But something had changed. Lyon felt the sharp force of that change pound in his blood and drum through every muscle.
If prophecy had been shifted…
It was impossible to imagine. If this one thing was wrong, then everything was wrong. All his years of duty as a guardian would mean nothing.
Lyon cradled her gently, trying to calm her labored breath with his voice and touch as the great wings swept low, over dark woods and the circle of a shining moat.
To Draycott Abbey’s shadowed gray walls, where old, mullioned windows glistened in the faint moonlight. Somehow he would have to make her safe, using ritual words and his own power of binding. And once the ritual was done, there would be no going back.
For either of them.
“He will know you have returned.” The dark voice rumbled through the night as they winged east. “He will oppose you, of course.”
The man he had known centuries ago had once been a friend, but lies and secrets had turned him into an enemy. The hatred between them had begun over power—and after that had moved to a woman.
And the length of their enmity had been measured in centuries.
“We have no choice. Your island is too far. And my home is even farther.” Lyon bit back a curse as Maddie coughed up dark bits of blood. “Do it now. There is no more time.”
“Very well. It shall be so.”
They turned in a dizzying swoop and the moon seemed to lurch crazily as they soared east. Lyon gripped Maddie’s shoulders. “Just breathe, my heart. There is hope. You will be safe with me.”
He prayed it would be so.
Ahead of him he saw glistening water and then proud gray towers.
Draycott Abbey.
He had lived here once, long years before. He had been loyal to this family and to the powerful men who had held these lands.
He had sworn never to return.
They soared over the high hill and passed the great trees of the home wood. Aeryx knew the way. Aeryx had been here often. There was only one place he would take Maddie now.
To the cliff called Lyon’s Leap, where the Crusader had been betrayed long before.
Judging from the anger that stirred in the air around him, the abbey’s guardian ghost was already there waiting.
Aeryx plummeted, catching his fall mere inches above the ground. Lyon stepped down with Maddie in his arms and set her on the soft, cool grass. When she shivered, he covered her with his odd, modern jacket and then raised an arm to the air, beginning the chant of Welcome to a Rose. The words were as old as the gray stone walls beyond the moat—and just as powerful.
“By dawn and dust. By sun’s light and midnight shadows, I call you back. You are welcomed, held in light.”
Lyon had time to say no more.
A shadow exploded over the hill and burned into human shape. White lace floated above black velvet cuffs below the cold, aristocratic features of Adrian Draycott, the ghost who guarded these lands still.
“You dare to return here? You think that I have forgotten—or forgiven?”
Lyon steeled himself for the hatred he would see in the features of a man who had once been his closest friend. The hatred was there, most certainly. With it was the cold arrogance of a man well used to command. “I need your help,” he said coldly.
“Leave now. Otherwise I will shatter your body to dust.”
“I cannot.” Lyon looked down, feeling Maddie’s body growing cold in his arms. He held the binding words in his mind, pulling them around her like a warm shield. But he had little time left. “Enough of the past and its hatreds, Draycott. More important things are before us now.”
The arrogant ghost of Draycott Abbey sneered at the woman on the ground. “A woman? What surprise in that? You were always famed for your conquests. Your woman is of no interest to me.”
“But she should be,” Lyon said grimly. “She is the sixth of her kind. And if we do not hurry, she may well be the last.”
“She is…a Rose?” Adrian’s breath caught. “The sixth?” He dropped slowly to one knee, studying Maddie’s glazed eyes and pallid face. “It is not possible. She is too small. Her hair and clothes are odd. Bah—she is young. I feel no power in this one, but a Rose may command armies—even kingdoms.” It is a trick. He shook his head. “Leave now. Take your imposter with you.”
“No imposter. She commands me,” Lyon said harshly. “At one time that would have been enough to convince you.”
“At one time you deserved my trust. But no more.”
Lyon muttered harshly. He had no time for old hostilities while Maddie’s life hung in the balance.
Her eyes opened suddenly and she tried to sit up. “Stop arguing, will you? Do something—useful. Water. A doctor. Must you always—fight?” Her words broke off in a harsh wave of coughing.
Adrian Draycott broke into rich laughter. The sounds rippled over the dark woods and lawns. “She sees me? Though I am a ghost, invisible to all mortals? Then there is my answer. Only a Rose would know me. I can feel her light now. It is weak indeed. She has no understanding and no control yet. And her heart wavers…” He stood up in an angry rush. “By all that is sacred, make haste, man. She is shivering.”
“It happened too fast.” Lyon heard Aeryx settle, a gray shadow perched on a boulder nearby. “The night is cold, old friend. We need warmth. Will you give this?”
“Gladly, Lyon. For you—and for your Rose.”
Emotion burned around Adrian Draycott’s dark form, but he said nothing. He stepped away as Lyon knelt on the ground beside Maddie and lifted her into his arms.
Instantly Lyon felt something was wrong. Time itself seemed unstable. Her light was too dim. Yet when he had met her, light had burned all around her like a restless garment. His hands tightened on her waist. What if he lost her now? What if—
He heard Aeryx hover above his right shoulder. “Finish, while you still have time. Her heart is weak and her light is nearly gone. Say the words.”
