“My wife,” he choked out.
The vampire snapped his head around to Pierce. He looked shocked. “Your wife?”
“Aye. We got married yesterday.”
Robin wiped blood from his mouth and placed his hand back on Pierce’s chest, only not as hard.
“You love her,” he said, staring at his hand over Pierce’s pounding heart. “Greatly.”
“Aye,” he admitted with a sniff and then swallowed thickly with grief.
Robin was quiet a moment before whispering faintly, “I loved Marian as much.” He flicked his icy blue eyes up to Pierce. “What am I doing?”
Robin finally let him loose and took a step back. “Off with you.”
Pierce half believed it was a trick. “Pardon?”
“Go, Landcross. Be with your wife.”
“Pierce?” Taisia called again as she neared the brook. “Where are you?”
Pierce slowly leaned off from the tree and took a cautious step forward. He held his breath as he passed Robin, expecting him to grab him and finish the job. He did no such thing and Pierce reached the edge of the brook.
Taisia spotted him.
“There you are.” She sounded relieved. “What were you doing?”
“I needed to piss,” he lied, sloshing his way through the shallow waters.
Although Robin had not taken a great deal of blood, it still left him fragile and a tad dizzy. He managed to cross the brook and take Taisia into his arms. He held her tightly, knowing how close he had come to losing her forever.
“Are you all right?” she asked, embracing him back. “You’re trembling.”
He stepped back. “Aye. Right as rain, darling. I just needed to hug you, ’tis all.”
The darkness had turned everything into silhouettes. He was thankful for it, for it hid the deep puncture marks in his neck.
She slid her fingertips lovingly through his hair. “Come inside?”
“Aye. Let me fetch the water first, eh?”
He grabbed the bucket off the ground where it had landed, and as he refilled it, he washed the blood from his wounds before concealing them underneath his scarf. He headed inside with Taisia at his side.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Promise
Robin stood by the window at the side of the house and watched the mortals enjoying their dinner. There was conversation and some laughter mixed with somber expressions. Robin assumed they had experienced some sort of loss recently. Regardless, everyone seemed happy enough to be together. His own lonely, still-beating heart ached.
“Hello, Robin,” came a nearby voice.
He turned to the old woman who had excused herself from the table a few moments ago.
“You know me?” he asked as she approached.
“I do. And you know me.”
He studied her before sensing who she was. “Élie Fey. Glory be, is it truly you?”
“It’s been ages, non?”
“For you, perhaps,” he said jocularly. “The last I saw you, you were a young woman, telling fortunes in a Gypsy camp.”
“Oh, oui. I was only a teenager then. You came to me, asking me to tell your fortune.”
“I believed you were a fraud. Like countless others I’ve encountered before.”
“In a way, I was. I could look into people’s courses in life, yet no one can predict the future, for everyone’s path is constantly changing.”
“I’ll never forget the look on your face when you discovered what I was,” he chuckled.
“I thought you were going to kill me.”
“I’d never do you any harm,” he promised. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here with my daughter, son-in-law, grandson, and his new bride.”
His eyes grew wide. “You’re joking. Pierce Landcross is your grandson?”
“Oui. He is.” She looked to the window. “We have had a trying time recently.”
“I sensed the loss. Who died?”
“My other petit fils, Joaquin,” Élie said dolefully.
“My condolences.”
“Merci. So, Robin, does the reason for your visit concern Pierce?”
Robin chewed his bottom lip.
“At the risk of you becoming furious with me, I shall not lie. I had come for him.” He bowed his head. “I wanted to turn him into a vampire.”
“Why?”
He raised his chin.
“Never have I desired to change anyone into an immortal before. Never in the past seven hundred years since being forced to become the creature that stands before you now.” He looked to Landcross, who was drinking wine and talking to everyone at the table. “I suppose the decades of loneliness have finally taken their toll.”
He waited for her harsh reproach.
“I’m not angry with you, Robin,” she said at length.
He snapped his head around. “You’re not?”
“You want a companion. And Pierce would make a wonderful one. He is special.”
The sweet texture of Landcross’s blood was a testament to that. When it had touched Robin’s tongue, it electrified his senses far more than any other he’d ever drunk.
“What kept you from turning him?” she inquired.
“His wife,” he answered simply. “I couldn’t bring myself to take him from her, as I was forcefully taken from my Marian.”
Élie took him by the hand and squeezed it. Her touch felt so warm.
“I have something to tell you, and when I do, take heart that it is not a lie.”
“What?” he demanded.
“After the first night we met, I meditated for hours in order to reach her.”
“To reach her . . . who?”
“Marian.”
His jaw slacked opened and he let out a small gasp.
“I spoke to her, Robin.”
His knees buckled and he nearly lost his strength. He staggered back to keep from falling over.
“You spoke to Marian?”
