by Grant, Donna
When the soft knocked sounded on his door, he leapt from the bed and yanked open the door to see Shannon standing before him, a bright smile on her face.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello.”
Her smile widened. “May I come in?”
He stepped back and allowed her to enter before barring the door. “Does he suspect?” he whispered.
She shook her head. “Not at all.”
“Good,” he replied as he dragged her against him. He slanted his mouth over hers and plunged his tongue inside her mouth. When she sighed and wrapped her arms around his neck, it was all he could do not to take her right then.
Her kisses left him weak and strong at the same time. No woman had ever affected him this way. Usually, by this time, he had had his fill and was looking for someone new. Yet, his gaze hadn’t strayed from Shannon.
And he feared it never would.
He broke the kiss, his body shaking with need, and stepped away from her.
“What did you discover?” he asked.
She closed her eyes and sank onto the bed. “Gyles is power hungry. He journeyed to a sacred place, a place said to be haunted now, and when he returned, he dominated the entire village.”
“Where is this place?”
She shrugged her dainty shoulders. “I don’t know. They talked as though it wasn’t that far away.”
“Did they describe anything?” If he could just get something of the area, Aimery would be able to help them find it.
She shook her head. “Just kept saying it was a sacred place, a place no one went to anymore. I gathered that most feared it.” Cole thought a moment. “Mayhap Gabriel will be able to tell us more when he returns. As for the power Gyles has on the village, it is derived from a blue stone he has.”
“What kind of stone?”
“It is smooth as silk, the blue indescribable in its beauty, and no larger than the palm of a child’s hand. It’s with that stone that he controls the creature.”
“Oh,” she said and bit her lip as she thought over his words. “What if we destroy the stone?”
“Destroying the stone is one of our goals. It must be destroyed or someone else will call up another creature.”
“Will destroying the stone kill the creature that is here?” Cole nodded. “Aye. However, from what we’ve learned of our missions, the stone is usually hidden.”
“What if I went in to find it?”
Her bravery astounded him. He knelt in front of her, cupping her face in his hands. “You are doing entirely too much now. I hated that we had to put you in this position.”
“It was my choice,” she reminded him.
“Aye, but we would have kept you until you changed your mind. Our time here is drawing to an end. I can feel it in the air. After we thwarted the guards last night, there is going to be Hell to pay today.”
“I know,” she said with a sigh. “Every villager who has come to the tavern is frightened. I can see it in their eyes.”
“I know, and they should be frightened. I have a feeling the creature will be let loose this night. The entire village will be slaughtered.”
“Oh,
my
God.”
“It’s the goal of the creature. It’s why it was summoned. The only reason I can conclude as to why Gyles hasn’t let allowed the creature loose yet is because he likes the power the stone gives him.”
“Can you stop the creature?”
“Aye.”
“Aren’t you frightened?” she asked, her own eyes wide with fear.
Cole shook his head and rose to his feet. “This is what the Shield’s do. We took an oath to protect this realm, and we will do that to our dying breath.” Her brows drew together as she thought over his words. “I understand that. You gave your oath to the Fae, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be frightened.”
“I’ve never been afraid for my own life, Shannon. I’ve never known fear until you. Now I fear for your life and if I will be able to keep you alive.” He walked to the window, his back to her. “I was but a small child when they found me wandering between realms. My realm had been destroyed by the very evil attempting to destroy yours. The Fae took me in as their own.” The feel of her hands on his back was like a bolt of lightening rushing through him.
“Can you recall nothing of your realm?”
“Nay.” Not for lack of trying on his part. He had wanted something, anything he could remember of his world, his family. But his mind had blocked out everything of that time. His memories started with the day Aimery found him.
“I’m so sorry,” she said and laid her head on his back. “I also know nothing of my family. I was adopted by a decent family, but soon after adopting me they had kids of their own.”
Her words startled him. He turned towards her. “Did they treat you ill?” She smiled sadly. “Not at all. Maybe it was just me, but I never felt truly a part of that family. Once they had adopted me, they couldn’t very well give me back. They had thought they would never have kids of their own.”
“Do you still have contact with them?”
“No. Carol died when I was seventeen, and Mack turned his attention to his children. After I graduated from high school, I moved to Chicago where I went to college at night and worked during the day as an Emergency Medical Technician. I had just gotten my degree in marketing a couple of months ago and was about to start looking for a new job when I ended up here.”
He tilted her face to his and searched her eyes. The sadness he saw there disturbed him, making him want to erase it all. “We will return you to your time.” She shrugged. “Does it really matter?” she asked. “I have no family, no job now.
