Tristan's Peace - Chapter 7
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that you may recognize from King Arthur. Nor do I own any that you may recognize from the Dark Hunter Series by Sherrilyn Kenyon. I am merely playing with them for a time. So please don't sue me, I have no money. Nada, zippo, zilch.
A/N: This chapter is mostly for Acheron to explain to Tristan, to bring Tristan up to speed so to speak. Teagan's will come later. She's going to find out why she was brought back.
Cardeia - I'm happy that you like that flashback scene. It was actually a discarded chapter that I had laying about. One of the first I wrote for Part 2, but then that grew into something else completely. So I just tweaked it a bit. I'm glad it fit. I've decided that there will probably be quite a few flashback scenes as they seem to be drawing things together fairly well.
And in regards to Shay? It's obvious. But, Acheron will point it out.
Aha, the tattoo thing. Gonna keep going back to it for a while I think. The way it is, it's hard to NOT see it. It's like, when you see your man everyday, what do you look at first when you see him? Most things change on a person daily, something like a tattoo is more permanent. Like seeing it is comforting, knowing that person is truly still there. Did I explain that okay?
Oh, I'm short too. Only 5'2". So that's why Teagan and Carrick are a tad on the short side. Yeah! For short women! And PAX, it does mean something. I was going to name this part of the story that.
op - I'm so happy that you are understanding as this is so much fun to write. My writing style is a bit different, I know. Any questions you have, feel free to e-mail me!
melosine - Lovers? One is answered in this chap. Kinda iffy on the meeting part. Any suggestions.
snowbunny - I've read only one Sharpe book. But, I'm hooked on 'The Winter King.' Halfway done. Awsome!
2005
Acheron didn't miss the way Tristan reacted as he first saw her. He took hold of him, holding the man back. "Don't go rushing down there."
"Why not?" He shrugged Acheron's hand off him. His wife, whom he hadn't seen in so very long was down there...
"She doesn't know I'm bringing you in. She doesn't know you're alive." Acherons' voice level. His own mind going about a million miles a minute. This whole thing about them not being together was his fault... His selfishness as keeping Teagan alive...
"I'm not alive." He arched his eyebrow at the elder Dark Hunter. His lip curling to show just the barest hint of fang.
Ash snorted, trying his hardest not to laugh right then. "You know what I mean." Tristan had certainly honed his dry sense of humor.
Something along the lines of jealousy flooded Tristan's senses just then. As if his mind just registered...
He moved quickly to the window, watching the scene below. His mind becoming more jumbled than what it already was. To finally see her and not in his dreams. Only to have her in the arms of another man... And she looked so casual and relaxed in his arms.
She was smiling, so very unaware that she had an audience. There was something odd in that. That she didn't know he was here, so close to her that all she had to do was look up... She couldn't sense him. He wondered why.
"Is she in love with that were?" His eyes were glued to her hair. It was not really done up, just pulled back from her face with clips, the rest of it hanging in reddish gold waves down her back. It had gotten longer... It shifted like silk as she moved with the rhythm of the music.
For a moment, Acheron looked at Tristan in puzzlement. He hadn't said anything about Seaghdh's species. He momentarily wondered how Tristan had known.
Then it clicked. Of course Tristan would know. He was a scout. And becoming a Dark Hunter had only increased those abilities. Every sense that man had was amplified. And Tristan used them with such deadly accuracy.
So he opted to shrug his shoulders at him. "I wish I could say she was."
Tristan growled low in his throat. "What's that supposed to mean?" He didn't take his eyes off Teagan and the hawk below him.
"It's been over 1500 years and she's yet to take anyone to her bed." He wasn't looking at Tristan, his eyes were one the couple below. It was a purely one sided affair.
This perked Tristan's ego. But, he didn't let it show. "And the were?"
"I think she wants to love him." But, Acheron knew that she would never completely give herself to another man. Her experiences in the past so ingrained into her psyche that no man could ever compare to what she had once.
"Sit down, Tristan. I need to tell you some things about her."
0o0o0o
The smooth steps of Shay and Teagan were interrupted when suddenly Shay's body gave a lurch. Like he had been hit with some invisible force. It was almost painful.
There was something in this club with them. Someone. All his animal senses were flooding him with warning. It made it harder to think. He cursed himself, silently. He should have sensed the Hunter.
As he stopped, he pulled Teagan closer. Again bending his face into her hair, taking in her scent. He needed to leave. And leave now. He felt Acheron's presence. Something was about to happen. "I'll see you later." He said softly as he looked to the window above.
Seaghdh left the bar without another word, leaving Teagan to make her way to the small table where she had left this morning's liquor order. Not even remotly wondering why he left as quickly as he did.
0o0o0o
Tristan sat in one of the large leather chairs that Teagan had arranged throughout the large office. This one within sight of the dance floor below and still within reach for him to prop his legs on her desk.
It was a moderate size office, the big window being the focus of it all. The desk was a deep mohagany. Very heavy and very old. And the entire thing was covered with massive amounts of papers and empty coffee cups.
He had to smile, if only a little bit. Teagan lived much like she had at the fort. Everything in it's place except for her work area. 'Controlled pandemonium.' She had called it once. And she knew exactly where everything was.
"What did you tell her? The reason I'm here?" He snorted. "Or rather, the reason that you have a Dark Hunter that needs saving."
"I said only that I had a Hunter that needed protection. She's the one that thought that you, or whoever, went rogue."
"I haven't yet. Still thinking on that."
"No. Not yet. But you have been drinking." He watched Tristan, willing the scout to give him a reason for his actions. Taking blood from humans was a rule that could not be broken. To do so was an automatic death sentence. And Dark Hunters had no souls. To die without a soul was to be doomed to roam the earth as a Shade. Not able to go back, nor forward to wherever that Hunter deemed 'Heaven.'
