He put on his shorts and pants and lay down on the bed. Sleep would come swiftly as it always did after the change. The last thing he did was check to make sure his sgian dubh was under the pillow.
Near dawn, he was awakened by a shrill scream piercing the air. Sara! Grabbing the knife, he bolted out the door, nearly knocking down a guest from across the hall who was sleepily rubbing his eyes.
The door to Sara’s room stood open and as he entered, he saw her cowering in bed, a silver fork from the restaurant clutched in one hand. There was blood on the prongs.
He closed the door to on-lookers, assuring them she had a nightmare. Then he quickly crossed over to the bed and sat down, gathering her into his arms.
“What happened?”
She sank into his embrace, the hand with the fork in it encircling his neck. Gingerly, he dislodged it and put it on the nightstand. Silver, even plate, was something he avoided. So did Balor.
“I woke to find someone in my room. He was searching for something, so I pretended to be asleep. I heard him curse.” She took a deep breath and Lucas could feel her shudder and he drew her closer. “Then he came to the bed. “He said something like, “Bitch, you’ll pay for this” and then he reached for me.” Sara paused and tightened her hold around Lucas’ neck. “I stabbed him with the fork and he cursed again. That’s when I started screaming and he turned and ran.”
Lucas gently pushed her head down onto his shoulder and stroked her hair. If he hadn’t been so drained, he would have sensed Balor the moment he’d entered the room. Even now, the stench of evil clung to the door.
“You’re all right now. It’s over. He won’t be back.”
Her other arm had found its way around his waist and he tried to ignore the warmth that was spreading through him. Her hair smelled of roses and he could see the pale swell of her breasts beneath the blue silk nightgown that she wore.
“How can you be so sure?”
“What?” Focus, Ramsey.
“That he won’t be back?”
“You’ve made too much noise. Half the hotel was in the hallway.” And Balor knows that I’ll be on guard. He probably watched me leave—no doubt deliberately left the scent for me to pick up—and knew what the after effects of the change would be. He had the opportune moment, but it’s gone now. But I can’t tell Sara. “Besides, it’s almost light outside.”
“Was it him? The Baylor guy?”
“I’m sure it was,” Lucas replied. “Remember the uneasy feeling I had?”
She snuggled closer. “Me, too. He was looking for the manuscript, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.” Suddenly he remembered his door was still open. “I’d better go get it.” Reluctantly he removed her arm from around his neck and slid her off his lap. “I’ll be right back.”
“No. I’m coming with you,” she said as she looked at him, her eyes still showing her fright and her lips trembling.
Her lips…full and lush and parted slightly. He dipped his head to lightly brush a kiss across them and heard her sharp intake of air. Her satin arms encircled his neck again and he ran his fingers through her hair, holding her in place as his mouth covered hers, gently at first and then with increasing pressure, drawing the bottom lip in and sucking on it, then softly kissing the corner of her mouth, teasing her.
She moaned and leaned closer, her breasts grazing him. His hands slid down her shoulders and around her back, and he pressed her against his chest as his tongue sought entrance. Her lips parted in invitation and he slowly explored her mouth, his tongue alternating between slowly encircling hers and thrusting hard and deep, only to withdraw and bedevil her lips with airy kisses until her own mouth and tongue were demanding more, thrusting inside his with a passion he hadn’t tasted in centuries.
They were interrupted by a knock on the door. Cursing softly, he left a lingering kiss and got up to open the door.
“I wanted to make sure everything was all right,” the innkeeper said anxiously.
“Yes. It was just a nightmare,” Lucas replied. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” he replied. “But please, breakfast is on the house.”
“Thank you,” Lucas replied and closed the door. Sunlight was filtering through the window as the dawn awakened. And with it, the spell was broken. What had I been thinking? I know better than to give in to lust. The wolf…
He glanced at Sara, but she too seemed to sense the moment was over for she was tying a robe around her waist.
“We have a flight to catch,” she said. “Perhaps we should get dressed.”
