He stood in the center of a grand ballroom with brightly colored banners, decorative cascading fountains, floral displays, and gold wall sconces, the flames of which danced to a lively Scottish melody performed by unseen musicians. Masked couples swirled around and around him, their naked bodies bedecked with jewels that magnified the torchlight gleaming off them. Vying with their perfumed hair were the enticing aromas of roasted pig and lamb, of breads and puddings, of ale and wine, and of fruits and sweets. The scents awakened his longing to know the pleasures of his world again. To sit around a campfire and share roasted game with a friend or kin. To gulp back an ale and laugh as portions of it dribbled down his chin.
Steak and eggs. Biscuits and gravy. Fat, browned sausages and crisp bacon. Not to forget fresh fruit on the side. And coffee.
Now and then one of the dancers poked him. Many laughed. Jeers sang out.
The music brought about a hollow ache in his chest. Perhaps, more than anything, he refused to awaken because of the tune. He didn't recognize the piece. He didn't need to, to appreciate a well-played fiddle and bagpipe. Clapping hands set the rhythm. The dancers spun around and around him, faster, faster, until most of the time they were but a glittering blur.
He wanted to dance among them. His muscles twitched to the cadence. Still, he remained motionless. Wealth and merriment surrounded him, while food beckoned him to partake of their sinful offerings. Every smell and sound was real. The air currents prompted by the dancers, was real. He wanted the food and the ale, and a partner to spin across the floor. More than anything he had wanted in a very long time, he wanted—needed—to be a part of the people.
It didn't matter that they laughed at him. That they poked him. That someone had tied his wrists behind him, and that someone else had tightly wrapped twine around his ankles.
Neither the discomfort nor the ridicule mattered a wit, not considering the machinations of whatever part of his brain was creating the dream.
It did matter that he stood among these strangers, not only naked but cleanly shaven from head to toe. He was as hairless as a rock. Exposed unmercifully. So white-clean his skin hurt.
He understood why his mind was enacting this part of the dream, but not even his mind could shame him. Like his bald, naked self in the dream, he was powerless to slay his enemy. Powerless to alter the path destiny had so cruelly and decisively put him upon.
Hands shoved him to the floor. Hands gripped the vines and dragged him across dirt and rock, grunts and laughter echoing around him.
Then dancers, sounds and odors vanished. Rolling onto his back, he saw a woman standing ten feet across from him, her long reddish blond hair transforming into serpents snapping at the air. Her tawny eyes stared through him, stripping him to his soul. She was dressed in brightly colored, oversized leaves. In one hand she held a wooden bucket, the other a chimney brush.
"Hey, barbarian," she said in an echoing taunt. "Ready for the scrubbing of your life?"
He woke with a start, his heart pounding, his breathing erratic. The leaf bed beneath him felt harder than usual. His muscles were achy and too stiff to roll him off his front. Something had died inside his dry mouth, and he ran his tongue along the grittiness coating his teeth.
With a grunt, he moved to roll onto his side, only he hadn't moved at all. Now that his mind was fully alert, he realized that he couldn't move his hands or feet.
"Games, ye godless worm?" he growled, struggling fiercely to free his limbs. "I'll eat yer liver! Ye hear me? Wi' ma bare hands, I'll rip it—"
"My...my," a feminine voice chuckled. "Someone wake up on the wrong side of a frond?"
His teeth locked painfully, he cranked his head around to locate her. She stood close to his feet, as smug as the beast, himself. It didn't pass his notice that she was wearing one of the shirts he'd unwrapped some time ago. One of the gifts from above. How she came to be in possession of it didn't matter.
No’ yet.
"Untie me!" he growled.
Her eyebrows lifted in a mocking challenge. "Are you talking to me?"
"Lass!"
"After all my exertion to drag you out here?" She sighed dramatically. "You really are an ungrateful brute."
Drag me...?
He blinked hard to dispel the red haze over his eyes. She had hauled him from his chamber? How had she even found it, so far from her own?
Two arm-lengths away was his pool. The one he refused to use. How had she dragged him from his chamber to the pool without waking him?
