Keepers of Eternity

by kimberly

  "Have care with the teeth, woman," he rasped, his hands catching her head to guide her motion.

  Julienne felt a secret smile widen her lips. She'd found the way to her power over him. Now that she'd literally gained the upper hand, she had no intention of letting him escape.

  "Payback is hell," she beamed in delight, bending to take him fully.

  Morgan tried to speak, gasped and gave up the effort. His breath came low, panting, and it was clear he was close to losing all restraint.

  "If you do not stop, woman," he grated in gruff, almost incoherent words. "I will have nothing left for you."

  "Oh, no," she breathed in her best baby voice. "Can't let that happen."

  Straddling his hips, she lowered herself onto his throbbing erection. His hands slid to her thighs, leading her in an unhurried, sensuous, divine entry, like a hot knife cutting through butter, downward until their trembling hips were completely joined. His grasp was possessive, and the sensation was so wonderful that she let her head dip back, eyes closed, relishing the feeling of giving herself completely to this man for the first time.

  Morgan began to guide her, urging her to raise and lower her hips, as he lay prone beneath her. When he began mimicking her motion with exacting thrusts, her feeling of power over him evaporated, and suddenly she was pleading with him in harsh ragged words never to leave her.

  In a smooth, rolling motion, he assumed the superior position, pressing her down onto her back in a single movement. Going to his knees between her spread legs, he stripped off his shirt, revealing the blue-black tattoo around his left bicep--fierce Celtic lions butting heads, ringed by the ancient symbols of his clan. His move was an erotic one. His was a muscular build. Shoulders sturdy, waist narrow, flat stomach: he was a study of excellent male development, a lifetime of hard living had first defined and then honed his muscles to their strongest.

  His gaze raked her naked body, vulnerable now to his carnal appetites. She was his to use as he wanted, and by the glint in his eyes and the smile curving his lips, he intended to use her well. Her body pulsed in lascivious anticipation, the air around them heavy with the scent of pure animalistic sex.

  "Don't stop," she urged in a primal gasp, eager to engage him in the primitive act created when time began and man and woman discovered how delightfully their bodies melded together.

  Morgan growled, catching both her wrists and pinning her arms above her head, holding her in a lusciously vulnerable pose.

  "I am not a gentle lover," he warned. A throaty gasp escaped Julienne's lips when his head lowered and his mouth circled one budding nipple. She cried out as he nibbled, feeling his hard erection against the soft nest of her flat belly. She arched her back as his fingers traveled her skin, then licking, kissing and tasting every inch of her until she begged for respite.

  "Please," she pleaded. "I need you inside me."

  Answering her cry, he sheathed his erection inside her moist, velvety depth in a single, unsparing thrust. She gripped his arms as he took her with all the strength and sureness of the predatory male. The motion of their joined bodies increased until both were rising and falling in a fury bordering on brutality that left her gasping from the intensity of his need.

  Splintering into a thousand warm wonderful sensations, Julienne screamed out when orgasm overwhelmed her, her nails raking down the corded muscles of his back. He cursed, but did not relent his incisive plunging inside her. Holding her hands down, he intensified his motion until his body grew taut--shuddering when final release claimed him. She felt the warmth of his seed enter her, smiling to herself as he collapsed on top of her, exhausted, his breath whistling in and out of his lungs, flesh slick beneath her palms.

  They lay still in the semi-darkness for a long time, limbs entwined. Just as she was falling into a dreamy sleep of contentment, Morgan roused her with a hungry kiss.

  "It is not over, caile," he whispered into her ear, voice gruff with his need. His hand parted her legs, probing her warmth, stroking her inner valley of pleasure. She opened to him willingly as his hands and mouth forged a fervent course that sent her spinning toward the heights of an orgasmic ecstasy that bordered on agony. Later, within the bliss of their illicit joining, Julienne floated off to sleep, snug in his embrace, her body curled against his.

