“And then the demons...”
“Gilla couldn’t hold them at bay, not once they absorbed Druce’s powers. The demons used the same powers that at one time protected his family, against his family. Ironic.”
“But my sisters, they all escaped?”
Drakkina smiled. “Yes, they did. And you’re spread out across the temporal planes in different places. It would take centuries for the demons to find you.” Drakkina let the thin veil over her head fall down on her shoulders and three dragonflies flitted up around her silvery hair. “I’ve seen it clearly in my scrying bowl.”
“And the outcome?”
Drakkina’s smile faded. She held out a bony finger and a purple winged dragonfly lit upon it. “I’ve scryed many outcomes. Some good,” she looked at Merewin. “Most horrific.”
“Horrific?”
“As I explained before,” Drakkina narrowed her eyes in rebuke. “The demons want to break the temporal planes.”
“Which means exactly?”
“They will crash all times into one, flooding the Earth with humanity until bodies are stacked upon one another. A sea of people.”
Merewin held her breath, listening to the dark prophecy. The seriousness in Drakkina’s face, her tone, told Merewin without a doubt that the crone believed the terrifying scene she’d predicted. And considering who Drakkina seemed to be, meant what she believed could possibly be true.
“Most will die, suffocated perhaps, fed upon by the creatures so vile and hungry,” Drakkina shuddered slightly, sending more dragonflies to hover. “They will take the young, the children, and raise them in fear and torture to be their slaves. They crave the power of the Earth Mother and wait now, studying the lore and Druce’s powers until they grow strong enough to break the bonds that hold them together, bonds I forged long ago when I had my full strength. Once they break apart, they will steal Gilla’s power and break the temporal web.”
“Then we canna just stay apart, hidden.”
Drakkina shook her head. “No, they seem to be growing stronger on their own. That is why I’m hunting each of you, each of Gilla’s children. I must make certain you find your soul mate and then each pair must return to the stones together for the battle. Your combined power will draw the evil ones.”
“And we will kill them.”
“If the Earth and all those alive along the temporal webs hope to live.”
Merewin let out a long huff, deflating into the thick tick. “But you said my mother couldn’t kill them. How can we? We only have her power.”
Drakkina glanced around the room. “Something to do with the bonds you form with your soul mates, which is why you both must live and both must be together at the final battle.” She flipped her hands around as if wiping out Merewin’s question and then looked around. “What a tiny room you have.”
Merewin took a moment to take in Drakkina’s information before the crone’s final inconsequential words registered. “I’m a thrall here. Do ye expect Hauk to give me the largest room?”
“Yes, that would be his,” Drakkina answered pointedly and frowned at her like his leaving was her fault.
Merewin held her hands up, palms forward. “I do not control his actions.”
“You could encourage him, child. Although, with your beauty, the man must be blind.”
Merewin felt the ice of Drakkina’s ominous prophecy melt as her temper spiked up. She stood as if coming out of a stupor. Her hands found her hips and she braced her feet.
“I did naught to discourage him. Perhaps ye need to be lecturing him,” she added acidly. “He saw ye at the healing. No one else did.”
Drakkina’s eyes widened but then she nodded. “He has a touch of magick in him, but it’s raw, and he ignores it accept in battle, if he’s survived this long.”
Merewin forgot her irritation. “Magick in Hauk?”
Drakkina waved her hand again and pulled the scarf up over her hair. “Not much. He probably thinks he just has incredible instincts in battle, knowing which maneuvers the enemy will use.” She shrugged. “When he’s not in battle, he fights against it...”
“Doesn’t believe it,” Merewin finished.
“Right. He won’t follow it.”
Merewin collapsed back down on the bed. She looked up to Drakkina, who seemed to be fading. “So he’s safer then, with these instincts.”
“If he trusts them,” Drakkina sniffed. “Stubborn men. Women are much easier to work with, although you aren’t very compliant.”
“Where are ye going?”
“To find your man, child. To get him back here safely so he can bed you and fall in love with you.” Drakkina’s eyes rolled skyward in her fading face. The Wiccan master vanished. Merewin heard the last threads of her voice as if they came in on the wind. “And watch that girl. Her heart is filled with darkness.”