He cast all thought from his mind when she began to hum. She had a fair voice, but he was more interested in why she was kneeling at the pool and filling a bowl with water. By the time a suspicion fully invaded his awareness, she stood over him. The smug grin she wore told him more than he wanted to know.
"I'm warnin' ye," he said, his voice husky. "Return to yer chamber and I'll forget ye violated ma person."
She winced playfully. "You're a walking violation, mister. But I'm about to make my day."
She was suddenly astride his back, her unexpected weight pushing the air from his lungs. A stream of Gaelic invectives boomed from him but became a garbled ball in his throat when she plopped something on his head and roughly worked her fingers into his hair.
The foam pods! "Off me!" he bellowed and attempted to buck her off his back. Her thighs squeezed his ribs tighter. "Curse ye! Stop afore I—"
"Oh...shut...up," she crooned, and swiped a sudsy hand across his mouth.
Sputtering and spitting out the bitter-tasting foam, he squirmed with more force.
"Let's see how prettily you clean up, big guy," she laughed. "Almost done with the hair."
He couldn't believe her tenacity. Protests died in his throat while she proceeded to scrub every part of him, including his bare buttocks, the cheeks of which clenched painfully in protest. Never had he encountered such brazenness in a woman. She continued to hum, drumming into him the extent of her pleasure at his displeasure. His hair, his skin and his clothing were at her mercy, and the woman had none.
When his back length was coated with sudsy slime, she forced him onto his side, keeping herself positioned behind him.
Her soaped hands scrubbed his face and beard despite the fact he tried to bite her.
"Be nice," she chirped each time.
Nice be damned! he fumed.
His brain bordered on eruption when she slipped a hand beneath his kilt and boldly washed his thighs, close to his genitals. Mortification and a rapidly building sense of pleasure warred behind his chest. He willed back his growing erection, to no avail. He could do no more than glower at her, although, not once had she looked into his eyes.
"Ye will pay dearly for this, ye—"
He gagged when her fingers swiftly darted into his mouth, coating his tongue with the slime, and slipped out before he could react. Gagging again then spitting, he cried, "Damn ye! I'll choke the life ou' o' ye when I'm—"
He sucked in a breath, his eyes widened on her in disbelief. One of her hands cupped his testicles, massaging, taunting. Threatening. She met his gaze, her face expressionless, her breathing far steadier than his own. When her fingers curled around his treacherous erection, he gulped convulsively.
"You're a lot of man to be acting so childishly," she said matter-of-factly. "Don't you think it's a wee pathetic that you smell and look better covered in green slime?"
Releasing him, she returned to the pool, where she rinsed her hands and again filled the bowl with water. She cast him a pensive look as she returned to his side.
"What's your name?"
"Ye shameless—"
Her fingers curled around his shaft and his teeth sank into his lower lip, drawing blood. Stroke. Stroke. He shuddered in blissful torment, her hands deftly massaging him and throwing his mind into consternation.
"That's an odd name," she said cheerily. The hand applying soap to his testicles joined the other, each sliding up and down. He shuddered more fiercely when her soft palm glided o
ver the head of his penis, and it was all he could do to hold back his seed.
"Okay, Mr. Ye, let's get you rinsed."
"No!"
"Oh, get a grip," she chided.
"Around yer scrawny neck!"
"In your dreams, sweetie." She glanced at the bowl in her hand, then at him again. "This won't do. Guess you'll have to rinse in the pool."
Horrified, he stared at the glowing blue surface. "I-I canna swim."
"Fortunately for you, I can. Actually, big guy, I'm pretty damn strong, but I don't recommend you struggle too much. It would be terrible if you accidentally drowned."
She faked an exaggerated shudder. "The waterless wonder, drowning. The thought sends chills through me."
"Think abou' wha' yer doin' and the repercussions tha' will come to follow," he said in a low, threatening tone.
"Maybe I will. If you tell me your name."
He considered refusing. Instead, he said grudgingly, "Broc."
"Liar."
