A wildly attractive goldfish.
Bawbag - Scottish slang for a complete asshole
Gobshite – Scottish slang for shit-eater
Chapter Ten
In which there are most diverse options for higher education in Scotland. Which comes in handy here.
Luna…
“I have no way to process this.”
I’m sitting on the couch in the study, still filled with mementos from the Lords - those bastards may they rot in hell - and Wallace built me a huge blaze in the fireplace because I can’t seem to stop shivering.
“Aye, it’s a bit much for a civilian,” he agrees, rubbing my chilly hands. “You’re in shock right now, lass. You’re a tough wee thing, though. You’ll be all right in a moment.”
“There was a lot of shooting,” I whisper. “You would think as an American that wouldn’t really get to me, but the actuality of the thing is…” My brain runs out of words to say, so I sit there, feeling his huge, warm hands engulf mine.
“Drink this.” He hands me a glass of water. I gulp half of it down before it spills from the corners of my mouth, and I stop, embarrassed, swiping the back of my hand against my wet face.
I ask the first thing I can think of. “What’s your name? Your real one?”
“Wallace is my cousin’s name,” he admits. “It was easy to remember for my cover. My name is Kai. Kai MacTavish.”
“Maybe I’ll call you Wally.”
“Not if ya want to live to see another sunrise.” I let out an inarticulate croaking sound that makes his eyes widen, and he rubs my back. “Sorry. That joke was in bad taste.”
“You’re not funny,Wally.”
He’s about to retort when two other people burst into the room. One, a spitfire of a girl a little older than me, is yelling at the man, who towers over her.
“Really? You’re complaining about my skills now, ya eejit? Do ya know how hard it is to set the dosage for that many people based on weight and size so they’ll all drop at the same time?” She shoulder-checks him as he laughs. “You do it next time, then.” Peering around his bulk, she smiles at me. “You must be Luna, aye? I’m Catriona, and this one-” She points at the man, “is my brother Michael, who knowssomuch more about poisons than I do, it seems.”
“Poisons?” I ask faintly.
“Aye,” Michael says, smiling at me warmly, “Cat’s the MacTavish Clan expert on poisons.”
“It… never occurred to me that poison could be a career path,” I say. “I mean, my guidance counselor in high school didn’t mention majoring in poisons in college. I guess you folks over here have more diverse options for higher education.”
Catriona looks at Wall- I mean, Kai. “She’s still in shock, then?”
“She’s comin’ out of it.” He blows on my hands, trying to warm them up. “Luna is a resilient lass. You should have seen her wrap that bullwhip around Deacon’s neck. The miserable fecker never saw it coming, she was so-”
I lean over just in time to keep from throwing up on myself.
“I’m sorry about your boots.”
Kai is rinsing them off in the kitchen sink, still managing to look masculine and in charge wearing just his socks. People are bustling around us on mysterious missions with an Olympic level of urgency that seems to indicate more terrible shit is about to happen.
“It’s all right. That’s not the worst thing that’s landed on these boots.”
Covering my mouth, I wave my hand at him. “Please, I beg of you to not elaborate on that, okay? Also, Catriona said poison. She poisoned all those people? How?”
“It was a fast-acting agent, I dinna know the name, it has a lot of syllables involved. It acts as a paralytic and stops the heart,” he says casually, as if I’d asked him if red wine paired better with fish or beef.
“How did she administer the poison to so many people?”
