The Last Guardian Rises (The Last Keeper's Daughter) (39 page)
Read The Last Guardian Rises (The Last Keeper's Daughter) Online
Authors: Rebecca Trogner
Lily nodded. “We can’t go on like this. I need time alone. Time to think.” She waited for him to argue, but he only squeezed her shoulder gently. “I know to you I was gone for many months, but for me it was only a few hours. I can’t reconcile the man I left and the man you are now.” How callous she sounded.
“I am the same. It is the lack of the bond.”
That was a part of it, but not all. The time she’d spent with her father had altered her as well. But she didn’t have the will to argue with him.
He leaned down and kissed her shoulder. She needed to be comforted by the man she loved, and no matter what he’d done, or what she must do, she loved Krieger. “I’m sitting here thinking she’ll wake up. That this is all a bad dream.” She let him hold her while she cried. Would the tears ever stop? “I meant what I said; I need some time, alone, away from you and the mountain.”
“No.”
“Why wasn’t the Ancient watching over her?” Would he have given Martha his blood?
“The sun,” he responded, and gently traced with his finger around the iron bracelet. “He’s in California. It seems more Ancients are awakening.”
So they heard the call as she did? It wasn’t a voice, or any type of noise, but a feeling deep in her gut that something wanted her close. She’d felt it the night she’d returned to Krieger. “Let me go.” She looked up at him. “Alone. Without Lucien, or Liam, or the vantors. Just for a few weeks. To clear my head. To ease the tension of your subjects.”
Who wish I were gone.
“You said yourself that the Brotherhood is no more.”
He didn’t immediately respond. She bit her lip to keep herself from pressing him further.
“I have a house in Big Sur.”
And there it was. Even in death Martha had helped her. Lily would leave the man she loved in order to protect him.
“Two weeks,” he continued. “That is all the time I’ll give you. The Ancient can stay with you, along with guards.”
She touched the golden book hidden away in her pocket. “Promise me you won’t hurt her?” She looked at him. “Jo, you won’t do anything to her.”
He started to say something then stopped. “If she wishes it, I’ll make sure she is welcomed into the community.”
“Thank you. Now please go.”
Before I lose my nerve and wrap my arms around you and never let you go
. “I need to be alone with Martha.”
“My love, she is gone.”
My love, how will I live without you?
She choked back the tears
.
“I know, but I need a little more time with her.”
When she looked up he was back beside the door with his hand placed over his heart. She’d break down and run into his arms if she didn’t look away. She’d hurt him the most, but she was too raw with pain to care and continued her silent vigil. After a while, Jo came and sat with her while they waited for the funeral home to come for Martha’s body.
Three days later, Jo and Lily sprinkled Martha’s ashes into the stream that ran through Waverly. Martha used to tell them stories about the little stream that flowed into the Shenandoah River and how the waters would make their way out into the mighty Atlantic Ocean. That Shenandoah was an Indian word meaning beautiful daughters of the stars. In Martha’s will she’d specified exactly where along the stream she wanted them to say their goodbyes. She’d walked along these shores with the love of her life, George, who’d been killed in war. How many had said their goodbyes here? Walking in the glory of this place, perhaps for the last time, with the ones they loved? Seeing them off to the Civil War, the American Revolutionary War, the Indian wars. Did Martha and George walk beside them now? Were their spirits together in death as they’d not been in life?
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Jo asked.
“Maybe.”
“It feels like anything is possible now with everything I know.”
More than you know. “I ordered a bench,” Lily said.” I thought we could place it on the bank, maybe plant some flowers around it, so we could sit with her. A marker of sorts.”
“Martha would like that.” Jo knelt down and picked up a grayish stone smoothed from years of being tumbled and submerged in the water. “I wish Reverend Shay had been here to say a few words.”
“A family emergency or something,” Lily explained.
They walked along the shore following Martha’s ashes until they came to a rocky bend where the ashes dispersed. In no time at all the last remnants of Martha were gone.
“Should we have saved some for the mantle or something?”
Lily had been focusing on the water. “What?”
“Martha,” Jo prompted.
“Oh, no, she wouldn’t have liked that, being trapped. This is better. Now she’s free.”
Reluctantly, they walked away from the water and down the path to what had been Martha’s home.
“How long will you be away?” Jo asked.
“Just two weeks.” Lily wrapped her coat tighter around her.
“I never understood why Liam wouldn’t make love to me. I knew he loved me, but he always pushed me away, saying there were things about him I needed to know first.”
“He’s a decent man.” Lily spoke the truth.
“I finally meet a great guy and he turns out to be a werewolf.”
“Nobody’s perfect.”
