She nodded and stood up, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her head in his chest. She struggled to hold back her tears, but it was useless as she began sobbing in his arms.
He dragged in a ragged breath as he was hit with a wave of pain shooting through all of his nerves and muscles.
“Let’s get you to the bed,” she said softly wiping away her tears with a renewed resolve to stay strong for him in this time when he needed her most.
He nodded and followed her down the hall to the bedroom.
He laid down and slid back as she covered him with a heavy quilt and climbed in next to him trying to warm his shivering body. “Later on, after dark, you’re going to have to drive me to the graveyard on Lakeview. The old church there….that’s where I sit. We have to get me there before I lose the strength to climb to the roof, because if I’m on the ground they may try to move me somewhere else. All my belongings; everything I own is buried there.”
“But…I want to be next to you when it happens,” she said softly.
He smiled. “I know. But I don’t see how, unless you’re willing to sit up there on that freezing cold roof.”
She nodded. “I’ll bring a ladder…whatever I have to do to get up there. And a blanket. I’m not leaving your side until it’s over. And even then….” her voice trailed off as she moved closer to his cool body.
He looked down at her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For everything….for bringing you into this.”
“Shhh. Don’t you dare say that to me,“ she said firmly. “I could never be sorry. I’m grateful for every day, and for every moment we’ve had.” A tear slid down her cheek and he reached up to dry it away with his finger.
He handed her a leather fold over tied with a silk cord.
“What’s this?” she said.
“The future,” he smiled. “Open it.”
She pulled the cord and opened up the folder and inside was five envelopes and a set of keys.
The first envelope said, ‘Med School’ on it and she gasped when she opened it to find $200,000 in savings bonds made out in her name.
Her eyes welled anew with tears. “How? How did you….I can’t accept this.”
“Willow, you told me when we were in Wales that you might like to become a doctor. You have to promise me that you will go to med school if that’s what you really want. I can’t be here in person to take care of you, but I can make sure that you have the means to do whatever you want in life.”
“But how?” she said. “Where did you get the money
for this and how will you survive when you wake back up?”
“Don’t worry about me. I have plenty.”
She looked at the other three envelopes. Each was numbered, ‘1’, ‘2’ and ‘3’, and inside were tens of thousands in cash and bonds. “What are these for?
“Those are for your children, if you have any,” he said quietly. “I wish to God I could be the man to father them and help you raise them, but again…I can’t. But the one thing I can do is give you what you need to take care of any family you might have and send them to school.” He pulled the last envelope out of the pouch before she could, opened it and unfolded the short stack of papers there. It was the deed to a new house made out in her name.
“I hope you like it,“ he smiled. “It’s got two stories… four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a huge yard. Two acres. Cisco and those kids will have plenty of room to run.”
“If you don’t like it you can sell it. Keep the money. There‘s another half a million in there…just because.”
He swallowed back the lump in his throat as he took her hand in his own and brought her fingers to his lips. “Just promise me that if…or when you find a guy who’ll share all this with you, make sure he’s a good man. Someone who’ll love you the way I would have…the way I do.”
She shook her head. “Samson, I can’t. I can’t love anyone the way I love you. And you can’t just give me all of this!”
“Yes. I can. And yes, you will.” His teeth chattered loudly as he began to shiver violently under the heavy blanket.
She slid over next to him wrapping her body tighter around him and pulling two more blankets around them.
“Listen…I have to tell you something. I had this dream. And there was a little girl…a mermaid. And she kept saying, ‘Freedom is naught but a state of mind.’ What do you think that means?”
His brows knit together and he closed his eyes. His mind was starting to slow down and he was having trouble concentrating. “I don’t know. It’s too late to worry about it now anyway. But I do know that I will love you for the rest of my existence. And you can never know what it means to me that you’re here with me now.“
“I could never let you go through this alone,“ she said, laying her face down against his cool chest. She could feel his heart beating there…abnormally slow and faint.
He could feel the warmth of her sweet body lying there next to him as he wrapped one of his arms around her and he smiled because in that moment he realized that the curse hadn’t just been a gift, it had been the greatest gift he could ever have been given. Because of it, he’d met Willow. They had only loved for a brief moment in time…but every moment that he had been able to share with her, meant more than all the rest.
And although this curse may own his body, it did not own his soul, nor the love that dwelled there. He smiled at the utter irony of it all….because as he was lying there slowly turning to stone, unable to move, unable to do anything, he’d never felt freer than he did in this moment!
