Treagar's Redemption, page 5
part #1 of Woodland Creek Series
He wanted to protect her.
“Virgil, go to the cabin. I’ll be fine.” Her voice was soft but enough for her friend to hear her.
“But—”
“Marcus won’t hurt me.” She didn’t need to see Virgil’s face in the dark to know he was frightened. “Go, Virg, please. Have the first aid kit ready and we’ll be right behind you.”
Virgin hesitated.
“Now, Rowtag. Go.”
As soon as Virgil entered the cabin, he switched on the porch lights and watched them through the front window. Marcus looked away, growling but there was a slight wheeze now in his breathing. Now that they were alone, he visibly relaxed and nearly toppled over Paisley. Instinct dictated her actions when she buffered her body against his back, her arms going around to his chest.
“Shit.” Blood coming from the deep gashes in Marcus’ right side bathed her inner forearm and oozed between her fingers. Paisley felt Marcus’ warm blood seeping into her jeans from the vehicle’s seat. Marcus’ growl turned into a groan.
“Paisley?” His voice was bewildered, confused.
“I’m here,” she said softly. “I need to get you to the cabin, but I can’t carry you.”
“Dizzy.” His voice was hollow. “Don’t go.”
Paisley’s mouth tugged to one side. “I won’t. But we have to get to the cabin soon. You’re burning up and losing a lot of blood. I need to see to your wounds.”
Marcus nodded. “Un momento.”
Paisley moved away to open the other door, but Marcus growled. She sighed. “Keep your beast under control, Treagar, okay? I’m going to open your door from the outside.”
“You’re mine, cara.”
His possessive baritone nearly liquefied her on the spot.
“Yeah, well, let’s talk about that later when you’re completely lucid,” she muttered. “You might change your mind.”
“I will never change my mind.”
“Whatever,” she said under her breath, but she couldn’t stop the pleasure of knowing that she was desirable to a man as attractive as Marcus.
Marcus didn’t retort, but his eyes tracked her every move, the heat of desire and possession reaching out to her even from a distance. It probably could have melted the windshield. Paisley’s mouth twitched, but she clamped her lips shut to stop the smile from breaking out.
Hello! Halleran, you’ve got an injured shifter. Concentrate!
With strides that wouldn’t even hold a candle to a toddler’s, they made their way to the cabin. It was just three feet to the steps and about five feet to the door but felt like a mile to walk. Sweat poured down Marcus’ face while blood fell in thin red ribbons down his side. Just as Paisley turned the door knob, Marcus snarled, startling her.
“Paisley, leave! Now!”
Like a series of quick-stop motion photos, fur the color of mottled wheat sprouted from Marcus’ limbs. He held his side and roared in pain when fur also grew from the skin around his wounds.
“I won’t leave you.” Her voice rose. “Please, Marcus, you’re hurt.” Paisley could see how the man was straining to curb his beast. His fists forcibly balled themselves against the urge to transform into paws. His jaw was hard with strain and his neck muscles corded to prevent his incisors from lengthening any further. Marcus snarled again.
“Marcus, look at me.” She pressed against the door behind her when she saw his eyes fill with molten lust. If what happened in the car was anything to go by, Paisley was sure he wouldn’t hurt her. But even as she was convinced of Marcus’ protection, he finally turned into the sabretooth and he fell on all fours. He let out a snarl and a whimper, and in between were low menacing growls.
Heart in her throat, Paisley was flummoxed. This was not just an animal. This was a shifter who was hurting. She didn’t know how shifters tamed their beasts or let them out, but she had to try to get medical attention for the man trapped inside.
She licked her dry lips.
“Marcus,” she said, her voice tentative. Slowly, she slid down the door to the floor, stopping midway when the sabretooth pierced her with a glare. Its mouth pulled back to show rows of sharp teeth, saliva pooling before some of it dripped to the floor.
