Hell Transporter (Between)

by Tefft, Cyndi

  It was him. He’d all but admitted it. My shocked response wasn’t feigned.

  “How did you—?”

  “Micah told me about the rattlesnake, said the Scot cut its head off. One of these days he might not be there. Who will save you then?” He stuck his tongue out between his teeth and flicked it back and forth in imitation of a snake. His warm breath in the cold air formed a sinister cloud of steam around the silver stud in his tongue. Bile surged in my throat, but I tamped it down as an idea came to life in my mind. Aiden had said he trusted me no matter what and I was going to put that to the test. Revulsion nearly knocked me over, but I grabbed hold of my courage with both hands like Aiden wielded his claymore and prepared to do battle with my enemy.

  Tilting my chin down, I looked up at Derek through my lashes and gave him my most seductive smile.

  “Are you volunteering for the job?” To seal the deal, I flicked my own tongue out at him like the snake that he was. He stood up straighter, suspicion oozing from every pore, but I could tell he was intrigued.

  “Ready to trade in the skirt-wearing ogre, are you?”

  I shrugged and adjusted my backpack on one shoulder, then let my eyes wander slowly up and down his body. “Let’s just say, I like to keep my options open.” I held my breath, uncertain for a moment whether I’d been convincing enough, whether he was going to buy it.

  A smug smile crept across his face and I knew he’d taken the bait.

  “Prove it,” he said and I met the challenge in his eyes unflinchingly. “Meet me at the pool on Friday. Midnight.”

  “Won’t it be closed?”

  “I have a key. Perks of being on the swim team. Never know when I’ll need to do some strokes.” He reached out a black-painted fingernail and slithered it down my arm, stopping dangerously close to my breast. “And wear a bikini. Thong would be nice.” Ignoring the screaming in my head that made me want to slam my fist into his face, I arched my back to press my breasts forward. His eyes grew wider.

  “Why wait? Friday’s four days away.”

  “It’s the first time we’ll have the pool to ourselves. And what I’m going to do to you shouldn’t have witnesses.”

  “Friday it is, then. Looking forward to it,” I said over my shoulder as I sauntered off toward my next class. When I reached the building and knew he was no longer watching me, I ran for the bathroom and promptly lost my breakfast.

  Chapter 32

  The rest of the school day was like watching a foreign film without subtitles. The teachers’ mouths were moving, but nothing registered. I didn’t dare reach out to Aiden with my mind, since I knew Derek would be able to hear us—and potentially pull one of his mind manipulation tricks—so I drew doodles in my notebook and prayed for the day to end. When Aiden finally met me after my last class, I kept my face carefully devoid of emotion, just in case Derek was lingering somewhere I couldn’t see him. Aiden gave me a strange look, but didn’t say anything as he opened the car door for me.

  When we’d driven far enough that I felt safe, I told him everything that had happened. His hands gripped the steering wheel a little tighter when I recounted some of the things I’d said to Derek, but when he turned to me, his face shone with pride.

  “‘Twas right brave of you, lass, not to mention quick thinking. Well done.” His praise warmed me like a shot of whisky and I couldn’t help but grin as we worked out the details of our plan for Friday’s ambush.

  When we got to the cottage, we went for a horseback ride to clear our heads and distract ourselves from the upcoming confrontation. Stress was burning a hole in my stomach, what with seducing the hell transporter, finals looming, and the upcoming wedding.

  I clapped my palm to my forehead. The wedding! I’d promised my mom I’d tell Aiden about the surprise and I’d completely spaced it.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I forgot something.”

  “We can go back then.” He slowed the horse and turned her toward the stables. When Amber was secured in her stall again, he laced his fingers through mine and started on the path to his place. “What did you forget?”

  “I’ll tell you when we get home.”

  Curiosity lit up his face. “Aye?”

  “Aye,” I responded, giving him a gentle shove with my shoulder. As we walked, I could tell he was trying to work out my secret, which made me that much more excited to tell him, but when we arrived at the house, I found out he had a surprise of his own.

