by Dena Christy
“How many?” The question came from Iszak and Gregor was forced to turn his attention to him. He made certain to look directly into his brother’s eyes.
“There were three after me, but I have no way of knowing how many of them are in town. I’ve had a feeling of being watched for several days and what happened last night only confirmed it for me.”
“You’ve felt like someone was watching you for days, and you’re only now telling us? How could you put our lives and the lives of our women in danger like this by keeping your mouth shut?” Iszak’s eyes narrowed and there was angry aggression in his voice. The tension inside Gregor rose, and it made him less careful with his words than he normally would be.
“Are you sure that your woman would have been in danger?”
Iszak shot to his feet, and Gregor surged up to meet him. His brother’s meaty fist came at him, but he saw it coming and grasped it in his hand.
“Enough.” Andor’s voice roared from beside them, but to his credit he did not join in the fray. “Fighting amongst ourselves will not get us anywhere.”
Shame washed over Gregor as he let go of Iszak’s hand. He’d done exactly what he’d been trying to avoid.
“I’m sorry for implying that your woman is less than trustworthy.” He backed away from Iszak and sat back down in his seat. The anger drained from Iszak’s face and he resumed his seat beside Julia. “I said nothing because I was unsure if I was being watched or not. I’m certain of it now and it will have to be dealt with.”
“And what about the destiny part of your message?” Iszak’s voice was carefully neutral, and Gregor realized it would take more than a few words of apology to erase what he’d implied about his brother’s woman.
“I have met her, the woman I’m destined to take as my mate.” Silence followed his statement. Unfortunately, he would not be taking her as his mate, and for a moment he wished he’d exercised patience before sending that text last night.
“And how can you know already?” Andor spoke and there was a skeptical look on his face. Gregor knew he would have to reveal all to his brother before he would believe his certainty that he’d found her was well founded.
“Eleanor has returned. I don’t know how it is possible, but fate is giving me a second chance by returning the woman I loved long ago.”
“Why do you not look happy about it? Surely this means that your curse is all but broken.”
“Because I have no intention of taking fate up on her offer of a second chance. I will help you deal with the hunters and once I am close to madness, I would like one of you to ensure that I harm no one.” If he thought his brothers had looked at him as if he was mad before, it was nothing compared to how they looked at him now.
“How can you give up so easily? Fate has handed you your woman to you, and you are just going to let her go?” This was from Andor and Gregor didn’t think he’d ever seen his brother look so angry.
“I will give up because this is not really a second chance at all. It is a repetition of events, and unless I do something different this time, Elle will die. I will not risk her life for the sake of my curse. I will not risk drawing her more into my life and bringing danger to her.” And once his brothers and his mates were safe from the hunters, he would die so that Elle might live the long life she should have centuries ago.
Elle snuggled down deeper into her pillow as she descended seamlessly into the dreamworld she’d visited only the night before. She was back in the medieval world and was wondering if she would see him again. The man she had come upon in the woods, who’d she rendered aid to, who attracted her in a way she had not felt before.
She knew who he was although they had never met. He did not dwell in the village and perhaps that was what drew her to him. She’d not seem him every day for most of her life, and it made her curious about him. He lived in the caverns on the high cliff set at some distance away from the village. Perhaps he was a hermit who communicated with God in seclusion.
He did not look like any hermit she’d ever heard of and something about that notion did not seem right. There were rumors around the village about a dangerous creature living in the caves and a hermit living there as well had never been mentioned. The villagers were mistrustful of anything that had not been a part of their lives from the moment they’d come screaming out of their mothers’ wombs. They would see danger lurking in a man who set himself apart from everyone. She had sensed no danger in him when she’d given him aid.
His wound had not been as bad as it had first appeared, and she wondered why such a small wound would bring down a man of his size. But then again, even the biggest of men could be laid low by the smallest of cuts.
She stood near the woods where she’d found him but there was no sign of him. The corner of her mouth pulled up at her own foolishness. What had she expected, he would stay in the woods and wait for her to come back to him?
She cast her eyes in the direction she knew led to his dwelling, but she did not have the nerve to intrude upon him there. Although she knew him to be gentle when he’d needed help, the warnings not to go too far past the boundary of her village were too deeply ingrained for her not to obey.
A shiver tickled the back of her neck and she felt like there were eyes upon her. Was he watching her? Had he chosen to wait for her hoping she would return to the spot where they’d first met?
Giddy anticipation stirred in her belly and she pressed her hand against it. She knew it was dangerous to her virtue to meet such a man in the darkened woods, but she knew with an instinct that went down to her bones that he would do nothing to her without her permission. She was unsure if she would ever give that consent but when she’d looked in his eyes as she’d helped him something about him called to the deeply feminine inside her.
