Chapter 3
Kane strolled up the steep narrow track at the back of the house. The sky was already lightening, but the sun remained hidden behind the looming mountains. This was his favorite time of day, when the air was still relatively cool. Later, the heat would drive him inside.
Or it would have, if he hadn’t been leaving that morning.
All around, the chatter of monkeys, and the screams of birds filled his ears.
Vegetation crowded in on either side, but the path was clear.
Behind him, Kpo the leopard kept pace, his big pads making no sound on the track.
He’d found Kpo abandoned as a cub after a bush fire and had raised the leopard as a friend.
The track ended abruptly at a sheer wall of rock that touched the sky above him. A gap in the rock showed him the entrance to the cave. Leila sat on a boulder outside, her rifle across her knee, relaxed but alert.
Leila was the closest thing he’d had to a mother after his own had left for Scotland in 1878 when he was four years old.
His people were long-lived—they didn’t age, and most illnesses didn’t touch them—though they could still be killed by an accident, and this was a dangerous place to live.
Leila was around 400 years old, and the oldest of the three remaining guardians.
She’d never left their home, never seen anything of the outside world and distrusted anything new.
Only now was she finally coming to trust the electronic surveillance systems they’d installed.
For centuries, they’d had to rely on themselves.
As long as Kane could remember, there had only been three guardians.
Plus him, of course. Jonas, their leader, and Leila and Brandon.
They’d been left behind to safeguard their secret here in the Mountains of the Moon.
Kane hadn’t wanted to leave with his parents and the others, so he’d run away—far enough so he couldn’t be picked up—only returning when they were long gone.
It had been a hard life. They’d picked, or caught, everything they’d eaten, living as hunter-gatherers, not wanting to farm the land around the hidden homestead, in case they brought attention to themselves.
Clothes had been fashioned from animal hide, but most of the time, he’d run around naked. Who was there to see that cared?
But when he’d turned seventeen, Jonas had sent him away; he’d said the world was shrinking, and they needed to understand what was happening, to be prepared for anyone who might discover this place and the secrets they guarded.
They had to ensure the machine was kept safe until the time of the mission.
And so, he’d left the only home he’d ever known.
At first, he’d lived on the edge of communities, learning their ways, their languages, how they’d thought and dressed.
He’d been a quick learner but reluctant to make the move to become a part of a bigger society, to let others know him.
That hadn’t changed. But his white skin had stood out, and he’d had to think up stories of who he was and why he was there.
He’d told people that he’d been orphaned, lost in the jungle, his parents dead.
Some had helped him, and the others… He’d grown clever at reading their thoughts, recognizing their intentions.
He’d killed his first man when he was eighteen.
It had been a matter of life and death, and he’d thought no more of it than he would have killing a wild pig for food.
He’d gravitated to the coastal towns, found others with white skin, learned to dress, to fit in, and had eventually gotten a boat to England.
He’d hated it at first, with its rain and lack of sun.
So, he’d signed on with other boats, traveled the world.
Occasionally, he’d returned to Uganda, taking with him anything that he thought might be useful—mainly weapons.
He would always remember Leila’s delight when he’d handed over her first rifle.
Later he’d taken her an AK47—she’d loved that even more.
But also, they’d appreciated the knowledge of the outside world.
He’d never stayed home long. He’d outgrown the place; had a life he loved away from here. In fact, there were times he’d almost forgotten about the mission, though it had always been at the back of his mind. And as the time drew nearer, he’d begun to wonder more and more.
Then nearly four years ago, Jonas had been fatally injured in an accident when he’d been out hunting in the mountains.
It had been shortly after Kane had become aware of the Kindred’s—and Kaitlin’s—existence.
He’d heard her brother’s screams—there was something about pain and fear that amplified their powers—and he’d gone looking and had found Kaitlin.
When Jonas died, he’d named Kane his successor.
And that was the end of his freedom. Jonas’s last request to him had been to eliminate the Kindred.
Back then, they had been attempting to search out their origins, and it was only a matter of time before they came across their connection to the Guardians and what they were hiding in the Mountains of the Moon.
Any exposure would endanger the mission. And that couldn’t be allowed.
Kane had done his best.
But he’d made mistakes and some decisions that Jonas would not have agreed with—such as joining forces with the Kindred. But now the year of the mission was upon them.
What would it bring?
Who the fuck knew?
The problem was, no one knew what the mission actually entailed—the details had been lost in time—only that it would somehow save mankind.
