"Lass—" Roan chewed on his lower lip when she looked at him through a dazed expression. He wanted to clasp her hands and reassure her that whatever she had endured was now in the past. For nearly a day, she hadn't spoken, only stared into nothingness, sometimes rocking to and fro, and sometimes huddling in a chair as if wanting everything beyond the confines of her mind to vanish. "You must eat somethin'. Least let me fetch you—"
"Why?" she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper.
Why? He shrugged in perplexity and forced a smile. "To keep up yer strength, Taryn."
She blinked and took a sip of tea. The trembling in her hands caused the saucer and cup to clatter, and she placed the plain white china on a small table next to her chair. She shrank deep within the colorful quilt covering her, leaving nothing but her face exposed.
"Taryn, wha' happened down there?"
She stared into the crackling flames, her chin quivering, her bleak expression tugging on Roan's heartstrings.
"Let me help you."
Her sole response was to shift her gaze to his face.
"Taryn, ye're ma sister. I'm here for you."
"You can say it," she said tremulously. Sighing deeply, she closed her eyes a moment and managed a weak smile. When she looked at him again, there was something in her eyes he couldn't define. Something trying to convey a message she was reluctant to word.
"Say wha', lass?"
"You love me."
"O' course I do."
To his bewilderment, she broke down in sobs and buried her face in the quilt to muffle the sound. "I thought you didn't try to find me!"
"Damn me, Taryn! Ye're ma kid sister! Regardless o' wha' happened afore, I do love you."
"Why?" she sobbed.
Roan laughed with frustration. "Why? Because we're kin. Because...ye're a part o' me no one else can share."
He sagged with exhaustion, and winced at a nagging pain in his wounded shoulder. Taryn peeked over the quilt and he managed a smile. "We've lost a lot o' years, haven’t we?" he said sadly. "Ma fault. Damn ma pride."
The quilt lowered. "No one's fault," she said, her voice hitching with emotion. It's just...my mind got messed up when you left us."
"I didn’t leave, Taryn."
Tears coursed down her face. "To a little girl, it was her big brother who left. I know it doesn't make sense."
"Aye, it does," he said, staring at his hands entwined on his lap.
"You took care of me when Mom and Dad were off socializing, and read me to sleep every night. You were my only anchor, Roan, and I adored you."
"You terrorized me," he said with a mock shudder.
"Because you let me. No one could replace you in the States. I pretended you were there, though, sharing tea parties in my room, playing dress-up and hide-and-go-seek. I was eleven when my imagination couldn't hold on to you any longer, and I was alone, really alone for the first time.
"I'm not proud of what I've done trying to fill that emptiness, Roan. I can't change the past, only my future."
"You don’t need to change at all for me," he said, bracing his forearms on his thighs and leaning forward. "I want to be a part o' yer future, Taryn. I need you in ma life."
She swallowed convulsively. "I'm so confused," she whimpered.
"Abou' us?"
She shook her head. "Broc."
"Wha' did he do to you?"
"It hurts," she said, placing a hand over her heart. "His words...his actions...don't make sense." She swallowed again, loudly, and sucked in a liquid breath. "I can't believe he could make love like that unless his heart was in it."
"Mair'n I wanted to know," Roan grumbled, heat suffusing his face.
A door slammed, startling them. Before Roan could leave his chair, Lachlan stormed into the room, drenched and pale, and went directly to the fireplace. Roan stood and held out the sofa quilt, but Lachlan belligerently flagged a hand and set to pacing like a caged animal behind Taryn's chair.
"No luck?" Roan asked.
Lachlan released a colorful stream of Gaelic, his voice booming.
"I checked on our guests a while ago. Lannie, we can’t keep them tied up in the cellar much longer."
Lachlan dashed around the chair and stood nose to nose with Roan. "Dinna you dare tell me ye're concerned for those bloody bastards!"
"Ye're spittin' yer drippin’s on me," Roan said, his calm tone incongruous to the blood heating in his veins. "Look...Lannie...I'm as worried as you abou' Blue and Reith, but I need to get Taryn away from here."
"No," she rasped.
Lachlan spared her a brief glance before the burning dark coals of his eyes bored into Roan's. "Then go. And take her wi' you!"