****
Deep brown hair wrapped around Hauk as if it were alive and he could drown in the warm, spicy-sweet scent of it. Eyes, green like the depths of the forest in the waning light, stared into his. Soft skin rubbed along his naked length. The rhythm building, building until he thought he’d explode.
Her pink, full mouth moved, but a garbled string of sounds came out in a husky voice.
“Merewin?” Hauk held on to Merewin’s image, but it began to shift within his grasp like sand in the shallows.
The husky laugh returned with more garbled sounds, not his language, not the smooth lilt of Merewin’s voice. Grabbing for the soft hair, Hauk breathed deeply. Instead of spicy sweetness, the rank smell of unwashed body assaulted him.
In the space of a heartbeat, Hauk rolled over, pinning the intruder under his hard body. His captive gasped and he found a woman staring back at him. Garrett’s woman, her large breasts naked and pressed against him. She smiled timidly, and he relaxed his hold, sitting back to put distance between him and the creature.
She smiled boldly and slid her hand down his torso to his erection. Although he couldn’t understand her mumbled words, he read the meaning plainly and stood up away from her grasp.
The woman was a Pict, one Garrett had found and claimed, no doubt for her large breasts and lusty personality.
“Nay,” he said, as she stood up, dropping the rest of the clothes off her hips. She was shapely and obviously ready for any and all activities Hauk may desire. Did Garrett know that his new thrall was hopping from tent to tent?
The woman turned and Hauk thought she might be bending over to retrieve her scant clothing. Instead she bent over, her legs spread, her sex wet and ready for him. She looked back over her shoulder and touched herself, revealing her inner channel.
Hauk hardened once again, his body responding to his recent celibacy. Two months ago he wouldn’t have thought twice about mounting this willing woman, plowing into her, sating himself. But as he moved over to her, he found himself instead lifting her to her feet. He placed a woolen blanket around her and bundled her clothes up, placing them in her arms. She pouted at him, her little nose tilting upward in the air.
Merewin. Merewin made the same face when she was angry. The woman huffed and stomped out of the tent. He watched her leave, unwilling to call her back. The slap of the flap rang in his ears and he looked around the empty tent. Alone, he was really alone. Out here in Pictland, guarding his back, dreaming of a warm woman hundreds of leagues away. He’d spent many nights alone on missions even when his family was still alive, more so now that they were gone. He’d never felt like this before, empty somehow.
“What is wrong with me?” He scratched his hand through his hair.
Much.
The single word echoed in his mind. Hauk unsheathed the dagger strapped to his naked leg and turned in a quick circle, scanning the tent. No one.
“Who speaks?”
Come to me, Hauk Geirson the Broad, Dane of Spring House.
The voice seemed loud in the silence yet it felt as if it were in his head, not his ears. Hauk put a shirt and trews on and belted his swor
d across his back.
“Where?”
Follow your instincts, warrior.
Hauk turned to the left away from the camp. West. Two guards moved to follow him, but he stopped them with a raised hand. They returned to their posts.
Moonlight lit the woods and he smelled the sea air. Pushing his way through the undergrowth, he trudged through forest and across two fields, feeling the pull.
What am I doing? This could be a trap, some trick. Hauk stopped, ready to turn back. Ready to ignore the voice.
No trap, Hauk. I am here to warn you. You must return to Spring House.
Hauk’s head snapped back around and he leapt into a jog toward the pull. “What’s happening at home? Dalla? Merewin, Bera?”
Panic threatened the tight control he kept on the beast within him, the beast that erupted in battle. It coiled up from his gut to squeeze into his chest as his jog turned into a sprint. Trap or not, the thought that something could harm what little he had left, pushed him forward into unknown territory.
He broke through the edge of oak trees and stopped short in the center of a broad ring of tall stones. The silver light illuminated a stone table at the center. A place for worship? Sacrifice, aye he sensed great sacrifice here.
