Awakenings

Marin sighed and shook her head. “He was probably concerned with making sure the huntsmen didn’t come thundering in this direction when they heard the sound of explosives and never got over to tell anyone else—especially if he couldn’t find you or I.” She looked back at Thom. “Where’s Phelan? I’m surprised he’s not involved in any of this.”

Davon scuffed a toe in the snow. “He’s out at the barrow with J.T. and Thordin. Something about meeting with Cariocecus and checking the graves.”

“At least he took Thordin with him,” Neve muttered, crossing her arms and glancing sidelong at Marin.

Thom barely managed to suppress a sigh. I’m not sure when these two turned into everyone’s mothers, but I guess I can’t complain or fault them for falling into the role. We need it to a degree, but this is starting to get ridiculous. Idly, he wondered if it would get better once they had their own children to worry about.

Something told him the answer was most decidedly no.

“I’m sure they’re fine,” he said, touching his wife’s arm. “Just like we’re fine out here testing the powder. No major concern required.”

“Mm.” Marin stared at him hard for a moment before she nodded. “I guess not. Just be careful, huh? I don’t think anyone here has the ability to grow back anyone’s fingers and we need all of your collective fingers.”

He smiled and stole a kiss. “We’ll be careful, I promise.”

“Good.” She reached up and stroked his cheek with a faint smile before she turned to her brother. “You be careful, too.”

He gave his sister a mock-salute and a grin. “Get back to your books, sis. See if you can find one on metallurgy for me, will you?”

She arched a brow. “Going to try to hammer different metals now?”

Matt shrugged. “The more you know.”

He let the words hang there in the air between them. Thom shifted his weight, squeezing Marin’s arm gently. She sighed and smiled.

“We’ll see what we can find.”

Neve turned to Cameron and poked a finger against his breastbone. “You be extra careful. Marin’s right, I need your hands just the way they are.”

“I know,” the former pilot said, taking her hand and kissing her palm. “I’ll make Davon play with the powder.”

“Thanks, Cameron,” Davon said, nose wrinkling.

“As long as you guys are careful, I really don’t think that’s necessary.” Neve kissed his cheek and stepped back. “Come in if it starts to rain or snow or whatever, okay?”

“We will,” Thom promised, then watched as the two women retreated back toward the safety of the settlement’s walls. He glanced sidelong at Matt. “Did you really need to ask her for that?”

Matt shrugged. “She took it as innocent enough. They don’t need to know that I’m asking about it so I can figure out how to maybe build a cannon, now do they?”

“They won’t like that,” Davon said, moving over to inspect the site of their last test. “Seems like escalation.”

“For the moment, we’ve got guns,” Thom said quietly. “We don’t know how long guns, bows, and our wits are going to hold off what shows up. Hell, that—what was it, Cam?”

“The firbolg?”

“Yes, that. We barely held that off. If the stories that Daniel’s pack told are true, there’s worse coming from the other side of the lake, and soon. Considering our track record, it’ll only be a matter of time before they show up at our gates. I want to be prepared for that.”

“All of us do,” Matt said, joining Davon. “That’s why we’re doing this.”

“We’re not going to be able to keep them in the dark forever, though,” Cameron said.

“I know,” Thom muttered. “We just have to keep them in the dark long enough. Then it won’t matter anymore.”

Cameron grunted. “You need to talk to Marin.”

“I know,” Thom said again. “Trust me. I know.”

“Thom, Marin’s coming this way.”

Thom Ambrose straightened and turned toward the gate at Matt’s warning, his brows knitting. “What’s wrong, Mar?”

Too pale. He didn’t say anything about that as she marched up to him, Neve trailing a step behind.

“What the hell are you guys doing out here?” Marin asked. “We heard explosions. If we hadn’t heard the lot of you laughing, we might have actually thought something was wrong.”

Thom winced at the censure in his wife’s voice. They probably had thought something was wrong.

I guess maybe we should have given them a heads-up about what we were going to be doing out here today before we got started. Well, too late now. “Well, Davon and Cameron finally figured out the right mix for the power,” he said. “We came out here to test. It’ll be useful for blasting stumps and excavating foundations.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, crossing her arms and looking over the group of men clustered outside their settlement’s walls. “Did you bother to warn anyone before you started this little test run.”