“Hello? Are you there?” Her voice was as soft as the wind and the breeze rustling through the trees was her only answer. She shook her head at her foolishness. He did not wait for her, did not watch her through the trees. That was a wishful fancy and the smile that lit her face faded away. She’d seen an answering light in his eyes to the attraction she felt because she wanted it to be there.
A twig snapped behind her and she turned with a gasp on her lips. A shadowy figure loomed behind her, but she was certain it was not him. The man behind her in the shadows was smaller, not as tall nor as broad as the man she longed to see. For the first time the woods seemed menacing to her, instead of an extension of her home they’d been in the past.
“Who do you search for Eleanor?” The man stepped out of the shadows, and she swallowed her relief when she saw it was Archer. S
he’d known him her entire life, and they’d played together as children. He was no longer the smiling, sunny child he’d once been. He’d grown into a hard man, and there was a look in his eyes when he looked at her that made her feel like prey. Her eyes darted to the crossbow he held at his side, and she wondered what he hunted.
“I search for no one. I’m here to collect herbs for my mother.” The lie fell easily from her lips as she straightened her spine. It was not his business what she did in the woods.
“And yet you have no basket to put them in.” His eyes raked over her and she crossed her arms in front of her.
From the time they’d entered adulthood, he had a way of looking at her that made her feel as if he’d stripped the clothes from her body. There was something in that look that made her nervous of him although he’d done nothing untoward to her. She usually avoided being alone with him, and yet here she stood, vulnerable in the woods with only the trees standing sentinel.
“That is something I shall have to remedy. Good day to you.” With a confidence she was far from feeling she swept past him, only to have his hand snake out and grasp her upper arm. She tugged but he would not let her go.
“Be careful, Eleanor. You know not what lurks in the shadows.”
The dark tone of his voice was unmistakable and a sharp thud followed it that was out of place in the qui
et of the woods.
Elle opened her eyes with a gasp. What the hell had just happened? She blinked in the dark confines of her room as she tried to separate the real world from the dream world she’d just left. The events seemed so real, but it was only a dream. What happened today must have given her brain something to mull over, which must be why it had placed Gabriel in the dream this time. Although he differed from the Gabriel she knew. She’d never heard his voice so dark and dangerous.
Had it been enough to wake her or was something else the cause? What was the thump she’d thought she heard? It was not a sound that belong in the quiet woods of her dreams.
She lay in her bed and strained to hear. The sounds of her apartment at night was all that came to her, and while it normally would have comforted her into going back to sleep, some instinct told her that the noise had not been part of her dream.
With her heart pounding, she clutched the blanket to her as she tried to see through the thick darkness in her bedroom. The shadows tried to merge into menacing monsters and she sighed. There was nothing in the room with her, she was sure. Pulling in a deep breath, she sat up and reached out a to the light beside her bed. With a click the light came on and chased the shadows from the room. It was the same as it had been When she’d gone to bed the night before. There was no one here, and nothing had disturbed her in her bedroom but she knew sleep would not be returning for her anytime soon.
There was an entire empty apartment beyond her bedroom door and she knew she could not go back to sleep until she’d done a thorough sweep to make sure that nothing lurked there.
She shivered when her feet made contact with the cold wooden floor beside her bed, and she quickly put her feet into her slippers. Her robe came second, and she wondered for a moment if this was what her life would become. This was the second night in a row she’d wakened from a strange dream by something that had disturbed her slumber. Was she going to find another wounded man in the alley behind her shop?
She shook her head at the notion. It was probably nothing but some phantom noise that her dream had turned into something menacing. She was certain she would find that her apartment was the same as it had been when she went to bed.
She opened her bedroom door and walked out into the hall. Reaching into the open bathroom door she flicked the light which chased away the darkness swallowing the short hall on the way to her living room.
The apartment was silent as her feet scuffled on the floor and while everything seemed normal, something nagged at her. She looked at her desk, and could have sworn something had moved her journal. She always left it in the same spot, on the left side of her desk with a red ribbon tucked in the spot where she left off. It was a tool she used to record any thoughts, dreams or impressions that might have meaning for her or her clients.
She went over to it. It was on the right side of the desk and when she opened it she discovered that the ribbon had a slight fold in it as if someone had hastily closed the book and put it down. It was at the spot where she described her dream of meeting Gregor although she did not name him.
A shiver meandered down her spine. Had someone been in her apartment? Had the noise she'd heard in her sleep been a noise that had happened in the waking world and her mind had incorporated it into her dream?
She slowly set the book down and hugged her arms close around her. She wasn’t the type of person prone to paranoia although she’d had a feeling like this once before. She could have sworn someone had been in her apartment when she and Ian had dated, but it had been nothing.
“And you think someone broke in just to read your journal?” Unlike when she’d spoken out loud the night before, her voice didn’t jar her out of her thoughts. She was not under the same spell as she had been when a feeling had led her to the back door to find Gregor. The longer she stood there looking around her apartment, the more convinced she was that something wasn’t right.
