Storm Warrior

Rhys leaned against the doorframe and watched the house for a while. Light shone from the windows, warm and golden against the blues and blacks of the nightscape. The mare whickered in her stall.

“I’m here still, cariad.” He closed the door against the cool air, not because he minded it himself but because it wouldn’t be good for Lucy to take a chill in her condition. He checked the big horse over one more time, wanting her to be as comfortable as he could make her before he turned out the light. Then he stripped and settled into his own makeshift bed in the adjacent stall. The smells of clean straw and horse were soothing and familiar, but sleep didn’t come immediately. Instead, his thoughts were all for Morgan Edwards.

Her pulse had jumped beneath his hand and not from fear. Attraction had kindled the moment Rhys had touched his fingers to her skin. There was no mistaking the flush of color at her throat, the change in her eyes. He could see that Morgan felt the pull and the want, just as he did. He could also see that she wasn’t prepared to act on it. His mouth quirked, remembering the speed with which she’d left the barn.

And by all the gods, he’d missed her immediately—the sound of her voice, the quickness of her mind, the look of her in the lamplight, and even the scent of her. They hadn’t done a thing but talk, and he hadn’t wanted it to end.

Deliberately, he turned his thoughts to the farm. There was a lot of land here still not under plow and buildings that were badly neglected. He wondered what he might do to take the farm in hand, to restore it to usefulness—yet he didn’t know if that would please Morgan or annoy her. She was an independent woman. Perhaps she didn’t want a man in her life? Perhaps she didn’t want anyone. Why else would she choose to live out here by herself on this broken-down farm?

One of the women in his village had been like that. Rhiannon was fair to look upon, but she’d chosen to live alone. Under Celtic law, she’d divorced a man who had dared beat her and kept all her land and belongings. She’d also kept her freedom forever after, scorning the company of any man, though many tried to win her affections.

Morgan was far different, he thought. She lived by herself but not necessarily by intent. A skilled healer, she was deeply devoted to her work, and it filled her life. Her unwavering passion for animals had given him his own life back. Yet Rhys thought he sensed a great loneliness in her.

Or perhaps it was his own he was feeling. Strange. He hadn’t thought much about being lonely. He missed his family, his friends, his clan, his village, all of them. But not in this way. Since meeting Morgan Edwards—especially since meeting her as a man—he was aware of a space within him that he hadn’t noticed before. An emptiness, even though there was much to keep his mind and hands busy.

He chuckled, thinking of how Morgan had apologized for his current accommodations. She had no way of knowing that not even a clan chief in his time had had a home as fine as what passed as hired man’s quarters here. Water flowed at the touch of a hand. The shower was Rhys’s favorite—not only had his people bathed as often as the Romans, they had been the ones to introduce soap to the so-called civilized world, the same world that called them barbarians. There were soft cloths here—towels—and blankets. A fine bed waited for him for when Lucy could be left to herself at night. Morgan couldn’t begin to know what luxuries these were to him, not until she accepted who he really was and what he had been.

That was going to take time, perhaps a very great deal of it. He sensed a war within her, the sensible and scholarly side of her arguing with the child she’d been, the part of her that had sensed the truth in her nainie’s stories. Rhys had faith that Morgan would one day come to understand, but in the meantime, he had to have patience.

He snorted at that. What I need do most is take care. I cannot lapse for a moment.

It was easy to allow that he was born in Wales, yet it had not been called that at the time of his birth. Rhys could speak many languages, including the present Welsh, fluently. It was true that Welsh was derived from the Celtic language of his clan, but it wasn’t the same—and it was the older tongue that still sprung first to his lips. He knew the modern country of Wales intimately, although it was as an observer rather than a participant. He’d thanked all the gods that he’d been able to answer most of Morgan’s many questions about the people, the history, and the customs.

It would be much harder to answer any questions about himself. Thankfully she hadn’t yet asked, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think she wasn’t going to. And when she did, he would not lie to her.

But he wouldn’t reveal the entire truth just yet either.

As for Lucy, the gods themselves must have sent the creature. Striving to save and heal the injured mare had built a bridge, a bond of common purpose, between him and Morgan. He had gained a great measure of the woman’s acceptance and even trust. What would she say if she knew that she had gained his heart?

He felt that powerful twinge in his chest, both sharp and pleasant, each time he saw her run a hand through her thick red-brown hair, each time her smile lit her pale-blue eyes. There was a powerful ache in his groin too, each time he saw her bend to reach something. Images arose in his mind as his cock rose up against the quilt, images of seizing those fine hips and revealing that lush bottom, thrusting himself deep into it until he was lost. It had been nearly two millennia since he’d bedded a woman, but by all the gods, he wanted Morgan Edwards and only her.

Would she want him?

No news on her missing dog. Not a word, not a sign, not a whisper. It’s like Rhyswr never existed. Morgan sighed as she contemplated the black mastiff’s picture on the bulletin board in the clinic waiting room. Sadly, she was beginning to believe that Rhyswr had somehow returned to whoever owned him.

Her partner Jay locked the front door and turned the plastic sign to Closed. “Have you noticed that this is exactly the reverse of what we were doing before?” he asked. “We did all that work to try to find the owner in the first place. Now you’re the owner, and we’re trying to find the dog. And both times, there’s no clue, nothing. I’m wondering if maybe there’s nothing to find.”

“That’s a strange thing to say.”

“It’s a strange situation, don’t you think? He’s too damn big to lose. He could have stepped through a portal for all we know. Or maybe he was a ghost all along.”

“Jesus, Jay!”

“No, really. Maybe it’s crazy, but I’m thinking something unnatural’s going on here. It’s spooky, like The Hound of the Baskervilles or some damn thing.”

“Well, he sure bled a lot for a ghost dog. And he ate half a bag of dog food in one sitting.”

“So he assumed corporeal form when he entered this dimension. You know that collar that fell off?”

Morgan resisted rolling her eyes. Maybe Jay was just joking around, perhaps trying to cheer her up in some bizarre male fashion. “It’s in a box in my office—I was thinking of getting it repaired and I just haven’t had time. What about it?”

“I borrowed this chunk of it, the part with the animal on it, and took it to a friend of mine at the university, Zak Talman.” He pulled the gleaming segment from his pocket. The links hanging from it tinkled lightly as he put it into her hand. “Zak’s a major expert in metallurgy, and he says it’s old.”

“What, like an antique or something?”

“Not just antique but ancient. Around two thousand years ancient. This little blue animal is a hunting hound. It looks Celtic, although no one’s ever seen this particular design. The inlaid stone is azurite. But it’s the metal that’s really amazing. It has no business being in this condition—it should be black with tarnish, pitted, corroded, something. And get this, Zak’s never seen anything like the silver it’s made from. He even ran tests to verify it.”

“Silver’s not rare, it’s not even very expensive. Most of my jewelry is silver.”

“Yeah, but it’s not this pure. Most jewelry is 0.925—it means it’s 92.5 percent silver, alloyed with other substances to give it strength. Bullion silver for trading is 99.9 percent, but it’s so soft, you can’t make anything durable out of it. It bends, dents, warps.

“This collar is 100 percent silver, Morgan. One hundred percent. It’s not supposed to be physically possible to produce it, but the real kicker is that it’s also strong. Really strong. Something in the way it’s been created,