Matt grimaced. “Sorry about that, sis. We were just excited that they’d figured it out. They’ve been working on it for weeks.”

“We’re aware of that,” Neve said, her tone as dry as a desert. “The problem is that no one said anything before you started testing. Explosions outside the walls tend to mean we’re under attack. You’re lucky we didn’t start raising all kind of alarm.”

Marin snorted. “We’re lucky no one else has—that we know of, anyhow.”

Should have thought of that. He glanced sidelong at Cameron, who shrugged.

“I let Seamus know. I’m sure he’s keeping everyone settled.”

“Nice of him to tell someone else,” Neve said, looking even more annoyed. Thom shook his head.

Way to throw him under a bus, Cam. Now she’s going to be angry with her brother, too, on top of the two of them being angry at us.

There was nothing for it, though. What was done was done, and none of them could change the past.

I took a second to get my bearings and waiting for the world to stop slowly spinning around me. It didn’t make sense. My visions had stopped hitting me with this kind of reaction. Was it getting worse again?

You have to tell Thom. I barely managed to suppress a shiver. I didn’t want to tell him. He’d only worry. The spectre of the fear that had nearly driven us apart—nearly gotten him killed—rose again and I had to force it back.

“Are you okay? Should I get Matt or Thom? J.T.?”

I shook my head. “Not okay, but I don’t need any of them. Just give me a minute.”

“At least this time we have one,” she muttered, her brow furrowing as she stared at me. “What about the next time?”

I glared at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that whatever’s wrong with you is something that we need to figure out sooner rather than later,” she said. Neve bit her lip and stared at me. “You look like hell, Marin. You really do. I don’t know what’s causing it. Do you?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Not if there’s nothing we can do,” I said, straightening stubbornly. “And if there’s nothing we can do, I’d rather not talk about it at all.”

She grabbed my arm as I tried to walk away, fingers digging painfully into my biceps. “Marin.”

“Don’t, Neve,” I said quietly, willing my voice not to shake. “Don’t ask. Don’t question. Just let me be. It’ll get better. I know it will.”

“But what is it?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But it’s not going to kill me, so I’m not going to worry. Come on. I want to know what they’re blowing up.”

“Right,” she said quietly.

Somehow, I knew that the issue wasn’t closed—just tabled for now. We’d revisit it sometime, probably when I was least suspecting it.

I knew that, too.

“They’re coming.”

                Jacqueline turned toward the speaker, a boy—no, a young man—who looked so painfully like Thom my throat tightened. The ground shuddered beneath their feet and she struggled to catch her balance, her eyes meeting his.

                “Who, Lin?”

                “The ones Mom wrote about. The ones her journal said would come.” He glanced down. “The ones that Tory and I have been waiting for.”

                The ground heaved again. Earthquakes? I wondered. Jacqueline shook her head hard.

                “Lin—”

                He just stared at her. “We have to. You know we have to. Uncle Matt knows it. Phelan knows it. You can’t stop us, Aunt Jac. We have to go.”

                “Just because your mother’s journal—”

                “Dad’s said it, too.”

                She went silent, staring at him, his gaze steady. She was the one to look away first. “Am I the first person you’ve told?”

                “No,” he said. “Uncle Matt already knows. I think Tory was going to tell Phelan and Uncle Jay. I said I’d tell you.”

                Jacqueline snorted and shook her head. “Well, you’ve made it abundantly clear that I can’t stop you. But will you at least wait until these damned earthquakes settle down?”

                “If we can,” he said, glancing away. “Are you sure they’re earthquakes?”

                “What else could they be?”

                He stared at her for a long moment. She shivered and turned away.

                I shivered, too.

“Marin? Marin?”

I startled, wavering on my feet and blinking blearily at Neve. “What?”

“You—were you seeing something?”

My lips thinned and I looked toward the walls, nodding slightly. “Did you—did you and Cameron talk about what you were naming your twins?”