Everything inside Paisley screamed to escape, to open the door and enter the cabin. She could also inch her way out of the sabretooth’s claws. Even if it ran after her, it was already wounded, and she could easily overpower it. At least she was hoping so. Yet there was an equally strong voice inside her head telling her to find a way of healing the beast. After all, wasn’t she the shifter’s advocate when they didn’t have a voice? How many shifters had she saved and healed in her life?
But the shifters you saved were not as deadly as a sabretooth.
Paisley raised her arm as she leaned in slowly, the sabretooth’s eyes darting sideways. The teeth were more menacing, the growls more formidable. Without warning, the sabretooth snarled, whipped one of his paws and swiped Paisley’s forearm. Paisley screamed as pain like wildfire singed and fanned across her flesh. Blood from the horizontally diagonal slashes on her arm broke free from her skin before falling in streams down to the floor. The sabretooth lowered his head when he growled, his mouth pulling back a split second. His whiskers flattened against his maw in a similar way his ears compressed against its head. He snapped and snarled once more, showing his powerful jaw and rows of teeth that could break Paisley’s skull as though it was bone china.
“Paisley!” Virgil’s shout was muffled by the window’s glass.
Virgil, stay away! Paisley screamed in her mind, tears falling down her cheeks as her blood bathed her shirt.
The sabretooth’s black and ochre eyes bored into her and looked at her injured arm now cradled against her chest. He growled low once more, lowering his head even as his gaze scooted at her, a gesture of remorse before he swivelled away. He tried to lope, but the moment it took one step forward, he collapsed with a loud thud on the floor.
..
Marcus’ eyes moved behind his closed lids. He swallowed but his throat muscles only met dryness that caused him to choke. He opened his eyes and hissed when nearly blinding pain pulled at his side. Carefully removing the colorful blanket that covered his chest, his gaze widened at the sight of the white bandages stark against his skin. Pain pierced him like red ants crawling inside the bandaged area. He pressed on the dressing to try to ease the pain with pressure, but that simple gesture nearly made him lose his grip with reality. He laid his head back on the pillow and turned slowly on his uninjured side.
He had dreamed of Paisley. Dreams of her getting hurt, of her screams and her tears that cascaded down those high cheekbones as a claw slashed her. They were bits and pieces of a nightmare flitting in and out like billowing sails in his mind. His heart squeezed tight. Dio! If that dream had been real, he would’ve killed the animal that dared mar her beautiful skin. He’d allow his beast full rein to tear the animal limb for limb and roar in victory at its death. That would be one murder he’d willingly die for.
Sunset poured through the glass wall and bathed the room in gold. It kissed the tree tops and winked in between the leaves and branches of a forest about to bed for the night. Even through the glass, Marcus heard the crickets’ mating calls, incessant and piercing, before they stuttered and died, replaced by the breeze that blew softly through the trees. He drank in the fall colors that reminded him so much of the jewels many Venetians wore—from the brown hues of jasper, to tourmaline green. From the carnelian’s reddish hue to the warm yellows and oranges of citrines. One of the trees’ branches jerked, pulling Marcus’ gaze to it as a bird took flight. He watched it soar, increasing its altitude before gliding on the wind and banking away from his sight.
If only his beast was a bird of prey, he could have patches of freedom unlike the sabretooth bound to the earth. Still, Marcus was thankful for small favors. At least he wasn’t back inside a jail cell, and the people who took him in were kind enough to see to his wound.
The three other walls of the room were made of rough-hewn wood, reminding him of a huntsman’s humble abode, but nothing was humble in the room’s furnishings. Despite its somewhat Spartan appearance, he lay on a huge, intricately carved brass bed with a firm yet comfortable mattress that conformed to his body. His pillow was as soft as goose down and the embroidered blanket that covered him felt like silk. Wooden beams spanned the ceiling where what appeared to be a brass tiara of unlit glass candles was suspended over the room. On the wall facing the bed was a huge tapestry of reds and browns that looked like stairways to the sky, and on the floor were baskets grouped in threes flanking the tapestry. The design was familiar, much like those hanging on the walls of his home in Venice.
