Defending Destiny (The Warrior Chronicles) (20 page)

“What do you know of kings and secret meetings?” His tone was light, belying the tension riding under his skin like a loose electrical wire. Merry squeezed his thigh and just like that he wanted her hands on his bare skin. If she was trying to distract him, she was doing a fine job, but he wouldn’t get naked before he had answers to his questions. He stilled her palm as it crept higher.

“Are you a witch, Merry Peacock? I keep hearing you in my head.”

She laughed and squeezed again, this time lingering with the caress.

“What you hear is your own intuition. You just hear it in my voice because you want me.”

“That I do.” Lauren turned to face her. He reached out and ran the back of his fingers down her face from temple to jaw, then across to her lips. “And will I be having you, Merry.”

“That you will, MacBain. But I’m guessing it won’t be before the interrogation.” She slapped his hand away with her free hand. She didn’t move the hand on his thigh, which he was grateful for given the sharpness in her tone. “Get on with it, man.”

“Why do you call me
the
MacBain?” That wasn’t what he intended to ask, but since he formed the words, he wanted an answer.

She was matter-of-fact now. He wanted his sensuous witch back, but she wasn’t likely to make an appearance until this prickly woman who’d taken her place was done reciting facts. “Because you
are
the MacBain. You’re well known in some circles, even though you take great pains to keep hidden who you really are. You’re a laird by deed if not by birth or inclination, and it’s you who should be Arm-Righ. Not that self-serving pissant tripe who fashions himself King.”

A cold chill went up Lauren’s spine. Merry should not have known any of what she just said. Her knowledge of the Council alone would be a death sentence if the Arm-Righ or his minions found out she knew of them and was willing to speak about what she knew. The Ghost was out there somewhere and Lauren couldn’t risk him hearing and reporting back to the Council.

Lauren grabbed her arm, more roughly than he intended, and yanked her up. He pulled her with him before she could protest. “Come with me.” When she tried to pull away he held fast. Bending to her ear, he whispered, “Not one more word until I tell you. Nod if you understand.”

She nodded. He pulled. They went right past the kitchen, not even slowing as they made it to his bedroom. Holding a finger to his lips in a
shh
gesture, he all but tossed Merry on his bed. She must have felt his fear or the tension rolling off him in waves, because she remained blessedly quiet.

Lauren went to his bureau and pulled out his leather roll. It had an ancient-looking lock on it. He pulled a skeleton key from a long chain around his neck and unlocked the roll. A small click and he was able to unroll the soft leather. It was similar to a pen case in that it had several long pockets. It didn’t hold pens, it held the tools of his trade. He pulled out a small device from one of the pockets and turned it on.

He swept the room for bugs. A high-pitched, repeating signal and flashing light alerted him to two. One was sewn into the lining of his second favorite worsted wool jacket and the other slid into the binding of his well-thumbed copy of the collected works of W.B. Yeats, his favorite poet.

Lauren took the book into the sitting room and laid it on the cocktail table. Later, he’d leave a note for the others, informing them not to say anything remotely informative in that room. Lauren knew the bug. High tech. Voice activated. With a range of no more than ten meters.

He hung the jacket in the laundry room. No one talked secrets in the laundry. Just to be contrary, he turned on the portable radio on the shelf next to the detergent and fabric softener. The sound would keep the bug active and wear out its battery. He smiled to himself. He hoped whoever planted them came back to replenish their stock. Lauren would have the same kind of conversation with the bugger that he had with the Council member who called Daisy a slut.

Acts of aggression toward Council members were forbidden unless sanctioned by the Arm-Righ. Lauren didn’t give a damn. He’d simply told the King the man had spoken an insult and he was going to pay for it with a bit of his flesh. Small enough price to pay. The person who planted the bugs wouldn’t get off as lightly if Lauren caught him.

Lauren made his way back to his bedroom, taking the steps two at a time. Merry hadn’t moved.
Smart woman.
Lauren swept the room one more time. Then he motioned for Merry to stand and he swept her too. No more bugs. He put the scanner away, relocked his case, and set it back into the bureau.

Finally he was able to turn the full weight of his attention on Merry. “Now you can talk. Explain.”

“Don’t you be getting all laird of the manor with me, MacBain.” Merry took two steps closer to him and glared up into his face, hands on her sweetly rounded hips. She looked more like an angry fairy sprite than an intimidating specimen of womanhood. He almost laughed, but he figured she’d hit him if he did. Sometimes angry fairies could do a lot of damage no matter how cute or how diminutive. He kept his smile to himself.

“Damn straight. And you’d be deserving it too.” She drew out her O’s so it sounded more like
teeeew
than
too.
He really wished she’d stop reading his mind. It was getting annoying.

Lauren had her good and riled without trying. Sinking into all that heat was going to give him enormous pleasure. He wanted her passion, not her ire, so he continued more calmly. “Merry, tell me what you know and how you know it.”

He brushed her face again with his hand, this time cupping her delicate cheek, making her doe eyes widen in surprise as her breath caught audibly in the back of her throat. He felt the electric charge between them down to his toes. He could only imagine what she was feeling. “You put yourself at great risk knowing about the King. Tell me what you know so I can figure out how to protect you.”

She stepped back and he let his hand fall back to his side. “I don’t need you to protect me.”

“Yes, you do. It would be a deadly mistake to think you don’t. I need to know everything and I need you to trust me. Can you do that?” If the situation were reversed he wouldn’t trust anyone. He’d hold back. Lauren fervently hoped Merry was that stupid or that stubborn. She didn’t seem half as arrogant as he knew himself to be, so maybe she’d do the smart thing and let him in. Now that he found her, he realized he’d like to keep her for a while. A long, long while.

“I’ll make you a deal, MacBain.”

