“How can it be my fault?” he asked reasonably, as if they weren’t lying half-naked in each other’s arms in the middle of the park.
“My life was perfect until you came along.”
“Your life was dull and boring, Melanie. I’ve brought excitement into it. You should be grateful to me.” He found he had her breast in his hand, fondling, kneading.
“No, you’re wrong,” she went on, but there was a husky tremble in her voice, and she lifted her thigh across his.
He reached down and stroked her skin, and the strong, long line of her leg. He knew just how close he was to pushing her onto her back and taking her, again, and it was important to resist. To show himself he was the one in control here.
“My life was just as I wanted it,” she protested. “I knew everything that was going to happen to me. There were no surprises, nothing out of the ordinary ever happened…”
“It doesn’t sound like much of a life,” he murmured, trailing his fingers over her hip and then over her soft belly toward the cluster of pale curls.
She held her breath, willing him to go farther, but he didn’t.
“Nathaniel, please,” her breath was ragged, squirming against him.
“Be patient, Melanie,” he mocked, but the sweat was standing out on his brow.
She turned on him then, digging her nails into his hand, her eyes flashing like silver. Looking into them he felt light-headed and weak-kneed, as he did sometimes with the queen of the between-worlds.
Nathaniel jerked his hand away from her nails, feeling the sting where she’d cut him, and rolled on top of her. She was pinned beneath him now, and he didn’t scruple to make use of his larger size and weight to hold her down.
“You can’t live like that, Melanie.” He was breathing fast, looking intently into her eyes. “That’s not living. You were protecting yourself from being hurt, but where was the happiness? If you’ve removed all risk, then everything seems dull and bland. You need some spice.”
“Oh, and you’re the spice?” She was glaring up at him. He had hold of her wrists, and he could see her fingers clenching, wanting to get at him. There was a violence in her that had never been there before. He’d felt it himself, the wild animal beneath the skin, panting to get out.
“This is Pengorren’s doing, isn’t it?” she asked in a voice that shook. “He’s making this happen. I’ve seen him having sex with a woman, brutal sex. Maybe that’s part of what he is. Maybe he sees sex as something more than a physical act, maybe he needs it to stay alive. And now he’s using us for whatever it is he gets out of it.”
Melanie was angry, and she was scared.
“If we stay in control, then he can’t use us,” Nathaniel said, and licked at the tear that was rolling down her cheek. “We can defeat him.”
“How? Look at us!” As she said it she deliberately arched her hips, and he felt his cock brush the apex of her thighs.
He groaned, pushing her back down into the soft leaves. His voice sounded as if he’d stopped breathing. “Instead of having ‘brutal sex’ we make love. Then we win. Pengorren doesn’t understand tenderness or caring or sacrificing yourself to make someone else happy. Melanie, he doesn’t understand love.”
Melanie’s eyes filled with tears, and she closed them. Immediately Nathaniel felt his own strength returning. He began to kiss her, lavishing himself upon her. With a sob, her mouth opened beneath his, and they lost themselves in the sheer wonder.
Nathaniel slid deeply into her, felt her tremble, and began to move. She picked up his rhythm, slow and steady. Her hands were under his shirt, following the planes and curves of his back, caressing him with a studied gentleness. The effort made her shake, but he sensed she was back in control again. They both were. They were together in this, giving each other as much pleasure as they were taking.
Her body lifted against his, and she cried out, a moment before he reached his own climax. They lay gasping, rocked by the sheer force of their experience.
Melanie opened her eyes and smiled at him, and he felt that ache in his chest. “That was wonderful,” she whispered. Her smile faded. “Do you think we’ll be all right now?”
