A man’s form moved in front of the light, like I’d been staring at the sun and he was suddenly blocking it. His handsome smile made my heart flutter, his beautiful green eyes peering at me from under brown hair. Reaching out, he invited me to come with him, his laughter ringing in my ears. He was a pirate, a prince, a leader, a Templar Knight, and the love of my life.
Tristan’s face gave way to images of him standing on the bow of a ship, the helm in his hands as he decisively directed the crew he captained. Reminiscences of his hands on me, his lips on mine, burst through me, causing my breath to catch at the mere thought of it. I remembered our beach wedding, our time at the Palace of Versailles, the house in Paris we’d lived in, and countless nights of being in love and having one another.
But, as with all things, the images were soon tinted by darkness. The sound of my crying echoed around me, my heart swamped by pain. Lost to each other, I’d been taken from Tristan. Our unborn child, Rachel was stolen away from us. It didn’t even take any trying on my part to remember how little and light she had been in my arms, or how beautiful her tiny face was. It was a dagger to my chest, knowing Tristan had never seen or held her.
Darkness swirled, the feelings of loss and horror threatening to overtake me. Then, in the shadows, another man appeared, his hands resting on my shoulders and pulling me to my feet.
It was Mark Bell, my fellow time traveler and friend. Almost old enough to be my father, his smile was not a joyful one and his eyes were sad as well. He had wanted so badly to save me from the hurt I felt, but all he had been able to do was stand by my side. I’d never blamed him for it. Mark had gone through more than his fair share of grief, trapped in an unfamiliar time for a decade, by himself, forced to work for a pirate so ruthless that even saying his name caused my skin to ripple with gooseflesh.
Thomas Randall.
A soon as I thought of him, he was there, standing in front of me. Long, greasy, black hair hung in his dirty face, his mouth twisted into an evil, demonic smile. A low laugh emanated from him as he leaned toward me, a sword in one hand. The madness in his eyes was clear, as well as the hunger he had for power and domination, shining like a beacon for those in search of someone to follow.
His crimes against me pounded through my consciousness with quick ferocity. I remembered them all—the attempted murder and rape, the kidnapping, the beating, the manipulating. Every major wound I'd received since traveling to the past had occurred because of this man, because of his heartlessness and thirst for control. No matter how hard I fought back, how desperately I wished to escape him, he always returned, ready to make me suffer once more.
Struggling to breathe, I scrambled away from Randall, silently screaming at him. Then, suddenly, I was in Tristan’s arms, the darkness forced away by light. My husband kissed my forehead, tears in his eyes, and we moved on together, searching for the peace and healing that we both needed.
And we had found it. The images of my visit to the spirit world and Atlantis were among some of the clearest I’d had yet. I could still smell the plants, feel the water on my fingers. The spirits that lived in and around the city, their aura-less forms sticking out in the crowd, all seemed to stare at me like they had known I would revisit this place in my mind. My parents were there. Rachel had been there. Somehow, against all odds, Tristan and I could see our family that had gone on without us, and it had finally scabbed over the wounds that had been too great to heal themselves. We returned to the land of the living, whole, and moved on with the light, ready to accept whatever life had in store for us.
The brightness of my memories slowly faded. Caught up to the present, my life finished flashing before me. Slowly, I took in my bedroom, the Parisian space feeling so welcoming and safe. This was Tristan’s and my new house. A safe house. The bed appeared so comfortable that I simply wanted to curl up in it and sleep for days. The shutters were drawn over the windows and a fire crackled in the hearth. Sitting at my desk, I faced the mirror in front of me, my hand on the necklace the shamans in Atlantis had given me to help with my nightmares.
And Thomas Randall was standing in the doorway.
“Hello, Sammy,” he said, breathlessly. “It’s good to see you, again.”
I felt frozen, my body refusing to move. For a moment, I wondered if I was having a terrible hallucination, but, no. The stone around my neck was supposed to protect me from that.
