by Lora Edwards
Bran walked over and picked it up. Reading the contents quickly, he then gave it to Ovidia and strode out of the room, hollering for the downstairs maid as he went.
Ovidia read the missive then ran after him. She found him in the downstairs hall, where Bran towered over a sobbing Adalind.
Ovidia placed her arm around the trembling girl and glared at Bran. “Bran, knock it off. You’re scaring her half to death, and there is no way to get information from her if she is too scared to speak.” Ovidia rubbed the girl’s arm. “Adalind, can you tell us who gave you the note?”
The girl hiccupped and turned her tear-streaked face toward Ovidia.
“It was a child. He said he was paid to deliver it to Lady Draconus, and it was of the utmost importance. That is all I know, I swear it. I feel responsible, I hope the lady is okay.” Adalind again dissolved into tears.
“It’s all right Adalind, I didn’t mean to be so harsh with you. I’m just worried about Teagan,” Bran said to her in a softer voice, trying to calm the crying girl.
Returning to the library, he pulled the cord, and the housekeeper arrived a moment later.
“Sir, how may I be of assistance,” she asked Bran.
“Get Adalind here some tea, please. She has had quite a shock. It looks as if Lady Draconus is missing. No one leaves or comes into the house without my express permission,” he told her.
The housekeeper curtsied. “I will make the staff aware sir.”
Bran nodded. She was a brownie and would make sure the house was secure.
“Ovidia, we have to find her.” Bran paced with a frown on his face and his hands in his pockets. How? We don’t even know where she was taken,” Ovidia cried.
Bran tapped his head. “She is my mate, I can communicate with her.”
“What if she doesn’t return the feelings,” Ovidia asked.
“It doesn’t matter. She can learn to shut me out of course, but she has not been taught that yet. She will hear me,” Bran said.
He sat in the library chair and closed his eyes. He would have to open his heart and accept her as his mate for this to work. He would have to say the final binding words, forever linking them. He would never love another. If she chose to not return his feelings, he would live a half-life, never able to love anyone else, never able to feel whole.
“I, Bran Alwyn Dragos, declare Teagan Elizabeth Faelyn to be my mate for this life and all the lives that come after.” Bran felt a warm glow spread through him, felt a tingle around his left ring finger as a dragon appeared. The dragon wrapped around his finger, its tail in its mouth. He had made the final binding, and the same symbol would appear on Teagan’s left ring finger. Hers would not be permanent until she either accepted or rejected his claim, but he would be able to communicate telepathically with her through the initial link. If she made the final link, they would share each other’s emotions and have a distinct sense of where the other was at all times.
Bran felt the weight of the symbol like chains. He was not ready to mate—he did not even know if he wanted to mate at all, but fate had taken the decision from him and he would deal with the consequences if it meant being able to save her life.
Closing his eyes once again, he reached out. “Teagan, can you hear me?”
Chapter 20
“Teagan can you hear me,” She heard it faintly as she watched Duke Harrison pace around the small room where she was being held.
Bran was in her head? Had her crazy Hail Mary plea worked?
“Teagan, it worked. This is Bran.” Teagan felt something warm around the ring finger of her left hand. Looking down, she saw the faint outline of a dragon circled her finger. It looked fierce, like she imagined Bran would look in dragon form, its tail tucked into its mouth. One gleaming emerald eye appeared to be watching her.
“What the hell,” she whispered to herself, looking up sharply at the man muttering to himself in the corner. She had not attracted his attention, and she instinctively knew this was something she wanted to hide from him, something he should not know.
“Bran?” Teagan thought, feeling silly, like she may be engaging her hallucination.
She heard Bran’s voice again, stronger this time. “Teagan, yes, I can hear you. Where are you?”
“I’m not sure, but I think not far from the city—we didn’t travel by carriage long. It isn’t Duke Somerton, it’s Duke Harrison, the Duke of Clarence. He kidnapped me.”
