Draycott Everlasting: Christmas KnightMoonrise

by Christina Skye

  “Navarre, you’re with us now.” Sara’s voice was strained. “Remember that. Listen to me.”

  Then Draycott’s low growl. “Hold as we are bound to hold you, Gabriel. Turn away from their promises.”

  Their words reached him at the very edge of reason. Navarre stared across the roof, feeling the pull of power, vast kingdoms of energy and freedom.

  Then heat poured through their locked hands. The power of its light cracked through him like a burning flame, joined in the force of the three. The dark temptations held, fought the light, and his body and soul shuddered, a battlefield for the greatest war souls could face.

  Dark or light. Good against evil.

  Either one was his, simply for the taking.

  He saw Draycott’s eyes, grim in their worry, his grip like granite on Navarre’s wrist. He saw Sara, terribly afraid but fierce in her determination, and from her came a deep, intimate calling to his soul.

  He took a hoarse breath, felt the lure of the dark. Slowly he pulled back from it while the storm raged in fury at his leaving. Closing his eyes, he wove together the force of the three. When the power was fully summoned, fully shaped, he drove it like a sword over the roof toward the source of the shadows, adding words that came from no mortal language.

  A harrowing wave of cries and shrieks and curses seemed to darken the air itself, while the abbey stones shook. But the six hands held together as the fury hammered on beneath lightning that scraped the sky.

  Time seemed to stretch out, and Navarre saw a cold eternity that held no hope of any release….

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Four Oaks Hill

  Fifteen miles east of Draycott Abbey

  IZZY TEAGUE peered into the harrowing north wind. He had followed the small track Marston had suggested, but the countryside looked nothing like the terrain he remembered from prior trips to the abbey.

  Twice he had circled, following the readings on his GPS. Each time the track had faded away into the marshes. His third attempt brought him over a slight rise. In the light of his night-vision glasses, he made out a black SUV stopped fifty yards back from a tiny path.

  No lights. No motor running and no sign of a driver.

  Silently he left his car, circled through the brush and approached from the back, only to find the big Range Rover empty. The car was locked, but picking locks happened to be one of Izzy’s specialties.

  Once he was inside, he found the backseat full of expensive, up-to-date surveillance equipment, the kind that required big money and big contacts.

  Powerful directional audio devices were stacked carefully beside a laptop and two wireless transmitters. Both transmitters were brand-new. So what were they doing in a stormy corner of coastal England, five miles from Draycott Abbey?

  Izzy made a quick search for identity papers, but found nothing. No personal material of any sort had been left inside the SUV. He scanned the area and saw dim footprints, nearly flattened by the rain. As he followed a set of prints up the slope, something cracked beneath his foot. Kneeling, he saw a piece of plastic jutting out of the mud. When he wiped it with his cuff, he realized it was a broken microchip.

  Izzy Teague raced back to his car, certain that Harding’s agent at the abbey was in greater danger than anyone had realized.

  DRAYCOTT LOOKED ASHEN.

  Navarre’s face might have been carved out of stone.

  Sara looked from one man to the other, feeling the force of their joined will and the protection that surged through their linked hands. She forced her eyes away from the darkness that seemed to boil at the center of the roof.

  She could feel the power of those shadows, and with the power came a sense of longing and temptation. No death there. No loneliness or loss.

  And power beyond imagining….

  Hold.

  She felt Navarre’s mind, powerful and focused, slip through her thoughts. “It is nearly done,” he whispered. “Three tries, that’s all they are given.”

  “Fascinating.” Draycott’s eyes held a wild excitement amid the force of his determination. “I’d count one try spent already.”

  “And another far from over.” Sara tried not to flinch as the claws scuttled over her neck and into her hair. Then softness. Warm words. Belonging.

  She relaxed for a moment, feeling Navarre, remembering the dance of their bodies by lamplight.

  Yes, she thought. This is what she wanted most.