Stroke. Stroke.
He couldn't stop animal sounds from leaving his throat. "No proper womon—Och! Sweet Gawd!" he mewled when her hand glided down the length of his shaft. "Ma name is Broc!" he gasped, and whimpered in relief when she released him.
"Okay." She stood and positioned herself at his back. "Whether it is or isn't, I lied. You're going for the dunking of your life."
To his disbelief, she gripped the vines cocooning his shoulders and inched him toward the pool.
"Leave me be, ye daft wench!"
"That was rude." Puffing from the exertion of dragging him, Taryn added, "I suggest you stop squirming. You're dampening my sunny disposition."
"Ye're no' thinkin', lass," he said through clenched teeth.
She positioned him lengthwise next to the pool and crouched with her knees to his chest. The dark eyes glowering at her through the soap-slicked strands of hair glued to his face, sent a chill of familiarity up her spine.
A thought popped into her mind. Shaking her head to dispel it, she said, "You know, when I get out of here, I can make a fortune marketing these goo pods. I didn't think anything in the world could cut through your filth—not to mention your unmentionable stench."
He growled a series of Gaelic words.
"Are you swearing at me?" she asked innocently.
"When I get free...."
"Ahhh." She smiled prettily then jabbed her index finger at his brow. "When is in the hands of Fate, my friend. Cooperate, and you can be on your merry way in no time at all. Keep fussing like an ass and...well, this could take a while."
A nonsensical growl rumbled in his chest.
"Just what the hell do you have against water? How can you live with yourself? Besides those potatoes between your ears, what else are you trying to grow?"
"Free me."
The deep, liquidy sound of his voice struck her funny bone. "Or what? You'll breathe on me?" She sighed theatrically. "I'm doing this for your own good. Take it like a man."
Slipping her left palm beneath several of the vines spanning his chest, she tested her grip. "Take a deep breath."
His mouth opened but snapped shut when she pushed hard against his raised shoulder. She went down on her knees at the same time he rolled over and into the water, causing a wave large enough to soak her thoroughly. Unintelligible words shrieked at her as he fought each dunking, flapping like a hooked king fish.
His actions compounded his weight. Her left arm ached beneath the strain to keep him afloat. Her knees were ground into the rock. Her hips and calves cramped. Regardless, each time she yanked him to the surface, she scrubbed at him with her right palm.
Dunk. Surface. Dunk. Surface.
The pod-soap rinsed from his head, hair, beard, neck and shoulders, she hoisted him up and targeted his shoulders and chest. He had quieted to an occasional thrash, his exhaustion equaling her own. Regrets nipped at her resolve to see his bathing through. Pain gripped her lower back, and she had lost all feeling in her left hand. She swept aside the thick wavy strands of his beard, and allowed her mind to drift. Tiny, iridescent bubbles crowned the now murky water. The beautiful clarity of the pool was no more.
The barbarian had polluted it.
Dunk. Surface.
She recalled a time when she was four, when her brother had reluctantly agreed to watch her while their parents took in a play at a local theater. Taryn was particularly difficult that night. It wasn't often she had Roan to herself, and Roan wasn't known for his patience, even back then. The highlight of her tormenting him was during her bath. Not only had she drenched him but eaten part of the soap, inducing vomiting.
Poor, Roan, she mused. You didn't know whether to spank me or haul me to the hospital. Mom and Dad were so furious with you. I wanted to tell them it wasn't your fault. I really did, Roan. I wish I had.
Jerking back to the present, she said, "I think we've both had enough—"
Her heart shot into her throat. She gaped at her empty left hand. Wiggled the fingers. Flexed the fingers. Blinking hard, she stared at the water, her mind churning aimlessly to lock on to a viable explanation. When reason slammed home, she released a cry and dove into the pool.
Below the floating muck, the water was clear and blue. Far below her, the barbarian sank deeper and deeper, his air bubbles rising in rapid succession. Taryn pumped her arms and legs. Her heart painfully thundering, her mind incapable of producing a complete thought, she kept her gaze locked on him. She had always believed herself a strong swimmer. Yet, the harder she pushed herself downward, the farther away he sank.
