Stone Guardian (22 page)

“Now open your eyes.” Torin’s lips brushed the side of her face, his arms circled around her.

Emma opened her eyes. The pull of gravity, the weight of the physical world crashed against her body with rude, demanding force. Her knees folded and her lungs clenched with the sudden inrush of air as she clawed against Torin’s chest to keep from going down.

Torin scooped her up into his arms as she gasped and wheezed to catch her breath. “Breathe, Emma. Take slow deep breaths. Ye’ll be fine. Returning to the physical plane isna always pleasant.”

“You could’ve warned me.” Emma coughed and spewed, struggling to hang onto his muscular neck as she gasped in great gulps of air.

Torin chuckled, cradling her closer against his chest. “The spirit walk isna the sort of thing easily described.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

The loosely stacked pile of jagged gray rocks sat undisturbed where Torin had placed them. Tiny white lines of quartz embedded in the smooth limestone sparkled beneath the sun. Emma spread her fingers wide until her outstretched arms shook, staring at the squatting rocky target as though it were about to sprout fangs and attack her.

Gritting her teeth, Emma slowly bent her arms at the elbow, then lunged forward and flung out her outstretched hands as though shoving an invisible barrier away from her body. The crystals in the boulders winked in the sunlight, completely undisturbed in the untouched pile of stones. The never-ending wind gusted a pile of dried grass between Emma and her intended “victim”
as a passing seabird squawked overhead.

“Dammit!”

“Ye must use yer instincts. Stop thinking so hard about what ye must do. Feel the magic. Allow the natural flow of the energy to move through ye and gain strength until yer ready to release it.”

Emma shot a fiery glance back over one shoulder. “Stop using that tone of voice with me. I am not a child nor am I stupid. Maybe you were just wrong about me. Did that ever occur to you?” Emma yanked her arms down against her body, pressing her stiff outspread fingers tight against her jeans. Her lower lip quivered across clenched teeth. The muscles of her jawline displayed her anger with an irregular tick.

Torin bit the inside of his cheek. Lore, he loved it when her temper flared. It turned her aura such a tempting shade of red. If only she could see the stubbornness of her expression. Emma reminded him of a beloved pouting child. “Emma.” Torin drew in a slow deep breath. “If I was wrong, which I never am when it comes to a guardian, how do ye explain the spirit walk?”

The slightest rumble of an irritated growl sounded low in Emma’s throat as her mouth tightened into a frustrated sneer. Her brows knotted into a vicious scowl over narrowed eyes.

Torin chewed down harder on the inside of his mouth. Perhaps ’twas a good thing Emma couldn’t quite focus her powers just yet. She surely wouldha singed his arse with the anger flashing from those eyes. “Take a deep breath and relax into the energies. You can do this. Now try it again.”

Emma scrubbed her hands over her face and curled her fingers back through her hair. Tightening the lopsided ponytail with a determined yank, she spun on one heel and turned back to frown at the unsuspecting pile of rocks.

“Now remember what I told ye—”

“Just be quiet and let me do it! I can’t do this if you keep fussing at me.”

Torin clamped his lips together, took a step back and folded his arms across his chest. Cupping his chin in one hand, he tapped the tip of his nose with his index finger. She’d never do it, not until she relaxed and felt the energy coursing through her veins. Torin sighed, dropped his hands to his waist and hooked his thumbs in the top of his kilt. This century had tainted her, taught her that everything must be explained away with purely logical reasoning. As Torin watched Emma’s frustration grow, a sense of loss weighed heavy on his heart. Poor Emma. The lass had lost touch with the wondrous feel of believing in the impossible. Torin studied the frustration etched into the lines of Emma’s scowl. Why did she fight the defensive side of the energy? She’d managed the spirit walk easily enough.

Emma stiffened her arms and aimed her tensed hands at the pile of rocks. Bending her knees and easing forward into a lunging crouch, she shook both of her stiffened hands at the boulders and roared, “Be gone!”

“Be gone?”

Emma straightened while tucking her arms back against her sides. “Well, what would you say if you wanted to make something disappear?”

Never taking his gaze from Emma’s face, Torin rendered the stones non-existent with a single flick of his wrist. “I would nay say a word. I would just make it so.”

