Prologue
Jock knew the only way to save her was to hurt her. She was lucky she was alone with him, locked away in his private bedchamber where she was safe from trial.
If she raved like that about time travel in front of anyone else in the castle, she’d be imprisoned as a witch.
It was not so long ago that a woman spouting such babble was almost burned at the stake. Superstitions hung on for a long time in the Highlands, even in this more civilized age.
“Let me go,” she yelled, tugging at the bonds that held her tight to his bed. “Let me go right now. You’ve no right to hold me here.”
She was so different to how she’d been just a few minutes earlier. She had been perfectly calm while they climbed the stairs to his bedchamber, talking about nothing much at all. Did she know then what he had planned?
Of course not.
He shook his head, tuning out her continuing shouts. This was no time to crack, to start to feel sympathy for her plight. This was for her own good.
She still looked good even in the depths of her madness. Her eyes bulged as did her muscles while she fought frantically with every fiber of her being to loosen the knots binding her to the bed frame.
She looked as good as the first time he saw her. How had he not noticed the demon within her then?
If he was honest with himself he knew the answer. He had allowed himself to become distracted by her beauty. He looked at her, unable to look away.
There was something about her flawless skin he’d found irresistible, so different to any of the other women in the clan. Her accent too, so exotic, so unusual, so unique. No one else spoke like she did.
There could be only one explanation for her voice and the strange foreign words she kept using. The woman he loved had a demon inside her.
She was ranting and raving again, twisting her head toward him. “You said I could trust you and you do this to me? Let me go!”
He shook his head, walking away to kneel before the altar in the corner of his room, genuflecting before lifting his eyes and hands up to heaven.
“Save her, Lord,” he said, raising his voice so it could be better heard over her shouts. “Banish the vile denizen of the underworld that lurks within her soul. Send it back to the fiery pit from whence it came and allow this innocent one back into the your good graces.
“Take me instead if you must punish someone. I have sinned, she has not. I should have prayed for her from the moment I first met her. Forgive me, Lord, my omission, and save her.”
“There’s no demon in me,” she yelled back at him. “Stop saying that.”
He finished praying, picking up the scourge, turning to face her with the leather fronds dangling down from his hand.
“What’s that for?” she asked, fear flashing across her eyes.
“This is for your own good,” he said, whipping the scourge through the air to test it “It will free your soul and save you from your torment in this life and eternal damnation in the next. The pain will purify you.”
He wanted to kiss her so much in that moment. He knew he must not give in to the temptation or they would both be lost.
“Look,” she said, her eyes wide as she stared at the scourge, watching it move toward her. “Just stop and listen to me for a minute.”
He shook his head as he remembered the talk they’d just had. “I will not listen to the rantings of the demon within you. It must be cast out if you are to be saved. Know that this brings no pleasure for me but it must be done. If the clan were to hear of your rantings, the punishment upon you and I would be far worse than scourging.”
“Listen, please,” she begged, craning her neck to look at him. “It’s not rantings. I swear on my life I’m telling you the truth. I’m from the future. I’ve traveled back in time and…and…and look at me, Jock. Do I look like I’m lying?”
He saw the innocence in her eyes and he was torn. She had been nothing but honest with him up until this point. What if she was telling the truth about this as well?
Was it at all possible she’d come back in time eight hundred years from a strange future? Was it possible he was wrong?
He thought about his parents and their ramblings about time travel. As their minds had begun to go they had spoken of the ability to travel through history as if it were possible.
But then they at least had the excuse of age to explain the nonsense they told him about keys and doors to the past. What of this woman? What excuse did she have for telling him she was from the future?
As he looked into her deep blue eyes, she looked honest. Honest and afraid. She did not look like a liar.
