The Serpent in the Stone (The Gifted Series)

by Nicki Greenwood

  “Was?”

  She took the cap off her beer. The bright look in her eyes faded, taking something indefinable with it, and Ian wished it hadn’t right up until she added, “He’s dead.”

  He went rigid. “So’s mine.”

  “Oh.” She fidgeted with her beer bottle. “How?”

  “I don’t want to get into it. What happened to yours?”

  Her expression cooled. For the first time, he saw why people back at the college called her Shark Markham. “I don’t want to get into it.” She took a long drink of beer. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me how you just happened to choose Hvitmar for your birding project.”

  He opened his water bottle. “I had to come to Shetland, anyway.” When she gave him a get-real look, he raised his hands. “I swear to God. My assignment was to study the coastal birds of Shetland. You want to see my proposal?”

  “Lucky for you, Hvitmar’s in Shetland.”

  “Yeah, lucky me.”

  She took another drink. The silence stretched out some more, and he tried not to fidget. He wanted to leave. To hell with the storm. But then he caught another whiff of her earthy-spicy scent, and his body refused to move from the seat.

  A crash of thunder made them both flinch. “God, the weather’s in rare form tonight,” she murmured.

  “This is nothing compared to Maine during a good summer storm.”

  “Oh?”

  “My first internship was at a wildlife preserve in Maine. Stormed practically the entire time I was there. We had to bail out our tent with a coffee can the last night.”

  Thunder boomed again. “I think we might be in for a repeat performance,” she said over the rain beating on the tent canvas. He thought he saw her cheeks flush. “I hope you don’t mind being here for a while.”

  He stared at her across the table. Did he?

  She got up and pulled a blanket from the foot of her cot, then draped it over her shoulders. “Are you sure you don’t want me to find a dry shirt for you? If we don’t get you out of that stuff—”

  Whatever she was, she had a way with words. He broke into a grin. “What’s it gonna take to get you to quit asking me to take my clothes off?”

  She jerked the blanket tighter around her shoulders, iron-faced. He marshaled his expression into order, but it was too late to stop the visuals playing in his head of both of them shedding their clothes. It was a bitch, and it was unfair as hell, but Sara Markham had a body that could start a four-alarm fire. He cleared his throat and shifted in the seat. “I’m all right. Sit down.”

  A few seconds passed, then she dropped back into her chair and snatched up her beer bottle.

  He watched her for a while. Her body—all woman, all distracting—started sucking up more and more of his attention. It had been too damn long.

  He leaned forward and propped his uninjured elbow on the table. “So now that you know something personal about me, what about you? What are those necklaces all about?”

  She went white. Her hand flew to her throat as if she hadn’t realized she was wearing any jewelry, then fell away again. “They, er— They’re from my father.”

  “What’s that stone thing?”

  “I don’t—”

  “You don’t want to get into it, I got you.” He pushed his water bottle away. Already frustrated with the argument between his mind and body, he angled his head toward the door. “Should I leave? Because everything I say seems to set you off.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He couldn’t make himself ask what he really wanted to know. Instead, he said, “Since yesterday, you’ve been looking at me like I’m going to attack you. What is it with you? It’s like you completely detest human contact.”

  “I’m not the one who came out here by himself. What in the name of all that’s holy made you decide to go on a dangerous research project alone?”

  “Dangerous? They’re birds, not man-eating lions.”

  She shot out of her chair and the blanket fell away. “Rock climbing, you idiot! What possessed you to do that alone?”

  He surged up, boiling with hostility fueled by his suspicion of her. “What are you, my mother?”

  “You are totally out of your mind!” She took a step toward him, face flushed, her gaze snapping sparks. “You could have been killed up there, and no one would have known a thing about it. Do you realize what would have happened if I hadn’t—” She stopped short and clamped her mouth shut.

  This is it, Waverly. He stalked toward her until they stood nose to nose. His pulse hammered. He wanted like hell for her to admit what she was, even as his body begged her not to. “What? Hadn’t what? Tell me!”