  When he opened the door, the rich scent of beef stew wafted out, warm and welcoming. My stomach growled in appreciation as I shrugged off my coat. A fire crackled in the hearth and I wondered how I’d missed the telltale sign of smoke coming out the chimney. I must have been too lost in my own thoughts.

  “So did you truly forget something? Or did you just want off the horse?”

  I ignored his question and instead took a deep breath, reveling in the homey atmosphere he’d set up before coming to retrieve me from school.

  “You never told me you could cook,” I said.

  “You never asked,” he responded with a cocky grin.

  “Brat,” I said before tucking into a bowl of his delicious stew. He must have snuck back to the house while Micah was in class in order to have dinner ready for us. Between bites, I told him how incredible it tasted and he responded with a nod of acknowledgment, but he was clearly impatient to hear my secret.

  “So now that you’ve some food in your belly, what did ye forget?”

  Buttering a piece of bread, I tried for nonchalance and failed. “Oh, um, just that Mom wanted me to ask you something.”

  “And you couldn’t have asked me earlier?” he said, a knowing smile toying with his lips. He wasn’t making this easy and he knew it.

  “She wanted to know if you have any favorite songs you’d like played at the wedding.” I took a bite and refused to meet his eyes, aware that he could see right through me. His inquisitive stare heated my cheeks.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Well, it’s traditional for the couple to pick songs for the wedding that are meaningful to them. She thought you might have a favorite Scottish song you’d like played.” My voice trailed off and he made a low grunt in his throat.

  “Och, there may well be a few fiddlers in Scotland who’d still know a song or two from my day, but I’m sure there are none here.”

  Patting my mouth with a napkin to cover the smile that threatened to break out, I stood up and took my bowl into the kitchen, talking to him over my shoulder. “That’s okay. If you give me the names of the songs, Mom will have them practice before we get there.”

  He followed me into the kitchen with his own bowl. “Before we get where?” he asked, his voice curious but wary.

  I turned toward him with my back against the sink, and smiled triumphantly.

  “Eilean Donan.”

  He dropped his bowl into the sink behind me with a clang.

  “What?”

  Giddy with excitement at finally sharing my secret, I wrapped my arms around his waist. “We’re going to Scotland to be married. The castle has been restored, remember? Turns out you can reserve it for weddings, so I did. We’re all going: my folks, Jen and Paul, Steph, and Ian and Sarah. Ian has a bunch of relatives who still live over there and they’re going to come to the wedding, too.” My face grew serious as I held his gaze.

  “I’m taking you home, Aiden.”

  Shock was painted on his face with bold stripes. He knew I’d been keeping something from him, but the thought of a wedding in Scotland had apparently never crossed his mind.

  “Home.” His eyes misted over and he swallowed hard, fighting back the emotion. “Married at Eilean Donan,” he whispered, as if by saying the words out loud, the spell would be broken. “Can it be true?” he asked, though the answer was clear in the way happiness radiated from me. I didn’t have to look in a mirror to know I was glowing like a firefly. Shaking his head in awe, he graced me with a smile that took my breat
h away. “I tell you the truth; you amaze me, Lindsey MacRae. I’ve never met a soul who can surprise me like you do. We’re really going home to Scotland?” I nodded enthusiastically and he kissed me, his whole body humming with joy.

  “Tha gaol agam ort,” I said in my best Scottish Gaelic accent and he laughed out loud, tears streaming over his cheeks.

  “I love you, too, my bride. More than I could ever say.”

  Chapter 33

  Finals loomed like black clouds, almost more ominous than the upcoming encounter with Derek, and I spent the next several hours studying. When my brain was officially fried and the words swam in front of me like the book had suddenly liquefied, I called it quits and we headed over to my dorm room so I could borrow one of Jen’s bikinis. I, of course, had no such swimwear in my wardrobe, being on the curvier side of plump, but I consoled myself with the thought that Derek would only see it for a minute before we...

