Defending Destiny (The Warrior Chronicles) (19 page)

Daisy’s spirits plummeted. How likely was it that this was the spot she’d find something as enigmatic as the Druid’s Scroll or an ancient sword stuck in a stone? “Yeah, right. Like that ever happens.”

Merlin hopped off behind her. “Did you say something?”

Daisy shook her head. “Just thinking about swords and stones and unlikely heroes saving the day.”

“Sounds pretty good to me,” Merlin said, grinning at her. “Just another manic Monday. Eh?”

Daisy smiled at him. “Let’s get going, then.”

Merlin’s gaze had been snagged by two very tall, very leggy blonds with improbably sized chests getting out of a sparkly pink Volkswagen Beetle, complete with a daisy in the dashboard vase. Daisy had to admit they were stunning in their short shorts and wedge heels. As if they needed the extra inches.

Merlin didn’t even spare her a glance when he said, “Ah, you go ahead. I’ll catch up. If I’m not here when you get back, don’t wait. I’ll find my own way back to the house.”

Daisy straightened her
Karate Girls
hat, the only pink thing she owned, and set off down the stone path. The “of course you will” response said only in her head, yet she could have sworn she heard Merlin’s naughty laughter. The man was a complete reprobate, but she loved him anyway.
At least one of us will be getting lucky.

You could too, if you ditched that chip on your shoulder.

Oh, shut up.

“Top Ten Reasons to Stop Talking to Myself:

“1. I rarely like the conversation.

“2. The internal me is right more than the physical me.

“3. I sound like a blooming idiot…”

So what else is new?

Daisy decided not to answer that when a group of tourists wearing
Cornwall Rocks
t-shirts stared at her like she was a little touched in the head. They should judge. Everyone knew Cornwall was full of pixies. Instead of saying so, Daisy plastered a wide smile on her face and tipped her hat as she hurried her way around them.

The stone circle wasn’t very large. The stones themselves barely came up to her chest. It was filled with small stones in the center, which was new for her. All of the other stone circles she’d seen, and she’d seen quite a few, were filled with some sort of greenery, mostly grass and moss. She paused at the largest stone in the ring and looked for something, anything, that might serve as a clue to finding the Druid’s Scroll.

Scrutinizing the stone, Daisy recalled the note Taryn scribbled at the bottom of the map Merlin delivered:
I don’t think the Scroll is one thing. I don’t think it’s a scroll at all. The Druids didn’t write down their secrets the way we do. They were a predominantly oral people. But they did use symbols and they did know how to write. I think this female Druid was smart and cautious enough to divide her knowledge and leave it for only the worthy to find. The best hiding spots are always in plain sight. Open your senses, Daisy. See what’s in front of you. With any luck you’ll get what you need.

Her sister listened to too much classic rock. It corrupted her word choice in unfortunate ways. Still, Taryn had a point. Someone who went against the dictates of her society to ensure ancient knowledge remained, as her kind vanished in Christianity’s wake, wouldn’t do a massive info dump in one place. No, she’d spread the wealth, hoping that the knowledge of her people and their way of life would remain for those who followed.

Daisy meant to find some of that wealth, whatever its form.

There were many people milling about, wandering in and out of the stone circle and then making their way up the hill to the dolmen, clearly visible in the distance. There were hands and feet on ancient landmarks, as people wandered freely.

Daisy bent to examine the largest stone from the base up to the top. A boy of about seven or so ran into her as he chased another boy. He apologized on the fly as she fell forward from the impact. The brim of her cap hit the stone, saving her face. Her hat came down from the hit, obscuring her vision and forcing her further down the stone. That was probably why she saw it. Just a small, inverted “v” carved into the base of the stone.

Daisy settled back on her haunches, pushed her hat back on her head and began to move the smaller stones at the base away. Glancing around to see if she was drawing any attention, she continued to work as quickly and surreptitiously as possible. No one seemed to notice her at all.