  She trembled. Wayward strands of rain-damp hair fell across her rose-red cheeks. A pulse pounded rapid-fire in the hollow of her throat.

  His self-control snapped. He lunged forward, thrust the fingers of his good hand into her hair, and kissed her.

  She whimpered once, terror in the sound, and then the selkie came to life. The wild thing. Whatever she was, oh, God, he didn’t care. His blood crashed through his veins like whitewater as she kissed him back. Her arms came around him, and when she brushed his bad shoulder, shoots of agony lanced through him. I don’t care, I don’t care. He growled at the pain, at everything in his screwed-up past.

  She tasted like heaven. The spicy scent of her washed over him and his body went into mutiny. With a need bordering on madness, he teased at her lips. She shuddered and opened for him. He slanted his lips over hers and swept her mouth with his tongue. Mine. He reached around her back and fisted his hand in a fold of her shirt. Mine.

  She shook under his touch. Her hands came up and threaded into his hair. He stepped into her, urging her backward with his body. She bumped a chair, and it fell against the table with a crash. Bottles clinked to the floor as he steered her toward the cot. He buried his face in her neck, kissing satin skin. Her breath came fast in his ear. “Ian—Ian...”

  She stumbled to a halt as the cot hit her in the back of the legs. His teeth grazed her neck. She gave a soft moan that almost undid him. Desperate to breathe past the pounding of his heartbeat, he raised his head.

  She looked up, dazed with passion, and reached for him again. Ian froze.

  Her eyes.

  Blazing green.

  He lurched backward. “What the hell are you?”

  “Wh-What?” Her lashes fluttered. Her eyes faded to hazel.

  He spun on his heel, went to the door, and swept out into the storm.

  Chapter Three

  Ian fumed during the entire slog back up to his camp. Fat raindrops pummeled his body like handfuls of dropped pebbles. He wiped a hand across his face, slicking away the rainwater, but it didn’t erase the taste of her. “Fuck!” The gusting wind whipped his curse away. “I’m out of here. I should have gone to Mainland in the first place, instead of asking for this middle-of-nowhere post with some insane—”

  Thunder crashed overhead. “Whatever!” he shouted—at the storm, at Sara, it didn’t matter which. “I’ve had enough of this stupid circus. Keep your goddamn nightmares, keep your flying necklaces, keep me out of it. Should have forgotten all this shit a long time ago.”

  He reached his tent and ripped open the flap. The storm followed him inside. Wind and rain swirled around, blowing papers off his table and into the corner. With cold-numbed fingers, he fought the tent zipper and managed to pull it closed. He wrestled out of his wet sling, furious that he couldn’t just rip it off without hurting his shoulder.

  More furious still, that part of him wanted to march all the way back down there and finish kissing her. He gave an incoherent roar and flung his jacket and sodden shirt on the back of a chair.

  Shirtless and soaked, he stood in the middle of his tent. He thrust his good hand through his hair, sending a shower of droplets onto the floor. For a satisfying minute, he thought about nothing at all.

  Then he remembered her moan when he’d nipped at her neck. The
smell of her. The taste, too. Cinnamon, that was it. Whatever she’d had between dinner and that beer, he wanted to drown in it.

  He cursed again and snatched a towel from the foot of his bed, then scrubbed it through his hair. His injured shoulder throbbed. He swallowed a couple of painkillers without water. Lightning flashed, illuminating the interior for an instant. He lit a lantern, then flopped onto his cot.

  Instead of seeing the roof of his tent, he saw her face, her parted lips, the way her eyes begged him to touch her.

  He snatched his journal off the bedside table and opened it to write something, anything. A blank page stared him in the face. He let the pencil hover over the paper for a few minutes. When that didn’t work, he flipped the switch of the small radio sitting on the table. Most of the channels brought static. The one clear station played some weird thing with bagpipes. He sighed, turned it off, then set the tip of the pencil to the page. What the hell had she done to him? Was this part of what she was?

