Chapter Twenty-Eight

 

From his favorite corner table at the Pickled Eye Saloon, Bartholomew watched passengers from Astoria disembark from the small steamer that had just docked. He nodded to Pete Maddux, Ed Fischbocker and Ed's wife, who waved greetings to him through the window. Another day he might have invited the men in for a drink, but he was aware of the curiosity he had aroused by resigning his post and he was in no mood to answer questions.

Max Hennifee appeared at Bartholomew's side. "See anyone what looks to be yer replacement?"

"Not yet."

Bartholomew tipped back his head and guzzled the last ounce of ale in his glass. It was his third and had done little more than the others to alleviate the sense of doom with which he had awakened that morning. Without a word, Max picked up the empty glass and headed back to the bar.

For once, Bartholomew knew the cause of his premonition of death and destruction. A week had passed since he'd wired the Lighthouse Board for a replacement. The man would be arriving any day now. Which meant Bartholomew was about to run out of excuses for hanging around Tillamook doing nothing but drinking coffee, or ale as it was today, and watching the comings and goings of townspeople and strangers.

Never would he admit that what he had truly been watching and praying for, was old man Biggs rowing up to the dock with Ariah and her luggage in tow. Common sense argued that it was a foolish long shot, yet love had never been reasonable and Bartholomew was no longer certain he wanted to be. The truth he had been trying to drown this day at Hennifee's saloon was that he had lost his gamble. She was not coming. To him that was a sort of death; the death of hope, and of dreams.

Truth was a far bitterer brew than what Max served him. He took the refilled glass and drank deeply. If luck was with him, he'd be drunk enough by bedtime to sleep through the night without dreams haunted by the sight, smell, taste and feel of Ariah.

A small wiry man stepped off the steamer. Bartholomew studied him as the stranger looked about. A satchel sat at the man's feet. He wore dark, sensible clothing, with a cap set forward on his forehead, a bit jauntily to one side as if daring a man to knock it straight. His dark-tanned skin, crinkled about the squinted eyes and the hard mouth, gave him the look of a seaman.

For a moment, Bartholomew felt frozen. Cold dread sat on him, like sixty-five tons of killer whale. He shook off the weight of his reluctance and rose to his feet. The time to finally, irrevocably, give up his position as Head Keeper of the Cape Meares Light had come.

Before he reached the door, the wiry stranger stepped inside. He looked about, and headed for the bar where Max waited. Bartholomew hovered nearby while the man ordered a mug of locally brewed ale.

"The Cape Meares Lighthouse, where it is from here?" the man asked Max in a heavy accent.

Hennifee glanced at Bartholomew over the man's shoulder. "West as far as ye can go, then south couple o' miles."

"There is a road goes there?"

"Naw, gotta get Ol' Charlie to run ye 'cross the bay on the Henrietta to Barnagat. 'Tis trail from there on, up over the mountain to the light."

The man quaffed his ale in one long gulp and clanked the mug back on the bar. He fished inside his shirt for his monkey bag, came up with a handful of change and carefully counted out the correct amount. A sailor from a foreign port, Bartholomew decided. One who knows that local brews are cheaper, if not better tasting. One who'd been in the country long enough to understand its money system and not lose the flavor of his native tongue.

"Thank you, my friend. Tell me, can you now, where to locate this Old Charlie?"

Again Max Hennifee's gaze met Bartholomew's. Bartholomew stepped up to the bar next to the stranger.

"Right outside where you got off the steamer." He held out his hand. "I'm Bartholomew Noon, the keeper you're replacing at the light. Welcome to Tillamook."

♥ ♥ ♥

As if his spoon were a shovel Seamus scooped hot mush into his mouth, smacking his lips between bites. "Eat up, lass." He pointed with his chin to her untouched bowl while he soaked up the last of his breakfast with a chunk of bread.

"I'm not hungry."

Seamus grunted disapprovingly. He'd not seen her eat more than a few bites since Bartholomew left. Indigo half-moons underlined her eyes and her cheeks had begun to appear hollow. "Go on an' fill yer gullet, lass. Ye may need yer strength 'fore the night's o'er."

"Why do you say that?"

"Bad storm a-comin'."

Ariah no longer smiled indulgently at the old sailor's predictions. The man had an uncanny knack for reading weather signs.