"Lannie—"
"Tis one matter to put her own arse in harm's way," Lachlan snarled, "but this time she's gone too far! You leave." He swept an arm in the direction of the door. "I'm stayin' till I get ma friends away from tha' monster!"
A choked sound rattled from Taryn, eliciting the men's attention. Roan went down on a knee beside her, while Lachlan remained rigidly in place.
"He won't hurt them," she said in a small voice.
"The monster or yer latest bed mate?" Lachlan asked scathingly.
Roan stood and confronted him. "Watch wha' you say, old mon."
"Besides," Taryn said, "they're fairies. They can escape—"
"They have no power in the craiture's realm!" Lachlan snapped. He swept the soaked sleeve of his shirt across his mouth, and looked down at Taryn. "Since you've found yer tongue, how did you go beneath the ground?"
Her eyes downcast, she lifted her shoulders in a feeble shrug.
With a howl of vexation, Lachlan leapt to the mantel and swept down a broadsword cradled in an oak wall rack. He flung the weapon, and jerked in astonishment at his over-reaction when the gleaming blade penetrate the back of the sofa.
"Lachlan!" Roan barked.
"Bite ma wet breeks," Lachlan muttered. Sitting next to the sword, he removed it, stood it on end, and rested his hand on the hilt, his brow atop his hands. "I've tried everythin'," he said wearily. "I've shoveled dozens o' holes and kept hittin' rock beds." He looked up. "You should take yer sister and return to Baird House. I'll stay and keep pokin' till I find a way through tha' bloody ground."
"I can't leave you here alone." Roan snatched up a second quilt from on the chair and tossed it over Lachlan's head. "Have the mind, if you please, no' ta catch yer daith." As an afterthought, he muttered, "Again."
Lachlan leaned the sword against the sofa and briskly rubbed himself with the quilt. "It doesna make sense for you and Taryn to stay. Have you spoken to Winston?"
"But a few words."
"Deliah?"
"They have a son." A smile tugged at Roan's mouth. "Born a few hours efter we left the estate."
"Has he a name?"
Roan shook his head. "No' when I spoke wi' him. I-ah, didna mention wha' was happenin' here."
"For the best."
"I was sitting on a rock," Taryn said.
The men looked to see her staring into the flames.
"When the ground opened?" Lachlan asked.
She nodded.
"It just opened suddenly?" Roan asked.
She nodded.
"This...Broc," Lachlan said, as if a bitter taste had seized his tongue. "He's a MacLachlan?"
She nodded and turned her head to stare through Lachlan with glazed eyes. "You told me at Baird House I would meet him."
"I knew you would meet someone connected to the stones," Lachlan said begrudgingly. "Certainly no someone under the bloody things."
"You said, and I quote: ‘There's a mon waitin' for you at the end o' yer destination. Dinna provoke him.' Do you remember?"
"Aye."
Taryn sniffed. "Do you know who he is?"
"A MacLachlan," he said sourly. "Tis all I need to know at this point."
"I think he is the legend," she said, so softly they had to strain to hear.
"The original?" La
chlan scoffed then slumped as if his life force had fled him. "Ma ancestor?" he asked with a sneer.
"I'm pretty sure."
"A descendant o' the legend, you mean."
She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Lachlan, you've died twice and come back. What's so damned unbelievable about this Broc being the original?"
A crude sound of disbelief escaped Lachlan. "Tis a ruse," he said, getting to his feet. He gripped the hilt of the sword and jabbed the tip of the blade at the floor as he returned to the hearth. His back to the warmth, he scowled at Taryn.
"He would be over two centuries old! And I would know if he were the real mon."
Crimson stole into Taryn's cheeks. She slowly rose from the chair, standing an arm's length from Lachlan.
"He and Karok—"
"Karok?" Lachlan said, looking as though she had slugged him.
"The gargoyle."
"Tha' craiture is a gargoyle?" Roan asked, dazed.
"Karok," Lachlan murmured, and mindlessly rapped the sword tip on the rock hearth floor. "The name carved in runes on ma dirk."
"You knew those faces were gargoyles and not demons?"
