Courting Darkness

by Melynda Price

  “I thought you said we couldn’t do this here.”

  He ignored her whispered reminder, kissing a trail along the pounding pulse in her throat. Her blunt nails scratched his scalp as her fingers curled tight, holding his head in place, as if he’d had a mind to move. Had he actually thought himself capable of keeping his distance from her while they were in Landaketa?

  “You want me to stop?” he challenged, knowing full well he wouldn’t even if she’d said yes. His voice was a low throaty growl he hardly recognized, so lust-drunk he’d become on the sweet wine of her flesh.

  “Not a chance.”

  Turning in his arms, she met his kiss as he rolled her beneath him, pinning her between his hard body and the plush, cool grass. He was beyond concern of propriety, past the point of no return. Olivia had been snuggling the lush curve of her bottom against his arousal for the last fifteen minutes, driving him mad with need. Under the cover of night, he gave himself over to his preternatural side, the part of him that ran on pure basic instinct, pure emotion, and pure male dominance.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Olivia awoke to the sound of chirping birds, a repetitive “thwack” echoing somewhere in the distance. Enveloped in sheets that smelled lightly of lavender, Olivia rolled onto her back and stretched, her body slowly rousing as if waking from a deep hibernation. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so soundly or felt more rested.

  Wait a minute… This wasn’t where she’d fallen asleep last night, or was it? Had last night been nothing but a deliciously seductive dream? She stretched again, testing her body for the intimate ache that would confirm she hadn’t dreamt the bliss of Liam making love to her under the star-lit night. The soft cotton sheet brushed over her naked flesh and she froze. Olivia lifted the sheet to confirm what she already knew. No, it most certainly hadn’t been a dream. Now where were her clothes?

  Lifting her head, she looked behind her and felt a pang of disappointment to find she was alone. One of the French doors sat ajar, letting in a morning breeze that held a touch of humidity, promising today was going to be a scorcher. A quick scan of the room revealed her clothes were certainly gone, and in their place was a pale blue dress, trimmed with white lace, draped over the chair beside the fireplace.

  Throwing back the covers, Olivia climbed out of bed, bare feet padding across the hardwood floor to the pitcher of water on the dresser. A bar of soap, wash cloth, and a toothbrush lay inside the basin. Before getting dressed, she made use of the modest facilities, and then stepped into the reams of satin and lace. Missing her jeans and tank top, not to mention her bra and underwear, she cinched up the bodice with the white silk ribbon. After adjusting her breasts to fit into the corset, not an easy feat to accomplish, she took a step back to get a look in the mirror.

  Aside from showing an abundance of cleavage she never would have willingly displayed, the dress fit well enough. The fabric was lighter than she’d expected and seemed to accommodate for air movement. Grabbing the silver-handled hairbrush from the dresser, she stepped out onto the balcony to brush her hair.

  The rhythmic thwack…thwack…thwack… of an ax striking wood was louder now. The echo seemed to be coming from the back of the house. With her tresses brushed out, Olivia cleared the brush of any stray hairs caught in the bristles and carried it back to the dresser. Pulling her long mane over her shoulder, she wound her hair into a fish-tail braid and fastened the bottom with a hair-tie from her wrist. Feeling satisfactory with the results, she made her way down the stairs to the main-floor foyer.

  “There you are,” Rebecca greeted in her sweet southern drawl the moment Olivia’s foot hit the landing. “I do declare, that dress looks better on you than it ever did me.”

  Olivia seriously doubted that, but offered the obligatory thank you, anyway.

  “I hope you don’t mind me taking the liberty, but Henry said you didn’t come with any bags.”

  “Where are my clothes?”

  “Hanging out on the line. Liam brought them to me this morning and asked if I’d wash them for you. They should be dry in a few hours.”

  She could see the question banked in Rebecca’s eyes. No doubt the woman wanted to know how Olivia could misplace her clothes. She had no intention of elaborating, so she let the silence hang in the air between them.

