Time Everlastin' Book 5 (28 page)

Karok howled furiously,
while Taryn's heart turned to a cold, inanimate rock, and her
newfound love transformed into a dark and fathomless
void.

"Send her away!" Broc ground
out through clenched teeth. "Send her away now afore ye force me to
take ma sword to her! Not even
yer
power can save her from a beheadin'—and slay her I
will!"

Taryn's stiff legs carried
her into the room. Karok first noticed her. Broc whirled to face
her, his livid bearing enhancing his powerful frame. Taryn searched
for a glimmer of remorse in his eyes. But for rage, they were as
dead as her emotions.

Without thought, she stopped
in front of him and mechanically positioned the blade to her
throat.

"End this," she said
tonelessly.

Karok roared as Broc stepped
back and arced his claymore. Taryn didn't blink. Didn't experience
even a twinge of fear. She was already dead.

Broc released a horrendous
wail of fury, but his raised arm froze in mid-swing and he clutched
his chest.

The chamber filled with the
sound of his accelerating heartbeat. Taryn swayed, listening
abstractedly, her mind unable to grasp what was happening. With a
cry of anguish, Broc stared at the ceiling, his fingers digging
into the flesh around his heart as he sank to his knees.

"No!" he bellowed, and
rocketed to his feet. The claymore
whooshed
in a circle above his head.
He released a shrill whistle then turned on the gargoyle, quaking
with rage and incredulity. "Ye ken!"

Karok snarled, exposing
pointed teeth.

Again Broc clutched his
chest. He released a fierce groan of pain and, his sword-wielding
arm dropping to his side as if too leaden to hold up the weapon, he
staggered back several pace, the tip of the sword dragging across
stone.

"He be here," Broc gasped,
fighting for breath. "Break our connection, damn ye!"

Karok released a gurgled
probe.

"No!" Broc sucked in ragged
breaths. "Danger above. Canna stop me."

The horse galloped into the
chamber and stopped between Broc and the gargoyle. Gripping the
mane with his free hand, Broc weakly swung onto the horse's back.
With a sharp glance at Taryn, he drove his heels into the animal's
sides and man and beast galloped from the room.

Her skin as cold as ice,
Taryn dragged her feet to stand before Karok. "What have you done
to him?" she asked in a barely audible tone.

Karok’s wings spread and
flexed, his penetrating eyes riveted on the entrance.

"What have you done?" she
asked with more force.

The vibrant green irises
fixed on her face, and his brow puckered thoughtfully.

"Damn you!" she bit out, and
ran from the chamber.

Broc kept low to the horse's
back throughout the ascent of the spiral steps. Instinct told him
when to strike his blade against the entombing slab above. The
vibrations activated the stone.

A warrior's cry rang out as
both worlds quaked with the opening of the portal.

* * *

Lachlan's life flashed
before his eyes, every joy and hardship a convoluted enactment on
the stage of his mindscape. From far, far away, he heard his
children call to him, heard Beth cry out in anguish. The family he
had waited so long to have was slipping away as time's gates opened
once more.

Charles released a
resonating hiss as he threw his weight into plunging the
sacrificial dirk downward.

Then it came.

From out of the abysmal dark
grayness, louder than the inexplicable sound of stone grating
against stone, came a shrill war cry followed immediately by hooves
pounding the wet earth. Lachlan watched Charles' head turn. Saw
terror seize his features. Heard him wail as he flung himself to
the ground, out of Lachlan's sight.

Lachlan struggled into a
sitting position and forced himself onto his feet. Shouts and cries
razored the night, disorienting him. He staggered past the altar
before he felt the burning sting of the rain.

Something pounced in front
of him. A dark shape. A snorting dark shape.

A...
horse.

Lifting his gaze, Lachlan
first noticed a claymore clutched in a large fist. Lifted further
to meet demonic dark eyes. Eyes that narrowed upon him and burrowed
into his soul.