His people had lived with that belief for thousands of years, their faith keeping them going.
They’d always believed that everything would become clear when the time was right.
Growing up, Kane had never doubted it. Even when he’d gone out into the world, he’d still maintained his fundamental beliefs.
He was aware that his new “friends” thought him an idiot for his blind belief. But really, it was no different from the faith that sustained most people. The main difference was that he had proof.
“Everything quiet?” he asked Leila.
She nodded. She wasn’t one to speak much. What would become of her after the mission? Presuming there was an “after”. She’d spent her whole life in this place. But they had friends now. People who would help her adjust; that was what friends did.
He’d never had friends before. It was a learning process, and he’d proved to be a slow learner where friendship was concerned.
He pressed his palm to the panel—another new security measure—and the steel door slid open. Stepping into the cave beyond, he paused for a moment, as he always did, something close to religious awe holding his feet in place.
He’d come here so many times, but it still had the same effect.
The cavern was huge with a dark sandy floor and filled with pale sunlight from a hole in the arched ceiling above his head.
In the center of the space was the machine.
Smooth, silver, broad at the base and tapering to a point at the top, like a rocket.
It was far too big to have come through either the door he’d entered by or the hole in the roof. So how had it gotten here?
He took that as proof.
It had materialized from another time and place and had sat here for thousands of years. Seemingly lifeless. Way beyond the technology available in the world today.
What had gone wrong?
Something he was sure, to bring this thing to such a remote area. What had his ancestors thought when they opened the door and saw not the world they were expecting, but a wild, lawless jungle that would make them fight for every second of their existence?
Had they tried to get home?
The favorite theory, right now, was that the mission had always existed, but someone had tried to stop it, right at the start, when the original people had been sent back in time. They’d sabotaged the machine, so it crashed ten thousand years too early.
So maybe it was broken and their whole existence was just some cosmic joke.
Except they knew now that something was to happen this year. A cataclysm so huge it would wipe out 95 percent of the population. Was he supposed to stop that?
Or was he the catalyst that would make it happen?
For the first time in his life, doubts plagued him.
But at least the waiting was nearly over.
Two years ago, the machine had shown its first signs of life. Kaitlin had touched it and what they believed to be a countdown had appeared. He could see it now, reducing slowly, but seemingly randomly, and they had never been able to work out exactly when the countdown ended.
At the thought of Kaitlin, his stomach twisted. From the first moment he’d set eyes on her, he’d been drawn to her. Back then, she’d been little more than a child. A grieving child, who’d just lost the person closest to her. And he’d been overwhelmed by the need to help.
He’d revealed himself to her in that moment, promised his assistance, but only if she and the rest of her people escaped their government controllers. He’d offered too little. He could have offered more and maybe saved her brother. But likely it had already been too late.
It didn’t matter. He hadn’t offered.
Instead, he had followed his promise to a dying man and set out to destroy her people. Kaitlin had ended up imprisoned for six months, and others had died.
He’d let her down. But he’d been torn in two ways: between his loyalties to Jonas and everything he had been brought up to believe, and his attraction to a stranger who he knew nothing about, but who had the potential to destroy everything he believed in.
He’d only backed down when he’d been confronted by Jake. He’d seen into the other man’s mind and known they were connected by far more than he could have ever imagined. Jake was his brother.
And so, they’d become allies.
But Kaitlin hated him. Likely she would never forgive him.
And he couldn’t stop thinking about her. His feelings had changed.
She was no longer a child.
He’d had women in the past—after all, he was over a hundred and fifty years old—but he’d never allowed those women to mean anything, certainly never allowed them to come between him and his mission.
He’d always broken off relationships before they could get too serious, before the woman involved could realize that he was different, that he didn’t age.
Secrecy was everything, though the truth was, he had never found it hard. He preferred to be alone.
Until now.
He would see her soon. This morning, he was heading to the meeting in Scotland. They would all be there.
It was to take place at the Rayleigh estates, where his parents had lived for many years after they’d left Uganda. He would meet them for the first time since he was four years old.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
On his way to Scotland, he intended to make a detour to London—he was going to make sure Kaitlin attended the meeting. He had an idea she would try to avoid it—and him—if she could. And he wouldn’t allow that.
Time was running out. He needed to make things right between them before that happened.
He needed her forgiveness, though he would never ask it directly.
More than that, he had to somehow get through to her, find a way that she could, at least, forgive herself for her part in Sam’s death. Because only once she had forgiven herself—and let go of her guilt—could she ever start to forgive him.