Fighting Fate: Book 2 of the Warrior Chronicles (33 page)

Mari brushed his fingers away like she would a pesky fly and she narrowed her lovely eyes at him, her Celtic temper simmering. “That’s hard to do when you’ve been gone every day, and powwowing with GI-Joes all night. Taryn’s kiss might be the only one you’ll be getting for a while.”

Shay couldn’t help himself as he grinned from ear to ear. “So you’ve been keeping track of me, have you, Mari-girl?”

Mari jumped up. Shay pulled her back down, onto his lap. He kissed her long and thoroughly, stopping only when the cat-calls from the eighty year olds permeated his thick skull. Mari was clinging to him and breathing hard when he raised his head. The green in her eyes merely a thin ring around huge black pupils.

“Building a house takes time, my love. I need a suite of rooms for Magnus and a separate suite for Seamus and at least two more bedrooms for our grandchildren when they come. I’ve been rushing the architect and the builder. The frame is up. I wanted to surprise you, Mari.” He said, watching what he was telling her finally register on her face.

“I wanted to build you the house you said you always wanted when we dreamed about it all those years ago. I wanted to give you the keys and watch your face as I carried you over the threshold. I’ve dreamed about it every night for the last twenty years.” Shay smiled ruefully. “But the thought of not
getting lucky
until it’s finished is killing me.”

Mari looked at him and for a moment Shay thought he’d truly lost her. Then she cupped his face and kissed him. He had to peel her away when she began pulling at his shirt. She’d forgotten their audience. He had not.

“The cottage is empty. And it’s close.”

Not the most romantic two sentences she could have said, but they were music to his ears.

CHAPTER FIFTY

In the week or so thatTaryn had spent sleeping alone, three things became inherently clear. First, she didn’t like it. Second, she ached for Jesse. Third, she didn’t like it. She hadn’t slept well, a fact she tried to blame on her dark knight, but couldn’t because she knew with absolute certainty that all she had to do to rectify the situation, was to go to him.

She spent her days with her mother and with Reed, learning more about each woman simply by being around them. Helping with whatever she could at Potter’s Woods kept her busy and surprisingly fulfilled. Lauren arranged for some of the artifacts she’d helped unearth over the years to be brought to the library. She and Mary and Olive had given an impromptu presentation for the residents. Some of the people who chose to come to Potter’s Woods had stage three and four cancers. They chose to live at Potter’s Woods to pursue alternative treatment, having declined more traditional methods when they failed. The cancer group was small, mostly children, who just wanted to be children. As hard as it was to face their mortality, it was the most fulfilling thing she’d been a part of since…well since forever.

When she shied away, Merlin was at her side, his timeless voice in her ear.
These children treasure today knowing it is a gift. Tomorrow is a promise owed to no one. Help them remember today as a good day.

The presentation went exceptionally well. Lauren let the children, and the few adults, handle the items. This was something most scholars didn’t even get the privilege of doing. Taryn promised to make it a weekly event, focusing on a different bit of tangible history she had access to. She and Lauren made a list and they chose their topics in order of importance. She’d been surprised by some of the items Lauren had access to, even replicas of some of those items were rare. Most were set behind glass away from human contact. Lauren reminded her she was exercising her choice to be a
Bringer of the Light
simply by doing what came naturally to her.

When Taryn wasn’t helping at Potter’s Woods, she was working with Sensei Schwartz. His lessons were shorter and she was even able to train in his dojo with his students, so long as Jordon or Shay accompanied her. She’d partnered with each of them, and true to his word, she didn’t get close to Shay’s face again. Jesse never made an appearance and that made her feel emptier than she’d felt before. Even Reed came a few times and she’d gotten the chance to spar with this other mother, whom she’d grown to like in spite of her original determination not to.

She liked everyone at Potter’s Woods, in fact. Even Peter, the hippie painter Henry scowled at every time he passed. It became part of her morning routine. Enjoy coffee on the patio while Peter taught watercolors. Precisely ten minutes into the lesson, just about halfway through her first cup of java, Henry would walk past with Jordon. Jordon would wink at her. Henry would look at Peter, scowl, and then get on with his day. These people were odd, but in such lovely ways that Taryn found herself belonging and unable to conjure reasons why she shouldn’t.

