by Becky Banks
I cried out as the first of the blissful culminations rocked through my body; my nails dragged against his skin as the tremors of the final earthquake began to shake me.
The molecules, the very air around us, fissioned, ripping through the space. The fire beside us shot up the chimney as if stoked by gasoline, and the thunderous storm sent a low, bellowing roar through the stone, knocking books from their shelves.
My belly clenched as I gripped Rowan and he, me; sweat dripped out under my breasts as we moved, sweat-slickened, together. The second storm cascaded through me, making me gasp out for air in relief, and then, like the lightning that lit the night sky, Rowan uttered an oath in release.
Energy hot and white tore through us, and my legs around Rowan pulled him even deeper as I rode the last waves of the orgasm to its finish. A voice much like mine screamed in ecstasy, echoing off the walls of the lodge, matching the energy and strength of the storm battering at the doors and windows. Rowan’s voice responded a low rumble that tumbled us both until we collapsed in exhaustion on and within each other.
CHAPTER 35
At some point in the night we’d moved to even more comfortable surroundings, and the next morning we lounged naked under the bedcovers in one of the sparsely furnished lodge bedrooms. Light streamed through the slats of the shutters, spilling ladder-like light upon the floor and illuminating small dust motes as they floated in the beams.
“Ye know, there is one thing tha’ I’m curious about,” Rowan said, his arm around me as I rested my head on his chest.
“Oh? Just one?” I asked, playfully biting him.
“Ouch!” he said, giving me a look of mock stern reprimand. “No, no. I have many, but for now, just one. I was remembering back to the night ye put down Eryka on the terrace at the gala. Which one of your brothers taught ye tha’, and how big is he?”
“Why?”
“Aye, I’ll have to make a phone call to your family, letting them know what has happened, I just want to know which of your brothers, or how many ye have, tha’ will be coming for me. That’s all.”
“Oh, that’s all, huh?” I said, coming up on an elbow and looking down at him. “Well, first. I’ll be calling my parents, so you won’t have to—”
Rowan made a noncommittal grunt, telling me that he’d probably call them anyway. “But how many brothers do ye have?” he asked, looking up at me.
“Just the one,” I said. “What else are you thinking of?” I could see his mind had changed subjects and was now elsewhere.
“Mmmph.” I felt his hand slide into my hair. “Ye, of course,” he said. “What are ye thinking of?”
“Well, right this moment I’m imagining how nice it would be to have you cook me breakfast. But I know that won’t happen, since the power seems to still be out.”
“Aye. Maybe we should head into town. I need to be in touch with the police today, and I don’t know when the phones will be back up.”
I put my nose to his chest and breathed him in. “Can it wait a bit? We’re perfectly safe up here, and I’m sure it’ll be fine as long as you’re in touch with them by this afternoon—it’s still early yet. I was thinking, since you can’t cook for me, that you could do something else for me . . . ”
Rowan raised an eyebrow. “Och love, if it were just a matter of stolen property I would, but I dinnae want to take chances with this lot and ye. Honestly, I’m having a hard time thinking of much else.”
I smiled. “Was that a challenge?”
CHAPTER 36
It was some time later, after Rowan gave in and we “made randy fucking love” all morning, that we departed for town (after un-trapping the hillside). Glentree focuses on restoring power to the most populous areas first. Without knowing when it would come back on that day—if that week, even, considering the remoteness of the cabin—we were forced down from the mountain so Rowan could make the necessary phone calls.
Even though Rowan didn’t ask, I was sure the question would come up soon: how much longer could I stay? In any case, I felt that researching a permanent visa and submittal requirements seemed like a good starting place. We reluctantly parted at the library, Rowan only letting me go after Deloris said she’d seen hide nor hair of Eryka, Kelly, and Gregoire and I promised I’d call him when I was done so he could escort me back to his place—our place—at Castle Laoch.
