Winter's Dream (The Hemlock Bay Series)

by Jaeger, Amber

  Jordan wasn’t dissuaded. “In all my years of spying I never saw you look at someone like that, except for me, before things … ended badly.”

  I had somehow managed to hurt the two people that had managed to chain me up and even feel bad about it. Jordan’s stark pain and Luka’s retreat into ice hurt me almost as bad as knowing I had failed my own family. Almost.

  I put a shaking hand over the one gripping my shoulder. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” I promised, “not even you. Especially not you. But I have to get out of here. And I’ll do whatever it takes to do that.”

  Jordan’s face broke into a sad plea. “Then trust me, let me help you. Bixby, love me, I’ll do anything to make this right.” Tears shone in the corners of his eyes and I struggled to stop myself from wiping them away.

  “I do love you,” I whispered. “But it’s not enough.”

  He pushed his lips to mine faster than I could back away and promised against my mouth, “I’ll make it enough.”

  I had no response that wouldn’t hurt the one person who had tried so mistakenly not to hurt me, so I turned and ran.

  I had hoped to run straight up to my room to hide my burning face and sort out my conflicting emotions but of course I couldn’t find it. Halls seemed to repeat themselves and so did the stairways and doorways. Eventually I settled on finding the library or kitchen or front door and failed in that as well.

  Wandering the main floor, I eventually saw something bright, almost warm looking far down a long hallway. I made my way toward it and found huge beveled glass doors arching high over head.

  As quietly as I could, I pushed through them and was enveloped in bright, moist light. The scent was amazing, like fresh water and soil and green plants and as my vision adjusted to the brightness, I wasn’t surprised to find myself in a greenhouse. Raised flower beds marched down the middle and lower ones ran along the perimeter. Every available inch was covered in soil and beautiful, fragrant green plants grew and spilled out everywhere, some even climbing carefully placed lattices that hung from the ceiling.

  High above the ceiling was beveled glass as well, gently turning down towards the glass walls. All the cut edges made rainbows sparkle everywhere.

  A discreet cough interrupted my happy moment.

  I whirled around to find Luka standing there with a pair of thick gloves and a small pair of shears. He held a green bunch of herbs in his hand.

  “Can I help you with something?” he asked politely but flatly.

  “I, um … No. I got lost,” I finally said. My cheeks flared so hot it made my eyes tear up again.

  “The girls don’t usually come down here,” he said pointedly.

  “Luka,” I drew out.

  “Don’t,” he snapped. “I should have known it was you. He’s been crowing about you for years.”

  “Well I didn’t know,” I snapped back. “So sorry I can’t just fit into this whole messed up fairy tale.”

  “What do you want?” was his dull response.

  I gave a rough, harsh laugh. “My life back.”

  “Not possible,” he said and turned his back, effectively dismissing me. My heart ached. As much as I hated everything that had been to me and to my family, I didn’t want to hurt him. He had suffered enough. And there was something more, something I couldn’t even think about.

  “So what do they usually do with their time here?” I asked, trying to engage him again.

  “The girls? No idea.”

  My jaw tightened and before I could do the smart thing and just leave, my mouth was talking for me. “You know, I realize now this isn’t your fault, but it isn’t mine either. Maybe you could try to help me figure this out and all of us annoying girls would stop parading in and out of your castle.”

  He raised an eyebrow and twirled the bunch of herbs in his hand. “’Figure this out?’” he asked, slowly. “You have such a curious way of phrasing things. But I understand what you mean, so let me fill you in: there isn’t anything to ‘figure out.’ When the girl most like Miriam is finally brought to the castle by the curse, she will be bound to stay here forever with me—whether either one of us likes it or not. And that is only thing that will satisfy the curse. Until then, it will keep bringing the girls and it will keep taking them away to be replaced by the next one.”

  His cool, calm tone was almost revolting. “So you don’t care at all what happens to us?” To me, I wanted to ask.

  Luka closed the space between us with two steps. I didn’t know I had jerked back until the edge of one of the flower bed tables dug painfully into my lower back. “How many girls do you think I have said hello and good-bye to? I can’t even count anymore. Do you really think I don’t recognize each one as a young life snuffed out by the evil of my uncle? You think this doesn’t take its toll on me, that it doesn’t taint me to be constantly washed in such vileness?”

  His face was only an inch from mine, completely illuminated with anger. If I had thought his eyes were blue before I was totally wrong. They were a steel grey, as glinty as the big lake before a storm. His tirade also wasn’t over. “This isn’t the life I wanted for myself. I didn’t want to be the evil that snuffed out all these human girls and I certainly don’t want to have to spend eternity tied to one that will most assuredly hate me. I’ve already lost—” he cut himself off and squeezed his eyes shut for what seemed like forever.

  I waited warily, pinned between him and the table. When he finally opened his eyes they seemed bluer again and were filled with pain and remorse. “I’m sorry I can’t help you; please know I have tried everything to stop this curse.”

  My mouth was dry and I licked my lips nervously. His sad eyes followed my tongue and sweat broke out on my brow. “I’m sorry I threw that statue at your head,” I finally whispered.

