“I have returned, Torin. Come to me, my 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 not 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 not 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 theCailleachgrant Eilean passage intothis world when he had already connected with Emma? “Come forward, Eilean. Step out of the shadows so I might see that it is 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 slimy 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,” he 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 had 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 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. He slowly lowered his hands to his sides. Had Eilean truly returned to him and then been lost as soon as he had found her? A sense of emptiness filled his being, blossoming like a dead weight settling in his gut.
He pulled 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. He covered his face with a shaking hand. Finally. He had 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.
“Damnaighto 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 him and echoed off the stones of the shore. He thrashed against the suffocating sound attacking him from the depths of a swirling mist darkening around his body.
Torin threw himself back, clawing at the ever-tightening grip of the tentacles cutting off his air. The sting of the poison-tipped barbs burned into him as the talons burrowed deep into his muscles. “Mac an donais!” He 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 to his head. A foul dank odor stung his eyes and filled his mouth as he fought to work his fingers beneath the slimy muscle searing its barbs into his flesh.
Cruel, deep laughter bellowed out of the core of the mist.
Torin knew that laughter. He had heard it many times when he’d defended the stone gateway. Flashes of light sparked behind his tightly closed eyelids as he struggled to breathe. He couldn’t allow the beast to win. If Arach robbed him of his soul, there would 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 poisonof the blinding mist as his fingers wrapped around the hilt of the knife and pulled it into his palm.
As he 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 circle of oozing wounds carved around his throat by the poisonous barbs disappeared as though they had 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 not 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 will gladly show how much I’ve missed ye by gifting ye with a taste of my steel.”
Arach’s laughter rose above the sound of the surf crashing against the rocky strand. “I think not, my fierce friend. I would 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.”
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 would live to see the day when ye had 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 me.”
Torin tightened his grip around the sword until his fingers ached. He crouched low and retrieved the dagger from where it had fallen and balanced it in his other hand. Squinting, 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 sounded thoughtful and the sinister cloud of black mist lightened in color as it seemed to spread across the waves. “Ye might say I have 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 were covered by the foaming waves sloshing against the sand. “Ye 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 have 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 he felt the sharp stones pressing into his shoulders. “Settle on the strand and face me in battle. I assure ye, ye will die an honorable death.”
“Die?” Arach guffawed as he rose higher into the air. “I have no intention of gifting you with the pleasure of my death. But since I don’t wish for ye to think I’m not pleased to see ye again, I will gift ye with a promise.”
