Awaken the Highland Warrior

by Anita Clenney

  Pain flickered over his face. “A long time ago.”

  “Peter called. He wants to ask you some questions. I think he suspects you were involved in that man’s death.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That you were gone. He wants your phone number and address.”

  “Do you think I killed that man?” Faelan asked quietly.

  “I think those things in the chapel did. But I think it’s time you told me who you are and why you were buried in my crypt.”

  Chapter 12

  Faelan looked at Bree, expectantly waiting, face smudged with dirt, hair a mess, like she’d been rolling on the ground. She deserved some answers after all she’d done for him, and he was bloody tired of lying.

  “I’m Faelan Connor, warrior of the Connor Clan of Scotland, as my brothers were, and my father before us, and his father before him. Since the beginning of time our assignment has been the same… to protect humanity from demons.”

  “Scotland… since the beginning of time…” Her eyes danced.

  Any other woman would have been sniffing smelling salts.

  “This is incredible. I thought you had a bit of a brogue. Are there many warriors? Where do they come from? How come the world doesn’t know about this?”

  He groaned. “You need answers like everybody else needs air.”

  “You can’t expect me to see what I did and not have questions.”

  She already knew too much. She’d read part of his clan’s Book of Battles, something no one was permitted to do except the Keeper. Faelan considered asking if she’d seen his name, or his brothers. Had they survived their duty to have families, find love? Or had they arrived and faced four ancient demons alone? Certain death. But even asking would’ve broken the rules, and rules had to be protected, although Bree didn’t seem governed by them. Like making a halfling disappear, something only a warrior could do. Michael must have intervened.

  “There were many warriors before. I don’t know about now.” He didn’t understand why the world hadn’t been destroyed, but if there were humans, there must be warriors. Humans couldn’t exist without them. “The world doesn’t know about us because we’ve bled and died to keep it that way. The secret must be protected at all costs.”

  She took a step back, clutching the roll of gauze. “Don’t tell me you have to kill me.”

  He gave her his warrior stare. “Not yet.” But there was a time when she would have been killed because of the knowledge she held. If she wasn’t who she claimed to be, it would still have to be done.

  “Just remember, if not for me you’d still be in the time vault. How did you get inside?”

  “Druan—”

  “You mentioned his name in your sleep. Was he the one in the chapel?”

  “He makes the one in the chapel look like an angel. Druan’s been around for a long time.”

  “You think he locked you in there?”

  “I know he did.” Faelan sighed, knowing he’d have to tell her the whole tale. Most of it anyway. “I was sent to America to suspend Druan, but I couldn’t find him. I knew he had a lair nearby, but it was well hidden. Demons are cunning, especially the ancient ones. They don’t live to be the age they do by being dim-witted. I met Grog in a tavern. Called himself Greg. He’d heard I was looking for Jeremiah, that’s the name Druan was using. Grog claimed he held a grudge against Jeremiah; said he could take me to him. Bastard. I should’ve realized Grog was a demon.”

  “You went after this demon alone?”

  “I brought warriors with me, but I sent them to track down Druan’s minions. My brothers were supposed to be coming behind me, but I couldn’t wait any longer.”

  “Your brothers were warriors?”

  “Aye. Strong warriors.” And loyal. Unless they lay dying, nothing could’ve kept his brothers from coming to his aid. By sending the other warriors away, he’d likely sent his brothers into a death trap. “When Grog and I got to where Druan was supposed to be, he wasn’t alone. There were a dozen more with him. I was hit from behind. When I woke, I saw you.”

  “No wonder you tried to cut off my head. So the amnesia was always a lie?”

  “I couldn’t tell you who I was until I knew who you were.”

  “Who else could I be?”

  Ah, but there were so many choices.

  “Did all this happen near here?”

  “Aye. By the old burnt-out farmhouse.”

  “Samuel’s farmhouse? That’s just through the woods. Did you meet Samuel?”

  “No. The house had already burned down.”

  “Where did you stay? You had to sleep.”

  “I got work on a horse farm a few miles away, so Druan wouldn’t notice me.”

  “Not notice you? Wearing a kilt on a farm in America?”

  “I didn’t wear the kilt here, only on the ship.”

  “You had it on in the time vault.”

  “I’d ripped my trousers the night before, tracking those halflings. The kilt was all I had clean. By then, it didn’t matter. I was going to suspend Druan and go home.”

  “Suspend? Put him in the time vault?”

  “It’s easier said than done, but aye.”

  “What do you do with the time vault then?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  She stared at him, but let it go. “Is everyone in your clan a warrior?”

  “Not all. The duty is handed down from father to son, on the son’s eighteenth birthday, but we’re always preparing, even as lads. At eighteen we enter formal training. After a year we go into battle. An older warrior fights alongside us for the first year. We’re released from duty at twenty-eight, unless we choose to remain.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven.” Or a hundred and seventy-eight. “I was put in the time vault in 1860. August 1860.”

  “Just before the war,” she mumbled.

  The war. His stomach twisted.

  “That’s one hundred and fifty-one years. The book said one hundred and fifty. Why didn’t someone wake you last year?”

