Juli D. Revezzo, author of the Gears, Cogs, and Puppy Dogs series and more

CHAPTER ONE

The whoosh of steel whispering through the quiet room played a soft tempo behind the silence as Aaron practiced.

The noise didn’t distract Stacy as she read the records of her ancestors piled before her. The files contained things she needed to know, things the harshad druids had hidden for centuries. Stacy didn’t like that secrecy; it seemed to her if the harshad warriors and druids hadn’t so closely-guarded their existence after her family immigrated to America, would she have doubted so much, as she had?

Beside the files lay a diary her great grandmother had given her, one by her ancestor Dechtire, she who founded Bitter Thorn Grove History Center, in the early nineteen hundreds. The history center which Stacy now oversaw, and that was, the harshad druids declared, the site of their sacred battleground. “I don’t want to see our descendants go through the same trouble and doubt I did. They need access to all these files and diaries.”

Aaron stood in the dining room, his fine muscles flexing as he practiced his sword work. “With the internet the way it is, trust me. There’ll be a leak sometime. Who knows what’s coming for the future of information retrieval. I’m sure our grandkids will have no trouble finding you.”

“Are you being prophetic?”

Another whoosh as he swung the sword back. The sword split into three blades. “Realistic. Our Technomages are savvy, but I don’t doubt someday, someone will find a way around their safeguards.”

Aaron passed her and gave her a quick kiss. In their bedroom, he put his harshad away then ducked into the bathroom, peeled off his shirt. He’d left the door open, so she got the full view, from her spot here.

He’d shaved yesterday, so what he sought in his reflection, she couldn’t tell. Stacy admired the smooth, angular cheeks and his green eyes, the cut of his jaw.

“I’ll make sure Cyreth double-checks those firewalls. God knows, if the children of today can breach government records, they’ll find us. I wonder if she wouldn’t mind dumping the computer system and going old school.”

Though, having seen how much data the harshad druids tabulated in their system, Stacy would hate to lose it all to some person’s memory. Even harshad druids had their limits, she thought. Or could they all do what Cyreth did? What about Dermot? Who was, now, the oldest druid she knew? She hoped, tonight, her dreams would help her find a way to convince them to give her what she wanted.

However, remembering one recent dream made her shudder.Ruth’s property in flames.

Whether her nightmare stemmed from these stories she read of her ancestor’s battles, or from stress, she didn’t know. Even now, the deadly flame licked over barn and grove in her vision. Someone—a woman’s voice she recognized vaguely—said, “Miss Macken, why’d you go?”

Go where?

“We’ll do our best to see no one but us can gain access to the records.” Aaron’s statement drew her back to reality. “Do you really doubt that?”

“Of course not.” Stacy supposed it didn’t matter, as long as her family had the most important parts of the tale. Which she absolutely meant them to. “Tell her it will give her something to do with the next five hundred years. That should cheer her up.”

He chuckled and shut the bathroom door. The shower faucet squeaked on.

I know what would make her happier, but I can’t vaporize Balor. No, Stacy knew they had no chance to defeat Balor permanently. By agreement, they had to settle for awaiting the next battle. Five hundred years from now.

And fight again, every five hundred years.

“Rules, rules.” She rose, returned the notes and papers to her bedside table, then flicked off the light illuminating the living room. Who’s monitoring that bloody agreement, and can I shred it when they’re not paying attention?

A light shone from the kitchen.

“Aaron, when did you go back into the kitchen?”

He shouted from the bathroom. “What was that about the kitchen?”

The shower’s heat attacked her skin as she ducked into the bathroom to repeat her question to which he answered, “I haven’t been in there in a while. Why?”

“The light’s still on. The sensor must be stuck again.” I should have that thing removed.

The electricians hadn’t built a light switch within easy reach of the door, so the condominium’s owner installed these movement-seeking sensors to turn them on and timers that shut them off after a few minutes of detecting no movement at all. Clever device, when it worked.

But sometimes, it didn’t. Like now. Stacy crept to the kitchen door, hoping the sensor wouldn’t see her; if indeed the lights were about to go out, she didn’t want to encourage them to waste more electricity. A quick flick of the switch would reset it.

