The Screaming Stone: The Otherworld Series Book 2 (9 page)

He had felt and witnessed it all, and prayed that these images were nothing more than a dream.  As he opened his eyes he felt his prayers had gone unanswered.  His surroundings were unfamiliar.  He was lying on a bed, it was firm yet comfortable but the length and girth barely contained his frame.  The walls that surrounded him were made of dark wood and with only one dim light to illuminate the room he could see little else; although he sensed he was not alone.

He sat up cautiously, his head slowly and dizzily acclimating to the change in position as he felt his heart beat in his temples.  As he slowly reached a full upright position the sensation faded.  He swallowed back the nausea and dizziness and through his raw throat managed a few words.

“Where am I?” he inquired with a raspy tone that made his voice sound foreign even to his own ears.

“In a small inn a few miles from
Cnoc na Teamhrach
, as I’ve been told to pronounce it by
her
,” replied Annie in a voice strangely devoid of emotion, which she seemed to save all up for the last word of her reply.

“Annie,” he exhaled in relief.  She had been the one person that had remained strangely absent from his horrific sleeping visions.  “By what magick?” he asked as he rubbed the rest of the throbbing beat out of his head.  “Where is everyone else?”  More questions demanded answers but he feared asking them.

“Are you thirsty?” she asked instead of answering either of his questions.  Her voice seemed so far away.  He sensed, no he knew, she hoovered just inches away from him hidden in the shadows of the room; but her voice seemed as if it were speaking to him from so far away.

“Annie, please,” he begged.  “I can’t see you.  My mind has been poisoned by dreams and strange visions.  Please show me that you’re alright; let me know that this is real.”

She slowly, almost reluctantly appeared out of one of the darkened corners of the room and stepped into the small circular sphere of artificial light.  Her usually neatly brushed hair had the disheveled look of either too much sleep or not enough; her eyes were bloodshot and swollen indicating it was the latter.  She looked as though she had traded sleep for tears and the wear was beginning to show.  She had never looked more beautiful.  Her power, her strength, her human essence shone brightly through her ragged appearance and his heart shattered under the pressure of her presence.  He had failed to prevent or at least shield her from whatever had attempted to crush her.  He seemed to being doing that a lot lately, causing her more pain than she deserved to bear.  He needed to make things right, to make things better.  She deserved so much more than he had given her, and he only hoped that he could fix that now.  He had been ill.  That much was obvious; and she had seen to stay with him and tend to him.  Now that he was better it was his turn to take care of her.

He was pulled by some unseen power to rise up and step towards her.  By will or by magick the weakness that had permeated his body evaporated as he took one cautious step after another slowly consuming the distance that separated them. When his foot crossed the threshold of light that encased her he saw her muscles tense in preparation to flee.

“Don’t you run away from me now,” he ordered in a soothingly firm voice.  He approached her warily, hands extended in surrender as if she were a skittish mare ready to bolt and never to be seen again.  That threat settled like a heavy weight deep in his core and his eyes quickly assessed any escape route she might take to avoid capture.  “Don’t run please,” he begged as he slowly extended one hand and held it still, inviting her to come the rest of the way.  “Annie.”  As soon as the words were out of his mouth her irises began to swirl and dance.  Blue fire ignited behind her eyes as anger expanded inside her straightening her sagging figure.  Her reddened cheeks paled to a smooth porcelain white as her eyes darkened to a deep velvety purple hue.

“You dare call me that?!” exploded a thunderous otherworldly voice.

The windows blew open as a ghostly wind swarmed into the room and curled violently around her blowing tendrils of golden red hair away from her now perfectly beautiful face.  She threw out her arms surrendering to the power of the wind as it threatened to pull her off the ground.  Her feet flexed as her body rose up off the ground and balanced only on the tips of her toes.  Her fingers spread apart as they seemed to reach for some unseen force, craving and needing it, but it remained just beyond their reach.

The magickal vortex that had blown in screamed in a rage that seemed to reflect the anger still burning in her Sidhe colored eyes.  The goddess had awoken, had taken control, and was angry.

“Annie!” he screamed above the unearthly howl of the spectral wind.

Her fierce gazed hindered any attempt he made to reach her now levitating form.  The goddess was pushing him away and stealing Annie.  His darkest fear began to play out before his eyes.  He was losing them, he was losing
her
.  The terrified sound of her voice screaming his name mingled with the powerful screeching of the howling wind and forced him to continue to try and reach her but it felt like a losing battle as time and again he was knocked to the ground, each time landing further and further away from her.  For a moment he wondered if they had been found by the Unseelie, by Bres, that a new and more powerful enchantment had been woven around her and that she would disappear again, this time forever.