  Or was it just that he’d wanted so badly to bury himself inside her that he’d forgotten everything he knew about her?

  I can’t deal with this, the pencil scribbled out. Not now, not her.

  Another minute passed.

  She saved my life. I know it was her. How the hell else did I end up back on solid ground? That wolf, somehow it was Sara. Green eyes, for God’s sake.

  And telekinesis.

  He hissed and hurled the pencil across the tent. It clattered into an open crate. Coming to Shetland had been the worst idea of his life.

  The past should damn well stay buried.

  ****

  Sara woke with a start to the rising morning light. Ian’s kiss had resonated through her dreams, bringing restless flashes of rasping stubble against her heated skin. She shivered in the bitter air and sat up, pressing her fingers to her lips as if she could still feel him.

  So. He knew. What would he do about it?

  Nothing good, judging from the way he’d flown out of her tent. It had taken her a few moments to realize her eyes must have changed again. Caught up in the kiss, she hadn’t even felt it happen. When she tried to go after him, confront him, Dustin had stopped her with some maddening, trivial thing about soil compositions. She’d been forced to stay at the camp and deal with it, all the while casting furtive looks up the slope of the island.

  The night storm had blown over. The roar of wind had faded to a periodic whooshing around the edges of the tent. She swung her legs over the edge of the cot—

  —and froze.

  The tent door hung partly open, its corner flapping in the breeze. She knew she’d shut that last night. She went to it and peered out. A glance down revealed no tracks on the ground. That proved nothing; they might have been washed away by the rain. She zipped the door shut, then hurried into a warm change of clothes.

  The amulet. Ian knew about that, too. She touched a hand to her throat; the stone disk was tucked safely under her shirt. She pulled it out and examined it, a thin, discus-like object less than five centimeters across. Each side bore the same worn carving: a serpent winding in and out of a Celtic knot, then circling back to swallow its own tail. A small oval depression lay in the center of the discus on either side.

  She traced a finger along the center depressions, as she’d done maybe a hundred times since finding it among her father’s possessions. “Something’s missing, Dad,” she murmured, noting the sharp edges where the centerpieces had been pried loose. “But what?”

  One hour and five reference books later, she had gained no insight into the amulet’s origins. She couldn’t bring herself to draw or catalogue it, as she would any other artifact. With her books exhausted, she turned to the Internet. She opened the browser on her laptop and began the arduous task of sifting through innumerable Web sites on Celtic lore. “Come on. One mention, that’s all I want. Give me something to work with,” she pleaded.

  Footsteps sounded outside her tent. “Sara?”

  Ian.

  A chill rushed through her. She wondered if she could bluff her way out of what had happened between them last night.

  Confidence, she reminded herself. One slip, and he’d pounce. Closing her laptop with a snap, she said, “I’m here. Come in.”

  He unzipped the tent door and stepped inside, lowering a knapsack from his good shoulder. His gaze roved about the tent with an expression of deadpan calm, then landed at last on her. “I just wanted to tell you—”

  She sat up straight and matched his deadpan look.

  “—I’m leaving.”

  Dismay warred with relief. “What?”

  “I’m leaving,” he added. “Changing my post. I’m going to Mainland first thing tomorrow.”

  She stood up. “Why?” she asked before she could stop herself.

  He shifted and skimmed her tent with a look before bringing his attention back to her, as if he had to make himself do so. “You’ve got things you don’t want to tell me. Things I don’t want to know, and probably shouldn’t.”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but couldn’t. The words hovered on the tip of her tongue. Do you know what I am?

  He crossed the tent to stand in front of her, looking caught between reluctance and determination. “I’m sorry for last night. For the kiss.”

  Her heart began thumping faster. “Oh.” I don’t think I am, she wanted to say. Even now, she had to work to keep from moving toward him.

