The Serpent in the Stone (The Gifted Series)

by Nicki Greenwood

  “And now you’re not.”

  His flat, blunt words stabbed at her heart. He might as well have slapped her down into a seat in an interrogation room. They traded stares. “Yeah. Now I’m not.”

  “When did your father die? How did he die?”

  Her thoughts flew to the amulet in Ian’s pocket. “What has any of this got to do with my father?”

  “Maybe nothing. Could be more. This stuff might be genetic.”

  Icy dread crawled across her skin. This time, she did hug herself. “I’m done talking to you.”

  Quick as lightning, he reached forward and snatched the boat keys from the ignition. “This necklace has to be important if you’re willing to risk being shot to fix it, Sara. That’s not even going there about you risking me being shot at. You’re not getting it back until you talk.”

  She felt naked. Worse than she had at the inlet. Then, she’d seen desire in his eyes.

  Now, she saw only hatred. “This isn’t about me,” she said, startled. “It’s about you.”

  “Never mind me,” he snapped.

  “What is it?” she asked. “What happened to you?”

  “How did your father die?”

  Pain and betrayal surged anew through every cell in her body, and that little girl from twenty years ago gave a silent wail of outrage. “He. Was. Murdered.”

  Chapter Five

  Murder.

  He didn’t want to draw parallels. Not with her. Especially not with her.

  Memories rushed him. He held his breath and tried like hell to stop them, but they came anyway, clear as the day they’d happened.

  He saw his childhood home in his mind. The stranger in their kitchen raised a hand toward the knife block on the counter. Ian watched, stunned, as a knife flew through the air without help and sank into his father’s chest. He screamed and shot toward the stranger with all the rage his ten-year-old body could muster. His mother shouted behind him. Don’t hurt my boy, please don’t hurt my boy...

  His eyes snapped open. Sara sat straight up in her seat, hands fisted in her lap. She shuddered when their gazes met. “Can I have my keys back now?” she asked. Her voice trembled.

  Ian searched for something to say, fought for a calm voice as he said it. “How was he murdered?”

  Her gaze didn’t budge from his even as she flinched. “I don’t know. He was staying late at the college when it happened. I was only a kid.”

  He frowned. He’d suspected, for one tense minute, that his father’s murderer had been her father. Lots of things were genetic. Why not telekinesis? The rage drained out of him as fast as it had boiled up, leaving confusion in its wake.

  The killer hadn’t been Sara’s father. That man had been shot by the police soon after killing Daniel Waverly. A better death than he deserved. “What about your sister?”

  Sara’s eyes went green so fast it gave him chills. Her voice was rock-steady when she spoke. “Faith’s different. And she’s none of your business.”

  “And your mother? Is she ‘different,’ too?”

  “No. And I better not hear you ask about my family again.”

  Somewhere underneath his distaste, he felt oddly moved by her swift and ferocious defense of her family. It only made him angrier to have any kinship with her in that way. He shrugged, trying to ease the knots in his shoulders. “What about the wolf? How do you do the wolf?”

  She fidgeted. “It’s a shapeshift. I just think about it, and it happens. It’s harder than telekinesis.”

  He paused for a long minute, struggling with conflicting emotions. “You saved my life. Thank you.”

  She gave a stiff nod.

  “How did you get away from me at the cliff?”

  “I changed into a bird,” she said.

  Excitement flashed along every nerve in his body, betraying him. He had to force himself to remain still, when all he wanted was to jump up and grab her in his surprise. “Can you talk to them? Other animals, when you change?”

  “I—I’ve never tried.”

  His mouth dropped open. “Do you realize the advances we could make in animal behavior if we could communicate with them?”

  “What do you expect me to do, start a road show?”

  “Sara, this could change science as we know it.”

  “I can’t tell anyone!” she protested. “If people find out I can do these things, what do you think is going to happen to me?”

