Darkness Bound

by Stella Cameron

  He didn’t dare move and all but held his breath.

  “Have you seen it, the film of colors that comes and spreads around us?”

  And so it began, what he had expected, the revelation of what was not purely human about this woman—apart from her rare blood type. “I’m not sure,” he improvised. “Describe it to me.”

  “Colors, soft, then more intense. Then a shimmering that comes through them like fingers wrapping us inside. The first time it came was after I met you. You were with me at Two Chimneys.”

  “Do you see it now?”

  She raised her head. Niles looked at her face and in her eyes he saw a reflection of a bright sheen. “I see it,” she said, so quietly he held her mouth against his ear. “It makes me strong. It lets me know I can believe in you. We will be together.”

  “Where does the film of colors come from?” he asked, grasping for anything that would give him time to plan what to do next.

  She got up and led him by the hand to the window. “Out there, I think,” she told him, leaning against his side. “I’ve thought about it and I think it comes from the water. I thought I saw it when the light was failing one night but then I wasn’t sure. And early this morning, when I was leaving for Gabriel’s, I saw it whirling up from the Passage.”

  “Have you seen it anywhere else?”

  “Never. And I didn’t see it until I came back here to Whidbey.”

  He almost wished he hadn’t encouraged her to talk about this. “It could be a trick of the light.”

  “When you were at the cottage with me it came through cracks around the door and surrounded us. I didn’t tell you then. You think I’m strange, don’t you?”

  It might be nice to have that luxury. “No, I don’t.” He had learned not to discard anything as impossible. “You’re shivering. Are you still cold?”

  “A little.”

  At least she didn’t feel icy anymore.

  If he took her, sealed her to him as his life mate, there would always be that difference between them that he could never forget, not for a moment. The team would accept her, respect her, but if she tried to run with them, she would not withstand what they found ordinary in their lives. She could not live wild in the forests when they felt the need to hide. Her humanness would not withstand being moved at the speed they sometimes needed. Today had been too much for her.

  He came close to laughing at himself. Did he really think she would stay with him?

  “You could wear some of my clothes,” he said. This was such unfamiliar territory. “They’ll warm you. Unless you’d rather get some of your own.”

  “I won’t leave.” She stood away from him with her feet braced apart and her hands on her hips. “I’m stronger when I’m with you, and you can laugh, but you’re stronger with me.”

  He didn’t laugh, but he did have to control his amazement at her words.

  “Stay then,” he said. The night could be filled with revelation and even with rejection if she couldn’t adjust to him. That was if he could find a way to explain himself.

  He took a wool shirt from the closet, a T-shirt, and then a pair of heavy sweatpants. “You’ll have to hold them together but you’ll be fine once you sleep.”

  She started to pull her thin silk turtleneck over her head and he turned his back.

  In minutes she said, “I’m decent now,” but when he looked at her, his shirt flapped around her thighs and she held the pants up in front of her with a bemused look on her face.

  Her legs were beautiful. Longer than he would have expected, smooth and shapely with narrow ankles. And her feet… he didn’t remember ever looking at feet and finding them beautiful but he did now.

  “Hmm,” she murmured. Then she sat on the floor, pulled the pants over her feet and legs, managed to stand up, and pulled the stretchy waistband all the way beneath her arms. “This must look really lovely, but thank you, I’m starting to warm up again.”

  Carefully, he picked her up and put her on the bed. Skillywidden leaped, depositing her minuscule weight on Leigh’s shoulder, and gave Niles the cross-eyed glare.

  He produced socks and pulled them onto Leigh’s feet. They reached above her knees and the heels stuck out at the backs of her calves.

  She giggled. “Now maybe you should treat yourself to a shirt before you freeze, too.”

  “I am never cold,” he said.

  “Hot-blooded American male,” Leigh said with a smile. “Lucky you.”

  “You should probably get some more sleep.”

  “We’re going to go through what you said to me this morning.” She got beneath the quilt and looked at him questioningly. “There’s plenty of room for both of us.”

