Savage Legacy

by Lora Leigh

  “There’s more here than just the dagger,” she told them softly as she and Shane made their way to the back entrance of the house. “What else could she be searching for, Chantel?”

  “I’m also scared to guess,” Chantel said softly then. “There were many items that were stolen from the castle during that time. Many of them items that Galen had gifted us with.”

  There was something just as powerful, just as deadly as that dagger, Ariel thought, tilting her head as she sent the winds searching for the secret. Caitlin would of course be more than aware of the fact that Ariel was searching; she wouldn’t dare voice whatever else she was after.

  “This house belongs to Walter Mooresite,” Joshua said then. “He collects ancient weapons and scrolls. He’s especially enamored of ancient Irish relics.”

  There wasn’t a whisper from Derek.

  “We’re in,” Shane said softly. Ariel moved behind him, entering the darkness of the house.

  “Let me in front of you, Shane,” Ariel hissed as he continued to block her attempts to move into the lead. “It’s too hard to sense where she is from behind you.”

  “Then try harder,” he grunted.

  She would have fought him for the position, but the wind that followed them inside brought a message she knew would leave them stretched for time.

  “Jonar is almost to the grounds,” she whispered, pushing at his back. “We have to hurry.”

  “She’s right,” Joshua reported from his position, still outside. “Looks like we have quite a crew moving through the forest, boys and girls. Do your job and get your asses out of there.”

  Ariel inhaled harshly before she feigned a move to Shane’s side, let him counter it then quickly slipped around the other side. She ignored his curse, concentrating instead on slipping quickly along the deserted halls and heading for the basement.

  The air led her in her search, whispering of Caitlin’s movements, her steady search through an opened safe, her frustration mounting as the final object she had come searching for eluded her.

  Devlin, Chantel and Derek met them on the landing that led into the darkened bowels of the house and before she could stop him, Derek was leading the way, rushing down the stairs silently, intent on reaching Caitlin before she could slip away from him.

  Nothing else was said. They were too close now, though Ariel could have warned them that Caitlin was already aware of their presence.

  As they neared the landing, Ariel stumbled, aware that Chantel had paused behind her. They could both feel the renewed surge of power through their crystals, the satisfaction, the sense of triumph.

  “No.” She heard Chantel whisper as the air thickened, sending a subtle warning whizzing through her mind as they rounded the stairwell and started down a long stretch of hallway.

  Toward the end of the hall, a faint, soft blue aura emanated from beneath the doorway a second before it opened and Caitlin stepped free.

  She was a small, delicate woman with elfin features and light, sea green eyes. Her long red-gold hair was braided down her back, her bow-shaped lips curved into a soft smile. Dressed in black knit pants and a long-sleeve top, she presented a most unlikely picture of a burglar.

  “You’re fast; I have to give you that.” There was a thread of affection in her voice as she glanced from Ariel to Chantel.

  The small sapphires in the dagger’s hilt gleamed from her waist, an unearthly glow that almost mesmerized when combined with the protective aura wrapped around her. A small, velvet pouch hung heavy at her waist, sending fragile whispers of power throughout the room.

  “Caitlin, come with us.” Derek stood still, his expression intense in the glow of light that surrounded her. “Jonar’s moving in on us now.”

  A smile tipped her bow-shaped lips, as her eerie eyes watched him with cold amusement.

  “As though I would trust you to protect me, Wizard,” she said mockingly. “Wouldn’t that be like trusting the lamb to the wolf? I think not.”

  The faint Irish accent gave her voice soft, musical quality that filled Ariel with memories. They whipped through her mind, one after the other, unlocking yet another portion of that first life. A time that she had spent in safety with her sisters, each holding onto the other to still the pain in their hearts.

  “You can’t run forever, Cait,” Derek warned her, his voice calm, though Ariel could sense that he was anything but calm.