“I don’t know…” he began, and then he groaned and covered her eyes with his hand. “Close your eyes, Melanie, please. I can control it, I’m trying, but just for now I need you to close your eyes…”
She didn’t try and push his hand away, but lay there obediently. “I felt like that when I first saw Pengorren,” she said in a small voice. “I discovered that if I closed my eyes, or didn’t look directly into his, then it was all right. Nathaniel,” she went on in a rush, “I’m so sorry this is happening—”
He chuckled. “Don’t be, Melanie. I promise you, I’m well up to the task.”
Her mouth curled at the edges beneath his improvised blindfold. “I didn’t mean that. I’m not sorry for that.”
Nathaniel bent and kissed her smiling lips. “Good, because I don’t think this is the end of it, Melanie. Not by a long way.”
Twenty-five
Eddie had left the portrait in the library, resting against Miss Pengorren’s desk. Melanie stood in front of it with Nathaniel just behind her, not touching her but close enough that she could feel the security of his presence. They were still disheveled, still shaken, but calm, too. Melanie knew what Nathaniel said made sense. Pengorren was trying to strip them of all that made them human, and they had to resist him. They didn’t understand what he was up to, what drove him and why, but they knew enough to be able to remain safe from him.
For now.
“His face is gone,” Melanie said, disappointed, although Eddie had warned her that the portrait was damaged. “I really wanted to see his face. I thought if I recognized him, then I’d be able to prove to myself he was the man I saw on the beach that day.”
“You don’t have to prove anything, Melanie. Pengorren is here, and we both know it.”
“Are any of the other portraits affected like this?” Melanie asked suddenly.
“Not as far as I’m aware, and I’ve been all over the house. Do you think this is more than just bad luck?”
“I don’t know.” She dragged her fingers back through her hair, tousling it worse than ever. “That’s just it, isn’t it? No one knows.”
He leaned closer, frowning at the portrait. Melanie tried to see what he saw. The face and a good deal around it was gone, and the paint and canvas had turned an unpleasant brown color.
“What’s that chain around his neck?” she asked curiously. “Not a cross, surely.”
“No, it was a locket. He always wore it. He said it was his mother’s.”
“The key?” Melanie murmured.
Pengorren’s body was still intact. He was wearing clothing similar to Nathaniel’s in his portrait, and the scene behind him was also very similar—Ravenswood and the trees of the park—but with the addition of a woman with dark hair and a child. They were both looking toward Pengorren, who dominated the scene.
It was meant to be Sophie, Melanie supposed, and their child. Before she was locked away? Or was this simply an artist’s impression of the happy family that never existed?
“I imagine it wouldn’t be polite to paint in Dorrie and the other women and their other children,” she said dryly. “They weren’t for public consumption, although everyone knew what he was up to.”
“He used them all.”
“Is that what Pengorren has planned for me? Bonking everything that moves?”
Nathaniel cupped her face in his hands and immediately the sexual desire began to stir. “I’m more than capable of keeping you satisfied,” he said, with the sort of male arrogance she usually found so irritating but in him it was a turn-on.
“I’m sure you are,” she whispered, the heat uncoiling inside her.
Abruptly he jerked his fingers away from her skin. Stepped back. “Close your eyes, Melanie,” he said gruffly, “unless you want to spend the day in bed.”
“Temp
ting,” she replied, obediently closing her eyes and trying for a normal voice, “but I’m hungry. Peanut butter sandwich?”
Nathaniel was trying, too. “Cheese and pickle.”
“Lovely.”
They made their way downstairs to the kitchen, being very careful to keep their distance and not to touch each other.
The queen smiled to herself as she inspected the cave at the end of one of the narrower tunnels in the between-worlds. It was cramped and gloomy, and perfect for Pengorren. She’d be able to drop in and visit him as she was passing, just to remind him of all he’d lost by betraying her.
Of course he might escape her again, it was possible, but she didn’t think so. His greed would be his undoing. He’d be unable to resist the bait. And he always underestimated her, believing himself to be cleverer and more cunning. A fatal mistake.
I am infinitely patient.
But then, she could afford to be. She didn’t need to replenish her life force as Pengorren did.