They were all heading to what Reed called William’s cottage in the morning. Reed came to her with photos of the place so she’d be prepared when they passed through the iron gates. The cottage was a palace, and Taryn was thankful for the warning. Her cottage, Sacred Springs, had three small bedrooms. William’s ‘cottage’ had twenty bedroom suites. Just a little different.

Feeling a flood of emotions, some of which she could define as thankfulness and affection, others she didn’t define at all, Taryn pulled Reed into a quick, firm hug. She knew she startled the smaller woman who left Taryn’s borrowed bedroom before the tears in her eyes fell. That had been two hours ago, and Taryn still couldn’t sleep.

She tried a trick Sensei taught her for patience and counted as high as she could in Japanese before…

They were there again, the three women all with the same bright blue-green eyes, sitting behind an oak table in robes of blue and white. She could see the old wizard with the oak staff standing in the corner more clearly this time. She knew him, yet his name escaped her. The women were more in focus as well. The young one looked to be about thirteen, her beauty but a promise of what it would become. A fine haze surrounded the woman of perhaps thirty or forty surrounding her in a starlight glow. The elder woman sat straight and tall with a strength that belied her age.

She stood and Taryn saw she was armed, a short sword and a dagger at her left hip.
Embroidered on her robe Taryn recognized the symbols Lauren had seared onto his chest. Oak, holly, ivy interlacing circles, a flame above water…

“Who are you?” the woman asked.

“I am Taryn, Bringer of the Light.”

“Do you accept this sacred duty?”

Taryn was brave in her dream. Knowing the right way, she didn’t hesitate. “I do.”

Suddenly the words came to her as if she knew them all along. “I pledge my heart, my mind and my life with the strength of the oak, the fidelity of ivy and the protective magic of holly, that I will travel the path of the old ways. I will bring the wisdom of the Goddess to light so her people may share her knowledge
.
I pledge to protect her legacy from those who would use it for evil purposes. I have so sworn. So mote it be.”

A searing pain burned hot through her core, radiating out to her extremities, centering on the soft skin of her inner left wrist.

“So mote it be.” The three women and the wizard said in unison.

“What do you want Bringer of the Light? What do you require to fulfill your destiny?”

The universe was quiet, keeping her secrets for the span of a heartbeat. Taryn’s vision blurred, she became lightheaded as the air around her thinned. She heard the wizard’s staff hitting the earth three times. The answer flowed through her, taking away the pain from her wrist and the heaviness from her chest.

“Love, my lady. I require love.”

Taryn saw the old woman smile. The younger women joined her and suddenly they melded into one. Taryn approached looking into what may have been a mirror only the image before her was dressed in the old woman’s robes.

She’d chosen the right path and she’d met herself along they way.

Taryn awoke in a cold sweat. She sat up quickly, throwing off her summer weight quilt. She turned on the table lamp and stared at the clock. Exactly three minutes had elapsed since she started counting in Japanese. Calming her breathing, she closed her eyes and pulled her sweat dampened hair from her scalp. “Calm down, woman. It was only a dream.”

Her heart beat painfully as if she’d just been hit in the chest by an oak staff. She looked down at her body. Naked. No blue and white robes. She sighed, half relief, half disappointment.

Taryn looked at her left wrist. A long healed burn the size of a quarter lay over her pulse. A circle of oak, ivy and holly surrounded a well and a floating flame. There was a Green man above and a triple spiral below. She traced the spiral with her right index finger.

She felt no pain, only certainty.

Taryn got up and slid into her slippers and the silk robe Reed had given her, royal blue trimmed in white. She turned off the lamp, exited the big house, and took the moonlit path to Jesse. Losing her robe and slippers, she eased in beside him.