Later, that afternoon, when she went out onto the front porch to shake the rug from the vestibule, she saw Seamus standing on the boardwalk, flanked by his goats, all of them staring out to sea. Silhouetted like that against a dull, cloudy sky and the gray sea, nary a line between to mark the horizon, he created an image that made Ariah's fingers itch for paints and canvas, though she had never painted in her life. The bent old man in his baggy, short-waisted trousers and bright red galluses with sleeves rolled high to expose tan, wiry arms gave Ariah a sense of pensiveness and longing.

He had sailed the Pacific Ocean half his life, and before that, other more exotic waters. He had witnessed strange lands and strange peoples, savored foreign flavors and wondrously exotic scents. Though he had never married, his hands, when young, had no doubt explored dark and forbidden feminine textures. It tantalized her to think of the tales those bewhiskered lips could tell. Yet he was stingy with his words. Perhaps he feared that the treasures buried in the calm harbor of his memory would lose their preciousness once shared. If she could paint the scene before her, Ariah decided she would call it Remembering.

Ariah went back inside, leaving the old sailor to decipher the cryptic messages of wind and cloud. She was late with Pritchard's supper. His eight hour watch had been extended to twelve hours, ending at eight p.m. when Seamus took over. After preparing a tray, she hurried toward the light, Apollo dogging her heels until he spotted a rabbit and bounded after it.

Her husband was on the top level polishing prisms when she found him. "Pritchard, your supper is downstairs."

"Good, I'm famished." He dropped his polishing cloth and greeted her with a kiss, then scampered down the stairs, leaving Ariah alone to stare out the wall of windows at the sea below.

Row upon row of huge waves rolled in to crash against the bluff. Ariah could hear the thunder of it, even if she couldn’t see it. The waves stretched far out into the sea. As each crested, the wind kicked the frothing water into towering spumes of sea spray. Ariah watched the waves collide wildly with Hat and Sea Lion's Head Rocks and almost felt the cool spray on her face and taste the salt. The sky had grown dark and ominous. Seamus's prediction of a bad storm was proving true.

Perhaps it explained the restlessness that had come over her the last few days. Knowing it would be foolish, she resisted the urge to race down to the beach where she could more fully experience the storm's fury. The trail was difficult to hike in dry weather; in wet, it was often impossible. More so after dark. Instead, she allowed herself to drift into the dream world of her day on the beach with Bartholomew, and their lovemaking in the woods. So absorbed was she in her thoughts that she was unaware of her husband's return until he encircled her with his arms and drew her back against him.

"Um, you always smell so good." Pritchard nuzzled her neck. "Are you through yet with . . .?" He halted and tried again. "Tonight . . . can I stay with you? Please? I want you so, Ariah. Surely your woman's time is over by now."

Ariah's heart sank. She had put him off for a week on the phony excuse. If she allowed him the intimacy he sought, he would soon know she had been lying. Worse, he would also know she wasn't the virgin she had been on their wedding night. Yet she could think of no way to deny him. Nor, other than her own reluctance, did there seem any reason to. The fact that Bartholomew had not answered her letters told her he no longer wanted her. Without him in her life, it seemed unimportant what happened to her.

Closing her eyes and trying to ignore the hardness of her husband's arousal pressing into her bottom, she said, "Yes, Pritchard. I believe it is time we truly began this marriage."

Panic fluttered inside her the moment the words were out. She did not love this man. It was wrong for her to stay with him, wrong to fool him into believing their marriage might be a happy one. But, if she left him, where would she go? Who would protect her when Uncle Xenos caught up with her? And what if she was carrying Bartholomew's child? What would she do then? Unmarried and alone in a strange city somewhere with no one to turn to, what would become of her?

Pritchard was nibbling on her ear with more finesse than she would have thought him capable of. One hand had found her breast and was kneading it rhythmically. Already his breathing had become ragged. She tried to push away from him. "Please, Pritchard, wait until tonight. Someone might see us."

"Who?" he breathed into her ear. "Seamus will be asleep by now and Uncle Bart is gone. Who else is there to see us?"

His hands moved to the buttons on her dress. Shocked by the intensity of his ardor after all the weeks when the attention he gave her was sporadic and sometimes more brotherly than romantic, she jerked herself free and pivoted to face him, but the words she had been about to say died in her mouth. Two men were approaching the light; Seamus and a stranger.

"Bartholomew's replacement," she murmured.

"Holly Hector! You're right, who else could it be?"

Ariah gave a dejected sigh. "He'll want to see his quarters and get settled in. No doubt that's why Seamus brought him down here, to find me."

Pritchard started down the stairs. "Maybe he's just eager to see the light."

