Promise

By Kim Cleary

Being stuck on the mortal world sucks. Being stuck on earth without powers, utterly chafes. He will have to grovel to his goddess to go home, that is when she decides his penance is done. Lord Gawain is not impressed with waking up on earth, but if Danu wants an apology she will get one. Eventually. No matter if he's actually sorry or not. Which he isn't, of course.

 

That is until he meets Kitty, a brave and beautiful mechanic caught in the middle of a vicious turf war.

 

He can't live forever on the mortal world, but that apology that will get him home? He can't say it. Not any more. Not if it means abandoning the woman who has roused his long withered soul to life.

 

An age ago, Lord Gawain swore to serve the goddess, but how can he choose between his promise to the goddess and the tempting promise of sweet mortal love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: kim cleary
• Release date: Dec 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393928430

Kim Cleary

Kim Cleary is the award-winning author of Path Unchosen, the first title in the Daughter of Ravenswood series, which earned a bronze IPPY award in 2015. She grew up in Birmingham, United Kingdom, studied medieval history and psychology at Adelaide University in Southern Australia, and has worked all over Australia and in London. Forced to leave a successful career in marketing after multiple sclerosis damaged her hands and prevented her from typing, Kim learned how to write using voice software. A self-described chocoholic, Kim loves writing, gardening, cooking, playing with her dogs, and spending time with friends. She lives with her husband and two dogs, an adorable Cocker Spaniel and a mischievous Moodle, in Melbourne, Australia.

Book preview

1

Ethan twisted onto his elbows and rubbed coarse gravel from his skin.

Ethan Davies?

It wasn’t his name, but it was the only one in his thoughts. It jabbed in his head as if he needed to know it, and what it meant. He said it aloud and tried to trawl through his memories for a connection, but clarity rose and fell in slow ripples. Strange that he knew with certainty he’d never gone by the name Ethan, but he could not remember the name he used. He sat cautiously, dragged himself to the nearest wall, and slumped against a rusted sliding door.

He glanced along the street. Empty bottles littered the gutter, and ugly graffiti marred the mismatched walls on the opposite side of the road. A few people darted about their business as if desperate to dash from one place to another without being seen. He didn’t recognize the street. Yet there was something vaguely familiar about the city skyline he glimpsed in the distance.

A slow tingle of awareness climbed his spine. Damn the stars.

His Goddess had said she would fling him and his brothers-in-arms from the immortal realm, and she’d done it.

Sweet Danu in the heavens! He scratched his fingers through his hair and then circled his jaw to release building tension.

No sign of his friends or Nineve. What was he supposed to do? Walk across this mortal land brushing shoulders with its more than likely unworthy inhabitants? Patronizing thoughts wrapped around one another, but the alien ideas drifted away like comic speech bubbles on fluffy clouds. There was a story there. He just couldn’t grab hold of it, yet.

He stood, rolled his shoulders, and brushed dirt from his jeans. One knee jutted through a ragged tear, the denim hugging his hips as if well made to fit him. His mouth twisted into a sour expression. He rarely wore jeans.

He paced to the curb, shouted out the name Nineve and waited. No sign or sound of his beloved horse. With his fingers circled in his mouth, he blew a piercingly loud whistle and stood motionless, waiting for her whinny, or the clopping of her hooves on bitumen.

Not a peep of her broke through the hum of traffic noise and the sound of shops opening their doors and traders calling to one another from a few streets away.

Adrenalin spiked to his toes. If anyone hurt her; if anyone touched one hair of her glossy black mane, he’d see their body covered in pestilence, their family starved, their descendants feeble and debilitated. He took a deep breath.

He’d vexed the Goddess, his sweet Lady Danu, that much was obvious. But she wouldn’t punish Nineve. Him, yes, and a penance befitting the crime. If only he could remember what he’d done to anger her he could go about fixing it. But trying to remember felt like a scourer scratching in his brain. He didn’t need that.

He lifted his palms and raked his gaze from his fingertips to his biceps. Well-developed muscles filled his upper arms and shoulders. Were they even his? He’d never been able to maintain such definition before. The Scales of Justice, inked in a midnight blue tattoo, protruded from the black t-shirt sleeve on his left arm. A thick quarterstaff decorated his right.

The fitted t-shirt showed his body to the world in ways he was not used to. The hefty cloak he normally wore let him hide from view. His cloak. He spun to search the area, but the garment wasn’t within sight. Nor was his quarterstaff, his weapon of choice for the last few centuries. He blew out another sigh. How did Danu expect him to protect himself with a tattooed weapon instead of the genuine thing?

Still no idea of his name, but at least he remembered Nineve, his staff and his cloak. It was a start.

A taxi cab cruised past and stopped on the opposite curb at the beat-up apartment building daubed with spray-painted symbols and phrases. Noisy pigeons thronged about its pediment. A trail of their guano swirled with streaks of soot and created a charcoal marbled pattern almost down to the top of the graffiti.

An elderly woman alighted from the cab, her silvery hair tied in a tight bun at her nape. She steadied her weight on a heavy cane and fixed a long glare on Ethan before turning toward the metal door.

Something about her posture triggered a fleeting prick of recognition. He stared after her long after the door closed behind her, but he couldn’t quite grasp whatever caused the spark.

Not his first concern. What in the name of Danu had he done to deserve this enforced holiday in the mortal realm? He remembered her threat. With tightened eyes and chin high, she had radiated displeasure.

One thing for sure, she would let him work it out for himself and then expect genuine remorse and apology.