The shaman’s gifts.
More alert with that thought, Marcus continued to examine the room, wondering where he had landed this time. Turning carefully so as not to aggravate his injured side, he lay flat on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Would the people who took him in be kind enough to let him stay, or show him on his way as soon as he woke up? He hoped to God he hadn’t killed anyone. Fate was cruel enough to let him relive the nightmare over and over again. Maybe it was time for Fate to stop playing this cruel joke. Maybe it was time for him to take his own life. Iesum must know how hard he tried to stay on the right path, but at this rate, he was just about to cross that line into oblivion. It wasn’t any different from falling over the end of the world that most of the people in his time believed to be gospel truth.
Soft footfalls moved along the hallway outside his room. Gentle treads pressed harder on the wooden floor as though the person carried something. There was a clinking sound, like two glasses in close proximity juddering against each other with every step the person made. There was a knock on the door. Before Marcus could raise the blanket midway over his chest, the doorknob turned.
“Paisley?” A sudden bolt of amazement and euphoria hit him. He was back in Woodland Creek!
“Hey, Marcus.” Her smile lit up the room. She wore a T-shirt and over it she wore a longer shirt reminiscent of the Scottish tartans. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of a pair of jeans that hugged the length of her limbs. They shaped her derrière, tantalizing him as her over shirt swayed over the denim barrier against her flesh.
He had never been so jealous of cloth before.
Relief bathed him at seeing a familiar face, and elation fanned from the center of his chest at seeing his soulmate. This was the first time in his long existence that he had returned to a place he had been pulled away from. His smile faltered at a thought. Time and Fate appeared to collude to bring him back to the same area where a murder happened, to answer for the crimes he couldn’t remember committing. What irony that his death would be in the spot where he had truly found the one he called his own. And for once, Marcus Theodoric Treagar closed his eyes and prayed, really prayed to ask for the commutation of his own death sentence that he had previously wanted and longed for.
“Marcus?”
He felt the air swirl as Paisley approached. He inhaled her scent, knowing it would be one of the memories that would sustain him when he was savagely taken away later. Her scent reminded him of the Oriental isles of gold, a mixture of scents of Lily of the Valley and Gardenia. The natives had called it sampaguita. Yes, that was it. Sampaguita and…blood.
His eyes snapped open and he rose up quickly, forgetting he was wounded. His shout cracked through the room, his hand whipping across his chest to buffer his side.
Paisley sighed and quipped. “You shouldn’t be exerting yourself, you know. I brought you some breakfast, even if it’s close to dinnertime. I didn’t want to shock your system with heavy food. Then again you’re part sabretooth. If you want something heavier I can get you more food.” Her face contorted slightly in pain as she placed the tray of food down on the bedside table. The cutlery rattled against the plate of what Marcus knew were pancakes and a bowl of fruit, while the glass filled with orange juice wobbled and nearly sloshed its contents out over the mug of steaming coffee beside it.
His eyes zeroed in on her forearm wrapped in the same close woven cloth that covered his side. Blood seeped through it like dull red shadows against a white backdrop.
Dio! Were the nightmares real?
“Cara, what happened?” Dread wrapped him in a cold blanket. “Merda! It was me, wasn’t it?”
Paisley held her injured arm close to her chest, her smile tight as she stood by the bed. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Marcus looked at her with incredulity before his eyes narrowed.
“If it wasn’t me, who did this to you?” He could not stop himself. His voice had turned dangerously low. Was he going to have a chance to commit justified murder?
She sighed, her shoulders slumping as she sat down on the wing backed chair beside the bed.
“Your beast did.”
