timeline if the objects were in her grandmother’s possession in 1965 Scotland.

  Nausea rolled through her body. Her head felt like it was about to explode. She forced a breath through her clenched teeth to temper the churning of her stomach.

  The man in the black robe—a monk?—stepped forward. He ignored her naked chest and the blood glistening on her skin and helped her stand, then wrapped a piece of woolen cloth around her shoulders. The fabric fell past her knees. “Are ye well?”

  No, she wasn’t well. At all. She’d lost the pendant, the time stone, and she was standing naked in a field of dead warriors.

  “I’m fine.” Lying to a priest would land her ass in Hell, but what was one small lie in comparison to stabbing a bad guy and killing a demi-goddess?