“We found the note, I will find you!” Teagan winced from the shout in her head.
“Binding too tight my dear,” Duke Harrison asked, a deranged smile crossing his face. “I apologize, but until you learn that I am your master now, they will be a necessity.” He turned from her again, continuing to mutter and play with whatever he had laid out on the table before him.
“Teagan, are you still there?” Bran’s voice was softer this time.
“Yes. Your yelling was loud, and it hurt my head,” she responded.
“I’m sorry, I’m new to this,” Bran responded gently.
“New to talking to people inside their heads? I didn’t know you could even do that,” Teagan responded.
“How I can do it is not important right now. Can you tell me anything about your surroundings?”
“I think we are in an old church, in the crypt in the basement.”
“Okay, we’re coming. Just hold on, and keep him talking if you can,” Bran said, and then he was gone. Teagan could feel his absence in her mind.
Keep him talking—it was worth a try. Teagan straightened her shoulders and turned to the deranged killer. She had always wanted to talk to him, to know his motives, and now she had him as a captive audience. She just hoped she stayed alive long enough to be able to put what she learned to use.
Bran blinked a few times and then looked at Ovidia. “I think I know where she is.”
“What did she say,” Ovidia asked.
“ I think he’s holding her on his ancestor’s estate. It’s on the outskirts of town and I know there’s an old church on the property.”
“How do you even know that,” Ovidia asked him.
“We talked about it at one of the parties. He discussed how he wanted to renovate the place, how he wanted to preserve the murals in the church. It was just party conversation, but it is going to come in handy now. We have to go. I told her to keep him talking—he loves to talk about himself. Let’s hope the same is true for his alter ego.” Bran grabbed her hand and pulled her through the house, calling for horses at the top of his lungs.
His heart thudded in his chest. He could not lose her. He would come to terms with mating. If she died, a part of him would die along with her. Dragons mated for life, and he did not want to live the rest of his long life as a shadow of himself.
Teagan looked around the sparse room. It was an old building with walls of stone, and cold water dripped down them as if the structure itself was weeping.
“Why me,” she asked him, hoping to get a dialogue started. “I’m not anything special.”
He turned to her, and the mask he wore for society had slipped. The madness glowed brightly in his eyes.
“Nothing special, my dear? You are quite the contrary. You are the daughter of a royal fae and a powerful witch. If that mark you are trying so desperately to hide from me is any indication, you have been marked as the potential mate of a dangerous dragon, and that makes you so special.” He had a small smile on his face.
“Mate of a dragon? What are you talking about?” Teagan frowned, momentarily forgetting the perilous nature of her situation.
“Never mind the dragon, he is not important,” he yelled fiercely. “It was not even your royal fae ancestry that made you special to me, it was your field of study,” he said, smiling at her maniacally. “It showed me that we were destined to be together. You spent so much time studying me and my victims, even teaching courses all about little ol’ me. I even heard a public lecture you did once when you said that if only you could unmask me, meet
me, oh the questions you would ask! Now, my dear, you have your chance. We are going to be together for eternity and you will have all the time you need to satisfy your curiosity.”
Teagan could not stop the look of horror and disgust that crossed her face. All those times she had felt as if someone was watching her or that someone had been in her office or apartment, she had not been losing it. It had been him stalking her, waiting for the opportunity to strike.
“I see that look on your pretty face, can see you have feelings for the dragon. I will change your mind though, and you will help me on my mission.” He circled the chair she sat in, twisting his hands as he walked.
“Your mission,” Teagan asked.
“Yes, to rid the world of the filth of prostitution, those women selling their bodies and their wombs for money. When a child is conceived they get rid of it, or beat it, or sell it for their own purposes. They do not deserve to live, to walk on the same earth as you.” Spittle flew from his lips as he shouted the angry words.
“Why prostitutes, here, in this time? We have plenty in the modern age, so why here?”
