Watchtowers : Water

by Lucynda Storey

  Zion heaved a mighty sigh. “Your mother and my father were lovers.”

  She swallowed hard. Poseidon and her mother? No, that was too far fetched to have merit. “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true. My father sent me to the Irish coast to look for her. I found you both.”

  The revelation was disconcerting. Her stomach flipped, flopped, and then twisted in painful gyrations. Zion’s news solidified her need to keep away from him. Dear Domnu, she’d bedded her own brother!

  Keely moved from her perch on the rack. She had to move, wanted to gallop away, but didn’t want to give Zion another piece of evidence in regards to her running from him. “We can’t use these bikes. If we try to get them freed all we’ll do is succeed in damaging them.”

  Put one foot in front of the other. Just follow the road to Cooraclare. Follow the road. It was a good mantra. Walking the dusty road would allow her time to pull a cloak of protection around her battered emotions. Her mother and Poseidon. Who would have thought it possible?

  Until a few days ago, the concept of sex with a mythological being would have sent Keely into peals of laughter. Not now. She knew what it was like to be touched by a God, cherished for a moment in time.

  With the information Zion shared, Keely understood a part of her mother’s mental instability. How long had her mom been fighting the same demons Keely had?

  A dried leaf skittered across the unusually quiet road. Keely kicked at it and continued on.

  “Keely, wait. Where are you going?”

  “To Cooraclare. I need to prepare for Amidurah. I need some time alone.”

  “You’re not going without me.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. Her muscles were tense and the movement relaxed them. She repeated the action.

  “Damn it, Keely, I love you.”

  This declaration was too much. Anger with him, with herself, with the entire situation raced along her nerves like a wildfire. She rounded on him. Venom dripped from her words. “News flash. I don’t fuck my relatives.”

  She turned again and stomped down the road.

  If she thought the declaration would root him to the spot she was wrong. Once again, Zion laid claim to her, clasping her shoulders, and spinning her toward him.

  “Is that what you think? That I ‘fucked’ my sister?”

  She glared at him and refused to take his bait.

  “My father and your mother became lovers after you were born. He sent me to find your mother and bring her back to him. I found you instead.”

  Keely didn’t blink. “Do you think it makes a difference?”

  “Hell yeah. I don’t go in for incest.”

  The actual word uttered made Keely flinch. Her face stung with anger and a healthy dose of embarrassment. Thank God they weren’t flesh and blood relations. “Just borderline pedophile then?”

  She watched his eyes widen, as if she’d just landed a blow with an open hand to his face. Then he narrowed his eyes. A dangerous glint lit them as if she’d gone too far with that last statement.

  “I watched you because the day I found your mother, I witnessed your childlike attempt at murder.”

  Her mouth dropped open. No words came forth and she shut it with an audible clack of teeth. Her nostrils flared and Keely fought to reign in the last of her temper. She took a deep breath. Slow and soft the words fell from her lips. “I’ve had far enough of this,” she waved her hand, “attempt to embroil me in the sick workings of your family. For your information, I loved my mother and father. I would never intentionally hurt them.”

  “You were a child. You had a temper tantrum. You called the ocean to you then as surely as you are able to now. The water crested the abutment and your mother lost her balance, falling into the waves as they receded.”

  Portions of the scene replayed in Keely’s mind. The echo of her mother’s falling scream prickled her flesh and made her tremble. “You’re saying I’ve had the ability to control the water all my life?”

  Zion nodded and stayed quiet.

  She narrowed the gaze of her eyes and stared at him, clenching her teeth. Deep down she’d suspected she had a special connection to the ocean. Zion confirmed it.

  His quietness alarmed her. She turned her head and looked toward the peaceful green forest. “There’s more isn’t there?”

  There had to be. Her mother hadn’t drowned after her fall. Her terrified scream alerted her nearby father and he’d rushed to the abutment, and then to the door leading to the beach. The memory of the panic on that evening flooded Keely’s mind and sent her pulse into overdrive.

