A Warrior's Desire (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Pamela Palmer

  “Light,” said the one whose love had just been captured. Torches flared, the light reflecting in the tears that streaked her face. “We must call the ancient power, or all is lost.”

  The small chamber, lit by two torches, was unfurnished except for a single wooden chest, but the walls were beautifully painted with scenes of musicians and dancers, of beautiful women and strong, handsome men. Latticework carved into the stone framed the scenes.

  As one, the women ran to the chest and tore open the lid, each drawing out a brightly colored gossamer gown. Stripping off their plain shifts, they dressed hurriedly, then placed a pouch on a long cord around each of their necks, handed to them by the auburn-haired sister.

  The third sister pulled an ornate vial from the chest and placed a drop of oil at the base of her throat and each of her sisters’.

  “It is done,” said the first. “Now we must reach the temple before the Esri do or all is lost.”

  The three ran up the stairs.

  Tarrys slowly returned to herself, Charlie’s face superimposed on the stairs until the latter disappeared and she saw only Charlie’s worried expression.

  He stood in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  Tarrys nodded. “I saw a little more of what happened in the past. The priestesses preparing for the ceremony they hoped would save their race.”

  His expression tightened with regret. Even without her seeing more, they both knew it hadn’t worked. The Marceils had fallen.

  “Do you remember the ruins we saw in the mist lands? I’m fairly sure they were Marceilian. Our civilization spread throughout these lands. I saw paintings, Charlie. We were once artists, musicians, dancers. And more, I think. Philosophers, mystics, seers. We were once the heart of this world. The soul. Without being told, I know that. Mine was once a proud and wise race.”

  Charlie squeezed her shoulders and pulled her against him. “I have no trouble believing that.”

  She wrapped her arms tight around him, pressed her cheek to his chest and clung to him against the buffeting sadness. “Once the gates to your world were closed and the Esri lost their human slaves, they turned on us. So much lost.”

  His hand stroked her hair and his gentleness and understanding brought tears to her eyes.

  “At least you know,” he murmured. “You may be the only Marceil in generations to know what your race once was.”

  Tarrys nodded, brushing her cheek against the silk of his tunic. “We were raised to believe the Marceils were never more than the slaves of the Esri.”

  It was too late for her race. More than a millennia too late. Even if the Esri went back to enslaving humans and chose to free the Marceils, their civilization was long gone. Lost and forgotten.

  But it was not yet too late for the humans. Their fate would be the same as the Marceils’, and on a far grander scale, if the Esri weren’t stopped. A fury of determination swept through her as she tightened her hold on Charlie. If she had one purpose in her life, it was this. To save the human race from the same fate as her own.

  So long as she remained free, the Esri would fail.

  Chapter 23

  “We’re running out of time,” Charlie growled. The sky had turned russet a couple of hours ago. The best he could figure, the gates would open in less than three hours, but he couldn’t possibly know if his calculations were correct. This world was affected by the sun and moon of his own even if they didn’t rise and set in the Esrian sky. Sunrise and sunset, or their equivalent, had shifted as they’d traveled, just as they would have in his world, moving from time zone to time zone, though far more quickly here. Both Tarrys and Kade had said they believed their world to be far smaller than his and he suspected they were right.

  If he found the gate that was supposedly somewhere in this forest, he’d probably find himself in a completely different part of the world than D.C. But where, he couldn’t begin to guess. And unless they found their way through these endless woods, nothing else was going to matter. Not arrows, which they didn’t have enough of. Not gates, which neither of them had the ability to locate. Not even the Esri.

  Tarrys stopped suddenly, her wide-eyed gaze whirling toward him.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I hear something. Music.”

  Charlie listened. He was about to shake his head when he heard it. The faint strains from some kind of medieval-sounding stringed instrument drifted to him on the ever-present breeze. “The Esri like music? I thought torture was more their speed.”

  “All people enjoy music.”

  Charlie gripped her shoulder, relief and adrenaline flooding his system. “We’re almost there.”

  Tarrys pointed left. “Look. I see the faint glow of a red crystal. Do you see it?”

  Charlie dug his binoculars out of his gear vest, put them to his eyes and followed the direction she pointed. Sure enough, he could definitely make out the red glow and part of a structure of some kind. No people, but he was looking at a very tiny slice from a large distance.

  He lowered his binoculars. “That has to be the clearing. If we’d continued the way we were going, we’d have walked right by it.”

  “Which is probably why they played the music. To catch our attention.”

  Charlie looked at her, the comment making him pause. “Damn. I keep thinking we’re sneaking up on them, but they know right where we are, don’t they? They’ve been following our progress, waiting for us to come to them.”

  “Waiting for you to come to them. It’s your death mark they follow. They might not even know I’m here.”

  He looked at her sharply, not liking the sound of that. “You’re not going in there alone.”

  “I won’t leave the forest. I just want to take a look around and see where they’re holding Princess Ilaria.”

  The rust of the night sky did little to light the forest, casting her face in shadow. But he recognized the determined jut of her chin.

  “All right. But I’ll be right behind you.”

