Fighting Fate: Book 2 of the Warrior Chronicles (13 page)

Liar.

The word echoed in Taryn’s head, although she didn’t know why. Of course he couldn’t read her mind, no matter how often he seemed to deliver whatever it was she needed when she needed it. Now she wasn’t sure what she needed besides a way to read the charms and to be done with badass training. She thought she felt Merlin laugh, but the slight tremble was over so fast, she couldn’t be sure.

“Right now I can’t read my mind either. I have no idea what I need, besides the ability to ‘
focus
’ as Sensei keeps drilling into my head.” Taryn pushed away, wiping tears from her cheeks, trying to smile, not quite making it, the words:
now who’s lying
coming unbidden into her head.

Merlin gave her a long look before kissing her forehead like a grandparent comforting a beloved grandchild. “You’re over-tired and physically depleted. Sleep on what’s troubling you. This part of your training is almost complete. One more day and we can get ready to skip across the big pond and get on with our work.” Merlin handed her the teacup she thought she’d drained. “Now finish your tea and go to sleep. Things will be clearer in the morning.”

Her shoulders dropped. Her limbs felt heavy. Merlin walked her to the corner where her incredibly comfortable bed was. He lit a small cone of incense as he did every evening, humming a tune that never failed to lull her to sleep. He pulled back her covers and she crawled in, her lids too heavy to lift as he said some words in Welsh before kissing her forehead again.

“Good night, Keeper of the Light. Sweet dreams.”

She couldn’t form the words to ask him what he meant by that, her tongue was too thick and sleep was too appealing. Consciousness faded as sleep took her in its sweetly scented silver mist, carrying her far from this realm.

…

Three women sat in judgment behind a large rectangular wood table; one young, one in the height of her fecundity, one who resembled her grandmother. An old man stood in the corner, tall and straight, a staff of oak in his hand. The table too was a great slab of oak, trimmed in holly and oak leaves. They were all draped in deep blue and white, looking at her with a combination of reproach and kindness in their eyes, all the same hue of blue-green.

The old man, tall and thin with long wavy white hair and an open blade in his belt seemed to know her, but it was the oldest woman who spoke.

“Who are you? Why are you here?”

The only answer going through her head was…I don’t know…I don’t know…I don’t know…

Four disappointed faces faded.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Mari didn’t want to open her eyes, afraid if she did the most secret longings of her soul would turn out to be nothing but a dream, or worse yet, real, transforming her world into a waking nightmare filled with regret for what might have been and remorse for what could not be recaptured now.

She shifted infinitesimally, feeling the very human flesh beneath her as it became rigid. How was she going to get out of this one? Mari wondered, wishing it would be as simple as clicking her heels three times and thinking of Scotland. Shay would steal every pair of shoes she owned before he let that happen. That thought didn’t bring the ire it should have, instead it brought an emotion closely related to hope. That just pissed her off. He’d wronged her after all.

“You may as well open your eyes, love. I felt every molecule of you stiffen, and your eyelids are twitching.”

Mari felt her heart pounding into gear at Sham’s words. Her insides felt like she’d swallowed a handful of jumping beans and washed them down with a pitcher of heavily peated highland single malt. Damn the man three ways from Sunday. He could still turn her into woman-mush with his voice alone, smooth, rich and so full of earthy promise Brigid herself would swoon at his feet,
after
she’d been sainted.

That’s just what she’d done, swoon at his feet. Now she was fully ensconced in his lap with her father chuckling in the background.
Bloody marvelous.

“I think I’ll go join that handsome looking woman in garden. It’s been a long time since a woman that lovely has crossed this old man’s path. Don’t you be wasting any more time, either one of you. I trust you not to take advantage of my lass-”

Mari tried to sit up at her father’s words. She didn’t want to be alone with Shannon O’Shay. Not now. Not yet. Not like this. Sham held her tight with a harsh
be still
in her ear. She stilled, trying to decide whether she should bite him or elbow him in the groin.

Seamus laughed. “I should have known I would get a reaction from you, me girl. Seems you’ve got your hands full of female fury, Shannon my boy. I’ll leave the two of you to it.”

