His gut clenched. He snaked his arms around her and pulled her close against him. “I don’t want you to, either. I’ll come back tomorrow. If you can get away from the dig—”
“As soon as I can,” she said between kisses.
Ian helped her to her feet. He let go of her, trying not to dwell on the reluctant expression in her eyes that made him want to pull her back. A few seconds more of that, and he might be spending the night with her on the beach—and damn Flintrop and the dig and everybody else sticking their noses into other people’s business. Sara held his hand until they were too far apart to do so, then jogged away.
When she had gone, he looked up at the moon again to find it bloodred.
Startled, he blinked and looked once more, but the moment had passed. The moon hung silent and white as a ghost.
****
When dawn broke over the camp, Sara was already bent in concentration over the large mesh box beside the dig, sieving earth. Stones rattled as she shifted the box back and forth, searching. She picked chunks of peat, stone, and grass from the box and tossed it into a wheelbarrow, hardly acknowledging it before moving back to sieving again.
The task was perfunctory, something to put down on paper when—and if—they wrapped up the excavation. It also occupied her mind just enough to keep her from racing to Ian’s camp the way she wanted. Lying naked at the inlet with him in the middle of the night, she’d felt safer than if she’d been at home, locked in her house. Even now, she ached to be with him.
But she couldn’t leave Faith alone here. They needed to watch each other’s backs until this was ended, however it ended. Her sister hadn’t been able to reach Hakon since that last time when she’d tapped herself. If Thomas Callander was plotting something involving the serpent ceremony, he’d decided to bide his time. How could Lamb not know the man he’d hired, the man he’d known for a good ten years, was capable of murder?
And he wasn’t alone. Couldn’t be alone, if he were bent on doing this. No one had the kind of power it would take to open and control the ley lines himself. Stone, stone, grass, stone...
“Good morning.”
Sara spun on her heel, fists raised to swing.
Thomas hopped backward. “Whoa! A little edgy today, aren’t you?”
Forcing a smile, she lowered her fists. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“How should I sneak up on you, then?” He laughed.
She tried not to stare. She’d never seen his eyes change, even once. Did they change, or was it not the same for everyone? Could he lift as much as she could with her gift? Did he feel that shiver when he used his power?
Cameron’s terror-stricken face sprang into her mind. She gripped the edge of the sieve box, and fought back the bile rising in her throat.
“You all right? It sounded like you were pretty bad off, yesterday.”
“I’m fine,” she murmured, no longer able to meet his gaze. “Just working. Preoccupied.”
She felt his gaze on her for a moment, and implored her body not to tremble. She scanned the dig, looking for something he might use against her. What would happen if he suspected she knew about his gift? Would she be strong enough to stop him?
“You’re up early,” came Flintrop’s voice.
She couldn’t keep the relief from edging her tone when she saw Flintrop and Luis coming toward the dig. “The better to wade through a few tons of dirt.”
Flintrop handed her a corn muffin. “We’re eating cheap this morning. Dustin and Michael are making a supply run.”
Frowning, she kicked dirt off the toes of her boots. “Both of them? We need all the manpower we’ve got today.”
“What’s your hurry?” Flintrop angled his head at her. “Iceland all over again. You’re half-dead yesterday, and look at you.” He did look then, and lines appeared between his brows. “Did you sleep at all?”
She turned back to the sieve box, and began shaking it again one-handed while she bit into the muffin. “I got enough sleep yesterday.”
“All right, let’s get a move on,” Faith sang out. She strode toward the dig with a bucket of tools.
Flintrop made a noise of amusement as Luis and Thomas went to start work. “A pair of slave drivers, the both of you.”
Sara eyed him. “You’re in an awfully good mood today.”
He bent closer to her ear. One tawny brow arched. “I’m always in a good mood when I go after something I want.”
She opened her mouth on an acid response, but Flintrop jogged away, whistling, to join the others in the pit.
The crew worked through the morning. Sara felt charged with energy. The faster she worked, the more every nerve willed her to keep going. She barely registered Michael and Dustin’s return. Only when Faith called a halt for lunch did she come out of her trance. Even then, she was the last to leave the pit.
