Eternity

by Teresa Federici

  They were both torn and bleeding; Gareth’s shirt was scorched from lightning that had come too close and was hanging in shreds. Padraigan bled from the mouth and his pants and shirt were drenched in blood from the gaping wound in his side.

  Gareth stood and they faced each other, both tensed to make moves.

  “I do not look to destroy our kind; I look only for a cure for me, since this was not something that I wanted. You gave me this curse with no choice in the matter.” He yelled at him, but Padraigan laughed in response.

  “I saved you from death, a fate worse than death! Would you have rather spent eternity in hell?” he said through his laughter, his wide shoulders shaking.

  “It was a death that I had embraced; I needed no saving from it. You have damned me more than God ever could have.” The words were whispered, with anguish, and I wanted to run to him, to take away his pain, but I would put us both in danger.

  They continued to stare at each other, Noah and Damien and I forgotten.

  I knew what he was going to do before even he did. I screamed as he began to move, as Padraigan caught his intention and raised his hands in defense. The lightning hit Gareth high and on the chest as he ran at Padraigan, and he pushed through it, leaning into it like a man standing in hurricane force winds.

  I could see the lightning erupting from Gareth’s back and shoulder as it burned a hole into him and I jumped up, running towards him, only to have Noah snatch me back, his arms a band around my waist. I kicked and clawed at him, turning my head to bite at him. I fought madly and with no thought to my own injuries.

  Against all odds, Gareth made it to Padraigan through the hail of lightning, the hole drilled into his upper chest almost large enough to pass a baseball bat through. With the last of his strength, he grabbed Padraigan’s shoulders and pulled him towards him, his head angling to his neck. His fangs punctured skin and he jerked his head back savagely and Padraigan screamed. Abruptly the lightning was cut off as Padraigan disappeared.

  “Fuck!” Noah yelled and let me go to run to Gareth. I collapsed to the ground again. Before I passed out, I could see Noah bent over Gareth where he had fallen, shaking him on the uninjured shoulder and calling his name over and over.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I lay awake, but with my eyes closed. I had come awake slowly on what I knew instinctively was Gareth’s bed, knowing I wasn’t in that damn warehouse anymore, but again I had no idea of how long I was out. It could have been hours, it could have been years.

  I was thinking it was months, as my wrist moved easily, although there was a thick brace on it, and I no longer had the wrenching pain and pressure in my stomach.

  I thought that if I didn’t open my eyes, I wouldn’t have to face any hard truths. I could just going on floating in the dream world, where Gareth was alive and we were together.

  He had to be dead, turned to ash. If Noah and my fire could incinerate vampires, why not lightning? The fact that he hadn’t turned to ash immediately should have given me hope, but it didn’t. I had seen the hole in his chest, agonizingly close to where his nonbeating heart lay.

  What had become of Padraigan? Was he dead also? I thought back to Noah’s yelled curse. Was that because Padraigan escaped or because of Gareth’s injury? If Gareth had killed him, wouldn’t he have turned to dust?

  I could feel the tears seeping from under my lids and this time I let them come. I cried for Gareth, I cried for me, I even cried for Damien, although Noah had said he would recover. Viciously I thought that he should have died, not Gareth, and then was immediately shamed. He had led Gareth and Noah to me, despite the hatred between them. In the end, though, he had gotten his wish and Gareth had been destroyed after all.

  “Oh God!” I wailed, turning on my stomach and clutching the bed sheets with clenched fists. I was convulsed with grief, and I cried like I hadn’t cried since my parents died; my whole body was wracked with loud sobs and I couldn’t breathe.

  “Jesus, Anna, what’s wrong? Harley! Teagan!” I heard Noah hollering, and then he was on the bed next to me, cradling me in his arms, rocking back and forth. I clutched at his shirt, my hands shaking, eyes not seeing, and I was completely lost.

  “Oh, Anna, it’s okay. Hush now.” The bed dipped and I heard Harley’s hushed voice as she ran her hand over my hair and down my back, soothing me while Noah held me.

