by Donna Grant
“This is no place for you. You should be at the castle.”
“No one is safe while the creature is loose.”
“This wasn’t the creature,” Gabriel said to everyone. “It’s daylight. The creature only comes at night.”
“Then who?” Bernard asked. “And why?”
“Questions I would like answered myself,” Hugh said. “I think ‘tis time we returned to the castle.”
They waited as the horses were retrieved and the body of the knight wrapped and slung across his horse. Hugh lifted Mina onto her mare and kept his hand a moment too long on her leg. When he turned around it was to find Bernard studying him.
“Baron.”
Bernard smiled tightly. “Hugh.”
The return ride to the castle was done in silence. Hugh wanted the body of the knight kept secret to keep the panic at a minimum, so Bernard and his other man carried the knight through the postern door.
Hugh was surprised to see the bailey alive with activity as though there wasn’t a creature terrorizing them.
“What are they doing?” Mina asked as her gaze swept the bailey.
Cole nudged his horse close to them. “Celebrating.”
She looked at him as if he had suddenly sprouted wings. “Celebrating what?”
“They think the creature is gone,” Hugh explained.
She shook her head as they stopped in front of the castle. Hugh dismounted and reached for her. She slid into his arms and gave him a weak smile. He reluctantly sat her on her feet.
“I think I’ll go to my chamber,” she said before she turned and walked into the castle.
He watched her until someone cleared their throat. He turned to find Gabriel and Cole behind him. “She didn’t kill the knight.”
“I know,” Cole said. “There was no way she could have done it and returned to the monastery in time.”
“Not to mention she had no blood on her,” Gabriel pointed out.
“And,” Hugh said, “she did not look as though she had just run a race when we found her at the monastery.”
“So who does that leave?” Cole asked?
Hugh sighed and looked around him. “Everyone at the castle.”
“What about Bernard?” Gabriel asked.
“Definitely not,” Cole said. “Not only was he with Mina at the monastery, but I just don’t think he would have it in him. Did you see the way he reacted to the knight’s death?”
“I agree with Cole,” Hugh said. “Bernard isn’t our man. But who is, and why kill A DARK GUARDIAN
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the knight?”
Hugh looked around and found people beginning to stare at them. “I think ‘tis time to take this conversation elsewhere.”
He walked into the castle and hurried to his chamber. He waited for Cole to shut the door and take a seat. “Did you see anything?” he asked Gabriel.
“Nothing out of the ordinary. I hadn’t found anything when I went south, so I headed southwest when I stumbled upon him.”
“No one had shouted out?”
Gabriel shook his head. “If he did, I didn’t hear it.”
“Could it be the other knight?” Cole asked.
“Could be,” Hugh said as he leaned against the door. “There wasn’t blood on his clothes though, and whoever severed the head would have blood all over them.”
“There was enough blood on the trees and ground to justify that,” Gabriel said.
“The knight had to have found something for someone to kill him.”
Cole’s brows shot up. “The blue stone perhaps?”
“Perhaps.”
“Or perhaps not,” Aimery said as he appeared next to Hugh.
“By the gods,” Gabriel said and jumped back.
Aimery merely smiled.
“You enjoy doing that?” Hugh asked him.
“’Tis one of the little pleasures I still have,” the Fae answered.
“How much do you know?”
“It only takes me a moment to gather the information,” he said as his smile dropped. “I know of the knight’s death.”
“And you don’t think he found the stone?” Cole asked.
Aimery shrugged. “Would someone leave a blue stone in the middle of a green forest to be easily found?”
“Just once couldn’t something be easy,” Hugh said. He pushed off the door and moved to sit on the bed.
“If it was easy you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with it. You thrive on this,” Aimery said.
Maybe he was right, Hugh thought.
“So,” Cole said as he rubbed his hands together. “We don’t know where the creature lives, we still don’t have the stone or who controls the creature and now we have an unknown murderer.”
Gabriel sighed. “Just another day for us.”
Hugh turned to Aimery. “Tell me you’ve come to give us some good news.”
Before Aimery could respond a soft knock sounded on the door.
“Mina,” Aimery said.
Hugh walked to the door and opened it. “Hello,” he said and couldn’t help but smile at her.
“Hello.” She looked past him. “Am I interrupting?”