She stared at me for a long moment before she swallowed hard. “Why?”

“Because I saw my son talking to Jacqueline,” I whispered. “And he was talking about him and someone named Tory waiting for someone that I’d written about.”

She went white as a sheet. “Tory,” she whispered. “Short for Artorius. Déithe agus arrachtaigh, Marin. What could it mean?”

“I don’t know,” I said grimly, “but someday, we’re going to find out.”

The only way it could have been worse was if the explosion had been punctuated by screaming. As it was, Neve and I dashed out into the chilly sunshine, neither of us armed with anything more than our wits and her pen. If there was real trouble, neither of us would be facing it at our best.

“Where did it come from?” Neve asked, looking around wildly, seeking the source of the sound.

“Other side of the wall,” I said, heading in that direction at something a bit faster than a jog. Neve fell in behind me, a touch slower. Dammit anyway, please let it not be someone trying to blow us up. No one had tried to do that yet and I was hoping that the pattern would continue.

There was a second, quieter explosion followed by a whoop of familiar laughter and my racing heart began to slow down.

“I’m going to damn well kill them,” I said, dropping my pace to a jog. Neve caught up a second later, blinking.

“They don’t sound worried, do they?”

I shook my head. “How much are you willing to bet that they’re experimenting with some kind of makeshift dynamite for blasting tree stumps and foundations out there?”

“As long as they’re not experimenting with land mines and Cameron isn’t one of the ones doing said experimenting, I’m not going to get too upset about it.” She eyed me for a moment. “But you’re about to murder them all, aren’t you?”

“I’m seriously considering it,” I said. Idiots. First off, you’re playing with things that explode. Second, you didn’t bloody well tell everyone that you were going to do it. It’s lucky that no one raised some kind of alarm.

If J.T., Thom, or my brother are out there participating in this madness, I’m going to cheerfully throttle all three of the above.

I marched toward the gate, ready to hand several someones the tongue-lashing of a lifetime.

“How did it go?”

I grimaced and shook my head. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to, Neve.”

She winced and sighed, reaching for the next book in the stack. It had taken us practically all winter, but we’d managed to catalogue most of the books salvaged from the university library—most of them. There were still a few boxes left, and Neve and I had been stringing the project along, not quite ready to be done with the task just yet. No one bothered us while we were with the books—it was like some kind of unspoken rule. She and I could talk about anything without fear of being overheard.

Of course, that might have had something to do with the day that she’d thrown an encyclopedia at Rory when he’d walked in at the worst possible moment. He’d had the bruise for weeks.

I slumped into my usual chair with a heavy sigh and watched her as she flipped open the book to the first few pages. “He’s taking Thom with him.”

She glanced up from the book, pen poised over the legal pad next to it. “Thom didn’t mention anything like that to you, did he?”

“Bingo.”

Neve shook her head. “I thought that you agreed that you two wouldn’t do that to each other.”

“We usually don’t.” I scrubbed my hand over my face. “I’m sure he was just waiting for the best moment to tell me.”

“Which I’m sure would be right before they left when you had absolutely no time to stop them.”

I smiled ruefully. “I wish you weren’t right about that.”

She shrugged and grinned back. “I think we’re starting to know each other’s significant others pretty well at this point.”

“We do,” I agreed, then sighed again. “What are we going to do, Neve? Neither of us want them going.”

“There’s no talking them out of it?”

“Hell no,” I said. “Not unless something catastrophic happens, and none of us want that.”

She nodded emphatically. “That’s the last thing we need right now.”

Something exploded outside.

It was as if the fates had overheard and decided to screw us once again.

“Have you two talked to anyone else about this?” I asked, feeling more tired than I’d let him hear in my voice. “About these plans that you’ve been making? Made any more arrangements that Neve and I should be aware of?”

Cameron just stared at me. “Are you angry at us?”

“No,” I said, and meant it. I sat down on a crate and watched him as he resumed his mount’s rub-down. “I’m just trying to figure out who knows and who doesn’t, Cam. There’s planning that needs to happen either way.” I wish that Thom had told me that he was planning on going with you. The fact that he is—and that he’s dragging Davon and Matt with him—changes things. “Did Daniel say which of his pack he’s sending?”