He nodded. “I’ll grab a quick shower and be back to pick you up.”
It wasn’t until he was standing under the cold water, trying to ignore his still-hard erection that he realized the wolf hadn’t even growled.
Chapter Seven
Sara was quiet on the short flight from Halifax to Boston the next morning. She could still taste Lucas’s kisses and feel his strong arms embracing her, keeping her pressed against him. The thought of his tongue teasing her with alternating slow, gentle and then deep, long thrusts made her start throbbing at her very core.
She had to stop thinking like this. After Loser Number Three, she realized that she was attracted to good-looking men with an air of mystery about them. A hint of danger even. Loser Number Three claimed to have worked for Homeland Security and wasn’t allowed to offer much information about his past. It had been a sheer fluke she found out he was married. The Loser before him raced sports cars on and off the track. And the first? An actor she’d supported because she was drawn to his “Rebel without a Cause” brooding personality.
And all three of them had been subtle in their approaches to her. No blatant flirting and smooth lines like Alan Caldwell used. Oh, no. That ruse would have been easy to see through. Her Losers had all “talked” to her, seemed to value her opinions, asked for advice. Made her feel like an intelligent woman. The passion they’d shared in bed left her no doubt they desired more than her mind. Then, frustratingly, they would disappear for days on end only to reappear dangling their charismatic selves as bait.
She had taken enough graduate hours in psychology to know it was the elusive factor that kept her interest. The fear of male commitment in a seemingly fantastic relationship was the lure a lot of females succumbed to. That “she” would be the one to change the guy. By the Goddess, there must be a Bad Boys of America Club somewhere. Her Losers would be card-carrying members.
She stole a sideways glance at Lucas, seated in the aisle seat beside her. He was working on his laptop again. Perfect example. He appeared to be all business and exuded enough pheromones to make a nun think about removing her habit.
This morning at breakfast in the dining room, he’d acted like nothing out of the ordinary had happened last night. Like he hadn’t claimed her mouth in hot, torrid kisses that left her breathless. Like his hands hadn’t glided along the rounded sides of her breasts as he caressed her back. Like there hadn’t been a promise of a lot more before they were interrupted. He had merely poured her coffee for her from the carafe left on the table and returned her purse to her.
‘What are you working on?” she asked finally.
He looked up just as the flight attendant was announcing preparation for landing and saved his file. “Just some notes on Balor that I need to send to Gavin later. I want him to dig through some layers of protection.”
“Do you think Baylor will try again?” she asked as they entered the terminal.
He glanced down at her. “With absolute certainty. He wants a copy of that manuscript. He wouldn’t have broken his own M.O. and come himself if he didn’t.”
She could feel her eyes widen in surprise. “That was actually HIM, then? The one you say is so evil?”
“Yes,” he answered grimly and looked around. “I want you to stay close to me.”
There it was again. Words of concern. A woman might think he cared.
“Do you think he’s following
us?” Sara asked. “And, come to think of it, how did he know that we’d be here?”
“Precisely what I want Gavin to try and find out,” Lucas answered as they made their way to baggage claim. “There’s a snitch somewhere. Caldwell would be my first guess.”
“Mine, too,” Sara admitted, “but he was down the hall in the billiard hall when we were talking to Mr. Smith. I checked before I closed the door.”
“How about your friend, Michael, then? Did you tell him we were going?”
“Yes. Why?” When he didn’t answer, she arched an eyebrow. “You can’t suspect Michael! He’s my friend. I thought someone should know where I was going…” Her voice trailed off as Lucas’ mouth set in a grim line.
“Just in case I threw you into frigid Canadian waters and your body was never recovered?” He grabbed one of their suitcases with more force than necessary and nearly hit another passenger. “Sorry,” he said and grasped the next case more carefully and set it down. “Don’t you trust me, Sara?”
Ah, the sound of the hurt-little-boy. The Losers had used that, too. But she found it disconcerting to gaze into his intent amber eyes and looked down.
