Divine by Blood

There were muffled laughs and lots of heads shaking. Lori started to open her mouth to protest, but Morrigan ignored her, flipping on her flashlight and striding past her gawking friends.

“Just keep your flashlight on and keep moving forward. It’s really not very far. You’ll meet us about twenty-five feet from here just before the rear opening.” He grinned, which made him look like a really cute but mischievous twelve-year-old. “Have fun.”

“Thanks, I will.” Morrigan smiled back at him, wondering how old he was. At first he’d seemed way young, but he’d told the potbellied guy that he was finishing his master’s. That made him twenty-something, didn’t it? She hoped he was older. Young guys gave her a headache. The last guy she’d dated had been nineteen—of course, he’d acted like he was thirteen, but that had been no big surprise. If she felt years older than her girlfriends, she felt centuries older than the guys they hung out with.

“Are you changing your mind? It’s okay, you know.”

Morrigan jumped, realizing she’d been standing there holding her flashlight, staring into the tunnel and daydreaming about guys. No wonder she hadn’t had a date in months. She was truly a dork. And an overly mature dork at that.

“Oh, no! No. I’m not changing my mind. I was just waiting for you to tell me I could go ahead.”

“Oh.” He blushed again, and Morrigan thought his pink cheeks made him look adorable. “You can go ahead.”

“Good. Okay. See you on the other side.” Morrigan got on her hands and knees and, flipping the flashlight on, crawled into the tunnel and away from the group’s curious stares.

4

The tunnel turned abruptly to the right. Crawling, she followed it and the cave swallowed her. Logically, Morrigan knew she was only a few yards away from the rest of the group—that if she backed up she would pop out of the tunnel and would be on the well-marked pathway with its electric lighting system and its oh-so-safe handrails. But logic had little to do with how she’d felt since she entered the cave. The tunnel was small and smooth and pleasantly cool. She crawled on, enjoying the sense of protection the tight space gave her. When the tunnel widened just enough for her to sit on her feet, knees bent, she stopped. Morrigan spread her arms. Both hands rested on either side of the tunnel. She caressed the rock, concentrating and feeling carefully. Yes…only by touch and without looking she knew it when her palms brushed over selenite crystals embedded in the alabaster.

Light Bringer…

The name vibrated through her body and Morrigan felt an indescribable rush of excitement.

“Hello…” she whispered hesitantly.

We hear you, daughter of the Goddess.

Morrigan’s heart thudded heavily. Daughter of the Goddess? The crystals thought she was the daughter of a goddess! The thrill of the thought quickly faded. What would happen when the crystals found out they were mistaken? She wasn’t the daughter of any goddess. She was just an orphan kid whose family was kinda strange. Sure, like her grandparents, her mother, Shannon, had believed that trees and rocks and nature in general had souls, and that a god or goddess couldn’t be confined to a building. But Shannon Parker had definitely been mortal and not a goddess. Her death was all the proof Morrigan needed of that.

Embrace your heritage.

The words didn’t come from the rocks, but drifted to her familiarly through the cool air of the cave. Morrigan sighed and muttered, “It’s hard to embrace my heritage when I’m not really sure what that means.”

It means you are touched by the divine.

The immediate response startled Morrigan. The voices in the wind never answered her. She’d never had a conversation with them. Usually they were just random thoughts that she caught, like an overheard conversation. Sometimes she heard laughter. Sometimes she heard crying. But they’d never, ever responded to her—not even the many times she’d called out for her mother. A finger of worry shivered up her spine, but the sense of belonging and peace the cave gave her outweighed any trepidation she might have felt at the deviation from what she considered normal.

“I’ve been touched by the divine.” Morrigan repeated the words—testing them—tasting them—trying to wrap her mind around them. “And if that’s true, then the crystals really do recognize me,” she reasoned aloud, the walls of the narrow tunnel absorbing the sound of her voice. Morrigan spread her fingers wide against the skin of the cave and concentrated. “Hello,” she said softly. “Thank you for recognizing me.”