“You will be asked to choose dark warrior,” threatened the only voice he truly feared.  It was the Morrighan, not the Unseelie who held Annie in a bubble of air that floated a few feet off the ground.  He was being reminded by the Seelie, by the Queen of his obligation to the royal court.  He would be asked to choose, He was being asked to choose.

Once the Morrighan was sure, once the Battle Queen was positive that the message had been received the storm vanished, Annie’s body went limp and the power of movement returned to him.  He lunged forward rescuing Annie from a hard fall to the floor.  Catching her he cradled her limp form against his body as gravity pulled them down to the floor.  She was not unconscious but exhausted.  She sobbed almost silently against his chest and he wrapped his arms tighter around her in an attempt to draw her pain into his body.

“Annie, please let’s run,” he begged her.  His hands moved in soothing circles gliding up and down her back.  He held her, for now safe and secure.

She shook her head violently against his chest. He seized her face between his palms forcing her to stop and look at him.  The tiny shards that represented what remained of his heart splintered further as her watery human gaze met his.

“We can’t go, not now.  Finn and Robert are missing,” she whispered.  He could see and feel the strength returning to her.  Determination overpowering the dark light of fear that had only moments ago haunted her eyes.  “We have a lot to talk about,” she said with a nervous chuckle as she swiped at a stray tear on her cheek.

“Aye,” he agreed with a slow nod.  A fire of unconscious will kindled inside of him growing from a weak flickering flame to a blaze that heated from the inside out.  A new found power was quickly growing within him and with it a newly developed fear.  He gently squeezed her head tighter between his palms and slowly drew her face closer to his.  When her mouth reached a breath’s space from his he gave voice to his new fear.

“Don’t you ever leave me Annie Locke.”  He spoke each word slowly with deliberated care as he relished the feeling of his lips delicately gliding over hers.  But nothing could compare to the feeling of her shuddering in his arms.  She exhaled in passionate awe and he inhaled that beautiful breath and he knew then he could not survive without
her
.

His lips had merely nibbled on what his appetite craved and like a starving man sitting at a feast he refused to deny the unsated hunger that rumbled inside of him.  No one, nothing would take this, would take her away from him again.  With that thought, with the power of a hungry, thirsty man he crushed his mouth to hers.

He drew his tongue across the seam of her lips begging for entry as his hands tightened in her thick silken hair.  His teeth nibbled at her bottom lip as he hungrily swallowed every moan she offered him.  His hands began to wander greedily down the soft planes and slopes of her sides until they found the gentle flare of her hips.  His fingers dug into the delicate shielded skin that still eluded his touch.  A growl of frustration rumbled in his throat at the barrier that prevented him from feeling her.  His muscles shifted his weight as he tried to pull away only to remove the clothing that had so greatly offended his wandering hands.  She prevented his retreat as she threw her legs around his waist and locked him more deeply against her.  His breath died in his throat as a new friction built and a new hunger consumed him.

With effortless strength she pushed him back, down to the floor and quickly had him pinned beneath her feminine weight.  Her forearms came to rest upon his chest creating a new offensive barrier.  His hand reluctantly left the rounded flare of her hip as they grazed passed the indent of her waist and drifted past the line of her rib cage.  His forearms momentarily brushed against the sides of her full rounded breasts drawing a deep satisfied groan from both of them.  His hands threatened to linger but begrudgingly continued on their journey over her shoulders and down the long length of her arm until they reached their final destination.  His fingers wrapped around her wrists and slowly extracted them, clearing the barrier that separated her from him.

He drew her arms backwards, his mouth still firmly attached to hers as their lips and tongues danced erotically with each other teasing and begging for more.  He pinned her arms behind her back and used her as a counterweight, pulling himself up against her.  As she was slowly falling away his body eagerly chased after her, he lifted and thrusted his hardened frame against her delicate one until they were both upright.  Her slight weight pinning his hips to the floor, her arms trapped by his behind her opening her to the feel of him  beneath her as his mouth began to wander from hers licking and nipping down her jaw, down the long slender column of her neck.  She felt amazing and tasted even better but his mind barely registered such thoughts as it was consumed with only wanting more.