  “Of course I can, Wizard,” she rebutted patiently. “All I have to do is find your tears. Tell me, lover, where have you hidden them?”

  Ariel glanced at Derek, watching him tense; his eyes narrowed a second before a cold, brutal smile twisted his lips.

  “The same place you left them,” he told her then. “And I think you know the only way to retrieve them is through me.”

  Caitlin’s lips thinned.

  A second later the house vibrated, a violent clash of pure energy striking it from outside, shaking it on its foundations.

  Ariel stumbled against Shane as she felt the winds rushing through the house, wrapping around her and Shane, binding them together with a power she hadn’t felt before then.

  She could feel the crystal reaching out to him, drawing on his strength.

  “Who attacks us?” she called out the command as Caitlin sprinted away from them.

  They must die… The voice was familiar, chillingly evil and filled with determination.

  For a moment, an image flashed before her eyes. A face of such perfect male beauty it defied reality. Until you looked into his terrifying, soulless black eyes.

  Who would dare attack… Jonar. She knew that voice. Knew him.

  Pain struck at her as she fought back the memories of the young girl she had been, held beneath him, screaming in pain as her mother died beside her. Now was not the time to allow this memory to invade her soul.

  She holds the third key…why would they strike at her… From another direction came Gryphon’s voice, a snarl of fury as he moved to help ensure their escape.

  A starfighter is above the house… Phoenix, his hollow, emotionless voice reported whatever he had seen.

  Hear me, Wind Mistress. Leave. Only death awaits you there…the Dragon Prime was screaming out her name. Get the hell out of there before the place is flattened…

  “Move out,” Devlin shouted the command as the winds howled in a deadly chorus of warnings around Ariel and Chantel.

  She heard Derek yell Caitlin’s name as they all moved to follow her, following the direction the winds pushed at them now, urging them out.

  “Brace the walls, secure the ceilings,” Ariel screamed to the winds as they began a desperate flight up another stairwell, stumbling against the blasts that repeatedly hit the house, bringing down plaster in chunks and cracking the steps beneath their feet.

  Shane gripped her waist, nearly carrying her himself as he raced up the steps behind Devlin and Chantel. They were thrown against the walls, fighting to find their feet before they were moving again, clearing the doorway with only seconds to spare.

  Behind them, the crash of walls echoed with a hollow eerie sound as the floor they raced across now began to buckle beneath them.

  The front door was just ahead, opening into the pitch-black of night and the storm raging beyond it. Brilliant flashes of lightning lit up the night sky, joining the bolts of energy between the craft aiming at the house and the Prime Warriors fighting from the ground.

  The stench of evil swirled around them as Jonar’s men began to converge on them from the forest, swords held aloft and evil glittering in their demonic red eyes.

  There was no time to scream out the commands. Ariel locked onto the power of the crystal as she and Shane met four of the dark creatures. His war cry echoed around her as sparks flew from his sword.

  Her mental commands to the winds became second nature then. More feeling than thought as she began to fight. One particularly strong gust of air tore the sword from her enemy’s hand as he raised it above his head, giving her t
he opportunity to sink her blade deep into his chest.

  With one foot she kicked the body free as she jerked the sword back, ignoring the mournful howl from his throat as his body began to decompose.

  Turning, she glimpsed Chantel firing on half a dozen of the creatures as Devlin struggled with two others. She sent winds there, wrapping them around the couple to deflect the attacks until Devlin could dispose of them.

  Joshua was like the wind itself, weaving through the mass of warriors that converged on him, laughing in glee as their swords began to weave and dance in the air before being propelled by an unseen hand, deep through their chests.

  Derek stood at the entrance to the wall that Caitlin had escaped through. There, he fought off the maniacal warriors Jonar had sent, giving the other woman precious time to escape. Though she still aided them.

  Water opened up from the heavens, literally drowning many of the enemy, giving the rest of them precious time to pierce their hearts with their swords as they made their own way to escape.