  “You’ll sleep better without a stranger taking up most of the bed,” he told her without conviction.

  “We’re not strangers. Have we kissed and held each other—and wanted more? Or did I dream it? Did we hold each other? Did I tell you I won’t go anywhere without you? Did you tell me you loved me?”

  Niles gently straightened the quilt over the bed and lay on top. Even through the down he could feel her beside him.

  She was quiet and he turned his face toward hers.

  “You talked to me about love feeling like being attached at the head and the heart,” she said after what felt like a very long silence.

  “That’s how it feels. It’s the way I feel about you. I never expected it. Hoped, maybe, but never expected.”

  “That’s a lovely thing to say.”

  He took in a long breath and said, “It could be if you don’t hate the person who says it.”

  Leigh scooted a little closer. All of the soft armor wasn’t stopping his body from reacting to her. “What was the other stuff you said about loving someone—what it’s like?” she asked.

  He thought back and closed his eyes. “It sounds weird the second time around. I told you it’s a feeling. Wanting to have one person belong to you. I believe that only happens once in a lifetime. You never want anyone the same way.”

  “But I have loved before,” she said quietly.

  He nodded. “I loved once, too, but we both lost those loves, so we’re alone.” She would have to know exactly how it had happened to him but he couldn’t tell her yet. “Leigh, I told you I need to take care of you and protect you. It’s true. But if you want me to stop talking about this, just say so.”

  “I don’t want you to stop. Would there be someone else for you then—if you didn’t have me?”

  “That sounds as if you’re looking for a way out,” he said.

  “No, I just want to understand. I am constant. I had no lovers before Chris or since. I thought I never would again.”

  “You have marked me, Leigh. For me, we are all but joined as if we were one.”

  “But—”

  “This is a joining that happens before the bodies come together. It’s my way of life. I want you to accept my life and my body as your own and we would be forever joined here”—he took a fist to his brow—“and here.” He spread his hand over his heart.

  Leigh rolled against him. She pulled a hand free and flattened her hand on his belly. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t really know what it all means.”

  “Listen carefully.” Her touch was almost more than he could bear. “You have marked me. That means if you agree, you are joined with me and we are forever sealed as one. My mind and my heart move with yours. I hear the beat of your heart—it moves through me.”

  “You sound different, from a different culture.” Her voice cracked and faded.

  Careful. He laughed. “Perhaps I sound old-fashioned because I’m explaining something more important to me than anything else.”

  Her intense silence made him jumpy until she kissed his shoulder. “You are different, Niles, different from any man, I think.”

  If he couldn’t reach her on a level she understood she would eventually be scared away.

  “We should be wondering if we need more time together befo
re we get in so deep,” Leigh said.

  “I knew it was right the day I saw you,” he said. “I expected it before you arrived.” Even when he tried, he said what came from his heart when he should be thinking first.

  Leigh threaded her fingers through the hair below his navel. “I felt something, too. I was glad you were there and I didn’t know you at all.”

  Hating to do it, he pressed his hand over hers, stopping her from driving him mad.

  Leigh pulled away from him and he looked toward her. She pushed the covers down and stretched herself across him, her face against his chest, her hands clinging to his shoulders.

  He stroked her back, took one of her hands to his mouth and sucked each finger. The T-shirt was no real barrier between them.

  Skillywidden left the room in a gray streak with Jazzy running after her.

  “I love you, Niles Latimer. I believe I felt I had to come back to Chimney Rock to meet you. I don’t know if fate is the right word, but it feels as if it is and I’ve been thinking it—when I wasn’t arguing with myself.” She kissed his shoulder again, then his chest, all the way to a flat nipple, which she took between her teeth until he moaned. “Mark me, too. Join with me. Become one with me here, and here.” Leigh touched her head and heart.

  He wanted her, wanted to be inside her, to take all of her.

