Dangerous Lover

by Maggie Shayne

  When the jewelry was gone, he started spotting scraps of fabric, and even, once, a hank of her silvery-blond hair, thick enough to make it visible, and wound around a tiny limb. He winced when he saw that, thinking how much it must have hurt her to yank that much hair out. And damn, he didn’t want her doing that any more. Her hair was too beautiful to waste that way.

  He picked up the pace, telling himself to move faster, get to her before she ran out of things to leave behind her.

  And just then a familiar crackling sound brought him to a grinding halt.

  The walkie-talkie rasped again, and this time he shoved the pack off his shoulder and turned it around, and dug into it. He’d forgotten they had the things. Much less left them on. He was surprised the battery had held out.

  He got the walkie-talkie, a small, bright yellow one, already tuned to channel 13, and turned up the volume.

  “Do you hear me, Falconer?”

  That voice. It stroked strings in his mind that played discordant sounds. It was familiar, and yet he couldn’t place it. Damn this memory thing!

  “Come in, Falconer. We have your little Witch with us, now, so you really have no choice. If you’re out there, respond. If you’re not, there’s really no reason for us to keep her alive any longer.”

  His thumb twitched on the button. He raised the walkie to his lips, opened them to reply, and heard another static belch, followed by Selene’s voice. “This is stupid, you trying to make me talk to someone who isn’t there, just to prove you really have me. I told you, I left that stranger back in Big Falls and haven’t seen him since.”

  There was a sound that made him clench his jaw so hard his teeth hurt. The sound of a hand on flesh. A slap. A whimper, involuntary and probably as stifled as Selene could manage. The bastard had hit her.

  “Fine. I’ll talk to him. Give me the damn thing.” There was a spurt, and then another. “Hey, person in the woods who doesn’t exist. Or, hell, for that matter, how about sending this out to the entire band of people in the woods who don’t exist? God knows the entire Brand clan must be fanning into the forest by now. This is Selene. I’m alive and well, and in the hands of the bad guys. There are five of them, all armed with—Ow!”

  The static burped again as the walkie was no doubt yanked away from Selene.

  There had been a message there for him. He was sure of it. She’d told him about her family, about how there was a whole branch of Brands in Texas, and how when one was in trouble the entire clan tended to come to their aid. No doubt this so-called siege was big news. And there had been plenty of time for her family to get here by now.

  What was she telling him? To wait for them? To go back down, hook up with her kinfolk, and then come on after her again?

  Right. No way in hell.

  He lifted the walkie to his mouth again, hoping there was help on the way, but not willing to bet Selene’s life on it.

  “This is Falconer,” he said after keying the mike. “What do you want me to do?”

  The shack in the woods smelled musty from years of disuse. When the man opened the rickety door and shoved her inside, Selene thought it was probably something that had been used by hunters a half century or so ago. God knew it was too far from any road to make it handy. They’d hiked through the forest for more than eight hours, most of it uphill. She had no idea how this bastard knew his way around the Texas woods so well. He didn’t sound like a Texan. Or an Okie, for that matter.

  She stumbled through the door at her captor’s brutal shove, caught her footing and managed not to fall to her knees, then brushed herself off and took a look around.

  The first thing she saw was….

  “Erica!” Selene raced across the room to where Erica sat on the floor in the corner, her hands bound behind her back, her feet tied together at the ankles. She had tear stains on her face, and red, puffy eyes.

  Selene fell to her knees, and hugged her friend. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. I’m here.” She reached for the rope at Erica’s ankles.

  “Oh, no you don’t. No one said you could untie her.”

  She whirled on the man who had brought her here, certain now he was the leader. There were two other men in the cramped cabin, and she’d glimpsed two outside, standing watch. “Her skin is raw. Look how red it is. At least loosen them.”

  “No, but I’ll make sure yours are even tighter.”

  “You don’t want to mess with us, mister.”

  “Hank.” He nodded, and one of the other two thugs came to her, jerked her around, and, pulling her hands behind her, began binding her wrists.

