Spear of Destiny (Misadventures of Loren Book 1)

by Ines Johnson

  This was home. A place I could be myself and not pretend. A place where I was welcome and no one made me feel like I didn't belong. Which was why my heart stopped and dropped like a stone in my gut when I opened the doors to the Great Hall and the room quieted with all eyes on me.

  My hands went to my face, but I hadn't eaten anything. So, I couldn't have something in my teeth.

  I patted my chest, but I was wearing a shirt and… yes, pants. And underwear too. So, I wasn't showing my ass.

  I couldn't figure out what gave? Unless someone had realized I had borrowed Lady Mara's crown when we'd gone to lock the Spear of Destiny in the vault. But I was gonna put it back.

  "Loren Van Alst, come forward."

  My feet set a path towards Arthur without any conscious thought. As I walked forward, I noted that all the squires and knights were lined up in front of the great table where Arthur and his knights sat at each meal. Lance and Geraint stood on one side of an open path, while Tristan and Percival stood on another. As I came forward, each man drew his sword. My heart kicked at my chest cavity, wondering if I was about to be beheaded for playing princess with a borrowed crown.

  But then I saw Gawain. He came to stand before Arthur, a sharp smile cut his handsome face. Those coffee-colored eyes twinkled with something that resembled pride as I drew near him.

  "Will you kneel, my lady?" he asked.

  I looked around the room. All the townsfolk stood. All wore smiles. There was an air of excitement zipping through the hall. This couldn't be that bad.

  I took a deep breath, and a leap of faith. I kneeled before Gawain.

  "My lords and ladies, I present to you Lady Loren Van Alst of the house of Galahad. She has proven herself in battle and, I believe, she is worthy of consideration of a seat at the high table of Camelot."

  I felt my body tremble as the gravity of Gawain's words shook me. For the second time today, my eyes burned and my throat seized. It was all I could do to stay balanced on my knee.

  "Who amongst the Knights will support this claim?" asked Gawain.

  "I will," said Tristan, with a valiant nod of his blond head.

  "I will," echoed Percy. A manic gleam shone in his eyes, but I saw dogmatism there as well.

  "I will," said Lance. His voice was firm and sure.

  Last up was Geraint. He gave me one, final assessing sweep. When his gaze locked on mine, I wasn't sure of my grade. Until he nodded his head. "I will."

  I let out a gush of air, nearly toppling over. It was done. I had done it. I wanted to stand up and cheer, to throw my hands in the air and do a little dance. But I held still as Arthur came forward with the business end of a sword pointed at me.

  "Do you swear to protect the weak and defenseless, to live by honor and for glory, to despise pecuniary reward, to fight for the welfare of all, and obey those placed in authority?"

  That was a tall order. But like hell would I say no. "I will."

  "Do you swear to guard the honor of fellow knights, to respect the honor of women, to eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit, to keep faith and speak truth at all times?"

  Arthur raised an eyebrow. He was messing with me. But I knew these vows to be ones taken by every man here and every man that had come before these ones. This was the Knight's Code of Chivalry and I had to abide by it if I wanted the job.

  "I will."

  "Do you swear to persevere to the end in any enterprise begun, to never refuse a challenge from an equal, and to never turn the back upon a foe?"

  "I will." That part, at least, was easy.

  "Then by the power vested in me by my father, and his father before him, and his father before him, and by all the witnesses here, I dub thee Dame Galahad."

  Arthur tapped me with the sword on both my shoulders.

  "Arise, my lady."

  He offered his hand and helped me up to the cheers of the entire town. I was embraced and clapped and, wait for it, hoisted up on the shoulders of Percy and Lance. Igraine stuffed me with all manner of garbage. Music played and I made a hack of medieval line dancing. I laughed and danced and stuffed myself until I couldn't see straight.

  The party was still in full swing when Gawain tapped me on the shoulder. I'd been dancing with Yuric, Maurice, and a few other squires to a pop song from someone's cell phone plugged into speakers. I turned away from the boys and faced the man.

