Authors: t
Maybe his little witch had worked magic after all.
* * * *
“There’s lots of marshland and oak stands,” Sara said as they crossed over
Albemarle Sound and she looked at the small dots of islands behind the Outer Banks.
They parked the car at the Visitor’s Center and picked up a map and then began walking along the Thomas Hariot Nature Trail.
“The oaks are old enough anyway to fit our theory,” Lucas said as he looked up at the Spanish moss hanging from them.
Elizabeth consulted the map. “And there are Elizabethan Gardens! This might be it, Lucas! Oaks and roses!”
They left the trail and entered the gardens through a replica of a Tudor gate house.
“How very English!” Sara said as they started down carefully tended paths between flower beds. She looked down at the brochure. “It says here that the gardens are a memorial to the Lost Colony.” She looked up in disappointment. “No sixteenth century explorer would have known that roses would be planted here hundred of years later.”
“Let’s look around anyway,” Lucas suggested, “although if someone actually hid the spear in the bough of one of these trees, it could take days, if not weeks, to search.”
SEARCH FOR THE SPEAR Cynthia Breeding 132
Sara nodded dejectedly. “And if it were buried, I doubt we could get permission to dig for it.”
Still, they walked, Lucas craning his neck up toward the trees, Sara keeping her eyes on the ground for any kind of mound or stone grouping that might be a marker.
Finally, an hour before the park was to close, they turned back.
“Another dead end,” Sara said, “and we don’t know if Baylor is getting any closer than we are.”
“Hey.” Lucas leaned down and gave her forehead a kiss. “Lose that frown.
While we’re here, we might as well take in a history lesson and watch the film that they offer at the Center.”
As they waited for the film to begin, Sara said, “I didn’t see any really old
churches in Manteo that had rose windows. Did you?”
Lucas shook his head. “Too bad we aren’t in Europe. You could have a field day with all the cathedrals.”
An older lady with silvery hair cut short turned around and smiled at them. “I hope I’m not interrupting, but I couldn’t help overhearing. Are you looking for rose windows that are authentic reproductions of the medieval ones?”
“Yes, we are,” Sara answered as she leaned forward. “Do you know of any
around here?”
“Here? No. I’m from Maine. But we do have a church in Lewiston, Saints Peter and Paul, that has a rose window modeled on the one from Chartres, France. In fact, French is still spoken at one mass each week. The entire Cathedral rivals anything I’ve seen in Europe and I’ve been there several times.”
As the film began and the lady turned around, the fine hair on Sara’s arms began to rise. If Lucas was right and the manuscript hadn’t been written until maybe even the twentieth century, what would be a more perfect American site to hide the spear than one associated with a French cathedral? A Templar cathedral. Templars had been the guardians and the Sinclairs had provided refuge for Templars and become the guardians.
And then the first line of the verse flashed in front of her, obliterating the movie screen.
“Where roses climb to heaven …” how much higher could a rose be than near the
lofty ceiling of a Gothic cathedral whose massive spires were symbols of reaching to heaven?
She plucked at Lucas’ sleeve. He looked down and gave her a smile.
“We’re going to Maine, aren’t we?’ he asked.
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“Have we been cursed by Awyr himself?” Lucas asked, pulling his jacket close,
as they walked to the rental car in the Portland airport.
“It does seem as though the God of Wind isn’t too happy,” Sara answered.
“Tomorrow is Beltane and the forecast is for a late season nor-easter.”
“I’ve had enough of storms,” Lucas answered as they headed north on I-495.
Sara felt that familiar hair-raising tingle begin. “You know, Brianna did predict wind and a storm at sea. I think this may be it this time.”
He gave her a lop-sided smile. “Isn’t that what you said at Roanoke?”
She made a face at him. “Just wait and see then.”
By the time they reached Lewiston nearly an hour later, the storm had come
ashore, railing at the town with fifty mph winds and gusts much stronger than that.
If Lucas hadn’t been holding the car door for her as she stepped out, it might have snapped right off. The street was nearly deserted, sensible New Englanders having battened down the hatches early. Still, Lucas took a careful look around.
“No tail?” Sara asked.
“Doesn’t seem to be,” he answered, “but I can feel him. He’s close.”
She felt the presence of danger too. “Let’s hope we can find the spear before he finds us.” Clutching the hood of her jacket around her face, she stared up at the cathedral they had come to see.
The twin towers with their cornered steeples seemed to pierce the low-scudding clouds of the storm. Between them, high over the main entrance, was the magnificent rose window. The overall picture was of an eight-petal rose, signifying the course of Venus during her five year transit. But inside the upper lip of each petal were alternating five-pointed stars and smaller roses with eight petals. Five and eight again. Eight still smaller roses were near the center where a five-pointed star was surrounded by a circle.
“What fantastic symbolism to the Divine Feminine,” Sara breathed.
“For those who have eyes to see,” Lucas answered.
Sara looked up at him. “Isn’t that one of those coded phrases the Templars used when wanted to identify themselves to each other without the risk of being arrested?”
Lucas nodded. “I’m impressed. Have you been doing research since we met?”
“I have,” Sara said. “This whole story of Templar treasure actually being real …”
She broke off and shrugged. “I’m here, so I guess I believe it. And Baylor sure does.”
“Speaking of whom,” Lucas said as he took her arm, “let’s go inside. It’s one place he can’t follow.”
The view from the inside was equally awe-inspiring. The center aisle was nearly three hundred feet long and at the end of it, in the rear gallery, sat a majestic organ with four thousand pipes. They walked the stations, marveling at the restoration done to them and then, Sara saw it.