  “Hurt her, Hank. I owe the bitch.”

  Selene felt anger rise up from somewhere deep, and in a voice that didn’t sound anything like her own, she began muttering what she remembered of an ancient Sumerian curse.

  “A-na-am, er-se-tam, na-ra-am, bi-i-it e-er-ru-bu, la-te-erru-bi-i-ma!”

  The guy tying her wrists jerked his knot tight and backed away. She turned slowly, glaring at him, her eyes narrow. Taking a single step toward him, she repeated the curse, and thought hard of its meaning in English even as she chanted it, phonetically, in a language no one had heard spoken in at least two thousand years. “By heaven, by lakes, by the river, the house I enter, you shall not enter!”

  She put her anger behind her words, felt power rising up through her as her kundalini uncoiled, and writhed up her spine, empowering and igniting every chakra center along the way.

  “A-na-am, er-se-tam, na-ra-am—”

  The man who’d been tying her backed all the way to the door. Her anger alone should flatten him, she thought. It was burning out of her pores now, and she did nothing to tame it.

  “—bi-i-it e-er-ru-bu, la-te-er-ru-bi-i-ma!” she growled.

  He got the door open and stumbled through it.

  She turned her attention to the leader now, primed with power, brimming with it, feeling incredible and invincible. “A-na-am, er-se-tam—”

  He clocked her in the jaw. She couldn’t block the blow because her hands were tied behind her, and it took her with so much force, her head snapped up and her body slammed down, hard, onto the floor.

  “Shut up, Witch.” He jerked his head at the one thug remaining in the room. “Slap some goddamn duct tape over her mouth, and then tie her ankles. Her hero ought to be here pretty soon, and then we can dispense with the bunch of them.”

  She willed Cory not to come, willed it with everything in her. She could have wept when she’d heard his voice coming over the static-laced airwaves via the walkie-talkie. She’d been trying to tell him to keep quiet, to wait for her cousins and siblings to arrive. But he’d fallen for their garbage and replied to their threats, asking what they wanted him to do.

  The leader had given him directions to this cabin, told him to be here within three hours, giving him ample time, she was sure. And he’d do it, too.

  The dumb ass. She loved him.

  Thug number two was smacking duct tape over her mouth. The ropes on her wrists were already chafing. He gripped one of her bound arms, just above the elbow, and dragged her to the corner to set her beside Erica. Then he knelt and tied her ankles, using the tape instead of rope this time.

  “She’ll be quiet,” Erica said. She sounded hoarse, as if she’d been doing a lot of yelling, or maybe she just hadn’t been given anything to drink. “You can take the gag off. Please?”

  “You shut up, honey, or you’ll be gagged right along with her,” the leader said.

  Then he turned to glance out the window. “Great. Hank’s out there filling the other guys’ heads with tales of this voodoo bullshit. Get out there and set ’em straight, Larry.”

  The big guy nodded, and strode out the door.

  Only the leader remained. He pulled out a rickety chair, and sat down at a rickety table, shaking a yellowed and fray-edged newspaper into a suitable shape, and looking for all the world like the dad from a 1950s sitcom. All he lacked was a pipe and a cup of hot coffee.

 
When his attention was caught, Selene met Erica’s eyes, told her without a word that she was up to something, then turned, millimeter by millimeter, until her back was angled slightly toward Erica’s. Erica frowned, then she got it, and it was her turn to turn, ever so quietly, ever so gradually, until her back was angled toward Selene’s. Selene stretched out her fingers, and felt just what she’d hoped to feel. The rope around Erica’s wrists. They leaned closer, pressing their shoulders together to conceal the work their hands were doing as they stretched their fingers to painful lengths and picked at the knots that held each other captive.

  Erica was smart. She leaned her head forward and closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep. Good move. Selene just rested against her, trying to move as little as possible, and stilling her fingers each time the creep glanced their way. When she stilled, Erica did, too, not even needing to open her eyes.

