The Pagan Stone

“Okay. Okay.” He saw her clearly now, felt the grass under him, the grip of his friends’ hands over his. “I’ve got it. Did you call me a fucking coward?”

Her breath drew in on a watery laugh. “It worked.”

“Welcome back, man,” Fox said to him. “The wound’s closing. Let’s get you inside.”

“I got it,” Gage repeated, but couldn’t so much as lift his head. “Okay, maybe I don’t.”

“Give him another minute,” Qui

“Let’s go inside.” Cybil sent looks to Qui

“I don’t want tea. I don’t want a bed.”

“You’re getting both.” Cybil shifted his head from her lap, patted his cheek, then rose. If she understood men at all-and Gage in particular-he’d prefer the women out of sight when his friends helped him into the house.

“I want coffee,” Gage said, but the women were already headed back to the house.

“Bet you do. Qui

“None of us had a demon try to take a bite out of us either,” Cal put in. “It’s never been able to do anything like that before, not even during the Seven.”

“Times change. Give me a hand, will you? Let’s just start with sitting up.” With his friends on either arm, Gage managed to make it to sitting. Where his head spun for three wicked revolutions. “Jesus.” He sat, with his head braced by his updrawn knees. “I’ve never felt pain like that and I’ve had plenty of pain. Did I scream?”

“No. You went white, dropped like a stone.” Cal swiped sweat off his own face.

“Inside I was screaming like a little girl. Where’s my shirt?” he demanded when he lifted his head and realized he was naked to the waist.

“We had to rip it off you, get to the wound,” Fox told him. “You didn’t move, not a flicker, Gage. You were barely breathing. I swear to God, I thought you were gone.”

“I was. Or nearly.” Cautiously, Gage turned his head, pressed fingers to the scar on his shoulder. “It doesn’t even ache now. I feel pretty weak, a lot shaky, but there’s no pain.”

“You need to sleep. You know how it goes,” Cal added. “It sucks you dry, that intense a healing.”

“Yeah, maybe. Get me up, will you?”

With an arm slung around each of his friends, Gage gained his rubbery legs. When half a dozen steps toward the house left him kitten-weak, he accepted he’d need that bed. But there was satisfaction in his belly as he looked at the empty porch rail.

“Bastard blew that rock to hell and back.”

“Yeah, he did. Can you make the steps?”

“I can make them.” In fact, he was smiling through gritted teeth when Cal and Fox all but carried him into the house.

Since he was too tired to fight off a trio of females, he drank the tea Cybil foisted on him. And he dropped onto the bed with its freshly smoothed sheets and plumped pillows.

“Why doncha lie down with me, sugar?”

“That’s sweet, honey.”

“Not you.” Gage waved off Fox, pointed to Cybil. “Big brown eyes there. Fact, maybe all the pretty women oughta lie down here with me. Plenty of room.”

“What the hell did you put in that tea?” Cal demanded.

“Secret ingredient. Go ahead.” Cybil sat on the side of the bed. “I’ll stay with him until he drops off.”

“Come on over here and say that.”

Smiling, Cybil waved off the others, then angling her head, studied Gage’s face.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he mumbled.

“Hello, handsome. You’ve had a busy morning. Go to sleep.”

“Pissed you off.”

“Pissed you off back. That was the plan.”

“Damn good plan.”

“Risky, potentially stupid plan.”

He smirked. “Worked.”

“You have me there.”

“Didn’t mean that shit about your father.”

“I know. Shh.” She bent down, kissed his cheek.

“Maybe meant some of the other shit-can’t remember. Did you?”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“She said-A

“I gave you a jumpstart. You did the rest. Gage.” Shuddering once, she laid her cheek against his. “I thought you’d die. Nothing’s ever scared me like that, or torn at me like that. I thought you’d die. That we’d lose you. That I would. You were dying in my arms, and until that moment, I didn’t realize that I-”

She lifted her head, broke off when she saw he’d fallen asleep. “Well.” She drew a long breath, then another. “Well, that’s probably excellent timing for both of us. No point in humiliating myself or putting you on the spot by telling you, at a weak moment for both of us, that I’ve been stupid enough to fall in love with you.”

Taking his hand, she sat with him a little while longer as he slept. And she wondered if she’d find the way to be smart enough to get over him.

“Do you think you must?”

Slowly, Cybil lifted her gaze from Gage’s face, and looked into A

“Do you think you must?” A

“Must what?”

“Close your heart to what you feel for him. Deny yourself the joy and the pain of it.”

“I’m not a fan of pain.”

“But it’s life. Only the dead feel nothing.”

“What about you?”

A

“Easy for you to say. Your love was returned. I know what it is to live loving someone who can’t or won’t love you back, or not enough.”

“Your father was consumed by despair. He lost his sight, and couldn’t see love.”

What’s the difference? Cybil thought, but shook her head. “This would be a fascinating conversation over a drink sometime, just us girls, but at the moment we’re more into the life-or-death mode around here. You may have noticed.”

“You are angry.”

“Of course I’m angry. He nearly died today, nearly died in my arms trying to find a way to stop something that was pushed on him, on all of us. He may die yet, any or all of us might. I’ve seen how it might be.”

“You haven’t told them all you’ve learned, all you’ve seen.”

Cybil looked down at Gage again. “No, I haven’t.”

“You will see more before it is done. Child-”

“I’m not your child.”

“No, but neither are you its. Life or death, you say, and so it is. Either the light or the dark will end with the Seven. My love will either be freed, or be damned.”

“And mine?” Cybil demanded.

“He will make his choice, and so will you all. I have no one but you, my hope, my faith, my courage. Only today, you used all of those. And he sleeps,” A

Cybil got to her feet. “What answer? What weapon?”

“You are an educated woman with a strong and seeking mind. Find it. Use it. All is in your hands now. Yours, his, and the others’. And it fears you. His blood, its blood,” she said as she began to fade, “our blood, your blood. And theirs.”

Standing alone, Cybil again looked down at Gage. “His blood,” she said quietly, and hurried out of the room.