Time Everlastin' Book 5 (18 page)

She lifts her face to bask
in the silver-blue moonlight.

A snowflake, three times
larger than her hand, unexpectedly lands on her head. She gasps,
her arms flailing to remove the cold matter, then laughs outright
and opens her arms to embrace the wetness. For an undeterminable
time, she swipes and pokes at the flakes, now and then scooping out
a portion to taste.

"No," Blue mewled, turning
onto her back, her head tossing from side to side as the dreamscape
darkens and shifts back three hundred years, to one fateful
night.

Blue transforms into human
size the instant she leaves Faerie's boundaries. Ahead, bathed in
blue-white moonlight, she spies Reith near a gazebo, pulling his
human lover into his arms. Blue advances, the events of the night
compelling her on, her fears for what awaits her husband, dousing
all reason.

"Reith, no!" she wails,
closing in.

His head turns in her
direction. At first she sees surprise in his eyes then hatred. A
hatred so fierce and dark, it robs her of breath, and she staggers
to a stop.

"Don't," Blue whimpers.
"Reith, stop!"

A mask of evil contorts
Reith's face and, before she can retreat, his arm flings out,
catching her across the chest.

The blow reels her back and
she pitches over, her spine impacting with the steps of the
gazebo.

She awakens, broken and
alone—

Blue shot up into a sitting
position, her hoarse breaths echoing throughout her quarters.
Perspiration coats her sallow skin, and her widened eyes blink
spasmodically to clear the dream from her memory.

A soft rap on her
door.

"Go away!" she
snapped.

Burying her face in her
hands, racking sobs give minute vent to the centuries of
humiliation, despair and pain she suffered because of
Reith.

She matters not in MoNae's
grand scheme. For Reith's redemption, no sacrifice is too small or
too great, and this knowledge eats like an acid at Blue's
mind.

His choices. His actions. So
easily forgotten and forgiven by all but herself. And why should
she? When will her torment count, and not be swept aside for the
"greater good" of Faerie, as MoNae believes?

"I hate you," she whimpered.
"I hate you, I hate you!"

And yet...her treacherous
heart called out to him.

Chapter 9

Reith, the ostracized king
of the Kingdom of Faerie, winged through the first floor hall of
the Astory Inn, maintaining a safe distance behind the elderly
woman toddling along a worn runner carpet in the semi-darkness. The
ghostly orange glow from her candle cast a cloak of impenetrable
gloom over the passageway. Distorted shadows shifted on the walls
with her movement. Shadows that intensified Reith's apprehension
yet heightened his determination.

It had been too long since
he'd used his wings. Too long since tapping into his inherent
abilities. Such was the self-ordained penalty he had placed upon
himself for the sins of his adolescence. Although four inches was
the normal height of a fairy, he had lived among the humans for
centuries, six-foot tall, wingless, powerless, until the magic held
by his old self—the reckless and heartless Briar Prince—had become
but a memory he seldom yearned to regain.

Only the "mission" gave him
the stamina to relegate his guilt to a lesser plane of importance.
But now the use of magic was taxing. He derived no pleasure from
flying as he had in his youth. The muscles connecting his wings to
his back, ached incessantly.

Perhaps his conscience
further punishing him?

Or perhaps, MoNae, Mother
Nature, exacting a penalty for all he had shunned in the name of
lust.

She counted on her children
to live by a strict code of ethics. He had failed his people, his
wife, himself, and the goddess of the earth.

Something had triggered his
internal alarm when he and Roan had talked with the MacLachlan
family three weeks ago, and compounding his gut feeling that
something was amiss, was Lachlan's mood when they rejoined him at
car at the outskirts of the inn's property. Lachlan, who was
supposed to have been investigating the standing stones while he
and Roan questioned the inn folk, declared it wasn't
necessary.

Reith had witnessed many
expressions cross the laird's face since their first meeting, but
never the fear he read when Lachlan insisted they leave the isle,
fetch their belongings at the hotel, return to Baird House and
regroup for a later search. Reith could not shake a nagging
suspicion that Lachlan was—perhaps subconsciously—running from
something. Reith insisted he remain on the isle and poke around. It
was Roan who finally convinced Lachlan that Reith—as before—would
be safe on his own, especially since he had the use of his magic
should he need it.

Does Lachlan's knowin’
connect wi’ somethin’ on the isle he canna face?

Reith couldn't imagine what
that could be. Lachlan appeared to be basically a fearless man. But
Reith had seen that look in his mentor's eyes, and it had branded
his tattered soul.

Fear.

Fear in a man who had lived,
died, and lived again.

Fear o’ a person, place or
thing?

Returning to this area,
Reith's first exploration was that of the stones. It was nightfall
and he was flitting about in miniature when he spied the woman he
later learned was called Katie. Reith wasn't sure why she stood out
amongst the other visitors who came to the site day and night that
first week. Something in the way she stood before the tallest
menhir, looking bleak, sad and, yes, fearful.

Her eyes betrayed that same
haunted quality he had glimpsed in Lachlan's. When she returned to
the site that fourth time, he followed her to the Astory Inn, where
he resided unseen amidst the shadowed corners of the rooms and the
oversized antique furniture.

By the second week, the old
woman, Mavis, dominated his attention. She had only to walk into a
room he occupied and his internal alarms went off like a succession
of cannon assaults on a castle.

Weeks ago, Roan was ready to
give up the search and let his out-of-control younger sister keep
the MacLachlan dirk she stole from Baird House, and get on with the
wedding plans. Lachlan also believed her disappearance
self-promoted.

How reliable was the
information they garnered?

