Dark Legacy (House of Winterborne Book 1)

by Luanne Bennett

  He joined me at the table and sipped his coffee as he looked at it. “A longtime colleague of mine was hired to represent the seller. He says it’s quite valuable, although I’m skeptical about that. But since the instructions were for you to handle it personally, I thought I’d let you decide if it’s worth our time.”

  The box was about fifteen inches long and half as tall. The grain of the wood twisted and turned in an elaborate flow of symbols that reminded me of hieroglyphics, but they all connected into a continuous design that covered the entire surface as if it had been wrapped in decorative paper.

  “Is it carved or painted?”

  He handed me a pair of gloves. “See for yourself. The design almost looks like it’s part of the wood grain.”

  “Now that would be unusual. It is beautiful. What is it, maple?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe an extinct wood. All I can tell you for sure is that it’s very old.”

  After slipping the gloves on, I ran my hand over the surface to feel for grooves, but it was smooth as silk. “Well it’s not carved, that’s for sure.” I gently turned it on its side and heard something move. “What’s inside?”

  “That’s a very good question. We can’t get it open. The lock seems to be a mystery. I had Beth in Antiquities take a look at it, and she can’t find the lock either.”

  “It has to have a lock somewhere,” I said, trying to lift the lid myself with no luck. “It’s just well hidden.” It wouldn’t be the first time the auction house encountered a tricky lock on an old trunk or chest.

  I took a step back and continued studying it. “A colleague of yours, huh? Who is this client of his?”

  “He doesn’t know. He was hired by the seller’s attorney. Very hush-hush for some reason.”

  “I guess we can auction it off as a mystery box with its unknown contents inside and let the buyer worry about getting it open.” People love the idea of buying a bargain and finding a hidden gem inside. “But if we can authenticate that it’s an extinct wood, it could go for a fairly high price to a collector. What do you think?”

  Wilson shrugged. “I think I’ll be dreaming about what’s inside that box for weeks.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Deciding to take another look, I lifted one side and ran my finger under the bottom, hoping to trigger a latch. As I did, I felt something. “What’s this?” I turned the box over and stared at the name. Morgan Winterborne was engraved along the bottom edge.

  “Christ,” he said, taking a seat. “I swear that wasn’t there before, and Beth would have said something if she’d seen it.” Wilson was one of the few trusted mortals who knew what we were, so he’d seen some pretty strange things over the years. But my name mysteriously showing up on the bottom of a box he’d previously examined seemed to startle him.

  “It’s all right, Wilson. I doubt you’re losing your mind. Can you ask your colleague to find out who his mystery client is?”

  He shook his head. “I already asked him, but the attorney won’t say.”

  I stared at my name engraved on the bottom of the box. “I don’t get it. Why would someone do this?”

  He let out a heavy sigh. “I suspect the answer is inside that box. I know one thing for sure—it was meant for you.”

  Chapter 6

  My first day back at work and I’d spent less than three hours in my office. I didn’t even get there until after one o’clock, but what was I supposed to do? Work until seven or eight in the evening with that box staring at me from the table in my office? I certainly wasn’t letting it out of my sight.

  Edward brought me home around five o’clock. Jakob met me at the car and carried the box inside. It wasn’t heavy, but I had my hands full of documents I’d brought home to look over that evening, so he carried it up to the penthouse for me.

  “What’s in the box,” Jakob asked, setting it on the dining room table.

  “I wish I knew. It came into the auction house this week and no one can get it open. I thought I’d bring it home and give it a shot.” I left out the part about my name being engraved on the bottom because I didn’t want him thinking some psycho had left me something dangerous inside, which was a distinct possibility.

  He squinted at me. “You’re not telling me everything.”

  “Damn it, Jakob. How do you do that?”

  “I’m immortal, and I can spot a lie from a mile away.”

  I gave him an indignant look. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “Yes, I am. And by the way, you still need to tell me about this glitch in the middle of the night with that crow.”

  I relented and went into the kitchen to get a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  “Have a seat,” I said when I returned. “This might take a while.”

  He glanced at the bottle in my hand and then at his watch. “It’s a little early for that, don’t you think?”

  “Don’t judge me, Jakob. I’ve had a strange day, and I still have to get through another six or seven hours of it.”

  He took the bottle and glasses from my hands and poured the drinks. “Let’s start over. What’s so special about the box?”

  “See for yourself,” I said, nodding to it. “Turn it over.”

  He set his glass down and carefully flipped the box over, its contents shifting inside. “What’s this?”

  “It’s exactly what it looks like. An anonymous client commissioned it with the express instructions that I handle the sale personally. Jesus, they carved my name on the bottom of it. If that isn’t messed up, I don’t know what is.”

  “Whoever commissioned the box obviously wanted you to have it.”

  “My colleague said the same thing. They could have just sent it to me like a normal person.”

  He got a cautious look in his eyes. “Unless its contents are important enough to ensure that no one else gets their hands on it. Packages do get lost in the mail.”

  “Let’s see if we can find out,” I said. “You might want to stand back.” Lockpicking spells are nothing special, but my magic had a mind of its own and it was best to give it a wide berth.

