Stone Guardian (23 page)

With a worried glance at the moon peeping in the window, Torin raked both hands through his hair. “Our heritage is no’ something ye can refuse, Emma. We were born this way. Chosen by the Powers. We are who we are because the magic flows through our blood.” He hoped the goddess was busy somewhere else and wasn’t hovering anywhere near. Neither
Cailleach na Mointeach
nor her sister Brid appreciated an uncooperative guardian. He’d learned that lesson first hand when he’d tried to leave this plane without their permission. Glancing around at the odd contraptions scattered about the room, resentment filled his chest. That’s how he’d ended up in the chaos of this accursed place. If he’d listened to the
Cailleach
and tended to his clan, perhaps she wouldha allowed him to pass through the veil along with his chosen people long ago. Returning his gaze to Emma’s furious scowl, Torin’s heart lurched again.
Aye, but ye wouldna have met your heart’s true mate if ye had no’ awakened to this time.

“I know ’tis not easy to accept, Emma. I understand your pain more than ye know.” Sliding across the bed, Torin tucked his plaid around his waist in one fluid move. There’d be no more loving tonight. That fact was evident. “But once ye embrace it and conquer the energies, the goodness ye manage far outweighs the bad.”

“What about the people I love? The one’s who’ll leave—who’ve left me behind?” Emma’s lower lip trembled as another tear rolled down one cheek and she dropped into the chair.

Her sorrow troubled him, settled over him like a cold, dark cloud. How could he help her accept her fate? He couldn’t tell her there’d be no misery. He wouldn’t offer her that lie. “I canna tell ye there will nay be times when your heart will truly break. But ye must ask yourself this simple question. If ye had no’ been born a stone guardian, would ye have been guaranteed a life filled with any less pain?”

Emma’s mouth tightened into a flat unhappy line as her gaze shifted to the floor. Pressing the back of her hands to her cheeks, she sniffed as she swiped away the tears. A faint
no
echoed from the depths of her wadded sleeves as she used them to dry her eyes.

Tensed with the uncertainty of what response he might get, Torin braced himself as he knelt at her feet. “But know this, Emma.
I
can always be at your side. We can survive our existence together and never experience loneliness again.”

Emma peeped from behind the fluffy white folds of her robe, her eyes still shimmering with unshed tears. With a shuddering sniff, she buried her face again and curled away from him, farther back into the chair. In a tiny voice, muffled by her arms, Emma released a heavy sigh. “I know, Torin.” She sniffed again. “You know how much I’ve come to care about you, but I can’t get past the idea of never seeing my sister again.” Emma cleared her throat and rubbed both eyes with the heels of her hands. “But I guess—at least there’s some consolation in knowing I don’t have to go through this alone.”

Torin swallowed hard and closed his eyes as he slumped to sit in the floor. Disappointment flooded through him at the wariness of her words. He didn’t want to be
some consolation.
He wanted to be her reason for breathing.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Torin wrapped his plaid tighter about his shoulders and leaned back against the unyielding edges of the wall of stone at his back. The rhythmic roar of the crashing waves shushed against the base of the debris strewn ledge and spattered ice-cold spray onto the faded leather of his boots.

Consolation.
Torin inhaled a despondent lungful of the brine-filled air. He hated that word. Surely, he meant more to her than the fleeting reassurance she didn’t have to face her future alone. A shore bird screamed across the water as though mocking Torin’s dilemma.

A subtle shifting of shadows along a lower level of the cliff’s face drew Torin’s attention away from the foaming waves rippling out to meet the horizon. Torin leaned forward, bracing himself against a nearby boulder as he focused on the darkened ledge below.

A bit of cloth fluttered beyond the rim of the shadowed rock, a heavy bit of material colored the same shade of green as the sea when the depths of the water are denied any sunlight. Uneasiness stirred deep in Torin’s gut. He’d seen that exact shade of green cloth many times. ’Twas the shade worn only by the women of his clan. A delicate pale hand darted out from the shadows and pulled the cloth back out of his view. Torin waited, holding his breath, willing the owner of the cloth to step out of the darkness.

The lightest tinkling of laughter wafted up from the cave, followed by a delicate, high-pitched voice calling out his name. Torin’s heart nearly stopped beating and a chill stole over his flesh. It couldn’t be. What trickery lurked in those shadows?