For all they knew, someone
with similar features could have stolen her credit card. For all
they knew, Taryn was back in the States, doing what Taryn did best.
Lying and manipulating. She could have flown out of Scotland under
a false name to throw them off her trail. She had robbed Lachlan of
a family treasure, after all. But these suppositions didn't set
right in Reith's mind.

Despite the new laird's
assertion there was no love lost between him and his sister, Reith
didn't believe him. Marrying Laura could only be daunted by Taryn's
absence.

Besides, Taryn was on a
mission of her own, and not simply leading them on a merry chase
across Scotland. Reith was sure of this. And her mission had
something to do with Lachlan. He was also sure of this. Something
deeply rooted in him believed Lachlan's future was at stake. It
didn't make sense why anything Taryn would do could affect Lachlan
and Beth, but the notion had clamped its unrelenting jaws on Reith
and he couldn't free himself of its hold.

For Reith, finding Taryn and
returning the MacLachlan dirk to Lachlan was a mission so personal,
he could think of little else. Lachlan had given Reith, a virtual
stranger, shelter and employment, altering his opinion that humans
were an untrustworthy and dangerous species.

Lachlan, Roan and Winston
were three of the finest men Reith had encountered during his
three-hundred plus years. For Lachlan, and for Roan's peace of mind
over the whereabouts of his sister, he would leave no possibility
unexamined.

His centuries of servitude
to The Sutherland had taught him to trust his instincts. And his
instincts were homed in on this isle. This inn. This site. And
now...this old woman.

A failure in all aspects of
his former life, Reith would sooner perish than give up his
obsession to unlock the truth.

Shadows continued to twitch
on the walls as the old woman shuffled down the hall. When she
stopped before one of the many doors and inserted a key with a
shaky hand, he hovered close by. The door opened. He dashed around
her into the room's darker recesses and perched atop a light
fixture jutting out from the wall to the right of the threshold.
From his vantage point, he saw a wrinkled, age-spotted, gnarled
hand push the door shut.

The candle-glow cast the
woman's face in eerie relief, emphasizing the deep grooves the
decades had carved into her flaccid skin as she glided trancelike
across the hardwood floor. Distorted by flickering shadows,
something on the far wall came into view. He squinted to see more
clearly until an uncomfortable tingling coursed through him. He
weakened by the second, his limbs racked with trembling.

No' now!,
he mentally cried.

Indeed now.

If he didn't forgo the magic
to remain in faerie form, he would have little left to leave the
room when the time came. The human spell exacted far less energy.
Such irony. Another penalty of his misspent youth.

Casting off from the light
fixture, he soared to the right corner, crouched, and willed
himself to human form while snugged within the thick
shadows.

"I couldna sleep," the old
woman said on a watery sigh. "Ye missed anither month. Ye gifts are
gatherin' tall now."

Reith grimaced. He had
already surmised from her rants about the house, the woman was a
wee damaged in the mind. From what he could see, she talked to a
scene depicted on the wall. Actually, someone painted into the
landscape of the Callanish Standing Stones. Her body blocked most
of the person in the mural. As she spoke, she rocked from side to
side, awarding him fleeting glimpses of a man.

"She be wi' ye still," she
said bitterly. "Such insult to our clan. Ye did no' want me! Me,
when ma body was young and supple! Wha' see ye in her!"

Reith eased into a stand and
stretched the taut muscles in his legs and lower back. His face
scrinched up. She was daft. Rambling. Ranting at a man in a
mural.

His gaze locked onto the
man's features, and something in the blazing dark eyes robbed him
of breath. They seemed too real, penetrating into the most minute
pockets of his soul. A look that accused and condemned. The eyes of
a man—if the artist portrayed them correctly—whose own soul had
been lost along the convoluted paths of life.

"But I will forgive ye," she
crooned. "I must, because ye sacrificed for yer clan. For the
treasure due us...and because I have loved ye these long
years."

The old woman began to hum.
Her swaying took on a frantic rhythm.

Mesmerized by both the
warbled tune and the piercing eyes on the wall, Reith stepped from
his hiding place.

The cadence of his heart
drummed loudly in his ears, muffling the old woman's song.
Momentarily, he realized it was not his heartbeat alone he heard,
nor the old woman's. He crossed the room, angling to her left, the
eyes in the mural following him, compelling him closer. Without
breaking the visual lock, he stopped within arm's reach of the
MacLachlan matriarch.

His heart pounded faster.
Faster. The other's matched in loudness and rhythm.

Shallow, ragged breaths
passed through Reith's nostrils. The muraled eyes glowered directly
at him, their accusation a shrill lament in Reith's
mind.

Something again compelled
Reith, and he lowered his gaze. A breath gushed from his lungs, his
mind folded onto itself, and his knees threatened to
buckle.

Tucked into the wide leather
belt on the mural-man's waist was a dirk, the glow of the lightning
canopying the man. casting eerie luminance on the black handle,
revealing tiny faces amid gleaming jewels. There was no doubt it
was the MacLachlan dirk.

Reith's eyes shot up. Tiny
flames appeared in the mural-man's pupils. The eyes bored into
Reith's mind, delivering an echoing, rumbling message.

Ye know me.

A scream broke the mounting
tension of the spell, and Reith found himself staring into the
demented pale eyes of the old woman.

She screamed again and
struck out at him with a quaking fist. Missing her mark infuriated
her all the more and, hissing through her teeth, she raised the
candle holder to strike him.

Without thought, Reith
sprouted his wings and shrank. He blindly flew down the hall and
staircase. Flew blindly into a wind-driven, rainy night. When his
tiny body could no longer endure the elemental battering, he
returned to human form and hunkered behind a low stone
wall.

His mind burned with the
image of the mural-man's face.

It canna be wha' I think.
Och! But those eyes!