  There was no lingering around to destroy the full force, there were just too many of them. And with the blasts of white-hot energy slamming into the earth around them, the risk was too great.

  They cleared the break in the fence a moment before the bolts slammed into the ground where they had stood, rocking the ground with enough force that Ariel cursed as she fought to stay on her feet.

  The Prime Warriors met the renewed attack by slamming yet more energy toward the craft hovering over the house, though they did little to dent the threat it posed. As Shane pulled her into the tree line, the sudden searing heat of the crystal had her pausing, jerking around to gaze into the sky.

  Around her, the winds whispered of what would come. What could come. The death of the Primes, of Lynn, the woman who had once been her second-in-command.

  “Chantel,” she screamed out her sister’s name. “They can’t die. They’re needed.”

  The winds were screaming in her ear, bringing information she couldn’t process, couldn’t understand, except for the compulsion that they must live.

  “What do we do?” Chantel screamed back.

  Ariel stood still, feeling Shane’s arms around her, his strength enfolding her, and she knew the secret. The force she had used before hadn’t been unnatural. It had been a part of her, a product of Shane’s strength and her own power as she drew on the crystals reaching out to aid her.

  She closed her eyes, envisioned the strike and threw her spirit toward the man holding her close.

  It was like drowning and then rebirth. Like death and hope and life all rolled into one as she felt his soul meet hers. It was a merging more sensual, more heated than even that of the sexual acts they had shared. It was intimacy, knowledge and it was love.

  A second later she felt the crystal open, spilling from it the brief, hard surge of power needed. Her eyes flew open as she heard the chaotic screams from above and watched in fascination as the sky lit up with a colorful explosion. Simultaneously, dozens of bolts of lightning had slammed into the small craft, aiding the power striking from below.

  It wasn’t destroyed, but neither was it a threat. In a spray of light it banked and then whipped out of sight.

  “Let’s go,” Devlin screamed then. “We have to lose Jonar’s men. Derek, where’s Caitlin?”

  “Safe,” he yelled back, though there was no explanation how.

  Ariel could feel her safety though, her flight away from the fight now that the worst of the danger had ended. She would run, just as she had been running for years now.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  They reached the cabins at daybreak, though they hadn’t been that far from the now demolished mansion, the roundabout course they had used to lose Jonar and his men had taken much longer.

  Chantel and Devlin were leaning into each other as they entered their own cabin. Joshua headed for his, his head bent down, his shoulders oddly slumped as the door slammed behind him. Derek was still following Caitlin, but Ariel was certain they would be safe, at least for a while.

  As Shane led her into their cabin, Ariel frowned at the continued discordance with the crystal. It hadn’t cooled since the battle, though the battle was long finished. There was no sign of his men in the area, even Joshua and Devlin had agreed that there was no way they could have been followed. Still, the crystal was filled with warning, causing the air to thicken around her and Shane as they entered the cabin.

  Ariel hesitated just inside, her eyes probing at the dim room as she sent the silent call to the air, once again, to find the reason for the crystal’s warning.

  There was no answer. Not a ripple, a footstep, or a breath came to her.

  “Something’s wrong,” she whispered as Shane closed the door behind them, sliding the deadbolt home before turning to wrap his arms around her waist.

  “The battle was a hard one, Ariel,” he whispered at her ear. “Perhaps you just need to rest.”

  She listened again, her frown deepening. There was no sound. Not a single sound coming to her. That was too odd. When she sent out such a call, the winds brought her any sound, every sound that could mean danger to her, even if was spoken ages before.

  Her hands lifted to the strong arms wrapped around her waist, her fingers curling over Shane’s strong, leather enclosed wrists. The air was trapped, the winds were silenced.

  “We have to get out of here,” she kept her voice low, but the desperation rising inside her was smothering her.