His senses shifted as they touched, smelled, heard and tasted things he had never experienced before.  The world fell away as he became consumed by her, desiring nothing more than wrapping her around him.  The beast inside him hungered for more as he freed a hand and found the soft skin of her back.  His hand trembled as it traced the fragile line of her ribcage to the soft skin of her belly, he growled, nipping in delight at the tender junction of her neck and throat.  She molded herself to every touch and caress seemingly begging for more and delighting the beast she had unleashed.

Words lost power and focus as his hands and mouth found every scrap, every free piece of flesh and hungrily explored it.  He was consumed by the sight, the sound and the feel of her that he almost didn’t hear the sharp rapping noise against the door.  He ignored it, pushing it to the edge of his consciousness. Not until the passionate creature above him went still did he begin to realize that a world existed outside of the two of them.  The sound grew louder and more insistent as it demanded his attention.

“Annie?  Duncan? Let me in.  We think we’ve found a way to find ‘em,” demanded loud and insistent Knackers.  “Come on let me in,” he continued to plead.

Duncan sighed in frustrated resignation as the voice of Knackers grew louder and more threatening.  He knew it was only a matter of moments before Knackers ignored the door as a barrier to keep him out and winked into the room.  The beast inside him howled in frustration as Annie slowly pulled away from him.  It reacted out of instinct and seized her head between his hands startling her.

“I am no’ done yet,” he growled as he held her still for on final hungry kiss.  He captured her lower lip between his teeth and stroked her swollen lip with his tongue before slowly pulling away allowing his teeth to carefully graze over it.  He was rewarded with a blissful sigh as a pleasure induced glaze fell over Annie’s face.

“Give me a moment to find me feet,” he shouted at the door as Knackers began pounding rhythmically on it.  He pulled her face closer to his and rested his fore head against hers. “Remember,” he whispered across her mouth.  “I am no’ done yet.”  It was a promise to both of them.

Chapter Eight

A Strange Knock

“
I am not done yet
,” he had promised her.

As soon as those words had left his mouth the second time; holy shite, the second time she reminded herself, she had bolted for the bathroom and quickly locked the door behind her.

She rested her back to the door as she tried to force her breathing to slow down but her mind as well as her body refused to cooperate.  Every time she closed her eyes in an attempt to take a deep cleansing breath she was assaulted by raw passionate glimpses of him that would only reignited the fire he had set everywhere he had touched.  She willed away, or at least tried to, every caress and kiss.  Nope, it was a losing battle she told herself. 

She needed him. 

No she needed a cold shower.  Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do when the passion of the moment was interrupted and you were still, well, hot?  She quickly stripped off her clothes and without a second thought jumped into an ice cold shower.

“Holy Shit!” she screamed as the icy water hit her heated skin.  How do people do this?

A loud frantic knock followed her less than lady-like declaration.  “Annie, Annie are you alright?” Duncan asked his voice filled with a type of desperation she did not want to name.

“Yep,” she squeaked as she began frantically turning the shower knobs to acquire a more comfortable temperature.

Now as to what happened next she couldn’t be sure but she could have sworn she heard a snicker followed by a very loud thump; but since the water temperature had gone from freezing to scalding she had more pressing matters to deal with.  She yelped in pain again and assured Duncan once again that she was fine.

“The water temperature’s just a little touchy,” she shouted over the rush of water.

Sweet hell
, she cursed silently as she suddenly understood how water temperature put things into perspective.  One was too concerned with either freezing or burning off important pieces of flesh.  Since she was wet (and the temperature of the water had begun to cooperate with her) she decided to quickly scrub up and rinse off eager to know what Knackers had found out.

When Knackers had left, Duncan was still semi-unconscious after the single anti-anxiety pill she had slipped into his morning brew.  He had awoken to Rian sobbing as he tried to relate his story to them.   He had stayed awaked just long enough to heave his guts out in a trash can.  Annie wrinkled her nose at the memory and the stink.  Vomit had never been something she was comfortable with and she had been amazed her own dinner had stayed where it belonged.  Maybe she had been too scared to care.  She had just found out they had lost Finn and Robert, and now she had begun to worry that they had poisoned Duncan. She shuddered at the memory as she shut off the steady flow of water and wrapped herself in a borrowed robe.

She couldn’t lose any of them, not one; especially…no she refused to let that thought see the light of day.  Everyone would be fine and in just a few days they would all be sitting in her garden sipping wine and retelling stories while at the same time exaggerating the danger they had been in.  She scrubbed the condensation off the mirror and gave herself a reassuring nod.

