Dark and Stormy Knight (28 page)

Leith, doing his best to appear at ease despite his strained nerves, rose from his mossy perch. He started to draw the gun, but thought better of it. He didn’t want his wary comrade to get the wrong idea. “I’ve come to ask a favor.”

“Oh, aye? And what kind of favor might that be?”

“I need to get a message to the queen.”

Sir Axel’s eyes clouded with suspicion as he took a long, appraising look at his long-absent fellow. “If it’s forgiveness you’re after, you’ve wasted a trip. She didn’t just banish your person. She banished your name as well. Anyone fool enough to speak it after she sent you away was soon separated from his tongue.” The ginger knight licked his lips as if to demonstrate his faithfulness. “Or worse.”

Leith winced at the thought—and at what horrors might lay in store should his request be granted. He took a deep breath to steel himself against the strong temptation to flee. No, he would do this. For Gwyneth and their unborn bairn. Let Morgan do as she pleased with him. He deserved to pay for his sins, but his wee mouse and the babe were blameless.

“I’ve not come for benediction,” he told Sir Axel. “I’ve come to offer myself as the tithe.”

Skepticism narrowed Axel’s sharp eyes. “Out of the goodness of your heart, I suppose.”

“You could say that,” Leith said, calculating. “I’ve come to trade my life for the life of the lass I love.”

“How very noble of you.” Sarcasm laced Sir Axel’s words. “But are you quite sure the lady is worth the forfeiture?”

“I am.”

Leith was positive, in fact. He could hardly doubt it when she was somewhere in the Thitherworld right now risking her life for their love. He questioned his own worth, not hers.

“And what leads you to believe that, should her highness see fit to grant your request, she’ll keep her end of the bargain?”

Frankly, he didn’t trust Queen Morgan any farther than he could throw a fox by the tail. Still, what other choice did he have? None that he could see short of returning to Glenarvon to spend the rest of eternity wallowing in misery.

“Aye, well.” Mischief twinkled in Sir Axel’s blue eyes. “In that case, let’s just see what the runes have to say on the matter, shall we?”

Not waiting for Leith’s consent, the big Norseman did an about-face and took down the pouch from his saddle horn. As he turned back around and came forward, the stones inside clicked against one another.

Runes were an old Nordic system used for protection, magical purposes, and divination. When they were enslaved together in Avalon, Sir Axel daily meditated upon one of the glyphs and sometimes read the runes for his fellow knights.

“Draw one stone,” Sir Axel instructed, holding out the pouch, “but do not look to see which symbol is etched thereupon.”

With a nod, Leith stuck his hand into the bag, letting his fingers rummage. The stones were cold and smooth. When one seemed to offer itself to his grasp, he withdrew the rune from the bag, fighting the urge to look.

Sir Axel took the stone from him and studied it a moment before looking him in the eye. “You’ve drawn
Thurisaz
.”

As Sir Axel handed him the stone, Leith turned it over to have a look at the glyph. At first glance, it looked to be a crudely drawn letter “p” with an ascender and descender of equal length. On closer inspection, the symbol resembled a thorn protruding from a stem.

Leith looked up from the rune, curious about its message vis-à-vis his appeal. “What does it mean?”

The knight offered him a slight smile. “
Thurisaz
is the gateway facing both directions. It counsels choosing your path and taking action.”

Leith regarded him narrowly. He’d already chosen his course. Was the rune suggesting he choose a different path?

Sir Axel, obviously sensing his confusion, shrugged one brawny shoulder. “Perhaps you’d best meditate upon the meaning for a time and see what comes.”

Leith sighed, impatient. He was in no mood for reflection or delays. He wanted a simple yea or nay. At the same time, he needed Sir Axel’s full cooperation. Gwyneth’s life depended on it. Arguing, therefore, was out of the question. With a resigned sigh and a racing mind, Leith sat back down on the moss-scabbed boulder, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

Once upon a time, he’d studied at an ashram in Tibet and still meditated now and then, so he knew the drill. He took a deep breath and tuned into his mind. Noisy, fruitless thoughts whirred away inside his brain like a Rube Goldberg machine gone haywire. To quiet them, he began to count his breaths.

Five counts in.

Five counts held.

