by M. Garnet
The rain gave her goose bumps as he tore the front section of her shirt and bra apart, exposing her breasts to the elements and that one rough hand.
Lightning hit again; the hunter was no longer holding her as he was tossed backward off her body. Rahm stood there with his storm raging all around him. He waited only a moment and then held his hand down for Margo.
In shock she pulled her clothes together and reached for his offer to find herself half-dressed, standing in front of him on his doorstep.
"Don't ever do that again. You could have been killed." His voice was a harsh whisper. He stood there for a moment, still holding her hand. She thought she heard a sigh, as he turned and left the normal wet footprints inside his dark hallway.
Margo was left standing in the sunshine with her clothes in tatters, dripping water. She began shaking and crying, and she folded down, into a ball. Lying on her side on the sun-warmed stone entry, she hugged her knees to her chest and let the tears flow. She had been through so much and to almost be raped in that forest seemed to be her tipping point.
She should crawl down the path to the village below because she was as crazy as anyone in this make-believe place. She had finally accepted the fact that she was totally insane.
She finally understood that none of this was real. There was no forest and no village named Better. There had never been a place with dragons. She shuddered and let the tears stream down and fall onto the marble steps.
There was a hospital somewhere that had her strapped down to a clean bed with tubes running into her body to keep her unconscious and allow her to have these nightmares. Sometimes the doctors would wake her up, and they would take years to treat her and convince her that this all had not really happened.
She had her eyes closed feeling the tears slip out and the sun warming her skin against her own created wetness. The tears slowed, but they didn't stop. What else did an insane woman have to do, but let her life leak away? She wouldn't commit suicide; that took too much energy. She couldn't do anything because anything would take too much energy. She would lay here in this insane make-believe world and make-believe that she died on this doorstep.
Someone was leaning over her. It was one of the farm boys that delivered the milk.
"Miss, do you need help? Did you fall?"
Through her tears and torn throat she stuttered. "I am insane, and you aren't real. Leave me alone ghost." Margo hiccupped and turned her face into the stones that were wet from her tears.
Soon she heard the boy talking to someone else. It was the thin cook. "Mistress. Did you fall? We can help get you to your room and into clean clothes."
Margo thrashed at them. "Leave me alone. You aren't real, and neither am I. I will lay here and die. Leave me alone."
She heard the cook mutter to the boy. "Stay with her while I go and get the Master."
For some reason, she had found some more tears. She felt the hiccups shake her body and moved her head out of the way when the boy tried to give her a drink of water.
It got very quiet as a shadow fell over her, easing the sun against her closed eyes. Warm, strong arms wrapped around her back and under her knees and she was up and against his broad chest. The light was gone as the darkness of his home affected her mind that knew it wasn't real. How could she create such a nightmarish place?
Resting her head against that warm chest, she heard his heart beat as they went up the steps without light. Of course, this was his house; he knew his way without a candle or one of those amazing lamps.
Floating in his arms she closed her eyes. She couldn't see anything in the dark, and her checks were drying with no more tears. His movement as he walked was smooth and even, and she had no idea where they were going until he put her down on her bed.
"Rahm, I am insane."
"Shh, no you aren't. You have been through a lot of change, and I let you out of my sight. I'm sorry, and it won't happen again. I'm sending up something to let you sleep."
Margo giggled and turned her head into her pillow. She would sleep and wake to the gold in the marble and still be insane. He was part of her insanity.
Hearing mumbles, she knew someone else was in the room, and she let the two of them get her torn clothes off, and a soft shirt slipped over her head. She allowed herself to be moved as a limp marionette, having no willpower to make her own body resist or take action on its own.
Something was held to her lips, and she turned her head refusing to drink. Rahm took the liquid and had one large hand full of her hair and tipped her head.
"Margo, drink this, and I will let you rest for tonight."
She felt the cup at her lips, and she opened, swallowing. She tasted nothing and let the liquid go down her throat. He slowly lowered her and placed his warm hand on her cheek. She rolled her head into it and drifted to sleep.
Rahm tried to slip his hand away, and she moved her face against it, rubbing her soft cheek on his palm. He shook his head and jerked away with a curse.
Chapter Twenty
The sun shining on the gold streaks in the black marble woke her in the one place she didn't want to be at when she opened her swollen eyes. Cakes of dried tears were in the corners of her eyes and hanging on some of her long lashes.
Her mouth tasted terrible, and even in the clean shirt, her body called for a hot shower. But that would mean getting up and walking all the way down the hallway. She just wanted to hide. After all, that was what insane people did, wasn't it? They sat in corners and picked at the peeling paint.
Margo remembered from somewhere that the first step of getting well from mental disorders was to admit you did have a problem. No wait…that was the first step for addiction to drugs. She sure as hell knew she had a problem. Maybe acknowledging that small amount would let her get up because she didn't want to wet her bed.
Slowly sitting up, she found her head was wobbly, and her eyes didn't want to track on anything. Margo just sat on the side of the bed, waiting to see if the room was going to stop moving. At last, it was a battle between her head and her bowels, so she slowly got up and hanging on anything she could reach, she made her way to the bathroom.