“I don’t think he’d decided yet. Said something about talking to Thordin about it first.” Cameron paused again, looking at me. “You’re pale, Mar. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I lied, hugging a knee against my chest. It was starting to get uncomfortable to do that, but not nearly as uncomfortable as it was becoming for Neve, who was pregnant with twins and showing much more than I was. It would still be months before she or I should be giving birth, but nothing was certain anymore. “Just tired, that’s all. Have you talked to Kel? To J.T.?”

“I haven’t,” Cameron said. “Thom said he’d talk to them. Said it’d be better coming from him.”

I wonder if he planned on telling me before or after he told them. I nodded slowly. “It’s probably true. Jay’s going to try to talk him out of it.”

“If he does, then he does,” Cameron said. “I don’t think he will, though.”

I didn’t think he’d be successful, either, but he’d still try. J.T. knew me—and more importantly, he knew Thom. The pair were as close as brothers and J.T. rarely hesitated from telling Thom when he was about to make a mistake.

It was a pity that my husband didn’t always listen.

Cameron watched me, his brow furrowing. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say that he didn’t tell you.”

“What was your first clue?”

“The look on your face.” Cameron sighed. “I thought you didn’t do this to each other.”

“We try not to,” I said, crossing my arms. “He’s probably trying to figure out how to tell me in a way that’s not going to make me go sideways on him. Are you taking Thordin?”

“No. He’s staying here to safeguard Neve.” Cameron took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “Someone has to keep watch over her.”

My eyes narrowed. “If anyone does any watching over your wife, she’d like it to be you, Cameron.”

“I know, but I’m more diplomatic than he is, so I don’t have much choice. Phelan can’t go.”

I grimaced. “We wouldn’t let him go.”

“Exactly. So he can’t. That leaves Thom and I as your best bet, so we’ll go. He was going to see if your brother and Davon were willing to come. We talked about having them scout out a good place for a trading outpost while he and I rode on.”

The more he kept talking, the less and less I liked what I was hearing. It wasn’t that the ideas weren’t good—they were—but I wasn’t comfortable with all of them being gone at once. It sounded like the perfect time for fate to kick us in the balls again, like she’d been doing for months since the end of the world. It felt like every time we needed a break, things went sideways.

Nearly ten months had passed since the end of everything we knew and instead of things feeling more settled, a little less hectic, it felt like every second we spared to just stop and breathe was a second in which something started to slip toward chaos.

I was more than a little tired of it.

“She doesn’t want you to go, Cam.”

Cameron Mackenzie closed his eyes, leaning against his horse’s flank for a moment, momentarily pausing in the rub-down he’d been giving the animal. “She and I went over this, Marin. You and Thom agreed. Trade is important and I’m the one best qualified to ride out for it.”

“I don’t exactly recall agreeing to that piece, but you’re right about trade being important.” I crossed my arms, watching him. “It doesn’t have to be you making this ride, though.”

“Yeah, it does.” Cameron turned toward me, his brows knitting together. “It’s one of those things, Mar. You and Thom and Phelan and the others, you’ve got things that you know in your gut you’ve got to do. This is one of those things for me. I have to be the one to go out and do this, at least this time.”

The words at least this time echoed in my head. In my heart and in my gut, I knew for sure that he was thinking this would be more than a one-time thing.

The worst of it was, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was right about that.

“You know that I have to do this,” he said, watching my face. I sighed and looked way.

“Neve’s my friend, Cam. More importantly, she’s pregnant with your children and she doesn’t want you to go.”

“She’ll be fine,” he said, his voice quiet and firm. “I won’t be gone that long—just going to make contact with the settlement to the south that Phelan came across this winter and then start setting up a trading outpost between here and there.”

“But alone?” I shook my head. “That’s a bad idea.”

“Daniel said he’d send a few of his pack with me,” Cameron said, then hesitated. My stomach sank.

I don’t like this.

Cameron cleared his throat. “Thom said he’d come, too.”

That was exactly what I was afraid he’d say.

What the hell is my husband getting himself into now?