Torin gripped the razor sharp edges of the boulder until his palms bled and stained the soft gray of the Lewisian gneiss into a mottled damp blackness. He fought against the mindless urge to scramble down the side of the cliff and face whatever lurked in the cave.

The musical voice called out his name again, nearly singing as it lilted his entire given name and echoed out his title. He hadn’t been called Chieftain Torin Grey, guardian of the standing stones since…Torin closed his eyes against the impossible sound.

His full name hadn’t been called out since his wedding feast to her.

“Show yourself!” Torin bellowed into the wind, adrenaline pumping through his veins until his heartbeat pounded in his ears.

“I’ve returned, Torin. Come to me, m’love. I long to feel your embrace.” The delicate voice floated to him on the wind, sweetened with the faintest hint of laughter as it dissipated into the sounds of the sea.

“I am no’ a fool. I know it canna be you. Step out of the shadows and make yourself known, whoever ye are.”

“Torin. Ye wound me with such harsh words. Have ye no’ missed me, my sweetest love? Here I’ve gone to the trouble to return from beyond the veils and yet ye have no room for me in your heart?”

Torin swallowed hard against the choking knot of uncertainty rising in his throat. It couldn’t be her. It was not possible. Why would the
Cailleach
grant Eilean passage into this world when he’d already connected with Emma? “Come forward, Eilean. Step out of the shadows so I might see that ’tis truly you.”

A blast of flames exploded from the mouth of the cave, sending a cloud of debris showering into the sea. “Torin!” Eilean’s terror-filled scream echoed up from the rocks as a bundle cloaked in the cloth of his clan tumbled over the edge of the cliff.

Torin leapt from the safety of the ledge, vaulting over slime-covered rocks and across the blackness of bottomless fissures. With a thud, he landed flat-footed on the narrow seaweed-covered strand a few feet from the motionless bundle.

“Eilean.” Torin struggled to rasp out her name.
Lore almighty.
How could it possibly be her? He could still feel the cold dead weight of her body when he’d held her close before placing her inside the burial cairn.

The cloth-covered mound didn’t move. It stretched motionless, partially embedded from the force of the fall into the damp sandy loam of the shore.

Torin flexed his hands open and closed, his palms itched to rip the blanket away but suspicion held him back. He raised his hands, spread his fingers and opened his senses to the bitter wind pelting against his flesh. Nothing. Nothing but the bite of the salty spray and the fishy scent of the sea. Torin slowly lowered his hands to his sides. Had Eilean truly returned to him and then been lost as soon as he’d found her? A sense of emptiness filled his being, blossomed like a dead weight settling in his gut. Torin hissed in a choking breath through gritted teeth. The weight of the emptiness was heavily laced with a strong sense of relief. Relief? Yes. He definitely felt relieved. Torin covered his face with a shaking hand. Finally. He’d freed his heart from her spell.

A soft moan floated up from the blanket. The slightest movement twitched beneath the thick folds as the bundle stirred atop the wet sand.

“Damnaigh
to hell and back.” Torin sank to his knees and gently rolled the whimpering bundle toward him.

Claw-covered tentacles shot out from the depths of the blanket and closed around Torin’s neck. The deep rumble of satisfied laughter whirled around his body and echoed off the stones of the shore. Torin thrashed against the suffocating sound attacking him from the depths of a swirling mist darkening around his body.

Torin fell to his back, clawing against the ever-tightening grip of the tentacles cutting off his air. The sting of the poison-tipped barbs burned into his flesh as the talons burrowed deep into his muscles. “
Mac an donais
!” Torin rolled from side to side, wrestling with the undulating tendon cutting off his air.

The black mist feathered out into claw-like tendrils and descended closer about Torin’s head. A foul dank odor stung his eyes and filled his mouth as he fought to work his fingers beneath the slimy tentacle searing its barbs into his flesh.

Cruel, deep laughter repeated from the core of the mist, shaking the ground beneath Torin. He knew that laughter. He’d heard it many times when he’d defended the stone gateway. Flashes of light sparked behind his tightly closed eyelids as Torin struggled to breathe. He couldn’t allow the beast to win. If Arach robbed him of his soul, there’d be no one to protect his precious Emma.