  “Do you hurt? Is there something we missed?” Harley asked, and I could hear worry and concern in her voice. “What happened?” I heard Teagan hiss at Noah, but he just shook his head. “Did you tell her?” she hissed again, and Noah hissed back, “No. Leave it alone for now.”

  Their words just confirmed what my heart already knew, and it made me cry harder, if that were possible.

  “She can’t keep this up much longer. I’m going to have to quiet her.” I heard Noah murmur to Harley and Teagan, as he continued to rock me. I didn’t hear or see their response. Before I knew it, I was asleep again.

  The second time I woke, there were no tears, just a dull emptiness. I would never be whole again, my heart and soul having died with Gareth. I sat up, my body performing the motions mechanically. My wrist gave a slight protest at the pressure on it, but it was dull too, the pain.

  “Oh good, you’re awake.”

  I looked over at Noah, who was slouched down in a chair next to the bed. It should have touched me that he was watching over me, but my emotions had fled with everything else in me. He moved up in the chair and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped as though in prayer.

  “How do you feel?” he asked and I could tell he was concerned. I looked at him dully and shrugged.

  “Unfortunately I’m alive.” I whispered. My throat was raw from lack of speech and tears. I would never cry again, though. I had cried too many times in my short life.

  “Why would you say something like that, Anna? Thank the Goddess your alive.”

  “Why should I thank anyone that I’m alive? What reason do I have to still be here?” I looked away from him, at the darkness of the room, but it only brought back memories, painful, heartbreaking memories and I shut my eyes against it, but my damn mind, with its vivid imagination brought everything that had happened in that room back to life.

  The first time we argued, the first time we loved and all the other times in between.

  “What is with you? I know it’s not really a time to rejoice but at least we survived. That’s something isn’t it? We’ll find him eventually.” Noah stood and sat next to me.

  “Find who?” I turned my gaze back to him, my eyes falling on his face. He had a bruise under one eye that was faded, like a black eye at the last stage of healing.

  “Padraigan. He’s gone to ground, and I can’t find him. Not surprising, but I’ll keep looking.”

  “Oh that’s just fucking wonderful. He’s still alive, or whatever?” I was wrong, there was an emotion left in me. The sharp, crystalline emotion of anger. Why should he live when my soul was dead?

  “Oh, I forgot, we didn’t tell you yet. I thought you might have figured it out, since he just disappeared and didn’t die like the rest of them.”

  “Gee Noah, when would I have figured that out? When I was asleep?” I replied sarcastically. He frowned at me, his blue eyes darkening.

  “How long have I been out for?” I raised my knees, wrapping my arms around them. This is what I was kept alive for then, to hunt down that bastard and kill him, for Gareth. I would kill him, and happily. I would hone my powers until I had a multitude of weapons at my disposal.

  “Only a few days.”

  I looked at him over my knees, my expression skeptical. I raised my right arm and waved my wrist at him, the bulky brace limiting my movement.

  “This was broken, twice. I can move it now and my stomach was at least bruised very badly, if I didn’t have internal bleeding. You’re telling me I healed that quickly?” I noticed his eye again. To get to that color, his eye would have been blackened a week ago, at leas
t, but he was telling me a few days.

  “We all healed quickly, but you and I benefited from healing spells the girls whipped up.”

  I nodded, resting my arm across my knee again.

  “Anna, what happened this morning? Why were you so upset? We couldn’t calm you down, and I had to put you back to sleep. Sorry about that, by the way.” He leaned towards me, tucking a hair behind my ear, his bright blue eyes looking into mine. His concern was as a brother for a sister, and I couldn’t help but appreciate it, but he was not who I wanted sitting on this bed with me.

  “How can you ask me that Noah?” I whispered, but he shook his head, as if he misunderstood the question.

  Anna.

  I heard his voice clearly in my head and I was sure I had finally fallen off the deep end.

  I cocked my head to the side, as if trying to hear it better. At least this was a gift my imagination could give me, if I could hear his beloved voice that clearly.

  Anna, come to me, please. I need to see you’re all right.

