by Candace Sams
Mac sighed and shook his head. “I believed in the reality of this battle, only because all the other Ethereals said it would happen. If it’d only been Merlin’s say so —”
“You might not have believed it at all?” Anna questioned.
“I’m sorry to admit it, but yes,” Mac stated. “Merlin has missed predicting so many historical events while seeing so many others. I couldn’t know what calamity was going to be real and which one wasn’t. I looked to you and the others, Anna, to sort out facts. I’m sorry to say all that, but it’s true.”
She fluttered a hand in dismissal. “I understand, Mac. My brother kept a lot of secrets from a lot of people. He was afraid that, by revealing them, he might change the future to the detriment of you all.”
“As you say,” Garrett continued, “there will be consequences for Merlin’s using the dark arts. Specifically, what are those?”
“So that the influence of darkness he absorbed cannot inflict mankind or those he loves, he’ll be going away. Possibly for centuries. Myself and a few of the most experienced Ethereals believe that the adverse effects will diminish, in time. I will serve in his place, assuming Her Majesty permits it.”
“Where will he go?” Frankie whispered.
“Back to Mother Nature,” Anna said. “Merlin will find some secluded cave, somewhere in the British Isles. There, he will sleep until he is himself again, and the world needs him.”
“Centuries,” Frankie softly repeated.
“For my part, I’m sorry for the way I responded to your brother, Anna. I didn’t understand what he was going through. He couldn’t tell me for fear that I would tell the queen,” Mac stated. “He couldn’t tell me because he was afraid I’d interfere.”
Anna put one hand on Mac’s cheek, then dropped it. “He loves you like a son and understands you more than you realize. Never blame yourselves, any of you. You couldn’t have known. As I said, even I didn’t know what he was up to, and I’m closer to him than anyone alive. If he’d told me what he was doing…scrying into the darkness and using all kinds of manipulative potions and spells that are contrary to all that Ethereals believe in…I’d have tried to stop him myself. He knew that. He simply kept draining Morgan, using her own kind of terrible magic against her, putting more and more wrong portents in her head, allowing her to think she would win. Now, all of his magical shenanigans have had their way with him.”
“Can’t we say goodbye before Merlin goes away?” Frankie asked.
“That wouldn’t be wise, my girl. There are moments when Merlin is quite lucid, but these are brief. Then there are moments that he believes he’s with Arthur and the knights again.” She smiled. “Though Arthur is long gone, my dear brother was with his knights. The ones from this century. You have all formed a bond that can never be broken. You do not realize how important all of you have become to one another. There is not one of you who has not behaved knightly. Your courage and persistence will take you all into the future, on many quests. Through many happy times. After all, when one has family, one can know happiness.”
Garrett stepped closer to her. “Merlin saw all of that?”
“No. I did. Why…you’ve even made yourselves an indestructible round table…up there in the hills,” she said as she gestured to the north. “It’s that enormous rock where Frankie doled out those delicious meals, Mac. Seems to me that it’s big enough to seat all of you! As knights. As family.”
Mac smiled as did the others. “I hope no one like Morgan ever appears on the world scene again.”
“As do I,” Anna responded. “Now…I must say goodbye to my brother. I will pass on farewells from any of you who wishes to speak them.”
All those present remarked simultaneously, with some affirmative, heartfelt wish to see the old wizard again, in the future.
As Anna walked away, Mac felt as if some invisible cord had been cut from his heart. He turned to look at his other comrades. Frankie and Trey glanced at each other and then him. When they nodded, he led the way into the castle and up to the floor where their rooms were situated. This night and all that went with it, was done.
When Trey paused with Frankie, in front of the bedroom that had been assigned to her, Mac backed away to give the siblings some space. They spoke quietly. He tuned out any sounds so as not to overhear a conversation his preternatural senses might have gleaned. The brother and sister needed their communication to be private. Just as he’d need privacy with only one of them.
When Trey walked away, presumably to clean his sword and get the grime of battle off his body, Mac stepped toward Frankie again.
What must he say to express feelings he hadn’t tapped for centuries? It was one thing to have pointless mutual sex with an immortal, quite another to have deep feelings for one. He’d spent his life trying not to get involved with anyone, since he would have an eternity to deal with the repercussions of such a relationship. That was one of the worst things about being immortal. When you had all the time in the world, you tended to put some very important issues on the back burner. He happened to have a whole lot of back burners.
The situation with Frankie should be no different. But Frankie was different. She was so strong. So self-assured. For the first time in his long existence, he’d met a woman who had treated him like a friend first. She treated him like an equal.
Now, here they were, at the end of their mission together. She’d been less the partner that others meant her to be, and more someone who could work independent of anyone else’s control. Mac was certain that Merlin had picked her for that very reason, and not just because her good word could bring the Americans into the fight. He wasn’t sure the other Americans had been needed at all so much as Merlin had wanted him to be both emotionally and professionally daunted. The old conjurer had probably enjoyed a last good laugh at his expense. Match-making had always been a very favorite pastime of the old wizard.