Giving a grateful sigh as she rested her weak muscles on the throne. She became aware that a glowing ceiling was lighting the entire bathroom. It looked like her bathroom ceiling back in Florida. Never before had she found any lights in the bathroom except for the usual candles in their reflective holders.
Had he turned on the lights for her safety when she finally got up? No, it must be another of his tricks to prove she was really insane. While she sat on the cold open seat, she hated that unbelievably beautiful man more than she had ever hated anyone or anything in her entire life.
When she was done and the sound of the water flushing, it reminded her that the shower was close. The thought of warm water drew her to the sliding door and into the stall to turn the handles and feel the water. Margo was surprised at how good this felt, as she leaned against the black tiles. She took off her shirt and let it lay at the bottom of the shower near the drain.
She had no idea how long she stayed under the water, but at last, she woke up enough to decide she wanted to go back to her bed. Grabbing a towel off the open shelf she saw some clothes neatly folded on the end of the counter. Someone had come in while she was in the shower.
She needed to lean on the walls as she got dressed. Not able to put on socks and shoes, she carried these items, as she slowly made her way back to her bedroom. With her drapes tied back, the room was bright, and she could see easily to her bed that had been made up with fresh linen while she was away.
There was also a tray with food and drinks on the tall stand next to her bed. One of the items was a small teapot. Sitting down on the bed close to the stand, she poured herself a half cup of the herbal smelling drink and took a sip. It immediately eased her stomach.
Looking at the soup and sandwich, her stomach rejected the smell. If she ate she would survive, and she didn't want to survive in his w
orld. She couldn't remember if there were socks and shoes in the bathroom, but she had returned to her bed with bare feet. Now she was losing her memory. She stretched out on the bed and felt tears seep out of her closed eyes. Her tired eyes let her drift off to sleep once more.
It was the thin cook's voice that woke her from the dreamless sleep.
"Miss, I brought up some fresh food. You ate nothing from your earlier tray. You will make yourself sick."
Turning away and tucking her knees up, she mumbled, "I am sick. I am insane, and this is all made up in my mind. You aren't real so just go away."
"Now Miss, don't talk such nonsense. I have made you some special broth. It will go down better and give you some strength."
Margo decided just to ignore her, and finally, she heard the woman leave the room. She drifted off thinking of her home and her poor little dog and her neighbors. If the storm passed, perhaps one of them might hear the dog barking and go in to rescue him.
Margo heard another tray being brought in, but this time no one tried to coax her to eat. The bed gave, as someone sat down on one side.
"I can make you eat. I can make you do anything. I don't want to make you do things. I find it amazing to watch your freedom." His voice was still that harsh whisper, and it drew her to turn over and look at him in the light in her room.
The sun was setting, and a rosy color was flooding the room. His thick hair was pulled back away from his high forehead, accenting those amazing wing eyebrows. This time his eyes were blue, the blue of the sea on a calm day when you could see far down below the waves.
There wasn't an expression on his beautiful face, and the sharp nose and cheeks were tanned without any warmth. Still, it was hard to look away from that soft bottom lip. She remembered the one kiss.
"Rahm, I need something that is real." As she spoke, she rolled all the way over so she could place a hand on his face to make sure he was here.
He surprised her when he turned his lips into her palm and licked his tongue to taste the skin on the inside of her hand. She raised up to place her lips against his.
With the first tentative brush of her lips on his, he was in motion. His hands went to her hips, and he lifted her, while he devoured her soft kiss into his darker, harder one.
He was dangerous—to her body and her heart, but from the moment she saw him in the middle of a storm with his arms held high, she'd wanted to know his world, and he was the embodiment of it. The kiss didn't just press, it stroked. He opened her mouth with the nudge of his thumb to her chin and dove inside to drink from her. The crush of wet heat and the bite of lightning sizzled along her nerves, and she gave herself up to it—awake and alive at last. She tightened her grip on him with a fierceness she hadn't known she possessed.
Belatedly, as stars punctured the darkness behind her lids, she realized he wasn't going to break away to breathe, his needs from his dark world were different from what she got from life. All the rhythms she'd learned in the human world were rewritten in his dark house on this mountain.
She arched to gulp some air—still clean and damp from the storm air in his rock-built mountain-held manor. His mouth went to her neck, and he scraped his teeth along her skin. She welcomed the threat of his sharp teeth and soft lips. She laughed because he'd turned her world upside down.
"What is happening?" It seemed as if they were floating, not touching the bed or even the air. Her mind struggled through the haze of her desire, trying to make sense of what was happening to their bodies. They'd been down there before, but somehow, during that unbelievable kiss, they were floating in the room with gold streaks on the floor. He managed to rip the clothes off her body with hands that should be holding her—keeping her from falling.
"The laws of nature don't apply to me," he said against her belly. "When I took your wrist that first time and brought you here, I changed your life with nature also."