Turning, carefully, I swallowed the lump in my throat, my eyes meeting his. The skirt of my dress rustled softly as I shifted, the only sound other than his heavy breathing. It took a moment for my mouth to move, my body having settled into a kind of dangerously calm state that belied my internal panic and turmoil.
“What are you doing here?” The words felt thick and slow, like I hadn’t ever spoken before. He didn’t seem to notice, though, putting his one hand on the doorframe and leaning on it.
“I couldn’t get to you anymore,” he said, frowning. He even had the audacity to sound hurt, his eyes tearing some. “You shut me out.”
My fingers gripped tighter around the stone in the necklace. Pathos, the shaman who’d gifted it to me, had warned me my nightmares were not just figments of my imagination. Randall had really been visiting my dreams. Ingesting the blood of three different gods, he held powers beyond imagination. However, the act had also made him lose his mind. The deities inside him demanded blood sacrifices and cannibalistic acts, which he originally fought against with all of his strength, until he lost.
Thomas Randall was a bloodthirsty madman before the act. There was no telling what he’d be like now.
“What do you want?” My voice quivered slightly, betraying the fear I felt.
He smiled, stepping toward me. “You,” he said simply. “The gods want us to be together, Sammy. Can’t you see that? They sent you through time to be with me.” He took another step forward, his grin wicked and crazy, feet dragging slightly against the floor. “They gave me the power to visit you, even when we were far apart.” He halted suddenly, standing straight, and seemed to regain some of his mind. It was like a veil lifted from his eyes and I was looking at the man I’d faced before the blood. He was cold and calculating, sure of himself, and power hungry. His voice had an edge to it when he spoke, his British accent making him sound even more sinister for some reason. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You are the only woman good enough to rise to power with me. You are a beacon from the heavens, sent to tell me I am on the right path. I have to have you, Sammy, or it won’t work out for me.”
My mind was racing. There was a gun under the mattress, just to my right. If I could get to it . . .
Forcing myself to stand, I swallowed, hard. “That is not going to happen, and you know that.” My own voice was cold as I stared him down.
He studied me, surprised, and then laughed, the covering of madness falling around him once more. Shaking his head, he wagged a finger as he stepped forward, humming in an angry manner. “Do not play with me, Sammy.” He glanced over his shoulder, pausing in his advance, and I saw my chance.
Shoving my hand under the mattress, I grabbed the concealed pistol and tugged it free. Ever since I was kidnapped from our home, Tristan had kept this weapon—loaded and hidden—for a situation such as this. He intended to use it himself, I was sure, but I was not about to play the part of damsel in distress.
Raising the gun, I turned to Randall, pulling the trigger and shooting him in the chest. At that exact moment, a sword punched through the villain’s stomach, the tip shining in the firelight as it protruded from him. Blood dripped from the wound and spread over him, his shirt instantly a dripping mess of gore.
Surprised, I lowered the flintlock, staring at Tristan, who had come in with a vengeance in the seconds it took me to find my own weapon.
Growling, he yanked on the sword, causing it to cut Randall even more, hatred written on every inch of his face. “I told ye, ye wee son of a bitch, I would kill ye the next time I got my hands on ye.”
Randall laughed, his eyes bulging some, and stared at me, a wicked grin on his face. “So you did.” His shoulders slumped, his knees giving out beneath him, and he fell to the ground with a thud, washing it in red.
Blood seeped across the floor, soaking into the rug and ruining the beautiful, creamy, white color of it. Thomas Randall’s eyes stared at me, cloudy and lifeless, suddenly seeming less sinister without the fire that was always in them.
Tristan stepped over the body, tossing his blade to the side, and swept me into his arms, pulling me against him with so much strength, it almost took my breath away.
“Are ye alright?” His voice was urgent and pressing, but careful, as well. Fingers brushed through my hair, before clinging to my back. The energy he was buzzing with seemed to roll off him, a mixture of anxiousness and relief.