Five counts out.

Nature’s symphony rose to his awareness. The roar of the falls, the chirping of birds, the rustle of wind in leaves and branches. The air was cool on his skin, the breeze soft in his hair. Odin pawed, snorted, and shook his bridle. Sir Axel loomed quietly nearby.

Leith continued his measured breathing, fighting to keep the rune’s glyph at the forefront of his thoughts. As his mind quieted, the single thorn grew into a climbing rose with many barbs. The vine grew into a bramble and put out buds. The buds bloomed in a profusion of deep red. The vine climbed a hill, upon which stood a castle. His, but not. In his years of isolation, he’d studied dream interpretation, so he knew what it meant. A home that was the dreamer’s in the dream but not in waking life generally symbolized the subconscious mind.

In the vision, he followed the vine to the castle and entered. There was a crowd of people inside enjoying themselves. Avoiding the party, he ran up the tower stairs, seeking something he couldn’t name. At the top, a very tall door stood ajar. Half expecting to find a dragon, he held his breath and looked inside.

There was only a woman within. Clothed in a dark-green cloak, she worked an old-fashioned spinning wheel.

She met his curious stare with a searing gaze. “What do you want?”

He’d come for answers, not more questions. “You tell me.”

She stopped spinning. “Tell you what?”

“Whatever I’ve come to hear.”

She regarded him with a long, measuring look for several moments before she spoke again. “I will tell you, but know the price will be high.”

Raking back his hair, he took a deep, bracing breath. “I will pay whatever the cost.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth then he was cast into darkness. Spiraling, suffocating, silent darkness. Too disoriented to stand and not knowing what else to do, he sat on the floor, crossed his legs, and waited. After a short while, a voice that might have been his own spoke these words: “What stops you from living fully?”

He delved deep within for the answer. A great and terrible emptiness welled up inside him. Within it swirled century’s worth of grief and regret and a sadness so profound he could hardly breathe. As tears tightened his throat, he swallowed to force their retreat.

“Let them come,” the voice urged. “The only way to conquer the pain is to walk through it.”

Heeding the advice, he let tears well and fall. As they rolled hot down his cheeks, he saw the meaning of the rune in a thunderbolt of clarity. He was the cursed princess asleep in her tower, trapped by thorns, paralyzed by regret, haunted by the ghosts of a past he could never change. The answer was to wake up and live, to tear a page from Gwyneth’s book and seize the day. The time had come to climb down from his tower, cut away the bramble, and bury the past. The life he’d been living was no life at all. Better to die then go on as he was.

He opened his eyes and, now resolved, fixed Sir Axel with a determined stare. “However Queen Morgan might choose to act, I’m committed to my course.”

Sir Axel’s mouth quirked into a half-smile in which Leith detected a trace of envy. He’d always thought of his comrade as Ferdinand the Bull, sitting out here in Fairy Glen enjoying his flowers without a care in the world. “Do you ever get lonely out here on your own?”

“Of course I do.” He shrugged. “Who wouldn’t?”

Leith glanced toward the cottage abutting the glen, an inviting abode with white-washed stone walls and green shutters. The dwelling had been there for as long as he could remember and looked well-kept, though he’d never seen anyone about the place.

“Who lives over there?”

“No one. It’s a rental.”

Ah. That explained the absence of activity and boded well for his friend’s chances of meeting someone to ease his isolation. “Any prospects among the holiday set?”

“Nay,” Axel said glumly. “It’s only ever rented to couples on their honeymoons.”

Remembering the gun, Leith withdrew the weapon and offered it to Axel, handle first. “I brought you something.”

Taking the gun, the knight turned it over in his big, ruddy hands. “Is this a bribe?”

“No,” Leith said in all sincerity. “It’s a gift. And an apology for keeping away for so long.”

* * * *

“Tell me about your people.”

Gwyn rested her saddle-sore backside atop a plush pile of dry leaves and pine straw inside a cave. In the middle of the dirt floor, Bran turned a spit with the rabbits he’d killed over a fire he’d conjured by magic. The smell of the roasting meat made her mouth water something terrible, as did the sight of the gorgeous druid. She hadn’t thought it possible, but he looked all the more enticing with the amber glow of the flames dancing over his sculpted face and chest.

