Two weeks later, Sarah was lost. The pirated Isle of Grace cemetery map on her phone was useless. And the rustling and grunting sounds she’d heard from the woods told her she wasn’t alone.
She clutched her camera and studied the seventeenth-century headstones and crosses leaning every which way in the sandy soil. Ancient oaks layered with Spanish moss hid whatever—or whoever—had made those noises.
The hand-painted sign TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT. THEN PROSECUTED. NO KIDDING. nailed to a tree reminded her to keep moving. She couldn’t leave before photographing Saint Michael’s statue.
The headless archangel stood at the central tomb in the Cemetery of Lost Children, on a four-foot plinth with one hand raising a sword to Heaven and the other clutching his shield. She snapped a picture. He was naked, quite unusual for a colonial-era tomb, but she was more interested in the initials TT carved below his feet.
Sarah adjusted her hood and knelt on wet wildflowers to take more photos, her jeans soaking up the dampness. The rustling and grunting started again. A tingly feeling spread through her body. “Who’s there?”
A nearby group of blackbirds took flight.
She stood. “Hello?” Her voice echoed in the empty spaces around her.
A deer appeared from behind a limestone crypt, stared at her, then slipped into a copse of pecan trees.
Her shoulders dropped in relief. What is wrong with me? She wasn’t usually so jumpy. Maybe it was the cemetery’s creep factor. Maybe it was stress over her father’s health and their meeting with the social worker later today. Or maybe it was the fact that she couldn’t sleep without remembering the pressure of Nate’s lips against hers.
It’d been two weeks, and she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Or the MPs following him. Or that perfect, once-in-a-lifetime kiss. She touched her lips and studied Saint Michael again. He protected acres of defenseless, centuries-old headstones with a confidence she envied. If she had half his courage, she might not have ended up trespassing in an abandoned cemetery, at seven a.m., in the rain. Then again, he’d lost his head while she, at least, still had a job.
For now. She needed these photos for her grant proposal, and if she didn’t take them today, there wouldn’t be another chance.
“Lady Sarah.” The British-accented voice coming from behind her was heavier than a whisper but lighter than a question. “Have no fear.”
Her mouth went dry, and she turned, ready to use her camera as a weapon. Five yards away, a man emerged from behind a crumbling vault, too far for her to hit him with her camera but too close for her to run and not get caught. A green jacket covered black jeans, and his black boots crushed white daisies. He came forward.
“Who are…” She paused because his walk belied his height and width. It had to take tremendous strength to maintain control over every muscle so he could move with that eerie-yet-elegant fluidity. Before she could speak again, he swept his arm forward and bowed at the waist.
OhGodOhGodOhGod
“You’re…a…” She couldn’t even stutter the words Fianna warrior. Many believed that the Fianna had disappeared in 1149, after the Second Crusade, but she knew the truth. She wiped a sweaty palm on her hip and pretended that speaking to a man who’d committed his life to an army of merciless assassins dating to the Roman invasion of Britain was normal. Because, seriously, if he was here to kill her, she’d be dead already. “Aren’t you?”
He nodded and said in a modulated voice, “My Prince calls me Cassio. I carry a message.”
How long has he been watching me? “What message?”
Cassio shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. The shoulders of his coat were darker than the rest, soaked through. “You must stop your unholy toil.”
“My toil?” She removed her camera from around her neck and knelt to pack it away in her camera bag with her rolls of film. Her hands shook, betraying her calm and casual demeanor. “You mean my job at the Savannah Preservation Office? It’s only temporary until I return to the Smithsonian.”
“No, my lady.” Cassio pointed to Saint Michael.
Oh. That. “I’m just submitting a grant proposal. To restore a seventeenth-century diary.” She stood and inhaled the damp air, but the sting of mildew and decay burned the inside of her nose. She took another step away. “Not a big deal.”
He raised an eyebrow, deepening the scar across his forehead. “The Prince has requested you leave this diary, and the love story it hides, alone. ’Tis a sad fable, best forgotten.” Cassio held out his hands palms up. “No good comes from retelling old tales.”
