by Tarah Scott
“Air,” she rasped.
Pleasure mixed with the pain of being ripped apart. Her chest constricted, lungs felt as if they were collapsing in on themselves. Is this what it felt like to have her life force drained from her?
Yes, this is real.
Just as he—this place—was real. Pleasure engulfed her. His rod slammed harder into her. Was she willing to die, to remain trapped here with him? Could she escape this inexorable pull?
“You give yourself to me?” he demanded.
His warmth enveloped her despite the fear that twisted her stomach. He couldn’t be a killer. But she'd thought the same about Cat.
“Answer me,” he demanded.
Tears trickled down her cheeks. She couldn’t be that wrong again. Could she? His fingers tightened around her waist.
No.
Margot slid a hand between her and the bed and covered the hand gripping her waist. His hold loosened, and she entwined her fingers with his. His fingers tightened around hers as he pounded into her.
Pleasure steamrolled across her senses. Pressure crushed her into the mattress. His cock stroked her walls in hard, fast thrusts.
He gave a shout with his climax, his cum spurting into her, and she catapulted into darkness, the feel of his hard body burned into her memory.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Margot dragged in a ragged breath so deep her lungs hurt. She coughed at the taste and smell of a sweet odor, and bolted upright. The fireplace in her room at Castle Morrison snapped into focus. Smoke rose in a thin thread from a small brass bowl on the mantle where incense curled upward beneath the painting. Margot leaped to her feet. Cat stood near the bookcase, arms wrapped around Colin Morrison. He was here, in the real world, outside the painting.
Cat unwound herself from the Scottish lord and met Margot’s gaze. A side of her mouth lifted with disgust. “You just don’t know when to die.”
Cat was right. Why hadn’t she died? Margot gave her head a hard shake. This wasn’t—couldn’t—be real. She lifted her wounded hand to find it bound with the strip of sheet Colin had wrapped around it. She swung her gaze onto him. Here he stood, and she had saved him. Tears burned. How much more wrong could she have been? Who else would die as a result of her poor judgment? He’d demanded to know if she was giving herself to him and her silence, her orgasm, had given acquiescence. She had sold her soul to the Devil for a moment of passion just as the legend predicted, just as the other women had.
His gaze raked down her body with masculine satisfaction. Heat burned her cheeks. She cursed the tremor that rocked her belly and couldn’t stop the shake in her hand when she dragged her bra and dress straps up and over her bare shoulders.
Cat’s mocking laugh broke the silence. “A little too late for modesty, isn’t it?”
Margot’s heart pounded as if it would break free and escape. The room seemed to shift. The incense, she realized. Was she still drugged?
“This can't be real,” she nearly choked the words.
“This is very real,” Cat said.
Margot stared. “You’re insane.”
“Am I?” Cat laid a hand on Colin’s chest. “Look at him, Margot.” She slid her palm upward.
Even through the white, linen shirt Margot discerned the muscled chest she’d come to know too well. She frowned. Seconds ago, Colin had been naked on his bed. Why was he dressed? Her stomach roiled. She had given herself to this man, this serial killer. Her knees weakened. She’d wanted him.
“Isn’t he magnificent?” Cat said.
Colin took Cat’s hand, kissed the edge of her palm, then released her and started toward Margot. She stumbled back a pace and wobbled when her calves bumped into the soft edge of the mattress. Satisfaction lit his eyes. She forced back rising panic and straightened.
Colin stopped an inch from her. “I am pleased ye escaped the spell.” He traced her cheek with a finger.
Margot shoved his hand away. “Keep your fucking hands off me.”
His brow shot up. “You did no' disdain my touch in there.” He motioned toward the painting.
Margot gave a condescending laugh. “Law enforcement teaches women to do whatever their attacker demands in order to stay alive.”
Amusement flashed in his eyes. “Aye, but do they teach her to like it?”