  After a moment, Rebecca cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Anyway, I’m afraid you missed breakfast. Liam insisted you rest. He said you haven’t been sleeping well lately. I hope that wasn’t the case here and you were able to rest well.”

  “I slept very well, thank you. And I don’t eat breakfast. Liam knows that.”

  She’d supplied the comment in way of explanation for Liam’s lack of concern over her missing breakfast, but by the censorious scowl on Rebecca’s face, the woman clearly read more into the statement than was intended. The woman looked as if she wanted to say something, but propriety held her tongue. To Rebecca’s credit, she was definitely putting forth her best effort to make Olivia feel welcome, despite her obvious disapproval.

  Olivia wasn’t certain how long she would be here waiting for her memory to come back, but she’d be damned if she was going to spend her time tip-toeing around this woman. She firmly believed in being direct and up-front. So tempering her own ire, she asked, “Is there something on your mind, Rebecca?”

  The woman’s blonde curls bobbed as she nodded her head, and when she met Olivia’s eyes, there was a startling amount of determination in that bright blue gaze. “I’m concerned for Liam. He means a great deal to me, and I can see you mean a great deal to him. I don’t want to see him fall, Olivia, and I think if you let him, he’d walk away from it all for you. You need to love him more than you love yourself, even if that means letting him go.”

  “Is that what you did?” She didn’t even try to keep the censure from her voice.

  “Excuse me?”

  She had to give the woman credit. Rebecca genuinely appeared confused by Olivia’s retort. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you, Rebecca. I hardly think you know me well enough to be offering an opinion on such a sensitive matter. Liam is a grown male. He makes his own decisions and I will not tell him what to do. But you are more than welcome to share your concerns with him.” With that, Olivia turned toward the door. “If you’ll excuse me.” Her brittle dismissal was sharp on her tongue. Out of respect for Liam she would not speak her mind.

  “Of course,” Rebecca demurely replied.

  Heading toward the clothesline, Olivia marched down the porch steps, her cheeks burning with fiery indignation. She couldn’t believe the woman actually admitted it. She just blatantly admitted she had feelings for Liam. She stopped at the line and checked on her clothes, anxious to get out of this Gone with the Wind get-up. They were still wet.

  “This just isn’t going to work,” she muttered under her breath, plodding through the yard. Her memory wasn’t coming back, and the last thing she needed was the added aggravation of competing with another woman for Liam’s affection. Whether he had feelings for Rebecca or not, that woman was clearly in love with him. After she took a walk to blow off some steam, she’d find Liam and tell him she wanted to go home.

  Taking the same path he led her on last night, she marched down to the orchard. The repetitive thwack accompanying the crack of splitting wood, and the thunk of logs landing in a pile, grew more and more distant with each passing minute. No doubt that’s where Liam was. At least he wouldn’t be too difficult to find once she reigned in her temper and got properly clothed again. She didn’t particularly want him, or anyone else for that matter, seeing her dressed up like an overgrown American Girl doll.

  By the time Olivia reached the pear tree she and Liam had spent a good number of hours beneath last night, her heart was pounding from the physical and emotional workout. A fine sheen of sweat prickled her body and the dress clung to her legs, tangling more with each step. When her stomach rumbled, she reflexively pressed her palm against the hunger pang. I
t must be later than she thought. Typically she wasn’t hungry before noon.

  Reaching up to an overhanging branch, Olivia plucked a fruit from the limb and bit into it before continuing south past the orchard. How dare that woman suggest that she should love him enough to let him go. She did that once and it nearly killed her. Not again, dammit! That woman didn’t have any idea what she was talking about.

  Olivia had been more than ready to make the most of her shitty little life with a man she’d tried to convince herself she loved, but Liam had been the one who’d refused to let her go. This was not her fault, and she refused to feel guilty or selfish for loving him. She was done sacrificing her happiness for what was “right.” They’d tried that once and both failed—miserably. They’d wound up hurting each other horribly and she refused to go there again. Liam was hers, and she was not letting him go again.

