Shades of Avalon

by Carol Oates

  Cover

  Title Page

  Shades of Avalon

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  Carol Oates

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  Omnific Publishing

  Los Angeles

  Copyright Information

  Shades of Avalon, Copyright © 2014 by Carol Oates

  All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

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  Omnific Publishing

  1901 Avenue of the Stars, 2nd Floor

  Los Angeles, California 90067

  www.omnificpublishing.com

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  First Omnific eBook edition, April 2014

  First Omnific trade paperback edition, April 2014

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  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

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  Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

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  Oates, Carol.

  Shades of Avalon / Carol Oates – 1st ed

  ISBN: 978-1-623421-16-8

  1. Romance—Fiction. 2. Ireland—Fiction. 3. Camelot—Fiction. 4. New Adult—Fiction. I. Title

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  Cover Design by Micha Stone and Amy Brokaw

  Interior Book Design by Coreen Montagna

  Dedication

  For

  Evie and Abby

  Prologue

  A MURDER OF CROWS scattered to the air like a black cloud floating across the azure sky. Their ghostly squawking echoed over the plains of the battlefield. Fighting had long past, leaving behind a heavy stench of death in the summer heat. Smoking fires set to confuse the enemy intensified the putrid air, and the cries of those still alive—but brutally maimed—blended in a grisly melody. Weary knights, fortunate to escape the worst of the carnage, buried their fallen brothers. Once they paid their respects, the arduous journey home to Camelot would begin.

  Nearby, desperate tears slipped from a young woman’s amber eyes, forming rivulets in the blood and dirt caked to her cheeks. Bedraggled clumps of hair framed her face—bronze threads from the long braid hanging down her back. She leaned over once more, soaking the cloth she had ripped from her own battle tunic in the water at the edge of the lake. She used the rag to wipe sticky perspiration and blood from the man’s pallid brow.

  His chain mail armor and shield lay discarded in a heap nearby, but his sword remained within reaching distance of the woman’s hand. His head rested on her lap, and she rocked her body back and forth almost indiscernibly, as if he were merely sleeping. His harsh, shallow breathing and a gruesome wound to his belly told a different story.

  The young man looked as if he’d been gutted, only the haphazard bandage barely covering the angry slash keeping his intestines in place. Crimson soaked the grungy fabric and leaked in a steady flow, absorbing into the marshy grass and turning it the color of mud. A similar stained bandage wrapped around his head.

  A whoosh of water sprang upward from the lake and cascaded several feet about the surface. The funnel moved toward the couple as if it was suddenly sentient. All around it, the water remained still…clear, smooth glass shimmering in the sunlight. Startled, the woman reached for the sword with lightning speed, so fast her hand blurred. The very instant her fingers made purchase, a blinding flash shot from the metal. The dull gray blade radiated a brilliant, pure light so white and luminescent the woman squinted, shielding her eyes from the brightness.

  “Who goes there?” she demanded.

  The cascading water sparkled and shivered over the surface. “You already know the answer you seek. You summoned us here.” The sound was tinkling bells and music, choirs, both male and female, and harps all at once.

  Carefully she moved the man’s head, laying him on the ground and drawing her fingertip across his forehead below the edge of the bandage. She inhaled a long breath and placed her hand on her thigh for balance as she stood. The woman turned to the source of the beautiful sound, with the sword held tightly in her hand, its tip directed to the ground. Her head tilted forward respectfully, keeping her eyes averted from the water.

  “I beg of you to save him.”

  “It is his time,” the voices replied. There was no trace of malice in the resonance.

  “I was tricked. The battle was a trap. Regardless, he fought bravely for his people. He is worthy of a second chance…please.” Her voice cracked, and another tear slipped from her eye.

  “And the others, young warrior, would you have us save them too?”

  The woman frowned and shook her head as if ashamed and unable to speak the words out loud.

  “It is his time.”

  “He has been touched by magic…transformed by magic. If you will not save him, you can take him in my stead.” It was a statement, but the pleading in the woman’s voice was unmistakable. Her chest heaved beneath her armor, and each word passed trembling lips. “I entreat you. I cast myself before the graciousness of your mercy. I cannot live if I know he does not.”

  The water remained silent for a moment, although the shimmering intensified. The woman’s gaze continued to flicker to the man’s chest, measuring his breathing as it slowed further.

  “Do you understand the consequence of what you petition for this day?”

  She raised her chin and rolled her shoulders back. “I do…and I accept it gladly.”

  “As you wish.”

  Dribbles of water fought gravity to climb the shallow bank. As if supported by invisible hands, the man’s body lifted and hovered inches above the ground, resting on the streams. After a moment, the water began to move back toward the lake. The woman looked on the scene before her—her eyebrows pulled down and her teeth bit firmly into her lower lip. His body crept over the shimmering liquid, floating on the cushion of air between. He briefly dangled in empty space, upright and unconscious. The cascade widened, becoming a sheer wall, distorting the vista of hills and forest on the other shore. When it closed once more, the ripples of water enveloped the unconscious man like so many arms pulling him into an embrace.

