Battle of Forces: Sera Toujours Read online

  “Who are you?” Piper asked.

  “I am many things to those in need of me, but because of you and the strength you have given me, I too will live forever.”

  “That sounds like a riddle,” Lenore said, but Bruik put his hand up to stop her from saying anything else.

  “How may we serve you?” Bruik asked, his head bowed.

  The woman looked to Lenore first. “I don’t deal in riddles, Lenore. I’m what you find when you look up from your books and dream of what’s in store for you. You’ll see me in the center of what you hope to find when you close your eyes and imagine how your life will transform when you find someone to share it with you.” The woman laughed again, as if enjoying herself. “But if you need the comfort of what you know best, I leave you this as a gift.” She handed over the book, then kissed Lenore and Piper each on the cheek.

  “Remember well your promise, Piper.” The woman’s image was starting to grow faint, but she left behind an overwhelming sense of peace.

  “What promise?”

  “‘I am ready to stand by her side and accept the responsibility of keeping her whole.’” The language still sounded strange, but Piper understood every word. “You began tonight, but the job is far from over.”

  “I will never disappoint you, or her,” Piper said, and bowed her head like Bruik.

  “I know, little one, and it’s why I have left you with a gift. It will allow me to fulfill a promise I made so long ago.”

  The woman was gone, and Piper reviewed the conversation, trying to figure out what the woman meant. Behind her, Lenore sat on the sofa and flipped through the book the woman had handed her, with Bruik reading over her shoulder.

  “Holy shit.” Lenore’s comment was so out of character, Piper looked at her like she’d gone mad.

  “What?”

  “She left the answer to the mystery of the Sea Serpent Sword and what power it held. At least what power her side held.”

  “So?” She held her hands up, waiting. “What’s the answer?”

  “You,” Lenore and Bruik said together.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Piper said as she reflexively started laughing and kept on until tears streamed down her face. “As far as this immortal thing goes, I’m the new kid on the block, but I highly doubt I’m the key to any puzzle you all have been working on for years.”

  “Piper, it’s all here in what she left us,” Lenore said, and held up the book. “The woman wrote the end of the Sea Serpent’s legend.”

  “She couldn’t write it until the story was done so her brother couldn’t accuse her of giving her champions an unfair advantage,” Bruik said.

  “Who’s her brother?” she asked, sure she already knew.

  “Ares, the god of war, and while I don’t have proof Julius was his champion, that red dragon is as close as I ever want to be to him,” Bruik said.

  The room still held the sights and scents of the recent battle, which were starting to make Piper queasy, so she motioned for Lenore and Bruik to follow her into the kitchen. “Okay, tell me.” She put on a kettle of water.

  That was the last thing she remembered doing until after Lenore stopped talking and the whistle of the kettle finally broke through the fog. What the woman had left behind held ramifications for both of them, and Lenore seemed to be in as much shock as she was.

  “That can’t be true.” Piper shook her head, causing an unruly lock of hair to fall into her eyes, and she pushed it back with impatience. “Things like that just don’t happen. I may be blond, but I do have some idea how the world works.”

  “You mean things like some nut who was beheaded and put to sleep for hundreds of years comes back to get you, you’re saved from his attack by a friendly vampire, after which you watch a big dragon come to life in your living room? Those kinds of things?”

  “Well, when you’re that literal, it doesn’t sound all that improbable but—” She looked at Lenore and started laughing again. “I really don’t know how in the hell to finish that sentence.”

  “As the old saying goes, what’s done is done,” Bruik said. “I didn’t see this, but it’s a happy ending, don’t you think?”

  “I’m not unhappy, if it’s true, but one thing in there’s wrong, so maybe the rest of it’s wrong too.”

  “What’s wrong?” Kendal asked when she stepped into the kitchen, followed by Morgaine and Charlie. They were all wet and Charlie looked a little weak, but fine. Their swim had washed off some of the blood from the battle earlier, and to Piper, Kendal looked better. “Well?” Kendal said, as she reached for the teacup in Piper’s hand.

