Bones Of Contention: The McKinnon Legends - The American Men Book 3

by James, Ranay

  Chapter 40

  Josh felt the seconds tick by, and it seemed like an eternity as he waited for Gage or Jacob to respond. Something was happening to him at a molecular level; his insides felt warm, uncomfortably warm, as if beginning to melt. His skin felt sensitive under his cotton shirt. His jeans chafed and his boots were too tight.

  “Tell me what is going on! And where did they go?” he asked looking around the now empty room save for himself, Jacob, and Gage.

  Priding himself on being a very observant person who usually missed nothing, Josh managed to completely miss the band of warriors soundlessly slipping back into the darkness. One second they were there and the next, it would seem, they were simply gone. Maybe they had suspended time or had the ability to cloak themselves? Perhaps they were still there just invisible to the eye. It was just one more example of the power he could still feel lingering in the air pushing against him as if he were packed into an overcrowded room, bodies pressing, touching him. Whatever else this group was capable of doing was now left up to the imagination to fill in the blanks.

  Jacob saw and understood his puzzlement. “Josh, there is an old saying of the Brotherhood. ‘Some are born to it, some are called to it. Blessed is the man who is both.’ You, my friend, are both.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Come with me,” Gage ordered Josh.

  This time he did not hesitate.

  He wanted answers and if it meant walking through fire to get them, he would follow Gage through hell and back. He had no idea that hell would be literal. With each step he took deeper into the darkened passageway, he felt his blood thickening, almost stopping the flow to his brain like water freezing in a pipe.

  Ten minutes into the tunnel his blood was now down to a trickle and he was having trouble thinking. Focusing was out of the question. He could not focus no matter how hard he tried, and the roar in his ears was deafening. He was using the walls to feel his way along and to keep himself upright.

  The pain was increasing, and he felt like every nerve ending was being touched with a match and his skin felt pierced with tiny needles. His clothing hurt his now oversensitive skin, and at some point he shed his clothes not even realizing it. Jacob had him by the left arm, Gage the right, each dragging him along, no longer able to support himself.

  The three emerged into an antechamber deep in the bowels of the castle. The power flowing through his body burned and each breath he took was strained, unnatural, and labored. It was physically excruciating. He clinched his teeth in order to keep from crying out and forced the muscles in the side of his jaw to spasm painfully.

  The marking on his arm felt like it was a living creature crawling under his skin as it strained to burst forth from its biological cage. The blood oozing from it was leaving a crimson trail to the tips of his fingers as it dripped in a steady stream hitting the ancient stone floor where it was soaked up instantly by the centuries of settled dust. He could hear the sound of the drip above the roar in his ears.

  “What is happening to me?” he forced through his clenched jaws. He felt as if his whole body was flying apart.

  Gage felt for his American cousin. “It is a kind of transformation that should have happened and would have happened years ago if you had been schooled properly. I’m sorry, Josh. With you being adopted, no one ever thought to inquire and we had no idea until recently you were of the Brotherhood, much less a Protector. Now, we just have no time to break you in slowly. It will soon pass. Come lie down and just let the process happen. Jacob and I will be here to do what is necessary. If it doesn’t kill you outright, you will be fine in a few hours.”

  Jacob and Gage exchanged looks. No one had ever before made the change past adolescence. They really had no idea if this would work or not. Normally the change was triggered by the mature Protectors, happening just before the onset of puberty, before muscle mass was formed allowing the physique to develop over time. What was happening to Josh in the matter of hours was the equivalency of twenty-five years of weight, endurance, and strength training. His senses were sharpening at an alarming rate which left him no time to develop filters; filters that he would need to keep his sanity and prevent sensory overload. The process could well kill him. If his heart were not up to it, he would die.

  “Keep my girls safe,” he gasped for breath.

  Josh went to his knees screaming in agony as the power swept in and through him swirling like a hurricane with powerful, supernatural winds ripping and tearing anything it touched in its path. It pierced his soul and instantly stopped his heart.

  Chapter 41

  Hours had passed since Jacob and Gage delivered Josh’s unconscious form to his room. Jamie, making an insanely fast and dangerous trip from London, had arrived just on the heels of his being called into Gage’s office. She was tied to Josh and knew instinctively he was in danger, yet no one would give her answers.

  Maybe none had any to give, she finally surmised.

  She had spent over an hour demanding hysterically to see him. No one would answer her questions, and it was not until they delivered him here that she understood why her heart had been pounding frantically.

  He was dying when they laid him on this bed twelve hours ago.

  It had taken four grown men to restrain him through the worst of it. She would forever take those images to her grave. He had been in excruciating pain, and she could do nothing except sit on the sideline and pray. She finally got the answers to her questions. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to even ask.

  They were now leaving him alone with her comfortable in the fact he would make it or he would not. Either way she would be with him.

  “Josh?” Jamie softly stroked his face as he currently lay still as death on the massive antique bed with his breathing shallow and ragged. “Josh, I have met your doctor, Sara, and she said I should talk to you, that maybe it will bring you back to us.”