  His child, she beamed delightedly, remembering her grandmother's words. Maybe I conceived his baby tonight. Even if he leaves me, I'll always have it…

  * * *

  Dawn was close to breaking when Julienne woke. She rolled over, her hand instinctively groping the other side of the bed. It was empty. Morgan had left her. Opening her eyes in alarm, she sat up. Her body ached from the intensity with which he had taken her. He had not been lying when he said he was not a gentle lover. Her copper mane was in wild disarray around her face and shoulders. She ran her fingers through the silken mass to straighten it, pushing stray strands out of her face.

  Her eyes searched the gloom. A hitch caught in her throat when she saw Morgan standing at the window, his body a silhouette. Arm outstretched, he leaned his weight against the sill. Eyes adjusting to the dimness, she could see him lift the bottle of scotch, taking a deep drink of its burning contents.

  Julienne glanced at her bedside clock. Five-thirty. "Little early in the morning to be hitting the bottle, isn't it?" she ventured.

  He did not turn. "I keep thinking if I drink enough, I will be able to justify what we have done." His accented voice was raw, husky.

  Hearing such words, her heart started thudding in her chest unpleasantly, beating with the heaviness of disappointment, hurt and bewilderment.

  "Do you wish we hadn't?" she asked, trying to stop the trembling in her own voice and failing. Here it was: the kiss-off, the inevitable post-sex regrets.

  Morgan sighed and lifted the bottle again. "No," he admitted, after he took it from his lips. "I just wish this could end without you getting hurt."

  Well, he's trying to be kind. She tried to swallow past the huge lump in her throat but found it too painful.

  "Does it have to?" Face growing stern, she gulped down the hurt, determined to be strong no matter his reply.

  "Once, I would have been able to walk away and not care," he said.

  "And now?"

  "Now…I do not even know my own mind anymore," he bit off his answer, hand dropping to his side. "Do I care for you, or is it Anlese's bonding spell?"

  "Maybe it's a little bit of both," she ventured. He's not ruling out the possibility that he cares for me. We've got to talk, get some things settled. It was stupid to get involved with him. I was attracted to him, but would I have slept with him if Grandmother hadn't mated us? I promised myself that I wouldn't be another woman he used and threw away. What if what I feel for him isn't even real? Jesus, this is one big mess now.

  Reaching out, she snapped on the bedside lamp. She could see he was bare from the waist up, an indication that he was not quite ready to leave her. She frowned. He was a restless man, never able to completely settle in one place for long. And just as he seemed to crave the human touch, he also seemed to despise his need as a weakness.

  Sliding out of bed, unblushing in her nudity, she went to him. As she came closer, she could not help the audible gasp that broke from her lips. Across his back she could see a mass of scars crisscrossing his pale skin, several times through his life Morgan Saint-Evanston must have been forced to endure sadistic beatings under a heavy lash.

  Without turning, he said, "I do not let many lovers see them."

  "My God," she whispered, reaching out and tracing the scars with gentle fingers, her eye following the long cruel paths. The unexpected sensations caused him to start, but he didn't pull away.

  "What happened?" she gulped.

  "My father happened," he clipped.

  Mutely, Julienne shook her head, at first not trusting herself to speak. Tears gathered at her eyelids, blurring her vision. "Your father did this to you?"

  "Yes."

  "W
here was your mother?" she demanded angrily.

  He turned then, giving her a strange, hard stare. "My mother hung herself when I was very young."

  Julienne swallowed hard, wanting desperately to take away the pain and suffering he had endured throughout his life.

  "Why did he abuse you like that?" She had to turn and blink hard, banishing the desire to weep for him. She would not let him see her cry.

  Tossing his black hair out of his eyes, Morgan walked past her. Setting down the bottle, he bent and retrieved his discarded shirt from the floor. Sliding into it, he said gruffly, "It was his way of beating the human side out of me."

  "How old were you?"

  He retrieved his cigarettes and lighter. She could tell by the brief but warring expressions on his face that he was debating on whether or not he should tell her any more.