During lunch, Faith sat beside her with a set of charts in her lap, eating her sandwich with one hand, and flipping through the sheets with the other. “We made good time. We can do this.”
“I hope to God Hakon is guarding you at night,” Sara muttered. “I don’t know how we’re going to keep this up for three weeks. I’m jumpy as it is.”
Her sister shot her a look of appraisal. “Even for you,” she agreed with a note of concern. “Just sitting next to you is giving me the jitters. Can’t you tone it down?”
Sara snatched one of the charts off her sister’s lap. Restlessly, she folded and unfolded it. “I don’t like this. I don’t. I can’t think.” The paper crinkled in her hands.
Faith clapped a hand over Sara’s, stopping her torture of the chart. “What’s the matter with you? No bullshit.”
“You don’t think what’s going on around here is enough to make me a little haywire?”
Dustin strolled over, brandishing a wax-paper bag. “Cookies and other sugary bad stuff. Any takers?”
“Sure,” Faith said, reaching for the bag.
“I’m going back to work,” Sara said, jumping up. She marched away to the dig site, feeling Faith’s gaze on her every step of the way.
She worked through dinner in the pit, and then at the sieve box, pawing through its contents by the light of the lowering sun. She murmured along with a half-heard tune from someone’s radio, and rearranged the rough granite rubble without actually seeing it. A flurry of thoughts skimmed the surface of her consciousness, but like the earth and stone in the box, nothing stayed put long enough to be examined. Just work, work, work, and when she paused, she wanted only to get back to work again.
Maybe because if she stopped, even for a second, she’d have to consider how insane this game of spider-and-the-fly was.
“Hey. You’re making the rest of us look bad,” Dustin joked, coming toward her with a lantern.
“Sorry.”
Laughing, he rested the lantern on the post beside the box. “Are you going for a world record?”
“If we’re going to finish the excavation this summer on the manpower we have, we need to buckle down,” she said.
“At the rate you’re going, you’ll finish it next week all by yourself.”
She glanced around. “What time is it?”
“Damn near bedtime. Are the rest of us required to keep up with you?”
For a few seconds, her drive lifted, and she relaxed just enough to smile. “You could help me finish this batch, and we can call it even.”
Dustin rubbed his hands together. “Step aside, and let a real grunt show you how the work is done.”
Sara shrugged, and stepped back from the box. While Dustin worked, she cast a surreptitious look at the sky. Ian had said he’d be at the inlet. He hadn’t said when. She hoped he’d still be there when she arrived.
They’d come together so fast and furious last night. The memory still hummed on her skin. He’d smelled of sunshine and chalk dust, and even though he’d sent her spinning into breathless ecstasy, she wanted him again as soon as they had finished. And what about the way he�
�d looked at her afterward? The way his arms had tightened around her, as if he meant to keep her there with him, safe and wanted, forever?
All at once, the urge to go to him became too much to bear. She picked up her bucket of tools, then strode toward her tent to put them away.
Flintrop intercepted her on the way. “Sara, have you got anything else from Lambertson on that skull and belt buckle we found?”
“Just the lab results, and what we’ve already catalogued on them. Why?”
“Nothing,” he said, looking displeased. I was hoping we’d have found something else by now.”
“Well, what is it you’re looking for?”
“I’m working on the pitch for Oxford. Can you show me what you have so far?”
Sara felt her chance to see Ian, possibly uninterrupted, slipping away. She stifled a painful sigh and gestured toward her tent. “All right, come on.”
He studied her with a stare like a buzzard. “Got something else to do?”
“No.”
He said nothing, but allowed her to lead the way back to her tent. She discovered then how much easier it was to deal with Faith’s stare on the back of her neck than his.
Chapter Fifteen
Faith gathered up the last of her dinner dishes and handed them to Michael. She stood and fisted her hands at the small of her back. The day had been productive not only in digging, but in aching muscles. A hot bath would have been a dream come true. Right then, she’d even have settled for a cold one.