  He watched her a few seconds more. Her shoulders arched as if she expected an attack. Her fingers, clasped on her knees until the knuckles were white, shifted once, twice, three times. He realized then that her fear lay not in his knowledge of her abilities, but that he would expose her to others.

  Would I?

  For a frightening second, he thought he might. Her very existence made her dangerous. And valuable, to the right people.

  She looked away, rubbing her arms. When she met his stare again, her eyes had changed back to hazel, wide and intent. He knew she was wondering what he’d do, now that he’d heard her secret. And he knew he couldn’t betray her, no matter what she was.

  But he could learn about her. “I’ll make you a deal.”

  She jerked in her seat and pursed her lips as if she were trying to bite back words. For a moment, there was only the sound of water lapping against the boat.

  Hardly able to believe his own mouth was forming the statement, he added, “You help me with my birds, and I say nothing about any of this.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He tossed her the boat keys and cursed his own madness. “Let’s just get off the water.”

  ****

  They arrived back at Ian’s camp by midday. He entered the tent ahead of her. Dropping her coat, he grabbed a flannel shirt lying rumpled at the foot of his bed.

  Sara caught sight of several long, faint scars criss-crossing his back. Lean muscle rippled under the damaged skin. She drew in a breath, but couldn’t stop staring.

  He pulled the shirt over his shoulders and turned around. He stiffened as their gazes met. She felt the blood drain from her face.

  Hostility flickered in his expression, then vanished into resignation. “Don’t ask.”

  “How do you expect me to trust you if you get to ask all the questions?”

  He shoved his hand into his pocket, then came out with the amulet and demanded, “What is this thing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know. You’re getting shot for it, and you don’t know what it is.”

  “That’s right. Can I have it back now?”

  He came forward and handed it to her. She took it and looped it over her head, then tucked it into her shirt.

  “If you have no idea what it is, why do you hide it?” he asked.

  “You tell me about those scars on your back, and I’ll tell you what I know about this necklace.”

  He opened the first-aid kit on his table. “Sit down.”

  Stalking to his cot, she flopped on the edge and began pulling at the strips of cloth over her wound.

  “I’ll get it,” he said, sitting beside her and putting the open kit at his feet. He slid the point of a pair of scissors under the makeshift bandages and cut them away.

  She gave a nervous chuckle. “Next injury’s your turn.” When he didn’t respond, she fell silent and watched him work. At last she added, “Tell me about your back.”

  “Tell me about your necklace.”

  “I asked you first.”

  “Are we doing the grade-school thing now?” He gave her a brief look of amusement that washed away the serious look on his face and set her belly fluttering, at complete odds with her apprehension. When he applied antiseptic to her wound, she cringed at the sting.

  He jerked his hand away, but she couldn’t tell whether he was still leery of her, or sorry he’d hurt her. “Fine,” she said irritably. “We think Dad was murdered for this necklace. We don’t—”

  “‘We,’ meaning you and Faith.”


  “Yes. Can I finish, since you want to know so badly?”

  He went back to applying the antiseptic. “Go on.”

  She suspected it was easier for him to look at her injury than meet her gaze. That stung more than the wound. “We don’t know what it is, and we don’t know what it does. It’s old. It’s important enough to kill someone over. It’s a stupid piece of rock, and I want my father back.”

  Ian picked up the first-aid kit and set it on his knees. He looked at her at last. Something dark and heart-rending flashed in his eyes and was gone before she could interpret it. He shrugged his good shoulder. “Why fix the thing, if you don’t know what to do with it?”

  “My sister...” She trailed off, wary of speaking about Faith. Talking with Ian was a swampy, trackless journey with no indication of where to step next. She swallowed. “Our father would have destroyed it if he hadn’t intended to do something with it. What about your back?”

  He looked down at the kit and concentrated on tearing open a package of tape stitches. His jaw muscles twitched. This close, she smelled a chalky scent on his clothes, and under that, a warm, undeniably male scent that unsettled her to her very bones.