  As soon as he was no longer visible, the woman let out a small gasp somewhere between agony and relief. She shielded her eyes in the explosion of light that followed. The cascade crashed into the lake, showering her in droplets of crystal blue water and taking the man with it.

  Left alone, the woman collapsed to the ground and wailed.

  Chapter 1

  My Beautiful Bride

  I ROLLED ONTO MY BACK, blinking against the winter sun streaming in the window and casting long shadows across the bedroom. My empty stomach gurgled. The bed shifted, followed swiftly by the back of Amanda’s limp hand landing square on my face.

  “Too early,” she groaned, turning over to bury her face in the pillows.

  Ah, my beautiful bride—the morning person.

  She’d recently had her blond hair cut shorter than ever. It suited her fine bone structure and made her brown eyes huge. It also stuck up at odd angles from the back of her head first thing in the morning.

  She turned again, snuggling into my side. She wrapped her arm around my chest and threw her leg over mine to get warm. Amanda still hadn’t figured out I turned the thermostat down every night.

  A week after our wedding, I knew for sure I’d never get used to waking up with this gorgeous girl. Lucky for me we had about four hundred years of these mornings ahead of us.

  I pulled her even closer and wrapped her in my arms, breathing in the bouquet that attracted me to her in the first place. Ours was
an unexpected relationship for a couple of reasons. Amanda being one of my older sister’s best friends was one, and the other was my ancestry.

  My recently discovered family tree carried the blood of Celtic gods known as Guardians. The family history was fundamental in the legends surrounding the fall of Atlantis. Up until a short time ago, mating with humans was strictly forbidden and punishable by death on orders of the Guardian Council. Considering everything, I didn’t qualify as traditional boy-next-door material.

  Since my transition, I had discovered all Guardians recognized their soul mate by scent. Amanda smelled of vanilla and sunflowers. It didn’t even matter what perfume she sprayed on her skin or what shampoo she used. Nothing would ever mask it from me.

  My stomach growled again, vibrating my abdomen with the intensity of it. Amanda moaned in protest before she did a one-eighty roll away from me to the opposite side of our king-sized bed. She pulled the pillow out from below her head and squashed it over her face. Her two small hands clenched up, holding it flat over her ears. I couldn’t help chuckling.

  “God, you’re worse than a newborn,” she complained, her words muffled through feathers. “It’s like you have to be fed every two hours or your body starts consuming itself.”

  I scooted over behind her, doing my very best to ignore the tip of the pale, jagged scar poking over her tank top on the otherwise flawless skin of her back. It wasn’t really a scar, more of an imprint left behind by magic, a small whitish mar on her flesh. Anyone else might think it was pigmentation. I knew different. I knew every millimeter of that mark and its slightly larger twin placed low on her chest—right where her heart beat.

  Zeal, the last member of the Guardian Council who was determined to destroy my sister and me and end the royal line, had driven a sword right through Amanda’s chest when she stepped in front of me. He and his followers had been fighting to keep my sister from the Stone of Destiny, which would scream out and announce the return of the rightful royal heir to Tara. Hubris prevented Zeal from seeing the flaw in his plan to retain power—that we might have been more than a match for them.

  In the end, Triona allowed Zeal to live even as Amanda lay dead in my arms. It was only through magic that she was alive today. Running my fingers lightly up Amanda’s side under the comforter, I kissed her shoulder. “Feed me then, woman.”

  Her body jerked in reflex, trying to get away from my fingers. Amanda was ticklish.

  “Feed yourself, caveman,” she snapped back.

  “Cavemen cannot live by burnt Pop-Tarts alone.” Cooking wasn’t among my superhuman abilities or my human ones. I leaned in, trailing my lips across the back of Amanda’s shoulders and lingered at the base of her neck. I smoothed my hand across her stomach to pull her closer to me.

  This time her body didn’t jerk—it was more of a flutter accompanied by a soft sigh as she released her death grip on the pillow.

  She allowed me to roll her back so my body half covered hers. Her eyes narrowed. I saw the smile she was fighting in the slight twitch at the corner of her mouth. Fingernails scraped up the back of my neck, into my hair, and I could tell food wasn’t far away. All of a sudden, food was the last thing on my mind.

  “This is coercion, husband,” she accused, her voice still husky from sleep.

  I leaned in again, satisfied with the improvement of her mood when she tilted her head back to give me more access to her slender neck. My tongue peeked out from my lips, swirling a small circle over the artery below her ear where I felt her heart begin to pick up pace. Amanda tasted of vanilla too. Her fingers curled, gripping my hair tighter.

  “It certainly is, wife,” I breathed against her warm skin and kissed my way up her throat and across her jaw. I barely kept myself from groaning.

  I’d also discovered something almost primal and animalistic in the basic genetic nature of beings like me. Fighting brought out my claws…literally, and I was still adjusting to the whirlwind of my heightened emotions. My love for Amanda occasionally bordered on obsession with her safety, and my desire for her often burned hot enough to melt the polar icecaps. I worked hard to keep myself in check but found it difficult considering my nineteen-year-old human side only added fuel to the hormone fires.