  I sat bolt upright. A ghost would not need me to come see him. Noah leaned back from me, as if my craziness was catching.

  “What?” he asked warily.

  “Did…” I didn’t want to ask, in case he confirmed what I thought I already knew.

  “What, Anna?” His voice was concerned again, and he reached for me, but I scrambled off the bed, ignoring the protest from my inactive muscles.

  “Is Gareth dead?” I shouted it out, unable to take it any longer.

  His frown deepened, but he shook his head. “No, he’s not dead, he’s in the room across the hall…Anna, wait! He needs to rest, shit!” I barely heard him as I tore from the room, joy leaping into my previously dead heart. I burst into the room, and came to a crashing halt. The room was dark, it being night, and no lamps were lit, but I could feel him there, and then his voice came out of the dark, the Scottish brogue thicker than usual.

  “There’s my bonnie lass. Are you alright, then?” I heard him move in the bed, and I walked hesitantly to it, scared that when I got there, it would be an apparition laying there. I heard movement, then the lamp next to the bed clicked on; such a mundane movement, but also the most wonderful thing in the world for what it revealed.

  The light illuminated him, his hair tousled as if from sleep, his beautiful face and glorious eyes looking up at me. I reached out a trembling hand to touch the large bandage that covered the whole right side of his chest and shoulder, and he watched me, his eyes on my face.

  “Anna?” he whispered, and I sagged to the bed, my knees hitting the ground. I laid my head on the bed next to his hand and grabbed it, holding onto it like a lifeline, while fresh tears I swore I would never cry again ran down my face.

  “Here now, what’s this?” He moved farther up the bed, tugging on me with his good arm and yanking me onto the bed with him. It must have hurt, because he groaned, and I knew then that it wasn’t a trick of my mind, or a ghost.

  “Oh Gareth, you’re alive!” I cried, bathing his face with kisses and tears, running my hands up and down his body, feeling the hard muscles and the cotton of the bandage.

  “After a fashion, anyway. What’s this about? Did you think me gone?”

  I couldn’t answer him, I was so delirious in my joy. I just stared at him, drank in his beauty, the heavenly eyes, the firm mouth that had given so much pleasure.

  He reached out with his good hand and touched my face, his eyes searching mine.

  “You did, you thought I was gone. That’s why you were so upset this morning. Anna, I told you I wouldn’t leave you, and I stick by my word.” He said tenderly, brushing hair out of my eyes.

  “You had a hole in you!” I wailed, with a wild gesture at his chest.

  “Still do, though it’s much smaller now. I’ll heal.” He said it simply, as though it was nothing more than a scratch. I couldn’t stop touching him, reassuring myself that he was really there.

  “Be still, lay with me.” He pulled me down to lie next to him and I carefully laid my head on his chest. My hands roamed all over him, and he grabbed them with his good hand with a chuckle.

  “I’m really here, you don’t have to keep that up. Neither one of us is in shape enough to finish what you’re hands are starting.” He pressed his lips to the top of my head, and I burrowed farther into his side, wanting to lodge myself there so that we would never be separated again.

  “I missed you.” He whispered, his breath stirring my hair, and in his voice I heard all the love he held for me.

  “God, Gareth, I love you. Don’t ever do anything so stupid ever again!” I scolded in a harsh whisper, breathing in the scent of his skin, reveling in the feel of the cold flesh under my cheek. He laughed again, his chest moving with the sound, and then he groaned.

  “Only you can tell me you love me one minute, scold me the next, and bring me pain.”

  I sat up reluctantly, but I wanted to see him. I sat lotus-style, reaching out and taking his good left hand. He looked at our joined hands where they lay in my lap, then raised his eyes to mine.

  “I’m so glad you’re recovered. I haven’t been in any shape to come to you, and those jail wardens,” with his chin he gestured to the door, “wouldn’t let me be in the same room with you. They were worried that you would jostle me in your sleep. Are you truly alright?”

  I gave him a sunny smile, all the relief and joy in my heart coming through.