“What do you wish to know?” He fixed her with those bewitching blue eyes of his.

Gwyn bit her lip hard enough to cause pain. Raw lust throbbed so violently between her legs, she could barely think straight. Apparently, faery blood and pregnancy hormones were a combustible combination. She’d need a miracle to get through this night without giving in to her overpowering desire to make the beast with two backs with Mr. Walking Temptation in a Kilt.

“Everything.”

She was genuinely curious. After all, a girl didn’t meet a real, live druid every day of the week. So little was known about them she’d have to be a dolt not to be intrigued. She also was desperate for a distraction from her smoldering attraction.

Bran rose and walked toward her, leaving the rabbits to cook on their own. Alternating prongs of panic and longing poked her in the gut. He was so fucking hot, it wasn’t fair.

He stopped beside her makeshift bed, lifted the flap on his sporran, and withdrew another tarot card. Coming dangerously close, he held the card out to her.

She eyed the offering with suspicion. “What’s that for?”

“For you to meditate upon in preparation for what lies ahead.”

With some reluctance, she took the card. Meditation wouldn’t be easy when her thoughts were so agitated. Even as her mind churned, she forced her gaze to the card, which showed a white-haired druid in a gray tunic and cloak of blue feathers. He stood before what might have been Callanish or Stonehenge with his right arm upraised, a wooden wand in his hand. Before him, on a stone altar, lay four objects: a golden chalice, a sword, a coin inscribed with a star, and a twin of the wand in his hand.

“The Magician?” She raised her gaze to Bran’s.

“The Magician is the link between the gods and men,” he explained, “between spirit and matter. The objects before him correspond with the tarot suits, but also with the god Mercury, with whom the card is associated.”

“Wow.” She blinked at him in wonder. “I didn’t know that.”

She did know Mercury was the god with the winged sandals, but her knowledge extended no further. The myths she’d been raised on were Celtic, not Classical.

“The wand is the caduceus he carried as his staff of office,” the druid said. “The sword is the gift from Zeus with which he slew the many-eyed monster; the cup, the chalice he used to change the fortunes of mortals; and the coin, a symbol of his role as protector of merchants and thieves.” Bran claimed the space beside her. “You see, Mercury is a multi-faceted god. Not only was he the messenger between the gods and men and the conveyer of souls to the Underworld, he also was a master of alchemy, transformation, and divination. The latter power, given him by Apollo, earned him the title, Lord of the Tarot.”

She swallowed, unsure what to say next. Or what to do, for that matter. His closeness and the crackling energy between them had her as tense as the string on his bow.

“Are you at all familiar with the ways of my people?”

She shook her head, afraid to speak or move. The smell of him reminded her of Monterey’s rocky cliffs, towering pines, and wind-gnarled cypresses.

Before he remarried, her father used to take her there when he played golf at the Pebble Beach course in neighboring Carmel. She adored it up there, especially the beautiful Seventeen-Mile Drive along the coast.

This place almost cures my homesickness for Scotland.

Bran got up and returned to the fire. As he turned the spit, he answered her inquiry, all but forgotten in her bittersweet nostalgia.

“In a nutshell, our beliefs are these: as above, so below, meaning as the universe, so the soul. In other words, each of us is a particle belonging to the infinite universe and everything that occurs, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, has a ripple effect across the larger whole.”

He paused to check the doneness of the meat and poke the fire. She watched, enthralled. If he made a move, she might not be able to summon the strength to resist him. She called a picture of Leith into her mind. Poor Leith who’d been alone for so long. Unable to bear the thought of hurting him, she made up her mind. Come hell or high water, she would remain true to her tarnished knight.

“Along similar lines, we believe in the Holy Trinity,” Bran said, oblivious to her struggle, “but not in the same way the Christians do. To us, the trinity consists of body, mind, and spirit. Thus, to achieve completion, a person must cultivate and harmonize all three of these energies. And this, too, reverberates across the universe.”

Blinking away her distracting thoughts, she focused hard on what he’d just said.

His words sounded right to her. Right and true. She’d always had trouble with the patriarchal structure of Catholicism. She much preferred the equal male and female deities of paganism.

“What about trees? You believe they’re sacred, right?”