"Demons?" he said with a frown. "Aye, I knew they were gargoyles. But..." Rap. Rap rap rap. "...wha' has ma dirk to do wi' tha' craiture?"
"I don't know," Taryn said. "All I do know is, Karok's holding Broc prisoner until he gets some key."
"Key?" asked Roan.
Rap. Rap. Rap rap rap. Rap.
"He went willingly," Lachlan said brusquely.
Taryn shivered and drew the quilt tighter about her. When Roan stepped behind her and wrapped his good arm snugly around her, she gratefully accepted the warmth his closeness offered. "I don't understand why he didn't refuse to go back below."
"Did he say why the craiture keeps him?"
"Because he killed Karok's mate, Lachlan, " Taryn said. "Karok's the last of his kind and, without this key, he's doomed to remain there, indefinitely."
"Where else can he go?" Roan asked.
"He wants to die. He's wanted to since losing his mate. I know he looks and acts scary, but he really can be very gentle. I-I thought Broc would leave if given the chance." She sniffed back moisture. "We can't leave him down there, Lachlan. I won't leave without him."
Lachlan pensively studied her, the intensity of his scowl causing a chill to claw its way up her spine.
"You love this mon?" he asked hesitantly.
She nodded.
"You'll get over him."
"No, Lachlan, you don't understand—"
"I do! You were caught at yer own game!"
"Lannie!" Roan barked. "Mind yer tone wi' ma sister!"
Lachlan released a disparaging grunt. The sword slipped through his fingers and clanged to the fieldstone. He muttered curse, swept it up and replaced it on the wall rack. When he turned back to Taryn, she was staring at her bare feet as if spiders scurried across her toes.
"Wha' is it?" Lachlan asked.
Roan stepped to Lachlan's side. "Taryn?" he prodded.
She looked up from one man to the other, her irises strangely aglow.
"Taryn," Lachlan said impatiently.
"I'll change and pack my things."
"Taryn?" Roan said, concern thickening his tone.
"You're right, Lachlan, Roan and I need to leave."
"Wha'—" Roan clamped his mouth shut when she ran from the room, leaving her quilt in a heap on the floor.
The men exchanged dubious glances. Roan tossed the quilt on the chair she had occupied, and scratched the back of his head. "I need a bloody Scotch. And—" he snapped, facing Lachlan, "wha' has yer testicles in a tether?"
Lachlan grimaced and turned to the fireplace, his hands held out to absorb its warmth.
"Ma sister has been through hell. She doesn’t need you houndin' her!"
"I know," Lachlan said, and released a woeful breath. "I canna think beyond the fact tha' Blue and Reith are bein' held by tha' craiture." He turned his head and stared into Roan's troubled gaze. "I'll make amends wi' Taryn. Take her home, Roan. I'll return once I have freed our friends."
"And if you can't?"
Lachlan scowled into the hearth's flames. "No' the devil, himself, will stop me from findin' them. This I vow."
* * *
Vibrations, Taryn thought for the hundredth time. She tied up her black sneakers, finishing her apparel, and rose from the edge of her bed. I was sitting on a rock and my pager went off. I remember feeling it vibrate through my pack and through the rock. And...and the ground opened right after.
She paced in a tight circle.
It was Broc's sword I heard striking stone before he rode out of the realm. I know I'm right. Vibrations open the portal!
"I need to talk to Broc without Roan and Lachlan's testosterone interfering."
Her pacing ceased as images of Broc and Karok in the gargoyle's chamber, played across her mindscreen.
Why the cruelty, Broc? Was your intention to make it easier for me to leave you? But why tell Karok you couldn't love me, when supposedly...it was what Karok wanted before separating us?
Pain stabbed at her temples.
You must have sensed what was happening above ground. Before that, would you have killed me to spite Karok?
I have to know if you love me. If in fact you used me, it will be far less painful than living with insidious doubts.
"Now...what to use to activate the opening," she murmured.
Ten minutes later, she slipped out the kitchen door and into the night, a saucepan in hand.
* * *
Lachlan's skin twitched as he scanned the empty, silent room, the broadsword once again clutched in his right hand.
How long has Roan been gone? Leave it to a womon to make packin’ a few items a major production!