“Because, my dear girl, here is where I was formed. Here in Whitechapel, I was born to a whore, and she did not even know who my father was. She liked the liquor, and she ended up whoring herself for the drink she coveted. She beat me, used me, and finally drank herself to death. I found her cold and staring one morning, an empty bottle beside her. I went out on my own, and the very institute you work for found me, recognized my talent for time travel.
“They took me in, trained me. They taught me to travel as you do, through time and space. One night I was coming out of a pub and I was attacked by a rogue vampire. I thought my life was over until I went forward and stumbled across a paper you had written on Jack the Ripper. I saw your face and knew you would understand me, would share my passion and rail against the whores of this world with me. What was your past; was my future. I researched all I could using your papers as a guide. When I had the information I needed, I came back in time. I stalked the original Jack and slaughtered him. That first murder was not mine, but I followed his pattern, leaving a small clue on the second body for the institute.
“They then knew it was a supernatural killer, and as I knew they would, they brought you, playing right into my hands. And now, my lovely, here we are.” He leaned over her, his face blurring as he came closer and closer to her own. Teagan could not stop the revulsion she felt from crossing her face. She tried to twist away from him.
He leaned back, hurt crossing his face. “You do not believe in my vision yet. You are still blinded by what you believe is right, and your feelings for the dragon, but that will change, my sweet. You will learn to love me—I will make sure of it,” he stated as he ran one finger down her cheek and across her lips before grabbing her face and squeezing hard. “You will love me, or there will be consequences, not just for you, but for those you love. It is in your best interest to do as I say, as lives hang in the balance.” He giggled again and shifted to the side.
She could now see the board he had been working on before. There were pictures of her, pictures of her family, places, dates, addresses. To her horror, she saw he had everything he needed to get to her family.
Below the board, a table full of bloody surgical instruments—the tools of his trade.
Teagan closed her eyes and thought, “Bran, be careful, but hurry.”
He heard her whispered plea and urged his horse faster. The lathered horse gave more speed and Bran apologized to the animal, promising extra oats. As much as he wanted to, he could not shift to his animal form—a dragon flying across the skyline of London was bound to draw attention.
He looked over at the determined face of Ovidia as she drove her horse just as hard. “We’ll find her alive Vid, we will,” Bran shouted over the sound of the horses’ hooves.
Ovidia looked over at him, hope and fear twin sparks in her eyes.
After what felt like an eternity, the rundown estate came into view. They slowed their horses to a walk; they did not want to alert him to their presence. Bran and Ovidia stopped and surveyed their surroundings. It was quiet, too quiet—the estate must not have been occupied. Tying their horses to a tree, they dismounted, and Ovidia drew her sword, Bran a .44 Magnum.
“There’s the old church,” Bran whispered, pointing it out to Ovidia.
Her nod of acknowledgement was all he needed. They had worked together many times and functioned well as a team. They crept up on the old structure, entering silently. Finding the stone steps that led down to the crypt, they crept down, stopping just before a curve in the wall.
Bran nodded at Ovidia. He heard voices—the sweet sound of Teagan’s and the deeper voice of her kidnapper.
Teagan felt a warmth flare up around the design on her finger, and she shifted her hands in their bindings to cover the dragon that had started to lightly shimmer. Could this mean Bran was close? She did not dare reach out to contact him; he would need to be on full alert.
She was afraid this man, who wanted her, who had stalked her and killed the original Jack to take his place, would also kill Bran.
“My dear, the hour grows late, and we will have to quit these accommodations soon. Is there any period of history you fancy? We will need to move around in time to be one step ahead of the institute. We wouldn’t want them finding us, no we wouldn’t.” He smiled that maniacal smile at her again as he looked around the little room. He knelt beside her and used a sharp curved blade to cut the bindings around her legs.
“Now you are going to go willingly, yes? I would not want to have you watch me kill your mother, or maybe your father?”
Teagan shook her head “No, I’ll go willingly,” she said.
“Teagan, we are around the corner of the wall. We are here, and you are going to be safe,” Bran’s voice whispered inside her head.
