Unbearable
Page 7
Miguel smuggled our swords back the next day. His eyes were red-rimmed and his perpetual smile was gone. He hugged us all in turn before getting into his Buick and driving away in a cloud of blue exhaust fumes.
I had assumed that was the end of it. With the police clearing us, we were free to return to New York. Nyanther announced that he would head back with us, then he would continue on after that. He planned to return to Scotland for an extended stay. He would stop in Albany only long enough to gather his things together.
Which would leave Nick and I alone for the first time in decades, with just one tiny human in the house.
Except that I had forgotten it was 1984.
The extent of my blindness and idiocy made itself known the day we left for Albany. I couldn’t stand the idea of driving back, so Nick was going to give the DeVille to Miguel and we would fly back from Miami. Miguel would bring the swords up in the DeVille in the summer and introduce us to his wife and new child.
The hardest task about packing for the journey was having to collect Tally’s things. I thought it was the hardest thing I would have to face that day and got through it with my jaw clenched.
I was just about done when someone rapped on the room door. I figured it was Nyanther and opened it without checking.
The woman standing there was middle-aged, with a hard expression in her eyes and drab clothing. “Mr. Sherwood?”
“No, I’m Damian,” I said. “You need to speak to Nick?”
She looked passed me to where Riley was sitting on the floor enthusiastically whacking plastic bricks with a plastic hammer. “I’m here to collect the child.”
Something hard and heavy dropped in my chest. The world shifted. My hearing faded.
“Collect?” I breathed. My voice sounded distant even to me.
“What the hell?” Nick demanded, coming up behind me. “What do you mean?”
The woman pulled out a wallet and flashed ID at us. It looked very official. More official than anything we could produce. “Florida Department of Children and Families,” she said stiffly. “We understand that the child, Riley, has no family now that her mother has passed on. I’m here to process her.”
Nick pulled in a breath that shuddered. “You can’t take her away,” he said flatly.
The woman looked at him steadily. “Are you a relative, Mr. Sherwood?”
I am. The two words were right there. I just had to speak them. Except that the relationship was so distant, there were more than two thousand years of generations between us. And I didn’t have a single piece of proof.
Nick pushed his hands through his hair. “We’re not blood but Tally grew up with us. We helped raise her. She wanted us to take care of Riley.”
“She wrote that down somewhere?” the woman asked sharply. “We couldn’t find evidence of a will, or documents that indicated if she had any final wishes.”
“You’ve been through my house,” Nick breathed. He sounded stunned.
I felt the same. “You can’t take her,” I said, my lips numb. I could barely form the words.
“I’m afraid I can, Mr.…Damian. It is our responsibility to take care of wards of the state. I can have the police enforce the directive, if necessary.”
Wards of state.
I felt sick. Genuinely, physically sick. I wasn’t breathing even though I needed to. My heart wouldn’t work, either and that didn’t help. Oxygen deprivation. I was getting dizzy with it.
The woman tried to step through the door and both Nick and I straightened in reaction.
She retreated. “Believe me, this will all be much easier for everyone if you just let me have her. If I have to involve the police, it will frighten her.” She stepped back one more step and nodded down the corridor. “I just have to call them.”
I looked. There were two cops waiting there, their arms crossed.
“Think of Riley,” the woman added.
I made myself move. I went over to Riley and picked her up. She patted my cheek.
“No, Damian, no,” Nick said wretchedly. He looked suddenly old, something that wasn’t possible. He looked like the life had been sucked out of him, leaving a wizened, leathery shell.
I imagine I looked the same.
“Say goodbye to Riley, Nick,” I said hoarsely.
He gave a choking groan and closed his eyes. Then he moved over to me and kissed and hugged Riley as she gurgled and cooed, still waving the plastic hammer. Then it was my turn.
I couldn’t let her go, in the end. Neither could Nick. We tried to comply. We just couldn’t. The woman came into the room and eased Riley out of our hands, a bit at a time.
That was when Riley started to cry.
The woman left quickly, but not quickly enough. We have extended hearing, of course. I listened to Riley scream all the way down to the front foyer, until they put her in a car and shut the door.