Jo laughed. “He’s explaining everything to me. It’s going to take some time for things to sink in.”
“It will.” The path opened up and Martha’s home was ahead with Liam and Krieger standing on her porch.
“I don’t want you to go.”
“It’s something I need to do.”
I can’t endanger the ones I love any longer.
“Did he keep you from telling us?” Jo asked.
“No, it wasn’t his fault, it was mine.” She remembered telling Krieger how she wanted to know ‘the truth of things’. Not realizing what a hard mistress the truth could be when trying to protect the ones you love.
“You didn’t trust us?”
She took Jo’s hand, squeezing it hard. “I do. I thought I was doing the right thing by shielding the two of you from this world.”
Wasn’t Krieger in his own way trying to do the exact same thing, shield her from danger? Her heart seized with love for him. For the man who’d stood at the bottom of her stairs and taken her hand, and given her his love and protection.
“Promise me you’ll be back before Christmas.” Jo’s eyes welled up with tears.
“Yes, I promise. Now go on, Liam looks lonely up there.”
“Yeah, he’s lost without me.”
She watched Jo run into Liam’s embrace.
I should do the same. I’m hurting him
. True to his word, Krieger kept his distance, only offering support and giving her the space she’d requested. He placed his hand over his heart and her resolve almost crumbled, she had to reach out her hand to the vehicle to steady herself. She covered her own heart and smiled at him before turning and sliding into the backseat of the Suburban.
“I’m ready,” she said to her driver.
Anson
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?” Audrey was twisting her long red hair into a high ponytail.
The last thing Anson wanted to do today was go on a movie set with Audrey. He’d gone with her once and only lasted two hours before he begged off. No, it was not something he would do again. He much preferred to stay in their rented house in Big Sur while she worked on the vampire movie.
“You’re going to read, aren’t you?” She shifted her weight onto one hip.
“I might go for a swim, too.” He’d become fascinated with Shakespeare and bought all his works. He planned on reading
The Winter’s Tale
later in the day.
Audrey became serious. “Don’t swim here. The tides are strong, it’s dangerous.”
That she, a fragile little human, was so worried about his wellbeing touched his heart. “I promise to be waiting for you when you walk back through that door.”
She pouted but came over and gave him a leisurely kiss until the doorbell rang, and she reluctantly pulled away.
“That will be my driver.” She grabbed her script off the table. “I’ll be back around six.”
He walked her to the door and watched her wave goodbye through the back window of the car.
Less than five minutes later he flew off the balcony and dove into the wild waters of the Pacific Ocean, swimming until he could just make out the coastline. When he tired, he floated on his back letting the ocean current take him. He’d been ignoring the pangs of hunger for two days. It would not do; he needed to feed. Reaching out with his sense of smell, he searched for the tastiest human.
There was the faintest bit of a scent, fragile like a spider’s web rent apart by a strong breeze. He lost it and swam, trying to catch it again. He despaired, the winds were too high today. Perhaps she’d been on a ship or in a car or was a continent away and a rogue wind had brought her scent here just to tempt him.
Maybe he was hallucinating, for what he’d sensed was the delicate scent of the Lynea. Had he finally found her? Looking up into the sky he saw the sun had passed its peak. Frustrated and angry, he dove down to the depths and swam along the floor of the Pacific Ocean, only coming back to the surface when his limbs were numb with fatigue.
When he resurfaced the homes hugging the cliffs were sparkling with electric lights. Audrey would be worried that he wasn’t home, but he couldn’t leave, not yet, not until he reached out once more to see if he could find the delicious ghost scent. This time it assailed his senses, heady and ripe and full of life. A mature Lynea was near. He rose out of the water, pursuing the trail to a mammoth home secreted into the side of a cliff. And there, after so long, he, the last guardian, had found her. For standing on the balcony glowing under the moonlit sky with the sea air whipping her hair about her face and pressing her gown against her body was the goddess he’d despaired of never finding, his Lynea.
Acknowledgements
To George, my muse, my friend, my husband, the love of my life
To Trevor, so proud of you
To my parents, you nurtured my love of reading and inquisitive mind
To Candice, editor extraordinaire, thank you for all the hard work you’ve put into my stories
To Giblet, who takes me on the best walks and never tires of listening to my story conundrums
To my readers
Rebecca Trogner
Rebecca Trogner lives in the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia, and frequently crosses the Blue Ridge Mountains that were the inspiration for Krieger’s home. She lives with her husband and stepson, and ‘the best little doggie in the world’, a rescue dog named Giblet. To find out more about the author visit
www.rebeccatrogner.com
.
Other books by Rebecca G. Trogner:
The Last Keeper’s Daughter
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