She jumped at the sound, glad her captor took it as a reaction to the grip he had on her arm.
“Now my love, no tricks, hmmm? We wouldn’t want Mommy or Daddy to suffer, would we,” he asked again.
Teagan shook her head as he led her closer to the staircase where she knew Bran and Ovidia hid. Her heart thundered in her chest.
The steps came into view, and as she went to step up on the first one, a forceful battle cry sounded as Ovidia came barreling down the stairs, knocking them over.
“Run Teagan,” she cried as she wrestled with Duke Harrison.
“NOOOOOOOOO,” he screamed as Teagan scrambled up the stairs and ran right into Bran.
A shout rose up from Ovidia below. “Bran watch out, he has a knife,” she yelled as she cursed, the sounds of a struggle echoing in the staircase.
Shoving Teagan behind him, Bran ran down to the stairs to help Ovidia.
Teagan moved to the bottom of the stairs in time to watch Bran wrestle Duke Harrison to the ground and place glowing handcuffs around his hands, the same type the Ripper had used to bind her hands.
“Clever, you think you are clever, Dragon. You may have won this round, but there is still more to come.” Duke Harrison looked right at Teagan, his eyes glowing with malice. “It could have been easy, my sweet, but now you will have to be punished. You may think you have won, but you haven’t. Enjoy your reprieve—I will be coming for you,” he said as his stare burned into her, causing Teagan’s blood to run cold.
“Ovidia? Bran,” came from the top of the stairs.
“Down here,” called Bran, looking at Teagan. “It’s the institute. They’ll take him away, and he will not be able to hurt you, Teagan. We will imprison him in a place he will never escape. Hold up your hands.” Teagan raised her cuffed hands, and Bran quickly unlocked them then tucked them in his pocket.
Two men descended the staircase, grabbed the howling Duke Harrison, and hauled him back up the stairs as he continued to threaten them.
Bran moved to Teagan, wrapping her in his arms. “It’s over now. You did it—you captured Jack the Ripper.”
&nb
sp; “I know this is a love fest and all, but do you two think you could give a girl a little help here?” Ovidia said.
Turning, Bran and Teagan looked at Ovidia. “Ovidia, are you hurt?” Teagan asked, hurrying over to her.
“Just a flesh wound, I’ll survive,” Ovidia said nonchalantly.
Bran reached over and ripped off a piece of Teagan’s skirt, using it to staunch the flow of blood from Ovidia’s shoulder.
“Bastard was quick,” she muttered, wincing as Bran dressed the wound.
“Let’s get out of here,” Bran suggested as he helped Ovidia up. “Think you can ride,” he asked her.
“Of course, I can ride, what do you take me for,” she asked as she glided past him and up the stairs of the church.
Bran held out his hand to Teagan. “Let’s go home.”
Teagan placed her hand in his and let him lead her out of the church.
Chapter 21
Teagan sat on the side of the bed, looking around the room. Once again dressed in her favorite jeans, a sage cashmere sweater, and flats, she felt almost naked. Her thoughts turned to the past few days. They had wrapped up the Ripper investigation, including an interview with the Duke of Somerton to ascertain his role in the situation.
The poor man had broken down crying, he confessed that woman he loved Mary Kelly was a poor prostitute from the east end. Duke Harrison had threatened to expose him to his family if he did not participate in painting the horrors he requested and the large painting of Lady Draconus. He had no idea he was actually carrying out the murders portrayed in the paintings, and that the love of his life was the next intended victim. He just believed that Duke Harrison had an unhealthy obsession with the ripper murders.
He was relieved to find he had been incarcerated, and he had worked up the courage to talk to his family about the girl he loved—he had made a tidy sum with his paintings and did not need their money, if they did not want to accept her. He thanked them for stopping Duke Harrison. He promised to never reveal the identity of the ripper, and was surprised to learn of the small trickle of supernatural talent that helped his paintings be so lifelike.