I was keenly aware that coming down from the mountain was like leaving another planet, one where only he and I existed. While I could do the research I’d intended at his offices, I was back in reality and not ready to display for all the world that we were together, opening ourselves to public comments, just yet. However, we did plan to take the first step later, back in the privacy of his apartment—calling my family and informing them of what had happened in just a few days. Despite Rowan’s encouragement, I was still debating how much to tell them; I didn’t want them to have a collective heart attack or, despite the inevitable, feed on this gossip until the day I died.
Deloris was relieved that everything had been OK after Rowan’s and my unorthodox departure. I didn’t tell her all the ugly details—she’d get them, no doubt, when the arrests of Gregoire, Kelly, and Eryka broke the news, as I was sure they would be arrested. After some time with her, absentmindedly, and admittedly punch-drunk with love, I left the library and meandered toward Will and Carol’s on autopilot. I got all the way to the front door of the bed-and-breakfast before I realized that I had neglected to call Rowan. Feeling the need to capitalize on my presence at Will and Carol’s—thank them after my hasty departure and settle any debts—I headed around back to the private patio where they sat in the early afternoons.
I got only halfway down the alley between the rows of old houses when something hard pressed into my lower back. Before I could turn, before I could yell, a pop of fizz sounded, my muscles contracted, and the world went black.
CHAPTER 37
Rowan stood furious in his office at the administrative building, the phone digging into his ear under his own angry force, while he waited for the investigator to come back on the line. Eryka, Kelly, and Gregoire all had apparently airtight alibis and, with the phones and power being down, the police hadn’t been able to contact him and had not taken them into custody. The investigator had just put him on hold to dispatch police to the threesome’s respective homes and get more information on their last whereabouts.
A light rap on the doorframe drew his attention. Dr. Peabody waved in his light-hearted style. “Oh! You are on the phone. I’ll just wait then,” he said, reclining into the chair in front of Rowan’s desk.
Rowan just shook his head at the professor, “Not now, Peabody.”
“Oh, OK.” Then he asked, “Is everything OK?”
“Aye—” Rowan said, and he felt the room pitch, then fizz with electricity.
Cole’s voice came softly to him: Rowan.
He felt his knees give out from under him, and then the world went out.
CHAPTER 38
I dreamed of driving, bumping over and through potholes on a clogged freeway in the dead of night. Fear was in my rearview mirror, pushing me to keep my foot on the gas. The other cars seemed to automatically slide out of my way, letting me speed by unseen in the dark.
My mind recoiled when it realized that it was dark, suffocatingly dark, in my dream. Exhaust fumes filled my lungs and burned my nose, choking me.
I awoke in a rush of fear and panic to find that I was living part of my dream. I was in a cramped space, breathing exhaust, and listening to the undeniable sound of a car motor. I’d been folded into a trunk. My hands and feet were bound with packing tape, as was my mouth, which I realized when I screamed and heard only muffled silence.
The realization of all these things came slowly and at a rate of one understanding at a time, individual small explosions timed to build to a grand finale. My hands bound, feet inseparable, and mouth gagged, I felt a full-blown claustrophobia attack close its debilitating arms around me.
&
nbsp; Only something else entirely happened. Something I had not counted on, another emotion filling the space and derailing the attack. One that ran hot and fierce through my ancestry and my family, making us, and ultimately me, the hotheaded, stubborn species we were.
Anger swept through me, directed toward those who had zapped me, taped me, and stuffed me unceremoniously into the back of this automobile. In a moment of pure inspiration, I thought of all those ridiculous e-mail forwards that my mother regularly sent to me—one in particular, concerning what to do when kidnapped and trapped in the trunk of a car. The only thing I remembered was the recommendation to kick out a tail light.
Had the person who’d written that e-mail ever even seen a trunk, let alone been in one? There was barely enough room for me lying still, let alone me slamming my feet forward. But slam I did, and with vengeance.
The car stopped suddenly, rocking me backward. This was followed by the sounds of footsteps on gravel. I hunkered tight, like a coiled spring.
