Lucan: The Pendragon Legacy Read online

“Are you certain there are no harmful side effects?” Quentin asked.

  Lucan shrugged. “Ninety percent certain.”

  Shaw nodded. “With the military breathing down our necks, that’s good enough odds for me. Let’s try ipert h _ Yt, people.”

  Quentin turned to Lucan. “If the laser works, you’ll have to turn over all rights to the device, since you constructed it while under government contract.”

  “Understood.” Lucan raised his voice. “Everyone don eye protectors.”

  Cael moved away from Rion, their conversation over.

  Lucan placed safety goggles over his glasses and attached power cords to the laser. The device hummed. “Ready?”

  “Go ahead,” Shaw ordered and pointed to Avalon’s shield. “Open the observation port.”

  Lucan prayed this would work. Because, short of detonating a nuclear bomb to access Avalon, they were out of options.

  “Fire when ready,” Shaw said.

  “Initiating a two-second laser burst.” Lucan threw a switch. Pure blue light lanced from the device, through the observation port, and struck the shielding dead center. The clear sparkles of Avalon’s shield flashed a dull orange.

  Someone cheered, but the reaction was premature and died on a hollow note.

  One orange blink in the shield was all the laser had achieved. As if in defiance, the shield returned to its normal clear, multi-sparkled hue.

  Lucan tensed, waiting for Shaw’s orders, willing the man to increase the burst.

  “Hit it with a longer burst,” Shaw ordered, impatient now that he’d made the decision to blast away.

  “Upping the burn to four seconds.” Lucan made the adjustment and fired. And held his breath. This time the shield absorbed every damn atom of energy he threw at it. Almost as if, after the initial laser burst, the shield had self-corrected.

  Was the shield’s technology capable of learning? Interesting. Aggravating. He gnashed his teeth with frustration, but he really wanted to smash his fist into a wall. Apparently, Rion had been wrong about the laser’s capability. Strangely, he didn’t look disappointed.

  “Close the port,” Shaw ordered, discouragement threaded through his voice.

  The team descended on the laser. Arguments ensued regarding how to increase its potency, and the engineers who’d grabbed the specs from Lucan’s desk began to theorize on different angles they should try to penetrate the shield. In the mad chaos, Lucan made eye contact with Cael. She sent him a sorry-it-didn’t-work look, hesitated, then approached him.

  With the team still speculating on the new tool, no one noticed as he stepped back from his desk to meet her. “You’re disappointed,” he said. “I really thought the laser—”

  “We’re all disappointed,” she corrected. Her smile widened, and the effect made his pulse quicken. “But in science, failure often leads to success. Look how you’ve stimulated them.” She indicated the scientists, who were busy examining the laser and discussing the design. “Have a little faith.”

  “Faith?” When it came to Cael, his thoughts were anything but spiritual. Reminding himself that he had to stay neutral and ignore the heat and pull of his attraction, he tore his gaze from her very full, very tempting mouth to look her in her eyes. “I’m a man of science. I know that shield can be breached. I just wish I understood how it works.”

  “The Goddess says to choose our wishes with care, because once we attain our wishes, we may not be pleased with the outcome.”

  Usually it took a lot more than a pretty smile—okay, a dynamite smile—and an encouraging word to gain his attention. But Cael’s presence packed a feminine punch that rocked him to the core. Once again, he was instantly, insanely, inexplicably hard.

  She raised an eyebrow. “What about legends? Do you believe in them?”

  Legends? He’d always been a sucker for a legend. Ever since he’d arrived on Pendragon, he’d been on the lookout for tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, but he’d found only place names that teased his imagination.

  “Tell me a legend.”

  As if sensing his keen interest, Cael perched a hip against the nearest desk and settled in for a conversation. Her unique scent, sweet and crisp, broke through the odor of recycled air. He had the sudden urge to bury his nose in her hair and inhale deeply, but he squelched the instinct.

  “Perhaps legend is the wrong word. Haven’t you ever heard of the Book of Jede?”

  “Nope.”

  “The Book of Jede is a fairy tale.” She laughed, a warm, enticing sound that cascaded over him like a warm shower. “I heard it first from my grandmother when I was about three.”

  “I’ve never heard the tale.” He tried to imagine Cael at the age of three. Curly-headed. Tiny. Curious. But he couldn’t do it. The vibrant woman she was now dominated his thoughts.

  “You want me to believe in fairy tales?” Lucan grinned.

  Cael scooted her cute little backside onto the desk and crossed her exquisite legs. “What kind of childhood did you have?”

  “The usual.” He shrugged, keeping his voice down and glancing around the room. Rion was deep in discussion with a biologist. Quentin and Shaw were still arguing, albeit less heatedly. The rest of the team continued to pore over the laser’s schematics. Nevertheless, Lucan still didn’t want to speak about his false past and counterfeit identity.

  Cael peered at him, a stare that tried to pierce the soul. He held her gaze, a tad bit longer than he should have. “We need to get back to work.” Now, that was lame. But damned if he could think straight with her drilling him with that I-want-to-know-what-you’re-thinking look.

