The Reluctant Amazon (Alliance of the Amazons) (3 page)

Chapter Four

“We
are Amazons. We’re
warriors for the greater good,” Sparks said in a clear voice that didn’t sound
at all like a woman who’d been drinking heavily. Little else would explain such
a ludicrous statement.

“I’m not an Amazon,” Rebecca said with a shake of her head.
“Geez, Louise. Aren’t Amazons supposed to be tall? I’m five foot six, not six
foot six.” She glanced over to Artair. “They’re athletic, not clumsy like me.
And—and they hate men, and I’m not a—”

“Hey!” Sparks strode toward Rebecca and pointed at her with the
cigarette pinched between her fingers. “Watch your mouth, ’cause if you say what
I think you were gonna say, I’ll knock your teeth out. You’ve been watching way
too many B movies, little girl.” Throwing her cigarette butt to the ground, she
smashed it into the grass with the toe of her combat boot. “Amazons are—well,
we…” She fixed her gaze on Artair. He gave a brisk nod.

“Lass, yer one of four women born to be guardians of the
greater good. You are—”

“I’m not—”

“Cease!” Artair’s shout forced Rebecca to take a cautious step
back. He took one forward. “If ye donae let me finish what I wish to say, I
shall shake you ’til your teeth rattle.” He put his hands on his hips, dropped
his chin and scowled down at her with an intensity that told her he meant
exactly what he said.

Like she’d ever let a bully intimidate her. On the other hand…
Then Sparks’s faith and trust in Artair MacKay were there, a small flutter in
the pit of Rebecca’s stomach. She returned his drill sergeant gaze with a curt
nod.
Let him tell his loony story.

“Four gifted women are born into each generation. Not all
generations are needed, and they live as mortals, never knowing what might’ve
been their destiny. The new four are only called when some evil upsets the
balance between the humans and the divine—when humans are endangered. Some
Ancients don’t care if humanity is enslaved or destroyed, but some do.” His eyes
never left hers as if trying to judge her acceptance or rejection of all he had
to say.

“If Sparks is an Amazon, why do you need me?”

“Because I lost a sister. Maria’s dead,” Sparks said, her voice
betraying a note of vulnerability for the first time. “Not that there was much
left of her to bury.”

“What happened to her?”

A melancholy smile bowed Sparks’s lips. “My Maria? She was an
Amazon to the bitter end. She jumped from the fifth floor instead of letting the
revenants catch her. When she died, we lost our Guardian, and we can’t find my
other two sisters.” Her expression changed, her lips thinning to a grim line.
“Those revenants didn’t just stumble upon Maria. No,
someone
sent them—someone who’s fucking evil and wants to wipe out
my generation. You better be ready, little girl, ’cause we think you and your
sisters are next on the kill-at-all-costs list. Your generation was called as
reinforcements for my sisters and me, which means you’ve got bull’s-eyes on your
backs. Untrained, you’re dead. Trained, you’ve got a chance.
Four
Amazons have a chance.
One
is nothing but a sitting duck, especially when we don’t know
who’s behind this mess.”

Fearing the shaking the big man had threatened, but being the
kind of woman who never simply took a person’s word for anything, Rebecca let
another question slip. “Who are the Ancients?”

“All the gods and goddesses.” Sparks pulled the Zippo out of
her pocket, flipped it open and tried to light it. Once again, the lighter
refused to cooperate, so Sparks resorted to incessantly opening and closing the
silver top.

Artair frowned, clearly not appreciating the compulsion.

“Gods and goddesses. Right.” Rebecca sarcastically drew out the
last word. Artair glowered at her, and Rebecca could almost hear the clatter of
her teeth. “Fine, fine. Which gods and goddesses? Greek? Roman? Hell, we learned
so much mythology in lit class, I can’t keep them all straight.”

“Celtic, Greek, Norse, Mayan, Hindi and many, many more.”
Sparks’s answer only made Rebecca more confused.

“More? What do you mean
more?
”

“Each culture has its own deities,” Artair explained, “but each
culture only brings one piece to the puzzle. It takes all pieces to make the
picture. Absolute power is given to none, divided among all.”

“I don’t understand. You mean Zeus is real, but so is Thor? And
they all…exist?” Rebecca hated the trembling timbre of her voice. These people
were serious, and their conviction in their bizarre beliefs became downright
terrifying. “That doesn’t… That can’t… How can they
all
be real?”

