Charon's Crossing

Upset? Hell, no. He wasn't upset. He was close to crazy, thinking of what could have happened to her if he hadn't sensed Waring's evil presence, if he hadn't gotten here in time.

Christ, he couldn't dwell on that, not if he wanted to keep from punching his fist through the wall.

It was simpler to let his anger out where it belonged, on Kathryn. She was impossible, a headstrong, disobedient female, and if she was an example of what women were like today, by God, it was just as well he wasn't a twentieth-century man!

"Matthew, if you'd just listen—"

"I? Listen?" His mouth tightened, his eyes went from green to a dark and dangerous ebony. "Why should I do what you will not, madam?"

"Don't madam me, Matthew. I'm trying to explain. I was worried about you. I didn't know where you'd gone."

"Where in hell could I have gone? Answer me that."

"I don't know. That's just the point, isn't it? So I went upstairs and you weren't there and—"

"Of course I wasn't! I was out back," he said tightly, letting her go and stabbing a forefinger into the center of her chest for punctuation. "I was in the fucking garden, fixing the fucking rose trellis because the fucking storm had almost—"

"Don't you yell at me!" Kathryn slapped the offending finger aside. Her cheeks glowed with angry color. "And don't use that language. I don't like it."

"She doesn't like it." Matthew threw out his arms. "She doesn't bloody like my bloody lang—"

"You bastard!" she hissed, banging her fist against his chest. "You heartless, thoughtless, self-centered, arrogant bastard! Don't you hear what I'm telling you? I heard that—that thing, that godawful whisper saying you were in the attic and... and..."

Her voice wobbled and broke. She made a strangled sound and started to turn away but Matthew caught her, dragged her into his arms, and kissed her. She fought against him, trying to tear her mouth from his, to slap his face, but he was relentless, his hands sweeping over her, his teeth nipping, hard, at her mouth until she groaned, fisted her hands in his hair, and kissed him with all the love and despair in her heart.

"I thought I'd lost you," she sobbed against his mouth.

"Never," he said thickly, knowing even in his blind passion, in his need for her, that "never" was not a word meant for them.

"If you hadn't come in time..." She shuddered. "How did you know?"

"I don't know. Maybe I sensed Waring's presence. I only knew that you needed me, that I had to come to you."

"He said you were in the attic, Matthew. I thought he'd hurt you, or—or—" She shuddered again, closed her eyes tight, and buried her face against his throat. "What happened up there?"

Matthew made a sound that was not quite a laugh.

"I wish to God I knew."

"Is he... is he...?"

"It was like a stage set, Kathryn. Waring, or whatever remained of him, was standing in the middle of the attic, holding a sword."

"A sword?" she said in disbelief.

"Aye."

"What did he look like? That time I saw him he was so—so horrible..."

"He looked like Waring," Matthew lied. What was the point in telling her that the Thing he'd fought had to have been even more hideous than her memory of it? Or that it had whispered of what it would do to her once it had dealt with him?

"He wounded you." She touched her fingers gently to the cut on his face and then on his shoulder.

"The wounds are nothing, sweetheart. I've given myself worse nicks while shaving." He drew her close and pressed his lips to her hair. "I was the one who delivered the telling blows."

"But you had no weapon."

"I had these." He held his hands up between them, "A sword can't hurt you once you get past its point and inside its arc. It's just a matter of being quick enough. A man can kill with his hands, Kathryn, if he knows how."