  His eyes widened in surprise then he threw back his head and laughed. I cringed away from the booming and he finally moved back, letting me squeeze around him. He didn’t turn to watch me as I ran back to the entrance. “You’re a funny one,” he said. “Usually they’re too scared to be funny.”

  He gave no hint at our previous closeness. There was no relenting of his icy demeanor so I did the best I could and gave a weak smile before fleeing the room.

  “Your room is up the staircase to your right, last room on the left,” he called, his voice chasing me down hall.

  I raced to it and slammed the door behind me, pulling in shuddery gasps as I slipped to the floor. What the hell had just happened? My thoughts kept going to Jordan and Luka, Luka and Jordan. They should have been centered on Grandma and Linc, but the tidal wave of the two cousins kept pulling me in.

  The sun slowly crossed the windows as I sat in front of the door, trying to process everything that had happened. It seemed like forever since I had even thought of Grandma and Lincoln, wondered how they were doing, wondered where Linc even was. Everything was supposed to be about them and keeping them safe and getting us all back together as a family and somehow I had just ended up even deeper in Jordan’s world, even more tightly entangled.

  I couldn’t even properly call the situation a nightmare because I preferred my nightmares to this. It felt like a barren, desolate dream, a winter’s dream.

  Knocking on the door behind me startled me out of my morbid thoughts.

  “Are you in there?” Emma asked through the thick door.

  I stood up to let her in, trying to school my emotions and hide my fear and sadness. She looked me up and down once then reached out to squeeze my hand. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  I forced the corners of my mouth up. “It’s all right. What did you need?”

  “It’s time for dinner. I was hoping you were hungry. And there is another one here,” she added in a whisper. “Another one of them.”

  At that I really did smile. �
��It’s okay, it’s David. He’s here to help.”

  Emma looked at me warily. “How do you know?”

  “Because he doesn’t want me around. He’d do anything to send me back to my world and keep me there,” I said, actually glad for his animosity.

  “Don’t know if that’s anything to be smiling about,” she muttered as she set about helping me get cleaned up and dressed.

  My slightly improved mood lasted only until we got to the dining room. Emma directed me to my chair—opposite of David and between Jordan and Luka on either end. Having to actually sit down at a table with all of them was nothing short of terrifying.

  A servant in black held my chair out for me and I took it slowly. All three sets of eyes watched me walk around the table and take my chair. Jordan’s green eyes were disturbingly bright with determination, Luka’s were back to a disinterested blue and David’s one good eye was more curious than angry. One day I would ask him what had happened to his other milky eye. Yeah, right.

  “Bixby, Jordan has told me why you wanted me here and I’m sorry to say I can’t help you,” David said even before my chair was all the way slid in.

  “Can’t or won’t?” I asked pointedly.

  His mouth twitched up into a smile for a second before smoothed his features again. “There isn’t anything to break this curse, it must be fulfilled.”

  Servants moved around the table filling our plates. They might as well have been dishing out dog crap for all I cared. “But he was your brother, right? You have to know something about the curse, some flaw in it or—”

  “There’s nothing,” he said gently. “I’m sorry.”

  Tears pricked the corners of my eyes but I was nowhere near ready to admit defeat. Turning to Luka, I asked, “In all this time no girl has ever escaped? No one ever got out of being led into the woods to get slaughtered or drowned in the lake or whatever horrible thing happens?”

  He paused his mechanical chewing and wiped his mouth with a napkin. Even eating potatoes he was hot.

  “There was one that managed to escape that fate—”

  “Yes! I knew it!” I cried, a triumphant grin taking over my face. I saw David shaking his head at Luka from the corner of my eye but I waved him on. “So how did she do it?”

  “She killed herself.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The rest of dinner was a horrifically silent affair. Luka kept stuffing his face as if my life weren’t going to be over in a few short weeks. Jordan kept shooting me sympathetic looks that I ignored and David looked everywhere but at me.

  I knew they were waiting for me to say something but what could I say? My choices were between being murdered or suicide.

  “Are you sure that’s what happens to the girls?” David finally asked Luka. “That they are killed?”

  Luka casually brushed some crumbs from his lap. Good looking? Yes. Attractive? No. I wanted to choke him for being so blasé about my upcoming demise. “I can’t be sure but I assume so. Emma always comes back alone and the girl is never seen again.”

  “Well didn’t you think to ever follow them maybe?” I snapped. How he could be so uncaring was mind blowing.

  He shifted his hard eyes to mine. They were storm colored again. “I did follow them, countless times. And the harder I ran they outpaced me even though they were walking. I couldn’t run from the castle to the edge of the forest in the time they walked it and disappeared. And please keep in mind they are only human while I am jinn.”

  “So you couldn’t—”

  “And when I tried to follow from the door of the girl’s bedroom I couldn’t get down the hall.”

  “What, you like, froze?” I asked, confused and angry.