I have nothing to return to.”
“No man has claimed you?”
She laughed then. “Between my job and college, I rarely had time to do laundry much less date.”
“Date?”
“Go out with men. So no, no man has laid claim to me.”
“Good,” Cole said as he kissed her. When they pulled apart, both were panting and eager for more. “Not yet,” he said as he captured her hands. “There is more we need to discuss.”
“Like what?” she asked as she rose up on her tip toes and kissed his neck.
Her warm tongue and hot breath scalded him to his toes. “Shannon,” he moaned, not sure how long he could hold her off.
“Please, Cole. My body burns for yours.”
Her words were his undoing. He crushed her to him, molding her lush body to his. Her moans only drove him onward, seeking to fill her with one thought—him.
Chapter Eighteen
Shannon’s body was afire. Each kiss, each caress, each hungry look she saw in Cole’s eyes only ignited her further. Her body seemed attuned to his, and with the slightest look, she was wet and panting for him.
And she loved it.
For many years she thought herself incapable of experiencing sex like a normal woman, but then she found Cole. Cole, a woman’s greatest sensual desire, was kissing her as if there were no tomorrow, as if she were the only woman in the universe for him.
A sigh escaped her as his magical hands roamed her body, finding hidden places that sent her reeling with desire she hadn’t even known she had. The man was a walking sex god.
His hands cupped her breasts and massaged them as he rubbed his rod against her.
She felt moisture flood her panties and yearned to feel his flesh against hers.
“I have to have you now,” Cole said in her ear just before he lifted her off her feet.
Shannon immediately wrapped her legs around his waist, eager to help him move her heavy skirts out of the way. Her eyes caught his gaze and wondered at the look in them. There was desire, yes, but something else, something she couldn’t quite name.
They gazed at each other in silence. Somehow, Shannon knew this moment was special and was most likely a moment she would never know agai
n.
When she could take it no more, she leaned forward and kissed him, sliding her tongue past his full, wide lips into his mouth. His tongue readily mated with hers, his intoxicating taste making her wild with yearning and wanton with desire.
He turned her from a frigid, frightened woman, into a lust craved maniac who was eager to please.
When his hands moved to the front of her gown and lowered it so her breasts popped free, she anxiously waited to feel his calloused hands on them, stroking, kneading, squeezing. Her nipples hardened as his hands grazed her flesh.
His expert touch, sensual and gentle, knew exactly what would drive her wild. He kneaded one breast while he squeezed her nipple on the other. The exquisite torture left her dazed and wanting more. She never felt him pull down her bra, only felt his hot tongue as he swirled a nipple in his mouth and gently suckled.
By now she was breathless, nearly crying out with the throbbing between her legs, an ache that intensified with each lick of Cole’s tongue on her nipples. Her need for release drove her onward when she would have otherwise been mortified to find herself up against a wall with a man about to make love to her.
Her hands shoved aside his leather vest and ran over his tunic, the feel of the fabric warming her hands, sending little pulses through her.
Cole ground his rod against her aching sex, and she cried out.
“Now,” she sobbed. “Please, Cole. Take me now.” With the slightest movement, he shifted her, unlaced his trousers, and sprang free.
Her hands moved to touch him, but he stopped her.
“If you touch me now, I will spill my seed. I need you too desperately.” She knew exactly how he felt, but she was determined to know the feel of him soon. She devised her plan as he moved aside her panties.
Those thoughts soon scattered as the tip of Cole’s rod entered her. She wanted him to fill her fully, but he wouldn’t allow her to move her hips, keeping her steady with his big hands as he slowly moved in and out of her with short strokes, never giving her more than an inch or two of him.
The more he moved, the more friction he caused between them, the higher she rose. His mouth moved over her neck and breasts, continually giving her pleasure.
Just when she didn’t think she could take much more, he thrust deep, filling her completely. Shannon sighed, her forehead against his as her sex expanded and clutched around him.
“I love the feel of you inside me,” she whispered.
“Not as much as I love being inside of you.” She looked into his eyes, loving the desire she saw there. And when he began to rotate his hips, she dug her nails in his shoulders as she felt herself building toward her climax.
Each time she got close, he would switch his movements, bringing her greater pleasure. Sweat glistened off them when he finally began to thrust into her harder, deeper than before.
All too soon, her climax hit. She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes as her body convulsed around him. When he too climaxed, she held him tight and felt his seed pour into her.
“You’re amazing,” she whispered in his ear.