  Suddenly Navarre’s fingers jerked on hers, his mind like a sword cutting through her hazy thoughts. No. It is not me you welcome. It’s them. Hold, Sara. The way is but the space of a sword blade and on both sides is loss forever. Look at me. Look into my eyes and remember what I tell you.

  Gasping, she turned her head and felt the false images roil in fury. In that moment she saw the shadows for what they were. Not Navarre’s mind, but something cold, endlessly hungry to possess.

  How close they had come to trapping her forever….

  The darkness hissed and screamed. Then, in a sudden burst, it turned. Furious, it began to recede, slipping over her hands, flooding onto the roof. The dark waves poured back into the gaping hole while the wind shrieked overhead.

  And it was done. The hole shuddered and then disappeared.

  Navarre didn’t move.

  Adrian didn’t move.

  Sara bent over and was violently sick.

  When she straightened, Navarre stood grave and silent beside the place where the hole had been. Only a faint outline remained.

  “I’ll do one last warding for safety.” Navarre glanced at Draycott. “My sword, if you would.”

  Draycott nodded slowly. “It will be my honor.”

  Many things were said between the two men without words then, Sara realized. She only hoped that the hatred had not stretched on too long to be overcome.

  A FRESH FIRE DANCED in the hearth, lighting Draycott Abbey’s magnificent library. Sara tried to focus on the flames as Adrian worked the logs with expert hands, prodding the fire to crackling heat.

  Meanwhile, Navarre seemed to move his hands across the broken window. Somehow the glass rose back into a solid layer.

  Her mind recoiled even as the sight fascinated her. Navarre seemed oblivious to her stare, his powerful hands smooth and sure as he checked the antique glass that appeared perfectly whole.

  “Is there anything you can’t do?” Sara muttered, exasperated by the man’s utter confidence and the sight of one more example of the laws of nature and science gone seriously awry.

  “There are too many to count,” he said dryly.

  “Name one.”

  “I…” He studied the fire. “I cannot forget.”

  Nor could Sara forget. Her memories were suddenly too intimate. When she turned to walk through the room, her legs trembled. As she swayed, powerful fingers gripped her shoulder.

  “Slowly. The chair is just behind you.” Navarre’s voice was gruff.

  She heard the concern, felt his mind probe hers, checking the extent of her fear and exhaustion.

  Beyond odd to have a man’s mind prowling restlessly inside your own.

  Stranger still to be able to explore his thoughts in turn and feel another person’s memories slip through your fingers like sand.

  And since it hurt to focus on the night’s terrors, she simply shut down. With a sigh of relief, she slid into the smooth leather chair and closed her eyes.

  Bliss to relax.

  Bliss to be warm and safe.

  A glass met her unsteady fingers, and she heard the rush of liquid.

  “The abbey’s current viscount keeps an exceptional whiskey,” Adrian said. “Drink it down, my dear. All of it.”

  Sara swallowed, savoring the slow burn that brought warmth to her throat.

  When she looked up, Navarre was studying her. Gravely he brushed her cheek with a linen handkerchief. “Your face is cut. You held well against the attack.”

  She desperately wanted to lean. To be weak and glory in his stren
gth. But leaning wasn’t in Sara’s makeup, not even after a night like this. “I thought you said there would be three attacks.”

  “So I thought. It appears that our joined power drained them first.”

  “Thank God.” Sara stretched her weary muscles, then extended her hands toward the fire that was rich and bright, for all that she was certain it was a piece of magic. The lack of smoke was a dead giveaway.

  She turned, slipping into Gabriel’s mind. “Well?”

  She saw the answer before he spoke it. “Magic,” he confirmed.

  The thought didn’t bother her as much as it should have. “I thought we were…lost.”

  “And so might we all have been,” he said grimly. “It was well done of you both.” Navarre’s face was lined in the phantom firelight. He ran a hand over his eyes and then took the glass Adrian held out to him.

  “Real spirits?”

  Adrian’s eyes narrowed. “You question every detail, I see. Just as always.”