“They teach us to convince our attackers we like it.” She threw her head back in a pose of ecstasy. “Oh, yes, yes, yes.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and groaned, then straightened and met his gaze. “Surely, I’m not the first woman to fake it with you?”
His mouth thinned. “You were not pretending when I fucked you against the wall in my bed chambers.”
She blinked. That was the time he would remind her of, not the time a few minutes ago when his firm but tender touch made her come again and again? Her heart twisted. The tenderness had all been a ruse to get her to give herself willingly—which she'd done. But that was then, and this was now.
Margot gave a condescending snort. “Turnabout is fair play, wouldn’t you say, Logan?”
“Colin,” Cat whimpered.
“Quiet,” he ordered, his gaze still on Margot. “Ye prefer him to me?”
“I would prefer that prison to you.” She glanced at the picture and startled at sight of the swirl of incense around the window where she’d first seen him. Was that a figure in the smoke?
“Colin,” Cat cried.
“She is mine,” he snarled.
“But you don’t need her. You have me.”
He seized Margot’s shoulders and shoved her backwards. She fell across the bed, him on top of her. Her stomach lurched when his erection jabbed her belly. She hugged him close and heaved them off the bed. They hit the floor with a thud, her on top.
She shoved upright and threw a hard right punch to his jaw. Pain splintered through her hand. His grip loosened. She pushed to her feet. He caught her skirt. Margot stumbled, then kicked his ribs. He released her and she leaped back.
A rush of air filled her ears and the room spun. Margot whirled. Smoke rose from the bowl like a twister. Her pulse jumped. Sweet Christ, was she being sucked back into the picture? Dark eyes appeared in the eddy.
Margot yanked her gaze onto Cat. “What the hell kind of evil have you conjured?”
Cat’s eyes were wide with fear.
“What is it?” Margot took a step toward her, but rough fingers seized her arm and swung her around.
She side-kicked Colin’s ribs. He stumbled backwards, righted himself, and charged shoulder first into her solar-plexus. Air gushed from her lungs. She wheezed in breath as they crashed into the wing-backed chair and fell onto the carpet, bonded in a death-hug. From the corner of her eye, Margot caught sight of a figure in the smoke, a sword gripped in his right hand, eyes blazing. The rush of wind grew louder.
Colin grabbed Margot’s skirt and yanked it hip high. She wedged a knee between her and Colin, and jabbed his left eye with a forefinger. He bellowed in pain and rage. She shoved him backwards and rolled to the side. They both shoved upward, Colin's back to the fireplace.
“Colin!” Cat shouted above the noise.
The smoky figure reached from the twisting incense cloud and swiped at Colin with the sword, but the vaporous weapon disintegrated around him in a puff of mist. Colin shook his head as if the drugged incense had penetrated his brain. The figure’s eyes locked with hers and stepped forward in slow motion as though trying to escape the pull of some great magnet.
Margot took an involuntary step back before realizing the mistake. Colin lunged. She pivoted, leg swung high for a kick, but he swerved aside and seized her shoulders, shoving her against the fireplace. The edge of the mantle dug into her shoulder blade. Sharp pain shot down her back and the room dimmed around her.
Colin leaned so close she could taste his breath. “You will not escape me out here as you did in there.”
A firm hand closed over her shoulder. She twisted her head to the left expecting to see Cat, but t
he hand that gripped her stretched from the smoke. Margot stared at the oddly familiar fingers. Cat’s scream jarred her. Margot tried to twist free, but the fingers tightened painfully on her shoulder and propelled her to the side as a fist shot from the haze and struck Colin’s jaw.
Margot landed on the carpet and hit her head on the leg of the fallen chair. Spots raced across her vision. Cat’s screams mixed with the roar of wind. Margot’s vision blurred and she turned too quickly, causing her head to swim. Through the fog that veiled her brain, she discerned a tall figure emerge from the smoke. She gasped.
Colin.
No.
She shoved onto an elbow.
Logan.