Sold, she thought, heading to her tent for swimwear, a towel, and a change of clothes.
When she emerged, Dustin was still working. “Swim?” she offered.
He waved her on. “No, thanks. Camp shower. I’ll tell the others where you went if they want to join.”
Shrugging, Faith headed away to the inlet.
When she got there, she found Ian sitting on the beach, bent over a notebook and absorbed in writing. A folded pile of clothes, a rumpled towel, and the remains of what appeared to be his dinner sat beside him on the sand. From his damp chestnut hair, she guessed he’d already had his swim.
At her approach, he looked back over his shoulder. “Hey.”
“Hey, back. Why do you not seem happy to see me?”
He flashed a brief grin. “Sorry. I thought you were Sara.”
She mirrored his grin and sat beside him. “Taller. Blonder. She’s finishing up some lab work, I think.”
“Did everything go all right today?”
“Yeah, all things considered. Working beside Tom Callander has become a new experience in walking on eggshells.”
His gaze swept her figure as if to assure himself she was in one piece. She shook her head to forestall his concern. “We’re okay. He acted completely innocent, like he hadn’t...done what he did.”
Lines appeared in Ian’s brow. “Maybe he’s waiting.”
“Thanks for that cheery thought.” She drew up her knees and hugged them while creepy-crawly sensations migrated through her body.
Needing to change the subject, she studied the notebook in his lap. In the margins of his field notes, she caught a sketch of a wolf’s face. The markings matched those of her sister’s shapeshift. “You don’t think they’re going to question that when you get back to the college?”
“They don’t read these. They get the edited version from a computer.” He closed the book, then stuffed it into his inside jacket pocket.
Faith got the impression that it wasn’t the only drawing of Sara that he’d done in that notebook, lupine or otherwise. She held his gaze just long enough for him to respond with a look that said, Forget it, you can’t see it. She giggled, and he shook his head.
Time passed in companionable silence while they gazed out over the water. The waves of the inlet whispered at the shore. Faith watched the few clouds pick up threads of champagne pink and sherbet orange, prelude to the sun’s fiery descent.
Without warning, Hakon sprang into her mind. Aesa, he’d called her, before she told him her name was Faith. She’d pondered on that while caring for Sara’s fever. Among its other possible derivatives, “Aesa” in Old Icelandic meant “to incite war.” How very prophetic. What was she, the Viking Helen of Troy?
A thousand years down the line, Faith had been born with the exact same face as this Viking woman. Heck of a coincidence. She’d been charged to fulfill a mission that Hakon could not: the downfall of some rogue druid sect and their serpent ceremony. Might as well have asked for the Brooklyn Bridge, while he was at it.
Thinking back on Hakon’s first reaction to seeing her, she gave her ribcage a discreet rub. For a ghost, he was awfully good at dealing out bone-crushing hugs. Bleeding, too. That he could touch, and bleed, and at other times disappear without a trace from her senses, made her head spin with questions.
He’s not completely a ghost, she thought, startled. That explained why she couldn’t always hear or feel him. His soul had been trapped on Hvitmar, one foot in this world, and one in the next, because he’d never finished his quest. He’d vowed himself into a half-existence for the love of a woman.
But Aesa had gone on. Why couldn’t Faith sense her here, trying to be with Hakon however she was able?
A frisson flew down her spine. She gripped herself. Oh, my God. She’s me. A strangled whimper escaped her. How could she have failed to make the connection all this time?
Ian’s head snapped up. “What’s the matter?”
Air refused to reach her lungs past the constricted knot in her throat. She felt the blood drain from her face, chilling her further. “I loved him. I cried for him. I’m her. She’s me.”
“Faith, you’re starting to scare me.” Ian gripped her shoulder.
“Hakon’s wife. I’m her, a thousand years later.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Her name was Aesa. She loved him more than anything in the world. I felt it when I saw him.” The depth of passion Aesa and the Viking warrior had felt for one another brought tears to her eyes, even now, in a mere echo. She’d never imagined love like that existed. She fisted a hand on her chest. “I felt it like it was my own emotion.”