The queen smiled again. Pengorren and she would have lots to talk about, and she would make sure she kept him alive.
More or less.
“No one makes a fool of me. Let that be a warning to you all!” Her voice rose and rushed through the tunnels like a windstorm. The creatures shuddered and hid, the waiting souls cried out in fear, and the doors to the between-worlds shook and rattled.
And far away, Pengorren lifted his head and listened, and knew he was running out of time.
Melanie was soaking in the bath. The water was warm, just verging on hot, but the truth was she felt too keyed up to relax. It was as if her metabolism had kicked up to high and she couldn’t slow it back down. She’d never been lacking in energy, but this was different, and anyway she should be well and truly tired after all that had happened over the past few days. Any normal woman would be completely exhausted, but not Melanie—it was like she was on a constant natural high.
Or unnatural, maybe.
She climbed out of the water and picked up the towel to dry herself. While she attended to her dripping hair, she let her thoughts drift back to Nathaniel. They tended to do that a lot, but this time they were bittersweet. She had found a man who was everything she wanted—although she’d always thought she wanted something else, but now she knew better—and he couldn’t stay. It was going to be impossible for them to have a happy ending together.
No long leisurely breakfasts in bed, no cappuccinos at the local café and reading the Sunday papers, no walks hand-in-hand and feeding the ducks, no sitting on the couch watching movies and kissing when the commercials came on…
She sensed the stirring in the air around her a moment before she heard it behind her.
Breathing.
The hairs stood up all over her body, but she didn’t turn. She had already pinpointed it; somewhere over near the cupboard where the fresh towels were kept folded. Heavy, labored breathing, as if whoever was over there was sick. Or very old.
Slowly, reluctantly, Melanie lifted her gaze to the mirror.
The steam had dissipated slightly, but the room was still damp and cloudy. It blinded her. But there was a darker shadow through the steam, something that looked as if it was bent over. She recognized it. The thing she had seen in the library was here in the bathroom, and this time it was blocking her access to the door.
Just for a moment she was numb with horror, staring at the reflection. And then the creature swayed forward, and she could hear the dry rustling as it dragged itself across the tiled floor. As it moved, the steam billowed away from it, and she saw that the head was still bowed, although the white tufts of hair were longer than before and there was more of it so that it almost completely covered the gleaming skull. Shocked, she saw that the body had expanded, too, bulked out.
Whatever it was, it was growing.
As if to prove her point, the creature began slowly to straighten up.
She screamed for Nathaniel.
She could not turn, she dared not turn, but in the mirror she could see eyes. Small, bright eyes that glowed like neon lights.
“Melanie.” It spoke in a voice that was like the crackle of old parchment. “Do not fight me. You are mine, blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh…”
Melanie screamed again and stumbled forward against the washbasin and counter, scattering shampoo and cosmetics as she scrambled to climb on top. She slipped, bruising her hip, and fell to the floor. Quickly, she rolled over and pressed herself back against the drawers, not even feeling the metal handles digging into her flesh. Through her wet and tangled hair, she faced the thing that was shuffling toward her.
That familiar sense of evil, that sickening cloud of malevolence, wafted over her and filled the room. She could taste it, and for a second she thought she was going to retch. But there was no time to be sick.
“Go away!” she screamed, reaching above her to scrabble with her hand on the basin and finding the cake of soap. She threw it.
The cake struck the thing in the middle of the chest, but it didn’t seem fazed. It came on.
“Oh God, oh God…”
Next she threw her tube of toothpaste, then the washbasin plug, and then a bottle of expensive moisturizer. Nothing stopped it; it was as if it couldn’t feel pain. Or maybe it was just so intent on getting to her that it didn’t care what she did.
The creature’s hand, more like a claw really, stretched out toward her, shaking as though it had some sort of dreadful palsy. Its face was so close now that she could not mistake it for anything other than a human face, but so old. Old beyond any possibility that it could still be living. The skin was yellowed and dried out, like something that had lain in the sun for decades, and the mouth was just a slit, without lips, without teeth. Melanie threw back her head and let loose another piercing scream.