  The words “killed him” lodged in my skull and I couldn’t shake them loose. I forced myself to think of Derek as the hell transporter in his beastly form: fangs dripping, red eyes bulging, talons piercing my skin. Visualizing the demon he was inside made it easier to think about killing him, but I still couldn’t dwell on it. This is ‘kill or be killed’ I reminded myself, and I wasn’t about to let him take Aiden away from me.

  Pushing the thought from my mind, I sifted through Jen’s dresser drawer while Aiden lounged on Steph’s bed, the purple comforter neatly made up beneath him. Steph’s fuzzy slippers stuck out from under the bed, in perfect alignment, ready for her to slip them on in the morning. Everything about her side of the room was perfectly organized, from the top of her dresser with its parallel lines of plastic trays for her make-up—eye shadow in one, lipstick in another—to her desk in the corner, devoid of messy papers, its worn surface covered only by a table lamp and Steph’s laptop.

  Jen’s section of the room was the complete opposite: overflowing with clothes, books, hair accessories and who-knows-what-else. Her closet doors wouldn’t even close because of the avalanche of shoes spilling onto the floor. I smiled to myself, realizing that Jen would have no idea I’d pawed through her dresser—let alone borrowed a bikini—and that Steph would know without a doubt that someone had sat on her bed.

  My fingers settled on a red bikini with gold hoops, one of Jen’s more generously cut suits, and I grabbed it out of the drawer.

  “Where’s the rest of it?” Aiden asked, his brow puckered in disapproval.

  “This is it, both pieces. You should see her pink one. It’s…uh…well, let’s just say it wouldn’t fit me.” He harrumphed and crossed his arms. Figuring ‘out of sight, out of mind’ sounded like a good idea right about then, I stuffed the suit into my bag. “Let me just grab a thumb drive for my history essay and then we can go.”

  “Thumb drive?”

  “Yeah, it’s a little thingymajig you plug into the…” I called over my shoulder as I riffled through the papers in my desk drawer.

  Just then, the door rattled against the hinges as if someone was frantically trying to wrench it open. I turned in time to see Steph burst through the door.

  My heart stopped.

  Her hair stuck out in a mass of tangles around her head and a crack ran through one lens of her eyeglasses. She gulped in huge breaths like she’d gotten here at a dead run. The torn sleeve of her dress hung limply to her elbow, baring the white strap of her bra. Her swollen left cheek showed the start of a nasty bruise. Blood pooled in her mouth from a cut on her lip.

  “Steph! What happened?” I ran to her side and she collapsed in my arms.

  “Micah… he…” She couldn’t get the words out and began to sob—deep, heart-wrenching cries that hollowed out my center and filled me with an overwhelming sense of dread. I guided her over to the bed and held her, gently prodding for more information. Aiden handed me a handkerchief that I pressed to her lip to contain the bleeding. When she could speak again, she had to stop after every few words to draw a breath.

  “I was at his dorm and we were kissing… He wanted to go all the way… said if I really loved him, I’d do it. But I couldn’t, I just couldn’t…” She labored to force the words out, her eyes unfocused. “He got angry. Called me a bitch and a tease.” She stopped to get a breath and the sobs overtook her again. I cradled her against my chest and stroked her hair gently, trying to calm her. It seemed to help, to not have to look me in the eye, and she relaxed a little against me.

  “I tried to leave and then he grabbed me. He flung me down on the ground. He… he ripped my dress…” She trailed off and I continued my soothing sounds. Her voice got very small. “He said he was sick and tired of waiting for me and that if I wasn’t going to give it up, he was just going to take it.”

  Oh God, no. Please say he didn’t rape her. My heart constricted at the thought.

  Her bottom lip quivered and she whispered to me, her voice straining with pain. “He hit me. He kept hitting me. And I knew he was going to ra—“ She choked on the word, unable to go on.

  “But he didn’t? You got away?” I asked, praying with every fiber in my being that I was right.

  “I just left my stuff and ran for the door.” She nodded and relief flooded through me like cold water on a hot day. Once the story was out, she fell apart again and I held her tight against me, feeling utterly helpless and wishing there were something I could do.

