Time Everlastin' Book 5 (7 page)

"Well?"

Silence.

"Even someone who doesn't
speak English should get the gist of what I'm saying," she said,
finding it difficult to keep an edge of pique from her tone. She
tapped her chest and gestured with both hands to the dark vault
above them. "Show me how to get out."

To her chagrin, his only
movement was to scratch an inner thigh through the tattered wool of
his kilt.

"Charming," she
muttered.

She turned in place, her
gaze sweeping over the walls. The rocks were mostly smooth and
shiny, some bearing engravings of runes. Beyond the pool was a wide
tunnel some thirty-feet across, and the top of the arched entry a
good forty-feet high. Beyond the stranger were two other tunnels,
equally as big, and illuminated in the same mysterious glow. Taryn
glanced at the pool. There did seem to be a light radiating up from
the bottom, but that didn't explain the light in the distant
tunnels.

She strained to see through
the darkness above.

How high is the
ceiling?

How can hollow ground
support the base for the standing stones?

By the time she met the
stranger's gaze, she was deeply pensive. Had she imagined falling?
Was she actually trapped beneath the ancient site, or had the
Watchdog-MacLachlans slipped something into her food, and she was
hallucinating?

He spouted another round of
Gaelic, his voice cutting into her eardrums. A stab of panic
pierced her when he whirled, lifted his arms, and ranted on as if
cursing the darkness and the rocks and the air.

"Shut up!" Taryn cried, her
hands covering her ears.

The barbarian faced her,
breathing heavily through flared nostrils, his eyes coals of fury.
His gazed raked her contemptuously then, his movement so quick she
didn't see it coming, planted a hand to her face and gave her a
push. For the second time within minutes, she fell into the pool.
The echoes of her shriek greeted her when she surfaced.

He was nowhere in
sight.

Taryn climbed onto the
floor, too incensed to feel the cool air. She vented her anger on
the knapsack, kicking it until pain tweaked her toes. Fear,
vexation and stark fury warred inside her as she staggered backward
from the pool.

Her panting breaths
reverberated around her, lending the illusion the rock walls were
breathing.

"Let me out of here!" she
wailed. "You can't keep me down here!"

Baiting silence rode the
edge of her echoing words.

Wiping away part of the
wetness on her face with a swipe of a hand, she glared into the
patches of darkness surrounding her.

Hatred burned inside her
belly. Hatred for her helplessness, and hatred for the man
determined to push her over the brink of sanity. She quaked with
the conviction she wanted to strike him dead. Anger and frustration
had companioned her for most of her life, but what she felt at this
moment went beyond anything in her experience.

With a last vicious kick at
the knapsack, she broke into a run. Despite the cramping in her
calf muscles, adrenaline fueled her determination to escape this
mad world she had stumbled upon. Her eyesight was better adjusted
now for the darker regions she entered, enough so that she could
make out the staircase ahead—at least, the lower section of the
stone spiral. Heedless, her mind empty of every thought but that of
escaping, she ascended.

Hollow, whispering echoes of
her footfalls marked her journey. Upward she climbed. Upward for an
eternity. Upward while her legs faltered beneath the strain, her
lungs grew heavier and encompassing darkness blinded her. At one
point she slowed her pace.

How will I know if I step
too close to the edge of a step?

Plunging to her death wasn't
the escape she sought.

"Damn you," she choked, and
collapsed to her knees.

Breath wheezed from lungs
fiery from exertion. Every muscle in her body quivered achingly.
Tears burned the backs of her eyes, but she knew if she gave in,
whatever strength she had left would drain with them.

Step by step by step she
crawled upward, her right hand groping to assure the solidity of
her route. She had no concept of time. Images of her parents and
Roan attempted to formulate in her mind, but she willed them back
into the abyss of her misery. Then, one face did materialize across
her mindscreen. Lachlan. Scowling. Disappointment in her burning in
his fathomless dark eyes.

"You want a mon who can
master you," he had told her.

Taryn gulped convulsively.
"You don't know anything about me!"

"Heed this warnin', Taryn,"
he had said huskily. "There's a mon waitin' for you at the end o'
yer destination. Dinna provoke him."

Had Lachlan foreseen the
barbarian?

"Impossible," she
whimpered.

"He'll no' understand yer
ways," Lachlan had said.

A tortured laugh escaped
Taryn, and she threw all her stamina into continuing her
ascent.

"Go back to the States,
lass," Lachlan had said. "Wha’ever ye're efter, tis no' worth the
price you'll pay."

Fear swallowed up her
hatred. Searing stitches of pain sliced into her sides, forcing her
to stop. By the time that pain waned, her leg muscles cramped.
Whimpering low, she vigorously massaged her thighs and
calves.

Sounds drifted upward from
the bowels of the realm. Gurgling water, soothing and yet
disturbing in that she detected a distinct cadence at times. It was
as if she was listening to speech rather than water flowing over
rocks.

She crept up three more
steps and stopped when the gurgling ceased and the enraged voice of
the barbarian rose from the dark abyss.

Taryn climbed and climbed.
The higher she went, the cooler the air. Her wet clothing was like
ice against her skin. Protesting muscles balked at her abuse.
Still, she went on, growing more numb and desensitized to her
plight.

Upward and on. Upward and
on.

Where am I going?
she wondered.
Is the
outside world any better or worse than this one?

She laughed, the sound
hollow, discordant.

Lachlan, you could find me
if you wanted to. And where is there a fairy when I really need
one?

"I could have jungle fever,"
she mewled. "I don't remember going into a jungle, but a fever
could dim that recollection, couldn't it?"

She frowned and murmured,
"Jungle fever? What am I—"

Drums. A steady, driving
cadence filled the chamber, this one not water-based.