After everything that had happened this night, he should simply walk away and give Frankie some space. This wasn’t the time to dump his emotional upheaval into the mix of battle, magic, and feelings of impotence brought on by a confrontation that had barely been a confrontation at all.
Oddly, it was the feeling of ineffectiveness in the night’s events that made him want to speak to Frankie here and now, before she was ordered home. That order could come at any time, after she made her report to her superiors.
When she faced him squarely, with a look of expectation all over her goddess-like face, he knew it was now or never. He’d have to go to her. This was an unusual situation for him, but then Frankie was worth any amount of attitude change it took.
“Without dwelling on the obvious, Frankie, your mission here is over. There might not be another chance for me to say…for me to tell you some things…”
“I don’t want to be alone either, Mac. Not tonight. Give me a couple of minutes to clean up. I’ll meet you in your room.”
He responded without hesitation. “I’ll be waiting.”
She quickly turned, entered her room and closed the door behind her. He slowly walked to his assigned bedroom, showered, put on his robe, and built a fire in the fireplace.
He didn’t dare open the curtains, even for the sake of letting in fresh air or to alleviate any feelings of claustrophobia. He wouldn’t be alone long. Nothing in the world was worth looking at that moonlight again. There was nothing natural about it; just as the farmers and villagers in these parts claimed. Seemed superstition had its place in the world.
As he sat there watching the flames in the small fireplace, listening to the wind blow around the castle walls, he contemplated the past decades and all he’d heard about this night.
The fight had been nothing. Merlin had taken the wind out of Morgan’s sails, over time and without her suspecting. Morgan had been led into a trap.
For his part, he’d done nothing but what he’d always done — take out a few rogues and call it an evening. Still, it was an evening he’d never forget. Both
for its brevity and its strange results.
Morgan LeFey was gone. Merlin would be cloistered for a long time. No ally had been lost. No one in the world knew any of this had happened. The sun would come up on a normal day in Cumbria. Finally, he was in love with an American.
Did it get any stranger?
He’d spent centuries training for this night, because the queen and others believed it would come to pass.
It had. Just not in a way anyone could have foreseen.
However, it was all was good. Things had gone much, much better than anyone had expected. Merlin, despite his ornery secrets, had saved them all. Mac was grateful for that. He really was.
So, why the feeling of unachieved destiny? As far as his personal part in this mission went, he felt as if someone had patted him on the head, and told him to go home like a good lad.
Frankie had one of the most the most logical minds he’d ever seen. She would make sense of all this. She would know how to look at all the plausible angles, and deal with cold, hard facts. She would put this battle in perspective. That ability seemed to have left him for this night.
Merlin had known Effrin Pratt was alive for a lot longer than the wizard had let on. Maybe there was some other reason for handling all this the way Merlin had.
Maybe, just maybe, the only reason Frankie was here, was to see her brother again, but after the pair were the warriors they were meant to be. Maybe Merlin just said that he’d needed Frankie and Trey in the battle when he’d really devised a way for them to be together when they took on their old man. Not as his children who could be hurt by a father’s lack of love. But as the fighters they’d become.
Mac could easily attribute such shenanigans to Merlin. The conjurer had always had a keen sense of justice. Even if his predictions weren’t always accurate.
Mac snorted and shook his head in cynical disdain. Even now, there was reason to believe that Merlin still had ulterior motives that no one could begin to fathom.
“Now what? I’m a warrior without a cause, and can’t even claim the glory of victory, since Merlin seems to have won most of the bloody damned war before it even started,” he muttered.
There was a time when he could have simply hidden himself away with his strange thoughts. Not anymore.
There was no forest to run to. No goodly villagers to protect. No sheriff to outwit. Now, there would not even be comrades to share meals with on a hill in Cumbria. Soon, all of this would be a memory. And he’d be alone again.
But not because he wanted it that way. Not anymore.
What was any warrior without a good fighting woman by his side; a woman who could give as good as she gave?
He no longer knew who he was. Or why he was. He was a man without a reason. These feelings were going to only get worse if Frankie went away.
Chapter 15
When a soft knock sounded on his door, Mac got up to open it, but hesitated before doing so. He took a moment to smooth back his hair and straighten his robe first. Then he shook his head and silently cursed himself for allowing the nervousness of a sixteen-year-old to overcome his maturity. Jean would sense whatever he felt.
Pull your head out of your ass and just speak to her like you were an intelligent adult. Nothing’s changed because of a battle, a weird celestial event, or a magician’s disappearance from the world.
He opened the door for her. A svelte goddess with freshly washed and dried hair hanging down her back, glided into his room in bare feet. The green velvet, starlet dressing gown she wore was exquisite. Then again, she’d looked like an empress even after forcing herself into a Cumbrian lake to fetch her father and put him into custody.
She stopped in the center of his room and turned to look at him. With her head tilted, she approached quietly and studied him
“Mac. I never…”
“What?”
