Prologue

Agincourt, Friday, 25 October 1415

“Here is war at its most profound,” Menes mused as he leaned forward from his seat high on horseback and peered down at the vast field below. “An army of so few making bold against an army of so many.”

“Methinks you are seeing parallels, my friend.”

Menes turned to look at Ramses who was a befreckled, redheaded adolescent boy. More of a young man, in truth, but he had yet to fully grow into his body and his looks. Although, with one of the greatest pharaohs of all sharing possession of that gangly frame, it lent an air of surety and power that had no doubt been lacking before. An air that forced others to obey his commands, even if they weren’t always sure why they felt compelled to do so. The fact that he was ever at Menes’s right hand made it very clear to other Bodywalkers exactly who he was and exactly why he should be obeyed at all times. And in the event of utter stupidity, Ram had his ways of making himself very, very clear on a matter. Ramses may have conceded the throne of the Bodywalkers to Menes, long ago acknowledging him to be the better ruler of the Nightwalker breed, but Menes did not count himself above Ramses in any way other than by Bodywalker law. They were as equals. They had always been so. Always would be so.

“You only say that because the Politic is outnumbered by the Templars four to one at the moment.” Wry amusement touched his lips. Their war, the war between the Templars and the Politic, would never end, it seemed. Century after century, death after death, it always turned the same, grinding like millstones. But for the first time the Politic was in danger of losing everything. If that happened the Bodywalkers would fall under the feverish rule of Odjit and her followers, who would rule the Bodywalkers with a zealous fist.

“You know the prophecy as well as I do. The day the Templars wrest power from us, Amun will rise to champion the underdog Templars, gifting them with power and rule for their devoted service to the gods.”

Ram snorted derisively. “That’s the prophecy as told by their oracles … not by any oracle we have ever known. If it held any truth, Cleo or one of our other powerful oracles would have concurred.”

Menes nodded. He knew that as well as Ram did. However, part of what made him a good pharaoh was that he never dismissed anything out of hand. Over his many lifetimes, while sharing bodies with a great variety of hosts, he had learned that there were rarely any absolutes in the world. Even death was not an absolute. Not to their kind anyway. It was to humans. Which proved another point. One man’s absolute was another man’s maybe. To the Templars, Amun’s prophecy was an absolute. To them, it was a big maybe. Or in Ram’s assessment, a huge “not bloody likely.”

“The longbow,” he said, shifting attention back to the war between the French and the English. The English king, Henry, was proving to be a master tactician. Or perhaps just a dogged one. Menes could not decide. But watching the English decimate the French from a distance with the impressive use of the longbow in spite of having an undermanned army riddled with dysentery and other illnesses, he thought it was perhaps a healthy dose of both. “I once thought it an awkward instrument. But I see in proper hands there is much to be said for it.”

“You could say the same about Bodywalker rule,” Ram teased him.

Menes reached out to cuff him but froze mid-action. He took in a sharp breath, drawing Ram’s quick attention.

“She’s here,” he said on a rushing exhalation. There was no need for him to explain. Ram knew whom he meant just as assuredly as Menes’s quickening heart and soul did. Menes had waited so patiently these past few months, his life feeling void and half present even as he spent the time Blending with his new host and familiarizing himself with the state of Bodywalker affairs after a century of his absence …

He had always known her. Lifetime after lifetime they found each other, connected to each other, loved each other in ways no one else could possibly ever understand, though he saw the envy in their eyes as they wished that they could. There was nothing so satisfying, so comforting, as knowing that one’s soul mate existed and would follow him from lifetime to Ether to new lifetime and back to Ether again. And though they could not touch in the Ether, just the presence of each other was beyond comforting. Beyond simple pleasure. And patiently they would wait for their next lives, their next bodies, when they could touch each other once more.

He could feel her now, her presence like sunshine burning through full armor, and a bead of sweat rolled down the channel of his spine. He felt like a child anticipating the sweetest of sugar, all gap-toothed and silly grins and grasping, eager fingers. Oh yes, his fingers would be grasping and very, very eager.

But softly now …

He whispered the warning into his eager brain, using more forceful methods to quiet his libido. She was newly born, not even begun to Blend with her new, unsuspecting host. And that was perhaps the best of it. Every time he got to coax a new woman with an old soul inside of her to love him. He would woo and romance her, convince her to love him while the soul he loved was being reborn inside of her.

“This is the part I love best,” he said softly.

“I am well aware,” his friend said with amusement. “One day she will be born into a woman who will not fall for your charms so easily,” Ram said.

“Oh, I but live for the day!” With a whoop he kicked his steed into motion. Over his shoulder he shouted, “Where would the fun be in an easy conquest?”

Ram looked down at the forces at war below.

No doubt King Henry would have enjoyed an easy conquest right about then. As it stood, he would very likely be dead by night’s fall … and all his forces with him. But he would not go down easy, a trait he admired in both the English king …… and in himself.