  “I thought you were hungry?” Her voice was soft and teasing. One index finger skimmed a line down my back, creating a warming shiver over my skin, and toyed with the elastic of my boxer shorts.

  I was about to ask her if she wanted to stop when her body tensed and both hands went to my shoulders to push me away. “Crap, Ben, what time is it?”

  I clung to her, using my weight to keep her pressed into the mattress. It didn’t take much effort despite her protests.

  “It’s early,” I replied, nuzzling into the soft, fragrant curves of her body.

  “What time, Ben?” She pushed harder, sounding frustrated and wiggling from under me. She reached out one arm and snatched her phone from the bedside table, looking at it with wide eyes.

  “Crap, crap, crap, crap!” Amanda bounced from the bed when I finally relented and flopped onto my back.

  She thundered around the room like a mini tornado, grabbing clothes for both of us. Most of our things were still in unpacked boxes, just the same as the ones littered though every room in our new home. We’d been too busy to unpack.

  Without even looking, and muttering “crap” to herself repeatedly, she managed to toss a pair of jeans directly at my face. I chuckled quietly because that was the extent of Amanda’s profanities.

  “Move, Ben,” she demanded, turning to me a little crazed and wild-eyed, clinging to the balled-up gray sweater in her arms like a drowning woman to a life preserver. Our recent activities had left her cheeks flushed, and a pair of my boxer shorts hung low on her hips instead of pajamas.

  I grinned like an idiot, madly in love with this magnificent, disorganized, disaster of a girl.

  She stamped her foot when I didn’t move. “Triona is leaving in two hours.”

  “Amanda, my sister has known you since you were six years old,” I started as I flung back the covers, immediately hit by the low temperature of the room against my bare chest. “She knows you have never shown up on time for anything.”

  I approached her slowly, thinking about the double shower in our bathroom and watching her eyes soften and relax. I reached out with my mind and used my most reassuring and calming voice. “Besides, I know a way we can save time.”

  It was a neat little trick—many Guardians possessed the ability to influence the minds of others—although it didn’t work on everyone. At first I did it without realizing. However, I had been practicing and over time learned to control my powers more efficiently. Now it was as easy as stretching. I felt my thoughts ribbon out from my consciousness like tendrils of almost translucent smoke. The wisps curled through the air and wrapped around the minds of others, soaking through them until my desire seemed like their own.

  Amanda’s arms loosened, and one eyebrow arched perfectly. She knew me too well. I smiled sheepishly. If all else fails, turn on the charm.

  “It’s our honeymoon.”

  “There I was thinking our trip to Italy next week will be our honeymoon.” She smirked, walking us toward the door of the master bath with small steps.

  I could hear as Amanda’s blood pulsed faster, matching my own. Her scent intensified, taking on a darker note, a heady fragrance of excitement. Her pupils dilated infinitesimally.

  “That can be too.” I shrugged. “But maybe we should practice some more.”

  Amanda’s hand fell by her side, and the sweater dropped to the polished floor as her smile widened. She continued to back up, passing the doorframe into the other room and shaking her head. There she stopped, lifting her hands to press against my abdomen as soon as I was within touching distance. In bare feet, the top of Amanda’s head just about reached my chest.

  “Tempting.” Her soft sigh was mesmerizing, hanging in the air between us and making the air thicken with anti
cipation.

  My stomach curled with excitement. I lifted one hand and gently smoothed down her erratic hair, laughing lightly when it refused to cooperate.

  Moments like this one brought back the memory of the battle at Tara with vivid clarity. In one bloodcurdling moment, when my brave, human girl took a sword for me, my world stopped spinning. Everything seemed to slip sideways and out of focus. I heard the metal turning inside of her, twisting in her chest, and slicing through muscle, scraping and shattering bone.

  I remembered every day how I failed to protect her, unable to do anything but stare as her complexion paled and life faded from her eyes.

  Amanda went to Tír na nÓg that day, the Otherworld.

  When I brought her back from there, she was different…touched by magic. Amanda wasn’t exactly human any longer, nor was she Guardian.

  “I love you, Amanda. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love you,” I said, hoping she understood the sincerity of my words. The solace I found in being with my true soul mate was something I still struggled to put into words—the feeling of loving someone and feeling so completely loved and accepted by that person.

  No matter how hard I tried, I still couldn’t fully empathize with Caleb, my sister’s soul mate. I could never stay away from Amanda while she grieved my supposed death like Caleb had with my sister…not even for her own good.

  “I love you too.”

  I pushed thoughts of anyone else from my mind and cupped her cheek, leaning down to kiss her softly.

  Her hand slid up my chest and wrapped around my neck. Mine slipped down, gently nudging her sharp hipbones backward.

  “What are you doing?” She smiled against my mouth, her warm breath making my lips tingle.

  “Conserving water,” I replied, reaching my foot behind me to kick the door closed.

  “Ba…da…ba…ba.” I slapped the steering wheel in beat to the music and ignored the glares Amanda shot me because we were a little later than we’d intended. The music pumped through the truck while I indulged in a serious display of seated dancing.