“I am here, warrior,” the apparition called in a firm voice as she glided into the ring. Small flying insects, dragonflies, flitted about and through her form.
“You were at the healing,” he said with recognition. “Are you a goddess? Freyja, Iduna, Frigg?”
She smiled. “I have been called a goddess before, but those are not my name.” Did the crone actually fluff the hair under the thin veil?
Hauk’s hands clenched and unclenched. “Are you Merewin’s god then?”
The old woman shook her head. “I am Drakkina, a Master Wicccan now in spirit form.”
He didn’t know what her title meant, but knew it must be something great by the way she said it. “You helped Merewin heal Ivarr,” he said warily, his gaze glancing about the ring, yet keeping her in view.
“In a way, but the healing magick was all from Merewin and the Earth Mother. Not I, and not Merewin’s sister.”
“The other woman, I heard her call Merewin ‘sister’?”
Drakkina nodded. “To save this world and all worlds, I need great warriors like you, great warriors like Merewin and her sister.”
“You speak of Ragnarok, the end of the world when the gods battle.”
Drakkina inclined her head. “Judgement Day, Ragnarok. You can call it whatever you want. Yes, it is the final battle.”
Hauk stared, judging her. His gut told him she spoke the truth, but what did this have to do with Spring House?
“You said I must return home. Is my family in danger?”
The woman lowered her veil to rest on her thin shoulders. She looked at him quizzically. “You knew you should not leave them, yet you went anyway.”
Anger flared up inside Hauk. “Tell me, witch.”
The woman’s eyes lifted. “Yes, danger stalks Spring House and those in it. Pain, evil, hatred.”
Hauk felt the thrum of his pulse increase. “Who does it stalk? Where is the threat?”
The crone glided over to the table and perched on it. Mist and dragonflies swirled around, giving her an unearthly appearance. “Hauk Geirson, look within yourself. You know things, feel things, yet you turn away.”
What insanity did she spew? “Answer me, witch.”
“Whether you admit it or not, you have a touch of magick in you.”
Hauk’s stomach rolled on her words. He walked over to the table and leaned against the unmovable support.
“If you ignore it, or worse, disrespect it, you will fail, your family will perish,” she warned.
He focused on her filmy blue eyes. “It did perish,” he growled, the pain he’d stomped down surfaced with her words. He breathed low to control his rage, his beast.
“Not all, not Dalla. If you continue to turn away from your magick, your instincts, you will lose her, too, and Merewin. Perhaps more.”
“I trusted magick once, and it killed nearly everyone I loved. Now tell me, is Dalla or Merewin in danger?”
The woman pursed her lips. “Of course they are,” she said with irritation. “Who else would I be talking about? Your sister has her husband to guard her.”
“Gamal guards Spring House, too,” Hauk answered defensively.
“Every three days he comes by, but he misses the undercurrents that threaten. For Spring House to heal, it needs you.”
“Spring House is healed,” Hauk stated flatly. The witch talked in riddles and ominous predictions. Hauk felt his temper rising.
She raised one eyebrow. “I’ve never had a child, but I’ve seen many. I’d say there is something not right with your daughter.”
“We are talking about danger, not child rearing.”
“And you believe you are raising your child?”
“Dalla is fine. The death of our family was difficult. Time will make her forget.”
“Time will make her forget,” the witch repeated the words and looked down her nose. “Is that working for her? Is that working for you? I know a little about grief.” She paused. “To recover requires work, not denial, not forgetting.”
Hauk frowned, thinking back over the years from the happy child that he remembered to the spiteful malicious Dalla she’d grown into. The witch’s words pounded in his head, twisted his stomach. He found it hard to breathe as the pain of losing his son, his parents, his brother broke open like a fresh wound.
“We are speaking of Spring House and the danger it is in,” he said gruffly. His sword hand clenched and released, clenched and released.
Drakkina rolled her eyes. “I’m just telling you something you already know, but refuse to acknowledge.” She drifted off the table. “I’m leaving. You should stay in this circle and think. Think and believe what comes to you. Don’t dismiss it.”
“Wait...”
