Fighting Fate: Book 2 of the Warrior Chronicles

FIGHTING FATE

Book 2 of The Dojo Chronicles

by

Leigh Morgan

AMAZON EDITION

PUBLISHED BY:

Pen and Sword Publishing, LLC

at Amazon.com

Fighting Fate

Copyright © 2012 by Leigh Morgan

Cover art by Vince Milewski

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously with the exception of Macski’s Highland Links, which are real, available, and truly brilliant. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Amazon Edition License Notes

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...

Dedication

For my mother, Donna Mae MacDonald, and my mother-in-law, Barbara Ann Milewski, for their constant support and their ever-present, “Where’s the next one?”

Love you both.

Acknowledgments

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge Professor Swanson who taught my first mythology class at UW-Milwaukee and sent me on a path so bright and beautiful it changed my world completely. All errors are my own and do not reflect on that fine man or his teaching. There are three people in my life who epitomize courage for me: Reverend Gary Meade, and authors Liz Kreger and Mary Jo Scheibl, everyday heroes who live with grace and strength of character I aspire to.

As with all life, this book would not have been possible without Vince, Aidanne and Cian, my own triumvirate of power, love and peace.

The fight scenes are my own. I thank my dojo mates and my Sensei for making them real.

...

FIGHTING FATE

There are moments in every soul’s life when the veil between conscious and subconscious knowing dissolves and universal truths become clear. In those moments, reality changes, and lives are transformed forever.

For some, this transformation leads to a path upon which they will manifest their truest destiny whilst seeking a higher purpose. Others will fight and rail against what the divine has revealed as their fate.

The course of fate is rarely a linear one. Fate can transform with action, heroic or otherwise, although fighting what one knows to be the right path on one’s journey rarely changes the destination. Fighting fate, often in fact, solidifies it...

The Journal of Myrddin ~ Beltane 720

CHAPTER ONE

Taryn Campbell awoke in a cold sweat for the third night in a row, the same dream riding her. She went from cold to hot in the space of seconds. Images flashed through her subconscious of runic script, an ancient well filled with clear water tinged with white, and the carved image of a voluptuous goddess. The images spoke of life and magic, but there was blood there too.

Those images were haunting her night after night, bleeding into her days. But it wasn’t them that took a hold of her heart and shook her soul. The man in the periphery of it all, guarding her, did that.

The man pulled her to him, dark and powerful, with eyes the color of the evening sky before the stars come out to play, deep blue bleeding to black. In her dreams he touched her cheek, he held her hand, and when he sunk into her, he brought her to heights she’d never reached while awake. That shook her more than mystical wells filled with magic white water, guarded by voluptuous goddesses and protected by runic script.

Taryn knew no dark men with deeply chiseled features and blue soul-searing eyes, which made the clarity of her serial dreaming even more disturbing.

The seconds ticked by like minutes, muting the dream images as rational thought returned. Her body still hummed with her dream lover’s invisible touch as she got up and made her way to the kitchen. Her hands shook as she poured herself a glass of cold water from a pitcher in the refrigerator, its light illuminating the small space. It was still dark, dawn had yet to break.

Even the coldness of the water couldn’t keep the man’s image from searing itself on her soul. She shivered in the early summer heat and made her way back to her bed, hoping for an hour of uninterrupted sleep before she started her day at the Celtic Research Center. Today, the dream didn’t fade as it had every other day.

“Get a grip Campbell. It’s just a dream.” Saying it out loud did nothing to stem the foreboding feeling flooding through her.

...

Jesse Mohr saw movement in the pre-dawn light. The night vision binoculars helped. Taryn was up and he now knew she didn’t sleep naked. The man-sized t-shirt she was wearing did nothing to detract from her elemental sensuality. That she couldn’t hide under an over-sized parka, down snow pants, and Eskimo boots.

Jesse laughed, a self-deprecating sound that hurt the back of his throat. He was a fool. He’d been one ever since he took on this ridiculous self-imposed quest. A quest so fraught with danger, that if he failed, he could lose the only thing that mattered in his life; the love of two women.

One he was watching now. A woman who, in his early morning honesty, he acknowledged being in love with, sight unseen, for more than a dozen years. The other, the mother of his heart. If he continued on this path, he could destroy all three of their lives. If he didn’t, the hole in his mother’s heart would remain and the self-inflicted scar on her soul would never fully heal.

Jesse would rather rip his own heart from his chest than deny Reed this chance to know her daughter. If that meant Taryn shut him out of her life and her heart before he even got the chance to imprint himself there, well then so be it. He owed Reed more than his life and his love, he owed everything to the woman who saved him.

Taryn Campbell was just going to have to forgive his intrusion into her well ordered universe because Jesse had no intention of losing her now that he found her. Jesse spent the last month getting to know everything he could about the woman she’d become since Reed put her up for adoption. He’d been in love with the idea of Taryn before he knew the woman she’d become. Now, Taryn held his heart. And she didn’t even know his name.