Looking down at the newly uncovered bit of the stone, Daisy saw a sword carved into it. It was a sword very much like the Ulfberht she found in the water. Judging by the ratio of hilt to blade and the detailing, it was a Viking long sword. There were tiny runes on the blade. Daisy felt the stone. The carved portion was cool to the touch.

Reaching into the pocket of her cargo pants, Daisy grabbed her tiny digital camera. She shot a few seconds of video, then a several stills, before she moved the smaller stones back into position around the base, leaving the site as she found it.

Daisy stood up quickly. A bit too quickly. She was lightheaded and unsteady on her feet, an unusual experience for her. The stones under her feet shifted and she lost her balance. She would have fallen, but something hard and solid behind her stopped her. Before she could jump away, large hands steadied her. Whirling around, another mistake given the fact that her equilibrium was off, she came face to leather-clad chest with a very large, very virile man. Daisy was used to big men. The dojo was full of them. They didn’t intimidate her. Actually, she didn’t give their size much thought at all. This was different. This wasn’t the dojo and he wasn’t one of her dojomates.

She stepped back and looked up from his leather-vest-clad chest, well defined and filled with ropey muscles she knew were the result of use and not chemistry, past his equally strong neck to his tanned face. His jaw was square and there was a deep cleft in his chin. His lips were full and curled into a small smile that didn’t show his teeth. His cheekbones were high and as well defined as the muscles he flaunted with no nod to self-consciousness. His face was a thing of raw masculine beauty, but it was his eyes that literally stole her breath. His eyes were the exact color of the summer sky. Large and striking. Framed by black lashes so long and so think, they didn’t look quite real.

“Damn.”

Oh, God. Had she said that out loud?

His small smile deepened and she knew she had. Or perhaps he smiled at her overt scrutiny. She liked looking at beautiful people, but she usually didn’t stare the way she just had. His front teeth overlapped slightly, but that minor flaw was more than made up for by the rest of the package. His hair was shoulder length and clubbed at his nape; brown streaked with shades of amber and bright gold. A small moonstone stud graced his left earlobe. Daisy thought it was an odd choice of stone for a man.

She looked at him, riveted in place. He seemed to take her reaction in stride. No doubt he was probably used to it. Odds were he got that reaction a lot. He wasn’t classically beautiful. An old knife wound cutting from his left jaw, just below his ear, down the side of his neck, had seen to that. It did nothing to mute his aggressive attractiveness. At least, it was working for her. Sometime in the last three seconds she’d morphed into a stumbling idiot who stared. Rudely. And she couldn’t come up with one damned thing to say. Not even
thanks for breaking my fall.
He solved the problem for her.

“Guten Tag,” he said. The smile was gone, but his eyes and his demeanor were friendly enough. Unfortunately he’d just exhausted her knowledge of the German language.

“Ah…guten Tag back atcha.”
Get a grip, woman.

Daisy swallowed, adjusted her hat on her head, even though it didn’t need adjusting, and tried again. She could at least say thanks. Most people understood that. “Thanks for the save. I would have fallen on my as—ah…let’s just say my backside would have succumbed to gravity and those stones would have hurt. A lot, I’m thinking.”

Daisy shifted and looked at her feet. “So, thanks for that. Sorry I can’t say thanks in German. Don’t know much German beyond guten Morgen and guten Tag.” Daisy paused and looked straight into his clear blue eyes. “And after being struck speechless by your male beauty, apparently now I can’t shut up. I’m rambling like an idiot, hoping you don’t understand English. If you do, just walk away before the gods open up the ground so it can swallow me whole, after I’m struck by lightning. By the time that happens, maybe my mortification will subside.”

He pulled her gently from the stones onto the path and let go of her. He didn’t appear to be in any hurry to run off.

“Tell me you didn’t understand a word I just said.”