The room did not look ransacked or gone through in any obvious way, but it didn’t feel right. The noise she heard in her dream had been real, and looking around her living room, where little things were out of place, convinced her it was true. The apartment was silent around her but that did not mean that she was alone.
Elle tightened the sash on her robe as she went to the closet in the hall. She took a deep breath and opened the door and jumped back. The door gaped open, silent and empty but her heart thudded anyway.
Did she really think whoever had entered her home would be some place as obvious as the closet? She reached in and grabbed what she was looking for. She pulled a baseball bat from the closet and held it at her side. It had belonged to Ian and was one of the few things she kept of his.
As her hand gripped the wooden handle she straightened up and drew in a deep breath. There was no one in her apartment, but that didn’t mean there was no one in the building. She walked toward the stairs, her footsteps quiet and careful. On the way she grabbed her cellphone and slipped it into the pocket of her robe. While she was prepared to see if she was jumping at shadows, she wasn’t foolish enough to do so without the means of calling for help if whoever had intruded upon her dreams was still there.
The step halfway down the stairs creaked as it always did and she paused for a moment, straining her ears to see if there was any noise in response. The silence continued, and she went down into her shop and switched on the light. She held up the bat as if she was prepared to hit a home run but there was no target before her. Just like her living room, the shop looked as normal as it always did. She went to the back of the shop, toward the exit to the alley and froze when she got there.
Her eyes were riveted to the door and what she saw made the hairs on her neck stand up on end. The deadbolt, which she kept locked unless she was taking out the garbage, was in the unlocked position. There was also a large box of occult books she had not unpacked that spilled out across the floor as if someone had knocked it over and had not bothered to stay long enough to clean it up. It explained the thump she’d heard in her dreams.
With trembling hands she pulled out her cellphone and punched in 911. Once she gave the police the information she went into the heart of her shop to wait. She didn’t delude herself into thinking this had nothing to do with the fact that she’d helped a stranger last night.
She trembled inside as she waited for the police to arrive. What the hell had he gotten her into? And why did she long to have him here with her, to hold her and tell her that everything would be okay?
5
Gregor paced around the kitchen of his home, feeling like an animal trapped in a very opulent cage. The restlessness that had plagued him every night since he'd woken had increased threefold. But whereas before he would have prowled the streets of Waldron Valley until he tired enough to sleep, no such relief would be open to him. He and his brothers had agreed that his night time prowling had to end. Well, his brothers had decided, and he had been too despondent over his decision to leave Elle alone to argue.
Andor and Iszak had concluded that until they dealt with the hunters, he was to stay home. As if he was a fledgling to be ordered about. Now that night time was upon him, he wanted more than ever to get out of the house. Visions of Elle, both in the present and in the past were haunting him. He needed to purge her from his system, otherwise he would never rest.
He walked over to the kitchen window and looked out. He could go out to the back of the house, change into his dragon form and take flight. In the air everything would become clear to him. But doing that would carry its own risks. His dragon side only saw things in black and white, there were no shades of gray. His animal brain knew the woman he'd loved in the past was out there, and it would not rest until he went to her.
He'd only gone along with his brothers' decision because he knew if he left the house right now, he'd head straight back to Elle's home. Last night with her, even though nothing physical had happened between them, had whetted his appetite. He needed to stick to his resolve to let her go. He had to find
another woman who could love him and whom he could love. Unfortunately Elle was not the woman for him. He couldn’t let her be. They had a shared history which would doom them both if it was to repeat itself.
"Damn it." He gripped the edge of the kitchen counter and hung his head. He was stuck with a ticking time bomb inside him. The curse would consume him if it was not broken. It would bring danger and destruction to everyone around him and yet knowing all that he still could not get her out of his head. Perhaps it would have been better if the hunter's arrow had found its mark. Elle would be safe and so would his family.
“Can’t sleep?” A soft feminine voice sounded behind him, and Gregor stiffened for a moment.
He slowly relaxed his grip on the kitchen counter and straightened. He didn’t need to turn to know who was behind him. It was Iszak’s woman, Julia. His jaw tightened as he fought to school his features into a neutral expression. Why would she be foolish enough to speak to him while he was alone, he didn’t know. Hopefully she would be on her way back to bed with his brother and he wouldn't have to engage with her.
“I’m just enjoying the view out the window.” His thoughts were not her business, and once he was sure that his suspicions of her weren’t written all over his face, he turned around.
She gave him a tentative smile that quickly fell away when there was no answering smile from him. She cleared her throat. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”
“I suppose.”
He didn’t know what she could want to talk to him about. He'd avoided interacting with her without his brother present from the moment he learned who she was. Iszak may be prepared to overlook what family she came from, but then his brother was blinded by his love for her.