There would be no going back after the words were cast, Lyon knew. The tides would reach out and wrap around them forever. And yet what other way was there to cheat her death?
Lyon gripped her hand and cleared his mind of fear or anger. There could be no darkness here or the magic would be lost. They all might be lost along with it.
“Maddie,” he began. “Traveler. Stranger and yet no stranger, Rose of Winter, Rose of Dawn. Heed this first calling and feel our power joined.”
Lyon waited, but Maddie’s low, labored breathing grew weaker. He wrapped her small hand in his big one and leaned down, touching her face. “I hold your light,” he said roughly. “I breathe it now and bind you here; with hand and heart I claim you, so let it be.”
At first there was nothing. No flutter of eyelids. No change in the deathly pallor of her face. She barely seemed to breathe in his arms.
Lyon waited, stiff and silent. Had he been fast enough? Had he been careful in his touch—and clear in his calling?
Her face was blue-white now, the color of icy driven snow, and her eyelids were lined with blue veins. Lyon turned her arm and felt her wrists.
A pulse skipped, but too faint and far too slow. He felt time shift again, and the dark moved closer.
“Has she roused?” Adrian asked softly.
“No. And be quiet,” Lyon muttered.
“Then you must try again. You must have done it wrong. Get it right this time. I’ll have no more death on my conscience.” Adrian glared at Lyon, then shook his head.
But Lyon nudged him aside, leaning down to listen to Maddie’s breath.
Faint. But the sound was steady, he realized. He felt her slight shiver.
Then Lyon saw light fall over her arm. Moving slowly, it settled against her palm. It was a circle—too faint for a tattoo. Too intricate for ink or pigment. And it was alive.
Lyon’s breath caught as he saw the ancient silver marks of prophecy form—and begin to move.
12
Lyon felt a surge of
elation. The marks had returned. But he could still lose her. Her breathing was far too weak and irregular.
Urgently he tilted her face up to his. “Come back,” he said roughly. “I order it.” Lyon’s voice shook. “Nay. I ask it, with full and solemn heart.” The words were barely from his mouth when she coughed hard. Blood and foam dotted her lips and she lunged for him, taking deep, choked breaths.
Her fists shook. She was in clear and great pain, Lyon saw.
“Stop.” Her hands opened again, hammering his chest. “You’re hurting me. My throat is on fire. And there—what’s wrong with my hands?” She shuddered, dragging in hard, broken breaths.
The first hurdle past. Now for those to come next, Lyon thought grimly. For what came next would be far more dangerous to them both.
The calling should not leave her in this much pain, he thought angrily. Her marks had come far too fast, before she had any control over them. He could only wonder what else was wrong.
But his worry was cut short by Maddie’s wild struggles. When he released her, she stumbled to her feet, blinking hard. “I feel—drunk. Did you drug me?”
“I did not.”
“Liar.”
“It is no lie,” he said coldly.
“Then—then what happened?” She glared at him, weak and confused. “Where are we? This doesn’t look like London.”
“We are in a place of safety. At a house of great age. It is called—”
“It is called Draycott Abbey.” Adrian Draycott moved past Lyon. “I am Adrian, its guardian. I bid you deep welcome.”
Maddie frowned at him suspiciously. “Guardian? Is that some kind of rental agent?”
“Not precisely.” Adrian held out a lace-covered hand. “Let me help you up to the house. You look tired.” He smiled darkly, as if very pleased when Maddie accepted his hand. “You see me clearly, do you? It is after all very dark here.”
Maddie shrugged. “It’s dark but I can see you okay. What I’m having trouble with is that weird costume you’re wearing. I don’t see a lot of guys wearing lace in my part of DC.”
Adrian’s voice became arctic. “It is hardly a costume. I wore this garment on the day that we celebrated the first balloon flight across the channel. It was a most exciting day, to be sure.”
“Balloon? So you do that reenactment stuff?”
“The year was 1785, my good woman. And the day is as clear in my memory as yesterday,” Adrian said irritably.
Maddie turned slowly. “You expect me to believe that?” She frowned at him and then turned to glare at Lyon. “I feel…sick. My chest hurts. Why did you bring me here?” She rubbed her hands slowly. “Why are my hands so hot?” Maddie’s voice broke when she saw her palms.
Light danced and shimmered in restless spirals, drifting in slow circles that broke and reformed in the still air in front of her.
As if they were alive.
She took a shuddering breath and moved her hands back and forth. When she did, the spirals moved with her. “Make them s—stop,” she said harshly.
“I cannot.” Lyon took her right hand and watched the marks pulse at his touch. “You are coming into your power. Your marks have come alive, just as they ought to.”
Maddie wrenched free, flinching as the bright circles spun free and drifted past her face. “It’s a trick,” she hissed. “Some kind of fluorescent bands. How are you doing that?” Her face was white with fear. “Just—just make it stop.”
“You order what I cannot give.” Lyon frowned when Maddie backed away from him in confusion. The change was too abrupt, overwhelming in its force. But he could not stop what had begun. He sensed that dark forces were at work, and that somehow they had shifted the normal order of her change. If Maddie was to stay safe, her understanding would have to come swiftly. “They are your marks of power, Maddie. Only you may command them. None other may control or remove them now.”