She felt it touch her on the leg, the brush of brittle fingernails, and she jerked away in horror, crawling across the floor toward the door, sobbing for help.
The door was shaking. She hadn’t realized, until now she hadn’t heard the crashing and thudding as someone outside tried to break it down. And then suddenly the lock burst open, and Nathaniel was there. He had never looked more wonderful.
She clung to him, still sobbing hysterically, but deep inside where it was calm she knew that the thing was gone. That when she finally lifted her head and dared to look, the bathroom would be empty.
It took a very long time for Melanie to calm down.
Nathaniel found her description of what she had seen awful enough, but what really worried him were her stumbling efforts to explain to him the dark air of evil that clung to it like a cloak.
“It came for me,” she said, over and over again, as he held her. “It called me by my name.”
Nathaniel held her tighter, as if he could save her with the strength of his arms.
“It touched me.”
She pulled away and pointed down to her leg and then froze. There was a mark on her skin, like a small burn, and it was red and blistered. It was similar to the mark on her hand—now gone—only more prominent.
Nathaniel swore. His fingers hovered over the injury but he didn’t touch it. “Did you feel anything when…?”
“No,” she said, eyes wide with horrified wonder. “I…I think I was just too scared to feel anything. I was more intent on getting away. But now…” She leaned her face wearily against his shoulder. “Nathaniel, I feel completely exhausted. I just want to go to sleep.”
It was understandable that she should be tired out, anyone would be. But Melanie wasn’t anyone. She had told him that she thought this time the creature was stronger, looked bigger. More like a man.
Was it using her to fuel its regeneration? Was it feeding off her?
The idea made him sick and furious, but the more he considered it, the more he found it entirely possible.
Melanie could hardly keep her eyes open. Nathaniel lifted her into his arms and carried her to her bedchamber and tucked her beneath the covers. Then h
e stood by the window, keeping watch over her, while she slept. He didn’t want to leave her. His time in the between-worlds had taught him that there existed beings far more dangerous than he had ever imagined, and they could, and did, prey upon the innocent.
And this being, whatever it was, wanted her.
Melanie.
Her leg had been burned, and now she lay exhausted in her bed. Nathaniel felt as if he should know what was happening, but he didn’t. Was this something connected with Pengorren, or was it something else?
Melanie believed Pengorren had chosen him because he envied him and wanted to be like him. That Pengorren was consumed with jealousy and envy, and he wanted to take Nathaniel’s life. But where did Melanie fit in?
Melanie made a soft sound, and he looked up sharply. She had turned her head toward him and her face appeared smooth and untroubled in sleep. Most of the siren glow had left her, but it was still there, pulling his gaze back to her again and again. He heard the voice in his head, soft but audible, telling him to climb beneath the covers with her, to use her as he had used other women in his brief and unimportant encounters that had nothing to do with the heart.
“I won’t hurt her or deceive her,” he told it. “She trusts me, and I won’t put that in jeopardy. She’s my woman, and I will protect her, from myself if necessary.”
That he and Melanie had only met such a short time ago seemed remarkable to him. Could he really have fallen in love with her so quickly, or was their attraction to do with the change in Melanie? Whatever the reason, he wanted to stay with her forever, and yet that couldn’t be. He would succeed and return to the past, or he would fail and be cast back into the dark tunnels of the between-worlds.
Either way he would never see her again.
Twenty-six
Melanie was propped up in bed picking at her toast and marmite, while Nathaniel sat in the chair watching her, narrow-eyed. He’d been watching her ever since she woke up, and she tried to ignore him. It was morning, and she’d slept the whole night through, but she still felt tired and weak. Yesterday she had been like a new woman, but today…she might as well be a hundred. The creature had taken all that from her, drained her of vigor.
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