  Her head tilted. “That defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” His need to protect her grew stronger every day, every hour. It was all he could do not to order her to remain deep in the forest and let him handle the Esri alone. But he needed her help. “I’m not going to let them have you. We believe none of them can enter the forest, but what if we’re wrong?”

  “Charlie, with your death mark, they know where you are every second. If you go anywhere near that clearing, they’ll attack you. Either let me scout out the situation alone, or we go together and take out as many Esri as we can with the arrows we have.”

  She was right, dammit.

  “Wait. I brought something that might be helpful.” He dug under his tunic, grabbed a lighter and slipped a folded piece of paper out of one of his pockets. He turned his back on the forest, flicked the lighter and illuminated the page. “Just a reminder who we’re looking for.”

  Tarrys moved beside him to look at the photograph of a painting of an Esrian woman standing in a human forest. When the Sitheen were researching the whereabouts of the seven stones, they’d stumbled upon this and another painting that Kade had eventually confirmed depicted Princess Ilaria. Apparently the nineteenth-century Danish painter had been a Sitheen who’d seen Princess Ilaria…and Esria…in his visions.

  “If the stories are true, she’s the only woman here.”

  Charlie grunted. “The last thing we need is to get home only to find we rescued the wrong woman.” He snuffed the light, pocketed the folded paper and reached for her, cupping her shadowed face in his hands. “Stay deep in the trees and don’t take any risks. Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  She met his kiss, hers as fiercely delivered as his own then he pulled back, forcing his hands to release her.

  “Be careful.”

  “Always.” He caught the flash of a smile before she turned and took off running with her usual lithe grace, her steps sure and s
ilent.

  His heart pounded with fear for her as it never did for himself. How would he survive if he lost her?

  Tarrys ran through the dark woods, marveling anew that in this lonely forest, her people had once thrived. In this place of fears, she belonged.

  Above her, the soft whoosh of bird wings sounded overhead, the birds following her still, though the other creatures had disappeared as night fell.

  When she’d traveled far enough that the Esri shouldn’t be watching this direction, she turned back toward the clearing and stopped as something in the forest caught her eye—a tree in the distance, its yellow bark glowing faintly.

  Her pulse began to race as she stared at it, recognizing the tree from the second vision. The tree that had marked the priestesses’ secret chamber.

  Chill bumps rose on her arms. Could the chamber still be there even though the priestesses were long gone? Likely no one had been in that place since that fateful day. No one had gazed on those paintings, nor ever would again.

  She thought of the sisters, and of the lovers torn apart before they’d ever truly been together. The look she’d seen in the man’s eyes made her own burn with unwanted tears. So much love destroyed. She wanted to believe the two had found a way, somehow, to be together. But she knew the Esri. She knew what life was like for the enslaved.

  As she started toward the clearing, her heart felt heavy with sadness. How much harder must it have been for those who’d known freedom and power? For those learned, talented men and women with rich lives and deep loves to have their lives stripped from them? To have their loves sold off or raped before their eyes?

  No, it was better to never have known such freedom. Even for her now, going back to enslavement would be a thousand times worse than it had been before.

  Silently, she crept toward the clearing until the red glow separated, revealing red, blue and orange crystals scattered among the structures. Even the structures themselves began to take shape through the veil of trees. The village clearing appeared wide, easily as large as a human’s city block, dotted with roofless structures that appeared to have been hewn from the wood of the forest trees, then sanded, carved and painted with intricate care. They appeared to be furnished in the Esrian fashion with tables and stools, the columns draped with long lengths of colorful silks, the benches and floors littered with pillows in every hue.

  In the center of the clearing stood the temple the priestesses had spoken of, rising high above the other structures, strong and proud. Built of red stone, the temple stood as high as a three-story apartment building, built in the shape of a pyramid, its four sides made of stairs rising to the very top. Each stair appeared to have been painted with small, intricate designs. Swirls, perhaps? Or flowers?

  She could almost imagine what it would have been like all those years ago, the ancient Marceils walking through the temple village with pride, discussing and debating issues of the mind as a child laughed and scampered around them. Musicians playing, dancers moving in graceful dances between the pillars. And lovers walking hand in hand, dreams in their eyes.

  Now the village served as a prison, though the only structure that might possibly hold anyone was the temple itself. Was the princess being held there? Was there any need to hold her at all, given that she couldn’t escape the clearing?

  Tarrys crept closer and closer until she finally had an unobstructed view. Of the Esri.

  Her pulse leaped to her throat as she saw them, their backs pressed to the trees Charlie would pass if he attempted to breach the village. Each Esri held either a bow or a knife glittering in the crystal light. She could shoot them so easily from here, but without the fire from Charlie’s lighter, and his whispering the death chant, her arrows would do nothing but cause them a few seconds of pain.

  A movement along the side of the structure closest to Charlie drew her attention. A woman. She was tied to one of the columns, standing tall and proud, her pale hair threaded with ribbons and plaited down her back, her royal emerald gown in perfect repair. As she lifted her face into the light of the nearest crystal, Tarrys got a clear look at her. Princess Ilaria.

  And she was no prisoner. Not dressed and groomed to such perfection. Not when she stood conveniently tied at the edge of the clearing, the very edge the Esri expected Charlie to walk through.