“We had a lovely conversation. She told me many things about the life she lived.”
“Tell me.”
“After you vanished, she stayed in Nottingham for years, raising your son, Malcolm.”
Malcolm, he thought. My boy.
Robin had named him after his own father. How he regretted not returning home at least to see his son. It wasn’t until the death of King Richard’s brother, John, that Robin approached Malcolm and had a conversation with him at a pub in Paris. By then, Malcolm was in his late adolescence and about to attend university to be a professor. Robin couldn’t have been prouder.
That was the last Robin ever saw of his son.
“Eventually, Marian moved to France and remarried,” Élie concluded.
“What else?”
“That is for you and her to discuss when you are both reunited in the In Between, where she waits for you.”
“She has been there this whole time?”
“Oui. You were always the love of her life. When she passed on, she discovered what happened to you from Friar Tuck and Much, who had died before her.”
“Of course. We had a brief council before I left. I wanted them to look after her and the child. I made them swear on their lives to keep my secret.”
“And they kept their promise until their own deaths. They waited in the In Between to tell her before they moved on.”
“And she still waits for me?” he inquired again.
“She does. And she will not move on until you arrive.”
“I’m immortal. I cannot die, nor am I the sort to take my own life.”
“I understand. You’re a warrior and you want to die a warrior’s death. It’s in your nature.” Laughter drew their attention to the window. “Pierce may need your help someday, I’m afraid.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re going to live far away from here. However, there is a witch named Freya who has plans for him. She’ll attempt to draw him back to England. I’ll do what I can to keep him
from doing so, but I may not succeed.”
“How do you know this?”
“Freya told me herself. If he returns, he’ll be in great danger. Robin, promise me you will watch over him.”
Robin didn’t fully understand, but he noted the sincerity in her tone. Élie Fey was no ordinary person. Her concern was quite real, and he knew that what she was requesting from him was important.
“If he and I cross paths again, I shall do my best to protect him. I swear it.”
She smiled with relief.
“Merci, Robin.”
* * *
That night, Robin left England and rejoined his assistant, Ramirez Tajo, in France, where he’d been waiting for him with their magician’s wagon.
It was time to resume their tour, for the show must go on.
* * *
The following day, the Landcross family bid farewell to Indigo and traveled to a small port near Southampton. Grandmother Fey insisted on sailing to Le Havre to board a passage there, which suited Pierce just fine, for he wanted to get out of England before any more trouble found him.
When the ferryboat drew closer to the harbor, Pierce spotted a familiar ship.
“Bloody hell,” he said in disbelief. “I don’t believe it.”
There, docked at the harbor, was the Spanish galleon, the Ekta, captained by none other than Chief Sea Wind and sailed by his Apache crew, the Sea Warriors!
“They’ve returned!” he exclaimed excitedly.
The last he’d seen of them, they were setting sail from the very port the vessel was anchored to now.
“Oh, good,” Grandmother Fey said, standing beside him at the railing. “I was right.”
“Come again? You knew they’d be here?”
“It took a lot of effort, but I managed to contact a young lady by the name of Sees Beyond.”
“Who’s she?” asked Taisia, who stood by Pierce’s other side.
“She’s the crew’s psychic,” Pierce answered. “She helps keep the crew from running into trouble and such.”
Pierce couldn’t believe their luck. His excitement nearly burst from him. The moment the ferry docked, he rushed down the ramp and dashed toward the great Spanish galleon. Chief Sea Wind stood at the dock with some of his crew, speaking to them when Pierce approached.
“Chief!” Pierce called out.
Chief Sea Wind’s dark eyes shone with delight.
“Landcross, you are alive,” he said in French. “I am most pleased to see you.”
They embraced and chatted a moment before Pierce fetched his family. He introduced everyone and requested they join the Sea Warriors on their voyage.
“Would you like to go to the islands now?” the chief asked with a grin.
“Aye. Very much so.”
* * *
The ship set sail days later and headed into the Atlantic. Pierce stood at the bow, enjoying the sea breeze blowing over him.
“Pierce,” his wife called.
He turned to her as she approached. The giddy expression and the spark in her eye told him she had important news.
“What is it?”
She took him by the hands.
“I’m pregnant.”
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Michelle E. Lowe is the author of The Warning, Atlantic Pyramid, Cherished Thief, and Legacy, and the children’s books Poe’s Haunted House Tour and The Hex Hunt. Her works in progress are the continuation of the Legacy series. Currently, she lives in Lake Forest, California, with her husband, Ben, and their two daughters.
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Chapter One
Sonora, Mexico
Autumn, 1843
Pierce Landcross couldn’t remain here in this cave. Not if he wanted to live. He worked on supporting himself against the rock. The arrow in his shoulder made it difficult to move or to breathe. Darkness surrounded him. Blood slid down his arm and back.
He feared he would never see his wife again.