  “While you were out we had another visitor.” She jumped up to put her arms around Kendal to keep her from running to the front of the house. “A good visitor, honey, calm down.”

  “Who was it?” Morgaine asked, and Lenore put her arms around her as well.

  “Just listen to what Piper has to say.” Lenore looked from Kendal to Morgaine.

  “Our visitor thought we might want to know the end of the Sea Serpent Sword’s legend.” Piper pointed to the counter where Lenore had placed the book, open to the last section. “She left us that, but the end doesn’t gel with our reality, and that’s what I was telling Lenore when you got back.”

  “What ending?”

  Piper had to laugh and pinch Kendal’s butt. “My darling, you take the term ‘strong, silent type’ to a whole new level. You’re allowed, if you want, to use more than two words to phrase your questions.”

  After the night they had lived through, the humor was welcome and made Kendal laugh. Not caring if they had an audience, Piper lowered Kendal’s head and kissed her for a very long, sweet moment. Kendal seemed to pour all her feelings for her into that one simple, loving act, and it healed the nightmares the night had caused.

  “This isn’t a question,” Kendal said as she pressed their lips together. “And it has more than two words.” Kendal kissed her again. “I love you, and I’m so happy you were here with me. Without you I don’t know if I could’ve won.”

  Piper stood with her eyes closed, wanting to enjoy the words a little longer. “Is it any wonder she always gets the girl,” she said when she finally looked back to the others.

  “I believe she asked you something about an ending,” Morgaine said as she made a circle with her hand.

  “It says if Aphrodite’s chosen claimed the sword, the markings of the two would remain, but they’d reverse themselves. They’re in the wrong spots for the prophecy to be true.”

  “Wrong spots?” Kendal asked, and Piper pinched her for the two-word question.

  “Well, according to the book mine isn’t supposed to be over my heart, yours is, but we both know where yours is.” The white shirt Kendal was wearing was still damp, letting the skin show even through the remnants of the bloodstains. “Yours is…” She looked at Kendal’s chest, to the spot over her heart.

  Slowly she brought her hands up, scared the image would disappear, and gripped the ends of Kendal’s shirt. In one rapid movement she ripped it open, sending buttons flying all over the room.

  “Are you having a flashback of our robe incident the day you came over with the deputy?” Kendal said, and laughed as she stood there with her chest exposed. “We can go upstairs if you want.” She tried to turn a little so the others didn’t have such a good view.

  “Look,” Piper said as her brain tried to wrap around what she was seeing and what it meant.

  “What?” Kendal’s eyes were still on Piper, as if she was afraid she’d snapped.

  “Look,” she repeated, and watched Kendal’s head drop.

  “What the—” Kendal stared at her own chest and the dragon tattoo that was now there. The drawing had changed, and while the beast still appeared ready for battle, it held the Sea Serpent Sword in one claw and the orb from Piper’s tattoo in the other. “What does this mean?”

  “It means…” Piper said as she started unbuttoning her own
jeans.

  “There’s no way in hell you’re taking your pants off down here.” When she didn’t stop, Kendal picked her up, headed upstairs, and only stopped when she kicked the door to their bedroom closed. “Start from the beginning and tell me what’s going on.”

  “I can’t prove it, because she never offered her name, but the guide I had for my vineyard vision was Aphrodite. And I can’t prove what happened to you a long time ago, but I think she’s the woman who gave you the sword.”

  “The goddess of love is on a first-name basis with both of us.” Kendal laughed.

  “Do you want to hear this or not?” Piper asked as she stripped her pants off.

  “Sorry, go on.” Kendal dropped to her knees to examine the new tattoo in the same spot Kendal’s had been.

  “If Aphrodite’s chosen won the battle for the sword and the dragon it held, it would release something, but not the power to rule the world. Only we both have to choose the future of the prophecy, because it’s a hard thing to just thrust on us.”