Colin rushed Logan—or was that Logan who rushed Colin? They were exact twins. But Logan had emerged from the picture with a sword in hand. He swung the sword. Margot cried out when Cat rammed him as he brought the sword down for a lethal blow. Logan stumbled and Colin punched his ribs. Margot grabbed the chair arm to pull herself upright. Logan whirled as Colin grabbed the chair, wrenching it from her grasp, and smashed it across Logan.
The sickening crack of wood against ribs turned Margot’s stomach. Colin seized Logan's sword hand. Logan punched Colin’s jaw with a hard left. Colin’s head snapped back. He shoved Logan against the fireplace and banged the hand gripping the sword against the brick.
Margot pushed onto her knees. Cat dove for a piece of the broken chair, and Margot shoved upward, lunging for her. She grabbed Cat in a bear hug and they hit the carpet. Cat slashed at Margot with her nails. Pain ripped down Margot’s neck. She recoiled.
Cat’s eyes blazed. Margot rammed an elbow into Cat’s shoulder. She cried out and grabbed a fistful of Margot’s hair. Margot jammed her fingers into Cat’s left eye. Cat released her with a cry. Margot leaped to her feet. Cat shoved onto her knees.
“You’ve been a thorn in my side too long,” Cat ground out.
Margot gave a harsh laugh. “Not nearly long enough.”
Cat sprang to her feet and charged Margot. Margot deftly stepped aside, and hammered Cat’s ribs with three punches as she stumbled past. Cat whirled, breathing hard.
“You always did fight like a girl.” Margot punched Cat’s stomach.
She doubled over with a whoosh of air from her lungs. Margot pivoted, leg high for a kick. The ball of her foot made hard contact with Cat’s jaw. Her head snapped back. She swayed, eyes rolling into the back of her head, and toppled over onto the floor.
Margot whirled. One brother punched the other’s jaw. He charged, shoulder first into the brother who had punched him, and propelled him back. Both men hit the bed and rolled from the mattress onto the carpet. One seized the other’s throat.
Margot grabbed the broken chair leg Cat had dropped.
Which one was which?
Her heart hammered. They were identical.
The brother choking the other glanced at her. “Get out!”
She jerked her gaze onto the other brother. He gripped his brother’s arms in a frantic effort to dislodge the iron fingers wrapped around his neck. He swung panicked eyes onto her. Was that concern for her, or a plea for help?
“Get out!” the same brother shouted again.
Margot took a step toward them. If she helped the wrong one…indecision gripped her. How could she know? Could she stop them both, take time to figure out the truth? If she let one kill the other—dammit. She swung the chair leg across the shoulders of the man doing the choking. He cursed and the other one shoved him back.
The brother on the floor sprang to his feet. “Have ye no sense?” he shouted in a hoarse voice.
Margot looked dumbly at him. “What?”
“He cannot hurt you once you leave the castle. Go!”
The other brother bellowed in rage and charged. Margot slammed the arm leg down onto the back of his neck with all her force as he sped past. He bowed backwards and Logan rammed his fist into his face. Colin went limp and crumbled to the carpet.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Margot dropped the chair leg and rushed to Logan. He grunted with the force of her arms encircling his neck, and stumbled back before catching his balance.
He hugged her close. “How did ye know?”
“You said I had no sense.” She pulled back and surveyed the bloody gash on his cheek. “You look like hell.”
“Mayhap, but I am not in Hell.”
“I’m going to burn that picture.” She started to break away, but he held tight.
He shook his head. “I must return.”
“Return—what, are you crazy?”
“I cannot stay here.”
Sickening dread seeped through her. “You said Colin couldn’t hurt me if I left the castle. What did you mean?”
“He—we—cannot leave the castle.”
“That’s ridiculous. The painting—”
“The painting was our prison,” he gently interrupted. “But we survived only as long as it remained inside the castle.”
She snorted. “This isn’t possible.”
“Ye said those same words only moments ago inside the painting.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
“Then you must simply accept it.”
“Accept what?”
