by K. R. Conway
“Okay. Thanks,” I yelled back. I looked at my watch. It was now 2:50pm.
“Screw it,” I muttered to myself. I wasn’t about to not ride because I was stuck without a riding buddy. I led Porter out of the barn and toward the indoor arena, but Saddle Girl called down to me, “The indoor is closed for now. They are going to be dragging it with the tractor to level the ground in about 10 minutes.”
Terrific. I looked to the tree line and the clearing where the trails started. It was a beautiful day and the air was not that cold. Most of the snow had melted over the past 24 hours and the ground was no longer frozen.
I made a split decision to trail ride and lead Porter into the shadows of the trees. I swung myself on and adjusted my reins. “I just won’t tell Raef, that’s all,” I said to Porter, who was tossing his head excitedly. I took one last look at my watch, noting approximately how much time I had before the sun set, and rode off into the tall pines.
Blackstone had roughly 30 acres of trails that wound through fields, forest, and cranberry bogs. Bisecting the expanse of land was a long, straight dirt track that ran for miles. It was where the old railroad used to come through on its way to another part of town, but had long since been unused. The actual railroad tracks had been removed and all that remained was a dirt lane, perfect for racing a friend on occasion, or so I’d been told.
As I came to the railroad lane, I crossed over it and continued on into the woods that led to the cranberry bog. The air smelled clean with a hint of brininess from the sea breeze. All I could think of was frozen saltwater taffy.
Porter enjoyed our leisurely pace, occasionally trying to pluck a dried leaf from a passing branch. It felt so fantastic to be back in the saddle, that simple rocking motion, and the rhythmic bounce of Porter’s head. It was easy to let my mind wander.
I started thinking about all that had happened to me since learning of 408 Main Street. Of how different my life was now, and the simple fact that I was starting to really enjoy my new existence here (disaster in Newport excluded). Some people would say that the house was more like a curse than a gift, but I’d disagree.
I was born a Lunaterra, whether or not I returned to the Cape. And maybe, had I stayed in Kansas, I would have lived my entire life never knowing what I truly was. Never running into Mortis like Raef, Kian, and Christian, and probably never finding friends like Ana and MJ. Yes, moving here brought with it some catastrophes, but being here, surrounded by my friends and Raef, made me stronger.
MJ brought laughter and comfort to my life. He was that sweet kid who you knew could be counted on to make you laugh or save you from the side of the road when you ran out of gas. He was a genuine, good soul – a rare find in a jaded world and I knew he would be a lifetime pal. Plus . . . he was a dog. I mean, seriously – how COOL is that? In his dog form, he was an incredible fighter and the boys trusted him to protect Ana and me without question. As the lanky high school senior that he really was however, he’d be snapped like a pretzel.
Then there was Ana. Despite her best efforts at being non-emotional, she too was someone who could be counted on to have your back. Though she occasionally protested about the fluff in life and dressed as though she couldn’t identify a skirt, she was a beautiful, honest person. She cut you no slack, but at the end of the day, her brutal honesty was what made you a better person. Her gifts as a strange sort of psychic left me awed.
Kian I had judged unfairly when I first met him. He had seemed arrogant (okay – he still does), but was also a man of few words. In some ways, he was, and is, very similar to Ana – another locked vault. I couldn’t say I blamed him though – he, like Raef, had no competition in the good-looks department. But in my eyes, Kian redeemed himself a thousand fold when he saved Ana and me months ago. He did it selflessly, with no regard to his own safety. Every once in a while he would let me see him as he truly was – a man, damaged, but with a big heart.
And then there was Raef. Though I had hoped to make a friend or two once here, I never dreamed I would find a boy like Raef. He was handsome, strong, intelligent, caring, compassionate . . . come to think of it, I wasn’t sure he actually had any faults, aside from the whole “soul thief” thing. We had become so entwined with one another, that I could never imagine a future without him. To lose him would be to lose a huge part of who I had become. I was a better, more compassionate human being because of him.