  Olivia stormed along, paying little attention to where she was going, all the while muttering the tirade she’d oh so wanted to lay on Rebecca’s ears. When the path suddenly came to an end, she was forced to stop, and for the first time, took a moment to survey her surroundings. A hedge of twisted brier blocked her path. Shooting from the center of the brush was the pearlescent wall shimmering in the sunlight. About to turn back, she was struck motionless by a sudden revelation. Mulling over Rebecca’s remark and muttering all the rebuttals, she was so pissed off, it didn’t dawn on her until this very second that she was spewing an epitaph of knowledge she shouldn’t have.

  It was really working! Her memories were coming back! Joy overshadowed her ire as relief swept through her like a tidal wave, bringing with it more and more memories—though not in chronological order. Their first kiss flashed through her mind—then walking home in the rain, standing beside an idling black Camaro, the tinted window slowly rolling down to reveal a guy who turned out to be an angel who’d sacrificed everything to save her life.

  Tears filled her eyes as snapshots of a life forgotten returned with increasing speed and clarity. She wasn’t certain how long she stood there staring at, without really seeing, the wall that separated this world from her own. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she opened herself up to her memories—some were beautiful and others tragically painful, but she loved them all and wouldn’t trade the good ones to escape the bad for anything.

  She could understand how Liam would want to spare her this—the near drowning—being attacked by Max and shoved off a cliff, plummeting to certain death. Letting Liam go…

  A sob tore from her throat as a wave of grief struck her hard. Saying goodbye to him had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. The misery of those following years, journaling her only outlet for her grief, was nearly unbearable. The nights she cried herself to sleep, begging him to return, only to wake up alone. It was as if he’d turned his back on her.

  So sure she’d been that he was never coming back, she’d forced herself through the motions of life, existing without feeling, trying just to get through to the next day, and then starting all over again. And then she’d met Mitch. Oh Lord, the guilt nearly brought her to her knees.

  “He doesn’t even know you, Olivia! Mitch is in love with an illusion. I can’t believe you never told him about me!”

  Another sob wracked her shoulders as she buried her face in her hands, crying tears of regret. She’d made so many mistakes… How could Liam still love her?

  She needed to see him. The desire to throw her arms around him and beg his forgiveness nearly overwhelmed her. She needed to tell him how much she loved him, how sorry she was for every mistake she’d ever made…

  When she turned to leave, her ankle remained fixed. Pain exploded in her foot as the joint popped, thorns sinking deep into her flesh. A startled cry tore from her throat as she glanced down to see vines of thorns snaked around her ankles. Struggling to break free, she fell back, landing in a web of brier that hadn’t been there moments before.

  Drawing a breath to cry for help, the air stalled in her lungs as the harsh snap of dried branches erupted in the woods just beyond the pearlescent boarder. Olivia froze. Terror temporarily overshadowed the pain lancing through her body as the thorny vines held her tight. Into the clearing stepped a rider and his horse no more than ten yards from the fence line. Olivia bit her lip to keep silent as the black stallion approached the wall. Tufts of long hair hung from the fetlocks covering its massive hooves. Standing at least twenty hands high, the animal snorted, steam billowing from the animal’s nostrils that flared with each heavy breath as it scented the air, warning its rider of danger.

  Atop the giant warhorse sat an angel as menacing as the beast he rode—tall, wide-shouldered, and straight-backed. His tangle of long black hair hung past his shoulders, giving him a feral quality that turned the blood in her veins to ice. Dressed in nothing from the waist up, he wore only a leather strap across his chest that held a sheathed sword between massive wings that were as raven black as his hair.

  If it hadn’t been for his deep violet eyes, she would have wondered if he was even an angel at all. His square jaw and sharp, angular features did nothing to soften his menacing look. A log chain was clutched in his hand, and tethered to that length was a beast wearing a metal collar around its neck. Its wrists were bound, its large clawed feet, bare and bloody.