She didn't dare to struggle for fear of falling. Better to hold on to him and ride it out
She was naked, and she could feel the heat of his body as his legs and arms touched her. He was like the lightning, drawing them together as if a piece of iron in the earth pulled down the bright force. He entered her with the heat of his storms, and she could feel magic singing in her blood. Every time he pulled out, her core ached to plead for his return over and over again.
Digging into his scalp with her nails, she brought him down for another storm-awakening kiss. Outside the storm rattled the windows, lightning making the back of her eyelids glow red, and when she arched against him in release, she wasn't sure what he'd done to her, but she knew that she was changed. It was if she had been hit by those electric flashes and branded. She knew that she would never go back to Florida and her little lost dog. That she was owned body and soul by this man with the strange eyes and power that was un-named.
Chapter Twenty-One
Margo got up and went in to take a shower and got dressed in the clean clothes. She thought about this beginning to be a daily routine. She drank the broth and ate a piece of toast and felt soreness in places she had not felt soreness before.
She would really like an aspirin, and since she was going to his office, maybe he would have a bottle tucked away somewhere in his dark workplace. She had put on socks but not shoes, as she walked around the balcony to enter his office.
As usual, it was dark, with only the lamp on his desk shining so that he could read what he had spread out or opened. He was standing behind and leaning over, making his regular notes.
There was a difference because in front of his desk was a deep old-fashioned chair. It had padding on the seat and up the tall back and a couple of small cushions on each side against the padded arms.
Margo walked up slowly and put her hand on the back of the big comfortable chair. She looked down at it and saw that although it was old, it was spotless. Someone had taken care of this antique.
"I knew you would insist on being in here and pestering me, so I decided you should be comfortable,” he spoke in that low voice without looking up.
Margo wasn't sure if she should thank him or even say anything. Instead, she just walked around and sat in the chair, pulling one knee up to hug it to her chest.
"I don't suppose you have a bottle of aspirin around here?"
Rahm sighed and went over to a shadowed wall. She heard a click and Rahm spoke. "I need some strong willow bark tea. My guest has a headache."
From the dark corner came a tinny voice. "Coming right up, Master."
Margo shook her head. An intercom system, there was no magic in speaking from room to room. An ancient manor home that had not been entirely modernized. The bathroom was up to date yet the kitchen was last century.
She had read that there was a time before the turn of the century when the kitchens were in a different house since there was the threat of fires. This archaic stone manor could have been built long before that time, and the kitchen added as an additional room.
"Rahm, how old is this estate of yours?"
Closing a book and moving into the shadows to put it on a shelf, he returned with another. He stopped and glanced over at her. "How old is this mountain?" He went back to opening and flipping through his book.
Rahm was not going to answer her with information she could use. Maybe in his unusual mind, it was the only way he saw and answered questions. There was silence in the room as she thought about her situation. How could she have a conversation with him when he didn't even answer her questions in a manner that she understood?
There was a shuffling at the door as a boy who evidently helped the cook brought in a tray with one small cup. He approached the desk and held out the tray for Margo.
Taking the hot cup, she thanked him and then sniffed the steam.
"I put some honey in it as the willow bark doesn't have a great taste." With a slight bow, he took his tray and left.
Taking a small sip of the liquid, Margo decided she could drink some of the hot mix. "I really needed an aspi
rin."
Rahm turned a page. "What do you think the first aspirin was derived from; in the beginning, people chewed on willow bark. Look it up in one of my books. After all the ages I prefer the natural product."
Okay, in his strange way he had told her some information. Evidently, originally willow bark was the same curative as aspirin and drinking this sweet liquid should help her headache. Now if she could find out from him where they were and how far away from Florida this mountain was located.
"Rahm, are you ever going to tell me the truth about where this manor of yours is located? Now don't say on the side of a mountain. I mean where on Earth is it and where is this mountain?"
Rahm dug down through some of the scrolls and maps and finally found what he was looking for as he pulled out a large old map. He took a moment to put a neat small X on one spot with his quill pen and handed the large sheet over to her.
Setting her cup on the floor, Margo found the sheet large and awkward to handle, and it took her a moment to figure out how to use the edge of the desk to support the thick paper. Pushing the big chair back she finally found a way to look at the map with it highlighted from the desk lamp.
It made no sense to her, and she glanced up at the top of his head to see him busy with his notes and ignoring her and her problem. She went back to looking at the outline and finally saw things that began to make some sense.
There was the Mississippi River with the outlines of some states on both sides that she recognized. But from there it all seemed to run off the page. There was no East Coast, and there were large states that had once been Illinois and parts of Mississippi. The Gulf had moved up over most of Alabama with very little of Georgia still visible.
Her eyes went to the west, and it was as she remembered except it wasn't the same. There was a big area that she knew were California and Nevada, but it was all one outline. There was a gap where the ocean made a break into the land and then Washington was marked in above.
It took her a few minutes to understand where he had marked the X. It was Denver, Colorado. High in the old stable mountains that separated the United States was this long mountain range that cut through the middle of the entire country. Denver was a thriving city with many communities surrounding it on the high plateau and climbing higher into the range.