She stepped over the threshold and froze seeing something that shouldn’t be in her kitchen: A Harbinger, a fiend of Balor’s devising and the bane of her existence. A beast somewhat like an alligator, a little like a dragon, that could become somewhat human when it wanted to sneak up on her. Clearly tonight, it preferred truth.

The Harbinger reeked of patchouli and musk as it crouched in her kitchen, peering at her with those evil quicksilver eyes, one claw on the light switch. The Harbinger smiled, saliva dripping from its fangs. “Heh … heh… Hello, Steward.”

Stacy scrambled back from the door and screamed.

“Aaron!” Stacy called his name, while keeping her attention on the Harbinger, and her back to the living room.

Great, make me regret coming back from the dead.

No, forget I thought that.

Why was it here?

“Aaron! Harbinger!”

Did he hear her that time?

What would a better-skilled druid do in a situation like this? Call a magical hurricane-force wind up, make the ground shake so the beast would lose its balance. Calling a few roots from the foundation of the condominium was an even more promising idea, if the property manager and her neighbors wouldn’t be happy with her. Would she even be able to pull off the trick?

Or could she make the Harbinger believe she’d done so?

Who are you kidding? You don’t have Ruth or Gwenevieve’s magic. Making those plants perk up, at the harshad dance had given her headaches for the following three days. Drawing an actual oak’s roots through the concrete flooring, she feared that might be the death of her.

“Why so surprised, S … steward? You didn’t think we gone, did you? Druids teaches bad.”

This Harbinger couldn’t speak proper English. Even as the thought registered in her mind, the monstrous thing roared at her. Fear pushed away her fleeting curiosity.

She chanced to glance away from the beast to seek out her butcher’s block. Her knives rested there, a hand’s-bredth from the Harbinger’s left wing. Damn.

Wing. The blasted thing had wings, like a dragon!

“Aaron!” Eyes wide, fighting panic, Stacy backed up and shouted again.

Nothing. Scolding herself, she ran to the bathroom and flung the door open. “Dragon!”

The shower curtain flicked back to reveal Aaron’s enticing, wet, and naked form. “What? Did you find a dragon movie on?”

Though she’d usually take the time to ogle and tease him, in all ways possible, now wasn’t the time. She pushed down the surge of desire, and pointed. “Harbinger. I mean, there’s a Harbinger—I think it’s a Harbinger—in the kitchen.”

He lunged out of the shower, dripping water and soap, but for all other intents, he went to scout and battle naked as the gaesatae class of Gaulish warriors the ancient Romans wrote about.

She stifled a laugh, not sure if her amusement rose from the irony, or history repeating itself before her eyes, or if from hysteria.

No, surely not hysteria. At this point in her life, she wouldn’t admit to that. Better to make her ancestors proud. Proud? Hell. Why? She’d not only failed to keep the slimy beasts off the sacred ground for very long, but she’d not kept them out of her home. The one other place she should’ve been safe.

As safe as Ruth? As safe as Gwenevieve?

She paused at the kitchen door to find Aaron studying the beast.

“You’re right,” Aaron said, calm as could be. “He does look like a dragon.”

The Harbinger hissed at them. Spittle flew everywhere. The toaster and kitchen faucet sizzled when the saliva hit their chrome surfaces.

Panicked sweat broke out across Stacy’s skin.

It was sweat, wasn’t it? Regardless, Stacy took a step back. Aaron put an arm out before her.

“What you think now, swords man?” the Harbinger cackled.

Aaron narrowed his eyes at the Harbinger. “You reek of patchouli, that’s what—or have you started doing illegal drugs now?”

The Harbinger’s leathery snout scrunched up. “What doing?”

“That’s what I said: what are you doing here, Wicked One?”

As he taunted the thing, Aaron’s protective wall of undulating glass sprang up between Stacy and the Harbinger.

The Harbinger sniffed at it. “You going to freeze.”

The beast’s raspy taunt made her realize Aaron was not only nude, but he was unarmed.

