Time Everlastin' Book 5 (20 page)

"You're amazing," she said
giddily. Her hands clasped at the base of her spine, she leaned in
for a closer look. "In...credible."

The elation pumping
adrenaline into her system soon waned. She frowned as he worked on
a figure standing in the background. The gargoyle's strokes took on
a ferocity that prompted her to ease back and breathe sparingly.
Hostility wafted from his rockscape form, the muscles in his back
and shoulders bunched with tension. As he detailed the face of the
barbarian, the gargoyle's lips curled back, revealing fangs that
left a sickening topsy-turvy feeling in the pit of her
stomach.

Taryn wanted to run from the
room but couldn't. As if mesmerized by the creature's burgeoning
anger, she remained still and silent until the scene was finished.
She stared at it and, contrary to her fear of him in his present
mood, her Scottish blood flowed hotter on tides of
outrage.

The look on the barbarian's
face was pure evil, and his fists were clenched at his sides. Taryn
clearly remembered the bearded wonder being ticked off and perhaps
apathetic to the creature's misery, but not once had she seen him
give the ailing creature a look like the one carved into the
stone.

"That's wrong." Taryn gulped
when furious eyes swung to meet hers. "He...actually helped," she
said, wondering why she was defending the barbarian. "He...he had
me fetch water to cool—"

The gargoyle released a
crescendoing roar, its vibrations bleeding into the marrow of her
bones. Taryn clapped her hands over her ears, but it did little to
quell the piercing pain in her eardrums. Before she could react, he
cast off, a wing knocking her to the ground. When she regained her
wind, she scrambled to her feet and dashed for the only
exit.

The
whoosh
of massive wings beating air
came upon her from behind. On her mindscreen sprang an image of the
creature's feral countenance, saliva dripping from exposed,
gleaming fangs as the mouth grew larger as if to devour her whole.
She screamed and leapt-dove across the threshold. Instead of
landing on the rock and dirt floor, she found herself ascending
with dizzying speed, the gargoyle's talons wrapped about her middle
like a zealously tied corset.

She screamed again, the
sound harshly resonating off the cavern walls of the ever-darkening
heavens of the creature's world. Momentarily, all sensation
deserted her. Her lungs struggled for air. She was aware of her
heart pounding, yet couldn't feel it against her inner chest
wall.

Why are you doing
this?
she wept in silence.

The barbarian said they
couldn't die. Even if that were true, how long could her mind ward
off the encroaching madness?

All sensation returned. Her
heart pumped violently, out of control, a rabid animal clawing to
escape from behind her breast. Air roared in her ears. A foul,
bitter taste coated her tongue—the taste of terror. Her gaze locked
onto a blue glow far below. Very far below. A pinpoint awaiting the
end of her plummet.

Friction scraped her exposed
skin, now moist and cold with perspiration.

She had no sense of the
gargoyle. He had dropped her. Dropped her as would a bird of prey
tired of carrying off some burdensome food source. Dropped her as
though her care of him had not mattered a whit in the vast scheme
of what the barbarian called the creature's "vengeance."

The pinpoint widened.
Widened. She hit the pool, the water's surface making her feel as
if she had broken every bone, torn every muscle and ligament, and
been stripped of her skin, leaving nerves exposed to further
torture.

She sank through the depths
with uncanny slowness. Sank until she lay in a fetal position on
the bottom, atop a bed of water grass, weeping and unable to
stop.

How many times had Roan and
Lachlan lectured her on her callous behavior? Expected her to fit
in? Sympathize? Care!

During her twenty-eight
years, she had held back from openly showing affection, only to
offer it to a creature, whose idea of gratitude was an added dash
of hell.

She had once loved her
parents...until they ripped her from Scotland and her remaining
family, only to leave her in the care of countless sitters through
the following years. She'd learned very young she could count on no
one but herself.

And she'd once loved Roan.
Her big brother. Her "child" mentor. But he had let the parents
snatch her away to the States. Never wrote. Never called. Forgotten
her until she'd shown up at Baird House, where he resented seeing
her again.

She'd thought caring about
the gargoyle a safe way to vent emotions she usually avoided. Care
and coddle him as she might have done with a loyal, loving dog.
He'd brought out a facet of her personality few witnessed. His
illness gave her permission to cry, to worry, to hope for something
that wasn't connected to herself.

Betrayal hurt. She'd lost
her emotional armor in this hellhole.

Bubbles rushing to the
surface carried her wretched laments. The barbarian had spoken the
truth. She couldn't die. Water filled her lungs, and yet she
breathed—laboriously, yes, but breathed nonetheless.

She squeezed her eyes shut
when, from behind, arms scooped her up and carried her off in a
rapid ascent. She would not look into the gargoyle's eyes again.
Would not be trapped into feeling anything again. She once lived
for only herself, and it would be that way again.

They remained close during
her rescue from the water, and throughout the jostling trip through
the tunnels and corridors. Arms still held her. Perhaps the
gargoyle's.

Perhaps the
barbarian's.

It didn't matter
which.

Her skin felt hot, tight,
squeezing her muscles and bones. The liquid surrounding her brain,
boiled. Her mind re-enacted scenes from her past. Her childhood.
Wild teenage years. Her first apartment on her own. Landing the job
at the newspaper. Coming to Scotland. To the Callanish Standing
Stones....

"Lass, ye be in a fever," a
deep voice said from faraway.

Disoriented, she lifted her
eyelids. She was in a den, on a bed of leaves. Soft, blue light
made it possible to see shapes but little else. Darkness loomed
above her, droplets of water splattering on her left arm and
chest.

"Lie still," he chided when
she attempted to sit up.