Lauren’s eyes flashed as he held up one hand for her to stop. Imbuing his gaze with the rampant carnality running through his blood, he said, “We’re going to be very intimate, very soon. Do you think you could call me Lauren?”

She nodded, but didn’t use his name. “I’ll make you a deal.” His eyes narrowed at this small slight, making her pause, but she rallied quickly enough.

“I’ll tell you what you want to know as long as you don’t laugh or belittle my answers.” She looked down and shrugged. “Also, there are some things I can’t prove to you, so you’ll have to take them on faith.” She looked up again and captured his gaze. Merry willed him with her chocolate eyes to understand and not to push her past what she could give. “There are some secrets I must keep. Some things cannot be shared even with those closest to me.”

“Done deal, Merry. I accept your terms.”
For now.
“Start talking. Begin with the King.”

Merry sat down on the bed and told him almost everything he wanted to know and everything he needed to know. She told him about her role as storyteller. About how she’d been chosen as a young girl, as her mother was before her, and her mother before that, to keep the oral history of her people. Her people included the inhabitants of Argyll from the earliest times, which during the time of Somerled, the Lord of Argyll and the Isles, encompassed the western coast up to Caithness. She was pretty damn precise about her family history from about 600AD on, but Lauren had no way to verify what she touched on before that.
Myth, legend, and magic blended then with truth, so inseparably that no one could say what was fact.

Merry was descended from a long line of storytellers and mystics. Keeping the stories authentic required vast bits of rote memorization, usually in triads, or groups of three. That included not only spiritual history, but poems, lineages, and law. It encompassed learning details that were passed down for centuries, and if he believed her, millennia. She talked about myth and magic and artifacts she shouldn’t know existed as if they were fact, not legend. Although storytellers were supposed to share their knowledge, Lauren knew she kept part of it hidden. Whether in deference to those who had taken vows of secrecy, similar to his order, or because she didn’t totally trust him, Lauren wasn’t sure.

She then talked about Cerdwin’s Cauldron and the Well of Truth that Taryn had discovered and drank from. She knew of the Druid’s Scroll, and other even more legendary artifacts.

She talked for the better part of an hour. Lauren nodded and listened, and every once in a while asked for more details. She gave freely. Then, seemingly exhausted, she stopped.

He sat down beside her, saying softly, “You still haven’t said how you know about the King.”

Her eyes narrowed. Her tone was flat. “
Your
King and
your
Council are trying to take these treasures. If your King gets his hands on the Druid’s Scroll or the Sword of Destiny, he’ll use them to gain even more power. He’ll take their magic. With a soul as dark as his, their powers will be used to make others submit.
Your
King wants to own every artifact. He wants the power and the unlimited resources the artifacts bring. He’d rule the world if he could.”

Lauren didn’t laugh. He promised he wouldn’t. “The Arm-Righ has enough trouble ruling the Council. I doubt he’d be capable of drawing a map of the world, much less ruling it.”

Damn, he hadn’t meant to sound so condescending. Merry didn’t take offense, though. She simply looked at him with those earnest eyes and said, “He doesn’t have the power now to control much of anything beyond the Council. If he controls either the Scroll or the Sword he’ll have enough knowledge to kill at will.”

She swallowed hard and Lauren knew she believed everything she was saying.

Her tone turned very quiet and there was a hitch in her throat when she continued. “I can see him leveling whole cities simply by turning their inhabitants against one another. Then all he’ll have to do is sit back, watch it happen, and stroll in to pick up the pieces in the aftermath. There are untold riches to be had fixing what you broke.” She cocked her head at him. “Tell me, Lauren, does that sound like the snake who sits as your King?”

The chills were back in Lauren’s spine. It sounded exactly like what the Arm-Righ would do with that much power.

…

Neither Lauren nor Merry knew they were being monitored. There was a third bug under the bed that Lauren’s equipment couldn’t detect. It was a different kind of bug entirely. MacBain was supposed to find the other two. The third one had an unlimited power supply and a fifty-meter radius, not that it needed more than ten to pick up their conversation. The man listening in had his worse fears confirmed.

MacBain was dangerous. He was also in danger. So was the woman, for what she knew. They just didn’t know it yet. The King had spoken. It was the man’s job to listen. It was also his job to act. He had a choice to make.

He could kill them both, since neither would be silenced any other way, or defy the Arm-Righ, which was tantamount to a death sentence. There was no real choice. In the blink of an eye, the man knew which path he’d walk even knowing the other was less treacherous.

…

Finding a stone standing alone in a field filled with stones was no easy feat. Since bitching, even to herself, never got her anywhere good, Daisy decided not to overthink it. She let her feet take her where they would. It took the better part of an hour, but she finally settled on a stone about seventy-five yards from the dolmen. It was just inside the tree line, which was probably why she hadn’t seen it earlier.

Daisy scanned the area and saw nothing she hadn’t seen since the moment she arrived at the Neolithic site. Tourists milled about. Families with children in tow climbed on the stones. No sign of Merlin. No sign of the leather-clad warrior who’d led her there. No one paid her the least amount of attention. Satisfied, she approached the stone.

She took out her camera and started taking shots. Standing about six feet high, the stone had a small maze carved on the front, right under a carving of a
Green Man. Daisy took photos of it after running her fingertip around the maze. Mazes were sometimes used as meditation aids for earth religions. Daisy found them beautiful in their own right.

She moved around the stone and eyed it from every angle, trying to take it in as a whole.
What secrets do you hide?

On one side she saw a crack, then another parallel to it. Two oddly parallel cracks? Above, high on the stone, was another small, inverted “v” that was barely discernible. Below that was a spiral. Once again Daisy’s fingertips traced the carving, gently, barely touching it. Her fingers grew warm. She pushed on the spiral and felt the stone rumble and heard the stone on stone grind of movement.