Black Fallen (9 page)

He stared down at the woman in his arms.
His woman
. Her warmth spread across his bare chest, making his muscles quiver. Her trembling
rocked him to the bone, even as he held her tight. He had dreamed of this moment for
what seemed like eternity, and never did he believe it could possibly ever happen.

And yet he felt the weighty proof in his arms.

He searched her face with his eyes, not wanting to miss a single line, a single freckle—wanting
to miss nothing. His own hand shook as he took off his glove with his teeth and set
it aside. Lifting his hand to her cheek, he grazed it with the back of his knuckles.
He tried to speak again, but found a solid lump in his throat, robbing his breath.
He swallowed past it. “Damnation, Andrea, you’re powerfully soft.” He drew a deep
breath, and his words flowed out on the exhale. “I vow I could hold you here and stare
at your beautiful face for the rest of my days.”

He watched tear after tear slide down her cheek as she stared up at him with those
warm hazel eyes. He could wait no more. He bent his head close, his gaze trained on
hers as his mouth settled comfortably over quivering lips. So warm and soft, he found
himself craving more. He brushed his lips across hers several times, then with strained
control, deepened the kiss. When her hand grasped the back of his neck and pulled
him closer, it sent him over the edge. He tasted her, deeper and deeper, swallowing
her gasp of surprise.

Tristan lifted his head from Andi’s but didn’t break eye contact. Their lips were
a whisper apart, and he could do nothing save stare and thank God and the saints above
he had been given such a gift. His breathing panted with the effort of having to maintain
control. He wanted her so badly, his insides shook. Suddenly, a loud snort sounded
in the bailey. Only when a brave soul tapped him on the shoulder did he remember where
he was and who was about.

Tristan turned and glared at the snorter.

His entire garrison formed a half circle around him.

Tristan smiled down at Andi and set her back on the ground. He kept his arm tightly
about her shoulder. She teetered a bit, and he gripped her tighter still. She stood,
staring, eyes wide. Her lips moved and something came out, but, damn him, he couldn’t
understand a word. Saints, but he missed his uncanny hearing ability.

Lowering his head, he leaned toward her mouth. Her warm breath caressed his ear and
neck, and he all but hit the floor from the impact of it. Shaking his head, he focused
on her words.

Her question floated out on a whisper. “How?”

With a smile, he tapped her nose. “Nay, love. We’ve got time for questions such as
that later.” His grin widened. “I have another question for you, and by the saints,
I must ask it now before my nerve deserts me.”

Her gaze remained fixed on his, following him all the way down as he knelt on bended
knee. He cleared his throat and grasped Andi’s hand, unsure if the trembling came
from hers or his own. More likely than not, ’twas both.

“Andrea Kinley Monroe.” His voice came out hoarse and scratchy. He hoped she didn’t
care. “I beg you, wed me. I vow you’ll not regret it.”

He watched several more tears streak her reddened cheeks. A smile began in the corners
of her mouth and crept into her eyes.

“Yes.” So soft, he could barely hear her at first, but then she threw her arms about
his neck and squeezed. “Yes! I’ll marry you!”

Whistles and bellowing cheers from his knights erupted across the bailey, drifting
on a North Sea breeze. Tristan looked into his love’s eyes and smiled, then stopped
whatever words were about to make their escape from her lovely mouth. He, without
a doubt in his medieval mind, kissed her good and sound, leaving no question as to
how much he loved her.

And would do the like. Forever.

My vision clears and alights on Tristan’s handsome face. I smile. “Oh, wow,” I say.
“Now, that’s romantic, for sure. So your now wife read the verse that undid the curse
and set you and your knights free. Then once you materialized into human form you
killed your murderer, and he turned into a big pile of grossness.” I punch the big
knight in his arm. “Quite a story, Dreadmoor.”

Tristan’s sapphire blue eyes twinkle in the light of Bene’s streetlamp. “Aye, for
a certainty.” His stare is intense. “And do not ever forget that, no matter how bleak
something may appear, there is always hope.” He smiles. “Even hope in the most abnormal
of times.”

I give him a nod and a smile of understanding. “I will.”