“I’m fine,” I answered, my face pressed against his chest. Wrapping my arms around him, I dropped the gun and squeezed my eyes shut, the image of Randall’s skewered body burned into my mind. To my surprise, tears leaked from the corners, though they were more from relief than anything else.
Thomas Randall was finally dead. We had done it.
I hadn’t thought I’d be so scared, once his life was ended. Whenever I had taken the briefest moments to consider what the world would be like without him, it had seemed happy and carefree, an existence where Tristan and I only needed to worry about ourselves and our children. However, now that I was in that realm, all I could feel was fear.
There had been so much I’d bottled up, so much I’d refused to feel until there was a time and place for me to do so. Now that the monster was slain, I felt the relief ebbing, my shoulders shaking, the tears slipping from me with more force, and suddenly I was gasping, clinging to my husband with everything I had, as I released the remnants of the terror I’d long been subjected to.
“Don’t be frightened, love,” Tristan said softly, his whisper helping to calm me, yet making me more frantic at the same time. “It’s done.”
“I k-know,” I stuttered, laughing a bit in embarrassment at my unexpected outburst. “That’s w-why I’m c-crying.” I stared into his eyes, smiling pathetically. “We can finally move on with our lives.”
Tristan grinned, tucking a hair behind my ear, and nodded. “Aye. We can.”
Without warning, the body of Thomas Randall sat straight up—gasping—his hand grabbing his chest.
Screaming, my throat felt as if it would rip open from the force of the sound. Frantic, I backed away, knocking the chair by the desk. Tristan, confused, spun around, an oath spilling from his lips as he retreated.
Grabbing my arm, he dragged me across the top of the bed and onto the other side of the room. His breathing was heavy, eyes wide as he pressed me against the wall, standing in front of me like a shield. Briefly, I saw him reach for his waistband, freezing in even more surprise when he remembered he had no sword.
Randall’s head swiveled to the side, like a demonic puppet, and stared at us with bloodshot eyes. “That hurt, O’Rourke.” He growled, slamming his hand on the ground with so much force I jumped.
Slowly, he moved, trying to get his feet underneath him. At first, he slipped in his own blood, falling to the ground as if he didn’t have the strength to right himself. Then, with a surge of energy, he hopped up, grinning as he stared us down. Raising his shirt, he revealed an unmarked torso, as if we’d never attacked him in the first place.
“They say all wounds heal with time, do they not?” Randall laughed, letting the ruined fabric fall. “Some wounds not as much as others.”
Tristan, crossing himself, made a sound halfway between disbelief and terror. All the same, he somehow managed to stand tall, even though I felt his heart hammering underneath my hands on his back. I knew, without seeing his face, that he was trying to plan a way for us to escape, or get help, or something. But, with no weapons—and attacked by a man who appeared immortal—I knew any prospects he could come up with were not going to be ideal.
Laughing, Randall shook his head, as if he could read my horrific thoughts. “Look at you two. So frightened. There’s no path to escape this time. Even if there was, I would only find you again. Your blood calls to me, no matter how much your mind rejects me.”
His head cocked to the side, eyes narrowing as he stared. “You shed tears for me, Samantha? Perhaps you are not so much out of my reach as I thought.”
My words stuck in my throat. It was like I could hear every single, tiny piece of my body shrieking in horror, my heart pounding in my ears as I stared.
“Did you tell your husband about our visits?” Randall moved to the other side of the bed, smiling as we continued to warily watch him. His voice was light and airy now, sounding less insane and more like the conniving man I’d known before the blood of the gods claimed him. “Did you tell him of our conversations?” His expression turned sultry, his voice dropping into a husky growl. “Of the kisses you so graciously bestowed upon me?”
He was trying to garner a reaction from Tristan more than me. I knew that, he knew that, and Tristan knew that. However, the words still had their desired outcome.
A growl escaped my husband, the sound feral and dangerous. “Ye will not lay one finger on her. If I must kill ye a million times to make it stick, I will.” His body pressed against me harder, crushing me against the wall as he spread his arms, as if he could make me disappear behind him.