A key scraped inside the trunk lock and led to the unmistakable clunk of the latch giving way, letting the lid rise up.
As soon as I saw flesh, I kicked.
I put everything I had into that single move and was rewarded. My feet made solid contact with a narrow frame and sent it staggering backward.
Somewhere in me I’d known that Eryka had been the one who’d stuffed me into the trunk of this car. It was as if my body remembered the sound of her voice and the cruelty she had shown me.
I wasted no time wriggling from the trunk, falling heavily onto the ground, and squirming, then hopping, for the trees.
The road and trees, oaks and pines, felt strikingly familiar. If it was indeed the forest I recognized, then Eryka was more of a fool than I had thought, or she assumed I was, because Castle Laoch would be just over a low rise and across a small stream.
The roadside sloped sharply down into the forest, and I didn’t hop far before I lost my balance and pitched forward. Saplings and small shrubs slapped and scratched me as I tumbled by. I heard a shot ring out, and then the bullet splintered a tree just past me. I’d fallen out of sight at just the right moment.
But that wasn’t enough for my insides, which had gone liquid with fear at being shot at. My belly clenched, and I ripped the tape from my mouth with my bound hands just as I was sick on the forest floor. I didn’t—couldn’t—pause. Scrambling, I hopped and threw myself forward toward a large oak—its expanse would be more than wide and thick enough to protect me. A second shot whined past my ear and struck the oak’s trunk, ricocheting pieces of bark into my face. I slumped lower.
Behind the tree, panting, back pressed against the rough bark, I acted on instinct. I bit and tore at the tape at my wrists. Blood dripped into my eye, and I wiped it away with my shoulder and went to work on the tape wrapped around my ankles.
I heard an animal-like scream, and my oak was peppered with bullets.
“I’ll get you! You can try to run, but I’ll get you!” Eryka shrieked, her voice echoing hollow and demented through the forest.
Oh my god, I thought and steeled my nerves against the instinct to curl myself into a ball and whimper.
My mind, through the chaos, became sharp. I acknowledged that this was indeed the back part of Castle Laoch. Eryka was mad for having pulled over here and especially for setting off a Fourth of July’s worth of bullets—someone would no doubt hear it and call for help. Though not, I knew, before she kicked off her heels and came for me.
I swore. Then ran.
CHAPTER 39
Rowan jolted awake to Peabody shaking his shoulder. “Rowan! What just happened? I’ll call a doctor.”
“No.” Rowan struggled to his feet and sat back heavily on the edge of his desk. Bracing himself there, he shook his head to clear the clanging—it sounded like his head was a bell tower at noon.
“Rowan . . . ” Peabody said, concern in his voice. “Are you having a flashback?”
“Flashback?”
“From the war . . . ”
Rowan’s eye twitched. “Aye. No, I’ve not had . . . ” he trailed off, then finished simply with, “No. It’s not tha’.”
“Have you eaten anything today? Here, let me fetch you lunch—that must be what it is.”
It came back to Rowan in a rush: “Cole.”
Peabody halted at the door and turned back, his eyes wide in recognition behind his spectacles. “You’ve shared an experience . . . and one that wasn’t so good.”
Rowan was frozen, trying to feel for Cole, to feel that reassuring vibration of her living and breathing on his lands, that she was alive and close.
Anguish crossed Rowan’s face and he strode past Peabody and from the room, grasping a windbreaker from its wall hook on his way out.
Peabody had to jog to catch up to the chieftain. “Rowan! Please wait—what has happened? Has something happened?”
Peabody skidded to a halt as Rowan whirled on him, pain and fury crossing his features and reminding the professor of what he’d heard about panthers: they quietly go about their business, avoiding others as much as possible—but corner one, and it becomes as lethal as a well-placed knife.
“What do you think?” he hissed at the professor.
Peabody took a steadying breath and looked the panther in the eye. “I think that you are panicked because you cannot feel her.”
The chieftain simply sneered, “Correct, professor.”
“Then let me help,” he said.