“Yep,” she said to her reflection.  “One week, and we’ll be back in Salem drinking wine, complaining about the tourists and anxiously anticipating October.”

The image in the mirror began to waver and distort until her face was overtaken by one similar in structure and form but very different then her own.  Her long reddish blonde hair was slowly replaced by longer raven colored locks, her light eyes darkening to a shade so dark blue that they were almost black, her normally pale skin tone darkened and her pink hued lips reddened until they rivaled the color of a cherry.  Her new image was stunningly and terrifyingly beautiful all at once and that was before it spoke.

“Do you really see the outcome of this devoid of loss?” her new reflection asked.  “Do you really think success is so easily won?  Are you so sure that victory can be obtained without loss?  Or maybe you think he loves only you?”

With each question her reflection asked a new terrifying image was shown to her inside her mind.  An image of all her human friends lying bleeding and broken on the ground at her feet as their lifeless eyes stared up into a cloudless sky.  Her newfound Fae friends bound and shackled as they were led away by a cruelly amused Bres as he whipped each one into obedience.  Duncan, his arms wrapped around a much more beautiful copy of her, her breathtaking twin smiling smugly over his shoulder as Annie lay crying and heartbroken on the ground.  She watched these visions and more until finally she couldn’t take the laughter and questions anymore and taking matters into her own hands smashed the mirror with a scream of fury and the power of her own fist.

The mirror shattered easily under her assault.  The spell broke into tiny shards of glass and fell scattered and blood covered into the sink.  The sound of glass shattering and her own rage filled scream was quickly followed by the door to the bathroom being broken down by Duncan, Answerer gripped firmly in his hand and flanked on either side by a tiny Fae creature.  Knackers she recognized immediately, the other dusty creature was a stranger and he summed up the situation perfectly.

“Lassie, ye’ve brought upon yerself seven years of bad luck,” he whispered horrified.

Knackers grabbed the dirty, dusty newcomer by the back of the collar and dragged him from the doorway sparing Annie with an apologetic look before disappearing from view.

“Yer right, we’ve got a lot ta talk about,” Duncan stated pinning her with an unreadable glare, before turning his focus on the mirror.  “What happened here?  And whatever ya do, do no’ lie aboot anythin’ from this point on.  I promise the same ta ya.”

Yep, he was angry.  The brogue was back and she did have a lot of explaining to do.  How do you convince someone you drugged them for their own good?

Annie raised her right hand to brush her wet tangled hair away from her face.  It was a tiny gesture to stall for a moment.  It worked just not in the way she had anticipated.  Duncan had been staring at the shattered mirror, his back to her, sword still in hand, patiently awaiting her reply when something seemed to suddenly catch his attention in the fractured glass that still clung stubbornly to the wall. She barely had time to blink before he had done three things, at once, and with remarkable speed.  He spun to face her, sheathed his sword (in some magickally invisible place) and had her right arm gripped gently but firmly within his grasp.

“
Cac,
” he muttered.  It was a word that she could only guess at.  But the possibility of learning a new Gaelic curse was way down on her priority list.  The man had just performed a complex series of moves in the time it would have taken her to sneeze. She had seen him move fast but what he just did was impossible. “Yer bleedin’ luv,” he said drawing her right hand closer to his face to get a better look at the wound.

Annie barely heard him as she was trying to figure out how he had just done what she had seen him do; but when he began gently probing the wound she flinched in pain.  She twisted her neck and stood up on her tip toes to get a better look when he refused to let go of her wrist.  “I’m bleeding?” she asked in wonder.  Until he started poking around she hadn’t felt any pain.

“Did you no’ hear me?  I’ve already said that.  Does it no’ hurt?”

“It didn’t until you started poking at it,” she accused him through clenched teeth.  She tried to pull her arm free which only caused him to tighten his grip on her.  “Let go,” she demanded.  “I’ll take care of it.”

“If I let go you’ll bleed us a loch here on the floor,” he replied evenly.  “Tis quite deep and it looks as though there is a shard of glass deeply imbedded in yer wrist.”

“Well don’t pull it out!” she screeched in a panic as she once again tried to pull her arm out of his hands.

“It’ll fester,” he said frowning at the wound.