  Shuddering, he grasped her around the waist and laid her on her back. Leigh reached for him, but he pulled the covers over her again and held her, a rigid, shocked bundle, tightly in his arms. He dare not test his restraint further.

  Knowing she had no way to understand, he said, “Be patient, sweetheart. We’ll be together—if it’s meant to be.”

  That was the best he could do—for either of them—tonight.

  chapter TWENTY-FOUR

  COLIN ABSORBED another bursting climax, ran a hand back through his hair, and withdrew from his “bride,” yet again. It amused him to leave her longing for release not once, but time and time again. Tossing his head, he gloried in his own beauty.

  This time, so magical was the erotic spell he cast with his sexual prowess that the room had become bathed in brilliant color that rotated as if from a faceted ball. It flowed across the walls, hovered a few feet above his head, obliterating everything but his own capsule of pleasure. Even Colin had been amazed at this phenomenon—his first experience of its kind.

  He bundled the blood-stained woman, her hands still reaching for him, her mouth uttering hysterical sounds of desire, into the arms of two waiting members of his scourge.

  “No,” she cried, oblivious to her tattered and bloody gown or her near-nakedness. “I can’t leave you now!”

  The two vampires who took her from him grinned and one of them, Hubert, raised a dark, questioning brow.

  Colin bowed slightly, giving his permission for Hubert and his acolyte, Fireze, to use what he no longer wanted. Blood dripped from the woman’s neck, running in rivulets over her body, between her breasts, over her belly and into the cleft of her sex. The two departing vampires hurried, but paused to lap at their prize from time to time.

  Colin had feasted on her once before, when she first came as a delightful gift from Brande, Alpha High Werewolf. Today she had returned and Colin thought he should remember to thank Brande again for his generosity.

  Colin still waited to find out what the great werewolf wanted from him in return but he was not concerned—fear was not in Colin’s DNA. He was more powerful than any wolf—which probably had something to do with Brande’s interest in him.

  And now Brande had sent him yet another gift, who awaited Colin upstairs. He smiled in the direction of that room and wondered if his little prisoner could see through the haze that surrounded him. Probably not, which was too bad since she had missed a long and spectacular exhibition. An excited partner, whether from anticipation of ecstasy or from fear, offered particularly titillating potential.

  “Now,” Colin said to the groveling Percy, who awaited his instructions. “Bring the new one to me.”

  Colin’s little servant, Percy, a captured troll, laughed suddenly, nervously, and clenched his hands together. “She decided to leave, master. I couldn’t tell you until… ”

  “Leave?” Colin cried. “How? Where?”

  “Colin, pay attention,” a voice snapped. As tall as he, and as dark-haired as he was fair, the female vamp who appeared to clasp Colin’s hand tilted her head. Her almond-shaped eyes glowed the color of rust. “Colin, we must ready ourselves for guests. The fae outcast, Sally, has been here for some time waiting for you. I would not interrupt you until you were ready. She tells us Tarhazian is on her way here.”

  “Hello, Sephire,” Colin said, detaching himself from her grasp. He threw himself into a white high-backed chair and settled his cloak about him. He knew he made an impressive picture, but he felt a moment of disquiet at the thought of their expected guest. “The Supreme Fae?” he muttered. “I was told she never visits anyone.”

  Sephire sat at his feet. “She considers Whidbey Island her kingdom. We are new here. Sally admits Tarhazian knows we are here at Brande’s invitation. She suspects we are plotting something with him that would not benefit her. I understand he will join us today, also.”

  “Fie,” Colin spat. “This promises to be tedious. I am not interested in their little arguments. As long as I get what I want, they must stay out of my way.”

  “There is a rumor that Brande has long wanted to rule the island,” Sephire said. “He’s using human women, stealing and performing certain experiments on them before setting them free. When they get back they have no memory of what happened, but they are programmed to be ready to act as spies and infiltrators when Brande is ready for that.”

  Holding out one arm, Colin indicated the cowering Percy. “Sephire, comfort me while this incompetent finds the plaything he has lost.”

