Dragon Warrior (Midnight Bay)

by Janet Chapman

  Maddy heard his door unlock, and twisted to see him get out—taking his sword with him. She spun around and opened her door, and he helped her out of the truck.

  “You’ll be holding your daughter in your arms soon,” he said, leading her up the stairs. “How long ago did Kenzie leave?” he asked Eve when she opened the front door.

  “He called to say he just got to Maddy’s house, and everything is quiet there,” Eve said, grabbing Maddy’s other arm and pulling her away from William.

  “And the pup?”

  “She’s in the back room. Kenzie brought her in before he left.”

  William nodded. “Lock up behind me,” he said, disappearing back outside.

  Maddy pulled away from Eve and ran to the door—since that was her only view outside because all the windows had heavy metal storm shutters covering them. “I want him to stay inside!” she cried, watching him slip into the shadows beyond the barn.

  “William can take care of himself,” Eve said, reaching around Maddy to lock the door. She took hold of Maddy’s arm again. “Come on, I bet you could use a drink.”

  “How can you be so calm about this?” she hissed, pulling away. “Eve, there are wolves out there, huge, vicious, snarling monsters! They attacked the truck, and they chased us halfway here!” She hugged herself. “I’ve never even seen dogs that big; they were the size of ponies. And they had glowing red eyes and fangs larger than my fingers. And I was doing seventy miles an hour, and they were keeping up with us!” She pointed at the door. “And William is out there with only some stupid sword that looks old enough to be an antique, and you’re calmly telling me I need a drink? I need a shrink!” She suddenly stiffened. “No, I know what this is. Somebody slipped something into my drink at Rhapsody, and I’m hallucinating. This is all some weird dream. It has to be!”

  “Shhh, don’t wake up Mom and Daar. It’s going to be okay,” Eve said, wrapping her arm around her. She led her to a chair at the table and made her sit down. “You’re safe now, and that’s all that matters. And Sarah and Patricia will be here soon.”

  Eve went to the cupboards, took down a bottle of scotch, poured about two shots’ worth into a tumbler, and came back and handed it to her. “Sip this; it’ll calm your nerves. You can’t let Sarah and your mom see you like this, Maddy, or you’re going to scare them. I have no idea what excuse Kenzie came up with to get them over here.”

  “I called them on William’s cell phone,” Maddy explained after taking a large swig. She wiped her chin with her sleeve, having spilled some because she was shaking so badly. “And I told them the sheriff and state police were searching the woods for criminals.”

  Eve pulled a chair over and sat down facing her. “That was quick thinking.” She gently pushed the glass toward Maddy’s mouth. “Drink it all up, and you’ll be feeling like your old self before it even hits your belly.”

  Maddy downed the rest of the glass, wiped her mouth again, and hiccupped. “Oh, shit,” she muttered, handing the glass to Eve. “I forgot I already had enough Long Island Iced Teas tonight to float a lobster boat.”

  Eve reared back in horror. “But you were only supposed to have one! And you just let me give you two more shots?”

  Maddy smiled at her and hiccupped again.

  And then she giggled, already quite punch-drunk at being inside a brightly lit, storm-shuttered house that even Godzilla couldn’t break into. She hiccupped again. “Where in hell is William when I need him?” she muttered. “He has the perfect cure for hiccups.” She leaned toward her friend and lowered her voice. “You won’t believe this, but he can actually kiss hiccups away.” She flopped back in her chair with a sigh. “Man-oh-man, can that man kiss.”

  “Um . . . where are your clothes?” Eve asked.

  “Up on the bluff next to William’s new house,” she said, waving in that general direction. She suddenly sat up. “Omigod! His building crew is going to find them tomorrow morning when they come to work.”

  “Don’t worry,” Eve assured her. “They can’t know who the clothes belong to—unless you left your purse up there, too?”

  “No, that’s in William’s truck.”

  Eve arched a brow as she leaned back in her chair. “So, he kisses good, he can cure hiccups, and he obviously knows how to get a woman to part with her clothes. Anything else I should know about concerning your manly man?”