  “No. Reality and spaced shifted, stretched. What is a short walk down the hall for them becomes miles for me if I try to follow. And no matter how hard I run, or how hard I drive my horse—yes, I have tried everything—I can’t catch up, I cannot follow.” He pressed his lips together and for a second I thought I saw a tiny flash of pain, of remorse.

  “So that’s just it then?” I finally said, my head dropping into my hands.

  “No. That’s not it,” David said, pushing a cup of coffee towards me. I ignored it. “We don’t know the girls are killed. Perhaps there is something I can do to help—after.”

  I stared at him blankly. “If I don’t get murdered then I’m going to be left to wander around the woods never to be seen again. So if by help you mean locate my corpse and bury it, that would be great, thanks.”

  His face was gentle and kind, as if he knew something I didn’t. Which was probably the case—it always was.

  “Bixby,” Jordan said, interrupting my thoughts. “There is one thing you haven’t thought of, one way we could find you after.”

  “Find my corpse, you mean,” I said bitterly.

  “We don’t know you’ll be killed,” David gently reminded me.

  Jordan looked from me to his uncle, his bottom lip caught in his perfect white teeth. “You may not like this option, but it may be the only one.”

  I rolled my shoulders. “Well, I guess I’m up for anything at this point.”

  He nodded and his hesitancy stretched my already frayed nerves to a snapping point. “The bracelets I put on you before, they would have led me to you no matter where you went in this world or yours. If you let me put them on you again, I could follow you anywhere you went.”

  Shock and anger warred in my skull and of course anger won. “You want to put your shackles on me again?” I exploded. “That’s your brilliant idea? Are you kidding me? Do you do anything else but plot ways to make me your prisoner?”

  He held his hands up and shrunk back in his chair. “No, I only want to be able to find you—”

  “No,” I thundered. “Absolutely not. You and your evil bracelets are how I got in the mess in the first place. I will never let anyone put another bracelet on me again. Ever.”

  He opened his mouth to dissuade me and I threw my cup of coffee at him. It shattered on the wall next to his head and he flinched. David chuckled.

  “Never,” I repeated grimly.

  He gave a little nod. “I understand,” he said quietly.

  I had no energy for a response, no energy left for anything, not even tears. With a tiny sigh, I dropped my head in my hands.

  A loud crash shattered the brittle air and I jerked my head back up. “What was—”

  A guttural cry echoed from the front hall. “Bixby! Bixby!”

  My blood froze in my veins as I listened to my name called over and over again. Even the jinn at the table with me sat frozen in surprise.

  “Bixby,” the cry came again, this time a little more ragged, a little more human.

  “Oh my God,” I wheezed out, my chest tightening in on itself.

  My chair crashed backwards to the ground as I jumped up from the table. I didn’t move, didn’t even dare to breathe, just stood there gripping the edge of the table until my nails bent back.

  The cry came again, bouncing off the cold, stone lined halls. My fear was dissolving under a creeping realization—I knew that voice.

  “Bixby!”

  My heart leapt painfully in my chest and I shoved away from the table, running for the doorway.

  “Wait,” Jordan commanded, holding his hand out and getting up from his chair.

  I ignored him and changed directions to run around Luka’s end of the table. His face was still infuriatingly blank, as if he couldn’t care who had broken into his home looking for his newest prisoner. But he let me run by, only getting up to follow until I was out of arm’s reach. Jordan had jumped out of his chair the second I started running for the doorway and I could see his determination to beat me to it, to stop me from getting to the hallway.

  “Wait
!” Jordan yelled again. “He may not be himself!”

  Anger burst in my veins and I shot just out of reach and down the hall.

  I burst into the front entrance and my world was bright again.

  “Lincoln!” I shrieked, running for him.

  He was bigger than I had last seen him. I had been so worried he had spent the last month hiding out that his appearance was a shock. Instead of being thin and broken as I had imagined, he was taller and more muscular. But it wasn’t just that he was larger, something subtler had changed. As I charged for him, I took in his skin, darker skin, and the thick stubble lining his jaw. His hair had grown out to perfectly frame the new hardness in his eyes. They were alarmingly angry but melted just a few degrees when he saw me.

  My face cracked into a smile and I covered the last few feet in an instant, launching myself at him. I had never so desperately needed a bear hug from my most favorite person in the world.

  So when he grabbed my wrist so tight it ground the bones together it was more than a physical pain. He used my own momentum to swing me behind him, painfully twisting my arm behind my back.

  “Lincoln,” I cried out in pain and shock.

  “Shut up,” he growled, moving himself between me and a furious Jordan.

  The jinn’s anger made him swell in size and his eyes had taken on an evil, orange glow. His shaking body seemed to fill the whole doorway. He advanced on my brother and I panicked.

  “Stop,” I cried.

  Jordan ignored me and I tried to shove around Lincoln to get between them. Lincoln pushed me back and I stumbled to the floor. Something in my already injured wrist snapped and white hot pain shot up my arm. All the air my chest huffed out in an anguished squeak.

  Jordan roared in anger and Lincoln didn’t respond to my pain at all, just moved so he was between me and Jordan again.