  In her mind’s eye she saw herself, a small child standing forlorn on the top of the cliff wall, clicking her tongue against her teeth to control her fear. In the waning light, a large animal jumped from the water in a graceful arc. A dolphin. Two more large gray mammals followed the motion.

  The trio surrounded the toppled woman and kept her head out of the water. They brought her mother near the beach, as close as they dared. By then, her father was on the wet sand, splashing through the diminishing ripples of the ocean’s waves.

  Keely’s brows furrowed with the memory, and she returned her gaze to Zion with a tilt of her head. “That’s when it started, didn’t it? The whole communications drive to talk with the dolphins.”

  Zion crossed the space between them. “Any other child would have run and hid, but not you. You called the dolphins to save your mother. Before I could render aid, they were there already.

  “While your father worked to get your mother to the castle, you stood there alone on the abutment, cloaked in the dishonor of your actions.”

  The enormity of the horror Zion accused her of churned her stomach. “I was three! What did I know of honor or power or life?”

  Zion pulled her into his arms.

  She leaned against his solid body, soaking in his strength like a sponge.

  Hot tears scalded her cheeks and Keely knew from her past experiences her eyes would turn an unsightly red. Against his chest she murmured. “That’s when you started visiting me?”

  “Not precisely. My father wanted a report regarding your mother’s whereabouts. He’d promised to return her to her home, and he kept his word although he searched for ways to bring her back to him. In his own way, I guess, he loved your mother.

  “I told him how Mary Murphy almost drowned and how her young daughter called the dolphins to save her mother. He assigned me to watch Mary, to make sure nothing else happened to her.” He stroked her hair with his large hand. “The fringe benefit was observing you grow up into a gorgeous woman, sharing quiet times with you in the confines of your mind.”

  The comforting gesture restored a great deal of her inner peace and confidence. “Were you… on the beach when I was eighteen?”

  The gentle stroking of his hand stilled. “Yes.”

  More memories surfaced. The day she’d turned eighteen, she wandered the beach, called the dolphins to her, and enjoyed a beautiful orange and red sunset.

  Several members of a Rossi’s pod neared and started their unique blend of whirs and clicks. She’d accepted their version of birthday greetings and slipped on her sand boots for her return walk home.

  Halfway down the shoreline she’d seen a figure walking toward her. Even then, her father had insisted on Keely earning a concealed weapon permit and having an Immobilizer at the ready. Patting her pocket, she felt the weapon and vanquished her fear that day.

  Straightening her arms and leaving her palms against his bare chest, Keely pushed away from Zion and peered into his face. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  So many pieces of the puzzle of her life fit together. All this time she’d believed she was crazy, delusional because of the man she’d met on the beach. She’d seen Zion nearly every day for a couple of months way back then.

  The inevitable happened, too. Keely fell in love and the man of her dreams disappeared. Oh, he’d had help. The one time she’d me
ntioned meeting Zion, she hadn’t been allowed to traverse the beach again, alone, until Daddy gave the all clear.

  Again the sequence of events made sense to her. If her mother had an affair with Poseidon and her father had discovered her infidelity he would naturally keep his daughter away from the son of the man who’d cuckolded him. “They convinced me you weren’t real. When I insisted, they had me sent for conditioning. Later I was placed on powerful medication.”

  He grasped her wrists and with gentle pressure pulled her back into the confines of his arms. “Those were the darkest days of my life. I couldn’t see you, couldn’t even speak to you in your dreams. Your mind was clouded, like a long lasting ocean squall. There was only tumult and darkness in your thoughts, walled in by those damned drugs.”

  Keely frowned. “Why didn’t you come back when I stopped taking those control drugs? Why didn’t you help me understand my relationship to the dolphins?”

  He reached out and touched her face with the pad of his thumb, each caress sliding over her down-turned lips. “I did.”

  Two small, simple words. Zion offered her a mighty temptation, to turn her head toward the palm of his hand and bask in the caring sensations of his sensuous touch.

