“Feck!” Scotty snapped, bolting toward the door. Mortimer had put the phone on speaker when he checked the caller ID and saw who was calling. They’d all heard Beth’s words and the shrieking in the background. Scotty knew damned well that agonized scream would have Beth charging into the house with little care for her own well-being. She needed backup now.
“Donny, go with him!” Mortimer barked, slamming the phone back into its cradle when the dial tone announced that the connection had been broken.
“Really?” the young man asked with surprise.
“Move yer arse!” Scotty barked over his shoulder, having heard the exchange. He was already halfway down the hall and didn’t slow as he added, “I’ll no’ be waitin’ on ye.”
“Go!” Mortimer’s bellow was followed by the sound of running feet as Donny obeyed. Scotty was sliding into the SUV and pulling the door closed before the ginger-haired lad caught up to him.
“Keys,” he growled, sticking his hand out the open window as the boy slid to a stop next to the driver’s door and peered at him uncertainly. The lad had picked him up in the vehicle and so, no doubt, expected to drive, but Scotty didn’t care. Giving him a hard look, he ground out, “Now,” and was rather amazed when the fellow didn’t obey at once. Donny’s eyes widened, and there was definitely fear in his expression, but he simply ran around the back of the vehicle.
“Well, ye walkin’ bawbag!” Scotty bellowed and opened his door, intending to give chase, but he stopped and swung around in his seat with surprise when the passenger door opened. Scotty raised his eyebrows when the lad slid into the seat and pulled his door closed. But he didn’t say anything, merely closed his own door again and held out his hand for the key.
“It’s keyless. Just put your foot on the brake and—” Donny didn’t bother to finish. The engine was already started. Scotty had driven keyless vehicles before and knew that as long as the key was in the car they were good. However, it didn’t escape his notice that Donny was holding on to that key. He didn’t care.
“Where to?” he barked, steering the SUV quickly up the driveway toward the gates. When the lad didn’t answer at once, Scotty cast a glare his way. “Well?”
“I—” he began helplessly, and then grabbed his phone from his pocket with relief when it rang. “Yes? Oh, Mortimer, thank God, I—” Donny stopped to listen briefly and then said, “Yes, yes. Just a minute.”
Scotty brought the car to a stop to wait for the men to open the gates, and then looked to see what the boy was doing. His eyebrows rose when he saw him quickly typing in an address on the GPS. Fortunately, the lad finished just as the gates got wide enough for the SUV to pass through, because Scotty wasn’t waiting. He’d rather make Mortimer stay on the phone giving them directions all the way to where Beth was than waste a single minute waiting on typing.
“Which way?” he asked as the SUV surged through the first gate.
“It’s calculating a route,” Donny muttered, watching the screen.
“Which way?” Scotty insisted as they passed through the second set of gates.
“It’s still—Right! Turn right,” he said with relief as the route popped up on the screen.
Scotty turned the wheel right and squealed out onto the road.
“The right-hand lane, the right-hand lane!” Donny squawked with alarm as Scotty sped up the road in the left lane.
Mouth tightening, Scotty steered the vehicle onto the other side of the road and silently reminded himself he was in North America now and not his beloved Scotland, or even the land of those bloody English . . . who at least knew which side of the road a car should be driven on.
“The speed limit here is eighty kilometers an hour,” Donny said tensely as they continued to gain speed.
“Yer arse and parsley.” Scotty muttered the old phrase, basically telling the lad to bugger off, out of habit.
“What?” Donny asked with bewilderment.
Scotty ground his teeth together and shot a glance his way. “Ye’re no’ a hunter, are ye, lad?”
“Yes. I mean—well, I’m still in training,” he said stiffly.
“O’ course ye are,” Scotty breathed out with disgust and then shook his head. He should have known. He had been made aware of the situation in North America before he flew over from Scotland, and the situation was that they were in a pinch. Nearly three quarters of their Rogue Hunters were down in Venezuela trying to hunt down some mad bastard who had been kidnapping immortals and hiding them away somewhere in that country. That news had spread like wildfire along the immortal grapevine, and with the remaining hunters spread so thin, it seemed like every rogue, or even those bordering on becoming rogue, hadn’t been able to resist taking advantage and going haywire. Of course, Mortimer would be utilizing every available hunter and hunter-in-training to try to maintain control of the situation.
“Well now,” Scotty said finally in a solemn tone. “Here’s a lesson fer ye then, lad. Speed limits do no’ mean shite when ye’re racing to the aid o’ a hunter who’s alone an’ in peril. If a bobby spots ye speeding, and tries to pull ye over, then control him and send him on his way.”
“Uh-huh,” Donny grunted, his hands clenching on the seat and the door arm. “And what if you crash because you’re going like a hundred kilometers over the speed limit?”
“Ye do no’ crash,” he assured him, glancing at the GPS as it started squawking. A turn was coming up, he saw, and began to slow to make it as he added, “But if ye do, ye tuck yer head between yer legs and protect yer neck. Ye can come back from a lot, but no’ a beheading.”
“Right,” Donny muttered, slinking down in his seat.
Scotty noted the action and smiled grimly. “Set a stout heart to a stey brae, lad.”
“Huh?” Donny asked, turning a befuddled expression his way, and Scotty shook his head.
“It’s from an old Scottish proverb,” he explained on a sigh. “I’m tellin’ ye to find yer courage fer what lies ahead.”
“Oh.” They were silent as the car raced through the early dawn, and then Donny frowned and cleared his throat. “You know this hunter Beth we’re going to help?”
It started out as a statement, but ended on a question. Scotty supposed the boy had caught some of Mortimer and Scotty’s conversation before the phone call. Donny had just entered the room when the phone rang. He could have heard what Scotty had been saying as he’d approached up the hall.
“Aye,” he answered shortly.
“You came specifically because of her?”
Scotty nodded. “I came to help her.”
“But how did you know she’d need your help?” Donny asked with a frown.
“Because a gowk at Yule’ll no’ be bright at Beltane,” he muttered.