Instantly her palms began to warm. The crystals quivered against her skin and then the warmth intensified and the rock began to glow. Morrigan was utterly intrigued, completely absorbed in the light she was creating. It was different from the little flame that sprouted from her hands. That never lasted long and left her feeling breathless and what her grandma described as “out of sorts.”

Lighting the crystals made her feel powerful.

She knew without any doubt she could turn off the flashlight and create enough light by which to guide herself. And she wasn’t just making light—she was also creating warmth. If someone touched her skin it would be warm, maybe even hot. It was like she had found a power source that only she could tap into, and it lived in the crystals of the cave.

“Hey! Are you doing okay in there?”

Kyle’s voice made Morrigan jump. She pulled her hands from the tunnel walls. And the crystals remained lit. Awed, she stared at them.

“Yeah! Sorry!” Morrigan yelled down the tunnel. “I just stopped to look at some of the crystals.”

“Well, the group is out. We’re waiting for you,” he yelled back.

The internally lit selenite was incredibly beautiful. It caught the surrounding alabaster, making that section of the tunnel glow with a pure, white light.

“Morrigan?” Kyle’s voice sounded closer, which jerked Morrigan out of the trancelike state in which she’d been gazing at the crystals.

“I’m coming!” She scrambled forward on her hands and knees, clutching the flashlight. Just before the tunnel took another sharp turn and opened to the larger exit, Morrigan glanced over her shoulder. The light of the crystals was fading. As she watched, it flickered…flickered…and then went dark. She hurried the rest of the way.

Kyle took her free hand and steadied her as she emerged from the tunnel. “Wow, you must have worked up a sweat crawling through there, your hand is burning up.” His brow was furrowed and he studied her carefully, as if he expected to see signs that she had had a claustrophobic fit.

Morrigan gave him her best smile. “I guess I’d better hit the gym more often.” She pretended to wipe nonexistent sweat from her face and purposefully breathed heavily. “Sorry it took me so long to get through. I didn’t mean to hold everyone up. It’s just that those crystals caught the beam of my flashlight, and they were so beautiful I guess I got distracted.”

The guide’s handsome face relaxed. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said as he motioned for her to follow him out of the cave. Morrigan forced herself to walk with him, but as she stepped from the mouth of the cave’s exit and stood on normal ground again, with the Oklahoma heat pressing down on her and the aqua blue of the sky spreading unendingly above her, she felt the loss of being within the earth like a physical thing and she blinked her eyes hard, amazed that she felt so much like crying.

“Ohmygod! There you are!” Gena blurted as Morrigan and Kyle approached the trolleylike wagon where everyone was waiting.

“She’s safe and sound,” Kyle assured the group. He grinned at Morrigan. “She’s just a natural spelunker, which means she has to be pried from a cave.”

“Well, you and she can have it! Too dark and claustrophobic for me,” called the middle-aged man. His wife nodded in such vigorous agreement that several of the group members chuckled.

Relieved that he had turned the group’s attention from her, Morrigan gave Kyle a quick, grateful smile and then climbed into the trolley. Her friends made room for her and Kyle went to the cab, put it into gear and pulled them smoothly away from the cave. Morrigan wanted to scream at him to take her back. She had to grip the seat hard to make herself stay in the car. What was wrong with her? Why was she feeling like this?

Embrace your heritage…floated around her in the hot wind.

“So—” Lori leaned toward Morrigan with a knowing smile “—tell the truth. You did all of that so that hottie would be alone with you. Right?”

“Yeah, right,” Morrigan said automatically.

“I’ll bet he took your hand to help you out of that creepy tunnel, didn’t he?” Gena said.

“Yeah.”

“I think he likes you,” Jaime whispered. “He kept looking at you. God, he’s so damn hot. You’re crazy if you don’t get his number.”