“I realize that,” she informed him with a sharp edge to her voice.  “But if you pull it out before we’ve got some bandages to really stop the bleeding I could bleed even more.  We need the first aid kit.”

He raised a dark questioning brow at her, “A first aid kit?”

“Yes,” she answered quickly.  “Knackers,” she called throwing her voice beyond the bathroom.  “Bring me that little black bag I told you was for emergencies!”

The sound of scampering feet and angry hushed tones followed by loud colorful language told her Knackers had heard her.  She turned her attention back towards Duncan who was reaching for a white towel from the rack above the sink.  She made a sudden loud noise that startled Duncan into statue-like stillness.

“Not the white towels,” she scolded pointing a commanding finger at Duncan.  When he tried to speak she used the same finger to silence his lips.  “Knackers!” she bellowed impatiently.

“I’m comin’ lass,” he hollered back.  “Keep yer shirt on.”

Annie continued to stare at Duncan.  His eyes had drifted away from her wrist and to her torso, which at the moment was definitely devoid of a shirt.  Her finger lingered a bit too long on his lips and from the look in his eyes she knew he was angry, but not that angry.  A shaky breath escaped her chest as she lowered her hand from his mouth and tried to close the ill-fitting robe that had begun to show a little too much skin.

“Why not?” he asked.   For a moment she had was confused by his question until she realized that  his left hand still held a firm grip on her injured hand and his right clung stubbornly to the white guest towel.

“Because I don’t want to pay for more than a broken mirror, because I don’t know how clean that towel actually is, because Fiona and I packed a special bag for emergencies like this… I don’t know pick one!”

“Och, lass doona fash yerself ‘bout the keepers o’ the Inn, they be friendly to our kind,” the short sooty stranger informed her from the doorway.

“Who are you?  What are you?” Annie asked impatiently.  Now was not the time to admit a new member to their group.  They had a hard enough time keeping everyone accounted for and not arguing amongst themselves.  Adding one more could and probably would make the group a little too even.

“The who’ll take some tellin’,” he informed her with a saucy wink.  “As to the what, tis simple enough-“

“He’s a Knocker,” Duncan said impatiently finishing the small Fae’s sentence.  “Knackers how many times have we talked about no’ trustin’ strangers?”  He asked directing his question at Knackers who had suddenly appeared at the door clutching a small black bag.

Knackers huffed.  “Tis no stranger.  This be Autie,” he said defiantly to Duncan.  “Here be the bag,” he said extending it to Annie.

“Do I look like I have a free hand?” Annie retorted.

“I thought he’d be taller,” stated a bewildered Duncan as he gazed down at Autie who winked impishly up at him.  Knackers huffed again and opened the small bag.

Knackers began carefully arranging the contents of the first aid kit on the small bathroom counter.  He’d almost completely emptied all of the contents when his hairy hand paused and his cat green eyes widened in shock.  “Be these what I think they are?” he whispered in fear.

Annie quickly took stock of the items that had been taken out of the bag and allowed herself a satisfied smile.  Sometimes karma and the universe worked quickly.  “Yes,” she replied with a widening grin.  “And they are what I really need right now.”

Knackers shook his head defiantly.  “I’m no’ touching ‘em,” he adamantly declared as he dropped the bag to the ground.  Annie glanced down at the bag and noticed that Knackers had chosen to wear proper foot attire.  She was grateful that he had left his flip-flops in Salem.  The sight of his gnarled toes was something she did not want to ever see again.  Yep, karma was on her side right now.

“Knackers,” Duncan ground out through his clenched teeth clearly unhappy with the Wag-by-the-Way’s refusal to help.  “She has already lost quite a bit of blood.  Much more an’ she’ll be on the floor with that bag.  So far nothing ye’ve produced will staunch the wound.”

Annie’s satisfied smirk was quickly replaced by honest worry when she spared a glance at the amount of blood that had begun to collect in the sink.  She felt the blood leave her face as her knees wobbled and chilled tremors started to run through her body.  Her knees buckled and she feared ending up on the floor just as Duncan had predicted.

Autie rushed into the bathroom and lowered the lid on the toilet.  “Quick,” he ordered.  “Sit her down here.”

Duncan quickly did as he was told and lowered her to a seated position.  “Annie you alright?” he inquired his voice full of concern.  She nodded quickly in response as the change in position alleviated the dizzy feeling.  “Knackers I don’t care if there’s a snake hiding in that satchel.  If it’s what we need hand it to me!” he ordered.