  She ignored his suggestion. Instead she stroked her throat, parting her tunic. He got an eyeful of her graceful neck and a flash of a metal choker with strangely familiar markings before her fingers blocked his view again.

  “When the universe formed,” she began, “there was darkness. Only darkness. Blackness from here to eternity. But then the Goddess seeded the universe with stars, bringing precious light and life.”

  “And what does that have to do with—”

  “Hush. I’m getting to that.” She shifted on the desk, her skirt rising to just below the knee, and as she slid off her shoe and rocked it on her toes, her calf tensed. The sight of her smooth, tanned legs made his mouth go dry and he swallowed hard.

  “Go on,” he urged.

  The sooner she finished the story, the sooner she would leave. And she most definitely had to give him some room.

  If he’d eaten recently, he would have suspected his food had been drugged, because every sense in his body had gone wacky. If he’d been alone, he might have sought release from the sexual tension and taken matters into his own hands. If he’d been on an uncivilized world, he might have thrown her over his shoulder and carried her straight to his bed.

  Lucan did none of those things, of course. But as Cael spoke, her words didn’t simply tell a story, they coaxed the blood in his veins to race double time. The seam in his pants had grown so tight he feared he might suffer a permanent indentation. And stranger still, he couldn’t have stood and walked away to save his life.

  “After the stars lit the heavens, the blackness faded. Worlds warmed, life grew. Animals and people evolved. But the blackness never lost to the light. The blackness only retreated. On Pendragon, a woman named Jede claimed to honor the Goddess, but in truth, in the search for immortality, she practiced the dark ways. To teach Jede a lesson, the Goddess sent her two gifts.”

  “Gifts are punishment?” He frowned.

  “The first gift was eternal life. All Jede had to do to live forever was to obey the Goddess. The Goddess told her never to open the second gift.”

  “But she did?” Lucan had heard similar legends in many cultures. Strange how often that happened. Earth had the story of Pandora’s box. Pendragon had the Book of Jede.

  “Jede lived long enough to bury her husband, her children, and her grandchildren. She remarried, had another family, and
buried them, too. After many thousands of years, she had wealth, comfort, all the things she’d always believed were so important, but she still wasn’t happy. She grew bored, lonely. She decided the Goddess hadn’t given her a gift at all, but had cursed her. The pain of outliving those she loved ate away at her soul. Believing death would end her pain, she opened the second gift, assuming death would be the punishment for disobeying the Goddess.”

  “What was inside? Did she lose her immortality?”

  “A Goddess never takes back her gifts. She kept her promise of immortality, but she wasn’t cruel. Inside the box was a spell that turned Jede into a dragonshaper.”

  “A dragonshaper?” He frowned again. “I don’t understand.”

  “According to the legend, y)“as a dragon Jede wouldn’t suffer the loss of those she loved. Because as a dragonshaper she’d never be allowed the kind of love and family she’d enjoyed as a woman.”

  “Why did you tell me this story?”

  “I believe that like Jede the dragon, who got her wish, we will eventually get ours and break through the shielding. I just fear that, like Jede, when we get what we thought we wanted—”

  “We won’t like what we find?”

  “Now you understand.”

  He supposed he did. Yet her fairy tale would not deter him. He’d come too far to back off because of a children’s story.

  She angled her head, and her collar parted, revealing the choker necklace he’d glimpsed earlier. The spectacular gems in a multitude of sparkling colors had to be worth a fortune. But it wasn’t the stones or their value that made him suck in his breath.

  The stones were embedded in metal.

  And holy hell. The metal was engraved with an Anglo-Saxon alphabet, runes.

  Lucan stared at the necklace, his mouth gaping. He couldn’t be certain from a glance, but it looked as if someone had inscribed other symbols beneath the runes, symbols that reminded him of the ones he’d seen on the star map, as well as on Avalon’s exterior wall. It was as if he was looking at two languages. Runes from Earth—which meant he’d be able to decipher them—and the glyphs from Pendragon.

  Please… God. Let Cael’s necklace be the key he needed to read the code. Frantic, he reached for a piece of paper and pen. “Don’t move, Cael. Please let me draw—”

  “Drawing my likeness is not permitted.”

  He sketched with fierce, swift strokes. “I’m not drawing you. Just the symbols on your necklace.”

  She reached up to her neck. “I don’t understand.”

  “Please, don’t talk. Don’t move.” Lucan sketched what he saw. But with every line, every rune, his excitement mounted. He stared at her necklace, then the paper on his desk, making sure he’d made no mistakes, and then he darkened the runes—making the glyphs stand out in stark relief. “Where did you get that necklace?”

  “It’s ancient and has been passed down from High Priestess to High Priestess for centuries.” Cael shot an odd look at him. “Are you reading those symbols?”

  “Give me a minute.” Ignoring the runes, he stared at the glyphs, alien glyphs that were so close to the ones on Avalon’s walls his heart battered his ribs with agitation.