“I didn’t understand a word you just said.” His eyes crinkled, but he didn’t officially smile. “Although if I had understood, I would have particularly liked the part about you falling on your ass because of my…ah…male beauty.”

Daisy closed her eyes, then opened them again. She shook her head and laughed at herself and the craziness of the situation. “I’m so glad you didn’t understand. Now I’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Nope. Nothing to be embarrassed about at all.”

Now that Daisy wasn’t standing so close to him, and the immediate impact of his presence was gone, she was able take his full measure. She did so quickly and without lingering. Leather motorcycle pants, leather vest, long in the back, flared out in the front over his hips like something out of a gladiator movie. No shirt. Wide leather cuffs on each wrist. Euro-style motorcycle boots that should have clashed with the retro clothing, but didn’t. Daisy looked up at the man’s face. It was all business now. There was a bit of a challenge there too—not of the sexual kind, but the kind she felt in the sparring ring. The kind she felt every time she was vying for the same artifact as one of the world-class Finders.

She knew then her bumping into him was no accident.

He parted his vest and her breath caught in her throat. She took a step back, thought better of it, and moved a step and a half closer. She’d only backed away from one challenge in her life, a choice she only now acknowledged she regretted. She silently vowed she wouldn’t regret what happened here today, a step away from a stone circle older than the Celts.

Time seemed to slow as she stared at the man’s tattoo. A sword, exactly like the one carved in stone she’d just found, inked his left pectoral. There was a scar there too, just above the tattoo, from a brand. A brand like the one she knew Lauren had on his chest, only much smaller. This man had ties to the Council which could be neutral, or a very bad thing. Rarely in Daisy’s experience had Council ties been a good thing. Lauren was the only exception to that rule.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“You’ll know who and what I am when you need to. That time has not yet come.”

Daisy must have looked ready to fight, because his warrior demeanor calmed a bit and his voice turned more reassuring when he said, “Magnus knows me, Daisy Bennett. Have no fear of me.”

“Yeah like just because you say it, makes it so.”
Why
did she have to say exactly what she was thinking every time her stress hormones elevated?

Daisy groaned.

His eyes crinkled in what Daisy was beginning to suspect was his version of a smile.

He jerked his head to the right, behind him, gesturing toward the dolmen. “What you seek is up the hill. Look for a lone standing stone in the grass. For all our sakes, I hope you find it.”

Daisy looked up the hill toward the dolmen. The sun peeked out from behind a large cloud, temporarily blinding her, even with her hat on. When she looked back, the man was gone. How did a man who stood taller than the crowd just disappear into it? Whirling around, Daisy scanned every angle. He was nowhere to be seen.

How did he know what she was looking for when she wasn’t even sure herself? Did it matter that he knew Magnus? Yes, yes it did. A lot.

“Now all I have to do is go up the hill and look for a stone. A lone stone in a field of stones. Great. No problem.”

She pulled down her cap and set off up the hill.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Lauren pulled into the drive for New Kilmartin House and parked. He didn’t need to decide whether to go in or make his way to the flat above the museum where Merry lived. She called to him from the dark, making the decision to see her easy.

“So the MacBain returns to his lair. How was your meeting with the King?”

She was sitting in the garden on a bench next to the statuary. If he squinted, he could make out her profile. At first he thought her voice was in his head. Then he felt her. There was no better word for it. He felt her presence like he felt the ground beneath his feet. He’d never met anyone he connected with like he connected with her. It scared him almost as much as it thrilled him.

Lauren made his way to her, sat down beside her, and took her hand. He brought it to his face, brushing his lips over her knuckles. For such a substantial woman, she was finely boned. Her hands were small. Her palms were callused, yet the backs were smooth and beautiful. Merry was no stranger to work, in and out of the kitchen. One didn’t get that callused just from baking. If he didn’t miss the mark by too much, he surmised Merry dug in the dirt. He settled her hand in his lap, pleased when she left it there.