The Serpent in the Stone

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.

She remained standing, wrapping herself in offended dignity.

After a few minutes of charged silence, he sat forward just enough to pull a leather journal from his back pocket. He laid it on his knee and studied it as though it were a precious artifact, staring at it instead of her. “The man who attacked my family wanted something from my dad. I don’t know what. My dad wouldn’t cooperate, so the guy killed him. When I tried to fight back, the sick son of a bitch spent the next half-hour using telekinesis to draw little knife marks all over my back while my mother cried. Is that enough information for you?”

Bile rose in her throat. She swallowed back the burn and sank onto her cot, rubbing her arms against the sudden chill in the tent. She longed to say something, but words lodged in her throat. They stared at one another for a long, uncomfortable stretch.

At last, Ian spoke. “Anyway, there’s a reason I’m still here.” He opened the book on his knee and flipped through it. He stood and carried it to her, holding it out.

She saw a beautiful pencil sketch of a falcon in flight. “Falco p. peregrinus,” she murmured, reading the words scribbled below the sketch.

“A Eurasian peregrine falcon. An endangered species.”

She searched her memory. “I thought they delisted the peregrine.”

“The American peregrine was delisted. This is a different subspecies. I need your help with him.”

“Him?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a male. He’s been roosting on the cliff. I saw him the day before I dislocated my shoulder.” He closed the book, then put it back in his pocket.

“You want me to help you—what? Take pictures?”

“That, and get some information on his habits. You said you were a zoo minor. This is a big deal for my work, finding this bird out here.”

“I have a full-time project going on, Ian. I can’t just leave it to help you with this.” Not to mention, the idea of working shoulder-to-shoulder with him sounded far too appealing, in spite of their mutual misgivings. She stole a sidelong glance at him. His attention was on the page. Expressive eyes. She remembered the way he’d looked at her the instant before kissing her. Hungry. Possessive. She wrapped her arms around herself to quell a giddy shiver and said nothing further.

His gaze came up. “I left my work to help you with your necklace.”

She hugged herself harder.

He mistook her silence for reluctance. “If I help you dig, will you come climbing with me?” When she still remained wordless, he added, “What, I can’t manage a shovel?”

Words. Say something. “What about your shoulder?”

“I already said it’s healing. Besides, if the rope breaks this time, I’ve got you right there to back me up.”

“Don’t joke about that.” She shuddered, not wanting to think of what might have happened to him if she hadn’t gotten there in time.

He crouched in front of her. The motion washed his chalky scent and body heat around her. He stilled, seeming to realize how close they now were. She held her breath and jammed her hands between her knees to keep herself still.

Those eyes. Those eyes traveled all over her. Curious. Cautious. Something more that was too dangerous to name. She shivered and wondered how it would feel if his hands followed where his gaze led. Shivered more, because as scared as she was, she wanted it.

He snapped out of it first. “I’m calling a truce. Or trying to. Give me a day, two at most. I’ll help you for today, and you try rock climbing with me. If you don’t like it, we don’t do it.” He extended his hand.

There was no way out of this but to touch him. She took his hand. The sensation of his warm skin on hers set off a shivery chain reaction that started from the tips of her fingers and traveled all the way down to her feet. She couldn’t let go. She wanted to stay angry with him for the way he’d cornered her. Outraged. Something. Anything that didn’t feel quite so much like the need to kiss him again. Flustered, she dropped his hand and jumped to her feet to move away.

Ian stood, too. “Please help me with the falcon?”

Absorbed in the movement of his mouth, she hardly registered his words. Her pulse raced. She managed a nod.

He reached for her hand again and shook it, smiling a little. The contact surged through her body. His gaze dropped to her mouth and the smile faded. Her every nerve screamed “Kiss me,” and to hell with their baggage. Do it, just do it.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, he bent his head closer. His gaze caught hers and sizzled.

A wild shriek from outside brought them reeling apart. Faith. In an instant, her fog of desire washed away in a flood of fear. Sara bolted from the tent to see what had happened.

Dustin stood at the edge of the dig, chuckling. Faith sprawled on the ground several feet away, shaking with laughter.

“What’s wrong?” Sara called. God, she was getting jumpy.

Her sister clambered to her feet and windmilled her finger in the air. “We were doing the victory dance over the good news, and I slipped.”

Thomas ambled toward them with a bucket of tools. “Don’t get victorious just yet. We’ve got a long way to go, and that’s not counting the uncertainty of finding any artifacts.”

“Spoilsport,” Faith groused.

Sara felt Ian come up behind her. Her skin tingled in response. “We’ll have help,” she blurted. “Lambertson’s coming in a few days with more people. And until then, Ian’s offered to pitch in.”