The rider released another
blood-curdling wail while swinging down from the horse's back. With
a whinny of alarm, the animal took off through the stones and
beyond toward the loch, while the stranger, dressed in nothing but
a kilt, stood with his back to Lachlan, poised like a guardian from
the depths of hell.

Chants rang out in Gaelic,
the words but static in Lachlan's ears.

Through the downpour,
Lachlan spied a shape rushing toward the stranger. The advancer was
close before Lachlan recognized him and, sucking in a roaring
breath, pushed off to stop Roan's attack. The stranger lifted his
sword above his head, swinging it round and round while emitting
guttural sounds reminiscent of ancient war cries.

Without thought, Lachlan
drove a shoulder into the stranger's back. Both men toppled,
Lachlan sprawled atop the other. Before he could regain his wits,
Roan's weight fell upon him, robbing Lachlan of breath.

The lowest man of the heap
bellowed in Gaelic. Roan rolled off, then Lachlan. Both men were on
their knees when the stranger sprang to his feet, his hunched form
resembling a ravenous wild beast about to pounce.

A shot rang out. The hiss of
a bullet whizzed past Lachlan's right ear. Another shot. Another.
To Lachlan's horror, Roan pitched backward to the ground as if
punched by a mighty invisible fist.

"Roan!" Lachlan cried,
scrambling on his knees to Roan's side.

"Damn me, Lannie" Roan said
though clenched teeth. "I'm hit. Ma shoulder."

A preternaturally loud gasp
shot Lachlan's head around. Dougie, his rain-drenched doughy face
distorted with rage, leveled his hand gun in Roan's
face.

"No!" Lachlan roared. He was
about to throw himself across Roan, protect this man who was more
than a friend, more than a brother, when suddenly a blur of motion
impacted with Dougie's face. The big man dropped to the ground, the
gun flying from his grasp. Lachlan stared at the poised hand above
him. A hand clutching a sword, the hilt of which had just saved him
and Roan.

Pushing himself onto his
feet, Lachlan held out his bound wrists and demanded, "Cut me
free!"

Without hesitation, the
stranger deftly slid the edge of the blade along the duct tape. A
brief struggle later, Lachlan's hands were free, and he barked at
the stranger to do likewise for Roan.

Flan came forward, stopping
at a safe distance from the threesome. "They are yer enemy!" he
said to the stranger.
"We
are your servants. We are, no one else, and we are
here to offer a sacrifice for yer return!"

The stranger's gaze crept to
the altars a short distance away. Lachlan looked from him to them,
then back in time to see the man's eyes widen then narrow in a
feral look of contempt. He swung to face Flan, his fingers flexing
on the hilt of his sword.

"Release them!" he
commanded, pointing to Reith and Blue with the tip of his claymore.
"Release them lest I forget ye are ma kin!"

Lachlan's heart collided
with his Adam's apple.
Kin? A MacLachlan,
this mon?

"Now!" the stranger
bellowed, his voice seeming to rock the ground. "Ye!" He pointed to
Katie. "Do as I bid!"

She glowered at Lachlan as
she dragged her feet to the slabs. He watched her. Afraid to
breathe. Afraid she would turn against the stranger and harm Blue
and Reith. By the time the last bond was removed from the fairy
couple, Lachlan released the air that had soured in his
lungs.

"Broc!" a woman
cried.

"Taryn!" Roan wheezed, and
eased into a sitting position.

She stood at a wide opening
in the ground, trembling, her soaked shirt translucent on her
otherwise naked body.

"Broc!" she called again,
her frantic look scanning the faces turned her way.

Locating Broc, she dashed
toward him. She closed half the distance when another shriek, one
ominous and more chilling than the rain, rent the air. Katherine
lunged at Taryn, the sacrificial dirk raised above her
head.

Startled, Taryn stumbled to
a stop, and lifted an arm instinctively to ward off the
blow.