  Sara observed the byplay between the two men, sensing images of power and pride in Adrian’s mind. “I see what I didn’t see before. Clearly, you are not the estate manager.”

  Sara felt him consider his explanation carefully. “I am, you might say, the guardian of this place. The task has been my duty and my honor for years too long to count. You’ll forgive me the lie.” A faint smile played at Adrian’s lips. “So few mortals can see me that I took the opportunity for a little masquerade. My willpower has always been weak.”

  “That much I remember full well.” Navarre took a long gulp from his glass and cleared his throat. “What manner of spirits have you poisoned me with?”

  “Only the finest whiskey from Scotland. Too strong for you?”

  “Hardly.” Navarre glared at the amber liquid. “It tastes passing strange, for all that. So many things different in this time,” he mused.

  Draycott finished the last of the whiskey from his etched crystal glass. “Men pay a fortune for such spirits.”

  “Men have always been fools,” Navarre said flatly. “Consider us. Consider our ideals. What good did our great Crusade do in the end? Dust and blood, that’s what we left behind. Precious little else.”

  “Perhaps,” Adrian mused. “But our ideals were high. There must be some power in that.” The abbey’s guardian leaned back in a deep leather chair, studying Sara. “I don’t mean to pry, my dear, but after what happened on the roof, I feel a familiarity with your thoughts. This comes from the link you made between us, Navarre?”

  The warrior nodded.

  “You have no family?” Adrian continued.

  “One sister. We trade cards at Christmas, but not much else.”

  “I see. And your work remains first in your thoughts. Something dangerous, I saw.”

  Sara shrugged. She wasn’t in the habit of discussing her job or her personal life. “Mostly it’s simple detective work.”

  “Not simple at all,” Adrian mused. “I can see that from your mind.”

  “Hard work that has defined rules,” Sara amended. “Work that is assisted by long hours at a computer. It’s hardly glamorous and rarely dangerous.”

  “But there are times of danger,” Adrian persisted. “One of them occurred recently, I think?”

  Sara looked down at the drink forgotten in her hands. She turned away the question and the memories that came with it. Instead, she picked an image from the bond that held her to Adrian, seeing the weight of old responsibility. Right now he was worrying about missing stonework on the roof and possible flooding of the moat. He was also thinking about a great gray cat and a woman with auburn hair. “The woman is very beautiful.”

  Adrian grinned like a schoolboy. “She is that most certainly. You saw her?”

  Sara nodded. “The gray cat seems to belong to the abbey in a way that I cannot describe.” She glanced at Navarre. “And you…brood deeply. I think your right shoulder hurts, too.” She nodded when he rubbed a spot near his neck. “A little lower and to the right.”

  He muttered something.

  “You’ve never had a real home, have you? Somewhere you truly felt safe.”

  Navarre made a noncommittal sound and looked down into the fire.

  “A place with a stone hearth and a pair of gray hunting dogs. That was your dream.”

  “You see a great deal,” he said stiffly. “That home is something I never experienced. But Draycott has asked you a question. What happened in this recent work of yours? There was something about a woman. Three children were involved.”

  Sara felt her face go pale. Navarre had seen too much. Even now the memories from that day scraped at her like a raw wound. “It was a kidnapping. I was called in to investigate the ransom note and provide forensic evidence.”

  “Forensic?” Navarre repeated the word. “Explain.”

  “Legal and physical clues that help to identify a crime or criminals.” Sara stretched out her hands to the fire. “My expertise is paper and other writing media.”

  Navarre considered and then nodded. “What happened when you were called to perform this work?”

  “The kidnapper broke through a roadblock. My partner and I were the nearest agents. The kidnapper had taken a minivan with a mother and three children as hostages.” Sara looked away.

  Her hands tightened on the arm of her chair.

  Navarre leaned forward intently. “You told the criminal you would make an offer to him,” he said slowly. “You proposed a trade—you in exchange for the children.”