  “Yeah. The manly man tried to kill me with sex.”

  Eve’s eyes widened. “Madeline Kimble, he did not.”

  “He did. Why do you think they call it the little death? Well, guess what, my very best friend, I died three times in less than ten minutes! Or maybe it was four,” she murmured, trying to think back.

  “Exactly how many Long Island Iced Teas did you have?”

  “I can’t remember—four or five. Or maybe it was six. No,” she said, shaking her head. “I distinctly remember telling William that five drinks make me stupid, so it had to be only three or four.”

  “We agreed on one, just to calm your nerves.”

  Maddy snorted. “An entire fifth wouldn’t have calmed my nerves. And you agreed to only one; I didn’t agree to anything. Hey,” she said with a frown, “is that a pen sticking out of your cleavage?” she asked, squinting at Eve’s chest.

  Eve looked down, then back at Maddy. “I was balancing the store’s bankbook when William called Kenzie, and I guess I just stuck it in there.” She laughed. “Being pregnant, it’s the first time I’ve ever had anything even close to cleavage. So let’s get back to William’s almost killing you. Was that before or after you parted company with your clothes?” she asked, arching a brow.

  “Both. We had a couple of wrestling matches trying to determine who was blowing whose socks off, but because he’s bigger and stronger and . . . and hairier than I am, he won. I got embarrassed, and then I got so humiliated I wanted to throw myself in the ocean. Only William wouldn’t let me, and he told me there’s nothing I can say or do or think when I’m with him that should ever make me feel embarrassed,” she said, just now remembering that part. And how good it had made her feel at the time, and how . . . safe. “And then he tried to kill me with sex.”

  “And of course you weren’t at all trying to kill him, were you?”

  Maddy glared at her, just to let her friend know how serious she was, but then her mouth turned up in a smile all on its own. “Well, the first time was quite nice, thank you very much; and the second time was . . . well, quite surprising, actually. But then he insisted that I come a third time, and since I was still trying to catch my breath from the first two times, I kept trying to tell him no. But my stupid hormones wouldn’t listen to me, either. I think they were drunk, and didn’t want to stop partying.”

  She leaned forward and lowered her voice again. “Honest to God, I swear I saw stars. And I really couldn’t breathe, and then William suddenly covered my mouth with his hand, and told me we were walking down to the truck. But I was naked. And he wouldn’t let me gather up my clothes; he just started dragging me through the dark, scary woods, and my boobs were flying all over the place!”

  She grabbed her breasts through his shirt. “I think he cut my bra off with a knife,” she whispered. “I know he has one; I saw it in his hand. But not until later, when we were headed to the truck. And he looked like he really knows how to use it. Oh, and he keeps a sword behind the seat in his truck. Isn’t that weird?”

  Eve shrugged, but then she frowned. “Why would William cut off your bra? All you had to do was unclasp it.”

  “I think he was getting impatient because I wasn’t taking it off myself.” She made a face. “But more likely, he was mad at the damn thing for poking him in the eye.”

  “You poked him in the eye?”

  “I didn’t—my bra did. One of the underwires must have worn through, and when I shoved my boobs in his face because he’d lifted my skirt up over my shoulders during one of our little wrestling matches, the wire poked him just below the eye.” She
nodded at her friend’s incredulous look. “It drew blood and everything. Didn’t you see the small cut just below his eye just now?”

  Eve had both her hands covering her mouth, trying to hold in her laughter.

  Maddy glared at her again. “You think his trying to kill me is funny?”

  “No,” Eve said, now holding her protruding belly. “Honestly, no. But really, Mads, I can just see the two of you fighting over who was going to seduce whom.” She shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever met two better-matched people than you and William, especially when it comes to . . . oh, let’s call it your enthusiasm for the opposite sex, shall we?”

  Maddy gasped so hard she nearly fell off her chair. “Are you calling me a slut?”

  “No!” Eve said, still laughing. “Are you forgetting how determined you were that I jump Kenzie’s bones the first time you laid eyes on him? And I’m pretty sure William loves women just as much as you love men, especially women brave enough to wrestle him to the ground trying to blow his socks off.”