  Clearly, the Esri had no respect for the intelligence of humans or they’d never have set such an obvious trap.

  She counted sixteen Esri guards, when she’d expected twenty. That was good. With enough arrows, she could pick off the sixteen, freeing Charlie to rescue…or capture…Princess Ilaria.

  Hope lifted on a rush of excitement. They were going to succeed. In the next few hours, she’d make the arrows she needed. Then with her fire arrows and Charlie’s death chant, they’d destroy the Esri guards and steal Ilaria.

  They were going to make it.

  But as she turned to retrace her steps, a flash of white detached itself from the shadows and lunged for her.

  An Esri.

  Tarrys dove right to avoid his reaching hands, but he caught her quiver, tearing it from her back. His other hand caught her hair.

  Fury roared through her, a fury as much for her race as for herself, for destruction and degradation and cruelty beyond conscience. Ripping the bow from her shoulder she shoved it up and back, hard into the Esri’s face. Her attacker roared with pain, releasing her hair. But when she leaped free, he snatched the bow from her hands.

  For an instant, she faced him, debating trying to retrieve her precious bow. But he lunged at her and she spun and ran.

  The Esri’s footsteps followed behind her, pounding at half the speed of her heart, until ending abruptly on a shout of fear. She didn’t look back, knowing the forest had risen to her defense, attacking him with a nightmare. Not until she saw Charlie racing toward her did she slow to a walk.

  Tears burned her eyes. She’d lost her arrows, her quiver, her bow.

  Charlie swept her into his arm, pulling her against him as her arms went around his neck.

  “He hurt you.”

  “No.” She was shaking with the aftershock of fear. Desolate with loss. “I didn’t see him.”

  His arms tightened around her. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “He took my bow. My arrows.” A sob caught in her throat. “Charlie, I lost everything. Our only chance.”

  “Shh.” He let her slide to her feet, but still held her against him. “We’ll manage. We’ll make more arrows. Another bow.”

  She pulled back, meeting his gaze. “There isn’t time. And there’s more you must know. They’ve tied Princess Ilaria to a column, but she’s not a prisoner.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Her hair and her gown have been beautifully tended, as have the clearing structures. Her guards serve her, I’m sure of it.”

  “It makes sense. They’ve been trapped here together for centuries.”

  “Tying her was a ploy to draw you in.”

  “She doesn’t know I’m here to rescue her. Did you see the guards?”

  “Yes. They’re hiding behind the trees, ready to attack you when you come for her.”

  “Twenty?”

  “I saw sixteen. Plus the one who came after me. The others could have been anywhere. If I’d had the fire arrows…”

  The vision came on her suddenly. She shot out a hand as if to stop it, but it yanked her into a free fall across fifteen centuries. And when she emerged again, she knew why the forest had shown her these visions.

  She knew what she had to do. And where to find the courage.

  In Charlie’s arms.

  Chapter 24

  Charlie held Tarrys against his heart until the vision passed, hating the tears streaming down her cheeks. He was sitting on the ground, Tarrys on his lap beneath a thick-trunked tree.

  “Don’t cry, sweetheart.” He stroked her soft hair. “It’s okay.”

  Slowly, she came out of it only to fling her arms around his neck and bu
ry her face against his throat, sobbing as if her heart were breaking.

  “Tarrys. Don’t cry.”

  Finally, when her tears were spent, she pulled back and slid her palms over his cheeks. Her gaze fell to his mouth and she leaned forward and touched her salty lips to his.

  He kissed her back with infinite gentleness, letting her lead, waiting for her to tell him what she’d seen even as he knew all too well—the Marceils captured, raped, enslaved.

  “Make love with me, Charlie,” she whispered against his mouth. “Please make love with me.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes filled with wrenching sadness and a desperate longing. And almost unbearable grief. She thought he was going to die, he realized. And maybe he was.

  Her breath brushed warm across his mouth. “Make love with me.”

  Need rose inside him, swift and fierce, his hands tightening at her waist.

  “Tarrys…” A hundred reasons why this was neither the time nor the place flew through his mind. He should be out there trying to kill as many Esri as he could. But how, when they knew where he was at every moment and were waiting to kill him?

  The word hopeless rang through his head. There was virtually nothing he could do in the short time left to improve his nearly nonexistent chances of success.

  Tarrys kissed him, her soft, desperate heat spearing through him.

  There was nothing he could do but this. Loving this woman. Living while life was still his.

  Charlie kissed her back, the desire he’d worked so hard to ignore rushing in, unleashed. In this moment, she was his to kiss, his to love. And nothing mattered but this moment. And Tarrys.

  His arms went around her as he pulled her tight against his chest, kissing her, inhaling her. Affection welled inside him, until he thought he couldn’t contain it all. She was courage and sweetness, strength and light. His beginning and ultimately, too soon, his end.

  Her hands slid into his hair and she kissed him as fiercely as he kissed her, her tongue sweeping inside his mouth, sliding over his. Tarrys. Her name echoed through his head and poured into his heart, lighting him from inside with a flame that was as much warmth as heat, as much tenderness as desire.