Love Everlastin' Book 3 (9 page)

The boys!
his mind lamented.

Concern for the others in
the household doused his stupor. He gripped the root to aid himself
to his feet, but the instant his hand made contact, a chorus of
shrill voices lanced his brain. The ground shook. The root rapidly
grew warmer, then so hot he was forced to let it go.

He made it to his feet amid
a deluge of sounds: Thunder; human cries; lightning; inhuman sobs;
concrete grating against concrete.

The green glow of the root
became so bright he couldn't look into it. He lifted his arms to
cover his face, but before that act had been completed, the
luminance disappeared with a hissing
snizzzzip.

Again the ground beneath him
quaked, so forcefully he was barely able to retain his
footing.

"Winston!"

The desperation in Laura's
voice chilled him. Snatching up the lantern, he dashed from the
room and continued to run until he was on the main landing. Laura
was waiting for him at the bottom of the staircase. He first
noticed that she was wringing her hands, then that her face was the
color of paste.

"I fell asleep! The boys
took off! We can't find—"

A horrendous moan boomed
within the walls, drowning out Laura's scream. Again the house
shook. Laura pitched into Winston, who barely swung aside the
lantern in time to prevent her from colliding with it. He kept one
arm tightly about her waist and braced his back against the newel
post to steady himself. Laura clung to him, her eyes seeming too
large for her face.

The moan droned on. Instinct
warned Winston not to lower his mindshields, but he couldn't bear
not knowing what was happening.

His mind fully opened. At
first he received Laura's terror and it took him aback, for she
didn't fear for herself, but for her nephews. Then a presence
invaded his awareness.

Terror.

Agonizing pain.

Cold beyond
description.

Bewilderment and
disorientation.

They all were somehow
related to the house.

Winston extended his probe.
He felt his awareness about to lock onto something tangible when
suddenly the house stilled and all sound stopped. During the
ensuing moments, he could only hold his breath in anticipation of
another paranormal assault. His every sense was on full alert,
waiting to glimpse a hint of what was next to come.

Heavy footfalls on the
stairs drew his and Laura's attention. Roan, Alby beneath one arm,
Kahl the other, jogged to the first floor landing and faced the
immobile couple.

"I can't find Kevin
anywhere," he said tremulously.

"Put me down!" Kahl
squealed.

Alby appeared satisfied just
to dangle within the band of Roan's arm.

Roan placed each of the boys
on their feet then pulled Laura into his arms. Winston was only
dimly conscious of the laird consoling Laura, telling her that
Kevin had to be somewhere in the house. Winston was more intent on
listening with his inner senses. Something was teasing the
periphery of his awareness. Beckoning him, but to where he couldn't
yet determine. Outside, thunder boomed and lightning cracked and
snapped deafeningly. Winds pummeled the exterior walls.

"There are any number o'
places the booger could be hidin’," Roan assured Laura, who turned
to the boys and dropped to her knees.

Gripping the front of their
shirts, she asked, "Where did you last see him?"

Alby gave a negligent shrug,
while Kahl scowled down at the placement of her hand.

"Dammit, Kahl, look at
me!"

The redhead lifted wide eyes
to meet her imploring gaze.

"Where did he go?" she
asked.

"To his room! Chee, why are
you mad at me!"

With a heart-wrenching sob,
Laura drew the boys into her arms and offered them a terse
apology.

The front doors burst wide
open. Wind and freezing droplets of water sluiced down the hall.
Roan instantly dropped to his butt between the onslaught and Laura
and the boys, using the breadth of his body to award them a
semblance of safety. Winston placed the lantern to the side of the
staircase then stepped further into the hall. His right arm was
braced to protect his face from the sting of the wind and rain. He
sensed someone coming into the house. Gesturing for Roan to get
Laura and the boys into the parlor, he braced himself to face
whatever was to come. But before Roan had maneuvered his family
halfway to the other room, the double doors slammed shut with
echoing finality.

The wind and rain
immediately ceased.

Unnerving calm blanketed the
hallway.

Winston lit into a half-run
at the sight of Agnes urging Kevin forward. Both were soaked.
Winston hauled the shivering boy into his arms and walked alongside
Agnes to where the others were waiting. Roan was quick to take the
oldest boy into his own arms, and hugged him almost fiercely before
giving him a single shake.

"Damn me, laddie!" Roan
cried. "Wha' were you doin’ ou'side?"

"But I—"

"Honey, we were so worried,"
Laura wept, cutting him off. Her hand smoothed the back of the
boy's dripping-wet hair. "You know better than to go out after
dark!"

"But the—"

Again Kevin was interrupted.
"He was ou' by the north garden," Agnes said peevishly and swiped
an arm across her face. "Dead or alive, doesn’t matter, I hate
bein’ all wet—and me in ma best dress to boot!"

Winston didn't know whether
to laugh or cry. Absorbed emotions rapidly churned inside him,
swelling and crashing like storm-swept waves. He felt out of place
among the family. A stranger.

An intruder.

Suddenly he sensed something
was very wrong. Although he couldn't define it, he likened it to
the daunting calm within the eye of a hurricane. He stepped back
until he came to the tiled fireplace on the wall across from the
staircase. Absently scanning the animal bone, wood, and copper
artifacts adorning the mantel and wall, he hesitantly reached out.
Crawly sensations broke out on his skin, staying the fingertips of
his right hand a hairsbreadth from an unadorned part of the wall
above the mantel. Seconds ticked by. Although a glance over his
shoulder revealed that the others were talking, he could hear only
silence.

His fingertips touched the
wall.