Torin locked his chin down on the barbed arm of tightening flesh wrapped around his throat. He bowed his back and flexed the muscles of his neck and shoulders, fighting against the choking embrace. Whatever it took, he had to keep his airway open. Gasping in air in short greedy gulps, he slid his hand down the side of his leg, groping for the dagger lashed snugly inside his boot. He tightened his eyes shut against the burning poison of the blinding mist as his fingers wrapped around the hilt of the knife and pulled it into his palm.

As Torin raised the dagger to slash free of the meaty barbs pumping venom into his flesh, the tentacle dissipated into a greenish vapor and swirled up into the black cloud suspended above his body. The circlet of oozing wounds carved around his throat by the poisonous barbs disappeared as though they’d never existed.

“Why, Torin.” Arach’s rich, throaty voice rumbled from the center of the cloud floating just inches above Torin’s body. “I canna believe ye treat the embrace of my greeting with such disrespect. Have ye no’ missed me just a wee bit, my friend?”

“Materialize fully and I’ll return your embrace.” Torin growled as he rolled to his feet and danced back against the face of the cliff. He drew his sword from the scabbard strapped to his side and hefted it toward the boiling bank of black mist hanging above the shore. “Show me your form, vile beast, and I’ll gladly show how much I’ve missed ye by gifting ye with a taste of my steel.”

Arach’s laughter rose above the sounds of the surf crashing against the rocky strand. “I think not, my fierce friend. I’d much rather our visit didn’t include the flavor of your greeting. As I remember, the cold of your steel leaves quite a bitter taste in my mouth.”

Torin shifted the worn haft of the sword back and forth between his hands. He burned to give Arach a sample of the blade. If he ended the beast now, moving life forward with Emma would prove so much easier.

“I think not,” Arach rumbled as the black vapor twisted a bit higher into the air. “I never thought I’d live to see the day when ye’d grown so lazy or mayhap, is it pure carelessness? Have ye lost your thirst for blood, my friend? I canna believe ye dinna even bother to shield your thoughts from my mind.”

Torin tightened his grip around the sword until his fingers ached. He crouched low and retrieved the dagger from where it had fallen, balancing it in his other palm. Squinching his eye into a narrow squint, he conjured a sparkling mist and cloaked it around his body.
Damn the beast and his visions.
Apparently, Arach had evolved over the centuries. Hefting both blades a bit higher into the air, Torin inched a step forward. “So, are ye a coward then? Do ye refuse to meet flesh against flesh?”

“Nay a coward, my impatient friend.” Arach’s voice grew thoughtful and the sinister cloud of black mist lightened in color as it seemed to spread across the waves. “Ye might say I’ve just grown wiser over the eons and would rather toy a bit with my prey before I close in for the kill.”

Torin took another step forward until the toes of his boots disappeared into the foaming waves sloshing against the sand. “You and I are both too old for such games. Show some backbone and take your vile shape. Then at least one of us will be finished with this misery.”

“Misery?” Arach chuckled as he emerged fully from the In-Between and shifted into solid form. His great leather wings flapped to and fro with a slow graceful rhythm, suspending him just out of Torin’s reach. “I’ve not had this much pleasure in years—millennia, in fact. The mortals of this plane are much too easy to hunt. The fools have no imagination whatsoever.”

“Your time is past, Arach.” Torin retreated until his back touched the safety of the cliff and the sharp stones pressed into his shoulders. “Settle on the strand and face me in battle. I assure ye, ye’ll die an honorable death.”

“Die?” Arach guffawed as he rose higher into the air. “I’ve no intention of gifting you with the pleasure of my death. But since I don’t wish for ye to think I’m no’ pleased to see ye again, I will gift ye with a promise.”

“What promise could ye possibly give to me?” Torin lifted his sword, wishing he had the safety of his sturdy targe to shield him from Arach’s attack. He braced himself for a blast of Arach’s flame. Torin didn’t trust the beast to leave him without inflicting some sort of pain, no matter what the bastard said. But the beast rose higher, fluttering his ratty wings opened and closed like a great demonic butterfly. Arach rose higher into the air as an updraft stretched the shimmering gray skin held taught between the oily black ribbing attached to his shoulders.

With another lazy flap of his wings, Arach slowly pointed his body toward the horizon. Angling his multi- horned head back in Torin’s direction, he gave an exaggerated wink of one great glowing eye. “I promise that when I rip the heart out of your lover’s chest, I’ll allow ye to hold it quivering and warm in your hands while I rip out your own.”