  “All that happened was us defusing that thing, so it’s done,” Kendal said, but she traced the tattoo on her thigh with her finger.

  “It’s not over. Do you want to decide or not?” Piper asked as she stripped off her shirt, wanting to get completely naked.

  “If we’re going to be naked for this talk, I might agree to whatever you want.”

  “It shocked me at first, but the more I think about it, the more I want this with you.”

  “What?”

  She lay back on the bed and spread her legs before she put her hand between them. “If you make love to me, the orb will come to life, and we’ll finish the prophecy by unlocking what it held.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Kendal stopped talking to take a sip of wine. They’d returned to Oakgrove months before, and Piper’s grandparents had moved in with them for now, so Kendal and Mac had the opportunity on most afternoons to talk. They had been sitting outside under the trees where she and Piper had shared lunch one afternoon in the beginning of their relationship, and she answered a lot more of his questions.

  As with most of their talks, she could tell he still wasn’t buying the whole immortality, elixir-of-the-sun thing, so she finally proved it to him. Just once she wished someone would just take the story at face value and not demand a demonstration that she’d live forever. At least this time it only took nailing her hand to the table with the cheese knife with a nice noon sun overhead to get him to believe her.

  It’d take a lot longer for him to hear about her whole history, so she’d only hit the highlights, ending with what Piper now meant to her. From his comments, the reality that Piper would live forever both thrilled and terrified him. It was the last part of her and Piper’s story he was the most interested in, wanting to understand the outcome of their battle here at Oakgrove.

  “So what is the legend of the Sea Serpent?”

  Another bottle was uncorked, bringing the total to four that Kendal had consumed almost alone. If Mac had tried to keep up with her, the afternoon would have ended with her carrying him inside to sleep off his hangover. “Ready for the wrap-up, huh?”

  “As fascinating as your life has been, Asra, the ending is the best part, and not only because it’s about Piper as well.” He held his glass out and laughed when she poured him only a little.

  “Once upon a time there lived two lovers.” She laughed when he frowned. “Well, there were two according to this story. When we first read it, though, we thought it was something along the lines of Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Only it wasn’t.” Mac popped a grape into his mouth and relaxed back into the cushion of his chair.

  “Only if the play had been renamed Juliet and Her Really Good Friend Sally,” she said with a smile. “One of the girls came from an influential family, and as open-minded as the Greeks were, they’d never have allowed her to spend the rest of her life with the daughter of a farmer who was in a blood feud with the other girl’s father. With no other choices, the girls ran off together, hoping to find a better life somewhere—not in another part of Greece, but in the future.”

  “Is that even possible? Did the ancient Greeks believe in reincarnation?”

  In the distance she could see Molly and Piper slowly walking toward them, making Kendal realize how much she’d missed Piper even though they’d been apart for just the afternoon. “I can’t tell you what their religious beliefs were, but they ran to the sea and found a quiet place to do what lovers do in romantic settings. They thought it was the beginning of a life together, but it was short-lived because their families were close to tracking them down. So instead they made love one last time and sacrificed their lives to Aphrodite.”

  “The goddess is real?”

  “My life is living proof that she is real, Mac.”

  “No wonder you’ve turned my granddaughter into a passionate woman,” he said. “I can’t complain about the results, though, since I’m thrilled for both of you, and I’ve gotten my greatest wish.”

  The heat of what she was sure was a blush worked up her neck, and she shook her finger at him. “Let me finish, troublemaker. Their sacrifice really touched the goddess, and she vowed to make them whole again in a time and place where they’d be free to love each other without prejudice and with a family who would support their choices. Until that time she took the crest of the rich family and created what up to then had only been a mythical creature, to hold the love they shared—the Sea Serpent.”

  “So back then the dragon was real?”