  For hours Jamie waited in anguish as he labored to breathe. She never knew from one exhale to the next if the breath he took would be his last. There were so many things left unsaid and so many things that should never have been uttered. She wanted a chance to make that right.

  The fever burned as she watched his muscles bulge and bind, tearing and tensing in what had to be painful cramps. She had rubbed and massaged as hard and as long as she could until her own hands had failed her. She was grateful he was still unconscious. Otherwise, the process would be more than a person’s mind could take and remain sane.

  He seemed to be resting easier now that the cramping and spasms had ceased. The transformation he was undergoing was nothing short of astounding as she could literally see muscle definition forming before her very eyes.

  His body had been very finely made before this event with well defined-muscle and an abdomen most men would have killed for. She had no complaints. What Jamie saw now, she would never have believed had she not witnessed it firsthand. He had put on at least twenty-five pounds of pure muscle mass. Any fat he might have accidentally had before was gone. He was cut and chiseled and hard as stone. She stroked his arms and bare chest with the cool rag in hopes it was helping him, but figured it wasn’t. No external touches would sooth or change what was happening to him on the inside.

  “Josh, I have discovered a few very unusual things over the last few days,” she spoke softly as if she was almost afraid he would awaken.

  “I know you can hear me, but won’t remember, and I have to tell someone before I burst.”

  She leaned next to his ear to tell him this secret. “You were born in 1640 B.C. and your birth name is Alexander. Do you know what that means in Greek? Defender of Men.” She sat back up dipping the rag back in the cooling water, touching the rag back to his face.

  “Very fitting, I think. I know your mother did the forbidden and broke the sacred laws of the Brotherhood to give you a name, and she died protecting the two things that kept you alive so the future would know you existed.”

  I kn
ow you exist, she thought.

  He did not stir, his breathing much easier, so she continued her monologue.

  “She marked your birth as a sign in a mosaic containing your family tree. She had guts, your mother, to go against the rules. But there you were in that tree just as a sign. I recognized it immediately as the marking on your arm.” She gently touched that blood-red mark, crimson so deep there was no other way to describe it except as living tissue. She felt it pulse and move under her fingertips. Whatever it was it was alive.

  She had done some research on the marking and had finally deciphered the symbol. It was not a single sign, but rather a collective of three Greek letters: Theta, Pi, and Phi. Theta meant death. Pi was a mathematical concept and the one true constant in the universe. Phi was the golden ratio representing perfection.

  Somehow it was fitting that the Protectors should represent these three things. They were death, they were the one constant through the ages, and they brought perfection and balance to the world.

  She continued to bathe him, talking just as if he were listening. It was almost cleansing for her to be able to share.

  “I told Gage what I suspected. He then showed me his sign and tried to tell me that there was no way I was right and to drop it. He said it was a family birthmark. I guess he does not know about my gift or the fact I know you are adopted.”

  She had let it go with Gage understanding he would never understand her gift, not like Josh understood. Needing answers after seeing a likeness so close to Jesse’s appear, she took a chance touching the bones with unprotected hands. It was a risk she felt she needed to take.

  “It was you, Josh.” She stopped bathing his fevered face and wiped away a tear from her own. “It was you. Your father’s name is Lysander, your mother’s name is Melitta. I have created a likeness of her I think you will recognize. She was beautiful and so young. She was found clutching a small piece of fabric in which the name Alexander was embroidered. By some twist of fate, it remains preserved enough for me to recognize what its significance is to your life. It was you she was protecting as she lay across the mosaic, Josh. She wanted someone to know you existed. Her mother’s instincts were to protect the only thing she had left of you.” She stopped to collect her thoughts and thought of the agony his mother felt to have to give up her child.

  Placing her forehead on his chest, she sobbed harder for him, for her, and for the beautiful young and tragic woman who birthed him. “I know the tradition of the Brotherhood. I know they came and took you away in the dead of night. I saw it all.” Up until now, she thought the Sidhe were cold and unfeeling. They had nothing on the wizards.

  She stopped again closing her eyes letting the scene play out before her. She had seen and lived it all. All the laughter, love, and desire his parents felt for each other.

  “We will survive this together or we will die together.” His mother was not leaving his father. She had seen it play out in the villa, and she felt the deep unending love they felt for their child. She had felt it. She shared it. All the deep despair knowing the child was lost to them was mixed with anguish and pride.

  She had felt that as well.

  Melitta spoke to her from the grave begging her to save her son. After that the contact severed itself, leaving her breathless and panicked. She left the museum immediately and came straight to Seabridge only to discover Josh indeed was hanging on for dear life.

  “Josh, she did not give you up easily. She struggled violently with them as they tried to take her precious child, tearing away a part of your swaddling blanket in the process. That same blanket is hanging framed in your living room. I’ve seen it and the torn piece fits.” She took in a deep breath. “It was you. Her last thought before she died was of you, Alexander, her son.”

  Even from the grave, his mother begged her to keep him safe.

  Jamie looked at this man who raised such conflicting emotions inside her. Yet there was one thing that had remained constant. Her Pi, her constant, she loved him. And she was losing him, if not to death, then certainly to the wizards. He was their tool of justice. He was their ultimate warrior, and they would soon show up to claim their right. She could not compete with whom he was soon to become.