The barbarian is actually a
cannibal, and it's suppertime
, she mused.
She choked out a laugh until a vicelike pain gripped her left
calf.

Dum dum dum
dum....

The pounding hammered
unmercifully in her head.

"Stop the drums," she
wheezed, forcing herself up yet another step. "Stop
the...drums."

A low, rumbling growl
reached her ears. An icy dash of terror swept through her and,
despite her agonized muscles, she stood and rushed onward.
Forgotten was the perilous drop. In her mind's eye, she pictured
the ground opening and moonlight spilling down to light her way to
freedom. The vault that had enticed her to enter had to be
near.

Her breath roared in her
ears.

Upward. Onward.

Determined.

Nothing would stop her from
gazing upon the ancient, sentinel stones of the site above. Nothing
would stop her from exposing this netherworld and the
barbarian—

A shrill cry wrenched from
her when a foul stench assailed her nostrils, followed swiftly by
steely fingers biting into her right arm. An inhuman growl deafened
her to all else. She came to a jarring halt. The hold on her arm
nearly jerked it from her shoulder socket. Her left hand swung out
with all the might she could throw behind it, but her effort only
met with air. Then oily, thick hair filled her left fist and she
yanked.

Guttural, unintelligible
curses rang out. With the hair fiercely locked in her hold, she
drove her fist upward and connected with flesh-covered bone. A
harsh clack followed, telling her she had nailed him beneath his
jaw, driving his teeth together. Despite the pain seizing her hand,
sweet satisfaction sang in her blood. She swung again, unwittingly
stepping back, her left hand gripping the hair with all the
strength she possessed.

Her feet lost their
perch.

A strangled cry of alarm
rang from her. Another sirened when her fall came to an abrupt
stop. A masculine howl harshly chimed in the chamber, and it was
several seconds before she realized that she was dangling in
midair, in darkness, the hair wound about her left fist all that
kept her from falling to her death.

An internal roaring in her
ears blocked out most of the sounds from the infuriated stranger.
Fingers gripped her wrist.

Was he planning to hoist her
back onto the steps, or force her to let go before he allowed her
to drop?

When she realized that he
was pulling her up, she swung up her right arm and hooked it over
the back of his neck.

"Gawd!" exploded from
him.

Then they were
falling.

Worse than knowing she was
plunging to her death, was the barbarian wrapping his arms and legs
about her as if to absorb her completely into his putrid body. To
die was frightening enough. To contemplate impact melding their
broken flesh as one was more than she could bear.

She bit him hard on the side
of the neck as they somersaulted downward, only unlocking her teeth
when she tasted blood. She spat off to one side and choked on a cry
when his teeth clamped onto the side of her neck.

"Do it!" she rasped, closing
her eyes against the hope he would not make her suffer
long.

The pressure of his teeth
went away. Taryn could no longer tell if they were spinning head
over heel or just falling. Surely, the ground had to be near. Not
much longer. Perhaps she would suffocate on his stench before they
reached the end of this most peculiar journey.

His fingers gripped the back
of her hair, forcing her head back.

He’s going for a clean
kill,
she told herself.
My jugular.

She didn't resist, but
opened her eyes. Her stomach churned at the sight of his hairy face
above her, the rapid tumbled of his unkempt mane telling her they
were still somersaulting. In the now brightening blueness, his eyes
were but chips of coal, absent of fear and every other
emotion.

How can you not be afraid to
die?
she wondered.

The blueness meant they were
nearing the bottom, nearing their deaths.

What kind of man doesn’t
fear dying? Or are you just too stupid to understand that these are
the last moments of your life?

She expected him to rip out
her throat, or cast her away to die alone, or to crush the life out
of her before the moment of impact. She did not expect his mouth to
clamp over hers. It was not a kiss. Not in any sense she
understood. It was punishing, grinding her lips against her teeth.
Punishing her for invading his territory above ground. Punishing
her for invading his realm below ground. Punishing her for every
mean word and action she had perpetrated on him since their
encounter.

They spun uncontrollably
downward. An endless hell of sensation. A timeless round of
retribution. She wished she could regret her misspent years, her
lack of compassion, her cold-hearted approach to life, but it
wasn't in her to do so.

Ask anyone who had the
misfortune to know her, and they would say without hesitation that
Taryn Eilionoir Ingliss was a heartless, conniving, self-centered
bitch who wanted nothing out of life but thrills, fame and the
power that came with wealth.

Perhaps these same people
would believe this end a fitting one for her: Locked in the arms
and legs of a madman; her last semblance of a kiss both painful and
degrading.

His arms and legs tightened
and his mouth ground down harder. A mantle of blackness cloaked
her, freeing her mind from its struggle to come up with a modicum
of regret for her history. She was too deeply immersed in inner
darkness to feel the full impact of hitting bottom. She slipped
away into nothingness, one thought trailing off.

God, he reeks.

Chapter 4

Back at Baird House in
Crossmichael, Scotland, a scream as shrill as a neglected tea
kettle wrenched Lachlan Baird from a realm of disjointed
dreams.

He gasped "Fegs!" when an
attempt to bolt from the bed resulted in him landing head first on
the hardwood floor.

The scream rang on and on,
nary a breath of pause in the sirening alarm, the reverberations
hollow and crescendoing. He pushed up on his arms and realized his
legs remained atop the bed. His temper in high gear, he swung them
over the edge as he rolled onto his back, not realizing that the
top sheet twisted around them, also cocooned Beth Staples. Her cry
of surprise came too late. His eyes widened as a blur of motion
tumbled off the mattress. When her weight fell across him, what air
remained in his lungs billowed out.