The two men had reached the top of the stairs to the lower level by the time Ariah and Pritchard emerged from the tower. The stranger was past his prime, yet still well-fit. His steps as he descended the stairs were brisk and sure-footed compared to Old Seamus's slow shuffle. He seemed familiar, yet she was certain she’d never seen the man before.

Conflicting emotions roiled inside her as she watched him come toward her. She could no longer pretend that Bartholomew might still return. Yet she would be free now to seek him out, if she dared. Would he greet her with welcome or rejection? As the world closed in on her, hope and despair tangled in her mind.

Why did Bartholomew have to leave? This was his world. It was everything he loved; the sea, the woods, his birds. She was the one who should have left. Except that she, too, had come to love it here. The very thought of leaving was painful, though she would do it in a heartbeat if it would reunite them. Her longing for him was like a living presence that haunted her day and night.

Now this new keeper had come to make everything irrevocably final. He would live in Bartholomew's house, sleep in Bartholomew's bed. Ariah felt as though she were being forced to look inside a casket, not knowing who she would find there, and terrified it would be her own soul staring open-eyed back at her in Bartholomew's clothes.

"'Tis a good thing ye arrived when ye did," Seamus was saying as they walked up to the couple waiting outside the lighthouse door. "Sou'wester blowin' in, bad 'un."

Ariah sensed that the man was paying Seamus no mind. His attention seemed focused entirely on her. At Seamus's introduction, he pulled his cap from his head but did not smile. His blue eyes were cold as an arctic wind. Stiffening her spine, she held out her hand. "Welcome to Cape Meares, sir. I hope you'll be happy here."

♥ ♥ ♥

"Thunderation, Bartholomew!" Max Hennifee muttered. "'Tis beyond my ken that ye'd up an' leave us thisaway."

"Life is short, old friend, and over too soon," Bartholomew replied, undaunted by Max's dismay over his imminent departure. The steamer ticket he had just purchased rustled in his pocket as he raised his glass to drink. The evening steamer from Astoria had arrived ten minutes before. Unless the foul weather scared the captain into waiting out the storm, Bartholomew would hear the call to board for the return trip any moment now. From Astoria he would take a larger ship to Seattle, and go on to Alaska.

The saloon was far busier tonight than it had been this morning. Fishermen celebrating the day's catch lined the bar and overflowed onto the tables. Max moved down the bar, refilling glasses and cracking jokes.

"We might as well see all we can of this world while we're here," Bartholomew said when Max returned, "and enjoy what we can of life."

Cal, standing next to Bartholomew, placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. "I can't argue that and I doubt Max can either. What we're trying to say—" He slapped that same hand over his own chest "—at least, what I'm trying to say, is that I don't see what the confounded hurry is. Wait a month. A year. What can it possibly hurt?"

Bartholomew shrugged, unwilling to discuss the reasons he felt impelled to leave as swiftly as possible. Whether Ariah's marriage to Pritchard had been consummated or not, what he had done with her that day in the woods was adultery. If he stayed, he knew he would do it again. To expect him to keep away from her when she was only a boat ride away was like asking him to stop breathing. Outside, it was raining, but the sound was barely audible above the wind and the boisterous voices to be heard in the saloon.

"Runnin' sceered is what he's doin', Cal," Max accused.

Cal nodded. "Running from a blue-eyed angel named Ariah. Yeah, I figured that, but I still think he's foolish to go so soon. She's as taken with him as he is with her, if I'm any judge, and I'd bet my whole farm she comes looking for him before the month is out."

"Leave it alone, Cal." Bartholomew downed the last of his ale and slammed the glass on the bar, irritated by the men's constant needling. Leaving was difficult enough without them making it worse. "I know what I'm doing."

"Huh! Coulda fooled me."

"Mr. Noon?"

Bartholomew and Calvin turned to the boy standing in the doorway. "Which one do you want?" they asked in unison.

The boy, one of Clyde Tavish's, judging by the carrot hair and beaked nose, studied the smeared ink on the wet telegram he held. "Bartholomew," he announced.

"Here, son." Bartholomew dug into his pocket for a coin, which he dropped into the boy's grubby hand.

"What is it, Bartholomew?" Cal watched his brother frown as he scanned the few lines that made up the message.

"Doesn't make sense," Bartholomew said.

"What doesn't make sense?"

"This." He thumped the paper with his fingertips. "It's from the Lighthouse Board, apologizing for the delay in getting my replacement here and assuring me that the man would arrive tomorrow morning."

"Well, if that ain't the gol-dangedest . . ." Max stared at Bartholomew in bewilderment. "If yer replacement's still on his way, who was the feller you sent up to the light?"