  "Are you cutting in?" I asked.

  "No," said Gawain. "I'm taking you away."

  "Even better."

  I left the squires and headed out of the hall with the knight. I knew that whole friend zone thing wouldn't last long. But as we headed out of the room, the other knights fell into step beside us. We all wound up in the Throne Room. My libido and its disappointment took a backseat when Gawain pulled out my grandfather's chair and waved a hand indicating that I should take a seat in it.

  The seat fit my backside like a glove. It was warm, as though it had been waiting for me all along. I rested my back against its stiff wood and knew I'd found my place, my purpose.

  "You were up with Morgan earlier?"

  I looked up to find Arthur looking down at a stack of papers, but I was pretty sure he was addressing me as Morgan wasn't accepting many visitors.

  "Yeah, yeah I did see her earlier."

  "She's well?" Arthurs tapped the tops of the papers to put them in line. His gray gaze remained hooded.

  A slow grin spread across my face at this evasive tactic. He was so busted. "You could go and see for yourself if you-"

  He turned away from me and bellowed to Lance.

  I leaned back in my chair. I was living in a live action, young adult novel without any vampires. At least I didn't think there were any vampires in real life.

  "So, what's the new quest?" I asked, turning to my right. "Are we going after Templars? Maybe do some dragon slaying?"

  "We don't slay dragons," said Percival, his tone offended. "They've been notoriously maligned throughout history when they're actually very gentle creatures."

  I could only nod at his words as my brain tried to catch up and process. Dragons were real.

  "We've received word that the Ring of Gyges has been spotted," said Arthur.

  "Gyges?" I asked. "Why does that sound familiar?"

  "There were stories written about it by Plato in his work The Republic," said Geraint. "About a king who stole a magical ring that would turn him invisible."

  "Invisible or invincible," said Lance. "The translation is poor."

  "That Ring of Gyges?" I said. "The one people believe Tolkien based The Hobbit off of? Wait, are hobbits real?"

  "We believe the ring to be in the possession of this man." Arthur laid an 8x10 photograph on the table.

  The moment the photographic paper hit the table a loud grumble went up through the room. All eyes went to me. I'd eaten a lot of food at my knighting ceremony, but not much more than usual. No, my stomach didn't grumble because of indigestion. It grumbled with boiling, roiling anger.

  "Son of a…Spartan." Remembering my vows, I managed at the last second not to curse.

  "Do you know this man?" asked Gawain.

  "Yeah," I groaned. "He's my ex; Leonidas Baros."

  I snatched the picture up and glared at the man who'd broken my heart not once, but twice. Even in the picture, it was clear to make out his large, muscular body that had been honed during his time fighting Persian invaders back in the 5th century. Those chiseled cheeks had softened under my touch. I knew the feel of the mass of curls framing those pale, pupil-less eyes.

  "And he's no ordinary man," I said. "He's a Chosen."

  "You mean a human in service to the Greek gods?"

  Yup. The mark of a Chosen was the removal of their soul through their eyes, that's why they no longer had any eye coloring. But that wasn't the only thing extraordinary about Lenny.

  "He's been in service to the Olympians since 480 B.C. when his Spartan army lost the Battle of Thermopylae."

  "He's a Spartan?" asked Arthu
r.

  "No. He's the Spartan. He's King Leonidas. You know; This is Sparta!" I quoted the popular action movie that depicted Lenny and his three-hundred soldiers during that fateful battle. Lenny and I never had a chance to get any closure after our last break up. "I call shot-gun because I'm going on this mission, right?"

  Loren will return in The Ring of Gyges, Book Two in the Misadventures of Loren.

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  Turn the page to see where it all began with Dragon Bones. In the first in this action packed, Urban Adventure series, Nia Rivers and Loren Van Alst meet for the first time and begin a whirlwind, continent-hopping journey and a friendship for the ages.

  Meet Nia Rivers: archaeologist, fashionista, and an ancient immortal with a serious memory problem.