Her voice a hoarse whisper,
she managed, "Leave me alone."

"Tis the second bath ye've
foisted on me."

Had she detected humor in
his tone, or was she delirious?

"He dropped me."

"I saw." He patted a wet
hand across her brow. "I was mair'n a wee surprised to see him turn
on ye."

"I defended you," she said
sleepily.

"Ye did, did ye?"

She languidly swept the tip
of her tongue along her lower lip. "He..."

"Forget him and rest a
wee."

"He...hates you."

"Aye." He cleared his
throat. "Wi' reason."

"What...reason?"

"I killed his
mate."

Taryn swallowed painfully
and tried to focus on his face. "Why?"

"I'll explain anither time.
Rest now."

"I'm so tired," she
murmured.

Taryn fought to resist the
heaviness forcing her eyelids shut until the barbarian began to
stroke her brow.

"Don't want to sleep," she
said in a barely audible voice.

He chuckled low, his
fingertips stroking, stroking. "Ye even fight weariness, lass. A
warrior's heart, ye have. A warrior's spirit."

She smiled in her
semi-sleep. "You're being nice... to me."

"Aye, and no doubt ye will
make me pay dearly for this transgression."

"No," she whispered,
shivered and curled onto her side.

"Sleep, Taryn. Free yersel'
to the merciful arms o' Morpheus, and wake a new womon."

Those words drifted through
her mind as she slipped deeper into a healing sleep, unaware that,
for some time after, her barbarian stared at her angelic features
with a look of torment.

Broc gave himself a firm
shake as if to shuck off a burdensome cloak of doom. With the
action, a chill clutched his spine. Icy tendrils invaded his blood
and he shivered.

The last time despair had
gripped him this tightly had been when he'd watched his last lover
whisked away to the above world and vanish into a sun-lit day he
could only dream about. Years had passed before the pain of her
absence finally became but a memory. He had vowed never to care
again—never to yearn again.

With a woeful shake of his
head, he brushed the back of a hand along Taryn's cheek. Her soft
skin caused a breath to hitch in his throat. Caused a sting of
longing to pierce his heart—a heart beating a little too
quickly.

For all her sass, she was,
indeed, beautiful. A different kind of beauty than his last lover,
but no less a threat to his tattered resolve.

Cruel was God to design men
so wanton of even the wee pleasures of the flesh. How weak and
bloody susceptible they were to the wiles of women. And given how
long he had gone without a warm body to vent his needs, was it any
wonder his mind could not control the dictates of his
heart?

The other had not lain with
him merely to escape the gargoyle's realm. From the first meeting,
Broc had sensed a loneliness in the woman that overwhelmed him, and
he accepted her without hesitation—the only woman of many Karok had
brought below. Their bond formed instantly.

During her stay, she had not
spoken of a husband, but Broc had known one existed, and known the
man was responsible for the woman's sadness.

"As I know ye will bring me
centuries o' misery when
ye
leave," he whispered to Taryn.

He traced her cheekbone with
his thumb.

"I wish ye no harm, little
one. Tis hard for me to give in to Karok. Hard for ma mind to grant
wha' ma heart so desperately wants from ye."

He closed his eyes for a
time in a futile attempt to clear his thoughts. When he looked down
at her again, tightness filled his chest.

"Someone hurt ye," he
murmured, caressing her cheek once more. "I ken these things, I do.
Tis a harsh knowin'. Leaves a mon's soul exposed, it does. But tis
who I be, lass. Sadly so, but who I be.

"Ye think ye're in love wi'
him. No' so. This mon loves anither."

Before he could talk himself
out of it, he eased onto his side behind her. He inched closer,
wincing with each rustle of the leaves beneath them, and held his
breath when he was at last spooned against her. He listened to the
erratic drumming of his heart for long moments. Listened to the
otherwise uncanny silence beyond the den.

He was relaxing when she
began to turn onto her back. He rolled onto his in time for her to
snuggle against him. A smile curved up the corners of his mouth
until her bare arm flopped across his chest. Then she withdrew,
moaned, and rolled back onto her right side, away from him.
Scowling, he remained on his back, his hands stroking his
beard.

Yes, it was coarser than his
hair. Her claim to dislike facial hair was true, right enough. She
even shunned its texture in her sleep.

Rolling to his left and
getting to his feet, he stared at her ponderously. Shave his beard?
He had contemplated it earlier. Briefly. It had been a part of him
for so long, he couldn't imagine it gone.

But if she stays much
longer...?

His heart slowed to a
steady, strong beat, and the weights that had ridden on his
shoulders since her arrival, lifted.

Karok knew her absence would
hurt him. Yes, Broc had been careless in shielding his attraction
to this woman. As long as he had the beard, she wouldn't let him
close enough to satisfy the gargoyle's twisted sense of
vengeance.

The longer she remained, the
more difficult it would be for Broc to let her go.

All thought at bay, he
jogged through the passageways until he reached his suite of dens
on the far side of the domain. Of the seven, he entered the forth,
where he kept many of the "offerings" the clan had given him since
his internment. Surely, among the horde, a sharp enough blade was
in attendance. A straight razor would be greatly appreciated, but
luck had abandoned him long ago.

He tore through boxes,
heavy-clothed containers, tins and bags made of material with draw
strings. Food, books, reading sheets, pictures, boots, belts,
blankets, embroidered pillows, and various articles he didn't
recognize.

Nothing sharp.

"Bloody damn!" he growled,
his gaze pinging around the remaining bundles he had yet to
open.

He spied a black leather bag
near the entrance. Since he found it shortly after the woman
arrived, he assumed it belonged to her. He wasn't sure why he
hadn't returned it, but it beckoned him now to peruse its
contents.