  “I could dance a jig if I knew how. Gareth, I thought you were dead. I couldn’t feel you, you weren’t in my mind…I was devastated.” I sniffed back more tears that were threatening.

  “You didn’t try calling to me. If you had, I would have answered. I didn’t bother you because I thought you needed to rest.”

  “I thought you were dead.” I repeated, but he was right. I hadn’t even thought to call to him. I hung my head. I could have saved myself a whole lot of misery. He tugged me down to him again, and held tight to me with his good arm, and I fell asleep this time, naturally, next to the man I loved.

  “You really should stay in bed another day.” Teagan scolded as Gareth stared her down. He was still in bed, not being able to get out due to his state of undress. Although we hadn’t been able to do anything but hold onto each other in the night, I had undressed him and he me, as well as he could with one hand and had lain together all night pressed together, needing to feel skin against skin. I was dressed again in my pajamas, sitting in the chair next to his bed, my legs crossed, watching Gareth battle against Teagan’s formidable will.

  “I really don’t want to stay here another day. I’m not like you; I don’t sleep, so this has been four days of pure torture for me.” He said calmly, but his scowl showed his true feelings.

  “Hey!” I said, feigning hurt. He cast me a wry glance. “I repeat: four days of torture.” He grumbled and I giggled.

  “Fine, let me look at the hole.” She reached towards the bandage and with a long-suffering sigh, Gareth leaned forward so she could unwrap the big bandage.

  “I don’t know why you insist on wrapping me up like a mummy in a shroud. I’m not going to get an infection and it will heal without the bandage.”

  “Just trying to protect the expensive bed furnishings.” She grumbled back at him. “Don’t want to get blood all over them, now do we?”

  I winced when she had the bandage completely removed. It was the first time I was seeing it since it happened, and eerily, I could see through him. My stomach almost revolted, but I managed to keep my gorge down. It was much smaller than it had been the night it happened, and it amazed me that he was healing from it that quickly. A burn was one thing, but a hole?

  It was now only the width of a wide pen, the edges cauterized from the lightning, and I could literally see the inside of him. I was quickly reminded why I hadn’t become a doctor.

  “How’s the werewolf faring?” he asked, and I heard disdain in his voice.

  “Harley is with him right now. He had a similar, if
not as large, hole in his leg, but he’s recuperating as fast as you. You can’t see through his anymore. Fine, if you keep the bandage on, you can come downstairs. It should be closed up by tonight if you keep this speed up.”

  “I really don’t need the bandage.” Gareth groaned as she began to wrap him up again.

  “No, but I do. I really don’t want to see the other side of the room through you all day long.” With that, she walked out of the room, carefully shutting the door behind her.

  He turned his gaze to me and I smiled at him. “It’s amazing how we can joke about this now, as if it was a camping trip gone bad.” I got up and climbed onto the bed, moving to lie next to him.

  “I almost lost you, and smile at jokes about the injury that almost took you from me.” My voice was hushed as I spoke, quavering with fresh tears. It had killed me to see that, made me relive the night it happened. I saw him fighting that stream of lightning, leaning into it, then when it had punched through his back…

  “Anna, love, don’t do this to yourself. I’m here, I’m fine, and I’m not going anywhere. Hey, I love you.” He placed a long finger under my chin, raised my face to look at him. He leaned forward and slanted his mouth over mine in a hungry kiss, his lips caressing mine to open under them, and I complied, our tongues driving us into passion.

  “Gareth, I don’t want to hurt you.” I moaned as his mouth left mine and traveled down my throat.

  “You won’t.” he groaned in response as my hand traveled down the length of his chest, over the bottom part of the bandage, onto the hard muscles of his stomach, which quivered under my touch. I paused, tracing the line of hair that disappeared under the sheet, and then I slipped my hand under the sheet and encircled him, finding him already hard. He groaned again as I caressed him, and I rejoiced in my power over him. I straddled his legs and leaned over him, my hair draping across his chest as I kissed a trail down his stomach, pushing the sheet down as I went. He writhed under me as my mouth closed over him, and his good hand tugged on my hair.