By the time Mari loosened Shay’s grip enough to squeeze her way through the bear hug he was not so gently pinning her arms to her chest with, Seamus was gone. Mari watched as her traitor of a father approached a woman who looked a lot like Helen Mirren. He had an ear to ear smile on his weathered yet flirty sailor-home-from-the-sea face and a spring in his step better suited to a man half his age. Shay’s grip eased as she ground her tail bone into him and squirmed into a seated position.

Mari turned her attention from her father to the father of her only child. She narrowed her gaze and steeled her spine, but one look into Sham’s gray eyes, speckled with hazel and bits of gold and the heat of her ire left. What replaced it was an entirely different kind of heat. Her limbs felt heavy and for a moment she relaxed into the warmth of his bare chest, luxuriating in the remembered sea and grass scent of him.

“You still smell of the coast drenched in spring sunshine. I still remember rolling in the daffodils, you wearing their scent mingled with new grass.” Mari’s eyes shut as she took another deep breath, taking more of him in, wrapping it in memories of hours spent along Loch Fyne.

Inhaling deeply, Mari began rubbing his chest with her cheek, bathing herself in his scent. And damn the man, he let her. Realizing what she was doing, Mari’s eyes flew open and she pushed away with every ounce of her strength. Mari would never know whether Shay let her go or she took him by surprise with her sudden shove, but she landed on her tail on the floor. She scurried away, crab style, until she managed to get to her feet. Mari kept backing away from him as she rubbed her backside. As soon as she realized how silly she must look to him she stopped rubbing her bum and held her hand up in the universal gesture of crossing guards everywhere.

“Stay away from me.”

“Not a chance.”

“I mean it, Shay. Don’t come any closer, or I’ll…I’ll…”

“You’ll what, exactly?” Shay asked, rising from the couch where he’d held her in his lap, the muscles on his bare torso contracting and undulating with each step as he walked closer to her. She backed up with his every forward movement until she hit a wall.

“What will you do, Mari-girl?” His tone matched the bone-melting look in his eyes as he narrowed the space between them like a stalking jaguar, every step measured and painfully slow. The promise of being devoured closer with each step. She searched for the exit, but the only clear way out she could see was the one Seamus and his new-found-Helen were blocking as they shared a lighthearted laugh.

By the time she looked back at Shay he was standing before her. If he leaned forward he’d be pinning her to the wall. One finger reached out and trailed down the curve of her face, making Mari feel delicate, treasured and threatened at the same time. The incongruous emotions coursed through her like waves in the shallows of a stormy sea, deceptively dangerous, threatening that even one inch closer may sweep her out to sea.

“What will you do if I don’t stop? Will you run? Will you lie to me…to yourself? Will you hide from me?”

Ever so lightly his fingertip traced her bottom lip. Mari couldn’t look away from his hypnotic, unblinking gaze. Her breath caught in her throat and the rushing in her ears obliterated all other sound. She could feel the rapid beat of her heart in the small vulnerable space between her collar bones like someone was tapping there, rhythmically, unrelentingly.

His jaw locked and the noticeable tick there scared Mari almost as much as the cold calculation in his now solid smoke colored eyes. “Will you try to continue to hide our son from me? Will you continue to pretend he was fathered by another man?”

She opened her mouth, to do what, she wasn’t quite sure: confess, cajole, ask for forgiveness, condemn him for being the one who’d fled. She’d never know and it didn’t matter, because the second she did, Shay was there. His lips captured hers so sweetly she may have imagined the fierceness in his predator’s eyes or the deceptively deep slice of words cutting into her soul, the pain momentarily hidden by the sensuality of his tone.

He held himself away from her, close enough for her to absorb the energy radiating from him, but not close enough for her skin to feel his. Groaning, Mari reached out and pulled him to her, one arm on his lower back, one on his denim clad buttocks. He came readily, leaning in, letting her feel his erection, the top of his thighs, but not his upper body. He kept that part of him that held his heart from her. Mari pushed away from the wall seeking more of him, but Shay resisted. His kiss was too light, his chest too far away, his tongue too elusive.