  She resisted his haven of contact, frustrated sexually, emotionally, and mentally. If she gave in to his seductions now, she might not ever find all the answers she felt she needed. She shook her head and broke contact with the thumb that rubbed her lips.

  “No. I never saw you again. Not until the day I found you on the beach.”

  Zion smiled at her, a sad looking, tight-lipped curvature of his mouth. Pity resided in those blue eyes. Pity for her. “Don’t you remember?”

  Chapter Twenty

  There wasn’t time for Keely to reply to Zion’s question. Four jet bikes bore down on them from the direction they were headed. She unzipped her bag and pulled out the Sig Immobilizer. “Hide!”

  Zion scurried to the left. Keely jumped over a low-lying stone wall across the road from him and aimed.

  ”He’s the one lads, the bloke that helped the girl at the river.”

  Keely flinched. The sound of Michael’s voice grated on her nerves like the hull of a ship being scraped for barnacles. Damn! She quickly lifted her head to see which bike Michael rode but was too late to discern which helmet-covered rider was her hunter.

  Double-checking the Sig to make sure it was on stun, Keely slowly placed the barrel on a concave indentation in the stone.

  The four men, dressed in different colors, parked their bikes and headed toward Zion’s hiding place.

  She took a deep breath, exhaled a tiny bit, and then held the air in her lungs. Long ago, on a small motor boat, Keely’s father had taught her how to use her breathing to steady herself before casting her rod into the water. With continual, gentle pressure, she pushed in the trigger and let loose a long blast of energy at the back of a man clad in burgundy.

  He jerked around when the blast hit him, screamed, and began swearing.

  Keely fired at his chest, keeping the trigger depressed. The filthy words coming from his mouth ceased and he fell to the ground in a heap. She twisted her wrist so the barrel of the Immobilizer swung slightly to the left and fired another long blast of energy at a man in deep green who began to turn toward her.

  Her target grabbed his back at waist level and fell.

  Two down. She glanced at the energy level in her gun. The three blasts had depleted the stores to twenty-five percent of capacity. She needed a few extra seconds to ensure a disabling hit.

  “Get her,” Michael yelled.

  Keely peered over the muzzle of her weapon. Her view of Michael’s body was blocked by that of a large, bare chested man headed her way. She watched as he pulled a specialized military weapon from his black camouflaged trousers and pointed the gun her direction. Instinctively, she fired.

  A burst of energy struck the ground to his left. Damn! She hadn’t aimed and missed her target.

  The air in front of her quivered, distorting her view. The ripple headed straight for her. Keely twisted and leapt to the side, but she wasn’t fast enough. The blast hit her waist and buttocks. A terrified, mournful scream tore from her throat.

  Her body careened toward the stone and she fell with a thump to the grass. She tried get up on her arms, tried to call out to Zion.

  Panic filled her. Her heart pounded furiously as if getting more blood to her extremities would help her stand.

  Keely couldn’t move or speak.

  *****

  The last time Zion heard a scream of such terror was when Keely’s mother had fallen off the abutment. He jumped from his hidden location in the grasses and onto the narrow shoulder of the road.

  The barrel of one of their attacker’s guns pointed straight at his heart. Just beyond him, Zion saw two men on the ground, felled by Keely’s shots. The man in front of him, wearing a “Free Ireland” shirt and jeans snarled. “Who might you be?”

  Zion ignored the question and once more peered past him. Another man with long black hair and matching black pants carried Keely in his arms and she didn’t move. “I’ve got the woman.”

  “I’ve got her hero.” The man shoved his weapon toward Zion’s ribs. “Not much of one if you ask me.”

  Zion deflected most of the blow away from his gills with a slight crook of his body and allowed his flexed stomach muscles to bear the brunt of the strike. A welt rose where he’d been hit, a purplish color beginning to stain his skin. No one dared strike a sea prince. “I wouldn’t do that again if I were you.”

  His attacker turned away from Zion for a millisecond, and then turned back, swinging with the hand holding the weapon. “I’ll do whatever I damn well please, mate.”

