by Nhys Glover
He chuckled. “The books? You been reading sex manuals, Miss Wimple?”
My cheeks began to burn. “No, of course not. Romance novels. The steamy ones. You can learn a lot from them.”
He kissed my cheek, sliding the inside of his bottom lip across my skin. “Only you would think life was like a Romance novel. You are so incredibly sweet, I am scared I’ll spoil that about you. That I’ll taint you.”
I grumbled under my breath that I didn’t want to be sweet and innocent anymore. That was fine for a sixteen or seventeen-year-old, it was just plain ridiculous for a woman my age.
Jake laughed, loud and joyfully, and the sound echoed in the hollow, shadowed atrium where the last of the light was fading fast.
Before I realised what he was about to do, Jake picked me up in his arms and began carrying me up the stairs to the upper floor. Horrified that he’d find me too heavy and drop me, I couldn’t enjoy the Gone with the Wind moment. Only when he lowered me onto his mattress on the floor of my parents’ old room, did I let out the breath I’d been holding.
“You’re very strong,” I pointed out breathily.
The wolfish grin he sent me then could have set my knickers on fire. “Is that what your Romance heroines say?”
I grimaced. “Maybe. But it’s true. I’m no light-weight.”
Rather than comment further, Jake pulled off his tee-shirt, revealing a muscular upper body that had my mouth turning instantly dry. For a few long moments, I just ate him up with my eyes. When Jake seemed to get impatient with my ogling, I looked away.
“Off with that god-awful shirt,” Jake ordered, referring to my oversized tee.
Without hesitation I did his bidding. After all, I looked better without these clothes than with them.
Just as Jake was about to sink onto the mattress beside me, Daphne popped in, looking wide-eyed and desperate. At the sight of us, her eyes grew wider and desperation gave way to smugness. But desperation immediately reasserted itself.
“Sorry, sorry. But there’s a fire in the tool shed. A big one, Squib says!” she cried before popping out again.
Jake didn’t bother redressing. He dashed for the door. As he opened it, he looked back over his shoulder, regret plain to see in his dark eyes.
“Call the fire-brigade. I assume this isn’t the dragon.”
While Jake disappeared out the door, I began pulling on my shirt again. How could we go from burning up with desire to cold as ice in a split second? It felt like someone had thrown a bucket of water over us.
I ran down the stairs to the phone. But as I reached for the receiver Daphne popped back in, looking even more terrified.
“Look out!” she cried.
I didn’t understand. And I didn’t get a chance to, because in the next instant something foul smelling covered my mouth and the world went black.
When I came to I was sitting in a chair in an open-plan room. My arms were bound behind the chair and my ankles were bound to the legs of it by duct-tape. Whimpering, I tested my restraints. They didn’t give an inch.
What had happened? One minute I was about to call triple nine, and the next... nothing. Where was I? Not my place, that was for sure.
As I took in the nicely furnished room, I noticed Fred hiding under the mat on the floor. The big lump was obvious, as was the nose poking out at the side. How I knew it was Fred and not some other ferret-like creature I wasn’t sure.
“Fred,” I croaked, unable to say more because my mouth was too dry.
There was a bad taste on my tongue as well, which didn’t help. My head felt like a giant clamp had been placed over my temples. The pain made thinking almost impossible.
My ferret skittered out from under the mat and stood up on his hind legs so he could rest his front paws on my lap. I could read the terror and confusion in his beady little eyes. In that moment, all I wanted to do was haul him up into my arms and comfort him. Comfort us both.
But I couldn’t.
Talk about coitus interruptus! Every time Jake and I seemed to be getting somewhere something would happen. The unfairness of that was what got me more than anything else.
“It’ll be all right,” I soothed my self-appointed guardian, who was about as much help as an extra toe.
But he was here and I wasn’t alone. So that was something.