Because of them all, really.
I continued to think back to the events of my rapidly changing life and rode on towards the cranberry bog. I must have lost track of time because once I had ridden around the bog, the sun seemed to have gone down alarmingly fast. I realized that I had dawdled a bit too long and might be picking my way through the woods in the dark. The idea was not appealing as I had visions of Porter getting tripped up on tree roots. I urged him into a fast trot and we headed back into the woods from the bog.
The sun had dipped below the horizon, but the ambient light still gave me enough visibility to navigate the woods at a trot. Soon enough, with the light fading fast, I came out to the railroad tracks. If I followed the same route I came in on, I would get to the barn a little faster, but the woods would be far darker than the open lane. The railroad tracks would lead me out to the main dirt road that could also access the barn. It was a bit longer, but a lot easier to see the ground.
I turned Porter down the dirt tracks and picked up a peppy trot. We had been only heading down the tracks for maybe a minute when Porter suddenly bolted to the right. I fell forward against the saddle, bracing my weight on his neck. I managed to quickly regain my seat, as Porter stood stone still and tense. He snorted at the woods and his ears were pricked high. I stroked his neck. “Easy, boy. Easy,” I soothed, now slightly uneasy myself. I scanned the woods, but the colors were seeping out of the tree line as the darkness started to set in.
“It’s okay Porter. Let’s get going and get home. How’s that sound?” I said, trying to act calm. Porter was not a spooky horse by nature. In fact, I would call him “bomb-proof” – nothing scared him. The fact that something startled him badly enough to nearly dump me was worrisome. His sense of smell was far better than mine and I worried that there might be a larger animal out there in the darkness.
I tried to remember the wildlife section of the guidebook for the Cape I had picked up in Kansas. I didn’t recall bears to be on the list and quite frankly, bears were the least of my worries.
I gathered my reins and turned Porter back toward home. Just as I did so, I caught sight of it to my right: a blur of blackness and speed, moving fast between the trees about 40 feet into the woods. Porter saw it too and reared high, causing me to lose my seat. I tumbled out of the saddle, across his back, and slammed onto the dirt track, knocking the wind from my lungs. My ears were ringing and through my blurred vision I could see my stalwart steed hightailing it down the track. I was pissed that I lost my horse, and pretty sure I landed on a sharp stone, but then reality set in.
I wasn’t alone.
With my back and chest screaming, I rolled onto my stomach on the cold ground and blinked away the fuzzies in my sight. I scanned the tree line and slowly, gingerly dragged myself to my feet. I listened, carefully, for any revealing sound.
Then I heard it – something in the woods headed towards me. Something large. I braced myself for whatever was coming, but was shocked when the biggest man I had ever seen burst through the tree line.
He wore a long, dark jacket – almost like a trench coat with a hood pulled up over his head. He scanned the lane and then his eyes settled on me. His coat drifted open in the breeze and under it he wore a leather vest, crisscrossed with lacing, but his bare skin was showing under it, and he was scarred. It was as if he had been in a knife fight that went really, REALLY wrong. He had tattoos as well, all different symbols which no doubt meant something to him, though they looked faded and old. As if he had given up on them long ago.
He was basically that dude, from those creepy movies where you end up scr
eaming at the dumb actress to run before he kills her. So not good.
He started walking towards me and I stood frozen for a moment, searching every inch of my body for a reaction to this huge man. In the past, my body would sometimes give a strange sort of warning signal when I came close to a soul thief, almost like a twisted form of mental goosebumps.
But with this guy? Nothing. I got zip.
Not even a regular tingle of wariness if this dude was just some teen-stalking pervert, which was damned odd. And there was no way I was walking away from this guy in one piece if he meant me harm. He looked like a cage fighter for crying out loud!
All my cockiness about being able to handle myself without one of my guards was quickly shriveling up like a Shrinky Dink in a thousand-degree oven. I nearly launched myself clear out of my skin when he finally spoke.