He skillfully twirled the sword above his head in a fluid, graceful motion, and lowered it to his side. If, and if was a stretch even for his imagination, this Broc was in fact the original, the gargoyle's domain was probably more of a home than the outer world. Lachlan's first impression of him was that he was a savage. An unprincipled, unrestrainable barbarian, despite the fact he had come to Lachlan and Roan's rescue.
Or had it just been fortuitous timin’?
Lachlan wearily massaged the stiff muscles at his nape. Once Roan and Taryn were away, Lachlan could better formulate a plan. He had to do something soon. He couldn't leave the MacLachlans in the basement indefinitely—although the idea did appeal to him.
The police couldn't be brought in. Even if they believed his story, Lachlan's conscience couldn't justify endangering the craiture or the man. Not yet. All that mattered was getting Reith and Blue back. If they were harmed in any way during their stay in the underworld, Lachlan's wrath would exact justice.
"Lannie!" Roan ran into the room. Panting, he stooped to get his second wind. "She's nowhere in the house!"
"Taryn?"
Roan straightened, his face flushed. "I think she went back to the stones."
"Fegs," Lachlan growled, and stalked from the room, Roan in his wake.
They left the house, greeted by an icy curtain of rain.
"Wha' if she went below?" Roan shouted.
"We'll find her."
* * *
Broc languidly entered Karok’s chamber, weary beyond endurance. The gargoyle was crouched before the shrine he had engraved for his mate, soothing gurgling sounds denoting a prayer for his beloved. Broc shook his head, and dragged his heavy legs across the room to where two figures slept on beds of leaves and dried water grass. The innocence and stark beauty of the couple caused his heart to swell. He knelt and reverently bowed his head.
"Wake in good health," he whispered, and forced his aching muscles to lift him to his feet.
He was physically and mentally drained, a man condemned, as was Karok, to live with unbearable loneliness. Karok would release the young couple when they awakened, as he would the other, and more decades—centuries—would pass, man and
beast left to rely on each to ward off insanity.
At Karok’s side, he bowed his head to the shrine. Only now did he understand the gargoyle's loss. The gargoyle's torment.
Sensing his mood, Karok offered a soft, liquid-sounding chitter.
"I deserve no' yer sympathy," he said, his voice lifeless. "Ye knew, didna ye?"
The gargoyle's head swiveled, and his luminescent eyes locked with Broc's.
"Aye, ye knew," Broc said, disheartened, and his chest heaved on a sigh. "The first...I did love her, but it wasna wha' I felt wi' Taryn."
A shudder coursed through him.
"I went a wee mad when ye let it known ye wanted her to remain. I couldna ask her to stay...no' when there is a vast world ou' there able to give her far mair happiness than I ever could."
Broc lowered his head shamefully. "I tried no' to love her. As Gawd be ma witness...I did try. And ye know I canna risk faitherin' a child, no' wi' the curse wha' be on ma shoulders."
Karok offered a crooning gurgle.
"No." He looked up and scanned the gargoyle's harsh-planed features. "She be better off in her world."
"Where do men get off thinking they know what is best for a woman?"
At the first sound of the feminine voice, Broc couldn't move. By the time her chiding ceased, he whirled to find Taryn poised at the threshold, her chin lifted in defiance.
"I figured out how to activate the stone." She wagged the saucepan, tossed it aside, and strolled toward him. Within arm's reach, she stopped and folded her arms against her chest. "Are Reith and Blue okay?"
"The young ones?" Broc managed, glancing at the prone couple.
She nodded.
"Sleepin' off the drugs."
Taryn nodded again.
"I didna feel the portal openin'," he said, rattled.
"Maybe yer mind was elsewhere," she said airily.
"Why..." Broc drew in a breath to rally his wits. "...did ye return?"
"You know why."
"Mayhaps I need to hear the words."
"I love you," she said simply. Despite her control, tears brimmed her eyes. "I don't love easily, Broc. It would take a helluva lot more than a slab to keep me away."
"Taryn...."
"Do you love me?" she asked boldly.
"There's somethin' ye should know—"
Her finger to his lips stopped him. "I know all I need to, Broc. I love you. Nothing else matters."
Time Everlastin' Book 5 Page 20