  Picking up the paper, he sprinted to the port that looked out on Avalon. He held up the paper, placing it against the glass so that it appeared next to the glyphs on the obelisk. “They match. Exactly. They match.”

  Cael peered over his shoulder. “I don’t understand.”

  Lucan shook the paper and gse onecrinned. “There are two languages on your necklace. When I removed one, it left me with the other, glyphs, which are exactly the same symbols that are inscribed on Avalon’s walls.”

  “Can you translate them?”

  Damned if Cael’s necklace hadn’t turned out to be his Rosetta stone. “Now that I’ve separated the two languages, I can.”

  The team of scientists, drawn to the port by the excitement in Lucan and Cael’s voices, surrounded them and stared at the drawings Lucan had made. “What does it say?”

  “Tell us,” Quentin demanded.

  “Please do,” Shaw agreed.

  Rion slapped a desk, and, as usual, his action commanded everyone’s attention. “Settle down, people. Let the man think.”

  Lucan waited until the team quieted, then studied the runes. “Drinking from Avalon’s cup is a shield against death.”

  Holy hell.

  “You did it.” Cael’s eyes brightened.

  Rion shot him a thumbs-up. Quentin gave him a bear hug. Shaw embraced him. Other scientists clapped him on the back, their faces lit with enthusiasm.

  “Look!” Rion’s shout echoed through the lab. “The shield’s morphing.”

  Lucan turned to see. The shimmering sparkles vanished. The shield was down.

  Gone.

  Cheers again broke out around the lab, and Cael’s eyes teared with happiness.

  “What about the nearby buildings?” Shaw asked. “Any sign of a cave-in?”

  One of the geologists checked his instruments. “The topography’s stable.”

  The team breathed a collective sigh of relief. The shield was down. And the city was safe.

  The Priestess of Avalon is from another realm where the sun shines differently. But the magic of Avalon never changes.

  —THE LADY OF THE LAKE

  3

  Cael stared hard at Avalon, searching for a remnant of one tiny sparkle, but the shield had truly disappeared. As Avalon’s High Priestess, she could not show uncertainty or dread. Or fear. Straining under the burden of her position, she called on inner strength to appear serene and joyous. And, indeed, a part of her was full of joy and hope.

  If the Holy Grail was inside, as the glyphs Lucan had translated certainly implied, it could cure thousands of her people, including her neH2phew, whose condition was worsening by the day. Just yesterday she’d spoken to Jaylon, and he’d sounded so weak. He’d made her promise to visit soon and to bring the Grail. She prayed to the Goddess that she could keep both promises.

  Outside the window, Avalon dominated the view, a dark, massive stone building of mystery. The momentous occasion had upset her equilibrium and had her mind whirling, her nerves rattled. For so long she’d yearned for the healing powers of the Grail. So why were her feet rooted to the floor, reluctant to move? She should have been elated.

  Maybe it was natural to worry. As long as Avalon’s shield had stood, Cael could hope that someday they might find a way inside. Someday they might find the Grail.

  Someday had turned into today.

  And now she feared Avalon would be empty, that the Grail would not be inside, that finding the holy cup would prove as impossible as taming the wind, and her dreams would end. Then she’d have to go to back to the city of Feridon, where Jaylon was dying, and tell her nephew she’d failed. That not only couldn’t her healing skills cure him, but that she hadn’t found the Grail. Then he’d live out his last few weeks without hope.

  She stroked the sacred choker she wore to conceal the dark purple scales that twined around her neck. At her touch, those marks, the ultimate symbol of what she was, fluttered as if asking for release.

  Not now.

  The seemingly magical disintegration of the shield had the team buzzing, consulting their instruments and speaking quietly among themselves. From across the room, Cael could see that Lucan looked baffled, mystified, excited.

  He was an intriguing mix of intellect and physicality, a man who could argue his point as well as fight for it. A fitting helpmate for a priestess. Frightened by how much that thought appealed to her, she squelched it, even as she admired Lucan’s height, his shiny black hair that almost touched his collar, his blue eyes emphasized by his glasses. Sharp cheekbones added to his intensity and attractiveness. She had to keep a grip on her emotions. Desiring him was way too dangerous.

  As if he could sense her thoughts, Lucan looked at her and began to cross the room. “I’m going outside to take a look.” Lucan spoke softly in
her ear, his breath fanning her neck. In the celebration, she hadn’t noticed his approach, and the warmth of his breath on her neck almost made her jump.

  To other women the implied intimacy of his whisper might be a small thing, but in all Cael’s years, no male had ever sought her out, whispered in her ear, or shared secrets with her. No one. Suddenly, she was all too aware of Lucan, his powerful shoulders, his corded neck, his chest that was as broad as the Dumaro desert.

  What was he thinking? Didn’t he have any regard for proper behavior?

  She should have admonished him. Instead, she kept her voice low. “You want to go now? What’s your rush?”