Perhaps his enemies wouldn’t search for long, and by nightfall, he could escape. It was his only chance. He only hoped he wouldn’t bleed to death first. He caught sight of something, and it made him shake. Thankfully, he had managed to maintain his hold on his gun the entire time. He needed it more than ever, especially as the light of a fire drew closer.
Days earlier . . .
After a month and two weeks at sea, the Ekta had reached the seaside city of Guaymas. The ship sailed on by the city and up the coast for another mile, where the vessel at last turned and went over a waterway path cutting between tall rocky cliffs. A cavern waited at the end, and it was there that the Ekta dropped anchor.
The crew took longboats into the long cave tunnel.
Before the darkness slid completely over the boats, Pierce looked over at his wife, Taisia Landcross. He held her hand and placed his other on her slightly protruding belly.
“Are you all right?”
It was a question he asked her daily. That and How are you feeling? and Do you need anything? Taisia had carried her pregnancy well during the voyage. She had experienced very little sickness and was maintaining a normal appetite.
“I am fine,” she said in her Russian accent. “I’m only a bit nervous about meeting the tribe.”
Pierce slowly slid his hand down the side of her soft face and then leaned over to kiss her.
“No worries,” he assured her as everything went dark, save for the lanterns inside the boat. “The chief wouldn’t bring us if it weren’t safe.” He again touched her stomach. “And I’d kill a thousand buggers before I let anyone harm you or our child.”
Through the dim glow of the lantern, she smiled lovingly at him. “You are a poet, Pierce Landcross.”
He glanced behind him, where the silhouettes of his folks and grandmother followed them in another longboat.
The group drifted onward toward the opening ahead. The longboats entered a large basin surrounded by tall rocky walls. The Water Bowl was what the Apache called it. The only other way out of the formation was a path that started at the very back of the pool where a few natives waited on a boulder. The lead boat that Chief Sea Wind and his wife, Waves of Strength, traveled in, tossed up their rope to the awaiting tribesmen. Once the boat was steady enough, Waves of Strength stepped out onto the stairs carved into the side of the boulder. Once everyone was out of the longboat, the greeting party pulled the watercraft alongside the rock to tie it off on trees that grew from cracks in the stone.
As the rope to Pierce and Taisia’s boat was tossed up, the chief spoke to one of the greeters, who then took off up the trail. When everyone was joined together once more, they, too, headed upslope on the well-worn path created solely by the feet of those who had climbed the rocks for years.
The sun was brutally burning in the cloudless sky. There was nowhere else on Earth that Pierce had traveled where he’d experienced such a dry, relentless heat. He feared for his pregnant wife.
“I’m fine,” she again reassured him. “Just hold my hand.”
He did, all the way up until they crested the top where the ground leveled off. The flat desert plain stretched for what seemed like forever. It was blanketed by sand with puffs of green shrubbery. In the distance stood tall, jagged mountains.
They walked a mile or so to the Apache village. Chief Sea Wind had already ex
plained to Pierce about the type of lodgings the Apache lived in—dome-like structures constructed right from the dirt, called hogans. The Apache village had many hogans. There was also a herd of horses by a river. Youngsters played in the water while mothers washed clothing. Men and women were making pottery, or preparing food. Under the shade of an open wooden structure, people rolled flour patties over flat stones and put what Chief Sea Wind called “acorn cakes” into rounded mud horno ovens.
The first one to greet the approaching party was a young boy who rushed toward them while yelling in Apache.
“Tarak!” Sees Beyond shouted.
She ran to him and lifted the boy into her arms. She twirled him around once as they embraced tightly. A young man soon joined her. He was a handsome gent with dark skin and long brown hair. Pierce reckoned he was Sees Beyond’s husband, Mohin.
Others approached to greet their returning loved ones or to see the foreigners they had brought with them. Waiting in the center of the village was a man and woman. The man wore a band around this head with eagle feather hanging down the side, tunic pants, a white shirt, and a dark vest. He appeared older than time itself, with deep creases carved into his dark, hardwood face. His eyes were squinted so narrowly that Pierce could barely see them. The woman standing beside him—her pigment a shade lighter than his—had very long, gray hair braided over her shoulder. She wore a beaded buckskin dress.
Waves of Strength spoke to them before embracing the elderly woman. They parted and kissed each other on both sides of the faces after the European fashion. Chief Sea Wind grasped the older man’s forearm and they shook. They spoke amongst themselves in their language for a moment, and as they did, Pierce eyed the river, tempted to go take a dip.
“Landcross,” called the chief.
Pierce and his family approached the four.
Chief Sea Wind turned his focus on his friend. “Pierce Landcross, this is Chief Victorio and his wife, Nascha.”
Pierce took off his top hat and held it behind him as he placed a hand on his chest and bowed to them both in a humble greeting.
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