He undid the ribbon that attached it to the small loop on her dress and then tucked the jacket back around her. The inside of the SUV had gotten quite warm and he could feel the sweat starting to gather at the back of his neck, but if she was in shock she’d need to be kept warm.
“What’s in it?” Maddoc asked from the front seat.
“Give me a sec. I’m trying to do this one-handed.” He gently adjusted her closer to him, and she relaxed into him as if she subconsciously knew he’d protect her. As soon as her cheek rested against the skin of his neck, he felt the anxious energy that had been vibrating over her settle.
He fiddled with the small bag and managed to get it open. “Looks like money, a couple cards.” The lack of light in the vehicle made it hard to see. He lifted one of the cards up to catch the lights outside. Her name is Dannika O’Brien and she lives in Florida. The other card is a hotel key card.”
Maddoc’s jaw flinched, and Gavin knew exactly what his brother was feeling. Until they knew exactly what was going on, they couldn’t just toss her to the winds of fate. Especially if she didn’t know what the threats were. It would be like throwing her to the wolves, possibly literally. Although, even if Gavin didn’t know of the danger, he wouldn’t be in a big hurry to let her disappear. Something about her called to him, and he hadn’t lived this long by ignoring his gut instincts. His brother didn’t say a single word about the hotel. Instead he drove fast enough to get them home but avoid any legal entanglements, giving Gavin some time to think about their predicament.
They’d lived for the last couple centuries in the Bywater District of New Orleans, having mastered the art of hiding in plain sight and being sure to change their identities every fifty years. They’d owned this house since the early days of New Orleans’ colourful past. They’d been active members of the Underground Railroad in those days, and then a home for lost souls who found their way into their lives. Many healed and moved on, but a few had remained in the area and become extended members of their family.
The house was tucked away on a narrow one-way street. A second-floor balcony decorated the front of the house, supported by four large pillars that framed the front door. They owned the houses that surrounded it as well, creating a family compound in the linked backyards. It was a place where everyone could gather for celebrations and meetings and not have to worry about being watched by neighbors.
The wrought-iron gate swung closed behind them after Maddoc pulled in. Gavin felt the family weight of the mystical energy wards they’d created around their home. Nothing could pass through this barrier that they wouldn’t feel the minute they touched it as well.
Gavin concentrated on getting the woman in the house while Maddoc scanned the area for anyone who might have followed them or possible attacks. It was unlikely, but since there was so much mystery revolving around this woman, they couldn’t be too cautious. The wards he and his brother had created extended over all their houses, a protective barrier they’d maintained for a century, which made the incident at the cemetery even more unnerving. How did this human woman get past them?
She lay in his arms, unconscious or traumatized. He wasn’t certain, but if she’d been there for nefarious reasons, he couldn’t believe she’d feel so calm.
“What is that?” Duggan opened the front door as Gavin approached.
Gavin couldn’t have been more shocked if the old man had opened the door dressed up as Frankenfurter. Duggan was his and Maddoc’s oldest advisor. He’d been the one to help them escape when their clan had been hunted down and slaughtered during the war, risking his own life in the process. Gavin didn’t think he could ever repay Duggan for forgiving a couple of stupid boys who’d followed their cocks and created a tragedy. “A woman,” Gavin replied, stepping up in front of Duggan in a silent request for him to move.
“Sorry. I’ve been hearing all sorts of things tonight, and Katie called to say that the wards had been breached and you were bringing home something you dug up.” Duggan stepped back and ushered Gavin in. “What can I do to help? I’ll go turn down the bed in the red room.”
“That’s okay, I’ll put her in the master bedroom.” Gavin headed toward the stairs. “She’s had a hell of a shock, and we’ve been trying to keep her warm. Could you put the kettle on and make her a cup of tea?”
“Of course. You get the poor thing settled, and I’ll see what I can dig up out of the kitchen for her.” If Duggan was surprised by Gavin’s announcement, it didn’t show on the old man’s face. The back room was the one he and Maddoc treated as their sanctuary. His instincts were clambering at him that this was the right choice, and he tried to never ignore his gut feeling.
Duggan didn’t say anything. He just nodded before heading down the hall to the kitchen. Not that Gavin could handle another shock like seeing Duggan express any emotion on his craggy face. No one who knew him played poker with Duggan. The old man had always kept his thoughts off his expression but didn’t hesitate to voice them when needed.
Maddoc came in the door before Gavin reached the top of the staircase and took the steps two at a time to catch up. “How’s she doing?” His voice was barely a whisper he spoke so quietly.
As always, he and his brother were in agreement as Maddoc stepped past Gavin and headed straight to the door to the back bedroom. Obviously, Maddoc felt as though this woman belonged in their space as well.
“She hasn’t moved a muscle, but there’s no tension in her body, so it’s safe to say she’s unconscious.” Gavin eased her down in the middle of the large bed. She was the first woman to ever grace this bed. A sense of rightness settled over Gavin, as if he’d just passed an important test he didn’t’ know he was taking.