The figure was in dark wood and she wore a cloak over a robe with a coronet on her head. Sara scarcely cared what the statue was called for it didn’t really matter. The SEARCH FOR THE SPEAR Cynthia Breeding 134
symbolism was there. A black Madonna. For those who had eyes to see.
“This is the place,” she said in an excited whisper. “Let’s look outside for the Druid’s oak.”
If anything, the wind had picked up in velocity during the time they had been in the church. It howled with all the intensity of a true winter storm. Lightening split the heavens in jagged streaks and thunder rumbled as they made their way around the side of the church.
“Probably not the best place for you to be,” Lucas said. “Why not wait in the car and let me check it out?”
“No way am I going .... ”
Her voice was drowned out at an enormous crack. A deep rendering sound
followed as an ancient tree to their left split in two. A blackened circle scorched the earth around the base.
Lucas pulled her back against him, even though the huge limbs did not land near them. For a moment they both stared.
A spear stood on end from the center of the tree.
Lucas leaped for it even as a few tourists began coming out of the church to see what happened. Just as he pulled it out, Sara had the illusion that both he and the spear glowed with sunlight. She blinked. The lightening must have tricked her eyes, much like seeing dots when a camera flash goes off too close.
“Walk slowly,” he said as he used the spear for a walking staff and leaned onto it.
“We don’t want to have to answer any questions.”
It was a long walk, although the car was parked not far away. Lucas paused
before they crossed the street, looking both ways.
“I don’t want to chance another car suddenly careening around a corner like it did in London,” he said when Sara looked up at him questioningly.
But they made it safely across. Both of them breathed a sigh of relief once they were seated in the car with the spear safely locked in. Even though Sara had not carried it, she could feel power radiating from it.
“We need to get the spear safely to Mr. Smith’s deep vaults as soon as possible,”
Sara said, “before your friend finds us.”
“The shield will guard the spear,” Lucas answered. “At least for now.” He
craned his neck up to look at the stormy sky. “Even if I wanted to drive back to Portland, which I don’t, there won’t be any flights out in weather like this. We’ll get a hotel room for the night.” He looked over to her and grinned. “And then I intend to make love to you. Totally. Completely. Until you beg me to stop … or until you don’t have enough energy left to tell me anything.”
Sara grinned back. “Promise?”
As they drove away, neither of them noticed Balor step out from a patch of
shrubbery nearby. He flipped open his mobile. The GPS was still working. He snapped it shut and smiled.
* * * *
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She was ninety-nine percent sure that the wolf would stay subdued as she
watched Lucas lock the door after he’d set their service tray outside. But the other one percent …?
His golden eyes glimmered in the pale light from a small bedside lamp. “Come
here,” he said.
She stepped into his embrace, loving the feel of his strong arms wrapping around her. She lifted her face and he bent, taking her mouth in a ravishing swoop, his tongue probing open her lips for deep exploration.
Even as his tongue thrust in and out and swirled around hers, his hands snaked under her shirt, caressing her back in sensual circular strokes. The silk fabric chafed her nipples causing them to peak and strain against the tightly-pulled shirt. Already her breasts felt deliciously heavy.
Lucas back-stepped her toward the bed, unbuttoning the shirt and sliding it off her arms just before they both toppled onto the soft mattress. Trailing kisses down her throat, he kneaded the soft satin mounds together and flattened his tongue over one nipple while he rolled the other between two fingers. The pressure of his tongue pushing the nipple down even as his clever fingers tugged the other one up sent sparks shimmering from tip to tip. That fire only kindled when he closed his lips over one of those tormented peaks and drew it deep into his mouth, sucking gently and then hard.
Sara moaned.
Lucas’ hand reached under her skirt, stroking her thigh, inching upward slowly while his mouth devoured hers. She felt him slip a finger beneath the thin strap of her thong. With one jerk, it ripped from her body, allowing cool air to flow across her heat.
He sat up and pulled his tee-shirt and pendant off, revealing that bronzed chest with its sculpted pecs and hard abs. Sara reached out to touch him, but he put his hands on her waist and flipped her over onto her stomach. She felt him unzip her skirt and lifted her hips to let him slide it off. He settled over her, upper body propped on his elbows, lower body pressed hard into her bottom. Well, something was definitely harder than the rest of him. She wiggled a little and heard him groan.
“Have a care, Lass. I intend to make this last.”
Lucas lifted her hair to one side and planted a kiss on the nape of her neck and then moved to her spine, mouthing and licking until there was a wet trail that felt hot where his mouth had been and cool when he moved downward to the small of her back.
His large hands cupped her buttocks and he took tiny nips that only gave a hint of sting and caused her already inflamed body to twitch with need. A finger made its way into the crevice and slowly stroked downward, pausing to press very gently at her anus.
Sara whimpered in delight as feminine muscles contracted deep in her belly. The wayward finger made one slow, leisurely swipe through her folds, torturing her throbbing clitoris by stopping short of it. She groaned and ground her pelvis against the sheets to obtain a measure of relief.
“None of that,” Lucas said and held her hips still. “I’m not through pleasuring you yet. He plucked both pillows and slid them beneath her stomach, hiking her bottom up. “There. Now you can’t cheat.”
“Wretched man,” she muttered into the bed.
“Careful, lass. This position nearly begs for a spanking.”
“You wouldn’t .... ” she stopped as she felt his large hand cover one buttock.
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Lucas sounded amused. “I would. But not tonight. We’ll save the games for
another time.” He bent lower and continued his wet kisses down the backs of her thighs, pausing to swirl slow circles with his tongue at the delicate area behind her knees.