Giving up all pretense that at least in this she still wanted him, Mari wrapped one leg around the back of his thigh and pushed and pulled until every part of her she could press against him was pressed. Her nipples hardened. She began to melt from the inside. Going up on tip-toe she reached up until she had his nape in both hands. Holding him to her she deepened her kiss, touching, tasting and thrusting into him like she wanted to feel him thrusting into her.

She was breathing heavily when she eased her grip as he pulled slowly away. He reached behind him running one palm over her hands where they still held his nape. Then slowly, purposefully, Shay removed her hands from his flesh. She felt like she’d run five miles then been kicked in the teeth.

He looked unmoved and he was breathing just fine. His eyes were still smoky but they held all the warmth of stainless steel left outside in January. This wasn’t the boy who asked her to marry him, besotted and full of love for her. This was a man she didn’t quite recognize, but her traitorous body responded to anyway.

If she didn’t know better she’d think he was totally unfazed by her desire. One look at his jeans told her that wasn’t true. He gave a bark of self-deprecating laughter that sounded like it hurt him almost as much as it hurt her. Shay stepped away and Mari sagged against the wall a moment before her pride took the Jello out of her spine.

“I’ll take what you’re offering Mari. Make no mistake about that. And, I’ll give more than you can possibly imagine in return. But know this, there is no secret I’ll let you keep from me now. Run if you will, but you will never keep my son from me again. If you decide to stay, know that this will happen. Again and again. It’ll go further when
I
decide, but it
will
happen and it
won’t
stop. Not now. Not ever again. So if you can’t live with that, leave now. But know you leave alone. Magnus is his own man now and he’ll be leaving in his own time. Not yours.”

Shay took another step back, every muscle rigid and the tick in his jaw evident now on both sides. Mari could almost hear his molars grinding into dust. Oddly the thought of his enamel turning to grit, gave her back some of her own grit. She was highlander, not some wet behind the ears lass he could boss around or leave hot and wet and panting for him. Her chin jutted up, her shoulders jerked back, pushing her still impressive breasts up and out.

“You arrogant arse. You’re the one who did the lovin’ ‘n’ leavin’ ‘n’ hidin’. You run…you…you-”

She looked him up and down feeling the blood rushing into her cheeks, not caring if she turned spotty or if he thought she’d sprouted a second head. If she’d have had a claymore she’d have cleaved him in two.

“-you…over-muscled-under-dressed-tattooed-son-of-a-toothless-banshee. Run for the hills you hairless troll. I’ll not be goin’ anywhere. You…you…will show me to my room. And this-”

Mari gestured wildly in front of her, lingering a wee bit too long at his groin level.

“-this will be happenin’ when I am good and ready and not before. So do na’ be telling me wha’ will and wha’na be happenin’ with tha’ doon there. It’ll be stayin’ in ye trousers ‘til further notice.”

Shay looked momentarily nonplussed. He even shook his head as if to clear it before the grin she recognized graced a much older face. “I forgot how entertaining you are when you’ve got steam coming out of your ears and brogue rolling off your tongue.” He laughed again, a wicked twinkle in his eye. “But call a cock a cock, Mari-girl. You’re way too old to be saying ‘doon there’ like you’re the vestal virgin. And, you’ll be seeing and touching and tasting it soon enough.”

He grabbed her hand, showed her to her room and shut the door in her face in less time than she needed to formulate a suitable response, that stupid smirk on his face the whole time. It was almost as if he was enjoying himself.

She grabbed the closest thing she could find and threw it at the rapidly closing door. His amused laughter had her pulverizing her own tooth enamel and cursing the fact that she could still smell him on her skin.

“I’ll be taste’n the dirt of the long nap before I’ll be taste’n yu, Shannon O’Shay. Devil spawn that yu’ve turned oot to be.”

“You’ll be paying for that vase, love. It was a gift from the lady of the house.”

Mari’s heart sank as nausea threatened. Why had Sham kissed her if there was a lady of the house? Why hadn’t she thought to ask? It was only natural that Shay would have married after all this time, but why did the thought of a Mrs. O’Shay leave her cold and clammy in the summer heat?

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE