Not Without Juliet - By L.L. Muir Page 0,18

urge to cross himself against the blackness at his back, lest the devil feel he’d been invited, but he could not show such weakness.

"My name is Quinn Ross. I am from the future, from the year twenty-twelve. Muir witches brought me here, to stand in the stead of Montgomery Ross."

"And they changed yer face to look like the laird?" Long Legs looked unimpressed. He'd have to do better.

"There was no need to change my face. I am Montgomery's great nephew twenty times over. I carry his...looks." He’d almost said DNA.

Long Legs weighed the information for a minute. Indeed, a year ago, it took Quinn days to digest it all when Jillian MacKay disappeared in front of him, when she’d first slipped back in time to fulfill the prophecy. The fact they’d been standing in the tomb when it happened, had not made it any easier to believe.

"Even if this is true, how can you be of any use to me?" Percy stepped closer.

The man may not believe him, but if there was something in it for Percy, he would at least be hopeful Quinn was telling the truth. It might be enough to win the Gordon’s son to his side.

"Because I have the ability to move between the future and the past. I can change the future. Because I know what will happen, I can change it from happening."

Okay, that wasn't quite true and wasn't the most logical argument, but it was all Quinn could think of at the moment considering the bump on his head and the pain in his skull. His best chance of rescue might be from within Clan Gordon itself. And what better reason could Long Legs appreciate than to have Quinn change the future so that Percy Gordon ended up with the Gordon scepter?

"You think me simple." Percy shook his head and backed away. "I can change the future, simply enough, by slittiin’ Cinead's throat before he has his offspring."

Quinn wasn't about to point out the man's new bride might already be pregnant. He wasn't going to be the reason behind the murder of an innocent woman.

Or was it already too late?

He'd broken one of Jillian's sacred rules. He'd told the Gordon brothers who their enemy was, and now Long Legs was considering killing his brother to change the future. Quinn had promised Jillian a hundred times over that he would be cautious. She was going to kill him unless he thought of a reason why Long Legs and his brothers should keep their hands off The Runt.

Then he had it. God and Ewan might damn the Muir witches, but they were often the answer to his problems.

"There is one thing you should know, Percy,” he said gravely, “about the man who kills Cinead Gordon."

Percy took a deep breath and waited.

Quinn stared him in the eyes. "It's part of the prophecy."

Percy rolled his eyes. "What prophecy?"

"Oh, come now. Even the Gordons ken about the prophecy given by Isobelle before she died."

Percy nodded once. "I've heard a bit. Tell me the whole of it, then."

Oh, but that was the easiest request Quinn had ever heard.

He’d been an attorney, back in the real world of the twenty-first century, but after Libby died, he’d walked away from it, gone back home. And for all the years since his wife’s death, Quinn’s role at Castle Ross was to tell the tourists all about the prophecy. It was almost a relief to get to tell it again, even though he’d told it a thousand times before. It had been over a year since he’d done it last, and he was eager to see if he remembered the script. Of course he could not tell it verbatim. Percy Gordon would not know of Shakespeare and the tale of Romeo and Juliet.

“I will tell you first how the prophecy came to be.” Quinn moved to the side of the cell to lean his back against the bars there.

Percy walked toward the stairs and returned with the chair used by the blind man. He sat at an angle and Quinn got the impression the man did so to avoid the sight of the dead man more than to face Quinn head on.

“In the year 1494, the duty to one’s clan was far more important than any notion of love.”

Percy snorted.

“I must tell in the manner it was taught to me. You must bear with me if you would hear the whole of it.”

Percy nodded and waved impatiently.

“...far more important that any notion of