His hand caught and tilted her chin upward, forcing her to look at him although his touch was gentle. “Don’t you?”
“I…I want to,” she said.
“Then why don’t you?” When she was silent, he sighed. “If it’s about what happened last night—between us—you needn’t worry. I won’t let it happen again.”
Not exactly what I wanted to hear.
“It’s what you need to hear,” her subconscious prodded her.
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“Oh, shut up!” Then another thought rolled onto the heels of the last. Maybe he really doesn’t find me desirable! Maybe he was just doing what it took so he wouldn’t have a hysterical female on his hands! Now, that makes me mad. She tossed her chin out of his reach.
“Michael has his own suspicions about you, too.” For a moment, she thought she saw his pupils change shape and his jaw elongated. She blinked. No, he looked normal. She must really be tired. Lucas cleared his throat, only it sounded a little like a growl.
“Your friend and I may have to have a little talk,” he said as he picked up the luggage and they proceeded toward car rentals. “But for now, maybe the things I can show you will help convince you that I’m not the bad guy. Come on.”
She was quiet as they headed out of Logan and he turned north on I-93 and then west on I-95. She needed some time to assemble her disjointed thoughts. She knew she was attracted to Lucas and she should be grateful that he had, once more, made it clear that this was to be platonic. He was exactly the type of man that was dangerous for her. Yet her traitorous body was already reacting to being in the close quarters of the Saturn coupe they’d rented. Watching his strong hands on the steering wheel as he wove in and out of crowded Boston traffic reminded her of what else his hands and fingers were capable of. Like kneading my buttocks and pressing my belly against a really hard erection. She groaned and quickly changed the sound into clearing her throat.
“Where are we going?” she asked as the small car finally turned off the freeway and headed northwest on S-225. Goddess, but her voice was shaky.
“Westford,” he answered.
“What’s there?”
He grinned. “Didn’t I tell you you’d have to wait to find out?”
She wrinkled her nose at him, determined to control her lustful fantasies and settled back to enjoy the ride. April in the Massachusetts’s countryside was beautiful. The grass was turning a lush green and trees were sprouting new buds of spring, which reminded her that Beltane was not too far away. She wondered if they would find the spear by then.
Lucas drove into the tiny town and parked on Depot Street. “This is what I wanted you to see,” he said as they got out of the car.
Sara looked up at a huge rock ledge. Etched into the stone was a six foot carving of a knight with chain mail and a coat of arms. The hilt of the sword was placed over his heart and the Coat of Arms depicted a brooch, a crescent, a five-pointed star and a ship.
“It’s awesome,” she said.
Lucas nodded. “The type of helmet the knight wears is typical of the mid-1300’s. And stone effigies were often made in the British Isles during that time also.”
“Doesn’t the Templar’s Round Church in London have some of these?”
He gave her an appraising look. “You do know your history.”
“Or else I watch the right movies,” she replied with a smile. “So you’re saying that this proves someone came here before Columbus? But it doesn’t prove whom.”
“I’ll argue that point,” Lucas said. “Knights were often buried where they had fallen during those times. The research that has been done on this particular Coat of Arms shows that the brooch is a design used by a maternal branch of the Scottish Sinclairs.” He pointed toward the ship. “This type of galley came from the Norse and the Norse line on Orkney was the Sinclair bloodline. This shield was found to belong to the clan of Gunn, which was a branch of the Sinclairs and, in particular, it belonged to Sir James Gunn, who accompanied Henry Sinclair on his voyage to Nova Scotia.”
Sara let the information sink in. “Then you’re saying that they were here? In Massachusetts? In the 1300’s?”
Lucas nodded. “There’s a second stone with very similar carvings in the Fletcher library here. We’ll take a look at it before we head south.”