“’Tis the way of things, Becca.” Artair put a hand on her
shoulder. “I know ’tis a bit bewildering and nae a wee bit easy to understand.
But you need to accept what we say.”

Rebecca rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, trying to work
out the dull ache that had haunted her since this disaster of a day began. It
felt like a week had passed since she’d walked away from that church. “Hera?
Aphrodite? Athena? Artemis?
All
real? And how about
the Mayan god they built that funny pyramid for? We learned about him in world
civ. What was his name?” She snapped her fingers, trying to reach back to recall
a class she hadn’t liked all that much but now wished she had paid better
attention to. “Cuckoo or Caca or—”

“Best be wary, lass. Kukulcan wouldn’t like to be called ‘poo.’
He has a wee problem controlling his temper, and you don’t want to be on his bad
side. The last Amazon who offended him grew a tail.”

Sparks laughed, but Rebecca couldn’t find any humor in the
notion of a god with real power cruelly toying with someone. Not that she
believed any of this nonsense.

Did she?

“And what about Isis and Demeter and—and Hercules.” Rebecca was
rambling, running out of names to throw at them so she could keep the need to
mentally process all they were saying at bay.

Sparks seemed to take offense to the last name, wrinkling her
nose as if she had smelled a skunk. “Hercules was a mortal. A demig at best. I
could kick his ass. Wish I’d had the chance.”

“A demig?” Between Artair’s accent and the funny words they
both used, these people were hard to understand.

“A demigod,” Sparks explained. “Not an Ancient, just a
second-class deity thirsting for the power to be a god, to make humans his
slaves. We call them demigs because we don’t want to use the term
god
whenever we talk about their sorry asses. They
cause us the most trouble. A demig probably got you called up to the
majors.”

“They’re really all
real?
”
Rebecca’s voice barely rose above a whisper.

Artair nodded. “Aye, Becca. Each and every one.”

She didn’t want to believe any of it. Sparks hadn’t thrown fire
or shape-shifted into a hawk. This whole situation was just a nightmare. “So are
Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy real too?” She didn’t even attempt to hide her
sarcasm. “I’d hate to think I wasted all that time getting those plates of
cookies ready and hiding my teeth under my pillow if they weren’t really coming
to my house.”

Sparks growled, a sound low, deep in her throat. A faint odor
of burning firewood wafted on the light breeze. “You Earths drive me fuckin’
nuts. Can’t you just take a person’s word for something?” Some flickers popped
from Sparks’s fingertips.

“Look,” Rebecca said, trying to help them understand, “I’ve had
the worst damn day of my whole damn life. My fiancé just walked away from me at
the altar. I was kidnapped. I—”

“You were nae kid—”

“I’m not finished!” A small, strangely timed aftershock of the
earlier earthquake rumbled, the movement taking Rebecca by surprise. She braced
her legs to keep from rocking with the unsteady ground. The tremor was short,
quick and weak.

Artair remained quiet for a moment, but those green eyes
narrowed in clear aggravation. “Go on then and speak, lass. We don’t need
another quake from you.”

“I didn’t make that earthquake!” Rebecca stomped her foot, not
caring how childish it seemed. Another short aftershock rumbled the ground.

And then it happened. Standing mute, staring into Artair’s
eyes, she suddenly believed him, suddenly believed everything he and Sparks had
explained.

“No,” slipped from her lips in a breathless whisper.

* * *

Artair had been watching Rebecca carefully, and when the
acceptance came upon her, he bore silent witness just as he’d done for so many
Amazons before her. Naked terror flashed in her eyes. That was a first.

“Aye, lass. Aye.” Reaching out, he took her hand in his.

Strange.
He’d never before felt the
need to bolster one of the women. Rebecca clutched his hand as though he’d
become the only thing keeping her from drowning.

He almost jerked his hand back in surprise, having never seen
vulnerability in an Amazon. They were cocky, downright arrogant, and needed to
be trained with a heavy hand the same as the male warriors of his clan. Even the
women of clan MacKay had fought with as much intensity as his men, knowing how
to handle weapons and disarm opponents. No, there had been nothing soft about
the MacKay women—at least the few he even remembered.