“Feels like you and I just made a decision that will affect our entire lives.” Maddoc strode over to the curtains and drew them tightly closed. A whispered spell created a soft glow of warm light in the crystal that sat on a table in the corner of the room. Gavin went to say something, but his brother shook his head, pressing a finger to his own lips in silence. They’d discuss the ramifications of tonight later. For now, he wanted to focus on the woman in front of him. Gavin slipped the heels from her feet and put them at the foot of the bed as Maddoc pulled a soft blanket over her.
Gavin fingered the edge of the blanket. “Do you think it’s warm enough in here for her? Maybe we should get the heavier one? It may get chilly in here tonight.”
“This isn’t my hotel room. Why would I be staying here?”
“Uhhh.” Gavin wasn’t sure where his voice went, but he’d expected hysterics or fear when their fairy woke up. In fact, aside from rubbing the back of her head, she really wasn’t showing any emotion whatsoever.
“My name is Maddoc, and this is Gavin, my brother.”
She looked back and forth between them before settling her gaze on Maddoc. “Brothers, huh? I never would have guessed.” Her tone was even, and Gavin wasn’t entirely certain if she was kidding or not.
“Where are my shoes?” She grabbed for the little bag that had been on her waist, and the emotionless expression on her face cracked. “And my keys, my licence.”
“Hey, hey!” Maddoc tried to block her when she tossed the blanket off her and moved off the bed. “You’ve had a hell of a shock tonight. We brought you back here to keep you safe.”
“Keep me safe? I’m not safe here. I don’t have my things, or my key. I can’t get in my room without my key.” Her hand shook as much as her voice. “I don’t have my suitcase or my astrolabe. I can’t stay here.”
Gavin was shocked still as he watched their woman deke around him and his brother and head for the door. It was Maddoc who cut her off and scooped her off her feet. “You are not going anywhere until we figure out a few things.” He spun her around and deposited her on the bed again, shooting Gavin a “WTF” look at the same time. That managed to snap him out of his daze. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small cards he’d tucked there earlier. “Here, Dannika, these are your c
ards.”
She snatched them from his hand. “That’s not my name. And it’s against the law to hold me against my will. It’s called kidnapping, and it’s a federal offence.’”
He and Maddoc shared a confused look. “It’s the name on your driver’s licence,” Maddoc commented. He reached out to rub her arm, but she shifted away, backing up across the large bed, watching them as if they were predators about to attack her.
Gavin didn’t know how to take Dannika, but considering what she’d been thought tonight, he didn’t think a little irrational behavior was out of the question. “I know it seems like we’re keeping you against your will, but we really are trying to keep you safe.”
Chapter Four
Dani was desperately trying to sort out the riot of thoughts that tumbled through her brain—fragmented images of the cemetery, her friends, and the snarling face of something completely inhuman. All the while, the two identical men in front of her were saying something about staying here. I need my things. I have to go. They’re going to hurt me.
“No, Dannika.”
The fury of thoughts paused at the harsh tone of the man on her left. He hadn’t said much, aside from refusing to let her leave and returning her to this bed when she tried.
“We’re not going to hurt you. We swear.” His twin spoke in the same deep voice, but his tone was a bit softer.
“And why should I take your word for that?”
“Because, we saved your life once already tonight.”
Dani pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, trying to control the flood of terrifying sensations that threatened to sweep her under again. It felt like the room was closing in on her and her throat was threatening to swell closed. She felt like throwing up and suffocating at the same time.
One part of her thoughts recognized the panic attack for what it was, but after everything that had happened tonight, she didn’t have the resources to battle it. She tried to fight her body’s reaction to being overstimulated but didn’t have near the strength to free herself, which in turn sent another icy wave of terror over her hypersensitive senses.
The bed dipped, and she felt a strong arm wrap around her waist and pull her across the mattress. The fabric felt like sandpaper against her bare legs. “Let go, let go, let go.” The strong grip disappeared, and Dani moved back to the center of the bed. Pulling her legs up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them and rested her forehead on her knees, moving her body back and forth as the rhythmic rocking soothed her senses.
Time passed, slow or fast—it didn’t matter. A low, rhythmic vibration, like an internal chant, eased the panicked claws from her senses. When Dani slowly opened her eyes and lifted her head, her thoughts had calmed significantly and the usual hypersensitivity that accompanied her meltdown was strangely absent. Her body was vibrating like an over tightened string, but even that seemed to be relaxing away. She lifted her head and flicked her gaze quickly around the room, thinking for a moment that she was alone.
“What do the words mean?”
He’d spoken soft enough that she almost didn’t hear him. Until that moment, she hadn’t felt the large hand splayed open on her back between her shoulder blades, not rubbing or stroking, a warm solid weight that was like an anchor to her senses. How did I not feel that? Usually Dani didn’t want to do anything more than retreat into her own space when something like this happened. Sitting in the middle of a bed in a stranger’s house should have wretched her anxiety up into the stratosphere again, but this time was different.
I must have been reciting Orion’s stars again. “Nothing. It happens. I need to leave.”
“Dannika, you have been under a great deal of stress, and there are some things that my brother and I need to talk to you about.”