Only momentarily, though. Aaron reached into the ether and pulled out his harshad, its shaft extended to a deadly sword blade as it materialized. “You’ve no cause to be here, Wicked One. Our battle is done.”

Two years done. He was right to wonder about this beast. Why on earth would a Harbinger be standing in her kitchen, now? They’d defeated the beasts, and with their defeat, they’d vaporized. Or so she’d heard. Whatever happened, Balor’s latest attempt to reign on earth was over.

Something, some buried memory, niggled in her mind, but she pushed it aside.

Dear gods, why is the brute here now? What had she, what had her druids, overlooked?

She wouldn’t let it happen again. Grinding it over in her mind, she realized Gwenevieve’s story provided a vague reference.

Great. Just great. I’m making sure my descendants know this. You may have victory in your harshad battle, but threats will still linger.

Outside, crickets hummed loud in the night air. Shouldn’t they be hiding from the creatures that had obviously caught them unawares? But no, they sang on like every other night and here she stood facing down what shouldn’t be in her kitchen. Unprepared, like a novice. A novice that she, now, wasn’t.

Behind the magical wall, the Harbinger chuckled as if at some joke. She made sure at least part of the wall stood between she and it. Aaron’s living glass-like shield shrunk, curling around the Harbinger as if to encase their interloper. Stacy pursed her lips considering the glowing cage.

The Harbinger snapped at the living glass. “We will have you St . . . steward.”

“You won’t.” Aaron snapped his wrist and the glittering blade of his harshad glowed, then split into three. One pierced the Harbinger’s right shoulder, the other the left. The Harbinger yowled in pain and dug at his shoulders, trying to remove the blades. To no avail.

The third hovered menacingly before its quicksilver-colored eyes. When Aaron spoke again, even Stacy, who’d heard him speak similar words before, shivered at the command in his voice.

“You delivered your message, now go back to whatever barrow you escaped and deliver mine to Balor. There is no place and nothing for you and your kind here!”

The Harbinger wheezed, bared its fang-like teeth, and glared back. He even pressed against the glass until his snout bowed. Smoke rose from the Harbinger’s skin. A sickening sizzle hissed through the tense, silent kitchen.

Aaron’s chest rose and fell calmly though he gripped his harshad’s hilt. He held it so tightly, she thought she might hear his knuckles crack.

The Harbinger pushed again into the barrier. Was it going to break through?

Aaron engaged the Harbinger again. Stacy tried to recall the simple druidic spells Cyreth had taught her so far. Nothing seemed applicable here. She took another step back. Her butt hit something hard and warm.

The stove! Reaching behind her, metal met her touch. The teapot.

No longer boiling, but warm enough to the touch. She grasped its handle, plucked the top off, and flung its paltry contents at the invader. For good measure, she sent a druid’s hope after it: Die, fiend!

The warm water mixed with Aaron’s magical glass water wall, formed a vortex, then a column, shooting toward their foe.

The Harbinger-dragon thing roared, getting a mouth and snout full. With a gurgled snarl, the Harbinger dissolved into the vortex. The water-wall exploded, shards shot out everywhere, like blades, aiming straight for her eyes.

The teapot crashed to the floor.

Aaron spun and covered Stacy’s head with his arms. Alarms blared from overhead and noxious fumes filled her nose. “Oh gods!” Her stomach lurched; she’d never smelled anything as disgusting as those fumes. Not in real life, but she had smelled it while reading her ancestors’ accounts of Harbinger encounters, she realized. She didn’t know whether to gag or block out the blaring siren screaming in her ear.

Bitter Thorn Tribe

(Stewards War, book two)

by

Juli D. Revezzo

Synopsis:

Destined to be a bride, if only the gods will let her…

Stacy Macken tries to acclimate herself to her training under Tuatha dé Danaan druids—as if she doesn’t have enough work in planning her wedding to her beloved guardian and fiancé Aaron.

When Fomorii loyalists violate their treaty and seek revenge for their recent defeat, even Stacy’s druids are at a loss to explain the mayhem that ensues. Can Aaron and his brothers-in-arms stop it before Stacy and her family are caught in the crossfire?