  Shane didn’t take time to ask questions, he turned quickly, drawing her to his side as his hand rose to the deadbolt to unlock it and throw open the door. A second later Ariel gasped as she felt the blinding force that rushed past her face, slamming into Shane’s shoulders and throwing him across the room.

  She turned, her breath locking in her throat as she tried to run to him, only to be picked up from her feet by an invisible hand and tossed to the opposite corner.

  The impact with the wall jarred every bone she possessed and sent waves of agony through her vulnerable head as it cracked against the rough wood logs. Dazed, shaken by the fury and hatred that thickened in the air around her, she fought to get her bearings.

  Pain radiated through her body, stealing her breath and her strength as she tried to regain her feet.

  From the other corner, she heard Shane’s enraged war cry and turned her head, eyes widening as she watched him crash into the wall again. The building shook from the force of his crash, windowpanes rattling as dust exploded into the air around him, forced free of the logs from the heavy impact.

  She called out to the winds, heard them screaming outside the cabin, felt the vibrations of them slamming into the outside of the house. But they weren’t entering, they weren’t heeding her commands.

  Groaning at the pain each movement caused, Ariel turned to her side, leaning heavily against the wall as she watched Shane. His gaze met hers, narrowed in warning and black with fury as a movement at the other side of the room drew her attention.

  “Strangely, Mother Earth has forgotten that even for her powers and her safeguards, there is an alternate power, a force strong enough to counter or to balance her insipid sweetness.”

  Ariel’s breath caught in her throat as her father stepped from the bedroom, watching her with sadistic mockery.

  She hadn’t expected this. She would have expected Jonar, or even Oberon, but not Markham St. James. Lean and tall, with an expression of arrogant superiority, he stepped slowly into the room, staring back at them through cold hazel eyes, a sneer twisting his lips.

  “While you ignored the power you held, I studied and perfected every defense against it.” He smiled, a cold turn of his thin lips that sent fear striking her heart. “Even as a child you were so easy to frighten. All it took was the threat of that closet to make you obey. Until that devil’s bitch of a grandmother of yours left you her inheritance. I should have known better than to trust her.”

  Ariel breathed in roughly, allowing him to talk as
she sent her crystal searching for an opening, a break in whatever force he had placed around the cabin. It wasn’t natural, she could feel that, sensing the enveloping power that surrounded them. Natural Earth power wasn’t tainted with such unnatural strength.

  “Who the hell are you?” Shane’s rough voice darker, more dangerous than she had ever heard it as he turned to face the other man.

  “Why, Ariel, you haven’t mentioned me?” Markham questioned her with polite mockery. “If you’re going to lie beneath such filth, you should at least warn him of your father. Traitorous bitch. I can’t believe you’d screw anything so undeserving as a Viking. And a Guardian lapdog to boot. Your taste is atrocious, daughter.”

  “I’m not your daughter.” She knew she wasn’t. She had known it those hours before the past battle. Held in Shane’s arms, her eyes locked with his, memories overwhelming her. She was no blood of his.

  His gaze sliced back to her, narrowed and filled with retribution.

  “I raised you. My money bought your clothes, fed your sorry ass. That makes you mine,” he snarled.

  “Money you stole from my mother and grandmother before you had them committed,” she cried out harshly.

  He smiled cruelly, his laughter almost maniacal as he watched her.

  “And when you’re committed, your funds will revert to me as well, daughter,” he sneered. “If it hadn’t been for that hidden inheritance Laken managed to cheat me of, then you would already be inhabiting your own little padded cell. That’s where they died, you know. In a padded room, screaming out to a wind that couldn’t find them. How sad.”

  Ariel fought back the pain, the sudden image of the mother she had never known, the grandmother she had wanted to know. Fragile, delicate women whose hearts had been too soft, too gentle to understand the man who had destroyed them. They had been the protectors of the crystal, just as generations of women belonging to Ariel’s line had been. Women sworn to guard the power, to pass it down, mother to daughter, until the true Mistress was born again.