  “Stockings,” Maddy corrected. “He calls them stockings. And I was half drunk at the time.” She smiled crookedly. “If I’d been just a little more sober, I would have remembered to take my panties off first.”

  Eve was back to covering her mouth with her hands.

  A horn tooted out in the dooryard.

  Eve stood up, and Maddy panicked. “Omigod! What am I going to tell Mom about my clothes?” she cried, looking down at herself. “And Sarah! I can’t let my daughter see me wearing only a man’s shirt!”

  “Calm down,” Eve said, going to the door to unlock it. “Tell them you fell off the pier in Oak Harbor or something and that William gave you his shirt to wear.”

  “No, I told Mom we went to Ellsworth,” Maddy said, chasing after her. She switched directions, grabbed the bottle of scotch off the counter, and shoved it into the cupboard. “I know—I’ll tell her that as we were walking out of the restaurant, the sprinklers came on and soaked me.”

  Patricia walked in, Kenzie right behind her, carrying Sarah.

  “She fell asleep halfway here,” Kenzie said, continuing through the kitchen. “Which bed do ye want me to put her in?”

  “Lay her down in the blue room,” Eve instructed quietly. She turned to Maddy and Patricia. “Maddy, you can sleep with Sarah, and Patricia, you can have the room right next to Mom’s.”

  “Madeline, where are your clothes?” her mom asked.

  “I fell off the pier, and William gave me his shirt.”

  “What were you doing at the Ellsworth pier? There’s no restaurant down there.”

  Damn, she’d gotten her stories confused. “Oh, William took a wrong turn, and when we ended up at the Union River boat ramp, I suggested we go for a moonlight stroll down on the docks. Yeah, that’s when I fell in; when I tried to feed a seagull some leftovers out of my doggy bag, and the ungrateful thing attacked me.”

  “Where is William?” her mom asked, looking around.

  Maddy tucked her hands behind her back and crossed her fingers, silently praying for forgiveness. “He’s in the barn. I think one of the animals isn’t feeling well.” She yawned. “Wow, I’m beat. And you must be, too.” She took her mother’s arm and started leading her toward the stairs in the living room. “I know it’s no fun having the phone wake you up and then being told you have to leave in the middle of the night, but I really thought it was better to be safe than sorry.”

  Patricia stopped at the foot of the stairs and leaned away from Maddy. “Good Lord, Madeline, you smell like a distillery. And your eyes are bloodshot.” She grinned—one of those smug “I’m your mother, and you can’t fool me” grins. “So you had a couple of drinks at the restaurant, suggested to William that a walk down by the water was just the thing after dinner, and you fell into the river because you were more tipsy than you realized.”

  Maddy dropped her head to hide her smile. “Jeesh, I can’t ever get anything past you, can I?” she muttered, walking up the stairs behind her laughing mother. “I sure hope you give me some pointers when I finally let Sarah start dating in another . . . oh, fifteen or twenty years from now.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Christ, Gregor, it was one hell of a scary thing last night. I had Madeline with me,” William growled, staring out at the gently swelling ocean. “There was no warning, no sense of danger—nothing. One minute I’m making love to the lass, and the next minute they’re just . . . there. The goddamned beasts scared the hell out of my woman.”

  “ Your woman, Killkenny?” Kenzie repeated, glancing over and lifting a brow.

  William glared at him. “She willingly gave herself to me, and I accepted. I don’t care what century it is, that makes her mine. At least, for as long as we both agree,” he muttered, looking back at the ocean. But then he grinned to himself. “And I’m thinking it’s going to take quite some time for me to tire of the lass.” He looked at Kenzie again. “Ye should have seen her last night, Gregor. Madeline has the heart of a warrior; she kept her head about her, doing exactly as I told her when I told her, and she drove my truck like I ride a horse. Aye,” he said, leaning back to recline on his elbow. “I have a fear I might never tire of her.”

  Kenzie chuckled. “If ye fear anything, it should be that she will tire of you.”