"Yes." He reached into the front pocket of the white t-shirt he was wearing, pulling out a toothpick.
"And Artie suspects. She's sending one of her goons to track you down. Someone who wants her more than you." And why Artemis waited so long, Acheron didn't know. Teagan wasn't exactly hiding.
"Who?"
"Victor." It had been such a shock to Acheron to hear that the Roman was being summoned for this. He had thought that the scout had gotten his revenge when he was brought over. Apparently he hadn't.
Tristan's legs flew off the desk where he had them propped, the heaviness of his boots leaving a resounding thud as they hit the carpeted floor.
"What did you just say?"
"Victor."
"Thought I heard that." He rested his elbows on his knees, his hands out before him. "He's Daimon. That would explain why he disappeared after I cam back."
"No. He's not. I don't think so. No. Maybe. I don't know." Uncertainty laced his voice.
Tristan let out a short laugh, putting the toothpick between his teeth. "The mighty Acheron, unsure."
"Bite me, scout."
"I'd love to." Tristan raised an eyebrow. He watched Ash, trying to gauge the older Dark Hunters face. "So, after all these years, why tell me about him now? Why wait until now to tell me about Teagan?"
It wasn't any harder than it usually was, to judge his face. This time it looked as though Acheron was fighting a mighty war. It seemed as though he was greatly disturbed by what Teagan had gone through.
Like he really cared about her.
Acheron let out a big sigh. "A few reasons."
"Such as..." Tristan pulled out the chewed toothpick, looked at it, then put it back between his teeth.
"Victor's been let loose. I'm giving you a chance for your revenge."
"I'm going to kill him."
"I hope so." Ash sat back in the chair he had occupied. "I want you to protect her."
Tristan got up from his chair, his strides taking him against the large window. He watch Teagan below.
"I couldn't before." His voice low, so full of regret.
"You can now."
Tristan said nothing, only looking down below him.
"Look, Tristan, I'm giving you a chance to save your family. To go back and live it the way you should have." He was going to give them back the lives they should have had, had Victor not snatched her life. "She doesn't remember anything about how she died."
Tristan turned away from the window, his dark eyes questioning.
"She's starting to remember, though. Starting to remember her death. I need you to be there for her." Tristan heard the emotion in the elder Dark Hunter's voice.
"I don't want her to remember that." Hell, he didn't want to remember that. All that blood, the feeling of helplessness that he couldn't save her.
"Neither do I. But, there's more, Tristan."
"With you, there always is."
"Smartass." Ash put an unlit cigarette into his mouth. Settling back into the chair. "She doesn't remember much past that night she killed Justus."
"Any of it?"
Acheron shook his head, his long braided hair swinging. "Afraid not. Not much anyway. It's been coming in dreams. Or deja vu." But, just as Artemis jumbled Tristan's memories of the truth, Acheron had jumbled Teagan's memories of her horrible death. He had given her the memory of her life with Tristan. So that he seemed like a wonderful memory.
"So. She doesn't know we married." It wasn't a question.
Ash lowered his silvery eyes, not wanting Tristan tosee the depth of pain they held. "Not even that you two had children."
"My children?" He had not wanted to think of what had happened to his two children after he had died. They had only been six months old when their mother had been brutally murdered.
"Lived. In fact, your daughter married Lancelot's son."
Acheron watched as a look of peace settled on Tristan's face. There had been one good thing to come out of all this madness.
Tristan looked again out the window, his body heaving as he took a tremendous breath. He watched as the handful of papers Teagan had been holding slid out of her hands.
Teagan had seen him and was on her way up the stairs.
0o0o0o
"I swear to God they get better and better looking."
Teagan agreed, Dark Hunters tended to be on the hot looking side. She didn't look where Carrick was looking, her attention still on the liquor order that needed to be placed that morning.
"Sure they are. Artemis wouldn't take ugly men. Now would she?" She figured the young woman was talking about Adamo.
Adamo was a fairly new Hunter to her area of Rochester, New York. Not such a big city, but one that Acheron had deemed in need of protection. Not much in the way of Daimon activity, but that didn't mean that there wasn't any. So Adamo did the dirty work there. Along with two other Hunters.
Adamo was a nice enough guy, Teagan thought. Cocky as all get out, but he had his qualities. He feared nothing, was quick minded, and was strong as an ox. His squire, Brody was much like his charge.
His hair, like Brody's, was auburn in color. And like most Hunter's she knew, Adamo was well built. His chest was like a brick wall. And he never ceased to show it off. Either wearing close fitting t-shirts or tank tops. And he was constantly trying to get into Teagan's bed. He'd been trying to get with Teagan for many years.
Much to Shay's dismay.
Where Adamo was just in it for a fling, Teagan knew that Seaghdh, wanted more. He had told her more than once that he loved her.
But, Carrick wasn't looking at Adamo, she was ogling the Dark Hunter up in her office as he stared at the two women below. "This one's different T. I've never seen tats like that. Especially on the face."
Adamo didn't have any tattoos. None that could be seen. His bow and arrow brand was below his belt, way below his belt. And she realized that he wasn't even in the club at all. She couldn't sense his presence, he was out of her range.
Teagan's head snapped up, her eyes going to the window up above. The liquor order falling out of her hands.
A/N: So. Should she run happily into his arms, or should there be something else? I've re-written that chapter so many times. I'm just torn on how I think she should react to him. I'm debating whether or not to have Teagan confront Ash before or after she sees Tristan. Suggestions are welcome.
And for those who wondered at all the good looks of the Hunters and Weres, If you read Ms. Kenyon's books, they are all incredibly good looking men. Thought I'd continue the trend. LOL! I am so thankful to be playing with her men.