Bartholomew's eyes glinted like black ice as he frowned. "I don't know. It has to be some kind of mistake."

An older gentlemen, trim but stocky, who had been standing on the other side of Cal, leaned over the bar and spoke to Bartholomew. "Excuse me."

The man was vaguely familiar; something about the generous mouth, Bartholomew thought. Yet he was certain he'd never seen him before. Twin streaks of white marked the man's thinning hair at the temples, but his face was virtually unlined, his mustache dark and full.

"Forgive me, but if I overheard you correctly," the stranger said, "I may have the answer to your question. Once you hear it, perhaps you'll be willing to help me, for I fear that the people at your lighthouse are in grave danger."

The hair at the back of Bartholomew's neck rose on end. The man's words, coming at the end of a long day filled with the dread that always accompanied his premonitions of disaster, were too timely to be coincidental. Already, adrenalin was pumping into his veins. Fear knotted his muscles. His voice, when he spoke, came out sharp and deadly as a skinning knife.

"I don't know who you are, mister, but you've got thirty seconds to spit out what's on your mind."

The stranger did so, quickly and succinctly, in the manner of a man well accustomed to persuading men to his own thinking.

Two hours later, Bartholomew was galloping through the darkness across the Tillamook plains, a small rescue party behind him. Wind drove the rain into his dark face, obscuring his vision and slowing the pace of the horse Cal had lent him. He jabbed his heels into the chestnut bay for more speed and ground his teeth in frustration. If anything had happened to Ariah, he would never forgive himself for not being there to protect her. Cal was right, his and Ariah's was a love too rare to let slip away. He never should have left her.

He cursed the bad luck that had flung a sou'wester at them tonight of all nights. Again and again he prayed they wouldn't be too late.

Though he was not greatly experienced in horsemanship, his natural affinity for dealing with animals forged a bond between him and the mount struggling to carry him to the woman he loved. Man and horse moved as one in graceful, efficient harmony. Between his thighs, he could feel the horse's powerful muscles bunching, stretching, reaching, bunching again. The bay staggered slightly as a fierce gust buffeted them. Bartholomew bent lower over the bay's neck to give the wind less bulk to catch and batter.

If not for the storm, he and his party would have landed at Barnagat by now. Bartholomew cursed Old Charley's faintheartedness in refusing to attempt the boat trip across the bay. Valuable minutes had been wasted in arguing with the man, more in rounding up Doctor Wills, weapons and horses. In this weather, the usual eight-hour trip over the mountain to Netarts and up the coast to the cape would take double the time. Barring complications. But the storm wasn't expected to let up for two or three days. And he couldn't afford to wait.

The chestnut bay slowed to cross a stream and Bartholomew cursed again. Already the water was rising, which boded ill for the condition of the many streams they had yet to ford. He prayed for the rain to let up and cursed it for existing at all.

Please, God, keep Ariah safe until I can get there.

♥ ♥ ♥

The new keeper held Ariah's hand overlong, caressing it with a gnarled thumb. Uncomfortable at the unwonted intimacy, she tried to free herself, but he held fast.

"Your mother, she is in your eyes," he said in a heavy accent.

A chill that had nothing to do with the icy rain skimmed Ariah's flesh. He had grown a beard and was had dressed differently than he usually did, but she knew him. Inside her chest she felt her heart shrivel and wished she could do the same—until there was nothing left of her.

The one thing she had feared more than any other had happened.

"A pretty one, Demetria,” Uncle Xenos said. “The hope of us all, until that misbegotten English dog shamed her. Katalavenis?" He spoke in Greek, and repeated the last in English. "Do you understand, child?"

Forcing her shoulders to straighten so he would not see her fear and despair, she said, "Yes, I understand."

"Ah!" he exclaimed with pleasure at her use of the Greek language. "At least your whore of a mother did not deny you your native tongue. And you know me, though we have never seen each other before. I am happy. You will restore the family honor, in spite of being a bastard."

"Don't you call my mother that. And I am not a bastard," Ariah blurted, this time in English. "My parents were legally married."

"Not legal!" Xenos shouted. "Not in eye of church."

"The church isn't God, Uncle Xenos," she retorted, wiping rain from her face. "And neither are you. You've no right to exact vengeance. That is for God to do. Not you."

Seamus had been glancing back and forth between them. Now he said angrily, "Ye lied, man? Ye ain't here to replace the Head Keeper?"

"No, he is here for me," Ariah said. "Pritchard, Seamus, would you leave us alone? My uncle and I have much to discuss."