  Sara could still smell the dry sage and creosote inside the narrow Utah canyon. She heard the crying of terrified children. “He said no. I was working my way down from behind, into a position near the children in the minivan. When I was halfway there, he shot my partner.” Sara stared into the fire.

  “And you feel you were to blame. You chose to protect those least able to protect themselves. It was the correct decision.”

  “No one else thinks so. My partner is still in rehabilitation. He may never be able to use his shoulder again.”

  Navarre shook his head. “That is the cost of his duty.”

  Once Sara would have agreed with him.

  “Those you work with blamed you,” Navarre mused, “because your partner was hurt, even though you did the right thing.”

  “I should have had a better plan.” Sara stood up abruptly, pushing away the memories. “I’m very tired. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to—”

  “No.” Navarre blocked her way. “I do not excuse you.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SARA FLINCHED.

  Navarre saw the reaction and hated the knowledge that he had hurt her, even a little, but he meant to know the full truth of what had happened. “They treated you unfairly.” His voice tightened. “Despite your courage you were punished.”

  “I don’t want to discuss this.” Sara stared over his shoulder. “Let it go. This doesn’t involve you.”

  She tried to turn away, but Navarre’s fingers curved, tracing the scars at her wrist. “Your life and all your past involve me now.”

  “I said, let it go.” Sara pulled against him, and the sharp movement made her wince.

  Gabriel cursed. He lifted her in one smooth movement and set her in the chair before the fire.

  “Gabriel, I don’t need to be babied.”

  “I will try to remember that.” Ignoring her frown, he swept her hair back from her forehead. “Just as I thought. You are bleeding.”

  Sara blinked at the blood on his fingers. “I—I don’t feel anything.”

  Navarre knew it was a lie. She felt heat where his hand anchored her cheek and pleasure where his arm met her shoulder. She was desperately trying to close her mind to him, but their link made that impossible. She still did not understand this.

  Adrian Draycott held out a heavy piece of wool cloth. “Use this tartan.”

  Sara was studying the fire as Gabriel slid the wool around her shoulders and raised a soft piece of cotton to clean the b
lood from her forehead.

  “Tell me the rest, Sara. What did these men do to you?”

  Sara listened to the fire, feeling the weight of memories bleeding still. Why wouldn’t he let her forget?

  “Why?” He picked her thought from the air. “Because you will not forget. It gnaws inside you,” Gabriel said.

  “Stop reading my thoughts.” She stood up suddenly, stiff and weary. Even now the memories were minutes-fresh, bleeding-warm. “You’re right, they did hurt me. I was shunned.” She smiled wryly. “In your time, it would have been called excommunication, I suppose.”

  His fingers curved, gentle but inexorable about her wrist. He turned her hand and shoved up the cuff, muttering a long, harsh oath.

  The scars were paler now. They didn’t hurt Sara at all, at least not physically. Only her shoulder remained stiff, unhealed.

  She tried to pull away, but his fingers tightened. They loosened immediately when he saw her wince. “How was this done?” His voice was soft and very dangerous.

  “In the crossfire. It was chaos—my partner panicked. Things…got out of hand.”

  That was the official version that had gone in Sara’s report. It was the version that her partner had forwarded directly to Harding after their return. At the time, while he lay bleeding from a gunshot wound, he had made it very clear he thought Sara was a detriment to the Bureau, and if he’d had his way she would have been gone already.

  Sara had every word carved on her heart. But she only shrugged. “The details aren’t important.”

  “Of course they are. Right now I hear every taunt this partner of yours made. Every threat. All because you saved the innocent ones rather than protect an adult man.”

  She’d forgotten that she couldn’t lie to him. Not while this strange link connected them. “I had…a choice. It’s done. Old news. I’m supposed to put it all behind me.”

  Navarre’s face was only inches from hers, and Sara thought she saw torment there. It was as if he had relived her own pain that long day and night. “The man was a coward. A pig. He should be punished. It will be my pleasure, in fact.”