“How?”
Peabody dug keys from his pocket. “Let us go wherever it is more swiftly than by running.”
Rowan snatched the keys from the professor and ran for the tiny Vauxhall rental.
“So, where are we going?” Peabody cried as he ran after Rowan.
“To Castle Laoch,” Rowan threw over his shoulder.
Peabody was barely in the passenger seat before Rowan rocketed them out of the parking lot and onto the main road toward the castle.
The top speed and shocks of the Vauxhall were all tested as small dips in the road became speed ramps, shooting the tiny car airborne. Peabody closed his eyes until suddenly the car screeched to a stop, throwing him against his seatbelt. In the next moment, Rowan was out of the car, slamming the door behind him.
The ladies staffing the front desk at the castle had not seen Cole. She was not in his—their—personal quarters upstairs, where they were supposed to meet and call her parents. The ghostly face of Vick, a black hole in his forehead, flashed in Rowan’s memory.
Rowan, standing in his flat, roared in frustration and panic. He picked up the nearest object and threw it with all his might. The desk lamp shattered loudly against the far stone wall.
He reached for another object and stilled.
Something stirred his blood. It wasn’t panic, frustration, or even anger. It was the low tone of the woman he loved—the one that, a single moment before, he thought he’d lost forever. The hum reverberated through his being.
At the bottom of the stairs, he nearly bowled over the professor, again.
“You’ve found her?”
“Aye, and no. I just know that she’s alive.”
Right then the elderly front-desk ladies came running, hands flailing, toward them.
“Sir! Oh, my Lord!” the first one cursed in fear. “Sir!” She gripped the front of her blouse with one hand.
The other, a hand on her colleague’s shoulder in support, said, “Gun shots, sir.”
As if on cue, he heard the bustling below of more people rushing in and spreading the news.
“Where?”
The two women shook their heads. “Dinnae know . . . It’s just that all the guests are saying that they heard them. Maybe in the forest behind—it was not too close.”
“Get the police here,” Rowan called over his shoulder, already almost at the doors. “Where is John?”
“He’s out the back gathering in the guests.”
“Aye, good,” he said, and left them
.
CHAPTER 40
Running full out, I zigzagged around trees and saplings, my feet crunching dead leaves from the previous winter on the forest floor. Another shot rang out, and again it went wide. Without breaking my stride, I reached the river.
Running high with the spring and early-summer rains, the river was too dangerous for wading, even with a gun pointed at me. Large, moss-covered rocks formed a hopscotch bridge across the river, and I had to take my chances that Eryka would continue to be a terrible shot. I clambered up the first rock, hands and knees slipping, taking chunks of moss with them. Crouching, I inched to the edge and sprang to the next rock. My foot hit wrong and I went down, slamming my chest into the basalt. Another shot, closer than I’d expected.
Breathless, I looked back. Eryka came to a sliding halt and brought her pistol up, aimed steadily. I did the only thing I could—I slipped off the downstream side of the rock. Another shot rang out and, just as I pitched into the freezing water, I heard the bullet strike rock.
The water’s chilly fingers saturated my sweater, jeans, and shoes instantly, and the current took me. I struggled to breathe and avoid boulders as the water slammed me under, and then spouted me back up. Eventually I realized that this was much faster than trying to outrun Eryka, and I would soon be at Castle Laoch, where I could alert Rowan, and possibly set myself on fire. I figured—as I passed under a service bridge at the outer edges of the gardens, where the water noticeably slowed—that would be the only way I’d be warm enough to feel my appendages again.
I dog-paddled to the shore. Further downstream was the narrow bridge that crossed the river and led into the gardens and, beyond, to Castle Laoch—but the service road was immediately to my left.
Heavy and freezing with cold river water, I still moved with speed. The service road ended at the boathouse. I leapt over the curb and sloshed down onto the parking lot and tried the boathouse office door. Locked. I started pounding on the door before I saw the handwritten note hung on it: Gone. Will be back in 10 minutes.