  Jakob seemed skeptical but decided to comply. The power of the spell involved forcing the intent inside the mechanism of the lock. Not an easy thing to do when I couldn’t actually see the lock.

  When my attempt to manipulate the lock failed, I poured every ounce of my will into envisioning the lid opening. I pointed to the box and directed my intent toward it, but instead of the lid popping open, the wood began to smoke. “Well, that was humiliating,” I said, shaking the excess energy from my fingers.

  “That’s it,” Jakob said. “You’re about to incinerate it.” He headed for the kitchen and came back out a minute later with a chef’s knife in his hand.

  “Forget it, Jakob. You’re not hacking it up.”

  “Of course not. I’m going to find that lock.” Before I could stop him, he slid the sharp edge of the knife under the lid and ran it along the length of the box, but it slid smoothly all the way across. He pulled it out and scratched his chin. “That’s odd. There’s no bolt holding it shut.”

  “Did I mention that our experts at the auction house have already done that? They thought it might be hidden. Wouldn’t be the first box we encountered with a trick lock.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s it. I’m starting to wonder if it even has a lock. Something tells me that box just doesn’t want to be opened.”

  If Jakob was right and there was no physical lock, I’d have to resort to something a little more drastic. “Maybe it just takes a different type of key.” I picked up the box and headed for the terrace. “Get the door for me please.”

  He held it open with a bewildered look. “Where are you going?”

  “To the conservatory. If I can’t open it, I know someone who can.”

  Without waiting for me to ask, he opened the conservatory door and followed me inside, through the thicket of giant plants. We continued beyond the mundane walls until the waterfal
l came into sight. Monoclaude was perched on the boulder where I’d left him that morning, stone-cold and inanimate.

  “Is that…”

  “Monoclaude? Yes.”

  Without an explanation, I aimed the box toward the pond beside the waterfall. Jakob instinctively reached out to stop me, but the box flew from my hands, plunging into the water where it sank like a lead weight, leaving only a froth of bubbles at the surface as it descended toward the bottom of the deep pool that appeared deceptively shallow.

  He gave me a horrified look. “What did you just do?”

  “Put your hand in the water,” I said.

  After staring at me for a few seconds, he dipped his fingers in the pond. I motioned for him to reach deeper, and he plunged his entire hand below the surface, including the tip of his sleeve. “Now what?”

  I shrugged. “Pull it out.”

  He retracted his hand, and the water disappeared completely from his skin. He did it a second time and stared at his bone-dry hand. “How did you do that?”

  “I didn’t do anything.” I grabbed his wrist and felt his sleeve. “Your shirt is dry too. It’s not allowed to leave the pond.”

  “What’s not allowed to leave? The water?”

  I nodded and turned back to the pond. “Undines, open it!” The undines were the elementals of water. There were few things capable of outwitting the elemental spirits, and I doubted that box was one of them.

  “Mora?”

  “Let’s see how that box holds up against the forces of nature.”

  “But it’ll be ruined!”

  “Look at your hand, Jakob. That box and its contents will be completely dry once it leaves the pond.”

  The water began to roil, and suddenly the pond erupted into a thick cloud of bubbles. The box was coming back up. We peered closer but stepped back as it broke the surface at the top of a geyser that sent it catapulting into the air. It flew over our heads and landed next to Monoclaude, completely dry and still sealed shut.

  I ran toward the box to see if the lid would open, but as I reached for it, the surface began to crack. The wood lost its beautiful old finish and started to turn a dull gray, and within seconds it had hardened. The box had turned to stone.

  “No,” I groaned.

  Jakob walked up behind me and stared at the stone box fused to the same boulder as Monoclaude. He stood there looking dumbfounded, and then he began to laugh.

  “I’m glad you think this is funny.”

  He finally stopped laughing and cocked his brow. “What did you expect, Mora? You don’t bark an order at an elemental. You ask nicely.”

  I glanced at the stone box again before heading out of the conservatory. “Obviously. At least I know it’s not going anywhere. I’ll show it to Cabot tomorrow and let him try to open it.” On my way out, I started to giggle.

  “I thought it wasn’t funny?”

  I held my stomach as I turned to look at Jakob, tears welling up from my uncontrollable laughter. “It’s not,” I barely managed to get out.

  We walked back inside the penthouse and let our laughter subside. “I haven’t had a good laugh in weeks,” I said, wiping my face. “It feels good.”

  Jakob gave me a hug. “It’ll get better. I promise.”

  My phone rang as we headed over to the table to retrieve our wine. It was Jules.

  I wasn’t in the mood for drinking, but it was time to get back to some semblance of a normal life, and Jules had begged me to come out. Since my mother had disappeared, I hadn’t allowed myself the luxury of a real night out. There was something about drinking and laughing and actually enjoying myself that made it feel like I was betraying her. Like I’d moved on the second the memorial service was over. But I knew she would want me to live beyond my grief, and tonight I would try.

  It was eight o’clock when my car pulled up to the club. Early by New York standards, but I planned to have one drink, maybe two, and then call it a night.

  After checking my face in the mirror, I got out and glanced at the long line of people standing out front. One of the luxuries of being a Winterborne was not having to wait to get into popular clubs like this. For some reason I wasn’t looking forward to going in there.