  As she worked patiently and tediously at the knots, Selene kept finding Cory, wandering through her mind. She just couldn’t seem to stop thinking of him. Sometimes she relived the times they’d been together, the way he’d touched her, the way he’d made her feel, the things he’d whispered while making love to her. Those thoughts made her want to arch her hips and sigh, an urge she barely caught in time to prevent it. Goddess, but she had it bad for that man.

  She managed to stop reliving their passion, but it only led to her imagining what the next time might be like—if there was a next time. But this was her imagination, she was in charge. So yes, in her mind, there would be a next time. He would regain his memory and realize there were no obstacles in their way. Kelly was probably an ex-wife, not a current one, and maybe they’d broken up after Cory’s brother had made his little note in the date book. That worked. So there would be a next time, and this time, when he drove into her, when he kissed her neck and held her legs up high, and made her entire body sing—this time, he would add the most erotic part she could imagine. He would hold her to him, and stop kissing her just long enough to whisper, “I love you, Selene.”

  And damn, that would be perfect. Just freaking perfect.

  Erica’s finger tapped hers, and Selene blinked out of her fantasy and realized her hands had gone still. She’d been too busy daydreaming to keep picking at the knots. And this was too important, so she got back to it.

  It was frustrating, working with just the tips of her fingers. Her wrists and hands ached from the straining she was giving them before the first hour had passed. But eventually, the knots began to give, to loosen, and Selene felt hope.

  When the knots came free, the two women’s hands clasped for just a moment. Then they relaxed, leaving the ropes, loose enough now to shake off at a moment’s notice, wrapped around their wrists for appearance’s sake.

  Garrett had led the gang, armed with maps, guns, and walkie-talkies, into the woods from a point a couple of miles up the road, around a bend which should cut off some of the walking time. They’d been discussing who should enter the woods where, and which way to head, when his radio picked up the transmission addressed to someone named Cory.

  He held up a hand, yanking his radio from his belt, and turning up the volume. When the man said something about having “your little Witch,” he knew this was important.

  “Cory must be the name of the guy she was accused of stabbing in the woods. That’s what started all this. He vanished from the hospital,” Vidalia explained.

  Jimmy Corona nodded. “She’s been traveling with him, she told me as much on the phone, but I couldn’t get any more out of her.”

  “Wait, listen!” Vidalia shouted, as another voice came over the radio. “That’s Selene!”

  They all leaned closer, listening to Selene insist there was no one with her, and then try to tell this Cory fellow to wait it out, that her family would be there to help him soon. Garrett hoped to the Almighty he would take that advice.

  But the man didn’t. He was on the line a few moments later, asking the bastard for instructions.

  And the man replied by giving detailed directions to an old hunting shanty where they wanted him to come, alone, naturally. They always told you to come alone. Garrett rolled his eyes, and noted that Lash was already scribbling the directions the man gave on a notepad.

  The radio went silent, then crackled again. “You have three hours.”

  And that was it. Three hours. Hell.

  Lash leaned over the map with his scrawled notes, and when Jessie shoved her way in between him and Garrett, Garrett let her. Between the two of them, they managed to pinpoint the cabin’s probable location on the map, marked it with an X, then shoved the map back toward Garrett.

  He looked it over. “There’s a road that’ll take us pretty close,” he said, tracing the snaky line that represented the road across the page. “It’s the only way we’re gonna make it in time. Cory’s got quite a head start on us.”

  “Good plan,” Vidalia said. “I’m looking forward to having a talk with this fella.”

  “Vi, it’s gonna be rough going.” Garrett thought that even as strong and fit as she looked, he wasn’t sure a woman her age could make the trek.

  She lifted her brows and fixed him with a look. “Well, now, Garrett, if you think you can’t handle it, you can certainly wait in the truck. But it don’t look all that tough to me.”

  “Or to any other mamma, when her baby’s waiting at the end of the trail,” Jessie told him.