  She stretched out beside him. It might just be the final time she could spend a moment alone with him for her final confession. Their time together was growing short. The lines of battle were drawn and on this they were on different sides. She was Sidhe, that which he was programmed to seek out and destroy.

  “I love you, Alexander, Protector and Defender of Men,” she whispered softly in his ear before kissing each cheek in turn. Leaning in, she softly pressed her tear damp lips to his. “I love you more, Josh, as just the man, but we can never be. You are a weapon of the wizards sent to destroy. In this fight we are on opposite sides of the line. I am the future Fae queen. We are enemies by nature. Who we are will ultimately outweigh what we may desire.”

  Jamie never heard the soft click of the latch of the secret passage doorway. Had she known there were ears to her confessions she might not have slept as soundly.

  Chapter 42

  Jesse knelt by her father’s bedside while Jamie soundly slept beside him having finally given into sleep and relinquishing her vigil.

  Jesse thought Jamie would never give up the ghost and go to sleep.

  “Daddy, you must wake up, you hear me, you stubborn sack of horse feed? Wake up! Jamie’s life is in danger. She needs you. VanDarious is here on the castle grounds.”

  She watched his eyelashes flutter. It was working.

  “Daddy, he is coming closer. You must return to us. We need you. I’m just a scrawny human female who cannot defend myself,” she whispered frantically right in his ear. “Jamie and I need you to protect us from VanDarious. The monster is here.”

  She watched as his eyes snapped open quickly scanning the room. She smiled, quickly pinched his lips closed, and pressed her hand to his chest. “Shooosh. We are all safe. It is good to have you back,” she whispered. “I could not let you have this opportunity pass us by.” She pointed over his shoulder to Jamie’s sleeping form. “She loves you. I heard her fess up, finally, and even if she hadn’t she has been here throughout the whole ordeal. I’ll leave you two alone now. Love you.” She kissed him and left, this time through the door softly closing it behind her.

  Josh felt every muscle in his body protest as he rolled onto his side to pull her sleeping form against him.

  Pulling her close, he marveled at how perfect she was for him as he kissed her hair. He remembered only bits and pieces, which was probably a good thing, but he definitely remembered her soft reassuring voice keeping him tethered to his sanity. Raising his arm slightly above the bed covers, he balled his fist forcing the muscle in his forearm to bulge. He wondered at the new muscle he was sporting.

  “Some are called to it, some are born to it,” Jacob had said. Guess he could not deny that there was some truth in that statement. He had yet to see about the “blessed is he who is both” part. Time would tell. Right at that moment, he felt like hammered shit and swallowed hard against the discomfort.

  His hearing was very acute as he listened to the rise and fall of Jamie’s breathing. His sense of smell was also heightened as he inhaled her scent. He wanted to taste her skin and touch her hair. He noticed he could see perfectly even without the glasses he was finding he needed more and more lately. The transformation was more than just physical, too. Mentally, he was sharper and growing more so by the second. The soreness was fleeing quickly, and he was feeling a new sensation flowing beneath the surface of his skin, magic of a different sort. He raised his nose to the air sniffing for what he was not sure. Fae perhaps? Would he recognize their scent?

  He could smell the rotten meat for the goblins coming from below the castle’s floors. It made him gag forcing him to breathe through his mouth until he became accustomed. He could hear the conversations of the individuals in the rooms surrounding him like background noise
in a restaurant. It was overwhelming. The sheet covering him was more than he wanted touching him as he tossed it aside.

  “Josh? Are you all right?” She rolled over to touch him.

  He froze at the sound of her voice in his head, his name on her lips. It was pure heaven with a magic all its own. He never realized her Fae blood gave her magic in the very words she uttered. Her touch on his skin was nearly his undoing. His magic sparked and repelled against hers as two like forces. Yet, his need for her was overwhelming. She was the salve for his soul and the balm for his aching muscles. She was the last thought he had before he fell unconscious and the first upon waking.

  “Come here.” He pulled her on top of him covering him head to toe in her scent and warmth. It was the most magnificent feeling he had ever experienced. “I need to taste you,” he confessed before trying to capture her lips with his.

  “Josh, no!” She pulled away scrambling off the bed tossing the sheet back over his naked body. He had awakened so quickly that it had not given her time to retreat, and damned if she was not, for a moment, blinded by his allure, his raw sex appeal, and the new magic he had yet to perfectly control.

  “Why?” He propped himself up on his elbows, puzzled. Jesse had told him she confessed her love for him. “What’s wrong now?” he growled.

  “Stay away, Josh. It is for both our greater good.” She held her arms straight out in an effort to stop him.

  He stood in all his glory and began covering the gap between them. Jeez, she thought. If she thought he was massive lying down, it was nothing compared to him standing.

  “Jamie, I love you. I said I was sorry. What more do you want from me, my blood? Is that it?” He was angry. Then he noted the look on her face. He softened instantly. “Have I become something which repulses you? Jamie, you act like you’re afraid of me.” Josh understood some women did not care for a muscled up frame. Too late for that, he reasoned.