Today, that would change.

CHAPTER TWO

Taryn Campbell moved in a sensual dream-laden haze through her early morning breakfast of vanilla yogurt and chocolate syrup. Berries would have been better for her body and arguably for her mind, but she preferred chocolate after sex, even imaginary sex. Taryn harrumphed, shaking her head at her folly. It seemed that in the wee hours of the morning her body didn’t differentiate between real and phantom. Not when the orgasm was in no way virtual.

Disgusted with the lack of a real male in her life and in her bed, Taryn finished the sticky goo her breakfast had become with her constant swirling and set her bowl in the sink. Filling her instant hot water boiler with filtered water from the tap she looked down at her sleeping attire: an over-sized t-shirt her last sleepover guest left in her hamper before leaving for a nine month stint to the polar ice-caps. She sure knew how to pick them, rugged, adventurous and committed to a cause, all of that noble, none of it synonymous with sticking around. Up until today, this morning in fact, that unavailability
was
the attraction.

Funny, how one dream can change a life.
You’re just getting older, Dumbass. Don’t make more of it than there is.

The water boiler clicked off. Taryn poured an extra teaspoon of finely ground espresso into her French press, reveling in the aroma of beans, the scent mingling with the need for caffeine swirled around her. Always a sensualist, Taryn found no shame in reveling in the needs of her body and the joy that satisfying them brought to her senses. Coffee was but one of those joys.

The simple routine of brew, press, consume, repeat, brought her further from her fantasy and closer to the reality of the day and its promise. Taryn didn’t delude herself with illusions of making the world a better place through her work. Most days she was simply grateful she got paid to travel the world speculating on the details of the lives of the long dead. If she got it wrong, who did she hurt? Even the most celebrated archeologists and historians were guessing when they opined on the significance of this or that find, albeit in an educated way.

After two rounds with the French press and twenty minutes on her elliptical, Taryn was primed for her day. She looked at her Mickey Mouse watch-heart-rate-monitor combo; 7 a.m. on the anniversary of her birth and here she stood, sucking air as she wiped sweat from her eyes, jacked on java and alone, dressed in an old Greenpeace t-shirt three sizes too big for her.

“Lovely. No wonder you’re spending more time dreaming than getting.” Before Taryn could wallow in self-imposed solitude or second guess her decision to turn down Lauren MacBain’s dubious marriage proposal, the doorbell rang, saving her from further introspection.

Pushing sweaty wet hair from her face, Taryn plastered what she hoped was a polite expression on her face and opened her front door. She didn’t recognize the logo on the drab-green uniform the delivery man was wearing. He looked to be more boy than man. He nodded to her without a smile, briefly took a step back as she swung the screen door open to grab the black device he was holding out to her along with the plastic stick to sign her name. His grunted, “Morning ma’am” had her wanting to throw him over her knee and spank him.
Twerp.

She signed and handed the electronic signature machine back to him as he thrust a small box at her. She knew the scent of fresh cut lilies wasn’t emanating from her, but it couldn’t have been so bad that he had to turn tail and flee. She took the box and said, “Thanks” to his quickly retreating back.

As she shut the door, Taryn caught a glimpse of herself in the etched glass mirror her father had given her for her seventeenth birthday. The Three Graces took up residence there in all their glory. Reflected with that static beauty, her now thirty-three-year-old face still had sheet lines. The juxtaposition did nothing for her ego, which was as a rule, pretty iron-clad in what she hoped was a healthy way.

Stepping out of mirror-shot, Taryn looked down at the return address on her small, brown paper wrapped box: Shawn M. Govern Esq., Attorney at Law

The last time Taryn had seen Mr. Govern was at her father’s funeral over a decade ago. He’d been old and frail then, it was a wonder he was still alive. She didn’t know him well, but he’d been her father’s friend and he’d been kind when he read her father’s will to her and her mother, Mary Campbell.

Remembering that time in her life, losing her father unexpectedly, helping her mother through her grief, made Taryn’s heart clench and her chest hurt not from exertion but from something far more painful. Wiping a single hot tear from her cheek, Taryn put the box in her battered messenger bag where it nestled next to her latest issue of
Archeology Today.
She’d look at it later.

Taryn got in the shower, letting the steam and rhythmic pulse of hot water wash away the pang of melancholy and the fleeting heat of her dream. She had no idea that her encounter with the delivery boy had been recorded, the images sent into cyberspace almost instantaneously with their recipient more than willing to tear Taryn’s world asunder to obtain the contents of that seemingly innocuous box.

And so on her thirty-third birthday, events were set in motion by her long dead father that would redefine Taryn’s life, and if she survived, would change her very identity.