  With well-trained precision, Zion stopped the strike several decimeters from his face, catching the man by the wrist in a crushing grip. Anger simmered within him and threatened to explode in a deadly attack, one he couldn’t risk. They held the ultimate ransom in their arms, Keely. He released his hold on his assailant with a shove. “What do you want with us?”

  The man shook his wrist gingerly, glared, and then pointed his weapon level with Zion’s heart. “Who are you, and I’ll thank ya to not make me ask again.”

  Zion glanced at Keely in the other man’s arms. Anyone touching her like that heated his blood to boiling. “I’m Zion, who are you?”

  A smile crossed the aggressor’s face, revealing less than perfect, yellowed teeth and releasing a foul odor. Apparently, not even modern wonders were able to work their miracles on this scum. No wonder Keely ran from him.

  “Michael, an emissary of His Grace.”

  The words seemed regal, yet he’d never heard his father referred to in such a way before. “His Grace? My father?”

  The man laughed and moved toward the man bearing Keely. “Who would that be?”

  “Poseidon.”

  The burly man in black guffawed.

  Michael joined in. “Sean, did ya hear that? Poseidon. Now that’s funny.”

  Sean continued to laugh. A long strand of greasy looking dark hair fell into his eyes. “Aye. He would be king of the ocean, would he?”

  The temptation to utter a scathing retort to these two morons enticed Zion. Again, he held back.

  The man holding Keely, Sean, spoke again. “What should we do with him?”

  Michael appeared to consider the question.

  Zion swallowed hard and waited, tempering his normal instincts to fight for his honor and that of his family. He balled his hands into a loose fist. His goals were important. He had to make sure these cretins didn’t harm Keely and keep her from facing Amidurah.

  “Under normal circumstances I’d say have some sport with him and then kill him.” Michael paused and rubbed his chin. “As he’s been seen around the woman, maybe he’d have something of import to share with His Grace.”

  “How do you intend we transport them?” Sean shifted on his feet. “What of the men she’s downed?”<
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  “Leave ‘em. They’re only stunned and will return to their senses eventually.”

  Deep breath in, and then out, loosen the hands, flex your fingers, roll them into your palms, deep breath in, out. Each stretch loosened his tight muscles. Each time he rolled his hands he fought to keep from throwing a fist. Mentally Zion went through the relaxation watching the men argue his fate. Do what you must to keep Keely alive.

  Michael mounted a bike, pointed at Zion, and then indicated one of the jet bikes. “I’ll be keepin’ the woman. You’ll be in front of me, behind Sean on that bike. If you try anything funny at all, I’ll be lettin’ the air out of her lungs.” He brandished a lethal looking knife. “Permanently.”

  Moving toward the jet bike indicated Zion heard the breeze rustled through the leaves on the maples and caressed his skin with a cool, steady stream of air. The wind in the trees was one of the few sounds he enjoyed when being topside. The sound reminded him of a pure waterfall rushing over stones into a pristine pool below. If they survived this mess, he’d take Keely to one of the larger ones, Niagara maybe, or Victoria. He allowed himself the luxury of the daydream for a small moment.

  They had to endure though, and stop Amidurah from destroying all of Earth’s life forms. Zion doubted the man would hurt Keely, not when Amidurah wanted her, but he couldn’t risk being wrong either. With a begrudging respect he responded to Michael. “I understand.”

  Sean transferred Keely to Michael’s arms and got on one of the jet bikes. Zion straddled the vehicle Michael indicated.

  “You follow Sean and don’t be actin’ the hero.”

  With a nod of his head, Zion grasped the handles. Sean gunned the engine and took off. Zion followed as ordered, trying to think of a way to turn this to his advantage.

  *****

  A short time after they passed a road sign indicating they were near Cooraclare, Sean veered east. Dust rose from the rutted dirt road. Zion inhaled the musky scent of damp earth and realized they were near a body of water. The road Sean and Michael followed took them to meet their destiny.