Time Everlastin' Book 5 (26 page)

Roan's voice was but a
distant, surrealistic sibilation. A firm grip on his arm shook
Lachlan. His fear held fast.

"Lannie!"

Roan's harsh whisper, spoken
close to his ear, wrenched Lachlan from the spell. Filling his
air-starved lungs to capacity, he sagged against the rock and
mortar wall of the Astory Inn. A cool breeze stirred against his
sweat-coated skin. Shivering, he dully stared into Roan's
concern-darkened eyes, and slowly released a shuddering breath to
appease the ache in his lungs.

"Damn me, mon, wha's wrong
wi' you?"

"Canna you feel it?" Lachlan
asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.

"Feel wha'?"

Lachlan stared beyond Roan,
his blurring gaze unable to see the hill clearly now. "There's
somethin' here."

With a grimace, Roan glanced
back at the site. "Aye. Ma bones are colder than the bloody
air."

"Roan..." Lachlan gulped
back the psychological mass in his throat. "...I-I canna do
this."

Roan jerked with a start,
his expression questioning the motive behind Lachlan's strained
words. "I've never known you to squirmy at an unknown. Lannie, get
hold o' yerself."

"I shouldna be
here."

"Listen to me, you old
corbie," Roan snarled low. "Wha'ever is happenin' to you, you canna
give in to it! Reith is in danger, aye?"

"Aye," Lachlan murmured
sickly, and closed his eyes.

"You would never let the lad
come to harm."

Lachlan shook his head. He
pressed a hand to his abdomen in a futile attempt to alleviate the
churning in his stomach. "Tis na canny," he said, and drew a
thready breath. "I feel like somethin's watchin' me,
Roan."

"Some...
thing?"
Again, Roan grimaced. "Weel,
pull yerself togither. We need to find Reith before his wee heart
becomes departed from his wee chest."

"Thank you for tha' image,"
Lachlan said sourly, and straightened from the wall. He gave his
head a sound shake to cast off his gloom. "Blue, wha' do you make
o'—"

Lachlan lifted a hand to his
right shoulder. Where the Faerie queen had perched earlier, was
devoid of her presence. "Blue?" he barked in a whisper.

"She's gone?"

Probing the other shoulder
and his nape, Lachlan nodded. "I dinna know when she
left."

Roan stared bleakly at the
side of the inn. "Damn me," he breathed. "She's gone efter
Reith."

"Sweet Jesus," Lachlan said
through clenched teeth, and dashed toward the inn, Roan close at
his heel.

The unlocked front door
burst open. Undaunted by the interior darkness, Lachlan led Roan to
a staircase and ascended with reckless speed. On the second floor
conflicting impressions cross-lanced his mind. Although determined
to reach Blue and Reith and knowing they were in the basement, he
couldn't resist an undeniable force that pulled him to a door
midway down a long hall. A twist of the knob told him it was
locked. Without hesitation, he stepped back, bumping into Roan,
lifted a booted foot, and slammed it against the paneled barrier.
The shriek of wood splintering echoed with eerie
abandon.

Lachlan entered the darkness
beyond the threshold, panting, his brain afire, his blood now
liquid fire pumping through his veins.

Behind him, Roan groped for
a switch. Finding it, he engaged a fixture on the right side of the
door. Before his eyes could adjust, Lachlan bit out, "Taryn was
here," and ran into the hall.

As if guided by an unseen
force, he led Roan back to the first floor and into another hall.
Again, he booted a door open and stepped into darkness. Roan found
a switch. Light from two lamps on each side of the door, flooded
the room, forcing them to squint until their eyes
adjusted.

Lachlan was first to make
out the larger than life figure in the mural across from them.
Staggering back to the wall to the left of the doorway, he balled a
section of his shirt in a clenched fist, and held it fast against
the painful sledge-hammering behind his breast.

He couldn't breathe, only
stare in muted horror at the riveting dark eyes of the man in the
mural.