  “My clan probably thinks I’m dead.”

  “What about the women? Do they hunt demons?”

  “You can’t be serious. Females don’t fight demons.” They kept the home fires burning.

  “So if I wanted to hunt demons, I couldn’t, because I’m a girl?” Bree scowled and crossed her arms, covering her breasts.

  “Why would a lass want to hunt demons?” The notion was laughable, but he didn’t dare do it with her scowling like that.

  “For the same reason a man would. You act like women aren’t as good as men.”

  “If anything, they’re better. That’s why they need to be protected—”

  “I don’t want your protection. I want your respect.”

  “You remind me of Alana.” Except she was perfectly content not hunting demons.

  “Alana? Your wife?”

  “My sister.”

  “Your sister?” Bree sounded relieved, then sad. “How old was she?”

  “Thirteen.”

  A wistful look clouded her face. “I had a sister. A twin. She died.”

  “I’m sorry.” Would she have been as reckless as Bree if she’d lived? As beautiful?

  “You weren’t married?”

  “No. We don’t usually marry until we’re finished with our duty. Females are a distraction. We’ve enough to worry about as is.”

  “How old were your brothers?”

  “Ian was twenty-five. Tavis was twenty-six.”

  “Why do you think they didn’t come?”

  “A battle, the weather. I’ll never know.”

  Her eyes filled with sympathy. “It must have been terrible for your family, wondering what happened to you, where you were.”

  He clenched his jaw, recalling the fear in his mother’s eyes when she heard he’d been assigned another ancient demon, the horror when she discovered his brothers were coming with him, and his reassurance that all w
ould end well. “Aye. All I can do now is rid the world of Druan.”

  “How do we find him?”

  We? There was no we here. He was the warrior. She was the female. “I’d hoped to question Grog.” Which he might have managed, if Bree hadn’t gotten in the way.

  “Is that why you didn’t use your talisman on Grog?” she asked, sorting through her little white box, pulling out tubes of ointment and other things he didn’t recognize, muttering to herself.

  “That, and I was too weak to use it again.”

  “You said those things in the chapel were part demon, what’s the other part?”

  “Human.”

  “Why would a human…”

  “Mate with a demon? The human might not know. Demons can shift into much nicer forms.”

  She leaned back. “Are you completely human?”

  “I am,” he said, insulted. He could easily ask her the same.

  “Can they choose any form? Animal? Human?”

  “Aye, but most prefer human forms. They can do the most harm that way. They usually stick with one form. It takes them a while to get comfortable in new skin.”

  “And to think I was worried about cellulite.”

  “What’s that? Some newfangled weapon?”

  She smiled. “It’s nothing you’d have to worry about. It’s more of a modern problem. Why didn’t those halflings shift like Grog?”

  “Halflings don’t shift. A few learn how to project an illusion. Their natural form is still there.” So was the smell, but most humans weren’t sensitive enough to notice.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Do they all stink like the one that grabbed me?”

  Was there anything normal about this woman? “Only in their natural form, but the smell varies, depending on how much demon blood they have. A halfling that’s mostly human might not smell at all or need an illusion. Some of them look like you and me.”

  “That’s frightening,” she said.

  Bloody frightening.

  “Where did Grog get that knife? He didn’t have any pockets or clothes.”

  “They can summon their weapons at will, manifest them, like the clothes.”

  “Anything they want?”

  “Natural things from the earth. Metals, fibers, temporary things that leave with the demon.”

  “What about those swords in the chapel?”

  “Those were real. Only full demons can manifest material things.”

  “Where do these demons come from?”

  “Hell. But it takes a lot of power to get here.”

  “Do you get to decide whether to zap them with your talisman or suspend them?”

  “We destroy them if there’s no other choice. If they’re destroyed, they cease to exist, and they can’t be held accountable for their evil.” The young ones were the exception. They were always destroyed.

  “So that thing I killed will never pay for the evil it’s done?”

  “But it’ll never hurt anyone again.” He didn’t tell her the thing shouldn’t have disappeared at all. When anyone other than a warrior killed a demon or halfling, the dead body stayed on earth while the spirit went back to hell, powerless, to start the journey all over, whereas death by a warrior was judgment in itself. Even if the thing couldn’t be held accountable for its evil, it was destroyed forever. But nothing about Bree seemed to work the way it should.

  “At least you wounded Grog. That might make him think twice about coming back. Your dagger must be powerful, since it made that halfling disappear when I hit it.”

  The dirk had no special powers, but he didn’t tell her that, either. “How much longer is this gonna take?” There were times when a warrior’s senses were a curse. Like now. Every move she made drove her scent deeper inside him. It didn’t help that she was standing so close he could kiss her without even moving.

  “Not long. Stop squirming. I need to add more gauze.”

  He was squirming because her breast was two inches from his face. “Just put a bandage on it.”

  “You’re still bleeding. Be patient,” she said, adding another layer of gauze. “It’s a virtue.”

  Much more patience on his part, and she might lose her virtue.