“I won’t tell anyone about what I saw in the cemetery. No one would believe me anyways.” The anxiety was creeping up on her again. She needed to leave.
“You’re not a prisoner here. All I ask is for you have a conversation with me and my brother. If you want to leave afterwards, then you can go.”
Dani turned her head and looked over her shoulder. Only one of the twins was sitting on the bed a foot away from her, his arm stretched out to press his hand against her back. His touch was helping to ground her. She didn’t understand it but wasn’t about to ask him to move…not yet anyways.
She didn’t know what expression she’d expected on his face, but acceptance wasn’t one of them. On the rare occasions she’d had meltdowns in front of people, they acted like they couldn’t get away from her fast enough. Maddoc didn’t appear to be overtly fazed by her actions, but she’d never been good at reading body language. “Where’s Gavin?”
“How do you know I’m not Gavin?”
Dani shrugged, not having an answer for him. She couldn’t explain where the knowledge came from. It was just something she knew, like the stars in the sky all looked the same to most people but they were all different to her. She really didn’t understand why that made him smile.
“He’ll be back soon. Are you feeling a bit more secure now?”
Dani nodded her head, and he lifted his hand off her skin. She immediately missed the warm, reassuring weight. Her skin felt cold, reminding her of how little she was actually wearing, and here she was sitting on a stranger’s bed. “Considering I just woke up in a complete stranger’s bed, I think I could be worse. At least our clothes are still on.” She pulled the fluffy throw around her shoulders and cocooned herself in it.
“Do you find yourself naked in a stranger’s bed often?”
Dani couldn’t tell if that question was meant to be rhetorical or insulting. “No, this is the closest I’ve ever come to that.”
The man huffed out what sounded like a laugh, or it could have been something completely different. She wasn’t good at picking up on subtle nonverbal noises that people liked to make either.
He leaned over and stuck out his hand. “You’re at 2157 Rampart Street in the Bywater District in New Orleans. You had a bad scare earlier and went into shock, or it was all too much for you to handle, but Gavin and I couldn’t just leave you there. We wanted to make certain you were safe.”
“You looked at my I.D. so you know my full name already, but everyone calls me Dani. Did you see my friends? Are they okay? I need to call them.”
“What do you mean, friends? There were more of you there?”
Dani wasn’t certain what he meant by more of you. “Yes, we were going to visit Marie’s tomb.”
“You were in the wrong cemetery.” He muttered something else under his breath and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “How did you get in there?”
“Through a gate that said Enter over top. How else would we have gotten in there?”
“You shouldn’t have been able to get in at all.” Maddoc surged to his feet and paced to the end of the bed. “How many of you made it in there?”
Dani might not have been good at picking up on subtle differences in behavior, but even she could tell that there was more to this than what Maddoc was saying. “Why?”
“Why won’t you answer my questions?”
“Why are you trying to stop me from leaving or calling my friends?”
“Because you don’t understand how much danger you are in at the moment.”
“What makes you think I’m in any danger at all?”
“Because Rahovart attacked you. He doesn’t care about the living unless he’s here to collect their souls, which means someone put a price on your head, and I want to figure out why before I let you out of my sight.”
“Maddoc, I don’t know this Rahovart, and I’m sure no one has a price on my head. I’m not sure if you remember, but it’s Halloween. There are lots of people dressed up tonight. I know I’m dressed like a fairy, but I’m not really one.”
“I’m well aware of what you are, Dani. You’re a human female who had no business being in that cemetery tonight because there were magical forces in place to k
eep the humans out and prevent exactly this kind of occurrence.”
“You make it sound like we were the only humans in there.”
“You were.”
Dani felt her stomach flip, and a shudder danced down her spine when she thought back to the creature that had attacked her. She’d never seen something so evil looking—more so than anything Hollywood could have come up with, and she’d had lots of horror movie marathons with her friends when she’d been in school. But to believe that he had been a real demon was completely insane. She was in more danger staying here.
A soft knock at the door diverted her attention. The door opened and a middle-aged woman came in with a tray in her hands. “Oh, good, you’re up. Duggan said that the boys had dragged something home with them.” She glanced at Dani before turning a bright smile on Maddoc. “I couldn’t believe that you chose to put her in here. This room is special.”
Dani wasn’t certain what exactly was going on, as usual, but she could tell that this woman didn’t want her here. “That’s okay. I was just about to leave.” She slid herself over to the edge of the bed while keeping the cozy blanket wrapped around body.
“You stay right there, Dani.” Maddoc moved to block her escape but put his back to her so he could address the other woman in the room. “She’s exactly where Gavin and I want her, Jilly.”
Jilly muttered something under her breath, but Dani didn’t catch it. When Dani leaned to the side to look around Maddoc’s body, he shifted his weight and moved to block her view again. She drew the blanket close around her again, battling the urge to cover her head and hide.
“All right, you’ve made your point.” The dishes on the tray rattled as Jilly put it down somewhere, before speaking again. “You can leave her to me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Maddoc McDryw, you have abducted this poor girl and then kept her under constant observation, not letting her have a moment’s privacy. Have you even offered her a cuppa?”
Magical Redemption Page 4