“I do not belong here.”
“But you are here,” she insisted.
“Aye, in Castle Morrison, but no' in your time."
“The castle exists in the twenty-first century.”
“Four hundred years?” he whispered.
“Three hundred, this is the start of the twenty-first century.”
He smiled. “Ah, then it is not such a long time after all.”
“I can live here with you,” Margot said.
His brow lifted. “Now you have lost all sense.”
“I won’t let you go back into that hell.”
“Not the painting,” he said. “Home, my time, 1658.”
Margot stared. “You’re the one who’s lost it. Time travel isn’t possible.”
“Neither is magick possible.”
Panic squeezed her chest. “How do you think you can possibly do this?”
“The picture is the doorway,” he replied.
“The picture is the prison,” she insisted.
“The spell is broken.” He traced her cheek with a thumb. “You saved me.”
“You said you couldn’t be saved, yet you fucked me good and hard in order to get out. Hell, you even asked me if I was giving myself to you.”
Memory of his words, the harshness of his voice, his rough manner in those last seconds brought understanding. He had lied to her, but the lie hadn’t been that he couldn’t be saved, but that he wasn't going to let her give herself fully to him, give her life in order to save him.
“You wanted me to doubt in the end. You wouldn't be saved if I had misgivings, and you gambled that I could get back as I had in previous times. But you miscalculated. I did give myself to you, freely and completely. I couldn’t believe you were a killer.”
Margot rose on tiptoes and brushed hers lips across his. She broke the kiss, but he remained motionless as if willing the moment to last forever. His eyes opened and her heart constricted at the tenderness in his gaze.
“What are we going to do with him?” She nodded toward Colin.
“Take him back.”
“It’s not decided you’re going back.”
He looked as if he might argue, then his expression relaxed. “As you wish, lass. I will remain here.”
“Isn’t that better than taking a chance in there?”
His arms slid around her waist. “Being here with you is worth any sacrifice.”
“I wouldn’t say sacrifice. I can make it worth your while.”
But a sacrifice was exactly what it would be, she realized with a heartbreaking jolt. He would remain inside the castle. Once Cat was gone, someone would buy the castle. Even if Margot lived in Scotland, how often would she be able to come to stay for more than a few hours? How
could he live here with someone else inhabiting the place? That existence would be little better than the one he'd lived the last three hundred years. Only this time, his hell would be of her making.
Margot shoved away from him. “You’re right, you don’t belong here, and you don’t belong with me.”
He pulled her close again and traced a finger down her cheek, gently over a sensitive area where she imagined an ugly bruise discolored the skin.
“I will not forget you,” he said.
Her heart broke, but she forced an even breath. “Your brother stays here. Take him with you, and you’ll be right back where you started. Too bad we can’t put him back in that picture. Wait a minute. How did he get out? I was with you, not him.”
“Had you held yourself back from me, he wouldn’t have been able to leave.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Had I not given myself to you, you would still be in there. But it still doesn’t make sense. He was here when I got out.”
“I told you, I was never meant to return.”
“All spells have an antidote. You just didn’t know you could get out. But that’s still not right. If I freed you, why didn’t you get out with me? Why him?” She snapped her fingers. “He was supposed to be freed by murdering his willing victims while he fucked them, but that wasn’t the case with you. His evil manifested through the murdering of his lovers. You don’t have any evil to channel.”
A quiver rippled through her stomach. How much of the mumbo jumbo that she'd grown up with was real? How was she going to deal with this once she got back to Wilkinson County? She would never look at Etta Mae the same way again.
“All this time, I could have been free,” he murmured.
Margot stared. “You’re telling me you never tried to get out, you never…”
“I could not.”
“Of course not,” she said. “If you had been willing to murder in order to free yourself, I couldn’t have given myself to you. Don’t you see? I was able to free you because you weren’t willing to murder in order to save yourself.”
Sweet Christ, Heaven and Hell may not exist, but good and evil did and each had its own reward—and price.