  For the last couple of centuries, Nia has been trying to fill in the blanks of her past by shedding light on history's darkest stories. Her motto: the ugliest stories are the ones that deserve to be told the most.

  But when a mysterious woman (psst -that's Loren) comes forth with a two-thousand year old relic from Nia's past, Nia isn't sure if the story connected to it is one she wants told to the world. Unfortunately, Nia has no choice but to uncover the truth—fast—before a greedy land developer buries the site forever. The fact that he's also an immortal, with a millennia-old grudge against her, doesn't help. Neither do the dark assassins who have been stalking her for centuries, and who've suddenly decided to up their game to end her life.

  Letting her enemies have their way might be best for Nia, especially when the truth might expose a horrific crime from Nia's past. But all stories deserve to be told.

  Even the ugliest ones.

  Even if they say you might be a mass murderer.

  Get your copy of Dragon Bones: The Nia Rivers Adventures Book One

  Chapter 1

  Dirt was a curious thing. It reclaimed the dead to cultivate new life. It buried dark secrets that later uprooted long-held truths. It entombed the mundane and turned it into a shrine that the living come to treasure.

  It also had a nasty habit of leaving permanent stains on expensive linen.

  No matter how lightly I moved through the mud-caked forest floor, tiny splotches of mud splattered my linen top. Of course, I knew better than to wear a $129 linen blouse in a rainforest. But this trip had been unplanned, and I hadn't had time to repack for rainforest. I was supposed to be getting an expensive mud bath in a European spa. Instead, I was deep in the Honduran jungle, where the mud treatment came free.

  My boot sank ankle-deep into thick, rich brown mud, and I cursed as I yanked it out. The moist earth splattered thumb-sized droplets on my jeans and forearms. My entire outfit was ruined.

  I made my living in ruins like these all over the world—trekking through remote lands in the desert heat, wading through murky swamps, and hiking into bitterly cold mountains.  As an archaeologist, I loved what I did for a living. But working with dirt and death all day made a girl wish for fine, clean things every once in a while.

  Unfortunately, my arrival at a spa resort would be delayed by at least another few days—longer if I didn't stop the imminent disaster about to befall my current job site. So I shook as much mud from my boots as I could, wiped the dirt stains from my pants, and pretended the Honduran heat was a sauna and my skin was getting a five-star treatment from the soil.

  Of course, the mind trip didn't actually work. But it helped me reach my destination faster.

  When I finally reached the dig site, I saw the tips of artifacts peeking through the dirt like vegetables ripe for the picking. This job had been an easy one. These ancient treasures wanted to be found. They reached up from their graves, waving a white flag of surrender for all to see.

  But that was part of the problem. There were people who didn't want these treasures found. People who'd rather see them buried again, or even destroyed. Worse, there were others who wanted to pluck this bounty from the ground for profit. The latter issue is what had me picking up my pace, but the former stopped me in my tracks.

  I stepped back as a military convoy pulled into the site. A flag featuring five cerulean stars centered in a triband of blue and white was proudly displayed on the sides of the jeep. It was the national flag of Honduras. The indigenous people of this country had their independence taken from them, and their identity reshaped by conquerors from another land.

  It took centuries for the people to regain their autonomy and reclaim their unique voice. The military might before me showed that they had no intentions of stepping back in time. Which was ironic since this new threat came from the past.

  We stood at what was once the center of the Ciudad Blanca, the White City, also known as the Lost City of the Monkey God. A giant statue of a monkey lay on its side with dirt covering its lower half. It looked like the ancient people had tucked the statue of their idol under a blanket before abandoning the city. This buried city contained an ancient civilization that had thrived over a thousand years ago. Today, their aged belongings were calling to us to make their voices heard by the masses once more.

  Before anything could be taken from the site for further observation, the ground needed to be truthed and then the artifacts authenticated. That was where I came in. An archaeological ground site was truthed when an acknowledged expert—like me—laid eyes on it. Step one, accomplished. Now it was on to the harder, steeper step two, which was authenticating the artifacts. My specific role as an antiquities expert on the grounds of this rare find was to date the findings and prove their authenticity.