Roan took several hesitant
steps toward the mural, the hairs on his arms and nape squirming
against his flesh. He, too, stared at the eyes, and like Lachlan,
believed they were fixed on him.

An illusion, surely. Or was
it?

Roan broke the visual lock
and forced himself to face Lachlan. "Who is he?"

Lachlan, unusually pale, his
nostrils flaring, quaked with uncontrollable fear.

"Lannie!"

Lachlan's gaze cut to
Roan's. "I dinna know."

Reluctantly, Roan glanced
over his shoulder. "Yer mither was a MacLachlan." Roan approached
Lachlan, and stood blocking his view of the painting. "He must be a
relative," he said, and squeezed Lachlan's shoulder in a gesture of
comfort. "You share the same eyes."

"No!"

"Lannie," Roan said in a
guttural whisper, "I've seen tha' verra same look o' rage in yers."
Lachlan sagged against the wall, his skin coated in a fine sheen of
perspiration. "I know who he is. Aye, I know."

Again, Roan glanced at the
mural. "Broc MacLachlan?"

Lachlan nodded then swiped a
shaky arm across his sweat-stung eyes. "Aye. Ma mither told me some
abou' him."

"Yer great, great-great
uncle or somethin'."

Lachlan nodded. "He brought
abou' a curse on ma mither's clan." Stepping around Roan, Lachlan
willed his weakened legs to carry him within three feet of the
mural. His hands clenched at his sides, he stared into the face of
his ancestor. "Wha' in God's name was he, Roan? It canna be true I
ever kept in ma breast such hatred as I see in his
eyes."

Roan positioned himself
behind Lachlan. "I thought so once. I thought you evil once as
weel, but...no' like him."

A tremor of something
Lachlan couldn't define, washed through him. "No' evil, Roan.
Embittered. And, aye, the truth o' it is, I have known his kind o'
rage. May God grant me the strength to never succumb to it
again."

A distinct click spun them
around in the direction of the door. A man stood at the threshold,
the gun he held in a steady hand, trained on them.

"Mair guests," he sneered.
"Uninvited guests, aye, but nonetheless welcome. I take it ye came
wi' the wee one."

"Wee one?" Roan asked,
poorly feigning ignorance.

"Come, come now," the
gun-waver chortled. "Tis a grand night for a sacrifice! As dear
Mavis would say, the mair the merrier."

Livid, Lachlan stepped
forward, freezing in place when Roan gripped his arm and whispered,
"Remember Beth and yer babes, mon! You may no' survive anither
daith!"

"Wha' are ye two chatterin'
abou'?" the stranger demanded.

Roan airily shrugged and
managed a simpering grin. "Tellin' ma friend it is a fine night for
a proper sacrifice. Especially one to honor a MacLachlan. Look in
his eyes, mon! He's one o' you!"

The stranger glowered at
Lachlan then, paling, drew back as if stunned with recognition. His
gaze shifted from Lachlan to the eyes in the mural, and blinked in
wonder at the former. "Aye. No doubt ye are from his clan. Come wi'
me." He shook the gun. "Dinna make me shoot ye. Might disrupt the
forces gatherin' to honor the sacrifices."

The plural usage rammed
Lachlan and Roan in the gut.

"What's yer name, mon," Roan
asked.

"Dougie."

"Lead on, Dougie," Roan said
affably, and linked an arm through Lachlan's to keep him from
lunging at the man.

* * *

Blue barely managed to
squeeze through an ancient keyhole of a door overly armed with
outer deadbolts. It was this fact and the burly man who stood guard
that convinced her Reith was inside the basement room. She cleared
the brass aperture and hovered in the faint stream of light poking
through her entry point. Other than that, the room beyond was
blacker than the blackest black.

She realized she was
shivering violently. It wasn't from the cold dampness in the room,
nor the fathomless darkness. Blind and deaf, she would still know
Reith's presence, and she sensed it now as if he were within her
reach. She ventured deeper into the unknown, the beating of her
wings seeming loud, the haunting reverberation clawing at her
hammering heart. It was all she could do not to call out to
him.