  But then he spoke. “Knife scars. I was ten. It’s what you get when you try to protect your parents from a telekinetic.”

  He said it so fast, it took her a few seconds to absorb the meaning of his words. The world shifted sideways. “Th-There’s another one?”

  “There was. The cops shot him.” Ian pressed the tape stitches over her wound and closed up the kit. He sprang up from the cot and dropped the kit on his camp table. “I don’t think I need to explain any more of what happened. We’re done here.”

  In shock, she bent to scoop up her coat from the tent floor. Her hand trembled so hard it took a second try. Her gaze found his broad back as if she could see the scars under his flannel shirt. “I d-don’t know what to say—”

  “You can’t undo what happened.”

  She ached and shook and stared at him, frantic for answers, afraid to ask the questions. Who was the man? What had he wanted? Why had he hurt Ian’s family? She couldn’t imagine using her power to hurt another human being.

  Ian turned on his heel. By the look of censure on his face, he could imagine such a thing well enough.

  Sara’s hurt gave way to a stab of righteous indignation. She stood up. “Thank you for going with me to Mainland. I won’t ask you for any more favors.”

  “You still owe me.”

  She jerked to a stop. “Owe you? You just forced me to blow any protection I have against people who might want to exploit—”

  “The birds. That’s all I’m asking.”

  She shuddered. “You’re willing to hate what I am, but not so much that you won’t use it to your own advantage?”

  He had the grace to look ashamed—for a moment, at least. That dogged expression returned to his features, as though he were compelling himself to face her.

  As though she might shapeshift into a monster and bite him.

  She rushed out of the tent without waiting for him to speak further.

  All the way back to the dig, she tried not to think of him. The memory of his vicious glare pierced her over and over. She had never told anyone but Faith about her gifts. Now she knew why.

  The sun threw long late-afternoon shadows by the time she got to the camp. She found her sister taking samples of earth to be shipped back to Eurocon. When Faith spotted her, she climbed out of the dig trench. “How’d it go?”

  Sara struggled to find enough anger to push aside the hurt. “Next time you ask me to take Ian somewhere, you’d better recheck your gut feelings.”

  Faith glanced toward the dig, where Dustin and Thomas still labored in the afternoon sun. When she looked back, her gaze fell on the bloody tear in Sara’s coat sleeve. Her sun-bronzed skin paled. “What happened?”

  “We had some trouble, but the amulet’s fixed. I’m tired. I’m going to lie down for a while. We’ll talk later.” Ignoring her sister’s concerned frown, she turned and hurried away to her tent.

  The minute she entered it and closed the tent door, hot tears spilled down her cheeks. The scars on his back flashed in her memory again. So many of them, and he was just a boy when they’d happened. Her stomach turned.

  He knew everything and he hated her for it. Just because of what she was.

  She almost hated herself.

  ****

  Digging advanced rapidly over the next few days. The find began to show signs of being more than just a field wall. Sara allowed the flurry of activity to consume her thoughts, trying to forget Ian. He’d be leaving, anyway, if he hadn’t already. She’d told her sister only that he knew of her abilities and wouldn’t speak of them to anyone else. Since that day, his name hadn’t crossed her lips. She couldn’t bring herself to speak it. Every time his image flashed in her memory, it was coupled with that look of distaste and distrust.

  She spent her waking hours with pick and shovel, laboring in spite of her injury. When it became too dark to see outside, she worked on her laptop, entering measurements, logging soil compositions, and keeping a precise record of their progress. Anxious for hard data, she logged onto her computer twice a day to check for lab results from Eurocon.

  The e-mail response came at last on the morning of the spring equinox. Without reading it, she rushed from her tent in search of her sister. She found Faith surveying the perimeter of the site. “Hey. It came. Lamb responded.”

  Faith shot upright, all attention. “Well? What’d he say?”

  “I didn’t read it yet. Come on.”