So the Prince, leader of the secret army of assassins called the Fianna, was taking an interest in her research. What did such a powerful, dangerous man want with the diary of a seventeenth-century teenage girl? She exhaled and straightened her shoulders. A million thoughts raced through her mind, but one was uppermost: he hadn’t bowed all the way to the ground—the sign of imminent execution—yet.
She offered a pedantic smile, as if she was talking to a student in a graduate seminar. “The seventeenth-century love story between the brutal pirate Thomas Toban and his Puritan lover Rebecca Prideaux is not a fairy tale.”
“You are correct, my lady. Fairy tales don’t end with the hero killing the heroine because she betrayed him.”
His smile reeked of condescension, and she fisted her hand to stop herself from slapping him. Because hitting a ruthless assassin? Really bad idea. “You’re wrong about Thomas and Rebecca’s love story.”
“Yet your ideas about the lovers have been rejected.” He crossed his arms and gave her the same kind of narrow-eyed glare her boss had perfected. “By your peers, no less.”
The Prince had read her article in The British Journal of Eighteenth Century History? And knew about her Great Betrayal? Wonderful. “I don’t understand. As you say, my reputation is in tatters and I’m barely hanging on to my job. Why does the Prince care about my research involving Rebecca’s diary? I’d think, as leader of the Fianna, he’d have better things to do.”
“This is his better thing.” Now Cassio’s voice resonated with a darkness that sent shivers along her spine, burning and chilling at the same time. “The Prince won’t ask again, my lady.”
“I—”
“Sarah, don’t say another word.” The deep male voice came out of the shadows off to her left. “Cassio, back the fuck up. Slowly.”
Nate?
Sarah couldn’t move. Her limbs were frozen in place, partly from Cassio’s death threat and partly from Nate’s sudden appearance. What is he doing here?
Nate emerged from the shadows in a black field jacket, jeans, and combat boots, pointing a gun at Cassio. His long blond hair was tied behind his neck, and he didn’t stop moving until he stood between Sarah and the warrior.
“How now, brother?” Cassio tilted his head. “Let there be no fray between us this day.”
Nate moved his aim from Cassio’s chest to his head. “I told you I was taking care of this.”
“Yet you weren’t.”
Nate’s rough laugh could shred paper. “It’s been fifteen fucking minutes.”
“What’s going on?” Sarah stood to the side behind Nate while the two men appeared locked in some kind of fierce, silent battle.
Her breaths were so shallow, she felt light-headed, just now realizing the danger. Trespassing, defying her boss’s orders, and putting her job in jeopardy had been exhilarating until Cassio had showed up with threats and Nate appeared with a weapon.
None of this had been in the plan this morning when she set out for the Isle of Grace. And the last thing she wanted was for anyone to get hurt.
“Please, Nate,” she said softly. “Cassio was just—”
“I know what he was doing,” Nate said sharply, more to Cassio than to her since he hadn’t even glanced in her direction. “Now it’s time for him to leave.”
Cassio kept his attention on Nate, who was making his point in a physically dominant way. Sarah had spent enough time with men to read Nate’s stance. From his steady arm and the fact that he stood inches taller and wider than Cassio, Nate’s nonverbal cues implied that if he lowered his gun, it was because he was going in for a fistfight.
Cassio lifted a shoulder as if he’d examined the threat and found it wanting. “You understand the consequences?”
“I told you I did.” Nate nodded toward the damaged vault that someone had covered in plastic sheeting. “Now go.”
Branches cracked behind Sarah, and she spun around. Was that grunting? “Do either of you hear that?”
“Cassio?” Nate said. “I still see you. Why aren’t you leaving?”
Yes, she was sure she’d heard grunting. Almost like a snorting. “Nate?”
Cassio hit his fist against his chest and bowed his head. “As you wish, brother.”
“Nate!” Sarah pointed to the woods. “I hear—” Something loud whizzed by her head, and the reverb shut down the chatter of bugs. Gunshots.
“Sarah!”
She headed toward Nate and tripped over a grave marker. Her ankle turned, and pain shot up her leg. Nate ran over, and Cassio vanished. That’s when she heard footsteps behind the trees and another gunshot.
Someone was shooting at her.
Nate yanked her arm and dragged her along with him. “Run.”