A short time later, they were back in the car and headed toward the southeastern coast. Since Lucas didn’t want to spoil his next surprise, they talked of current events, listened to music on the radio and, when they stopped for a late lunch near Falls River, got into an a friendly argument over whether the Americans who still painted black and white stripes around their chimneys in New England really were Tories as their ancestors had been.
“I mean, it’s not like they’re terrorists or anything,” Sara said as she took a bite of flaky baked cod.
Lucas’ mood sobered. “Terrorists. Balor has managed to take a peaceful religion and turn it into something monstrous.”
Sara tilted her head. “You say his name strangely. Baa-lor. Is that the Scottish way of saying it?”
He hesitated. “Aye. You could say that. Adam Baylor may very well be named after the Celtic god of the evil eye.”
She creased her brow, thinking. “Wasn’t he cursed to be killed by his own grandson so he tried to keep his daughter from getting pregnant only she did anyway and he threw the baby into the sea? And a sea god rescued the child?”
“So the story goes.”
“Ah, well,” she said, “that story has been passed along in other myths too. Taliesin, the Great Bard, was said to have been given to the sea. There’s even a version of King Arthur gathering boy babies and setting them adrift in order to make sure his incest-begotten son, Mordred, was killed.”
“Arthur would never do such a thing.”
She looked at him, puzzled. He looked so serious. To lighten his mood, she laughed. “Were you there?”
He started and then he smiled. “That would be hard to do, wouldn’t it?” He picked up the check. “Let’s go. I still have things to show you.”
They drove a short way to where the Taunton River emptied into Assonet Bay. On the east side of the bay, Lucas pointed out a large rock with symbols inscribed in it that were of the same style used in the inscription on the knight’s effigy. “It’s called Dighton Rock. More mid-1300’s,” he said. “Do you remember Longfellow’s Skeleton in Armor?”
“That was about a Viking warrior, wasn’t it?”
“Longfellow’s version. The skeleton of a knight in armor really was found here. It was actually preserved until the mid-1840’s when a fire destroyed the museum. One more thing,” Lucas said as they drove on.
They stopped in Newport, Rhode Island, near the water and got out. A round tower of gray stone greeted Sara. A series of
eight ten-foot-high arches rose from the ground with a floor built across them. The walls of the tower itself were three feet thick.
“What is it?” Sara asked. ‘Who built it?”
Lucas shrugged. “It could have been an early lighthouse. There’s a hearth of sorts in the middle of the floor.” He pointed to the ledges around the edges. “There are torch holders there. Maybe it was used as an astronomy center of a solar/lunar indicator.” He squinted up against the sunlight to look at it. “Some say the Vikings built it. But its design is the same as the Templar churches, round with eight arches.”
“So you think the Templars were here? That the Spear may be here?” She felt a slight shiver begin in her spine. Could they really be that near?
He smiled. “No spear. The place has been too cleaned out. But the Templars… I think Henry Sinclair was here. He was the guardian of the treasure. The symbolism of the tower is strong. Eight is the number of infinity and the circle never ends. I think he built this to let a future seeker know that the Hallows are eternal and that they are here in the United States.”
“So where do we start to look now?”
Lucas shook his head. “The clue must be in the verse.”
“Where roses climb to heaven…” Sara said. “Roses are symbolic of the feminine and ancient goddess worship…” She rubbed her temples, sure that another “vision” headache was coming on and wondered if Lucus would massage her head again like he’d done before. His touch really was magic. Stop it. Don’t spoil the day with fantasizing about something I can’t have. Shouldn’t have. Can’t have…Stop it!
He was looking at her strangely. “Are you feeling all right?”
She took a deep breath. “I’m okay. My head’s just spinning with all these thoughts. The Sinclair tomb at Rosslyn—the Guardian’s tomb, I think you called it—had a sword and a tall chalice engraved on its top with the face forward and the rose cross plainly visible. A rose cross.” Her head felt like it was going to launch itself off her shoulders. “The rose is also the symbol for Mary Magdalene. Didn’t the Templars dedicate their churches to her?”
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