He no longer struggled. No longer released air bubbles. From what she could see, he no longer moved.
Down she went, the pressure on her lungs unbearable. She desperately wanted to release the trapped air but knew she couldn't replenish the oxygen without surfacing. If she did, he would surely die. If she didn't, they would both die.
Instinct urged her to abandon the rescue attempt.
She kicked her legs and pushed her arms with renewed vigor. Down, down, down into an impossible depth, the glowing blue plants attached to the rock walls of the pool, more vibrant than ever.
Her vision blurred. Cleared. The barbarian lay as still as death on a rocky floor some forty feet below her, among thick, tall patches of deep green water grass, and glowing blue moss.
The pain in Taryn's body won out.
Arcing her body, she swam for the surface, her arms and legs growing leaden with each stroke.
Coward! a voice wailed in her mind. You killed him!
Panic, terror and desperation took control. She was unaware she had surfaced until the air she sucked in brought on a coughing fit, the sound echoing harshly off the unsympathetic walls.
"Help!" she cried. "Help!"
Two small green specks appeared high on a shadowed wall across from her. Blinking to clear the water from her eyes, she strained to see more clearly. The specks vanished and returned.
"Gargoyle! I know you're there!" She swallowed water and choked. "Help us! He's at the bottom!"
The green specks vanished and returned.
"Damn you!" she shrieked.
Sucking in a breath, she dove under. Anger restored the strength in her arms and legs. Determination braced her for the pain to come. She refused to accept that her actions could be responsible for his death—anyone's death.
The demons that had driven her most of her life had gone too far. She had gone too far. Not over the edge. Not yet.
Her mind reeled when she realized that she was kneeling on the floor of the pool, blades of grass swaying to and fro around her. Amid hair and a beard floating around his face like seaweed, dead dark eyes stared at her. A burst of air bubbles escaped her. She wanted to flee again to the surface, but she knew she couldn't leave him.
He was dead.
The least she could do was not abandon him to a watery grave. She could not bear the irony that promised to haunt her if she didn't return him to land.
Despite the agon
y gripping her, she instinctively reached to grip the vines. It took a moment for it to sink in that his arms and legs were unbound and bobbing lifelessly. With a mental shake, she grabbed the front of his shirt, and cast off.
The ascent was excruciatingly slow, the need to draw in a breath growing more powerful than her will to survive. Twice, she nearly lost consciousness. Only the weight of the lifeless body kept her focused.
Again, her mind lost a segment of time. She didn't stop to question how she came to be on her knees next to the pool, pulling the body out of the water as she edged backward. Gripping his shirt with one hand and behind his left knee with the other, she dragged him onto the rock floor. His eyes remained open, unblinking, staring sightlessly at her face.
A whimper rattled in her throat.
She rolled him onto his front, straddled his hips, positioned his arms winglike above his head, and pushed on his back with firm, upward strokes.
"Breathe," she sobbed. "Breathe!"
Weeping uncontrollably, she climbed off him and turned him onto his back. She pinched his nose shut and opened his mouth by applying pressure to his chin. "You sonofabitch," she wept, lowering her mouth to his.
She performed CPR in four segments, to no avail. Exhaustion and grief finally overwhelmed her, and she lowered her face to his chest and wept from the depths of her tattered soul.
"I'm sorry." The acoustics in the cavern lent an eerie resonance to her voice. "I didn't mean for this to happen. Oh, God, I'm so sor—"
A scream ripped from her throat. In a topsy-turvy explosion of motion, she found herself underwater, unyielding weights holding her prisoner against a hard surface. Her mind scrambled to understand. She was blind. And sinking. Sinking rapidly.
A tug on the back of her hair forced her head back. Her vision cleared, no longer blocked by what she now knew to be the barbarian's chest. Disbelief spun into a whirlwind of disorientation before settling into an ever-widening pit of anger. Eyes as dark as pitch gleamed with satisfaction.
Time Everlastin' Book 5 Page 9