  “Now we know time vaults can suspend humans as well as demons. Imagine all the things we could do. Revolutionize medicine, keep people from dying, from aging—”

  “No. Time vaults were made for demons.” If humans found out about the time vaults, they could pose as big a threat to the clan as the demons. If he thought she’d tell someone… he swallowed, not wanting to think about what he might have to do. No matter how much she’d done to help him, he couldn’t allow her to endanger his clan.

  “Why won’t they open for so long?”

  Was there no end to her questions? If he wasn’t careful, she’d uncover every secret his clan had hidden since the world began. “After a hundred and fifty years in suspension, demons lose their power. If someone opened the time vault afterwards, say a historian who thought she’d found a chest filled with treasure, the demon would be powerless.”

  She rolled her eyes and grabbed another piece of gauze. “I guess the time vault doesn’t have the same effect on warriors and talismans.”

  “Some things seem… different.” Like this cursed ache for a woman who’d watched an engaged talisman and lived to tell it. The tip of her tongue appeared. It was pink and wet, and he could think of so many places he’d like to see it besides in her mouth. “Are you finished?” He had to get out of this bathroom so he could breathe without inhaling her.

  “Almost. The bleeding is slowing. I was reading Isabel’s journal last night. Remember, I told you how Frederick was killed near the chapel? I found the entry in Isabel’s journal. She said he was acting strange, wouldn’t stay away from the chapel, and he kept talking in his sleep about a book. He died a few nights later. I bet he found the Book of Battles inside.”

  “Who put it there?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know. Let’s start with finding out who that car is registered to. It might give us some answers.”

  “How do I do that?” Nothing here was familiar to him. He glanced at her breasts. Well, some things were. He was tired of relying on her for everything. He wished he had his horse and his sword. In Scotland, he’d had the finest stallion. People had admired him. There wasn’t a warrior more respected. Now he hadn’t even a halfpenny to his name, dependent on a woman for every morsel of food and for shelter, transportation, and a bed. His brothers would give him the devil if they saw him. He could almost see Tavis, his chest puffed out, arms held wide, a mischievous grin. “Lads and lasses, here in the flesh, the Mighty Faelan, famous throughout Scotland, admired by lasses the world over, and his magnificent stallion, Nandor,” Tavis would bellow, as Ian rolled on the ground laughing. That was usually as far as Tavis got before Faelan leaped off his horse, pinning his brother until he stopped. Until the next time. God, he missed his brothers.

  “I memorized the tag number. Cars have to be registered with the Division of Motor Vehicles. They keep track of who owns what. My friend Janie’s boyfriend works there. I’ll try to sweet-talk him into telling us who owns the car.”

  “Can’t Janie do the sweet-talking?”

  “If we can find out who owns the car, we can go after them. Figure out what they want.”

  “We?”

  “You think I’m going to sit around on my backside and do nothing, with demons and halflings running around my yard?”

  That’s exactly what he thought she was going to do.

  “The bleeding stopped.” She glanced toward the window as she covered the wound with fresh gauze. “Do you think they’ll come back tonight?”

  “I doubt it. Grog will be afraid to tell Druan what happened. That could give us some time.”

  “I still think we should get those swords from the chapel. I’d like that big one with the curved blade.”

  He was beginning to understand why she wasn’t married. “That big bag
you carry could do damage enough.”

  She tore off a piece of tape and secured one edge of the thick bandage. “For what it’s worth, you threw that dagger like a pro.”

  He felt a rush of pride until he remembered she had thrown it like a bloody warrior herself. “You’ve got dirt on your face.” And everywhere else. He wiped a smudge from her chin.

  “I fell into a grave.”

  “A grave? Damnation. I forgot to cover it.”

  “That’s cute,” she said with a lopsided, dirt-smudged smile.

  “What?”

  “The way you say damnation all the time.”

  He’d had a lot of compliments in his lifetime, on how he handled a horse, a sword, a pistol, and his fists, and a few compliments on other things from a pretty lass or two, but no one had ever complimented him on cursing. He grinned. Only Bree.

  She added another piece of tape to the bandage, her warm fingers brushing his skin. “There, that’s the best I can do. You’re going to have another scar, and this shirt’s history.” They both reached for the ruined shirt, fingers touching. She dropped her hand and turned to gather the first-aid supplies.

  Faelan threw the shirt in the trash and stood. “You sure you don’t want me to look at your shoulder?” He was doing a lousy job of protecting her, though to be honest, she fell a lot on her own. Her feet had a mind of their own, and they seemed partial to holes. The scrape on her cheek had healed quickly, but her shoulder was cut, and the knees of the trousers she slept in were torn. Who knew what other scratches he’d find under there? That started him thinking about her naked again.

  “No. It’s fine.”

  Probably for the best. He might end up doing more than bandage her. “Whose shirt is that?”

  “Russell’s.” She pressed her lips together and put away the first-aid kit.

  “Why would you wear his shirt? He made you cry.”

  “I grabbed the first thing I saw.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “Mostly my dishes and walls.”

  She wasn’t telling him everything. “How often does he call?”

  “Every day. I’ve tried changing my phone number, moving. But he always finds me. He’s the reason I’m off men.”