In a year, maybe two, she’d recognize the small creatures who danced in the moonlight with her. For tonight, finding her life’s purpose and her heart was enough.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Jesse felt her the second she slipped into bed. He knew it was her when she came through the front door, since Henry had outfitted both houses with DNA scanning devices. Hi tech security that was not yet available even to domestic surveillance agencies that existed only as letters in the ether of government acronyms. Anyone not pre-programmed into the system set off a silent alarm. When turned on, anyone who was programmed in had their identity appear on a device smaller than the smallest I-pod. Jesse had the system running since Taryn left, hopeful for her return.

He said nothing when she snuggled up next to him, which took a supreme act of will given that she was warm and naked. He tried to control his breathing, which was much too shallow for sleep, but Taryn didn’t seem to notice. When she pushed her backside into the cradle of his groin and gently placed his right arm around her, pushing up her ample breasts, he came close to groaning. He bit the inside of his cheek, tasting blood.

Sighing, a sound that he wanted to suck into his soul, she was sound asleep in seconds. Jesse spent the night wide awake, savoring the soft feel of her body, trying to figure a way to keep her from ever leaving again. Just before dawn he closed his eyes and let his mind drift. He’d come to the conclusion in the night that there was nothing he could do to keep her here if she didn’t want to stay. Aside from loving her, he couldn’t think of one way to ensure she’d want to. He’d allowed himself to want little in this life, since he watched his father shoot himself and his mother with the poison that killed them both. The orphan of drug addicted deadbeats expected little, and as a rule received even less.

His life became the exception to that rule. That was because fate had sent Reed to him. Still, that frightened twelve year old boy, with his twelve year old view of his place in the world, still lived in the deepest and darkest part of him. He’d like nothing more than to banish that little boy’s pain. Nothing in his life so far could completely eradicate it. Not money. So he gave every penny over a million away to people it did matter to. Not his gardens, although, they brought him great joy and a sense of purpose. Not even this family that fate provided for him. They gave him all the love they had and they healed most of his heart and all but the smallest bit of his soul. His family was his life. And life was good, great even.

Yet, he knew it would be even better if Taryn wanted to be a part of it. He pulled her tighter and kissed the top of her head, enjoying the peppermint and rosemary scent of her shampoo, the words:
Tomorrow is promised to no one,
echoing through his head.

Then I will enjoy this day and this moment while it lasts.

…

Taryn smiled at Jesse’s snore. There were dark circles under his eyes shaded by his extraordinarily long and thick black lashes. In repose, Taryn studied him. Jesse looked younger in sleep, more vulnerable. Taryn smiled at the thought. Nothing about him was vulnerable when he was awake, piercing her heart with those deep blue eyes so full of earthy promise and…
love.

Taryn eased herself from the bed, gently lifting his arm from beneath her breasts. He grumbled and rolled over, but didn’t wake. Putting on her robe, she went to the kitchen to make breakfast. Magnus and Seamus were already at the table eating eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes on toast and some strange sausage.

“Um. That smells so good. What kind of sausage is that?”

Magnus answered through a full mouthful. “Dad found these in the grocery. They’re called Macski’s Highland Haggis Links. Haggis in a link.” Magus smiled. “And they taste brilliant. Try one.”

Taryn took a bite from Magnus’s fork. She was dubious but willing to give it a go, since she awoke feeling particularly courageous today. “Ooh, that’s good.”

Seamus got up. “I’ll make you a plate and one for the lad too, but you’d better be eatin’ yours down here. That boy doesn’t eat meat and he won’t be thankin’ you for eating Scotland’s finest in his presence, even if it’s made in Wisconsin.”

Taryn ate two more of the haggis links, a plate of eggs, a piece of toast with fried tomatoes and mushrooms and three cups of the strongest black coffee she’d ever had. She finished every morsel on her plate, feeling simply marvelous, strong as an ox and ready to face the sleeping dragon.

She grabbed the tray Seamus made for Jesse, complete with pot of tea and a small vase containing a trailing piece of ivy and a cluster of pansies. She raised an eyebrow at Seamus who grinned unrepentantly. “Ivy is for fidelity and the pansies for easing the heart. You’ve given him a merry chase thus far and it’s time to be showing him your heart is true.”