The soundlessness shifted.
Shifted again and he sensed it closing in on him. Shifted again,
permeating the psychic fibers of his mind and threateningly rooting
itself at the base of his brain. He was unaware of trembling, of
having paled so drastically that the others were regarding him with
deepening anxiety.

He tried to pull away from
the wall, but found his fingertips were stuck fast.

No mental images came to
him, only impressions. Fear. Abandonment. Loneliness as he'd never
before experienced.

From somewhere deep inside
him, he found the strength to break his physical contact with the
wall. The psychic link severed, he whirled to face the others and
gasped, "It's gone!"

"It?" Roan asked through a
grimace.

"The...the—" Winston
gestured in unbridled frustration. "The bloody magic! It's gone!
The house is...
empty!"

Roan placed Kevin on his
feet and took a step in Winston's direction. "Wha' are you talkin’
abou'?"

"The energy tha' was in the
house is gone!" Winston bit out, his face flushed with anger. "I
don't know o' a better way to explain it to you!"

"Could it have something to
do with—"

Laura's question was cut off
by Kevin, who lunged between Winston and Roan, and raised his
dripping arms in the air. "Let me talk!" he demanded, stamping a
foot to punctuate his words. "What about the naked
lady?"

"The wha' lady?" Winston
barked.

"At the gazebo," Kevin
replied, scowling up at Winston.

"I didn’t see anyone ou'
there," stated a bewildered Agnes.

"She was there," Kevin
fumed, searching each adult's face. "Like I wouldn't know a naked
woman when I saw one! Chee! You guys are really bugging me now!
Case you don't know, it's cold outside! She's probably all frozen
up like a snowman by now!"

Winston locked eyes with
Agnes.

"I'll go," she said, but
before she could make a move, Winston was running for the
doors.

"Fetch some blankets!" he
called back as he dashed into the greenhouse.

Cold didn't adequately
describe the weather. A mixture of rain and hail bombarded him as
he blindly ran into the night, going by rote in the direction of
the north gazebo. By the time he reached the structure, his lungs
felt seared and his legs barely able to support him. He shuffled
his frozen bare feet to the center of the planked floor, offering a
mute prayer of thanks for the shelter of the domed roof. He
anxiously swept the wetness from his face with his hands and
narrowed his eyes in search of a body. His psychic radar swept the
immediate area, and finally locked onto something by the rear of
the gazebo. His pulse rate quickening, he started in that direction
when another presence tripped into his awareness.

For a breath-robbing second,
Winston experienced a rush of shocked-incredulity. Disbelief formed
a burning knot inside his throat. His brain swelled and hammered at
the confines of his skull.

Panting, his hands balled
into trembling fists at his sides, he faced the house. His features
turned to stonelike rage as his gaze sought to locate the
target.

But he didn't need to see to
know that the impressions were true, as true and as real and as
solid as the floor beneath his bare feet. There was no mistaking
this 'mark'.

Forcing his reasoning to
surface above his rage, he ran to the rear steps of the gazebo.
There, curled in a fetal position on the bottom step, was a dark
figure.

Kevin's lady, although not
naked—

As soon as he'd gotten a
closer look, he realized that what he'd first thought was a cape,
was in fact incredibly long hair, soaked and clinging to her like a
second skin.

"Sweet Jesus," he grumbled.
He swept her up into his arms. Keeping his thoughts free of the
second intruder, he laboriously ran toward the house. His burden
never moved or made a sound. He sensed that, although she had no
wounds, her heartbeat was dangerously weak. Little wonder. She was
little more than a block of ice.

Roan and Laura were waiting
for him inside the double doors. Although Winston was staggering
with fatigue and cold combined, he stood fast while the couple
unitedly worked to get two blankets about the stranger. Then Roan
took the woman into his arms, and Laura opened a third wool blanket
and draped it over Winston's shivering form.

"Aggie's runnin’ a bath in
yer room," Roan told Winston as he rushed to the
staircase.

"I'll make tea and heat up
some soup," Laura said, beelining for the parlor door.

Winston set the bolts on the
double doors then headed down the hall.

Despite his wobbly legs and
numbed feet, he somehow managed to keep up with Roan as they
climbed the stairs to the second floor landing. Winston couldn't
stop shivering, and he wondered if it was mainly due to the
unmerciful chill in his body, the fact that the woman could very
likely be dying, or that the one remaining outside was—

He refused to analyze how
that could be possible. Not now. As long as the house was locked
tight, he'd have a little time before having to warn the laird of
the impending danger.

When Winston entered his
bedroom on Roan's heels, the boys were nowhere in sight. Agnes
stuck her head out of the bathroom, issuing a terse,
"Hurry!"

"Give her to me," Winston
rasped a moment before Roan would have stepped into the smaller
room.

The laird turned a grimly
quizzical look on Winston but passed the woman into Winston's
waiting arms.

"Listen carefully and don't
ask me any questions right now," Winston said, his authoritative
tone further taking Roan aback. "Make sure every window and door in
the house is locked tight. Every window and door!" He pushed past a
dumbfounded Roan and barked at Agnes, "Watch the boys. Don't let
them ou' o' your sight!"

For a split second he saw
rebellion flash in her eyes. Then she hurried out of the bathroom,
closing the door behind her.

Winston took a moment to get
his wits about him. Meager steam rose up from the waiting bath. A
glance at the half-filled porcelain tub gave him the stamina to
force his stiff, weakened legs to obey him one stretch longer. He
eased his right foot into the water. At first it felt scalding and
he nearly abandoned his intentions. Clamping down on the pain, he
hoisted himself up and over the rim of the tub, and stood for a
second in the bathwater, telling himself he would not succumb to
the fierce sensations of pins and needles assaulting his feet and
legs.