Emma stared open-mouthed at the bare patch of ground where the pile of rocks once stood. Spinning around to face Torin, she dismissed his accomplishment with a shrug. “You know, Torin, nobody likes a smart-ass.”

Torin chuckled.
Damnaigh
, but he loved the way her anger colored her skin.
His fingers itched to follow that rosy flush disappearing beneath her neckline. An insistent throb nudging between his legs echoed a hearty amen.

A distant tremor of grumbling thunder pulled his attention away from visions of Emma’s blushing breasts.
Concentrate, man.
He shook his head against the erotic daydreams.
Later.
Emma must master the power and the sooner he connected her with the magic the better.

Shifting his gaze to the ground, Torin’s attention focused on a fresh pile of sheep dung steaming close to his right foot. Torin sniffed. The aromatic pile of green-black pellets had to be less than an hour old. A nearby
baa
from just beyond the hill carried to him with the wind. Torin glanced beyond the rustling tips of the swaying grasses. He could just make out the dingy white source of the greasy pile of ovine beads. Torin stroked his thumb across his lower lip. Perhaps the sheep dung was just the answer. Emma needed to react without thinking. Come to think of it, she wasn’t particularly fond of the sheep or their pasture presents. She’d curled her nose and held her breath while giving the harmless fluffy beasts a particularly wide berth when she’d made her way to the middle of the field.

Torin glanced at Emma. She stood with her hands shoved deep in the back pockets of her jeans, scuffing the toe of her boot against a clump of dried grass. Swallowing hard, Torin decided. Emma would either find her magic in the next instant or she’d wring his neck for what he was about to do.

In one smooth motion, he dropped to a crouching position, scooped up a handful of the sheep manure and lobbed it toward Emma’s chest.

Emma’s eyes widened and her mouth flew open. Her lips shaped into a shocked
O
as she ripped her hands free of her back pockets. With her fingers spread wide, a pulsating light shot out from their tips and exploded the flying glob of sheep pellets into a cloud of greenish mist.

“Have you lost your mind?” Emma whirled on Torin, hands still raised and her eyes flashing with righteous fire. “I can’t believe you just threw a pile of sheep shit at me.”

“How did it feel, Emma?” Torin countered, widening his stance as he forced the smile tickling across his lips back into submission. He best take care. As angry as Emma was right now, she might open fire at him.

“It felt…” Emma swallowed hard, shuffled her feet and looked everywhere on the hillside except at Torin’s face. “It felt pretty freakin’ awesome.” One corner of her mouth twitched up and down as though Emma fought against a prideful grin. “But that’s no excuse. You could’ve found some other way to show me. What if I hadn’t figured it out in time?”

“Then yer lovely white top wouldha been splattered green with sheep shit.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“Do you mind if I ask you something?”

Torin tensed at the ominous echo in her voice. He thought she’d finally relaxed enough to sleep. The gentle rhythm of her breathing had been a steady whisper brushing across his skin. Staring up into the darkness, he tightened his arm around her and barely tickled his fingertips along her bare thigh. “What would ye ask me, Emma?”

“Your scars, the severe ones, was it a clan battle or something different—something from the other side?” Emma snuggled closer, making it increasingly difficult for him to think with her warm, firm breasts pressed against his side.

Thank the gods.
The lass was only curious about the eternal reminders of his battles. Blowing out a relieved breath, Torin traced his fingers across the raised pattern of the widest scar running across the center of his chest. “A distant sister to the goddess needed my help destroying a deranged beast.” Torin flinched as the memory of the searing pain tingled across the taut raised line of flesh puckered across his skin.

Emma’s silence weighed heavily through the darkness. Torin sensed her mind whirring at lightning speed. Uneasiness writhed through his gut.
By the holy goddess, what would the woman ask next?

“What kind of a deranged beast?”

As long as Emma concentrated on his battles as a guardian, her questions caused no pain. A growing furor of dread clamored louder in his mind.
What if she asks about life as clan chieftain?
Torin hugged her closer, snuffing out the voices of doubt with the touch of her velvet skin. “‘Twas a hybrid. An unholy mix of a sacred race and a mortal sorcerer from another world. The result was an amazingly powerful beast but he was insane and intent on destruction. The abomination escaped its mother and made its way through the gateway into our reality. The goddess needed my help capturing the beast so the mother could strike the killing blow.”