  “It’s gonna be all right. You’re safe now,” I murmured as I rocked her back and forth like a child. Anger blinded me so completely that I had to concentrate to keep my voice level. I wanted to find Micah and kill him with my bare hands. Apparently, I was not the only one. Aiden stood before us, his face carved from stone.

  “I’ll find him, lass. He will pay for what he has done, I promise ye that.” His voice was gentle as he addressed Steph, but the steely edge in it left no room for doubt about exactly how much Micah would pay.

  “Give me your dirk,” I said. While I was more than happy to have Aiden kick his ass, I didn’t want him going to jail for armed assault. Frowning, Aiden nodded, then handed the blade over.

  “Come on,” I said to Steph after tucking the weapon into my bag. “We need to call the police.”

  She shook her head with a fresh wave of hysteria.

  “NO! No police! No one else can know!” Wild panic transformed her features and I reluctantly relented, not sure what to do. “And I can’t stay here. He might come after me. Can I stay with you at Aiden’s place tonight?” Her pleading was a knife through my heart. I’d never seen her like this. My best friend Steph was crazy neat and organized, but she was also the type of girl who always seemed to have her stuff together emotionally. While I was suffering whiplash from losing Aiden last year, she’d been there for me, a solid and dependable presence when I needed her the most. Seeing her desperate and afraid now was almost more than I could take.

  “Of course you can stay with us,” I said, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over. Her whole body went limp with relief.

  Aiden escorted us out to the parking lot and settled Steph into the car with such tenderness, it took my breath away.

  “You’re safe now, lass. I’ll not let him hurt ye again,” he said before closing her door. He kissed me briefly and handed me the keys. “I’ll sleep on the couch. Don’t wait up for me.” He started to move into the shadows and I called him back.

  “Aiden?”

  He turned and looked at me, the moonlight illuminating his features.

  “Don’t kill him,” I whispered, though every ounce of me wanted to shout the opposite. The whisper of an evil smile flitted over Aiden’s lips, the scariest face I’d ever seen him make.

  “I’m merely going to have a wee chat with him, man-to-man. And if he’d like to swing a fist, I’ll be happy to oblige,” he said and then disappeared into the night.

  When I got Steph home to Aiden’s cottage, I helped her bathe and wrapped her in my warmest nightgown. I combed out her hair and
gave her a sleep aid to help stave off the nightmares that would surely come. She fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. Lying in the bed next to her, I listened to her breathing and finally fell apart myself. When Aiden came in several hours later, I crept into the living room. He drew me into his arms and held me while I cried for my best friend.

  The next few days passed by in a fog. Trying to be strong and supportive for Steph but feeling hollow inside, I knew there was nothing I could do to change what had happened. No one saw or heard from Micah and I started to worry that Aiden had been a little too thorough in his punishment, but he assured me that Micah was still alive and breathing when he left him that night. He didn’t give me any details beyond that, but I didn’t really want to know.

  It broke my heart to be around Steph because her eyes seemed dead somehow. I couldn’t get her to smile, no matter how hard I tried to cheer her. I started staying with her at the dorm because she was terrified of being alone. Paul had gotten a single room this year, rather than rooming with Ravi and Micah. So Jen usually stayed at his dorm, leaving Steph by herself. I didn’t begrudge her the time, but it was so hard to be around Steph when all the joy had been stripped from her.

  I got an idea and talked to Brandon to see if he and his brother had any gigs coming up. They had one set for the very next night and were ecstatic at the prospect of her joining them. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to at first, but the more she thought about it, the more the idea seemed to breathe new life into her.

  “Micah would hate that,” she said and I agreed. Then she smiled, her first true smile, and I wanted to cry with relief at the sight. This was far from over, but she was going to make it.

  Chapter 34

  Friday night at 11:59 p.m., I stood at the entrance to the pool, steeling myself for what I was about to do. Gripping the door handle, wearing nothing but Jen’s red bikini—one set of gold hoops digging into my hips, the other set suspended between my breasts—I took deep breaths and concentrated on what it had felt like to be inside the hell transporter’s head that night back at the ranch.