“Are you all right? I saw you fall,” he asked. His voice was deep, velvet, but with a rugged quality. It held an aged, graveled undertone that spoke to the life he had lived. He looked to be in his late 20s and he reminded me of a warrior - rough, confident, and a bit worn through. He was Thor . . . if Thor came from the worst part of L.A. and hung with the Hell’s Angels.
“Did you hear me? Are you alright?” he asked again, slowing his approach and stopping well out of arm’s reach. He pulled his hood back, revealing a wide-set brow, chiseled jaw edged with a short beard and goatee, close-cut dark hair, and huge neck. He was good looking – handsome even, almost like a military man from those romance novels. Thanks to Mae, we had quite a few of those books lying around the house.
“I, uh, lost my horse,” I mumbled like an idiot, but then I remembered why I got dumped in the first place. “Something spooked him.” I scanned the wood line quickly, recalling the black shadow that tore through the woods. I didn’t care how big Thor was, if there was a Mortis around, life was going to get seriously ugly.
Of course . . . where did this guy come from? I eyed him warily.
As if reading my mind, he shifted slightly where he stood and offered an explanation, “That may have been me. I was hunting and startled a deer. I’m very sorry.” I looked him over carefully. If he had been hunting, where the heck were his weapons?
“Where’s your gun?” I asked suspiciously, straightening slightly. This was not a good situation for me to be in. Aside from the fact that this guy could probably tow my Wrangler with his teeth, being alone with him also reminded me of the night at the beach. A night when I had been caught alone with another big guy – Teddy Bencourt – who tried to force himself on me.
Panic started to creep into my bones, and I shivered at the memory of being pinned to the sand, nearly unable to draw breath to scream. My visitor must have recognized something on my face, and he stepped back, his hands at his sides. “I left my bow back in the woods. I came running when I saw you fall. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Sure you’re not. I needed to get the heck out of here.
Now.
Thankfully the silence of the darkened woods was cut with the sound of people yelling my name, searching for me. Porter must have wandered home, hungry for dinner and riderless, which was a sure way to panic a barn full of equestrians. Thank you Porter for your greedy gut!
Thor turned his head in the direction of the voices and I caught a glimpse of something peeking out from under the wide strap of his vest. It was a raised mark – a brand, which looked weirdly familiar though I couldn’t see all of it.
He turned back to me, “I’ve got to go find my things before it gets too dark. Will you be okay?”
I nodded, the sounds of my searchers getting closer. I yelled in their direction and they shouted back. I turned back to Thor, wanting to thank him, but he was already pushing his way into the shadows of the woods.
Even with his wide frame, he soon blended seamlessly into the darkness, and disappeared.
11 Raef
When I got the text that Eila wanted to meet me at Torrent Road, I was instantly worried.
She had never even been to Torrent Road, avoiding it at all costs. For her to meet me there was not a good sign.
To make matters worse, I had been grazed by an arrow while hunting on Sandy Neck. Granted, I was just about to take down a deer, which was no doubt why I got nicked, but archery season had ended. Whoever had the eyesight of a turtle was also hunting illegally.
I didn’t bother tracking him down as doing so would raise too many questions about why I was out on Sandy Neck, wrestling the local herd with my bare hands.
The gash over my bicep would have required stiches if I was human, but my accelerated healing would leave nothing more than a faint line in a few hours. By tomorrow, there would be no line at all and no one would ever know I had been hit – especially Eila, who’d obsess about it. While she took her own safety with little more than passing interest, she had a dogged determination to protect everyone else. I had no desire for her to know I had been hit by a hunter’s weapon.
Mindful of how quickly she would arrive, I bandaged the wound to keep it from bleeding, and changed into a shirt that would cover up the damage. I tossed the bloody shirt into a waste basket in the corner of my room.
The space Christian had offered me was a large, second floor bedroom filled with dark woods, leather, and brass, as if it was modeled after a first-class room on the Titanic. It had a massive floor to ceiling curved window that looked out over the harbor, though I was so rarely at Torrent Road, I didn’t have much time to admire the view. I suspected that would change now that Mae was more wary of Kian and me around the girls.