Faith, Dustin, and Thomas swiveled as one to stare at her. Sara took a quick step away from Ian. “In exchange for my helping him with his wildlife project. I’ll need a couple hours the next few afternoons. I’ll make up the time after dinner...uh, doing charts or something.”

Okay, now she was babbling. And why did she feel like she had to explain this to them? She wanted to go back to her tent and crawl under the cot in mortification.

“Lambertson,” Ian said. “He’s a big-time archaeologist, right?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“Luis Rivero talks about him all the time. Lambertson’s kind of like his god.”

Sara gave a small, edgy laugh. “Yeah, he has that effect on people. I guess we should start by giving you a tour of our project, then?”

“Sure.” He cast a meaningful glance back at her tent, but then he grinned and started toward the ruin.

She offered up a silent prayer for strength, and jogged after him.

As she showed Ian around the dig, the team fell back into the rhythm of their work. The men appeared delighted to have another strong back to add to their crew, if only for a little while. Faith didn’t seem so easily persuaded. Her sister labored over a plot of earth with her shovel, not speaking. Sara picked up another pair of shovels for herself and Ian, then descended into the pit.

Faith glared at her. Not now, Sara mouthed, glaring back.

For most of the day, she worked side-by-side with Ian on one end of the excavation site. He asked intelligent questions, and listened to her answers with a scientist’s ear. His interest in her work surprised and pleased her.

She found it hard not to stare when he hefted shovelfuls of earth as if they weighed nothing. Thunk. The shovel bit into the peat. Shoosh. Soil and stone hissed off the metal blade and sailed into the wheelbarrow outside the pit. Almost before that scoop had thumped to a rest in the wheelbarrow, he’d started on the next. The sheer physical demand of digging often left her body aching by the end of the day.

Ian seemed to have enough stamina for both of them.

Heated flames poured into her cheeks and she looked away…but not for long. Her gaze returned to him as if drawn by a magnet. He’d thrown aside the fleece jacket as the day’s warmth increased, and the back of his T-shirt was dark with a vee of sweat. His hair lay plastered to his scalp. A bead of perspiration ran down his unshaven cheek. Did men have any idea how sexy they looked while doing manual labor?

He caught her eye and smiled. The work seemed to have loosened his knots where she was concerned...or at least he was willing to put them aside for now. “Tired already?”

“Already? We’ve been at it for hours.” The remark didn’t sound right the minute it left her mouth. He grinned, and she knew he’d caught the unintended double meaning.

She bent over her shovel and thrust it into the peat. “How’s your shoulder?” she flung at him.

“Fine. How’s your ego?”

“What?”

He laughed, full and throaty. The sound rang out across the moor and vibrated in her spine. “I think I’ve done most of the work here. Not bad for a rookie, wouldn’t you say, Doc?”

She scanned the pit and saw that he’d cleared over half their plot while she’d been lost in her thoughts. With a look of chagrin, she said, “You’d have made a decent archaeologist.”

He leaned an elbow on the handle of his shovel. His dimples resurfaced. “I can find more interesting ways to get dirty.”

Was he flirting with her? Why was he flirting with her?

Did she dare flirt back?

Should she?

Oh, God, how she wanted to.

Dustin’s light-brown head was bent over the sieve box. Thomas had taken away another wheelbarrow of peat. Faith swung a pick into the earth a few plots away.

Ian cast an eye at the lowering angle of the sun. “Ready to get out of here?”

“Yeah.” She wiped sweat from her brow and came away with grimy fingers. “Ugh.”

“We could go for a swim first.” He leaned closer and his smile vanished. “I promise not to sneak up on you this time.”

His nearness almost overwhelmed her. Every molecule of her body seemed to fizz with awareness of him. The very air between them heated. “I don’t—”

“For crying out loud, you two. Go swim!”

Sara jumped and spun around.

Faith laid her pick over one shoulder and wound her way through the markers. She grabbed Sara’s elbow and pulled her a few steps away. “I can feel the sparks shooting off you two way over there,” she hissed in Sara’s ear. “You are scrambling me. Get out of here so I can hear myself think, for God’s sake.”

Horrified, Sara said, “I am not sparking.”

“In about five minutes, I’m going to radio the fire brigade from Unst to come put you out. Go.” She gave Sara a little shove in Ian’s direction, then stomped back to her plot.

“What was that all about?” Ian asked, pushing sweaty bangs off his forehead.

“Nothing. Let’s get out of here.” She walked ahead of him toward the edge of the pit, as fast as she could without making it look like running.