Page 62 of Revelations

“Well, there’s a first! You trust me? Miracles do exist!” He kneeled behind her.

The heat from his body radiated outward like a wood stove, inviting her to lean back into his chest for warmth and comfort. Her eyes closed in anticipation of the physical contact. Jolting upright, she inched farther away. Only her butt cheeks remained pressed against the hard wood, the rest of her lower body dangling over the water.

“Okay, trust might be an exaggeration.” Still slurring, an attempt to roll her eyes was only met with a wave of dizziness as the stars spun overhead.

A soothing breeze off the marsh brushed her hair away from her face. She basked in its cool caress on her skin, in stark contrast to the heat at her back. Closing her eyes, Greylyn allowed herself to justbe.

For one brief snippet of time, she was not a guardian angel. He was not a dark guardian. She was not at the center of a deadly prophecy. He had not conjured a demon to stitch a friend back together. She was just a woman who happened to be alone at the end of a long pier with a sexy man.

Kael’s hand brushed against her hair. An electric shock rocketed through her veins, catapulting her out of her peaceful reverie, as if she had been zapped by an electric force field. She violently jerked forward. Too precariously close to the splintered edge of the dock, Greylyn plunged into the dark water below.

Icy pinpricks stabbed her all over as she sank into the murky depths, unable to stop her own descent. Eyes now wide open saw nothing. Immense pressure built up around her body—she was caught in a vice, unable to free herself.

Smack! Something strong and quite large struck her leg. Panic engulfed her.Was that a fish…a snake…or an alligator? Godzilla?

Greylyn thrashed, to no avail. A crushing weight threatened to crumble her chest like an aluminum foil wrapper. The pounding of her heart was deafening in the silent water. Still, her body sank deeper.

As all thought and feeling seeped away, something gripped her right arm and yanked her upward with brutal strength. The pressure grew lighter. The blackness turned to a dark, gooey gray.

Bursting through the surface of the water, she gasped, letting out a pent-up breath and taking back in as much as possible. Her limp body was roughly dragged through strands of icky algae, over protruding rocks, and pond scum before being thrown into the mud. Her legs and feet were still underwater. On her elbows, she belly-crawled a few feet away from the water’s edge before collapsing.

Behind her, boots squished into the mushy ground. The mud smelled like dead fish. She raised a hand to her face, only to find it coated with thick red sludge. Garbled words met her ears, but the head rush from nearly drowning made them impossible to hear clearly at first, then…

“What the bloody hell, Greylyn?!” Kael roared. “Are you trying to kill yourself? Is that it? You’d rather drown than be anywhere near me? Truly, am I that hideous? That disgusting to you?”

His words reverberated in her ears. Not just what he said, but the way his voice cracked with each word broke her heart. She froze.

Greylyn tried to push herself up from the ground, but her wobbling arms did not cooperate. Her first attempt led to a face-plant into the mud. After a few more attempts, she succeeded and turned toward Kael. He was pacing at the edge of the swampy water.

Moments earlier, she had been so sloshed drunk that the world had been nothing more than a blur. But already her vision was crystal clear. In the pitch-black night, a gentle fog crept over the surface of the pond toward them. Her ears picked up not only Kael’s continued curses, but also the chirping of crickets in a patch of tall grass a few yards away. A ticked-off bullfrog croaked his displeasure at having his peace disturbed.

“Dia ar sabhail!” And so many more colorful curses flowed freely from his direction, some mixed English/Gaelic and some straight up ancient Gaelic that Greylyn could not even interpret.

Her body and mind were on the mend, but emotionally—no. Every fiber of her being begged her to get up and run to him…to wrap her arms around him…to confess the truth. Whatever it took to take away the anguish enshrouding him.

But, the truth?

She remained glued to the ground, in a state of shock.

Kael continued to pace and curse. “Go hifreann leat!” His back remained toward her, but the tension in his muscles was evident as they strained against his soaked shirt.

“After everything I’ve done, everything I’ve risked…Hell, you can’t even stand to be near me! I thought…over time…”

He stopped pacing. Stopped cursing. His shoulders hunched. Greylyn’s stomach turned upside down. The logical part of her mind should have been shouting for her to get up and run away. To let him think whatever he liked. Just escape.

Her muscles twitched as if to obey, but stopped. The truth slammed into her, stealing her breath away. Seeing him like this, something deep inside her broke. At first, a quaver of emotions breached the dam that had held them back for so long. Then the foundation cracked, letting loose a steady trickle of fear and longing. Shaking from the attempt to stop the floodgates from bursting, Greylyn clutched at her throat, but it was no use. With one final push, everything thatwas buried deep in her soul shattered.

Words that she knew should never be said, came out, barely a whisper. There was no way to hold them back any longer.

“That’s not true.”

Kael spun around to face her. His eyebrows furrowed. “What? What did you say?”

His stance was defensive, not ready to surrender the anger. The golden flecks of his eyes glinted brightly in the moonlight, daring her to finish saying what needed to be said.

Words failed her for a moment. Even soaked in rank pond water with a splotch of algae hanging onto his pants’ leg, he was still breathtaking. Wisps of fog swirled around his feet. His wet shirt clung to his broad, muscled chest and ripped abs. The weight of his waterlogged jeans tugged the waistband below his hipbones, revealing just enough skin to ignite something deep inside her core.

Her mouth hung open as her eyes drank him in. She knew that she was supposed to speak. “Uh…” Oh, for the love of all that was holy…why could her lips not form coherent words?

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