That soft click was not the worst sound.
It was the silence that was the worst.
January 20, 1984
We functioned enough to pass among humans. That was the highest I can say of what we did for the next two weeks. I don’t remember returning to Albany. I barely remember Nyanther leaving again, a day or two later.
On the twentieth, I came downstairs and put the duffel bag on the bench by the front door and went to find Nick.
He was sitting in the same armchair he had been sitting in for two weeks, except for feeding. He looked up as I came in.
“My plane leaves in a few hours, so I’m saying goodbye.”
“You’re leaving.” He said it flatly, like nothing would ever surprise him again.
“If I wasn’t here saying it, you wouldn’t have noticed I was even gone.”
Nick’s jaw flexed. “How wrong you are….”
“Then convince me I should stay,” I shot back.
He remained silent.
I nodded. “There we are, then.” I turned, meaning to go.
“You blame me,” Nick said, his voice low.
“No! That’s not it!” I spun back to face him. “I knew you would do this. Jesus wept! She was a hunter. She died defeating her mortal enemy. It happens. We’ve seen it happen over and over. Garribaldi, John Jones, Henry Attwood…and they were just some of the people who died in 1873. That’s life, Nick. That’s what happens if we insist on living as a human. We get to watch people die.”
“Then why are you leaving?” he asked bleakly.
“Because I can’t stand it, being here.”
He flinched.
“Neither can you, Nick, or you would have moved from that chair days ago. I can’t stand…” I had to stop and breathe. “I can’t stand the silence. I keep hearing Riley screaming. Tally’s voice. Even Carson’s laugh. There’re too many ghosts here. I have to leave or I’m going to go out of my mind.”
“Whether I need you or not?”
“You don’t need me. Not really. You haven’t for a long time. I’m just a habit now.”
Nick sighed. “You’re still wrong. You, who are always so good at looking inside others. It’s ironic.” He didn’t smile.
He didn’t ask me to stay, either.
I turned away again. “I will live by my promise, Nick. If Azazel ever reappears, if gargoyles rise again, I’ll come back.”
“But nothing else will bring you back, will it?” He didn’t sound like he cared about my answer.
I didn’t look at him. “Maybe. Perhaps I will come back someday.”
“When?”
“When it’s no longer unbearable.”
The next book in The Stonebrood Saga
The next and final book in the Stonebrood Saga is Sabrina’s Clan, which will be released in June, 2016.
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Kiss Across Time, Book 1 of the Kiss Across Time series – and it’s free!
A single kiss can change more than one life…or two.
Taylor Yates is fired for insisting the 5th Century Arthurian poet, Inigo Domhnall, existed. When she hears Domhnall’s lyrics in a death metal song, she engineers a meeting with lead singer, Brody Gallagher. An unintended kiss sends them spinning back to the poet’s time, when Saxons were pillaging King Arthur’s Britain.
Brody’s all for kissing her again. More, he wants her to kiss his friend and lover, Veris, to see what will happen. When Veris’ kiss sends them back to the time of the Vikings neither man is willing to let Taylor simply walk out of their lives.
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Warning: This paranromal time travel romance features two super hot alpha vampire heroes, multiple sex scenes, including anal sex, MM sexual play, and MMF sex. Do not read this book if frank sexual language and sex scenes offend you.
The time-space continuum was restored to order at the end of this book. Promise.
This is the first book in the Kiss Across Time Series
Kiss Across Time 1.0: Kiss Across Time
Kiss Across Time 2.0: Kiss Across Swords
Kiss Across Time 2.5: Time Kissed Moments I
Kiss Across Time 3.0: Kiss Across Chains
Kiss Across Time 4.0: Kiss Across Deserts
Kiss Across Time 5.0: Kiss Across Kingdoms
The series has ongoing storylines and characters. Reading the books in order is recommended.
[Time Kissed Moments are short stories and novellas featuring the characters and situations featured in the Kiss Across Time series.]