He smiled as he moved them away from the wall to the bed. He pulled out of her just before he laid her on the bed. Shannon curled into his side. She was happy, something she thought to never be again, and she wondered what the future held for her and if Cole would be in it.
“Do you have a mark on you?”
Cole’s words jarred her out of her thoughts. She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him. “What?”
“A mark. Sort of like a birth mark. Do you have one?” She shook her head. “Not that I know of. Why?”
“We are searching for a woman with just such a mark.”
“Why?” The need to know was overwhelming.
Cole glanced away. “She is part of all of this. Many years ago, there was a realm about to be destroyed by the evil. They had knowledge that could kill the evil but didn’t have time to carry it out. They then chose twelve infants, six boys and six girls, in which to give that knowledge to. Those babies were sent to this realm in different times and places.”
“You need to find them to end this.”
He nodded. “We’ve found two already.”
“Two out of twelve isn’t so great,” she said.
“All of the boys died either in wars, plagues, or duels.” Shannon rolled her eyes. “Somehow I’m not surprised. And the girls? Do all six still live?”
He shrugged. “We know two still live, and another died from a plague, but the other three we know nothing of. Two of the other Shields, the ones that traveled to your time, found another of the women.”
“Really?” Her mind ran wild with what he told her. There were actually women walking around from another realm. It was too weird and too neat.
“Aye. So, why did you think I might be one of them?” Secretly, she wished she were. It would explain how she never was able to find her birth mother.
“The evil knows of the women now, and to thwart us, he is sending the creatures to where they are, bringing them back through time to kill them.” Shannon’s stomach flopped like a fish out of water. “And you think that’s why I was brought here? Why couldn’t he kill the women in the future?”
“He’s too weak there. Here, in this time, he is his strongest.”
“Lucky guy,” she grumbled. She turned her gaze to Cole. “I wish I was this woman you seek. It would help you fight the evil.” He nodded. “I had assumed you were, but if you aren’t, then Gyles brought you back for another reason.”
She laid her head on his shoulder again and replayed his words over and over.
“How many of the women do you need to kill the evil?”
“No less than four, but the more we have the greater their power will be.”
“What do they have to do?”
He sighed loudly. “We don’t know yet.”
“I always hated flying blind. Not knowing what you’re facing or exactly how to kill it can lead to mistakes.”
She felt him nod. “And mistakes we cannot afford to make.”
“Then we better act fast.”
Before Cole could respond a small rock came flying through the window.
“Fix yourself,” he ordered as he rushed from the bed.
Shannon quickly adjusted her skirts and put her breasts into her bra, then back into the bodice of her gown. She then pushed her hair away from her face and faced the window just as a man climbed in.
He was at least in his early fifties, with thick salt and pepper hair and a beard that covered his entire face. His clothes were that of the villagers, yet his were more frayed and used, as though they were the only ones he had. No weapons could be seen on his body, and by the looks of him, she wondered how he managed to climb up the tavern into the room.
She looked from the stranger to Cole, waiting for Cole to introduce them. She had assumed the only other man with him was Gabriel, but mayhap she had been wrong.
“Did you find out anything?” Cole asked.
The stranger nodded his head as he went to the chair and sank into it.
Shannon walked to the stranger and held out her hand. “I’m Shannon O’Malley.” The stranger raised silver eyes at her, eyes that were somehow familiar, and smiled broadly. “Guess my disguise works.” Shannon looked over her shoulder at Cole and waited for him to tell her what was going on. The stranger took her hand, and she jerked back around to him.
“Nice to meet you again, Shannon.”
As soon as the words fell from his lips, her mouth gaped open. “Gabriel?” He laughed and pulled the beard from his face. Next came the hair and a fake nose. She was too stunned to think about him having that kind of costuming to ask him where he had gotten it. Instead, she marveled at his transformation.
Cole moved to stand beside Shannon. Her reaction to Gabriel had been amusing.
It was sometimes hard to tell who he was when he went under di
sguise, but Cole had learned to look for Gabriel’s striking silver eyes.
“What have you learned?” Cole asked.
The smile vanished from Gabriel’s face. He rose and went to the water bowl where he washed his face and wet his hair. “The village will be attacked tonight. Several families are going to try and make a run for it for word is spreading like wildfire that the creature will be let loose.”
“No more word on what the Viking is doing here?” Gabriel sighed and turned to Cole. “I’m not so sure that there ever was a Viking.” Cole regarded Gabriel. “You saw the horned helmet and the fur cloak.”