With four large white plastic bags filled with batter-fried haddock, chips, and several
meat pies that all smell heavenly, Tristan and I step out onto Canongate and into
a misty Edinburgh night. A couple passes us at the entrance, and the woman, dressed
in a pair of dark tights, a brown wool miniskirt, and a wool hat, meets my gaze.

I’d already banked her features to memory.

She quickly looks away.

“What is it?” Tristan asks as we cross the street. I glance over my shoulder. The
woman is staring at me through Bene’s open doorway.

“That woman,” I answer. “She’s the woman who led the walking tour earlier.”

“Ms. Poe, we passed at least three walking tours,” Tristan says. “What bothers you?”

We move past Tolbooth Tavern and into the archway of the wynd. I turn and glance back.
The woman and man are both gone. “I don’t know,” I answer. “Something about the way
she looks at me.”

“Well you are a striking girl,” Tristan answers. “Might it just be that simple?”

I give a short laugh as we near the Crescent’s gates. “I seriously doubt that.”

We walk through the gates, and the moment we clear them they begin to close. Gravel
crunches beneath our boots as we cross the courtyard, that ever-present and eerie
angel in the fountain spurting water. Inside, the others are waiting for us in what
Gabriel calls the common room. It sort of reminds me of Julian Arcos’s great hall,
with a large fireplace taking up most of one wall, and several chairs, a sofa, and
a large center table. On the walls, shelves of ancient-looking books. In the corner,
an enormous desk with several volumes of . . . something opened. Sydney sits there,
her head bowed over one of them.

I find Eli, walk over to him. I peel out of my long overcoat, unstrap my sword, and
set them both aside, then plop down on the floor in front of him. Grabbing one of
the containers from Bene’s, I open it and dig in to a slab of haddock. Bene had already
drowned them and the chips with vinegar and brown stuff. I can barely shovel it in
fast enough. I glance over at Tristan. He’s doing the same thing. Gawan and Lucian
both have a container in their laps, too. Jake stands near the hearth with Darius,
and he turns to address the team.

“Riley, I’ve updated everyone on what happened at St. Giles’,” Jake says. “Conwyk
has a theory.”

I glance at Gawan, and he nods. “Aye,” he says. “Riley, tell me exactly what happened.”

I finish chewing. “This kid, he was screaming, acting freaking crazy on the street,
kicking over trash bins, and scaring people. He was holding his head as if it seriously
hurt him. I . . . guess I sensed something was up. I grabbed his hands and we were
suddenly in an alternate Edinburgh.” I took a long pull on my Coke. “I guess I thought
to drag the kid into the cathedral because he reeked of death. His eyes”—I recall
it in my memory—“they weren’t his. His voice, either. And I figured the cathedral
was sanctuary. When we got inside, though, the church was all dilapidated and run-down.
Abandoned.” I shake my head. “Weird.”

Gawan glances first at Tristan, then at Gabriel. “Sounds like the Fallen have initiated
a few henchmen from the other side.”

“Rather, henchsouls,” says Darius. He runs his hand through his dark auburn hair,
now hanging loose about his shoulders. He glances at me with his piercing gaze. “You
killed it.”

“I killed it,” I repeat. “Don’t know how, or what made me think to drown it out in
that puddle, but something lured me there. The moment that . . . thing inside Ian
saw itself in the puddle, in it went. Trapped.” I make the sound effect of an explosion.
“But for a second, before it popped and turned into some oil-like substance, it looked
at me. And it seemed, I don’t know, regretful. Or something.” I shrug and continue
eating.

“You didna kill a demon,” Gawan said, and in his soft brown eyes I see pain. “You
killed an Earthbound.”

I swallow, glance at Jake, Darius, and then back to Gawan. “An Earthbound what?”

Gawan’s jaw muscles flex. “Angel.”

My heart stops.

“That thing inside of Ian? It was no angel, Gawan. It was evil. Evil as Hell. All
except for that one split second.”

Gawan nods. The firelight from the hearth flickers shadows over his face. “The Fallen
use a curse to change them, which the Earthbounds can’t stop. The spells of the Seiagh
are too powerful, and the Fallen have saved several to memory. The Fallen trap unsuspecting
Earthbounds and use them for their own devices. But you didna kill it. You just sent
it to a horrible place.”

A lump forms in my chest. “Is there any way to retrieve the Earthbound from wherever
I sent them?”