"Wait a minute, Ariah," Pritchard objected. "This is the first chance I've had to meet any of your kin."

He extended a hand to the small man, oblivious to the dark undercurrents swirling about them. "I'm Pritchard Monteer, Ariah's husband."

Xenos cast him a disdainful glance and ignored the hand. "I am too late?" he asked Ariah. "You are married to this man?"

"Yes, and there's nothing you can do about it, so you may as well give up your vendetta, Uncle Xenos. Go home to Greece. You've done all the damage you can do to my family."

"You marry in Greek Orthodox Church?"

"No, but—"

"Then it is not legal and of no consequence."

"Hey!" Pritchard cut in. "What do you mean by that?"

Xenos ignored the young man. Hatred fired his blue eyes and sculpted his mouth in a sneer. "I return to Greece, yes. But only when I can once again face my papou, my grandfather, with pride. This cannot be until Polassis family has retrieved honor stolen so long ago by English dog who got you off my fool sister."

"Papa stole nothing from you," she cried. "He loved Mana, and she loved him."

"Love!" Xenos Polassis spat on the ground. "That is what I give for love. You are child, what do you know of love?"

Ariah stiffened. Her brilliant blue eyes, so like his, darkened. "I know more of love than you ever will. Your heart is too empty, too frozen, to feel love, but I have suffered its pain." Tears blurred her vision. She blinked to clear them, her head held high. "And known its joy."

Grinning, Pritchard grabbed her hand. "Ariah, are you saying that you love me?"

She yanked herself free. "Stay out of this, Pritchard. It doesn't concern you."

Hurt and perplexed, he stared at her. "But you're my wife, who else . . .?"

Xenos glared at him. "You forget you ever had wife, eh, little man? You find another." He crooked his hand at Ariah, motioning for her to come to him. The look he gave the other two men dared them to interfere. "Come, you go with me."

"No!" She spun out of his reach, moving closer to the edge of the bluff. She could not trust Xenos. He would kill her the minute they were out of sight of the station.

Her skirts billowed in the fierce wind, pressing against her legs so that she had to lean into the gale to keep from being forced backward. The wind whistled shrilly in her ear, seeming to taunt her. The crazy notion of giving in, of letting the wind carry her over the brink to the wild, crashing waves below, wove through her panicked thoughts.

Xenos started toward her. "You do as I say. No woman defies Xenos Polassis."

"No Greek woman, maybe," Ariah snarled back. "But I am American, and free. I choose my own husband, my own home, and," she added, glancing over her shoulder at the sea so far below, "if I am to die today, I will choose my own way to go."

Xenos raised his hand. Whether he would have struck her or aided the wind by giving her a gentle nudge, she would never know, for Old Seamus stepped forward to grab the man's arm.

"Belay that, lad. Don't like to shove me oar in where it don't belong, but I won't be havin' ye hurt the lassie."

Xenos shook him off with a Greek curse.

"I don't understand," Pritchard protested. "What's going on here?"

"'Tis clear as sunshine to anybody but a corkbrain," Seamus muttered. "The lassie's uncle here has it in his noggin' to make off with yer wife. It's why she come here in the first place, to hide out. Bartholomew told me 'fore he cut an' run."

Pritchard looked at Ariah. "You came here to hide from your uncle? I'm your husband, Ariah. Why did you tell Uncle Bart and not me?"

Ariah gave an exasperated sigh. "I didn't want to frighten you, Pritchard. Your advertisement for a bride explained that she would be living in a very isolated spot. I hoped Uncle Xenos wouldn't be able to find me here."

All he heard was that she had worried about frightening him. The words struck him at his most vulnerable spot. Did his cowardice show so plainly that even she had noticed? She hadn't hesitated to tell Uncle Bart her fears. Anger surged through him toward his wife for seeing through him so easily, toward his uncle for being the man Pritchard wished he could be, and wasn't. Most of all, toward himself.

"I'm sorry, Pritchard. As my only living relative, he could easily have gotten the courts to assign him as my legal guardian." Her gaze focused guiltily upon her young husband. "I needed a husband, a man who could protect me."

Pritchard straightened and firmed his spine. Whatever her reasons for answering his ad, whatever she thought of his courage, she belonged to him now. For once in his life, he was going to prove that he could act with honor and bravery.

"And that's what you got, a man to protect you." He stepped beside her and faced Xenos. "I'm sorry, sir, but you're not taking my wife anywhere."