Lachlan wasn't aware when
he'd cast off in a run. Wasn't aware he was moving until he hit the
ground, grappling with a she-devil screeching and raking him with
her fingernails. Then it was over. He was standing, teetering on
his feet, supported up only by a firm hand gripping his shoulder.
When Taryn cried out Roan's name and ran to him, Lachlan gave
himself a firm shake to dislodge his confusion. One blink and he
saw Mavis and Katie tending to Katherine a short distance away.
Another blink and he was staring into the penetrating eyes of the
stranger.

Broc.
Taryn had called him Broc....

"Leave here now," he said.
He glanced toward Taryn, and Lachlan read sorrow and anger in his
eyes. "Take her home," he said in a low, raspy tone, again his gaze
trying to convey something to Lachlan he couldn't grasp. "Keep her
safe."

"Who are you?" Lachlan
asked, his voice little more than a whisper.

Another shriek, this one no
less shrill than Katherine's, yet male.

All eyes turned to Charles,
who stood near the slabs, one beefy arm positioned in a choke hold
around Taryn's neck. Roan lay moaning a short distance
away.

Broc released a threatening
growl, and would have stormed toward Charles if not for Lachlan's
firm hold on his arm.

"They're no' rational folk,"
he warned Broc. "He willna hesitate to kill her."

"Ye owe us!" Gil cried,
edging to Charles' side. He spat rain from his mouth. "Her life for
the treasure!"

"Treasure!" Broc
spat.

"We have waited for
generations!" Mavis snarled. "Givin' our lives to ye in promise o'
riches. Give us our due, or she dies!"

Broc faced the enraged
elder, his livid expression triggering a primordial fear in
Lachlan.

"Och, Mavis," he sneered.
"The years havena been kind to ye. A womon scorned,
aye?"

The old woman screamed
Gaelic obscenities at him.

"Aye, tis a sore subject, no
doubt," Broc taunted.

Katherine, Katie, Mavis. The
three resembled grotesque statues, frozen in the downpour until
Katie stepped forward. Lachlan's instincts flared up in
alarm.

"We have served ye
faithfully," she mewled to Broc. "Is this how ye repay us? Sidin'
wi' these ou'siders?"

"The treasure!" Flan
whooped, noticing the gap in the ground. "We'll fetch it ourselves.
Come. We dinna need this betrayer to get wha' is owed
us!"

Again, Lachlan stayed
Broc.

"Tis no treasure wha'
belongs to our clan," Broc said.

Gil raced toward the
opening. Charles dragged Taryn along, sputtering with each hit her
bare heels landed on his shins. When he was close to the opening,
Broc swirled his sword in a hand and plunged it into the
ground.

"Leave her be!" he
warned.

"Like this one, eh?" Gil
sneered. "MacLachlan women no' to yer likin'?"

Roan staggered to Lachlan's
side, one hand braced against his bleeding shoulder. "Release ma
sister, or I swear upon all I—"

At the same time a bestial
wail rose from the ground, a horrendous
whoosh,
whoosh, whoosh
paralyzed everyone. From the yawning blackness, a
massive creature soared upward, and stopped to hover above the
observers. Mavis dropped in a faint. Katherine and Katie ran to
Charles, hiding behind him as if he alone could sway the creature
from harming them. Gil threw himself to the ground, bent over his
legs, his arms covering his head.

Charles shoved Taryn to the
ground and lifted his hands in surrender, noticing from the corner
of his eye, Dougie standing and aiming the hand gun at the
beast.

Broc's head shot around.
Without thought, he wrenched the sword from the ground and pitched
it into the air. Dougie fired a misshot. Before his finger engaged
the trigger again, Broc's blade plunged into his middle. A death
rattle was heard before he crashed to the ground.

"Get below!" Broc demanded
of the gargoyle.

Katherine and Katie shrieked
in fear, and hid their faces when the gargoyle landed in front of
Broc, Lachlan and Roan. Roan reflexively stepped back. Lachlan
stood his ground. Broc stepped forward, as if to prevent the
creature from reaching the men beside him.

Karok vented with a long,
gurgling lament then snarled, hissed, and pointed a talon at the
opening.