Ian started shaking his head. She cut him off before he could deny her words. “You saw her,” she protested. “It’s me! I have to finish this. I was meant to.”
“I hope to God you aren’t saying what I think you’re saying. If you think your sister’s going to let you sacrifi—”
“Ian!” Faith felt the shiver of her eyes flashing into silver. She wrenched his hand from her shoulder and dug her fingers into the coarse denim of his jacket. “If you say one word to her, I swear I will make you regret it. I don’t need you scaring her.” She shoved his hand away. “Hakon said gifted blood. He didn’t say sacrifice. It could take one drop, for all I know.”
Ian bared his teeth. “Or everything you’ve got. Damn it, Faith, this is insane. Even considering it is insane. You don’t know what that ley line will do to you if you try this.”
“You don’t, either. We haven’t got many options. It’s Callander, or Sara, or me.” She blinked again to let her eyes return to their normal color, then gave him a sardonic smirk. “Do you want to walk up to Callander and say, ‘Excuse me, but I know you’re a telekinetic and a murderer. Can I use some of your blood to ruin your chances at absolute power?’”
A muscle worked in Ian’s jaw. He sat back to push a hand through his hair. “Don’t you think Sara needs to know about this? If something happens to you, it’ll kill her.”
The knot in her throat tightened a little more. “You love her, don’t you?”
He looked away then, his expression irritable...but he didn’t deny it. Faith grinned.
She heard the shuffle of footsteps and looked behind her. Sara came toward them with a towel slung over her shoulder. She’d changed into her red bathing suit, with a beach wrap tied around her waist. Faith felt a surge in the air beside her. Another look at Ian confirmed him sitting up straight no
w, all attention. She smiled again. When he noticed, he glared back with a look that said shut up, which only made her smile wider.
Her good humor vanished when she saw Luis and Flintrop trailing behind her sister. “Great. I was just saying to myself how I needed a raging headache.” She scrubbed at her face, angry now that Alan Flintrop might catch her teary-eyed.
“Yeah. My day didn’t suck enough, either,” Ian agreed, getting to his feet and helping her up. He pulled a bandanna from his back pocket and handed it to her.
Sara reached them, beaming. “Found a bone comb.” The exultant smile died on her face when she saw Faith. “You okay?”
“Fine.” Faith marshaled her features into an easygoing expression.
Luis passed them with a quick hello, then plowed straight into the water. Flintrop approached and laid a hand briefly on Sara’s shoulder. “Faith, I take it back. She’s worse than she was in Iceland. I think she’s on auto-pilot.” He took a closer look at Faith. Damn, had he seen the tearstains after all?
Ian shoved his hands in his pockets. “I was making her laugh.”
Faith warmed from the toes up, and officially named Ian her new best friend. He and Flintrop continued to hold each other’s gaze. Mutual dislike hummed in the air.
Time to return the favor. “Alan, I need to talk to you about one of the charts we printed out this afternoon,” she said. “Do you mind if I borrow you for a few minutes?”
He looked at her like she’d just given him a violent shake. She stifled a smug chuckle. Yeah, normally, I wouldn’t volunteer to chat with you, either. That’s because you’re a complete weasel. With her liveliest smile, she beckoned him away and headed off down the beach.
She didn’t really give a damn about the slight rise in electromagnetic readings that the charts had shown that afternoon. It could have been put down to the ley line itself—which she had no intention of pointing out, in any case. She’d have told him to come inspect one of the beach rocks, just for the satisfaction of getting him away from her sister and Ian.
With Flintrop in tow, she sat at the water’s edge on a flat rock. She glanced back over her shoulder to see Ian flash a grin in her direction. He bent his head toward Sara and murmured something that made her giggle. A split second later, she caught the glimmer of annoyance on Flintrop’s face. Go, Ian. She couldn’t suppress a broad smile.
The Serpent in the Stone (The Gifted Series) Page 20