Freedom is naught but a state of mind: the words from Willow’s dream rang out loud and clear in his head as everything around him began to spin in slow motion, eventually slowing down to a stand still.
Every particle in motion came to a stop and it was as if he could see the very atoms that moved through the material world, each in their own space.
He could see Willow lying there next to him, motionless, frozen in time like a scene from a movie on the big screen. And eerily another verse began to drone, seeming to pound in his ears with every beat of his heart. ‘a prison, no walls, no locks, no key…from which only thy jailer can set thee free.’
Samson opened his eyes as he realized in that moment that he was indeed free. It was all so clear now, that there had only ever been one jailer. It was not a priestess of the Tuatha de D’annan. Nor a curse that would turn him to stone. The only jailer who’d ever brought him to his fate….was he himself. And the one person from whom he needed forgiveness for his sins above all the rest was again, he himself. For without it, he could never truly be free to live…or to love.
He was a changed man. Not only one who’d made amends, but one willing to love and to give without boundaries…not with self-serving intention…not with motive to break a curse….not with any conditions at all. But, simply because. And in that moment, for the first time in all of his long existence, he knew in his heart that he was a good and decent man that had pushed that part of himself away into the darkest reaches of his soul. The curse had simply been the light he needed to find everything he’d buried. Funny…but he also now realized that it was alright to love and accept himself despite all he’d done….and to allow himself to be loved by another. There was and is no truer freedom than that.
A sudden peace enveloped him and he felt a warmth rushing to the center of his chest as his heart began to beat stronger and his blood began moving through his limbs at a more normal rate, and everything around him began to move again…slowly at first, and then speeding up more and more until everything looked normal again.
He sat up suddenly, dragging Willow with him.
“What just happened?” she said, her eyes wide with wonder. “My god. You’re up.”
He smiled.
Her eyes welled with tears. “Did you….fix this somehow?”
“Yeah. I did.” He slid forward and sat on the edge of the bed as he reached up and felt his pulse, beating normally at the side of h
is neck. His skin felt warm to the touch, and the sluggishness that was dragging the very breath from his lungs, was gone.
She slid over next to him as he pulled her close to his body. “What happened?”
“It was me all along,” he said quietly. “I was my own destruction, my own curse….my own jailer. The curse was simply the catalyst for me to find out all of that. As soon as I realized that my blood could heal, and that it was not a curse at all…but a gift instead, it opened the door to everything else. Through the blood of thy will…”
He pulled her body into his and kissed her lips.
“Those words from your dream were inside my head too. I heard them right after I realized that I was free.”
“So, does this mean that I can dare to hope that you’re not leaving me?”
“My lady…I am never leaving you. Not as long as I have a breath left in my body.”
A sudden chill filled the air and without warning Adrielle and Maximus were standing in the corner.
“So, then I see you have figured out the rhyme,” Adrielle smiled. “You are a man once more, who shall walk the earth with human feet and who shall love with the heart of a Guardian.”
Maximus nodded. “And with that in mind, perhaps we can now speak of his Ascension. You know the rules.”
“Maximus, remember how we have always felt about one another….how would you feel had someone taken me from you? Sometimes rules are meant to be broken.” She turned back to Samson. “Enjoy the life you create for yourself here and now.”
Samson’s brows knit together. “Wait. I want to know what he meant by this Ascension. I know you told the little boy that I would be one of you soon. What does it mean?”
She smiled as she continued. “Ah, but think about it! Were you not already a Guardian? For gargoyles watch over man, from the perches where they sit, stone cold and twisted in their visage, just as Angels watch over man from their place in the ethereal realm. As you now know, your curse simply took the form of what lay in your heart at the time the spell was cast. Sometimes the worst of circumstances are the catalyst for bringing out the best in us, and only through that lesson do we become all we can be and discover who we really are inside. Who we were all along….but perhaps didn’t know it.”
“By your own free will, you changed your path, the moment you gave your blood to save the life of another,” Adrielle continued. “You are and always have been a Guardian, Samson Bellmaine. And, you will Ascend and join us in our realm, soon enough….after you’ve lived a life here on earth with the one you love. You earned it.”
She turned to Maximus. “My love, I hope you understand. A human life is but a breath in time….we can wait for him.”
“A beautiful woman I know recently said something about rules being meant to be broken sometimes.” He smiled and as he wrapped his arms around her, a misty vapor that looked like wings enveloped them both. “She also had a few thoughts about obedient women not making history.”