Deciding to chance using
magic, she cast out a hand. Fairy dust spilled from her palm, its
golden luminance instantly cutting the inky gloom. A slow quarter
turn revealed Reith. He lay on a single cot against the wall across
from the door, bundled with duct tape and spider webs like some
creature for slaughter. She transformed into human size at the same
moment she sat alongside him. Her wings remained engaged on the
chance she would have to make a hasty exit with him.

She clamped a hand over her
mouth to keep a sob from escaping. Reith lay on his front, his head
turned in her direction. Duct tape covered his mouth, and his
clammy skin had a grayish hue.

"What have they done to
you?" she wept in a whisper.

She brushed trembling
fingers against his moist brow, and shrank back at the iciness of
his skin. His breathing was shallow, his eyes motionless beneath
the curtain of his lids.

Blue used magic to dissolve
the webs, and her teeth to rip apart the tape binding his wrists
and ankles. She eased him onto his back, careful to work his right
arm from beneath his body weight, and gingerly peeled the duct tape
from his face.

Not once did he
flinch.

She cupped his head with her
hands. "Reith!" she said in a harsh whisper. "Reith, wake
up!"

The rapid staccato of her
heartbeat pounded in her ears. Taking his hand between her own, she
tremulously kissed the back of his fingers.

No reaction.

Hot tears spilled down her
cheeks. Her wings quivered. She stared through a blur at his mouth,
remembering a time when she had longed so desperately to know his
kisses, the pain had nearly expired her.

Had?

Squeezing her eyes shut, she
bent and pressed her mouth against his. She wept from depths she
hadn't known existed, the salty release bathing his face with each
caress from her own.

No reaction.

If not for the faint pulse
at the base of his throat, she would believe him dead.

"Don't you dare die on me!"
she cried wretchedly, and roughly clamped her hands to each side of
his face. "We're not through!"

A low rumble came from deep
inside his throat.

"Reith?"

Swiping aside the wetness on
her eyes and cheeks, she kissed him again, this time lingering in
hopes it would penetrate the realm in which he was trapped. She
straightened when he moaned again.

"Reith?"

His eyelids fluttered up
fractionally then closed. Fluttered. Closed. On impulse, she kissed
each lid, unknowingly squeezing his hand in hers.

"Blue," he
rasped.

She sat up, her breath
coming in short bursts. His glazed eyes stared at her in
wonderment, the blueness of his irises dull yet radiant.

"Are you
drugged?"

He worked his dry mouth. His
eyes rolled then locked with hers. "Aye. Feel...numb."

"We're getting you out of
here."

He attempted to shake his
head and winced. "No. Canna risk...yer life. Go."

"If you think I'll leave
you, you don't know me at all!" she bristled, her wings flicking in
cadence to her words.

His eyelids drooped.
"Canna...fight this. Tell...Lachlan—"

"He and Roan are
upstairs."

Reith's eyes widened with
fear, and his fingers clasped her hand painfully. "Get them
away!"

"Not without
you!"

"Blue—"

Again his eyes widened,
straining in their sockets. It took her a moment to realize that he
was staring at something behind her. By the time she snapped her
head around, a sharp prick jabbed her shoulder, followed by a rush
of nauseating heat beneath the surrounding skin.

She jumped to her feet,
stepped toward a looming object an arm's length away, and swayed.
Her wings grew suddenly leaden, her brain an alien object floating
in outer space.

A thick haze swooped down
over her vision, and a roaring cascade dominated her hearing. She
didn't hear Reith's vain attempt to launch from the cot. Didn't
hear his outcry when he was once again injected.

An even blacker darkness
sucked her down into a stranglehold of nothingness, where not even
her sheltered love for Reith could offer her escape.

* * *

The idea of a woman
threatening their lives didn't sit well with Lachlan and Roan.
Katherine, sensing the former posed the most threat, kept the
muzzle of the gun pressed between his shoulder blades, and didn't
hesitate to prod him with it if his steps slowed or if he shifted
his head in the least.