She held up a hand. “You must return to Merewin, bed her, love her.” Hauk snapped his mouth shut. “Make her yours, Hauk Geirson. Trust her. Or you will lose what’s left of your family and perhaps the world.”
The witch slowly faded with the last words of her warning. Hauk stared at the empty night air where she had stood. Her dragonflies flitted out of the clearing. He watched them, odd seeing them near winter.
Hauk turned in a circle. Alone again in the center of the soaring stones twice his height. Although the space stood empty, save the stone table and gangly weeds underfoot, Hauk felt a tightness, pressure. It was as if the space stood packed with power. Hauk began to shake his head and stopped, the words of the witch coming back to him. If you ignore your magick, your instincts, you will fail, your family will fail.
Hauk went back to the center table and leaned against it. He reached in his pocket, fingers finding the stone Merewin had given. It grew warm in his hand. Breathing deeply Hauk centered himself as he did before going into battle. He opened himself up to the air, to the earth beneath, to the night sounds. In the blackness behind his eyes, light and color formed. Slowly he unshackled the beast, the power within him. Unshackled, but still under his control.
Flashes of Merewin rolled through his mind, Merewin, her hair tangled in honey. Dalla laughing wickedly, then crying, sobbing. It tore through his chest and he nearly opened his eyes, but stopped. Instead he tried to focus on Dalla, her tears, her hands. A knife lay in her hands. She tested its weight, pricked her finger on the point.
“Nay, Dalla,” he called out into the tight emptiness of the ring. Hauk jerked upright shoving the stone back in his pocket. “I must go home. Now.”
Hauk broke through the ring back into the forest. The tightness he’d felt in the space lessened immediately. He looked back over his shoulder at the silvery stones. They seemed to watch him, waiting for him. “I’ll return for your battle,” he promised and jogged back to the camp. He wouldn’t miss a chance to be victorious at Ragnarok.
Chapter 7
Hauk’s hand caught in her hair and Merewin continued his kiss. Passion pulsed through her body. “Hauk,” she murmured, and the tug on her hair increased. The cool hardness of steel pressed against her neck, and her eyes opened, trying to focus. Hauk’s mouth came up from her neck. Had he bitten down? She pulled her face back and he smiled wickedly. “Hauk?” The dream fogged over.
The bothersome tug began at her hair again and brought the blackness of closed eyelids into view. Then it stopped and sleep warred with concern. Merewin’s eyes felt heavy, so heavy and she didn’t want to lose the sensual dream completely. Where was she? Aye, in Hauk’s naked, strong arms. Once again his face came into view and she sighed. His hand wrapped several lengths of her hair. Tug. Merewin gasped, her hand reaching for her scalp. Concern beat away the lure of slumber and Merewin’s eyes cracked open.
Dalla’s red head was bent over her where Merewin lay in her bed.
“Dalla?”
The girl jerked back, a handful of golden brown hair in her hands. Merewin’s hair. Merewin screamed as she rolled off the platform to her feet. Her hair sifted to the floor around her, her beautiful long hair. Dalla still held a knife in one hand and nearly two feet of brown hair in the other.
“Ye little beast!” Merewin screamed, and the girl’s smirk wavered in the presence of Merewin’s unleashed wrath. Merewin towered over her, using every inch of her great height to intimidate. “What have ye done?” Merewin pulled her hair around. Half of it still reached her hips while the other side reached just past her shoulders.
The control Merewin had kept through these weeks of Dalla’s cruel mischief snapped. Forced to the breaking point, the rage and fear and loneliness blasted forward into uncontrollable fury. Merewin used the back of her hand to whack the knife from Dalla’s, clipping her hand.
“You struck me,” Dalla yelped and clutched her hand.
Merewin grabbed the girl’s hair as Vivien poked through the curtain and gasped, her look going from Merewin’s head to the floor. “Leave us be, Vivien. Dalla and I have some things to discuss,” Merewin’s calm voice seeped venom. She pulled Dalla through the door by her hair. The hellion thrashed and tried to bite Merewin, but Merewin’s strength finally won out and she thrust Dalla out the door of the house.
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