Maddie knocked furiously at the glinting circles, but each time they floated back to her. “Then I command them—to go away!”
The spirals flickered at her words. Slowly they grew smaller and dimmer, until they were only scattered pinpoints. Lyon knew well what would come next. “You should not ask this thing. Once the marks take life—”
Maddie cried out in pain and anger and gripped her right hand. “They’re burning me. What have you done?”
“Anyone who tries to remove your marks now will feel this pain. Even you,” Lyon said roughly. “You have the choice. But there is a cost.” And the cost was a terrible one, Lyon knew.
Maddie flinched. “I don’t want the choice. I damn well don’t want these marks either.” She locked her trembling hands against her chest. “Explain it. You’re supposed to understand everything.”
“Not everything. And I’m afraid—you can’t go back. When you were dying, I called you back to life. The price of your return was those marks—and the powers that go with them,” he said quietly.
“Let me make this clear. I don’t want them. I just want to go back home and be normal again. I want to play video games and drink coffee and learn computer code—” Maddie gasped in pain. “Why didn’t you let me stay the way I was?”
“And let you die?”
“You’re lying.” Maddie raised her hands. Only a faint trail of light remained. “Why do they burn this way?”
She looked up as great wings cut through the air above her, swooped low and then circled past. “They need not burn you.” Aeryx’s eyes glinted. “As the guardian says, the marks are yours to command. You must accept their power—and your own—first. Until you do, they will search for their master, and their search will be unending and painful.” Aeryx glanced at Lyon. “You will not tell her the rest?”
“It is not required. She must choose for herself.”
Maddie glared at the scattered points of light. “They really won’t go away? Not ever?”
“They will keep searching for their home, as all sentient life does. We all wish in our hearts to go home.” Aeryx sank onto a grassy slope and furled his wings. “Those marks are yours forever. You are now their home.”
“This is a nightmare.” Maddie rubbed her head. “I’m arguing with a creature who stepped off a medieval church tower. And my hands are on fire. Just…tell me this is a bad dream,” she whispered.
“My apologies, but it is no dream,” the winged creature rumbled.
Maddie’s mouth locked in a tight, stubborn line. “I was really going to die?”
Aeryx glanced at Lyon, who nodded gravely. “I was almost too late. You had stopped breathing.”
“You—called these things. And now I don’t get to go back?” She looked accusingly from Lyon to Adrian to Aeryx.
None of them answered her.
“Fine. If they’re going to keep burning like acid—” She made a flat, angry sound of resignation. “They can stay. Just don’t expect me to like it. Do you hear that? And I’m going to find a way to go back and be normal again.” She stared down at the marks with hatred. “But for now, since I have no choice—they can stay.”
At her words the light flickered. Moonlight slanted down from a sudden opening in the clouds. The cold silver light seemed to arc down to Maddie, dancing over her shoulders and across her fingers, reckless and flashing with life.
But they did not settle on any spot.
“What’s wrong?” Her breath was ragged.
As she spat out the angry words, the spirals flared up like forged gold. They writhed in unstable bands through the air around her and brushed her face. Then they circled her head and stretched out in a glowing path down to her feet. And still they burned her, Lyon saw.
He shook his head sadly. “You must offer them haven with true heart. Otherwise they will not rest. It is Law, Maddie.”
She stood, caught in rigid anger. “So many stupid rules.” And then her shoulders slumped. “Okay, fine. I give them—haven. To stay.”
At her low words, the spirals blew out in dizzying wings of light. T
hey chased back and forth around her body in streaming strands of gold and flashing silver. They twisted upward, forming six-fold braids that burned fiercely.
And then they settled with infinite grace across her palms.
Maddie stared at them, her face sickly pale. “I don’t believe this is happening.” Muttering, she moved her hands back and forth, watching the bands of light rise and fall. “This is—totally nuts. And I’m going to be really sick now.” She pitched forward, holding her stomach.
Only the quick support of Lyon’s hands kept her from falling as she spewed up all the contents of her stomach.
“Be careful with her.” Lyon’s face was grim.
“I am being careful. But by my oath, I am not well used to lifting humans. In all my memory, only one human could see me.” Adrian said gruffly.
Over their heads Aeryx raced through the night, amber eyes burning.
“What did your winged friend mean? What have you not told her?”
“Her marks have an effect on all around her. She will learn this in time. For now she has enough to bear in her own anger and fear at all that she has lost.”
“What loss? Normal life must pale next to the power her marks will give her.” Adrian shook his head. “How can she prefer weakness to that?”
“We all prefer what we know best. Would you give up this house and all of these lands to hold such powers as hers?”
“Of course I would not.”
“Because this is what you know best. You are no different from her, Draycott.”
Adrian started to argue, but his muttering was cut short by Aeryx’s rumbling of laughter.
“The guardian has caught you well, Draycott. And he has the truth of it.” The air vibrated with the deep force of that voice. “She will learn what she needs. I can feel her spirits struggle even now. When you bind her, Crusader—”
Forbidden Lovers Boxed Set Page 45