“Yes,” Sydney interrupts from her place at the desk. She turns and looks at me. “You
have to go in after them.”

I immediately feel Eli tense up behind me.

“Can beings other than Earthbounds be sent to that place?” I ask.

Gawan nods. “Aye.”

“So Ian’s behavior wasn’t a demon being evil,” I say, finally catching on. “It was
an Earthbound rebelling. Trying to get out.”

Gawan nods again. “Exactly.”

I eye him, and even though I already know the answer after seeing into his memories,
I want to hear him say it. “You know all that because you are an Earthbound?”

“Was,” Gawan corrects. “For centuries. I’m a mere mortal now, like Dreadmoor.”

I’m finally catching on to this twelfth and thirteenth century jive. Not only do both
warriors have their given names, but they’re also referred to by their home. Dreadmoor.
Grimm. Confusing as hell, but I get it.

“I was dead, though,” Tristan adds. “A bloody spirit, as were my men, for centuries
on and on. Only did my fate change when a young Colonist happened upon my land.”

I blink. “You were a ghost for centuries, yes?”

Tristan nods. “Aye.”

“Like see-through, mists and orbs, or something different?” I ask.

Tristan laughs. “I appeared just as you see me now, with the exception of my garb.
I looked very much alive.” He rubs his chin. “I do miss walking straight through walls,
and just thinking of a spot I wished to occupy and then just . . . occupying it.”

“Do you miss it?” Ginger asks. She’s sitting next to Lucian on a long, brown leather
sofa.

“Nay,” Tristan clarifies. “I wouldn’t trade my Andrea for any of it.”

Gawan looks at me. “His wife.”

I look at Gawan.

I decide my powers are all too useful all of a sudden.

And take a lot less time than verbal explanations.

Slowly, I reach over and brush Gawan’s hand with mine.

Now I’m Gawan of Conwyk . . .

Gawan walked close beside her, his arm not too tightly around her, and guided her
across the glowing, glittery winter wonderland of Castle Grimm. With the tall, gray
Grimm towers, and that giant mouth of a portcullis, it truly did look like something
out of a fairy tale. On they walked to the courtyard, where in the spring dozens of
flowers bloomed, Gawan said, and the border bumped straight up to the edge of the
cliff. The moon hung over the choppy North Sea, and a light sprinkling of snow fell
steadily. Gawan had told her how uncanny it was to get snow—and this much of it—at
this time of year.
Uncanny,
he’d said.

For Gawan of Conwyk to find
anything
uncanny was, well, uncanny.

“Are you sure you want to see this?” he asked.

Ellie stopped and cocked her head. “Are you kidding? Of course I want to.”

Gawan guided her to a stone bench set amidst the rose bushes overlooking the sea.
“You sit here. I’ll need to stand back a ways.” He unbuttoned his coat. “Promise me
you won’t scream. ’Tis overwhelming, the sight of them.”

“I won’t scream.”

He gave a nod, dropped his coat and shirt, and looked at her, just before he walked
off. Standing there, the moonlight painting his broad, muscular, tattooed chest in
a pale glow, his shoulder-length curls tossing about him in the wind, Ellie appeared
taken.

Only she hadn’t yet seen Gawan’s magnificent yet useless reminders that he’d done
something worthy once, several lifetimes ago.

And there, with the tumultuous North Sea roaring behind him and snowflakes falling
about, stood Gawan of Conwyk. Born in “a.d.” 1115 A.D., died in
A.D. “A.D.
” 1145. Honor bound by his knightly vows; awarded in death a pair of guardian’s wings
to symbolize his selfless deeds. And as he closed his eyes and said the strange words
that carried to Ellie’s ears only because of the fierce midwinter’s wind blowing directly
at her, his wings unfolded from their hiding place within his shoulder blades and
spanned nearly twelve feet, tip to tip. They—he—was the most astounding and glorious
sight she’d ever beheld.

Not for the first time since meeting the man, Ellie was speechless.

And within the blink of an eye, he’d retracted those wings and was striding closer
to her, silently, and when he got to her, she helped him into his shirt and coat,
and he embraced her, his mouth buried into her neck.

“I didn’t frighten you, did I?” he asked against her skin.

Ellie held on tight. “I’m never scared with you.” And wished she could stay there,
enclosed within his arms, forever.