A barrage of angry Greek words burst from Xenos. With one hand he snatched at Ariah's arm, with the other he reached inside his coat. When Seamus moved to interfere, Xenos pulled out a gun and whacked the old man on the head. Seamus slumped to the ground, his corncob pipe falling to the mud. Ariah screamed. She tried to go to the old seaman, but Xenos held her back.

"Get away, unless you want the same," Xenos warned Pritchard. "Almost twenty years I have given of my life to restore family honor and appease Papou for not watching my sister closer and letting her shame herself. Many times I go back to Greece in disgrace because I no find Demetria. Now I am old. I deserve to go home, sit in plaza, drink ouzo with friends, dance, watch grandsons grow big. Is right."

Pritchard swallowed hard as he stared at the cold steel barrel of the gun pointed his way. His knees began to shake, but he did not move. "Ariah is my wife, sir. You can't just take her from me."

"You did not marry in church; in God's eyes this is not legal. Now get aside or I shoot."

"Please, do as he says." Ariah tried to nudge her husband away from her, but he was rooted to the ground. The fool would get himself killed, just as her father had.

Rage boiled inside her. Knowing that to spit on a Greek was the worst insult she could offer, she spat at his feet. "I spit on you, Uncle Xenos. I am your zonia, your kinswoman, yet you value your goats more than me. Why should I give up my life to make some old man in Greece happy and get him off your back for you?"

"Arketa! Enough, woman!" he shouted back. "I am elder. To me you give respect."

"Why should I? You hounded my parents and denied my mother her homeland." Tears ran unheeded down her cheeks as she raved at him. "You helped put Mana in her grave with all your hate and vengeance. Still, you weren't satisfied, so you killed my father. I detest you, do you hear me? All Papa ever did was love my mother with all his heart and make her life one of goodness and joy. What gave you the right to take him from us?"

In fury, she lunged at Xenos. Too angry to fear the gun he held, she clawed at his rain-drenched face. "You killed him, damn you. You killed him."

Pritchard tried to pull her off, while Xenos shielded his face with his arm.

"Holly Hector, Ariah. You want to get us shot?"

"I don't care, I don't care." She leaned her head against him and let the tears, the pain and the animosity she had kept bottled up since her father's death burst free. "He took my father from me. My home, my friends, everything I ever knew in life. I didn't even dare go to Papa’s funeral. Damn him! Damn him!"

"Arketa! Make her to be silent," Xenos demanded.

"How did you find me? Why did you show up now?" she cried.

Xenos smiled and tapped a forefinger to his temple. "I use cunning, sneak into house of man . . . what is American term? Lawyer, yes, in lawyer's house I find note. It say Ariah Scott, Cape Meares Lighthouse, Oregon. I ask questions, find out where is this Oregon. When I arrive I go in tavern to ask how do I get to lighthouse. Big man comes up, gives me welcome to become keeper in his place. Thinks because I work my way here on ship and look like sailor, I must be man he is expecting. I say to myself, here is chance to surprise my slippery niece."

Ariah moaned. "Oh, Bartholomew."

"Yes," Xenos said. "That is name of man who send me here." He bowed arrogantly. "When I am home, I will pay for a blessing to be said for this Bartholomew."

His words brought to Ariah a memory from the stories her mother had told her of her people, and how they feared having curses placed on them. Breaking free from her husband's grip, Ariah faced her uncle, glaring at him with all the venom she could muster in her wet, bedraggled state.

"I curse you, Xenos Polassis. It is wrong to visit the sins of the fathers on the heads of the children, do you hear me? It's wrong. You are wrong, and you'll suffer for it, I promise you. Plutarch was right; your own villainy will be your downfall. I only pray that I be allowed to witness it and that your end be as bloody and senseless as the one you inflicted on my father."

"Okhi! No!" Xenos paled. "I did only what was right."

Dramatically, she pointed an accusing finger at him. "You did the devil's work, and I curse you for it, Xenos Polassis. Only if you leave and never come back can you escape it."

Flustered, Xenos tried to regain control of the situation. "Curse me all you want, but I will see this finished. If you want the man you call husband and the old one left unharmed, you will tell them to stand away, and come with me."

"No!" Ariah stared at him in calm defiance.

Outraged, Xenos struck out. The air rang with sound as his hand made contact with her jaw. Her head snapped from the blow and she reeled backward toward the cliff.

Instinctively, Pritchard retaliated with a strength he hadn't known he owned. Xenos's trigger finger flexed as nose tissues and bones shattered beneath the young man's fist. The gun fired, drowning out Ariah's scream.