Randall’s eyebrow raised. In a flash, he moved, picking up the sword Tristan had abandoned for me. “Oh? And what weapon do you plan to use this time? Your fists? I promise, Tristan, you will die much easier and faster than I will.”
The color drained from my face. He was right, of course. Tristan had no way of coming back from the dead, completely healed and ready to fight, as Randall had.
The answer was very clear to me. “I’ll go with him,” I whispered to Tristan, feeling him halt.
“Ye will do no such thing!” His words seemed to shake as he hissed at me, his hold strengthening, as if he thought I might try to wiggle out and do what I wanted anyway.
My heart was breaking. How many more times would we have to be separated before we could live our lives in peace? Whatever that answer may be, I knew if he died right now, I would never recover. “It’s the only way you’re going to make it out of this alive,” I pleaded. “We have no more weapons.” Absolute terror gripped me and my breath caught. When I continued, it was barely a whisper, my hands shaking as I started to push him away. “Please, Tristan! You will find me. You’ve done it in the past and I know you will do it again now.”
“He’ll not take ye from me for one more second.” He growled, his muscles suddenly tensing beneath my touch. Before I knew what was happening, he catapulted over the bed, slamming into the villain.
Shouting, I watched the two men tumbled to the floor, wrestling around the sword in Randall’s hand. By some miracle, Tristan managed to avoid being stabbed. They rolled through the gore of Randall’s previously shed blood, though, the blade clanging against the wood and chipping into the furniture. I realized even though Tristan literally had a hand up on Randall, there was a very good chance he could still be killed by the wildly wielded blade.
Pushing away from the wall, I darted around the bed, not sure what to do to help. The gun lay on the floor, useless without being loaded, and any other weapons we had in the house were not in the room. It wasn’t an option to go find something, not when Tristan could be harmed in my absence.
All at once, the sword flipped away from them, rolling out into the hall as the men continued to grapple with each other. Rising, they both traded blows as they each tried to keep the other from reaching the blade. Blocking my path, I couldn’t get to the sword as they struggled against one another, murder in their eyes.
Desperate, I grabbed a heavy candelabra off the bedside table, smashing it against Randall’s shoulder. A howl escaped him and he jerked, shoving Tristan toward the desk as his bloodthirsty attention turned on me
. His expression made me shrink, but I held my ground, raising my impromptu weapon once more.
Tristan, grabbing the abandoned gun, smashed the butt of it against Randall’s head. “Leave my wife be, bastard!”
Randall spun around, grabbing the barrel with a growl. Twisting the weapon upward, he yanked it from Tristan’s hands and raised it high, as if he were going to clobber him over the head.
Another gunshot sounded, and I screamed, dropping the candlestick in horror, not having any idea what was happening.
Blinking, Randall slowly sunk to his knees, falling flat on his face. There, in the back of his head, I could see where the bullet had entered, brain matter oozing from the wound.
Shocked, I faced the doorway. Mark stood there, smoking barrel in hand, frowning. Behind him, Abella anxiously paced, distress written on her features.
“Oh mon dieu!” The exclamation left her lips in a rush and she burst inside, flinging her trembling arms around me.
“Are you okay?” Mark asked, his voice clipped, but polite.
Tristan was the first to recover. “Aye, we are.” He sounded shaken, a deep breath leaving him as he rubbed his twisted arm.
Mark stepped into the room, frowning. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help sooner. Abella ran down the street to get me after she saw you sneaking up the stairs with your sword.”
At the mention of her name, my maid and best friend studied me, and then Tristan, before speaking again. “Êtes-vous indemne? Both of you?”
Swallowing hard, Tristan nodded. “We are fine, thank ye.” He glanced at the body on the floor. Then, without another word, he moved to the bed, pulling the quilt off. Grabbing the thinner blanket beneath, he stripped it from the mattress and began ripping it into long pieces. The sound made my nerves feel even more on edge, like he was shredding up the relief I’d just felt, thinking our trials were finally going to be over.
Stolen Away_A Time Travel Romance Page 8