  William scoffed that away. “Nay, I’ve learned enough about Madeline in the last few days to know how to keep her interested.” He lay back and laced his fingers behind his head to smile up at the fading stars. “But being a highlander, I can understand why ye think women aren’t easy to keep, seeing how ye had to get your pixie with child to catch her.”

  “Your skills as a warrior are exceeded only by your arrogance, Killkenny. After last night, you’ll be lucky if Maddy even speaks to you again.”

  William grinned again, pleased that he at least knew which of Kenzie’s buttons to push. “Were they a scouting party, do ye suppose? Trying to find our weakness?”

  “Most likely. And now they know yours. You’ll be sleeping on Maddy’s knoll, I’m afraid, until this is over.”

  William sighed. “If not for her daughter, I could be sleeping in Maddy’s bed.”

  “Christ, I wish I knew where Fiona has gone off to,” Kenzie growled, shaking his head. “For as protective as she is of that pup, I don’t understand why she’s disappeared all of a sudden. She would have been a great help last night; she might have seen them coming and been able to warn you.”

  William snorted. “Your little sister would likely have helped them kill me.” He glanced over at Kenzie. “Could she have gone back in time, do ye think? Maybe the pup gave her a clue to where she was from, and Fiona is looking for answers.”

  “Aye, that’s what I’ve been thinking, too,” Kenzie said.

  “Don’t worry, Gregor; the little termagant can take care of herself.” He chuckled. “In fact, if it truly is a man chasing our pup, I pity him. If Fiona discovers his identity, he best be sucking his sack up in his belly, or he’s liable to find his voice several notes higher.”

  “She has good reason to hate men, Killkenny.”

  “Aye,” William agreed. “I just wish she’d learn that not all of us are bastards.”

  “With luck, she will someday. Were ye able to get a sense of what the wolves truly were or where they’re from?”

  “They felt . . . old to me, far older than I am, even.” He sat up. “Maybe even as old as the coin Trace got from our pup. Ye didn’t say anything when he showed it to you yesterday afternoon, but did ye recognize the writing on the back? He said he believed it was Sanskrit, but I’ve never heard of that language before.”

  “Nor have I, but there was something familiar about it. I made a drawing of the coin and sent it over the phone line to Matt. Maybe he can tell us something, as he has access to the collected knowledge of the ancient worlds.”

  William lay back down just as the first hint of dawn faded the stars. “Something—or someone—other than me chased the demo
n beasts off as they were approaching An Tèarmann. Could Daar have had anything to do with it?”

  “Nay, he has almost no power left.”

  “Did Eve use the fancy pen ye gave her for protection?”

  “I made sure she had it on her, but she said the pen never sensed any danger near the house.”

  William sat back up. “Do you suppose it was some other entity, then? Could there be more than one person after our spoiled little seal?”

  Kenzie stood up and smiled tightly. “If there is, then our job just got more complicated. It’s beginning to look like we will have to get Huntsman involved. When we meet him at the gravel pit this afternoon for another gun lesson, we’ll have to see if we can’t begin persuading him that the magic is real.”

  William also stood up, groaning with fatigue. “And then maybe we can introduce him to the pup?” he asked, walking beside Kenzie as they headed back to the house. “I’m curious to see them meet face to . . . whisker,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Nay, not yet. We need to make sure where we stand with Huntsman before we reveal all our secrets.”

  “And Maddy?” William asked, reaching out to stop him. “Just how much am I supposed to reveal to her?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that. Then how in hell am I supposed to explain what happened last night?”

  “Ye don’t. When Eve got her first taste of the magic the night she rescued me on the cliff, I realized the next morning that it was something she had to ease into on her own. If I’d hit her over the head with a bunch of explanations, she would have decided I was crazy. And from that point on, she wouldn’t have believed anything I told her, and that really would have put her in danger. You said yourself you’re worried they have Maddy’s scent now. You alienate her trying to explain the magic, she very well might turn her back on you. And you can’t protect what ye can’t get near.”

  “And you don’t think last night did that already?”