  They hurried back to Sara’s tent. She dropped into her chair, clicked on the e-mail, then read it aloud. “‘Sara—The lab results from your dig samples suggest the find to be of Norse origin—’” She let out a wild whoop. Everything their father had worked for might be right under their noses. At last.

  “Come on, finish!” Faith danced in place and waved her hand at the screen.

  Sara made herself sit still. “‘Carbon dating placed the samples within the period of Viking occupation of Shetland. Should you find artifacts, please photograph them immediately and send them here to the lab. I will be coming to the site within the week with more crew to oversee—’”

  “Here it comes,” Faith snapped. “He’s going to send for Flintrop, I just know it.”

  “He can’t. Shetland was Dad’s baby. I’ll kill him if he tries it!” Jittery, she started tapping her heel.

  “Hello?” came a male voice from outside the tent.

  Ian. Still here? Sara clapped a hand over her bouncing knee, but it did nothing to stop her jitters. She found Faith’s gaze. “Why don’t you go tell Thomas and Dustin? I’ll catch up with you.”

  Faith responded with a doubtful expression and crossed her arms. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on between you two?”

  “Nothing I can’t deal with.”

  With a last, unconvinced smirk, Faith ducked outside. Sara glanced around her tent as if it might provide some excuse for remaining within. Nothing. She’d have to face him. Resigned, she emerged in her sister’s wake.

  Ian strode toward the camp wearing a T-shirt, fleece jacket, and jeans.

  And no sling.

  Faith stood outside with her hands on her hips. She cast a brief, apprehensive look at Sara before she called to Ian. “Hey. Didn’t realize you had stayed. Your sling’s off. Better already?”

  He came to a stop before them. “Yeah, it feels pretty good. Two days ago, I was photographing some gannets, and the tripod tipped over. I caught it without thinking, but it didn’t hurt. It’s just about back to normal.” He flexed the fingers of his left hand and waved his arm.

  “That’s great.” Faith met Sara’s gaze with an expression that made it clear she sensed an undercurrent of tension.

  “I’ll catch up with you,” Sara said reluctantly.

  Faith gave her a long look that echoed the reluctance. “All right. If
you hear anything else from Lamb, let me know. See you around, Ian.”

  Ian jerked his chin in the direction of Faith’s retreating figure. “How’s the dig coming?”

  She struggled with nerves. Why was he still here? Why, why, why? “You didn’t walk all the way down here for small talk.”

  “Well, yes and no. I came to say I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for which part? Forcing me to confess my laundry list of unsavory traits, or being willing to make use of them?”

  He sighed and angled his head toward her tent. “Inside?”

  She allowed him into the tent ahead of her. She caught herself watching the way he angled his broad shoulders through the narrow doorway and cursed under her breath.

  He didn’t sit. “I don’t have a right to accuse you of anything just because you’re...what you are.”

  Okay. Unexpected, but not unwelcome. She crossed her arms and waited for the other shoe to drop.

  “And you don’t have a right to involve me in whatever you’re doing with that necklace—”

  Her temper flared. “Listen here, you—”

  “—without telling me the whole story. What your sister is, what your father was. Why you had to drag me into it when you could have brought one of your own people with you to Mainland.”

  She glowered at him, afraid that if she didn’t, he’d see how much his contempt had hurt. “I think I told you not to ask about my family.”

  Advancing, he said, “I’m asking anyway. You owe me an explanation.”

  “I seem to be owing you a whole lot of things, while I get nothing in return.”

  He laid his hands on her elbows. “Sara—”

  “Get your hands off me.”

  He snatched them away and raised them into the air. The quick, defensive gesture pained her. Did he think she’d use her power against him? “Why aren’t you gone?” she snapped.

  He looked her up and down, then scraped a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to fight with you.”

  “At least we’re in agreement on something. Only in my case, it’s because I can’t afford to.”

  “I told you, I’m not going to squeal on you,” he said. “If I was going to do so, I’d have done it by now, wouldn’t I?” He dropped into a chair.