The Lost Scroll of Kindred

… And so it will come to pass in the forward times that the nations of the Nightwalkers will be shattered, driven apart, and become strangers to one another. Hidden by misfortune and by purpose, these twelve nations will come to cross-purposes and fade from one another’s existence. In the forward times these nations will face toil and struggle unlike any time before, and only by coming together once more can they hope to face the evil that will set upon them. But they are lost to one another and will remain lost until a great enemy is defeated … and a new one resurrects itself …

Chapter One

Dr. Marissa Anderson sat tapping a pencil against the corner of her desk with a very uncharacteristic fidgetiness that reflected the utter turmoil of her thoughts. She was trying to figure out what had so unsettled her. Her life, as a whole, was going along swimmingly. She had settled into her position as the precinct’s head psychiatrist very well. She was even learning how to balance that difficult line between professional relationships with her coworkers and the extension of it into personable, casual ones. Making friends in a predominantly male precinct full of alpha-type personalities who hated being reminded they had emotions … yeah, that had its difficulties. Especially when she often stood between them and their reinstatement or continuation of their duties. But they were beginning to get the picture that she didn’t take some kind of sadistic pleasure in holding that kind of power over their heads. Quite the contrary. As long as they confronted and dealt with whatever issues they had, she was happy to be a strong advocate for the continuation of their careers.

Career. Check.

Her sister, who had been known to get into trouble now and then, had been blessedly well-behaved and had managed to obtain at least a part-time job.

Family. Check.

And while Marissa wasn’t in a relationship at the moment, she was fine with that. She had never felt the need to define herself by the regard of a man, as some of her friends and relations were wont to do. She was comfortable with herself, her home, her lifestyle, and did not feel she was somehow failing in life because she didn’t have a significant other.

Personal life. Ch …

She hesitated in her thoughts, the tapping of her pencil reaching critical mass.

Three weeks …

The thought whispered with an insidious sort of mocking in the deeper corners of her mind. Her skin went a little hot and her face tinged with heat immediately after. The response made her growl under her breath in frustration and she chucked the pencil across the room in a rare fit of pique, watching the thing bounce off the window and land in the potted plant beneath it.

With a sigh she made herself get up and cross the room, bending to peer into the wilds of the ficus. She didn’t quite make it that far. Through her windows, she caught sight of a streak of brown and black bolting across a not-too-distant field, leaping so high off the ground it was astounding, before barreling into the man in its path and sinking vicious teeth into the nearest appendage.

“Get down! Get down on the ground now!” The command made her freeze, the deep, authoritative voice washing over her and giving her that queasy mixture of fear and admiration in the center of her stomach. Chills raced across her br**sts even as heat raced into other places.

Her eyes yanked away from the dog and its victim and zeroed in on the owner of that voice. The victim was dressed in a thick padded suit designed specifically to withstand the majority of a dog bite. However the man commanding the dog … the man training him …

Jackson. Sergeant Jackson Waverly was one of the two k-9 officers in the Saugerties, NY police department. His former canine partner, Chico, had died about six months earlier in the line of duty. Sergeant Waverly had not taken it well at all. To him it had been no different than if he’d lost a human partner. And considering Chico had laid down his life to protect his partner’s, she’d say he’d earned that sort of respect.

For a while there she’d been pretty sure Jackson wouldn’t be able to bring himself to continue on as a k-9 officer. He’d been putting off training with his new dog, showing very little interest in the handsome German shepherd named Sargent. But three weeks ago …

Three weeks …

Three weeks ago something had changed dramatically in Jackson. If anyone had asked her to explain, she probably couldn’t have done so with any real clarity … not without sounding like a goofy schoolgirl with a demented little crush on some boy.

Oh, she had to admit that on some level she’d always found the man appealing. How could she not? He was damn beautiful for a male and any woman with half a brain and at least a partially working libido would accede to that. He was tall, but not overly so. Tall enough to be several inches taller than her lofty height of 5′7″ with the constant addition of three- to four-inch stiletto heels. It was such a rare thing, really, for someone to make her feel smaller and more delicate than she truly was. But he also made her feel …

Scorched was the only word she could use to describe it. It was how she had felt that day, three weeks ago, when he had gone from being this sometimes-appealing/sometimes-pain-in-the-ass man to …

“I’m putting you on notice, Marissa … I’ve come to realize that there is no one on this planet, in this time, more intriguing than you are. You are a puzzle, and a pretty one at that. I think perhaps it would be a terrible shame if I were to let you slip away from me.”

Who the hell says that to a woman? It ought to have been obnoxious. Or at the very least corny. It ought to have been offensive and uncomfortable, considering he was technically a patient of hers and it would be a serious breech of ethics to entertain what he was teasing her with.

So no. She’d shut herself off from it. Pretended that it had been his idea of a mean little joke, of wielding male authority over a woman he hadn’t been able to conquer with his charming smiles and ridiculously beautiful green eyes. Those clear as glass, bright as a turquoise ocean eyes, eyes so brilliant they jumped out of his nobly featured face. Even more so, it seemed, than usual these past three weeks.

Poppycock, she thought to herself fiercely. He rattled her cage and made her take notice and now she was having flights of fancy every ten minutes … not to mention quite a few steamy dreams with Jackson as the headlining star.

Part of the problem, she realized, was that he was always there. Every time she turned around she could see him or hear his deep resonant voice. Like now, as he recalled his dog with a sharp, strong command, sending the powerful animal gamboling back across the field to his side where Jackson kneeled and gave him praises, tousling his ruff, and giving him his favorite toy as a reward.

It didn’t help that the practice field was right outside her windows. It was damn distracting, watching him be stunningly authoritative and then, by turns, goofy and fun-loving as he played with Sargent between rigorous training sessions.

But in no time at all the intensive training would end and so would her equally intensive immersion in the tempting Jackson Waverly sightseeing tour.