“Are you sure you’re not an Ethereal,” she softly asked. “Because I’m just now feeling all this…this need. I never felt it from you before. How did you hide it from my senses?”
“I wouldn’t let myself want you before. Not in a way you could pick up on, and not whenever you were around. When you’ve been around as long as I have, you don’t need to be an Ethereal to know how to turn off your feelings. It’s not a magical deed. You simply do it by thinking of other things, and by acting like a jackass. The way I did when you first arrived.” He shrugged. “After all that, I didn’t think you’d appreciate what I was really feeling. Plus, I wasn’t getting any vibes from you.”
“What about now? Do you feel what I’m feeling now, Mac?”
A wave of pure desire hit him like a brick. Apparently, she’d been holding down her own emotions by focusing on other issues. This was an impressive feat since it had taken him many centuries to learn to keep Merlin from reading him well, and using his emotions against him. Apparently, all that effort had been for nothing.
There was no point hiding anything any longer. What was between them, for now and in the future, had to be addressed, but carefully. There were some in his world, and hers, who might not like the kind of fraternization they were about to start.
“We really do need to talk, don’t we?”
She slowly nodded as she moved closer. “Yeah. But not just now. Okay? We’ve had one hell of a night. If you can stand being cooped up for the rest of it, let’s get into bed and try to make tomorrow better.”
He smiled, held out his arms and let her walk into his embrace. When she did, he felt like a ray of warm sunlight filtered into his very lonely heart.
* * *
They made love like there was no tomorrow. Lying in his bed now, with her head on his shoulder, he didn’t give a damn about any rules having to do with American agents mixing with British POSI immortals. To hell with someone else’s opinion of fraternization.
According to the clock on the mantle, it was near dawn. He hadn’t felt one bit of his normal discomfort with four walls surrounding him. But then he’d never had a woman like Frankie in his arms.
As he stroked her shoulder, then played with the long, brown curls spilling over her back, he didn’t want to think about the past or the future.
“Mac?”
“Yes?” he softly responded.
“I don’t want to leave my brother. Merlin knew I wouldn’t want to.”
“I’m sure that was the plan.”
“I’m going to find a way to stay around.”
“Of course. You’d want to for Trey’s sake. You and he were separated wrongly.”
She sat up and pulled the covers over her breasts as she did so. “When I say that I want to stay in Europe, it’s not just for my brother. It’s for us, too. If you want an us.”
“I do! But you can’t be seen with me, Frankie. You know that I’m a household name in the UK and over broad parts of the rest of the world. Just like Garrett Bloodnight, Merlin didn’t think enough of either Garrett or me to keep us off the UK’s public registry.”
“While my brother was.”
“Your brother wasn’t British. He was devastated by what happened to him. There was nothing back in the States for him. Now, he has you. And he’ll want to be a part of your life. I understand that. There isn’t anyone who’ll try to stop him from going with you. If they do, they’ll deal with me.”
“But I just said…I’ll find a way for us to be together…here.”
He touched her cheek, then drew lazy patterns on her shoulder with one finger. “How? How could you do it? You’re too valuable to Washington.”
“But I feel you want me.”
“God’s blood, Frankie! You know I do.” He pulled her against him and hugged her hard. “I don’t have any solution for the fact that I’m still an agent here, with obligations. And you have responsibilities of your own.”
“Washington owes me, Mac. I can get a job with the embassy and work out of there, undercover. This part of the world has hot spots all over the place. London would be closer for me to get to them. If Garrett wo
uld let us, we could meet here. Nobody would know if I came in late on the weekends.”
A brighter future presented itself. Hope began to take hold. “That could actually work. Garrett wouldn’t mind. In fact, he’d be pleased and so would Jean. Up until this mission, I was assigned to go after rogues. That’s a public job for immortals as old as me.” He thought for a long moment. “Hell, I might retire like Garrett. I’m a lot older and he’s off official duty. Why the hell couldn’t I do the same? The queen would let me if I promised to be on call for special assignments.”
“Would you be happy just roaming the hills?”
“Happy?” He grinned. “Frankie, I could watch movies or read books. I could take up a hobby or help Garrett around this old place. He wouldn’t mind my being here at all. Since Merlin is holding up somewhere, Anna will take his place and won’t be around Bloodnight Castle too much. Garrett will need the help here. What’s not to like? I’ve been wandering the world for centuries, I think I’m due some damned time to myself…time with you!” he declared before kissing her again, and gently rolling over her to make love with renewed passion.
* * *
Halloween
Cumbria, England
Mac stood on the hillside as he had for previous months. This time, he wasn’t waiting for some sign of Morgan LeFey’s rogues to attack. He simply stood there because he loved watching the sun go down on the hills. It was cold as hell, but now he could light a large fire and sit before it. If he attracted anyone’s attention, it’d be said that Garrett Bloodnight’s new steward and retired immortal agent was up in the hills. Watching the stars as he so often did.