Time Everlastin' Book 5 (21 page)

Peevishly fussing with the
zipper until it opened, he turned the bag upside down and spilled
out the contents. Frustration fueled his actions as he tossed aside
objects he didn't want or didn't understand. He nearly threw aside
an aged leather-bound book, staying the motion before it left his
fingers. Scowling at the fey tingling sensation passing through his
hands as he held it, he released a disgruntled breath and flipped
open the book. At first he scanned through it with little interest,
then gradually read each Gaelic word neatly penned on the pages.
The more he read, the more numb he grew until he could no longer
feel the weight of the book in his grasp.

When he finished the last
entry, he let the book slip from his hold and fall to join the
litter on the floor. He stared off into a faraway place, raw
emotions clawing up through his throat. Emotions defying the dam of
a resistance that had taken him eons to construct.

And he had thought this
world hell.

Chapter 11

Reith sank deeper into the
clutches of unconsciousness. The drug injected into him on the
three occasions he remembered, was fast-acting and efficient. He
had yet to fully awaken. Whenever he struggled to get beyond the
limbo of semi-awareness, he experienced another sting in the arm.
Painful heat flowed into his veins, causing numbness to spread
through his body and mind. He had no concept of time. No concept of
place.

Somehow, he gathered all his
willpower to claw through the cocooning effects of the drug. His
eyelids were as weighty as boulders, taxing to lift them
fractionally.

Managing to open them into
slits, he blearily peered into a wavering, brilliant light until he
was forced to squeeze them shut. Detonations went off on the
insides of his lids, each spark pinpricks jabbing into his cornea.
He heard a piteous moan boom close by, and gradually realized that
it came from him.

"Tis wearin' off," whispered
a timorous, feminine voice.

Reith vaguely recalled
hearing three men's voices, and perhaps two women's. Not this
woman, though. Her soft voice was not something he would soon
forget, for it held the same degree of futility he'd known since
his abduction.

"I'm no' sure wha' to do for
ye," she said, concern lacing her tone.

Reith pushed harder up
through layers of greyness. When at last he focused, he stared into
blue eyes shadowed with apprehension.

"Are ye truly a
fairy?"

The best he could offer was
a grunt, and worked his mouth to alleviate its dryness.

"Ma family willna let ye
go," she said sadly.

His "Why?" came out as a
croak.

"They want their
wishes."

Reith studied her earnest
expression and, despite his situation, couldn't restrain a wry
grin. "Tha' be a genie."

"Fairies dinna grant
wishes?"

"No."

She sighed and stared off to
one side, lost in thought.

"Taryn," he
rasped.

Her gaze swung to meet his,
her slim, dark eyebrows drawn down in a frown. "Wha' did ye
say?"

"Taryn Ingliss. Must...find
her."

The woman squirmed, shifting
on her perch on the side of the cot supporting Reith. Although his
mind remained groggy and his vision intermittently bleared, he
easily read her willingness to avoid the subject of Roan's
sister.

"Please."

"I'm no' familiar wi' the
name," she said, her back unnaturally stiff.

It occurred to Reith that he
couldn't move his arms or legs. Glancing down, he concentrated hard
on what he was seeing.

"A spinner's web?" he asked,
perplexed.

Not only were his wrists and
ankles tied with heavy cord, his arms and torso were trussed
up—cocooned—in duct tape and layers of spider webs.

"If ye shrink ta escape yer
bonds, the webs will hold ye fast. They know ye canna use yer magic
wi’ou' yer wings."

"Do they?" he
murmured.

"Aye. I dinna agree ye need
to be drugged. Ma cousins and brither willna be happy tha' I didna
administer yer shot."

"Why?"

"I'm curious abou'
ye."

"Why?"

She smiled. "I've never
talked wi' a fairy afore."

"Why?"

She giggled. "Because I
havena."

Reith gulped past a lump of
hairy dryness in his throat. "I-ah, talk best when I'm
no'—"

He cut off the sentence when
she shook her head. "I may no' wish ye drugged, but I dinna want ye
away, either."

"I be on a
mission."

Her eyebrows lifted. "Are ye
now? Wha' kind o' mission?"

"Does it matter?" he asked,
throwing all his charm into the effort.

"Ma clan has a mission, too,
and for this reason, we canna let ye go."

A knot of foreboding
tightened in Reith's gut. "Ye intend to keep me
prisoner...indefinitely?"

She nodded.

Reith tested the integrity
of his bonds. Unless he reduced his size, he couldn't escape them.
And he couldn't shrink without engaging his wings. Although the
membranes and filaments comprising them were sturdy, they could not
penetrate duct tape, and could not easily untangle from a spider's
web.

Squashing a pang of panic,
he wondered if Lachlan was on his way.

By MoNae's whims, I hoped
so!

"Wha' were ye doin' in the
shrine?" she asked, the sweetness in her tone engaging his
instinctual alarm.

Shaking off the inexplicable
suspicion, he asked, "Shrine?"

Her eyes narrowed before
they softened beneath a shy smile. Too late, though, for he now
knew her timidness was a ruse to loosen his tongue.

"I dinna know o' any
shrine," he said with a constricted shrug. "I was followin' an old
womon—"

"Why follow
Mavis?"

"I was a wee
bored."

"So..." She stared at him
for a long moment. Although her features were well-guarded behind a
mask of calm, her eyes betrayed simmering anger. "...fairies can
lie."

"Lie? Me?"

"Ma cousins will choke their
wishes from ye," she said matter-of-factly.

"I be no' a genie," he
grumbled, then more loudly, "Do I look like I popped from a
lamp?"

"Fairies have pots o'
gold—"

"Tha' be a bloody
leprechaun!" he said, exasperated.