  Olivia’s heart stopped when the beast cocked its chin and sniffed the air. Its yellow eyes locked on her as frothy drool slowly dripped from the snout of the demonic creature. At the same time, the angel swung his head around, pinning her with a scathing glare.

  Without warning, the beast on the chain dropped to all fours and lunged for Olivia. A startled yelp tore from her throat as the monster leapt though the air with blinding speed. Olivia watched in helpless agony as the beast headed right for her and suddenly crashed into the pearlescent wall. The creature hit the ground in a vertical splat, and the angel atop the horse gave the chain a swift, impatient jerk, dragging it several feet behind his mount.

  The angel barked something to his prisoner in a language she couldn’t understand, his voice a harsh warning growl. Whatever he said seemed to take some of the fire out of the beast.

  She tried once again to free herself from the gnarled brush, desperate to get away from this dark angel and his hellacious monster. But the more she struggled, the tighter the vines held her. Tears of pain, panic, and desperation burned her eyes, blurring her vision, and she was forced to helplessly watch as the angel spurred his mount over the fence, breaching the supernatural barrier as if it wasn’t even there.

  The beast wasn’t so eager to cross over this time, and the angel gave the chain a forward yank that sent the demon stumbling over the fence. It let out a howl of pain one might hear from a dog that broke through its invisible fencing. But the angel paid no attention to his prisoner, his full attention locked on Olivia.

  “How is it that you can see me?” the angel demanded, his tone ripe with authority. “What are you doing here and who let you in?”

  Well, clearly chivalry was as dead as social etiquette where this angel was concerned. Could he not see she was tangled in a bed of thorns? She could feel the blood trickling down her side, wetting the bodice of her dress. Swallowing back the pain that made her want to scream “Get me the hell out of here!” she gritted her teeth and replied, “I can see you because you haven’t blocked my sight.”

  “So you’re one of the Sighted.” A statement, not a question. “What are you doing here?” A suspicious scowl darkened his brow. “Come out of that brush.”

  “I can’t. I’m stuck.”

  The angel eyed her another moment as if he didn’t believe her. “You’re bleeding.”

  Really? “I know. That’s because I’m stuck in these thorns!”

  The angel sighed impatiently and swung a leg over his horse. He dropped to the ground with effortless grace and turned to wrap the heavy chain around the horn of the saddle. He said something to the horse, again in that language she couldn’t understand. The animal gave
a brisk snort, swinging its massive head around and pinning the beast with a watchful glare. It pawed the ground impatiently, digging deep grooves into the earth, as if challenging the demon to move.

  As the angel approached, he reached over his shoulder and pulled his sword free of its scabbard. The silver handle was all but swallowed in his large hand, the long black blade reflecting shimmers of color as sunlight glinted off the massive weapon. There was no hesitation in the angel as he waded into the brier. He wielded his sword with precision and unparalleled strength, cutting a path to her. The brush appeared to shrink back from the blade as it sliced through the barbed limbs. A few more swipes and Olivia was free, her clothing torn, her skin cut and bleeding, but at least she was free. She hoped Rebecca wasn’t fond of this dress.

  Olivia gasped when the angel reached down and picked her up, hoisting her over his shoulder as he turned and strode through the path of thorny brush. The edge of his wing brushed her cheek as he hauled her over to his horse. No doubt it was the only soft thing about him.

  He reached the massive mount in a few long strides. A startled squeak broke from her throat when the dark angel deposited her belly-first over the horse’s shoulders. How pathetically humiliating to be rescued by this snarly angel and draped over his horse like road-kill, ass-end in the air. This was not the way she wanted to return to Liam.

  The angel mounted the horse next, the toes of his boots slipping into the stirrups before his heel touched the horse’s flank, sending them off at a brisk trot.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “I’m perfectly capable of walking, you know,” she grouched between bounces.

  “I don’t think so, sweetheart. Not until you tell me what you’re doing here.”