We had been at 408 daily when Ana and Eila were injured, helping Mae with whatever she needed. But now that the girls were well, our presence meant something else entirely to Mae. Of course, if we told her about the killer shadows who would relieve a person of their soul, she might change her mind about having us around. She would probably still lock up E and Ana though.
While the timing was less than ideal, I was grateful that Eila was finally coming to Torrent Road. If we wanted any time together on any sort of regular basis, I knew it was going to be here, and she might as well get used to Christian’s home.
As soon as I heard the tires of her Jeep pull into the driveway, I headed downstairs and opened the massive entry door. She looked as she always did – stunning, with her wild, dark hair contrasting beautifully against the fair skin of her face. Just her presence filled me with such a rush of longing that it was a miracle I ever left her side at all.
As she stepped from the Wrangler however, I immediately knew something was wrong. She moved slowly, carefully, as if some part of her body was causing her pain. I was at her side in an instant.
“What happened?” I asked, offering my hand as I shut the Jeep door. She waved off my help, however, which was typical of her.
She swore, angry at herself, “I got thrown. Landed on my back. It was stupid.”
As absurd as it was, I was furious at the horse. “Okay – let’s get you inside. Do you think you broke anything?” I prayed she had not broken anything. I couldn’t heal her like a normal human because of what she was, and the thought of seeing her in pain for any length of time made my stomach twist.
“No, no. I think I just have a nasty bruise. I didn’t want to go straight home like this because Mae will instantly be in my face about it. If it’s okay, I just want to hang here for a bit. I think Mae is going out later anyway, to a book club meeting. I will call her from here and then sneak back home when she is gone.”
“Your level of duplicity is a bit alarming,” I said, opening the door to the house for her, but then I paused, scanning the long driveway and the trees that lined the road. I thought I had heard something moving through the brush, but when I looked, all that twitched were the branches in the light breeze.
I kept my eyes scanning the area as Eila stepped inside the towering entrance and paused, taking in the expansive space. I shut and locked the door behind us, brushing aside the sounds of the wind in the tre
es, and watched as she took in all the details.
Opposite from where we stood was a wall of glass set behind a huge sunken living room, complete with an ornate billiard table and large stone fireplace. A curving staircase climbed up to a second floor balcony that overlooked the entire room and a chandelier that was made of wrought iron and amber glass. Outside, the view captured that of the ferry making its way past one of the channel markers.
“It’s . . . ummm. Impressive?”
“I’d say ostentatious,” I replied.
Eila looked back at me with a flinty smile on her face. “Yeah, maybe just a little bit.”
She started to unsnap her coat, and I helped her slide it off her arms, as twisting too far made her wince. The back of her navy shirt looked damp and I gently touched the fabric, and then looked to my fingertips. Red. Blood.
“Eila, you’re bleeding,” I said, my stress level jumping higher. She seemed okay, so the wound couldn’t be too severe.
“Are you kidding me?” she demanded, looking down at my fingers. “Well that’s just peachy. I must have landed on a rock or something. Do you have a shirt I can borrow?”
“Of course, but I need to check out what maiming you have inflicted on yourself first,” I said, brushing a cold strand of hair out of her face.
She slowly crossed her arms, a pitiful act of being pissed. “I didn’t maim myself. I’m a very good rider.”
I smiled at her, slowly releasing my initial fear that she was badly hurt. “That’s what they all say.” I got a finger jabbed at my side for that remark.
I held her hand as I led her to my bedroom, which thankfully had its own bathroom. Eila could at least get cleaned up in some semblance of privacy, especially if Christian was lurking in the house. Thankfully he traveled often, keeping his massive company functioning. He also kept many homes, including an exclusive Beacon Hill apartment in Boston. Unfortunately, he rarely forewarned us of when he would be around, and this place was so huge that sometimes I had no clue he was inside.