"Mair's the pity for ye.
Wha' do ye know o' Master MacLachlan? Ye might as weel tell me. Ma
cousins—"

"No doubt are verra
persuasive," he said flippantly then sighed from the depths of an
abysmal well of remorse. "I dinna know yer name."

"Katie
MacLachlan."

"Katie." He said her name as
if it titillated his taste buds. "Tis a grand name."

"Ye must be a good part
leprechaun," she said, deadpan, "for ye speak the blarney, weel
enough."

From across the otherwise
empty basement room, a door swung inward. Two men entered, shut and
locked the only escape, and lumbered toward the cot. Reith watched
them, breathing heavily to calm the erratic thundering of his
heart. No doubt, her cousins and brother would be persuasive.
Neither impressed him as being particularly averse to delivering
pain.

"How is it he's awake?" Flan
asked peevishly, eyeing Reith with hostility.

"Ye didna give him his
medicine," Dougie accused, and hiked up his dark trousers. "Wha'
dinna ye understand abou'—"

"How can he answer our
questions if he's unconscious?"

Flan and Dougie exchanged a
petulant look, and Flan said, "She makes sense, Dougie. How can we
ask for our wishes—"

"I've no wishes, ye bloody
fools!" Reith exploded, and winced as shooting pain capped the back
of his head.

"No wishes, eh?" Dougie
snickered. "Och! Then give us a pot o' gold!"

"Do I look like a
leprechaun?" Reith said furiously. "Be I green and wearin’ pointy
shoes, and speak wi' an Irish tongue?"

Flan looked at Dougie and
winked knowingly. "Like we dinna know the difference."

"I be a fairy!"

"We know," the brothers said
in unison.

Reith widened his eyes
expectantly. When no one responded further, he blustered, "Fairies
dinna grant wishes, nor do we have pots o' gold! We be MoNae's
children, and take care o' the earth and its vegetation.

"Aye, we sprinkle magical
dust now and then, and we've been known to dance round grand oaks.
But...
we dinna grant wishes, we dinna horde
gold.
Tis no' our callin'."

"Faeries lie," Katie said to
her cousins.

"Aye, they dinna want to
separate from their gold or their wishes," Flan said, bobbing his
head to emphasize each word. "Greedy no' to share. The rules say,
laddie, if caught, ye pay yer dues."

Reith clenched his teeth so
tightly, pain shot along his jawline. "Be it dues ye want?" he cast
bitterly. "Free me, sir, and I'll due ye up, right
grandly!"

Dougie reared back, blinking
in surprise. "Did he just threaten us?"

"Dunno," Flan
murmured.

"He's powerless," Katie
said, her cold demeanor sending a chill through Reith. Of the
three, he realized, she was the most dangerous, hiding behind a
facade of innocence until crossed.

"No' so verra," he said,
forcing calm into his tone. "I have friends comin' for
me."

"No one will find ye here,"
Dougie said.

Again, Reith clenched his
teeth, this time to prevent a retort. Now that the drug was mostly
worn off, his body ached, throbbing like every part of him
possessed a hammering pulse.

"How did ye know where to
find me?" he asked the brothers.

"We got friends and family
everywhere," Dougie boasted. "When we got a call from our cousin at
the motel, sayin' three men were askin' abou' the Ingliss woman,
Flan and I took rooms there to keep an eye on ye."

"Ye shouldn't have waited
till morn to fly from the grounds," Flan taunted. "Mavis saw you
wi' her binoculars. One call, and all we had to do was wait for
your return."

"Ye only have two uses,"
Dougie said. "Either ye reward us for yer capture, or grandmither
Mavis will offer ye in sacrifice to the shrine."

Reith's blood turned cold.
"Sacrifice?"

"Aye, she knows the ways o'
magic," Dougie said. "Yer magic will free our clan
king."

"Ye’re daft," Reith said in
a small voice. "No one can use a fairy's magic for
aught."

"Mavis can," Katie said, no
warmth left in her eyes as they stared through Reith. "Wi' the
return of
The MacLachlan
will come riches. So says the legend. He has but
to eat yer heart to be free."

"Ma heart?"

Katie and her cousins
nodded.

"There be no legend o'
eatin' the heart o' a fairy!" Reith said adamantly.

"Mavis says itherwise," said
Dougie.

Ma heart,
Reith said silently, and closed his eyes,
welcoming the darkness.
Ma heart belongs to
Blue.

* * *

Blue bolted up on her bed of
moss, panting in the encompassing darkness.
Ma heart belongs to Blue,
continued to
resonate in her mind, the clarity of Reith's voice confusing her.
With a flick of her right hand, she dispersed a mist, and soon the
room was bathed in golden specks of lights.

Still panting, she eased her
dead legs off the side of her framed bed, and lowered her face into
her hands. Her heart fluttered maddeningly, and her skin was cool
beneath a fine sheen of perspiration. She didn't recall dreaming
about him, and yet, his voice, his words, had invaded her sleep
with no less force than if he had been shouting into her
ear.

Reason slowly gathered her
wits. She stared across her private suite below the roots of the
twisted oak, and tried to conjure up his location. Vaguely, she saw
mortared walls and a naked bulb hanging from a ceiling. Reith lay
atop a narrow bed. Wrapped in blankets—
No
...not blankets. Something. She
couldn't make the scene come into sharper focus.

Blue, warn Lachlan and
Roan.

His voice again. Weaker but
nonetheless branding her mind.

"He's in danger," she
whispered, and the loathing in her mind and the love in her heart
for him, went to war.

Moments later, she sprouted
her wings and swept from the suite. She passed through the oak and
into a moonless night, and flew through a slightly opened window on
the third floor of the mansion. Although the room was draped in
darkness, she easily located Lachlan's side of the bed, lit upon
the mattress, and extended her height. Without wasting a moment,
she shook the laird.