Once more I took in the room I was in. The pre-dawn light had begun to appear in the small windows, allowing me to see my prison. In that case, it was probably about 3.30. From the thickness of the walls and the way they were roughly surfaced and painted white, I thought I might be in one of the old crofters’ cottages up on the moors. Unlike Moorcroft, where Jake had been staying before moving in with me, many crofts had been converted into holiday lets for walkers who enjoyed the peace and beauty of the Dales.
From the furnishings, including a double bed in the far corner, I’d say this one was quite basic. Just one room, with probably a bathroom through one of the two doors. Given one of the doors was next to the double-glazed window, I’d say that was the exterior one.
In the corner opposite the bed was a small kitchenette with another window over the sink. I couldn’t see anything out that window as the angle was wrong. I had to crane my neck around to see the kitchenette at all.
A small table with one chair sat against the wall beside the door I assumed led into the bathroom. The other chair making up the set was under me.
There wasn’t even a TV or radio, which I suppose was understandable, considering reception would be rubbish up here anyway. And people who were trying to get away from it all wouldn’t want TVs reminding them of the outside world.
There was a small combustion stove against the last wall and two leather chairs facing it. A small bookshelf with a collection of ratty paperbacks completed the scene.
After finishing my perusal of my prison, I turned my mind to what I could do. If Fred had been like one of those movie animals, like Rin Tin Tin or Flipper, I might have been able to send him for help or get him to bite through my bindings. With his sharp little teeth, he’d make fast work of the duct-tape, if he didn’t get my skin first.
But real life wasn’t like TV, any more than it was like a Romance novel, and I had no way to communicate with my ferret beyond the basics of tone and body language. He might understand a few words I regularly used, but beyond that. Nope. So, ‘Go for Help, Fred, Go for help!’ was not going to work. Even if he could get outside.
How on earth had he ended up in here with me, in the first place? I vaguely remembered seeing him running down the stairs as I reached for the phone, but my focus had been on Daphne and her too-late warning. Someone had come into my home and knocked me out with some chemical. That seemed to be what had happened.
But how?
The fire had probably been a distraction designed to get Jake outside. At the time, he probably didn’t stop to lock the back door after him. If he’d even thought of it, he’d have expected me to join him outside after I’d placed the call.
In which case, someone had snuck in the open back door while Jake was checking out the extent of the fire.
Why hadn’t Daphne seen them?
Probably because she’d gone to look out the window in the family room, to watch the fire.
What about Squib? Where was he? Of course, even if he was around somewhere, he wasn’t about to get off his rear end to help, especially now he knew he didn’t have to carry out one selfless act anymore.
So Daphne was it, and she’d only caught sight of the intruder at the last moment. He must have been hiding just inside the dining room doorway. Given that only one small hallway light had been turned on, there was no way I would have noticed someone skulking around in the shadows.
Sighing heavily, I shifted my shoulders, trying to ease the pain in them caused by the uncomfortable angle my arms were bound behind me. My large breasts were sticking out in a way that mortified me. I was just glad I’d taken the time to put my shirt back on before going downstairs. Ho
w much worse would it be if I was sitting here in my jeggings and bra?
How long had I been unconscious? The last light had been fading as Jake and I went upstairs. That meant about 10.30 pm. If it was now about 3.30 am, then I’d been out for five hours. God, what had they given me?
The outside door opened, and Fred disappeared under the bed. I wasn’t sure if either of the two men who entered had seen him. My heart sank when I realised one of the men was Mason and the other was William Watkins.
Mason had not only betrayed me, but he’d been willing to kidnap me as well!
“Ah, so Sleeping Ugly awakes,” Watkins announced smugly, pleased with his clever insult.
In the shadowy light his patchwork of dark freckles looked all the more obvious. It was laughable that with those, his middle-aged paunch, and receding hairline, he had the nerve to call me ugly!
From the sulky glare Mason sent his way I had to hope he wasn’t as pleased with this situation as his companion. Or maybe it was simply the insult he took exception to. But why would he care if Watkins called me ugly? He’d never had real feelings for me anyway.
