“I love you all! We will be together again before you know it,” Trulie called back to her. An excited giggle bubbled up from her core. She loved swimming through time and had to admit she didn’t mind handing over the responsibility of raising her younger sisters to Kenna. Her fingers tingled as she somersaulted through the air. How could she have forgotten the rush of traveling across the web?
“We love you too.” Kenna’s sounded fainter. “And your stubborn dog is coming with you.”
A deep bark reverberated through the shifting cosmos, followed by an irritated hissing yowl. Apparently, Kismet was coming too.
CHAPTER6
“Tamhas?” Gray scanned the area as he slid off of Cythraul’s broad back. With one hand resting on the beast’s warm, shaggy neck, he leaned forward and listened. Nothing but silence. Not even the sound of the wind stirring through the trees. Gray tensed as he looked around. Even the drizzling rain had disappeared. Such stillness was unnatural. No good could come of this.
“Tamhas?” he repeated, louder this time. Where the devil was the old man? An eerie foreboding knotted his gut.
“Still no smoke or sign of life.” Colum edged his horse up beside Gray. “I have never known the old one to leave his cave unattended for more than a few hours. The sly fox keeps close to his burrow. Do ye think he may be dead?”
Gray eased closer to the battered wooden door built into the side of the mountain. He searched for the small, thatched hole that drew the smoke from the hearth out of the confines of the cave. There. Right there, centered in a roll of the hill a bit higher up the side of the rocky embankment. The frosty wetness dripping from the loose bundles of grass piled around the opening told Gray no heat had risen from the hearth in a while. Gray moved to the shuttered window cut just a few feet to the left of the doorway. The gaps between the thick, lashed-together boards revealed nothing but darkness within.
Gray risked a hesitant sniff, held in the breath, then exhaled. Thank the gods he nay detected the smell of death or spilled blood. “If Tamhas is dead, his body isna here.”
Both horses let out low, nervous whinnies, and skittered a few paces back from the clearing. They shook their heads and pawed at the ground, clearly ready to be done with the place.
“Easy now, lads,” Colum reassured them. He dismounted and took a firmer hold of the reins of both mounts. “I dinna care for this overly much, myself.”
Gray backed up a few steps. Something was not right. Even the air had a strange feel to it. He scrubbed a hand up and down his forearm. A strange tension stung his flesh, making every hair stand on end.
A rumbling groan rose from deep below Gray’s feet. The sound deepened and then gained momentum, as though the very earth itself was about to wrench open its ancient maw. He staggered sideways, struggling to remain standing on the shaking ground. What evil awakened? The land was alive like a great beast trying to buck him from its back.
The horses screamed and reared away from the heaving earth. Colum gave them the length of their reins, their sharp, flailing hooves.
A sudden shifting in the darkness of the sky forced Gray’s attention upward. “What the devil...” He stumbled back from the black stain swirling in an ominous circle above the mountain’s clearing.
The air exploded with a deafening rush of wind and flying debris. The blast whirled through the clearing with a piercing screech so loud the howl echoed across the land. The horses shied, bucking and pawing against the unseen.
Gray shielded his face against the battering wind just as a solid force hit him square in the chest and knocked him to the ground. All went silent. The air went dead. Even the horses ceased their thrashing.
A violent updraft rattled the land. The force whooshed up from the ground, creating a choking, dirt-filled cloud. Gray turned his face from the stinging blackness, blinking hard against the swirling dust. What devilry had the gods rained down upon them? Coughing and wheezing, he struggled to see and shift aside the clinging weight draped across his chest.
“Lore a’mighty,” Colum shouted from the other side of the clearing. “Ye are not going to believe this. The clouds are raining women!”
Gray rubbed his eyes and blinked hard against the silt clouding his vision. “I canna see a feckin’ thing, Colum. What say ye?”
What had the man said about women? Gray swiped a hand across his face while pushing up on his elbow. The dead weight draped across his chest emitted a soft, groan. Gray froze. Such a delicate moan could only come from a female. He blinked hard one last time and scrubbed the final blurriness from his vision.
Dark hair soft as silk and smelling of a beguiling sweetness tickled against his chin. Gray inhaled another deep breath of the alluring fragrance and sent up a silent prayer that he had not gone mad. Had the gods truly dropped a woman from the sky? He blinked down at the tangled mass of curls scattered across his chest.
The woman shifted. He steadied her with one hand and moved a bit to one side to keep her from rolling away. The softness of her curves sank into him in all the right places. He leaned back and lightly stroked a finger down her arm. She was real. And her sweet warmth melting into him was quite pleasant. In fact, perhaps this gift from the heavens was not so bad after all.
He tilted his head to better examine the intriguing present Fate had seen fit to drop onto his chest. What the devil was that strange pouch strapped to her back? Odd bits of metal fashioned into the tiniest teeth ran along several of the bundle’s seams. Knotted hanks of the silkiest rope Gray had ever seen dangled from various spots in bright, multicolored bits. Her oddly clothed—albeit very nice, from all he had seen thus far—body rumbled against his chest with another moan as she shifted positions again. Gray grabbed her by the shoulders and eased her to one side before her bent knee succeeded in squashing the part of him welcoming her with ever-hardening interest.
The woman slowly lifted her head. She blinked up at him through a tangle of curls hanging across her eyes. Green eyes looked through him, blindly staring past him as if he weren’t there. Such an unusual shade of green. The fresh, deep hue of an angry sea when it crashed into the shallows. Dark pupils fluctuated as though unable to adjust to the light. Her dark-fringed eyes crinkled at the corners as she squinted through her hair. Her nose twitched. Her tiny nostrils flared as though she were a huntress scenting her prey. A split second later, she sprang away and stumbled across the rough ground until she was several feet away.
“Granny?” the girl cried out, growing frantic as she looked all around, her head whipping from side to side. “Granny! Karma! Kismet! Where are you?” Her voice hit a higher note of hysteria with every name she called out.
“Lass, calm down.” Gray shushed her quietly in the tone he used to gentle horses. The woman would surely harm herself if she continued staggering about. He reached out and tried to catch her flailing hands. “Tell me who ye are and where ye are from?” Heaven help the poor beauty. She looked to be blind.Gray sidestepped a wild kick and grabbed at the strange pack strapped to her back. She moved with amazing agility for one who could not see. Gently, he forced her to be still, then slowly turned her to face. “There now. Much better. Easy now, lass. ’Twill be all right.”
She yanked her arm away and stumbled backward. “Don’t you touch me. I am not as helpless as I look.”
“Easy now. I merely mean to help ye.” He caught hold of her arm again, hopping sideways when she jerked out of his grasp and kicked wildly once more. Perhaps, the poor woman was mad too.
A deep warning growl rumbled behind him. The chilling sound transmitted such raw fury the hairs raised on the back of Gray’s neck. Without taking his eyes off the wild-eyed woman, he eased to one side until he could see the animal out of the corner of his eye. Damnation. That huge black beast with its teeth bared dwarfed any hound he had ever seen.