  “According to the rest of the story that came after the battle, this particular dragon lived in the waters close to where the girls died and was given the gift of immortality by Aphrodite. Ares complained to their father that she had delved into his realm, and he wanted the dragon for himself since he saw the power it was capable of.”

  “How did the sword come to be?” Mac asked.

  “I can see where Piper gets all her patience,” she said, teasing him. “Zeus gave Aphrodite a choice. She could either destroy the dragon or find a way for the dragon to choose to serve either her or Ares. The Sea Serpent was captured, and with the help of her husband, the god of the forge, they trapped the dragon in what came to be known as the Sea Serpent Sword.”

  “How did you end up with it?”

  “Aphrodite won the battle over who’d get the sword first, and I believe she already knew who Ares had chosen to fight for him. I was the complete opposite of Julius. It didn’t hurt that I was so close by, and once she figured out why I was there, she gave it to me along with her mark.”

  She left out how Aphrodite gave it to her, since that story was a part of her past that was hers alone. Piper knew most of the story, but not every detail of what had happened in that tent a long time ago. She doubted that many people, immortal or not, were blessed enough to spend an intimate night with the goddess of love.

  “It was a gift I didn’t really treasure at first because I didn’t know the prophecy, but I do now because it’s become more than a key to me. Looking back now I realize that it took forever, but it would only come to life for me if I found the other half of my soul. When I did, the sword marked me as its true owner and Piper as my mate, as it were. So on Halloween night, at the stroke of midnight, the sword and the markings were able to break free at the precise time the world has no barriers against such things, and they fulfilled the goddess’s vow to the lovers.”

  She stood and went to help Piper walk the rest of the way, holding her hand as she took Kendal’s place under the tree. “Thank you, love,” Piper said as she looked up at her.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “The same way I did the last time you asked me that, which I believe was less than four hours ago.” It wasn’t a reprimand, just a gentle teasing she heard more than a couple times a day. Molly and Mac smiled as Piper pinched her cheek for her concern. “Are you two done yet?” Piper asked about her and Mac.

  “We just got
to the part about some markings and Aphrodite fulfilling her vow,” Mac told Piper.

  “This was an excuse to sit out here and drink wine, wasn’t it?” Piper’s question was directed at Kendal, and she felt the heat of another blush. “Did the booze put you in the mood to be long-winded?”

  “I’m not as talented a storyteller as you or Lenore, and your grandfather asks lots of questions. I’m sorry we took so long.”

  “Long-winded or not, finish the story,” Mac said, patting the spot next to him so Molly would join him.

  “On that night, the part of the dragon that had marked me came to life, looking for the other part of itself. It found it in the marking Piper had over her heart. One had fire and the other passion, and together they had enough of each to create life.” She started the end of the story as she placed her hand over Piper’s lower abdomen. “The orb that the one held in its claw was the container for the soul of a young woman who lived long ago and died with her lover by the sea. The love they had for each other was strong enough to split the orb into two separate vessels so they could live again with the chance to love once more.”

  “From your fire as a warrior,” Piper said.

  “And from your passion as a woman who believes in the power of love came the seed that now grows within you,” Kendal said. The strong kick against her side was evidently a kind of sign the baby agreed with its mothers. “It was Aphrodite who put us all together that night so the rest of Bruik’s prophecy could come to light.”

  “I thought his prophecy was only about Piper and who’d she be to the Elders?” Molly said.

  “It was, but Rolla had kept another scroll hidden, not believing it’d ever come to pass. Bruik knew Piper was the missing part of the puzzle, but to make the prophecy work we needed Morgaine and Lenore as well. From one strong spirit came two souls, and we had to have another set of true hearts to bring the other to life.”

  “So you carry one,” Mac said.

  “And Lenore carries the other for her and Morgaine. I guess these two bundles of joy will have the choice to love whomever they choose to, but with us they’ll have the freedom to become the women or men they want to because they’ll be raised with love and respect.” She received a kiss for her words from a very pregnant Piper.