Her brows knit together and she cocked her head to one side. “You mean you….?”
Maximus nodded. “Yes, my love. I knew what you were thinking…I can feel your soul, remember? And I had already planned to visit him. You simply beat me to it.”
Adrielle smiled and raised one eyebrow as she turned back to face Samson.
“Will I see you again?” he asked.
“Oh, I‘d say that you just might,“ she said smiling coyly. “Samson Bellmaine, Guardian of Man: with the blessings of the Great Goddess of the Silver Wheel, and by thine own hand, the stone prison that held you fast, exists no more, but in memories past. You are indeed free of your curse.” She moved in closer to Maximus as they shimmered out.
Samson turned to Willow. “Well…I guess you’re going to have to put up with sharing that house and those kids with me now?” He smiled.
Her arms wound around his neck. “I can’t believe that you were going to leave me all of that. How? I mean…I know you said you had more than you could ever use. But….”
He laughed. “Do you have any idea just how much money I have?”
“No. But I guess it must be a lot since there’s almost a million dollars of bonds and house sitting there. How much more could you possibly have?”
“Oh, very much, my lady. And most definitely enough to give you any kind of wedding you want.”
He pulled his ring from her finger and polished it on his shirt before getting on one knee. “Now, I believe I have the means….and the life ahead of me to do this right. So let’s start over brand new. Willow Dalton, will you marry me?”
She nodded and said, “Yes!” as he pulled her down on top of his body, devouring her lips with his own. He pulled back from her and took her hand and placed it over his heart. “As long as I have a pulse, and even when I don’t, I will never stop loving you. I always thought love was a prison, but it’s just the opposite. Love is what sets us free.”
He took a deep breath. “But, you know, I’m going to miss having the power to heal. As much as being a block of stone was a curse, that part was a blessing…a gift beyond measure. There was no greater feeling I’ve ever known besides loving you than that. But I guess maybe someday, if what those Guardians said is true and I join them after this life, maybe I’ll be able to do it again.”
He took her lips again in a slow, erotic kiss that was to be the beginning of a long night of love with many more to come throughout the years they would know together.
Later that evening as he walked out onto the patio to let Cisco out, Samson stubbed his bare toe against the freezing concrete. He marveled watching the blood drip from the wound and seeing it not instantaneously close up for the first time in centuries!
What he didn’t see….at least not until the next morning in the light of day, was the place where his toe had closed over without a mark, and the patch of green grass that poked its head up out of the snow, where his blood had fallen on the ground.
And from just outside the realm of human perception, in the space between particles of matter, Adrielle smiled.
For, just before she had departed from their presence, she had said quite clearly: he was free from his curse. However, she had not said anything about him being free from his gift.
It was a good day indeed.
Arianrhod:
The Goddess of the Silver wheel.
A star and moon Goddess, Arianrhod is the Welsh deity representing rebirth and karma. She is known as the Mother aspect of the Triple Goddess and her palace is Caer Arianrhod, also known as the Aurora Borealis. It was believed souls would retreat here to be
rejuvenated and reborn.
The ancient Celts counted their calendars not by days, but by nights…and cycles of the moon. Their astrologers would base their observations on the position of the moon and it’s relationship to the stars around it:
The Great Wheel of Arianrhod.
Arianrhod is also said to have been a shape shifter, taking on the form of an owl, able to see in the darkness….even the darkest regions of the human soul., wherein goodness, unknown, lay hidden away.
She would bring strength, comfort and rebirth…a renewal of the spirit…to all that asked for her assistance.
Arianrhod is mentioned in this story of redemption and rebirth, with great reverence and with note to her legend.
A bout the Author:
CYNTHIA LUCAS
After reading countless romance novels, Cynthia Lucas, decided to put her self-proclaimed addiction to love to good use, and write her own. Her first self-published work, “When Lightning Strikes” gained her a captive audience, excellent reviews and requests for more of her enchanting writing style that leaves the reader feeling as though they’ve lived the story. Her sophomore effort, BLOOD FROM A STONE combines a sassy, modern feel with gothic flavored romance, in a sexy, spellbinding page turner that will keep readers captivated from start to finish.
Cynthia is also an accomplished singer/songwriter in the musical act NORTH 2 SOUTH and is an int
ernational songwriting competition nominee and award winning lyricist. She currently resides in Largo, FL with her husband of nineteen years, their daughter and several pets, including exotic birds and wildlife that she rehabs as a hobby.
Blood From a Stone Page 27