  "I was five when she died," he finally said, lighting up. "That is when Celeon, my father, began abusing me. Hated the sight of me, the dark hair and eyes reminded him of her," he said. "Beat the hell out of me every chance he got."

  Julienne gulped. "He got a lot of chances, I see. How could any father do that to his child?"

  Icy reserve showed on his face. "I never asked him," he replied through flaring nostrils and a gush of smoke." He arched an eyebrow, a muscle twitching along the left side of his jaw. "I just killed him when I had had enough." Another draw on the cigarette, his gaze narrowed, gauging her reactions. "I was sixteen, and his was the first life I took. Since that time I have taken many lives. Does that surprise you?"

  Julienne leveled her own gaze, refusing to let him intimidate or frighten her. The dreams of murder, her mind warned. She pushed the visions out of her head. "If you hadn't," she said. "It would have surprised me more. You have that mercenary frame of mind."

  His shrewd features lightened at her reply. He cocked his head, a slight, secret, knowing smile playing on his lips.

  "If you can believe the words--I was surviving." He snuffed out his cigarette. "Now it is a matter of hard cash."

  "What are you saying?" she asked.

  "I think you know exactly what I am saying," he said, his fiercely arrogant stare boring into her. "When I leave, I need no strings tying me to this place. That includes you."

  "I see," she said, struggling to quell the wavering in her voice. "Is that your final word?"

  "Yes." He closed the door behind him when he left.

  Julienne watched with dismay as he walked out on her, resisting the urge to call after him when he shut the door, an ominous click to her ears.

  Shivering, she went back to bed. Burrowing under the covers, she lay still and silent, savoring the warmth clinging to the sheets, remembering with pleasure the hours so recently passed. The forbidden night had been one of sizzling ecstasy, one she would never forget. Flagrant desire had made her hot with a yearning begging to be sated, the touch of his hands only serving to inflame her on to a deeper, more urgent lust only he could tame.

  And now, in the cold light of dawn, he was gone, acknowledging what he was--and warning her not to get in his way.

  She lay alone and empty, wishing he could remain forever on her side, knowing all the while he could not. Thinking over the last six weeks, she allowed her mind to drift aimlessly until her body fell victim to a restless sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Late in the night, just on the cusp of two a.m., Julienne awoke to the sounds of a brewing storm.

  Outside her windows, the branches of the trees growing beside the manor scratched at the panes of glass like sharp fingernails dragging across a chalkboard. The eerie scratching dragged her regretfully out of her peaceful sleep with chills running up her spine. The wind was gusty, and the day had been overcast, with oppressive hanging clouds traveling the sky in search of a place to conquer.

  In the early hours of the evening after Anlese's funeral, one storm had moved on after a violent rain that shook the manor to its very foundation. A second storm thundered in its wake, clouds looming fat and menacing on the faraway horizon like an invading army awaiting the signal to come charging forth with thunder and lightning at the draw.

  Her brow wrinkled in consternation when she registered the unwelcome presence of the clouds. Glancing out the window, scowling at the sky, she swiftly turned and cut her gaze at her bedside clock. Noting the time, she padded naked to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. She wanted to take a long, hot bath and dress carefully before going to the temple.

  Morgan would be departing Blackthorne this night. And--one way or another--so would she. Humming a mindless tune, she tried to pay no attention to the nagging uncertainties in the back of her mind. It had already occurred to her that Morgan might be far different in his world. He'd made it clear that he didn't want her beside him as his mate. Reason dictated she would be a fool to take a chance and try to go with him into Sclyd.

  But her heart told her to follow him.

  Two hours later, Julienne made her way up the hall and stopped at Anlese's door. Looking right and then left, she turned the knob and slipped inside. A single oil lamp burned low. Melissa had neatly made the bed and tidied the room. It would be kept in its pristine condition until Blackthorne's new mistress decided how to dispose of Anlese's possessions. Looking around the room, she knew the items she needed.