  He shouldered the knapsack again. “Anyway, I’ve got a favor to ask you. Will you show me where those seals are before I go? I want something from here to take back with me, for the college.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “Is now a bad time?”

  “No one’s going to be up for another half hour, at least. I can take you.”

  By the time they reached the rocky northwestern shore, the sun had just begun its ascent, painting the sky in stained-glass hues. They walked down to the beach. Safe topics, she thought. Stick to the animals. “I’m not sure any will be here,” she said. “I only saw the one yesterday.”

  “There’s probably more. They tend to have favorite spots where the fishing’s good.”

  That piqued her interest. “Will there be pups?”

  “Not likely, this time of year.”

  “I minored in zoology in college. Never studied seals,” she said.

  Why was she sharing anything about herself with him? He didn’t care. She didn’t want him to know. He was leaving, and she should thank God for it. She pointed to a large cluster of rocks jutting from the surf offshore. “That’s it.”

  Ian crouched low and pressed a hand to her shoulder, urging her down beside him. The touch resounded through her body. She knelt, watching him, but his gaze had fixed on the rocks while he listened.

  “I hear them,” he murmured. He crept away, beckoning her with a silent wave.

  They moved stealthily around the edge of the beach, until at last the seals came into view. Five of them lazed about on the rocks, barking in irritation when one tried to usurp the best spot from another. “I didn’t realize they were so big,” she said. “That one in front is huge.”

  He leaned toward her to whisper, “That’s a bull. These are gray seals. The bulls can reach about five hundred pounds.” He set his knapsack down, then pulled out a camera.

  She watched him take several photos, one-handed, with a long lens. He set the camera down to pull out a small leather journal. Balancing it on his knee, he made neat, quick notes. He worked with the same efficiency and self-confidence she felt when studying a new artifact. Recognizing a professional in his comfort zone, she couldn’t help smiling.

  He caught her looking and frowned. “What?”

  She sobered at once. “Nothing.” Being around him was beginning to unravel her. She almost wished last night had never happened.

  No. She did wish last night had never happened. Did. Firmly.

  Almost, she thought, looking at his mouth.

  He put his journal and camera back in the knapsack
. “I think I’m all set here. Thanks for showing me where they were. We can stand up now.” He rose to his feet, then shouldered the pack and began to move back the way they had come.

  She stood and dusted off her pants. Her heartbeat stumbled. How much did he know? She couldn’t stand it anymore. She took a long, full breath. “Ian?”

  He stopped, but didn’t turn. “Don’t. Please? Just don’t.”

  The pain in those few syllables pulled at her. What is it? she wanted to ask, but she bit her lip and followed him back to the camp without another word.

  When they reached her tent again, she hesitated outside. “So...tomorrow morning?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you need help getting any of your stuff together?”

  “No. I have a guy coming from Unst.”

  She stared at his boots for a second. “Well, why don’t we make you dinner tonight? That way, you can pack your mess kit.”

  He stiffened, but his gaze remained cool and unaffected, light years from that look last night. “Sure.”

  “Okay. See you then.”

  He nodded and turned to leave. She watched him go with a knot in her throat, wondering why she wasn’t happier.

  When he had left, she ducked into her tent. Her research waited at her camp table. She sighed and sat down, but her body yearned to get back up and rush out of the tent after him.

  How could he leave now, after a kiss like that? Kisses like that didn’t exist.

  She seized the first book and flung it open, thrusting her thoughts as far from him as possible. Words swam on the page, impossible to shepherd into sense. What did he know? What would he say? Who would he tell?

  She managed after a while, and only due to years of practice, to shut off her internal chatter and get to work. After a morning of fruitless searching for information about the amulet, she joined the rest of the crew at the dig. The work engrossed her so fully that she barely noticed the shadows lengthening across the ground. By then, she couldn’t stand herself. “If I don’t get a real bath before dinner, I’m going to go out of my mind,” she grumbled to her sister. “A camp shower just isn’t going to cut it today.”