“The mother killed it?” Emma raised herself up on one elbow and peered down into his face. A shocked expression glimmered across her pale skin set aglow by the bit of moonlight streaming in the window.

Torin brushed the back of his fingers along the curve of her cheek, willing her to understand. “Aye, Emma. The mother had to kill the beast. The creature was part Draecna. They can only be slain by their own kind.”

“So the goddess sent you after a monster she knew you couldn’t kill?” The dark outline of Emma’s brows against the whiteness of her skin arched to her hairline. Fire flashed from her eyes, betraying the chaos of emotions whirling through her mind.

Her protective indignation warmed through him like a sweet, welcomed tonic. His heart melted at the shadows of concern dancing across her face. She cared for him. If he’d doubted she’d ever be willing to accept him, he didn’t doubt it anymore. “When the goddess calls ye to save the world, ye dinna have much of a choice.”

Emma poked a finger into the center of his chest. Her curls cascaded over one shoulder to tickle against his face. “But she pitted you against something she knew you couldn’t kill and from the looks of that scar, you almost lost your life.”

Torin laced his fingers through her hair while inhaling the glorious scent of her perfume.
Damn.
She smelled sweet as the freshest rain when it blew across a hillside overgrown with heather. Without thinking, he murmured against the silken tresses falling against his face. “I did die.”

“What?”

Perhaps he should have chosen better words. With a glance into her stricken gaze, Torin unwound his hand from her hair. Or perhaps he shouldha silenced her questions with a kiss. He swallowed hard with a stifled groan. Too late to silence her now.

Emma’s stare burned into him with unwavering stubbornness. “Well? Are you going to explain that little three word revelation or not?”

Taking a deep breath, Torin waved his hand toward the magical torch on the nightstand and released its golden glow. Emma squinted against the sudden light but didn’t back down from her perch over his chest.

“There is no’ that much to explain. When the Draecna hybrid slashed open my chest with his poisoned fore-claw and struck me with his venom, I died.” Torin waited, watching the reddened flush of anger creep its way up her delightful body and spread across her chest. A fair-skinned woman couldn’t hide her emotions and
lore,
she wore them well.

“Torin,” Emma warned through gritted teeth. “Stop dragging this story out.”

Torin chuckled, scooting up to a sitting position against the headboard and pulling her to his chest. “I died, Emma. But the goddess mended my body as best she could and ordered my soul returned. A stone guardian’s existence in this world doesna end until the goddess makes it so. Only then are we free to pass through the veil and move on to the next reality.”

Emma pushed away from his chest, sitting bolt upright in the center of the bed.
God’s beard
. But the very sight of her stole the wind from his lungs. Full rounded breasts jutted through golden red hair cascading across her shoulders. His groin ached, stirring to attention. He could never get enough of her.

“But you keep saying I’m a stone guardian. In fact, the spirit walk worked for me the other day and I finally figured out how to return fire when you decided to start lobbing sheep shit.”

Clenching his hands against the burning itch to touch her, Torin forced his gaze to her troubled eyes. “You are a stone guardian. And before ye ask, the answer is yes. The same rules apply to you.”

Emma backed away to the end of the bed and crossed her arms across her breasts. “So, you’re telling me I’m cursed to live forever? I’m going to have to watch my sister die?” Tears welled in her sad eyes. Great round drops spilled over and rolled down her flushed cheeks. “I don’t want to be a stone guardian, Torin. How could the goddess be so cruel? How can she expect someone to serve her if they’re cursed to watch everything they’ve ever loved die away and turn to dust?”

Torin’s heart lurched at the sight of her suffering. Her sorrow knifed through his chest. He had no words to console her against this truth. Their heritage was what it was. “We are no’
cursed
to live forever, Emma. Ye must look at it as a gift. We’re merely trapped within this particular reality until the goddess sees fit to release our souls to move on. Think of the possibilities.”

“Well, it sucks!” Emma burst as she rose from the bed and scooped her robe up out of the chair. Yanking her arms through the fluffy, terry cloth sleeves, she jerked the belt tight around her waist. “I never asked for any of this crap. Tell the goddess I want to return this gift.”