“Wh...” I coughed, trying to ease the soreness in my throat. “What do you want with me?”
Watkins laughed cruelly. “You really are as stupid as Jordan said you were. Isn’t it apparent? I want you to sign over the house and land to me. I tried to do it the easy way. If you’d just gone along with it you would have made a nice profit from the deal. After Her Majesty took her share, of course. But oh, no, you had to refuse me. So now we have to do it the hard way.”
“You can’t expect to get away with this. You’re the first people the police will look at when my abduction is discovered. And me signing over the house won’t be legally binding, given the signature was gained under duress.”
Watkins grinned maniacally. “First, Jordan and I have alibis set up for the time of the abduction. Second, I don’t need it to be legally binding. To gain control of the land I just have to have you sign it over. The natural law is all that matters, not some Johnny-Come-Lately convention set up by modern man.
“Once you sign, that incredible creature is all mine. As will be any more I can coax through the opening. Do you understand the power that was yours? Of course you don’t. You didn’t even know you had a Gateway until Jordan here pointed it out to you.”
He had looked at Mason when he said Jordan so I had to assume that was his real last name. Or was it his first name? Grhhh, I was going crazy, especially as my head was still killing me.
But from the sound of it, my head wouldn’t be killing me for long. They were going to murder me once I signed my property over to them. That was the only way their alibis would hold up. Because I was a witness who’d seen them both.
“Why would I sign your contract when I know you’ll kill me afterwards?” I demanded with more confidence than I felt.
“I might not kill you, my dear. Well, not immediately. You might be useful when I experiment with my dragon. You see, the petty concerns of ordinary men will not be an issue to me once I have otherworldly power. I will be unstoppable.”
“We will be unstoppable,” said another man, who had just entered the croft.
This one was roughly dressed, in his late twenties, though his protruding gut and flabby features made him look older. Heavy drinking was likely responsible for his dissolute appearance. His hair was thinning and sandy-brown, and his eyes were so sunken it was hard to tell their colour, except that they were red.
“Certainly, cousin. We will be. The Watkins Clan will be the most powerful family in the world!”
I looked at Mason, to see if he agreed with the others. He wasn’t a Watkins. Or I didn’t think he was. Hadn’t he said he had some long-distant relative who belonged to one of the families? But that was his persona, wasn’t it? Professor Mason Smart, who was a Cambridge don.
“You said there wouldn’t be any more deaths,” Mason said, looking uncomfortable. “You said Andrews would be it. I never signed on for murder.”
Watkins glared at Mason, clearly miffed to have his grandiose declaration countered.
“You are such a weakling. Maybe that’s why you couldn’t get one fat cow into your bed.” His scathing tone had me cringing a little, even though his words weren’t directed at me.
But I was really getting sick of being called a cow by unattractive men. Well, except Jake, of course. It seemed some men thought it was okay to belittle women, as a matter of course. Why had I been so accepting of it before? I wasn’t fat, and I most definitely wasn’t a cow.
While I was fuming over the insult, Mason seemed to be doing the same.
“If I’d been able to be myself I might have had more luck. But you were the ones who were so sure she’d want an academic. I could have told you that bad boys do better with women. That’s why she went for Landers,” Mason argued heatedly.
“I’ll grant you that he was an unexpected problem, as was her ability to see ghosts. It would have been easy to scare her into selling if not for Landers and her dead aunt. But at least we got to see the legendary books and now we’ve all read the Logos. Once the property is ours we’ll finally be able to harness the power of the underworld.”
I was starting to think William Watkins was insane. He reminded me of the megalomaniac, Dr Evil, in the Austen Powers movies. I’d watched those movies at school and loved them.
I know I should have been scared. These men had stolen me from my home, right out from under Jake’s vigilant care. They’d killed Mr Andrews and Rex. They’d insinuated themselves into my life and violated my privacy. Now they threatened my life. All because these maniacs thought they could control the monster from the underworld by owning the property on which the Way was situated. It was the utter lunacy of it all that was pushing me over the edge into the surreal.