  “Any other mamma isn’t Vidalia Brand,” Melusine put in. “Frankly, she can hold her own better than anyone else here.”

  He nodded. “Okay. I won’t mention it again.”

  “You hadn’t better,” Vi said. “Let’s get this show on the road.” She started for the nearest vehicle.

  Crouching in the woods outside the small hunting shack, Cory took stock of the situation. There was a man guarding the front door, another guarding the back, and he had no idea how many inside. If he walked right up to them, he would probably be signing his own death warrant. And Selene’s, too.

  Selene.

  God, being this close to her, knowing she was just beyond that lopsided door, was almost too much to take. Everything in him churned. He was shaking, literally shaking all over as thoughts chased themselves through his mind. Had they hurt her? Were they hurting her even now? Was she even alive?

  The idea that she might not be filled him with thick, suffocating darkness. His chest felt empty; there was a black void where his heart should be.

  Swallowing hard, he backed a safe distance away, and keyed the mike on the walkie-talkie. “I’m close,” he said. “But how do I know the women are still alive?”

  The radio crackled, a female voice came over it, but not Selene’s. “This is Erica. We’re all right.”

  A second later it crackled again. “It’s me,” Selene said. And the relief that washed through him nearly deafened him to what came next. “Don’t risk your life for us, Cory—ow!”

  He gripped the walkie so hard he cracked its plastic casing. “Don’t hurt her again.” His voice was unrecognizable, even to his own ears. He’d never sounded like that before. Memory or no, he knew that for a fact.

  “Get your ass in here, Falconer, and I won’t have to.”

  The voice was familiar. It tickled the edges of his memory, teasing something to life there. Something he could almost grab hold of. Almost.

  “Those women didn’t see anything that night,” he said. “They don’t know who the hell you are. There’s no reason to kill them.”

  “They’ve seen me now.”

  “And whose fault is that?” he demanded. “Look, I’m the one you want. Send them out, and I’ll come in without a fuss.”

  There was no reply. But a second later the cabin’s door slammed open so hard it banged into the outside wall, broke off at the upper hinge, and hung there, crookedly, by the bottom hinge alone. Selene was shoved outside, but not alone. A man had one arm hooked around her shoulders, holding her back flush to the front of his body, like a shield. His ot
her arm held a gun, its barrel pressed to her temple.

  “By the powers of the Dark Goddess, you will suffer for this!” she shouted.

  “Shut up!”

  “I curse you by the sun! I curse you by the moon! I curse you by—”

  He drew back and clocked her in the head with the butt of the handgun. She went limp in his cruel grasp, her head falling forward, even as Cory lunged upright.

  A hand on his shoulder shoved him right back down, and a voice he didn’t know spoke from close to his head. “Easy, fella. You’ve got back-up now, just take a breath.”

  He turned, and found himself face to face with a big man who wore a star on his chest. “Garrett Brand,” the man said. “I’m her cousin. And so are most of them.” He nodded toward the woods behind him as he spoke. “Exceptin’ for her sisters and in-laws and her mamma—well, hell we can save the introductions for later, I s’pose.”

  Cory scanned the brush, and saw at least a dozen others lurking in the trees. Several men, and handful of women. One of the women strode up to him, and he thought she had to be Selene’s oldest sister. The resemblance was there, in the shape of her face and the exotic tilt of her eyes, though where Selene was light, this woman was dark.

  “You him?” she asked.

  “I’m Cory Falconer,” he said.

  “The fella that brought all this down on my daughter.”

  “Your daughter?” He was stunned, and more than slightly intimidated. “Believe me, Mrs. Brand, I tried to protect her. I never meant—”

  She gripped his chin in a firm hand, staring at him with narrow, piercing eyes. “Well, I’ll be.” Then she thinned her lips, sighed as if in some sort of capitulation. “I suppose you may as well call me Vidalia, then.” She released his chin, took his hand. “Don’t look so scared, son, we’ve been in worse spots than this one. I daresay those fellas don’t have a clue what kind of mess they’ve got themselves into.”