A Time Travel Vampire Romance Novel
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Amazon #1 Bestseller, Paranormal Romance
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[She] has created characters that are engaging, unpredictable, outrageously funny and down-right appealing to readers who will steal their hearts. The Romance Studio
I think you’ll be as entertained and affected by the chemistry between the characters as I was. A fast-moving romance that spanned several lifetimes and included a paranormal aspect that was a fun and totally unexpected surprise. Whipped Cream Erotic Romance Reviews
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About the Author
Tracy Cooper-Posey is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author. She writes romantic suspense, paranormal, urban fantasy, futuristic and science fiction romances. She has published over 55 novels since 1999, been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award.
She turned to indie publishing in 2011. Her indie titles have been nominated four times for Book Of The Year and Byzantine Heartbreak was a 2012 winner. Faring Soul won a SFR Galaxy Award in 2016 for “Most Intriguing Philosophical/Social Science Questions in Galaxybuilding” She has been a national magazine editor and for a decade she taught romance writing at MacEwan University.
She is addicted to Irish Breakfast tea and chocolate, sometimes taken together. In her spare time she enjoys history, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction and ignoring her treadmill. An Australian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a former professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line.
Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey
* = Free!
Blood Knot Series (Urban Fantasy Paranormal Series)
Blood Knot*
Southampton Swindle
Broken Promise
Vale
Amor Meus
Blood Stone
Blood Unleashed
Blood Drive
Blood Revealed
Blood Ascendant
Beloved Bloody Time Series (Paranormal Futuristic Time Travel)
Bannockburn Binding*
Wait
Byzantine Heartbreak
Viennese Agreement
Romani Armada
Spartan Resistance
Kiss Across Time Series (Paranormal Time Travel)
Kiss Across Time*
Kiss Across Swords
Time Kissed Moments I
Kiss Across Chains
Kiss Across Deserts
Kiss Across Kingdoms
The Kine Prophecies (Epic Norse Fantasy Romance)
The Branded Rose Prophecy
The Stonebrood Saga(Gargoyle Paranormal Series)
Carson’s Night*
Beauty’s Beasts
Harvest of Holidays
Unbearable
Sabrina’s Clan
Destiny’s Trinities (Urban Fantasy Romance Series)
Beth’s Acceptance*
Mia’s Return
Sera’s Gift
The First Trinity
Cora’s Secret
Interspace Originas (Science Fiction Romance Series)
Faring Soul
Varkan Rise
Cat and Company
Short Paranormals
Solstice Surrender
Eva’s Last Dance
The Vistaria Affair (Romantic Suspense)
Red Leopard*
Black Heart
Blue Knight
White Dawn
Go-get-‘em Women (Short Romantic Suspense Series)
The Royal Talisman
Delly’s Last Night
Vivian’s Return
Ningaloo Nights
Jewells of Tomorrow (Historical Romantic Suspense)
Diana By The Moon
Heart of Vengeance
Scandalous Sirens (Historical Romance Series)
Forbidden*
Dangerous Beauty
Perilous Princess
Romantic Thrillers Series
Fatal Wild Child
Dead Again
Dead Double
Terror Stash
Thrilling Affair
The Endurance (Science Fiction Romane Series)
Greyson’s Doom
5,001
Contemporary Romances
Lucifer’s Lover
An Inconvenient Lover
The Sherlock Holmes Series (Romantic Suspense/Mystery)
Chronicles of the Lost Years
The Case of the Reluctant Agent
For reviews, excerpts, and more about each title, visit Tracy’s site and click on each title in turn: http://tracycooperposey.com/books/tracys-trilogies-series/
Copyright Information
This is an original publication of Tracy Cooper-Posey
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2016 by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Text design by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Cover by Dar Albert
Wicked Smart Designs
http://WickedSmartDesigns.com
Edited by Helen Woodall
http://HelenWoodallFreelanceEditing.blogspot.com/
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permiss
ion. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
FIRST EDITION: May 2016
Cooper-Posey, Tracy
Unbearable/Tracy Cooper-Posey—1st Ed.
Romance—Fiction
Paranormal – Fiction