“Nay,” Aimery said and came to stand beside Hugh. “Actually, I think it would be wise for you to hear this.”
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Hugh shut the door behind Mina and watched as she smiled as Gabriel offered her his chair. Hugh sat on the bed and made himself look away from her.
The Fae looked at each of them, then stopped at Hugh. “Information has recently come to us that might be of help. Not too long ago, a realm had the same troubles plaguing this one.”
“The same creatures?” Cole asked.
“Always different creatures, but wreaking the same destruction.”
Hugh leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees. “To annihilate the realm.”
“Exactly,” Aimery said.
“What happened to them?” Mina asked.
Aimery looked down and sighed. “They didn’t survive.”
“How did you discover this?” Hugh asked.
“We have our ways,” Aimery said with one side of his mouth raised in a rueful smile. “However, not all died. Twelve infants were sent from that realm. Six boys and six girls.”
Hugh rose to his feet at the information. “Where were they sent?”
“Here.”
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Chapter Twenty-Six
Hugh was sure his ears had heard wrong. “Here?”
“Here,” Aimery repeated. “But to different times.”
“What has that to do with us?” Gabriel asked.
Aimery walked to the window. “It has everything to do with you.”
“I think you had better explain,” Hugh said. “Nothing you have told me lately has made sense.”
“When does it ever,” Cole muttered under his breath, but loud enough that everyone still heard.
Hugh narrowed his eyes at him and turned back to the Fae. “Aimery?”
The Fae issued a long, deep sigh. “We don’t know where all the children went.
In fact, we don’t know where any of them are, but we think maybe they could tell us something that could stop the destruction of this realm.”
“Maybe? You want to search out these children on a maybe?” Hugh asked.
“It is all we have to go on.”
“And how are we to know that they would give us any information?” Gabriel questioned. “They were infants when they came to this realm. How would they know anything?”
Aimery arched his brows as he gazed at Gabriel. “I would not have brought you this information if they weren’t able to give us something to aid us in stopping this realm from being annihilated.” He turned his attention to the others in the chamber. “Those children weren’t brought to this realm by mere chance. They were sent
here for a reason.”
Cole drummed his fingers on the back of the chair. “I agree that they may give us some information, but there aren’t enough of us to look for the children as well as what we’re doing.”
“This I know,” Aimery said. “But you won’t be looking for children. By our calculations they are all grown now.”
“Well, that makes it easier,” Gabriel grumbled. “I suppose we could stop every man and woman we come across and ask if they were born of this realm or were sent here.”
Hugh noticed that Aimery didn’t comment. “What are you keeping from us?”
“I don’t know if all of our information is true or not,” Aimery hedged.
“Just tell us.”
“The men are dead,” he said after a moment. “It is how we know the children were distributed throughout the times.”
Gabriel shook his head in irritation. “All six of them?”
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“Unfortunately. None of them knew what they were, and we had no idea they were even here, so they didn’t think twice about volunteering for wars.”
Cole began to laugh. “Are you telling me all six of them died in wars throughout history? That not one of them is in the future?”
“All but one died in war.”
“And the other?” Hugh asked.
“He died in a duel over a woman.”
Mina had sat and listened with interest. She had no idea why Aimery wanted her to hear this, but she found it fascinating. “You travel through time don’t you? Can’t you just go back and save these men from their deaths?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Hugh said sadly.
Aimery smiled at her. “We cannot alter the past, present, or future.”
She looked at the men. “Isn’t that what you’re doing now?”
Gabriel laughed. “She does break it down rather simply.”
“We wouldn’t be here if the creature wasn’t here,” Hugh said. “’Tis a matter of righting what is being altered.”
“Oh,” she said feeling more foolish than she had in years.
“It was a good question though,” Hugh said.
She bit her lip and hastily looked down, but not before she noticed Aimery watching her. She had no doubt that he knew what was going on between her and Hugh.
“What about the women?” Cole asked. “How are we supposed to find them?”
Aimery once again looked out the window. “Our information says that they have a mark that will distinguish them.”
“What kind of mark?” she asked.
“’Tis a symbol of their realm, though we don’t know much about it, we do know that it has three sides and is ringed.”
“And if we find one of these women what are we supposed to do with her?”