What if I just agreed to sign the contract? It wouldn’t be legally binding. But if that was all they thought it would take to get control of the dragon, then so be it. Let them try! From what Mrs Mitchell and Jason had told me, no one could control the creatures from another realm.
“Look,” I said. “All this is pretty new to me. I mean, until Mason told me about the gateway I didn’t know it existed. I’ve held onto the house because of my aunt. But she’d be the first one to tell me to sell if she thought I was in danger. And if you know how to control this thing, then you’re one up on me. I’ll happily hand over the property and the control if you think you can stop that thing.”
All three men stared at me as if I’d grown a second head.
“Why would you do that?” Watkins asked, as if my words would not compute.
“I just told you. I don’t think I can stop the dragon. All I know about any of this is what my dead aunt and Mason told me. It’s too big a problem for me. If you can take control, then give me the papers and I’ll sign them. You don’t even have to coerce me.”
My tone seemed to be winning them over.
Watkins looked at Mason, who nodded. “I think she’s being honest. Every step of the way she’s been overwhelmed by what was expected of her. Can’t you see the relief she’s feeling, now she knows someone more capable is willing to take over?”
I kept my expression genuine and honest. It sickened me to do it, but if I could convince them to let me go, I’d happily sign anything they handed me. And if they tried to capture the dragon for their own purposes, then I wished them luck with it. I had a feeling they’d die trying.
Which reminded me.
“Do you know the spells required? I mean, you have copies of the pages of the Book of Shadows, but can you pronounce the words?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about that. We had our own tutor some years ago,” Watkins said patronisingly.
“Bryce’s father? The Scottish Keeper?” I asked, wanting to find out what happened to the man almost as much as I wanted my freedom and life.
Mason perked up at this. He knew Bryce, of course. After all, he was the one who told me Bryce came f
rom a pagan family. I’d told him what Mrs Mitchell had said. Although I couldn’t remember if I’d mentioned the father’s knowledge of the spells.
“The Mitchell lad?” Mason said. “You think his father knew the spells?”
I nodded. “That’s what Mrs Mitchell told us. And he taught her daughter. But of course, she died before she could help us. If not for Daphne, we couldn’t have even considered taking on the dragon.”
“Aye, it was McTavish. Stupid little snot. When he heard what we planned to do with the spells he taught us, he threatened to go back to his people to inform on us. He didn’t much believe in the Old Ways, but he didn’t want to see them interfered with, just in case.”
“So what, you killed him?” I asked, my voice trembling.
Tears sprang unexpectedly to my eyes. I didn’t even know the man, but I did know Bryce, and I knew what damage his father’s death had wrought on the family.
The coarse-featured ruffian lurking in the background chuckled. I had a feeling he might have had some part in McTavish’s death. Mason must have thought the same thing because he stared at the man, wide-eyed. Was he finally starting to see the kind of men he’d signed on with?
“Who knows what happened to a turn-coat like that?” Watkins said breezily, but his answer only succeeded in confirming my assumption they’d killed him.
“So, do you want to give me the contract to sign or not? Then I can go home to pack. If the police ask if I was kidnapped I’ll say no. I’ll get a sizeable amount of money from the sale and you get the problems created by the open gateway. Except for Aunt Daphne, who I assume can move on any time she wants, I’m okay with all that.”
Watkins nodded at his cousin, who drew a huge hunting knife.
Mason began to protest, weakly, but still a protest.
I gasped, hearing the terror in my own voice.
The cousin walked towards me, a malignant grin on his face.
Chapter Thirteen
For one long sickening moment, I was sure I’d miscalculated, and he was going to kill me. Luckily, before I wet myself, I saw the knife angling for my legs, to cut away the duct-tape. A few moments later the tape holding my hands was also removed, painfully, and I could finally get the blood back into my limbs. The pins and needles were almost more painful than the captivity had been.