  Bypassing the line, I headed straight for the door, feeling a little guilty from all the looks I got from the people waiting to get in. “Busy night?” I asked one of the bouncers I knew.

  “It’s Friday,” he said, shrugging. “Your girl’s at the bar.” He gave me a peck on the cheek and ran his hand slowly down my backside. I didn’t mind. He was harmless and not hard on the eyes.

  The music amplified tenfold when I walked inside, vibrating relentlessly through my body. It had only been a few months since I’d been here, but I wondered if it had always sounded this obnoxious.

  As I made my way toward the bar, I pushed past a group of guys who reeked of sweat and bad cologne topped off by the stench of beer and cigarettes. One of them decided to grab my ass and tried to slip his fingers into the crack of my thighs. I resisted the urge to ram the heel of my palm into his throat when I whipped around, a move I’d used before. He was just some drunk college kid who wouldn’t remember being an asshole in the morning, but he would remember taking a hit to his windpipe. I gave him a look instead that was enough to make him back off.

  I turned back to the bar and spotted Jules waving at me. She looked like she was nine feet tall, but then I realized some guy was holding her up in the air so she could get my attention over the crowd. She’d be getting everyone’s attention if she fell over and crashed on top of the bar, having had a two-hour lead on drinking.

  The bartender handed me a shot of tequila when I finally managed to squeeze my way over. Either he had an exceptional memory or Jules had ordered it for me. I downed it and asked him for another, my first and last drinks for the night.

  “Pace yourself, woman,” Jules said.

  I snickered and leaned my back against the bar to survey the crowd. The music seemed to turn down a notch, but I think my ears were just getting acclimated to the damage being done to them. “Who’s your new boyfriend?” I asked, nodding to the guy buried in some other women’s breasts, the one who’d lifted her into the air.

  “Mike?” She glanced over at him and grimaced. “Hell no.”

  “Well that’s good, because I think you have competition.”

  Jules was like a chameleon, but instead of changing her clothes or the color of her hair, she changed her preference in men to suit her mood. She went from man buns to Wall Street suits in the blink of an eye and tended to dump her latest quarry as soon as he showed any signs of wanting to stick around. I think her aversion to commitment stemmed from the string of asshole stepfathers who merely tolerated her but loved her mother’s money. Mrs. Wells attracted leeches like flies, and it was best for Jules not to get too attached.

  My best friend was one of the most confident people I’d ever met—and the most fragile.

  The music suddenly cranked back up a notch. Jules downed her drink and slammed her empty glass on the bar, beckoning me toward the dance floor. At first I resisted, but she grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the crowd. I finally let go of everything except the music coming out of the speakers, feeling free for the first time in weeks as the alcohol loosened me up and clouded all thoughts of that box and that eerie crow and the vampires stalking the city. I even forgot to feel guilty for enjoying myself.

  I danced through the sea of people with my arms swaying above my head and my eyes closed, scared to open them. Scared to come back to the pain of loss and the pressure of my new reality. When I did decide to finally open my eyes, to see where Jules was, they landed on a guy sitting on top of one of the amplifiers. I wondered how he’d gotten up there, the amplifier being a good ten feet up on the stage. He was just sitting there with a bottle of beer in his hand, his jeans-clad thighs spread wide, making no attempt to hide the way he was watching me.

  I swallowed hard as he sipped his beer without taking
his golden eyes off me. Who had eyes that color?

  He grinned when he saw me looking back at him, and my confidence went right out the window. This guy was too good-looking. The kind I preferred to steer clear of.

  Without looking back, I left the floor and headed for the ladies’ room, more to catch my breath than anything else. I think the day had finally caught up to me, and that damn box was back on my mind. As I rounded the corner to head down the hallway, I slammed into someone.

  “Sorry,” I said, looking up at a set of golden eyes. “How the hell did you—” Get around the corner before I did? I had to crane my neck to see his face, and I was five foot nine.

  He took my hands—which were still pressed against his chest from colliding with him—and managed to lace his fingers between mine, intimately, like we were more than complete strangers. Then he leaned closer and took a deep breath.

  “What are you doing?” I pulled my hands away and stepped back, startled by the way his touch affected me. “Do you always grab strangers like that?”

  I shoved past him and continued toward the bathroom door, looking back before pushing it open. He was leaning against the wall, running his hand over his face like he was catching my scent on his skin. I should have been creeped out, but instead I was on fire. Jesus, I was on fire!

  He smiled and combed his hand through his spiked blond hair. “I won’t hurt you.”

  “Damn right you won’t.” I shoved the door open and headed inside. As it shut behind me, I glanced back but he was gone.

  I came back out a few minutes later and glanced around the club as I headed for the bar. If he was still there, he’d lost interest in me.

  “Where the hell did you go?” Jules asked as she came up behind me and wiped the sweat from her forehead. Her neck-length black hair was plastered to her cheekbones, and her doe-like brown eyes were half-shut from the alcohol. Tall and thin, she reminded me of one of those unconventional models people didn’t quite get but couldn’t look away from either. Tough but soft underneath her fuck you facade.