  Moving to the foot of the bed, she knelt at the trunk, swept off its crocheted cover and opened it. She began to remove items of her legacy. One was a chalice, wrapped protectively in aging black silk. Next was an intricate ceremonial scythe, its wooden handle rotting, the etched silver blade gone black with age.

  This belonged to the first Blackthorne woman. She could feel vibrations deep inside the tools she held, felt their untapped power, begging to be reborn. But these things would have to wait until later, until she learned to use them. With all her heart, she longed to bring to life the knowledge Anlese had bestowed on her.

  The last items she removed were clothes of a medieval style. Simply cut, the first garment was a long and loose dress with billowing sleeves, to be gathered and tied around the waist with a simple cloth belt. The material was unidentifiable, but soft and well woven, dyed a pleasant hue of fawn brown. An undergarment, a slip of sorts, and a pair of leather boots reaching to the knee, laced to fit snugly, completed the ensemble.

  Julienne lay them aside and began to strip. In a matter of minutes she was dressed, no longer clothed as a woman of the modern world but of another, darker, more frightening world. Bowing her head to bid her grandmother's spirit a final good-bye, she left the room as silently as she had come. She trotted quickly down the hall, lest anyone should catch sight of her, making her way to the head of the staircase. She stood looking down into the foyer for signs of life.

  There were none.

  She went downstairs and into the library. Behind her, the grandfather clock read three-thirty-six a.m. Had so much time already passed? In the library she headed for the double French doors. Opening them without a backward glance, she crossed the patio and made her way out into the night. She knew where she would find Morgan. Thinking of him, she smiled to herself. In her heart, she knew her decision to follow him was the right one--no matter the consequences.

  * * *

  Hunkering down in the bushes outside the perimeter of the temple, Julienne shivered a little in the chilly breeze, pressing the folds of her clothes closer to her body, although they were hardly heavy enough to protect her from the cold. Fluttering the leaves in an intimate dance, the breeze tugged at the material of her skirt as if trying to undress her. The moonlight was bright, enabling her to see inside the circle of stones. There was no one present. The temple was abandoned.

  He's not here, she thought, panicking. Has he already left? Has he gone without even bothering to say goodbye?

  Suddenly, a hand reached out. Hard fingers clamped around her arm, yanking her to her feet, throwing her forward through the thick vine overgrowth with a bodily force that surprised her. Cruel thorns tore at
her skin, bringing painful red welts to the surface of her arms and legs and face. Stumbling, twisting her ankle, she cried out in pain, frightened as her attacker gave her no respite, pushing her toward the circle, under a looming archway and into the clearing inside.

  Breaking away from her captor, Julienne relaxed in relief when she saw Morgan.

  "Oh, my God," she breathed, gulping to catch her breath and to steady the hammering of her heart. "It's you. I--I thought y--you'd gone." He'd come upon her so silently, so quickly that she hadn't even had a chance to fight. What if his intentions had been to harm her? He could have taken her down in an instant and she wouldn't have even had time to scream. Now, for the first time, she felt fear and saw him differently. This man is dangerous.

  "Not yet. The time has not come." Morgan placed a palm against one of the stones. "Come to life."

  At his command, the stones began to glow with a soft illumination, rising first from their centers and expanding outward, traveling through the veins of the rock. A pale stratum of phosphorescence hung around the heavier gloom outside the circumference of the temple. A bank of pure, clear light surrounded them, visible, pulsing, throbbing.

  Eyes adjusting to the light, Julienne could see Morgan was also dressed differently. Gone were his tailored suits and crisp shirts, discarded and replaced with the clothes she recognized from her dreams, clothes he had not worn in a long time, preserved with care and the tricks witches employed to sustain things from decay. A medieval crossbow hung across his back. She had no doubt that other weapons populated his person.

  The wind tugged at his hair, ruffling his uncombed mane. He looked wild, untamed and savage--the true nature he had been concealing a long time. The style suited him--it was one he belonged in, rather than the fashions of modern times.