  “I have told you we will soon have guests,” she said.

  Colin sighed. He leaned forward and rested a white cheek on Sephire’s luxuriant black curls. “Do not let them come,” he said, pouting. “This is to be a night of indulgence, my sweet. For me alone. You know how fractious I become if I am denied.”

  She turned her face to receive his kiss. “But they will come, my beautiful brother, and we must be cautious. Let them both believe we sympathize with them. What does it matter if we agree with them in everything? They will go away again and we will accept any token blood gifts Brande sends our way.”

  Sally slipped into the large white room and did her best to shrink into obscurity. She should not have worn red. Not that it really mattered—Colin and Sephire were too engrossed in each other to notice her entrance. But when the humming started, Colin finally tore his gaze from the female vamp.

  When the humming reached a near deafening level, Tarhazian, Queen of the Fae, appeared in her streaming robes that glittered with every step she took. Her face beneath its crown of black diamonds resembled the Mona Lisa.

  “Welcome, Tarhazian,” Colin said, “welcome to my home.”

  He threw his cape wide, revealing the scarlet satin lining. His suit was soaked with the blood of his last victim.

  Unimpressed by the display, Tarhazian looked around and smiled, ever so slightly. “I hope that what I’ve been told is rubbish, Colin. You cannot be plotting with that wolf to make the werehounds his slaves so he can take over Whidbey.”

  Sally concentrated on trying to send spells to Tarhazian that would stop her from mentioning it was Sally who had shared this story. Not that any spells of Sally’s were likely to work on the Queen.

  “Where,” Tarhazian said, “is that ruffian animal, Brande? He would do better not to keep me waiting.”

  As if on cue, The Grand Wolf, Brande, entered in human form, standing tall and broad, his brown hair awry and his beard wild. He favored leather and wore a green satin shirt beneath his vest.

  “Finally, the stinking dog arrives,” Tarhazian said.

  Brande announced, “Wolves are not dogs
, my lady. That is the root of our problem: dogs. The loathsome werehounds, grotesque parodies of ourselves that they are. These are our enemies and we are only here to decide how they can be brought under our command.”

  Tarhazian looked at her pointed fingernails. “As long as you all remember who controls the veil, we should be able to straighten all this out.”

  “Be assured, my lady,” Brande began, only to be cut off by Tarhazian.

  “Come here,” she said, majestically extending a hand to Sally, beckoning for her to come forward.

  Sally did as she was asked, but she didn’t like it. She was at great risk here, but she had decided on her path some time ago and she would not shrink from it. She had been banished for helping the Queen’s favorite, a girl called Elin, to escape, and for showing tendencies to shy away from doing as she was told. The fact that the Queen had not ordered Sally’s death for such a crime still amazed her. That Tarhazian still hoped to get her companion back was the only possible explanation.

  Little did the Queen know that Elin remained right under her nose. The Queen was unaware of Elin’s shapeshifting abilities, and as long as she was in the form of Skillywidden, she would be safe.

  Tarhazian also didn’t have any idea how much Sally liked the humans, or that she felt a kinship with the hounds. One day she hoped the hounds would come to trust her completely, but that wouldn’t happen until she dared tell them everything about herself.

  “You’ve been a good servant, Sally,” Tarhazian said. “We may be able to do something about that banishment soon.”

  “Thank you, my lady,” Sally answered, bowing her head. “I’m pleased to be a well-behaved piece of fae unimportance from now on.”

  “I hope that’s true, as I believe you may be able to help us.”

  “Let’s get on with this,” Brande said loudly. “We can finish and be out of here. We have other things to do. The werehounds have to be made useful to me. Dogs. Worst of the worst. We have a new and very successful plan. Well under way now, although it is slower than we had hoped. Mutation, changing humans until we control their minds and bodies and have them do what we tell them to do, and it’s working better than we hoped. Gradually we will enlarge our influence here, and we will not tolerate interference.”