“Then it’s still me.” He lay back, allowing the discomfort to overwhelm him. What had he done to incur the wrath of the gods and the elements that he was made to suffer so much? Without meaning to, he roared his anguish. His hands gripped the sheet that covered him, his body stiff with despair. The deaths of his parents, the injuries of the shaman’s woman, the killings in the different times and places crowded his mind that he thought it would explode. It was like walking on a tightrope in a thick mist, continuously putting one foot ahead of the other. Then when the end appeared, it fell away to be replaced by another endless length of rope.
“Marcus, please. Stop.” Paisley’s scared voice pierced him.
His heart sank. The woman he wanted was afraid of him.
“Stay away from me, cara,” he said harshly sucking in his breath when he turned away. He welcomed the agony ripping through his side. “I am a danger to you and everyone else. Let the people come for me and find me guilty. A payment for my transgressions—”
“That you never made in the first place,” Paisley exclaimed. “Marcus…”
He jerked away at her touch even if that was the very thing he needed. He feared he might hurt her more because of the anger and hopelessness he felt. The bed dipped behind him before Paisley’s warmth covered his back. He closed his eyes at the touch of her lips on his skin, a different kind of fire licking at him.
“How long have I been here?”
“Nearly a week.”
She kissed his back again, causing him to groan low. Desire rippled down his spine, pooling in his groin. His arousal hardened and lengthened between his legs, the yen to mate strong.
“I still believe you’re innocent,” she whispered.
His hand searched for hers and their fingers interlocked.
“And was there—”
“There was no body close to where we found you,” she paused, her sigh puffing against his back, “but there was a lot of blood.”
The bed creaked and the sheets ruffled as Marcus eased up to lie on his back. Paisley inched away to give him room.
“It was all over your body and it came from your wound,” she continued. She sat up to face him. “Can’t you remember where you last were before you came to the woods?”
His brow puckered. “The jail cell. I was about to sleep when I heard angry voices outside the walls.” He looked at her. “Then Time pulled me back home again. To Venezia. I landed in my library and I thought that was that. I thought I would be allowed a few months of relative solitude before I was cruelly taken away to murder people whom I have no recollection of.”
Paisley’s face was thoughtful. “Go on.”
“I finally had the bath I longed for, gratified to be able to wash the blood that wasn’t mine from my body. I was about to return to research the truth about my curse and the death of my parents when I was pulled away again.” Marcus dry scrubbed his face, the movement pulling tightly against his wound. “The next thing I remember is lying on this bed with my wound tended to. And now I have learned I am responsible for hurting you.”
Paisley remained silent, just watching him with a soft smile. Marcus couldn’t help but answer her with his own.
“You have to alert the authorities. I will surrender.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Marcus,” she said. “You were hurting and so was your beast. It wasn’t done on purpose.”
“The beast would never hurt the one he knows is his soulmate.”
“Soulmate,” Paisley echoed the word, her brow arching. “How would—”
“I know?” Marcus chuckled without mirth. He shrugged. “There is this yearning inside of me that I have never felt for the women I fell in love with in the different places Time threw me into. Not once had I been more certain of the women in those times I was thrown into than I am about you.”
Paisley worried her lower lip, a flush coloring her cheeks. Marcus wished he was the one biting that piece of flesh, tasting its sweetness before laying claim to her mouth.
“And now? Why tell me that I’m yours when Time will take you away from here? What’s the difference?”
“The difference, cara, is that I returned here, to Woodland Creek and within a very brief period of time.”
Paisley looked away, her eyes glittering from the lowering sunlight.
Marcus spoke, “If you believe I am innocent, I believe that by returning so quickly, this might just be the end of my journey. That I might have a chance at being with the woman whom I can finally spend my life with.”
“But for how long before you’re taken away again?” She faced him, her eyes wistful. “Wouldn’t that be unfair?”
Marcus’ heart ached. He nodded. “It would be cruel, si. I am not a shifter without scruples. It would be unfair to leave you. But know, Paisley, that you are mine and I am yours, no matter how time separates us.”