He rolled his neck from side to side, before dropping his head back and gazing at the heavens. Nothing to see but wispy gray clouds. A weak early morning sun poked its rays around the apartment block and heated his face. The day would get hotter. Already the pollution of a large industrial city scented the air. No doubt it would grow worse, too.

A black motorbike lay on the ground in front of the rusted door he’d rested against. An upturned helmet lay a scant distance away. Graffiti almost obliterated the sign on the door, Harry Sullivan and Sons Mechanical Repairs. Probably a small business gone broke. And who cared? No-one.

The huge street bike lay on its side, seemingly unwanted. He’d learned to ride on a small lightweight dirt bike in the hills above his home in the immortal realm. How hard could it be to manage this monster? Might be better than walking.

He glanced around again. No sign of anyone who owned the bike. Still no sign of Nineve.

He stepped to the bike, his tread heavy and uneven, as if his warrior training had up and flown away. Hefty buckled boots encased his feet. Biker boots. His eyebrows shot up. Was the bike his?

He stood the bike up to inspect it and sucked a breath through his teeth. A small set of measuring scales, etched in silver, decorated the left side of the bike. Holding his breath, he turned the bike to see its right side. An ugly scratch marred the paintwork. But, there it was, a short thick quarterstaff. He dragged the bike into the sunlight and let out a small moan.

Under the seat, etched in lead gray upon gleaming black, a horse galloped, her long, glossy mane flowing with the wind. His Nineve.

He straddled the bike and whispered a silent thank you. Danu might punish him, but she hadn’t deserted him. Hadn’t abandoned him alone and unequipped on the familiar yet so strange mortal world.

This was not the first time he’d annoyed his Goddess, nor the first time she’d whisked him to the mortal world to do a penance. He chortled to himself. No doubt it wouldn’t be the last either. First time he started his stint with a name he didn’t recognize though. He rubbed at his chin and tried to sort through his emotions. This fresh development was, unsettling. But he would work through, around or over whatever obstacles he met and make his way back to his beloved home.

Metal scraped against metal, the clanging sound coming from beyond the rusted door. He turned to face the noise.

The door slid open a few inches. A slim arm emerged. A grease-stained hand grabbed a hole cut into the metal and with a series of slight grunts the owner of the dainty limbs slid the creaking door wider.

Kitty wiped her hand on a rag, swallowed the rest of her coffee, and flicked the garage lights on. Another hot Monday. Time to open the workshop. Only one car to finish today, then she could visit her grandfather.

She lit the lavender and blue candles on her small altar and closed her eyes to pray as she had every morning for the past four weeks.

Please, Great Goddess and Mother of Mercy, wrap your healing cloak around Grandpa.

Send your energy to nourish and cure him.

Send your healing wisdom to his body to restore its sacred balance.

Thank you, Great Goddess, Mother of All Life.

Her previous prayers had helped little. The doctors scratched their chins and shrugged their shoulders. The condition was common enough, so they said, but his severity rare. He hadn’t responded to any of the treatments offered. But he wouldn’t give up, and neither would she. Not on the elderly man she adored, nor his beat-up antiquated garage.

Opening the workshop up was a double-edged sword. Unfortunately, the old-fashioned sliding door was either slid shut or slid open. Anyone could walk in. But they needed the business, and occasionally a customer did walk in off the street. With a sigh that was half for her grandpa, and half for the lack of enthusiasm she felt for the task at hand, she slid the deadbolt lock open. She hefted the corrugated door open a few inches, gripped her hand into a hole cut in the metal, and manhandled the door opening wider.

She gazed into a pair of pensive slate-blue eyes beneath thick hickory hued brows.

Her knees gave way for real.

It was as if invisible fingers stretched toward her and kidnapped her heart. She grabbed hold of the door to stop herself from falling into his arms.

Hair in shades of dark honey and caramel framed the man’s face. He stood a head and shoulders taller than her and had to be at least six feet five. Thor himself wouldn’t fill out the washed-out t-shirt better.

She stopped an urge to flutter her eyelashes and give him a girly giggle. But she couldn’t stop her gaze rippling across his shoulders, chest, and arms, down his flat abdomen and to his hips, then to the bike. A black Ducati Monster. A nice-looking machine apart from a few scratches running along one side.

For heavens’ sake. She took a step back as she folded her arms across her chest. She wasn’t a distressed damsel in a Mills and Boon novel.

She yanked her gaze back to his eyes. What do you want? I don’t normally work on bikes.

He leaned his head through the door opening she had made and gazed around her workshop. Where am I?

His voice, as mellow as the morning’s first coffee, sent slight shivers across her shoulders.

It’s my grandpa’s shop, but I’m qualified—

I mean, I don’t know where I am.

A breath of wind swirled dead leaves and litter around his feet. The collection did nothing to lessen his aura of ominous mystique.

Bexley. She jammed her hand on her hip.

He didn’t look like a homeless bum; didn’t sound like one either with his deep, smooth, well-spoken voice. But he sure sounded confused. His brow furrowed and lips pursed. Soft pink lips surrounded by an even, dark stubble.

No way was this guy a bum.

She shook her head. Perhaps he was a posh sort from the other side of London. Too posh for the likes of her. Not that she was looking for anyone. He was probably high on cocaine or whatever the idle rich stuffed up their noses these days.

London, she said. In the UK.

Ah. He rummaged his hand into his pockets and gave a self-depreciating laugh. He dropped his gaze to her work boots. You work here?

She pointed at her overalls. I don’t wear these to make a fashion statement.

He lifted his shoulders and then let them drop slowly. "No money, or I’d pay Mr. Sullivan to fix the damage to my Nin—my