  The Honduran government believed—hoped—the lost city was only a few hundred years old. Of course they would. The officials were the direct descendants of the Maya. Tourism for the Mayan ruins was big business. History books were only ever written by the victors. If it was found that there had been a civilization more advanced or older than the Maya, it would be a huge problem.

  Unfortunately for the government, dirt didn't lie.

  What I found was not only older than the Maya, it was also more than a city. This site was vast. From my estimation, these few acres that were roped off were only the beginning. The layout of the ruins that surfaced appeared to be a few blocks of one city in a network of cities.

  I walked along the roped-off areas of the site, watching my colleagues go about the meticulous work of unearthing the past. Professor Aguilar of the National Antiquities Coalition of Honduras gently brushed the dry dirt off a dark stone artifact to reveal the carvings of what appeared to be a jaguar head with the body of a human. We'd found many such depictions on the unearthed artifacts—were-monkeys, were-spiders, were-birds.

  Professor Aguilar's eyes widened in delight. A second later, they clouded with concern as he looked around at the uniformed soldiers patrolling the site. The writings on the artifact below the were-jaguar were not the hieroglyphs of the Mayan Indians, who were the oldest civilization of record in the nation. This was something older, something that predated the glory of the Maya, something that could rewrite the national identity of a whole country—one that had fought hard to regain its culture, its country, and its character from conquistadors.

  Aguilar's lips pressed together in a slight grimace as he gazed up at the military might encroaching on this cultural dig. A soldier approached. Aguilar hesitated but, in the end, handed over the artifact. The official covered the artifact with a cloth and walked off.

  Aguilar's gaze caught mine, and he gave a slight shake of his head. I knew he shared my concerns. The site was a spectacular find. It was one that should be shared with the world, not shunned and silenced like embarrassing, unwanted relations.

  As the archaeological team unearthed the finds, the squad of Honduran Special Forces soldiers packed them up and loaded them into the backs of their convoys. I watched the soldiers usher the artifacts onto a truck.
They could try to hide the truth, but the coverup wouldn't last long. It had taken a thousand years for this story to come out. It would resurface again. The past always did.

  Maybe sooner rather than later. I looked over my shoulder, remembering the soldiers weren't my current concern. A larger threat was on its way. I turned and marched purposefully to the man in charge.

  "Lieutenant," I called out. "May I have a word?"

  Lieutenant Alvarenga turned stiffly in his fatigues. His raised eyebrows lowered as his lips spread in a proprietary grin. "There's our little Lara Croft."

  I tried not to rankle at the comparison, although I didn't mind being compared to her physically. Being compared to either the video game character or the film character portrayed by Angelina Jolie was a compliment, though I was far from a carbon copy. My thick, dark hair was pulled in a loose ponytail, not a long, single braid, and I had wide, cat-like eyes with a pronounced tilt that pointed to Asian heritage. I shared the same regal nose that hinted at ancient Gallic ancestors. My lips were lush and full, calling to an African patronage. My toasty skin tone placed me somewhere between the north of Africa and the south of Spain. And, yeah, I could rock the hell out of tight pants, a tank top, and a fine pair of boots with a sturdy stem.

  But that was where the comparison between the fictional character and me ended. Croft robbed tombs and stole artifacts. I, on the other hand, found what was once lost and then shared my findings with the world. From a moral standpoint, we couldn't be more different.

  "You never told me, Nia," the lieutenant said as he invaded my space. "Are you a Ms. or Mrs.?"

  "I'm a doctor," I said, holding my ground. "Dr. Nia Rivers."

  Alvarenga had a foot on me, but I didn't scare easily. Unfortunately, he seemed to be the type who liked that.

  "It still amazes me how you arrived on-site so quickly," he said, his eyes narrowing, his smile fake. "And only days after official orders sent my troops and me here."

  My eyes were wide with false innocence. "The IAC sent me to ensure there would be no damage done to a potential historical site."