Gabriel asked.
“Call to me,” Aimery said. “It’s very important that we find them. I must go.”
“Wait,” Hugh said, but the Fae had already departed.
Mina knew the three men were irritated at what little information they had gotten.
“At least he told you something that could help.”
“Always just bits and pieces. Just once I’d like to be told everything,” Gabriel said.
Cole stood and put the chair against the wall. “Think of it as a puzzle. I like puzzles.”
“Good. Then you can figure this one out. Oh, and remember we don’t have a lot of time,” Gabriel said, annoyance clear in his deep voice.
“Enough,” Hugh said. He turned to Mina. “Tell me what happened at the monastery. Why did you go back?”
She hadn’t come to speak about that. She had come to talk to him about…she really didn’t know. She had just wanted to have a word with him.
“Bernard wanted to look inside. I’m not sure what stopped me from telling him it had already been searched by you and Gabriel.”
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Gabriel stood close to her. “It could be because you’re still becoming used to having a brother acknowledge you. It will take awhile to trust him.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” She raised her gaze to Hugh. “Do you think that’s why I did it?”
Hugh shrugged. “I don’t know. ‘Tis a plausible reason.”
She tamped down her feeling of disappointment and continued. “When we came to the monastery I didn’t want to…nay, that isn’t right. I couldn’t go in. I have never felt so cold and scared and helpless in my life.”
“Evil,” Cole said. “That’s what you felt. Evil in its purest form.”
She shivered just thinking about it. “Regardless, I never want to feel it again.
Bernard didn’t seem affected. He walked through the gates and into the ruins while I waited in the forest.”
“And that’s when you heard something?” Hugh asked.
She nodded and stood because she couldn’t stand to sit and be stared at a moment longer. She walked to the window and leaned back against it so she could see all three men.
“I had this strange feeling that someone watched me, but when I turned around there was nothing. I began to imagine all sorts of things,” she admitted while trying to hide her embarrassment.
Gabriel nodded. “That happens to all of us.”
“When I heard the twig snap, I jumped up to see what caused it. That must have been when Bernard walked from the ruins. I never heard him, and when he touched my arm I screamed.”
“And then we came,” Cole said.
“Aye,” she said. “’Twas nothing.”
“Oh, it was something all right,” Hugh said. “No one feels evil for nothing, Mina.
Remember that for future use. There was something, or someone, there.”
A chill ran down her spine at his words. “You’re scaring me.”
“You need to be scared. Evil is a dangerous minion. Do you have any idea how many of the Shields there once were? Several hundred of us. Now it is down to just us five.”
She saw the pain in Hugh’s dark depths and wanted to wrap her arms around him.
“I didn’t know.”
“You couldn’t have,” he said and took a deep breath. “We’ll have to return to the monastery.”
“I felt nothing when I took Mina,” Gabriel said. “Even you were there Hugh.
Did you feel the evil?”
“Nay, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something there now.”
Mina had a sick feeling in her stomach. “You aren’t going now are you?” She cast a glance out the window. “’Tis getting late.”
“She’s right,” Cole agreed. “The villagers need to be told to stop celebrating and get ready for the night.”
Mina watched as Hugh’s eyes came to rest on her. His gaze was unreadable, and she had the impression he had closed himself off.
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“I’ll go,” he said. “You and Gabriel take care of the villagers.”
“Nay,” she, Gabriel, and Cole shouted.
She walked to Hugh. “You shouldn’t go out there alone. You need someone to watch your back.”
“Are you worried about me, my lady?” he asked softly.
“You know I am. Too many people have died needlessly. As you told me just recently, your men need you.”
Cole came to stand beside her. “As long as I’ve known you, Hugh, you’ve never done anything rash. Don’t start now.”
“It’s going to take all three of us to get the villagers inside,” Gabriel said.
“Besides, I want my shot at this creature for taking Darrick.”
Mina waited one heartbeat, two, and then three before Hugh finally nodded. She sighed in relief and silently thanked God.
“I’ll wait,” Hugh said. “Until first light. Then I ride out.”
* * * *
“They won’t listen,” Mina said to Cole. “I’ve tried eve
rything, but they truly think the creature is gone.”
“Bernard is the only one who could make them get into the castle,” Hugh said as he joined them.