Once he’d chosen to be a Sentinel, he’d always treated the
Amazons with the same passion he had his warriors, because that was exactly what
these women were. Warriors. Improperly trained soldiers died on the battlefield,
and being a lass wouldn’t make an opponent ease his attack. If anything, the
Amazons had to be tougher than any man for they faced far greater dangers.

But this Amazon was different. How did a man who had taught
warriors to fight and kill for three hundred years handle a slip of a woman
whose feelings seemed so…delicate?

Artair felt a softening in him that hadn’t occurred in
centuries, a yearning to protect and soothe. With a tug, he pulled her into his
arms and patted her roughly on the back. “’Twill be fine, Becca mine. ’Twill all
be fine.”

He kissed the top of her head and rubbed her back, trying to
ignore the smell of lilacs that seemed to be her essence.

Sparks threw him an incredulous scoff. “What gives, Celt?” She
tried to peek between the couple. “Oh. My. God. If I’d have acted like that,
you’d have torn me a new one.”

“’Tis nae your concern, Sparks.”

“Nae my concern, eh? Then do you two want some privacy? I can
turn my back while you—”

“That’ll be enough of that,
Frida,
”
Artair replied, causing Sparks to narrow her eyes. These new recruits were his
to train, and he would choose how to handle them. Sparks could damn well keep
her opinions to herself.

“Becca?” he whispered against Rebecca’s ear. “We must find
Megan. The lass might need our help.”

Nodding against his chest, she took a step back and broke their
embrace. She gazed at the grass, seemingly embarrassed to look him in the eye.
“I—I guess. I just don’t…”

“What? What’s the hang-up?” Sparks threw her hands up.

“My aunt,” Rebecca replied, her voice hardly above a squeak.
“What—what about my Aunt Kay? She’ll worry when I don’t come home. And my
kitten. I just got a kitten a couple of weeks ago. Who’ll take care of her?”

Sparks groaned, pulled the pack of cigarettes from her pocket
and tapped it against her palm.

“Your aunt’s fine,” Artair replied. “She… Well, she already
knows you’re with us.”

“She does?”

Popping a cigarette out of the pack, Sparks lit it with a flame
from her thumb. “Can we tell her all this shit later? ’Cause we need to grab
Megan and get the hell outta here. We’re sitting ducks. I can almost smell the
revenants now.”

Artair nodded. “She’s right, Becca. I’ll send word to Kaylista
to tend your wee kitten.”

“You know her full name? You know my Aunt Kay?”

“Aye. Your aunt is a priestess of your goddess—”

Rebecca put her hands over her ears. “Don’t tell me anything
else. No more. Just promise you’ll have her take care of my kitten. Promise me?”
She looked up at him with hope and trust in her eyes. He felt humbled she could
offer him those gifts after the way he’d manhandled her all day.

His common sense returned in a rush. Ancients be damned, he’d
been hugging the new Earth! An Amazon—a warrior—and he’d coddled her like some
frightened child. If he didn’t train her, didn’t toughen her up, Rebecca would
die the first time she faced a revenant, even a pathetic piece of decaying flesh
like a three. What in the hell was wrong with him?

He was Artair MacKay, damn it. Laird of the clan MacKay. Feared
by all. Respected by his enemies as a cold-hearted bastard. Trainer of Amazons
who had defeated every type of evil known to mankind and several of which
mankind luckily remained ignorant, and he’d been treating her like a woman he
wanted to woo.

Anger and frustration flowed through him, making his words come
out in a roar. “Ye want me to leave an Amazon in danger while we talk about yer
kitty?
”

Rebecca blanched.

A grin spread across Sparks’s face as she pointed what remained
of her lit cigarette at him. “Now that’s the Celt I know and love.”

“’Tis time to do your job, Becca. Find Megan for us.”

“F-find Megan? How do I do that?” She wiped away the last of
her tears with the back of her hand.

Artair nodded to Sparks.

Sparks dropped her cigarette and ground it out with her foot.
“There’s a bond between each generation’s Amazon sisters. We can sense each
other, especially when a sister is near. Close your eyes.” Sparks took a step
over, grabbed Rebecca’s arms and turned the new Amazon to face the old.

Artair retreated to let Sparks give the first lesson. Rebecca
glanced over her shoulder, looking to him for his approval. Why did her anxious
eyes affect him so?