by Linda Fallon
He dropped his arm as they reached the top of the stairs. From a door on the left, they heard muted sobs. Katherine. And a soft, comforting voice. Garrick. Eve’s heart broke for them both.
“But you are my bride,” he insisted. “Look at you, in that beautiful white wedding dress. All you need is a veil and a bouquet of flowers, and you become the perfect bride. More than that, you are my bride on the inside, aren’t you? In the heart, in the very soul. You love me like a bride. You’re my wife, my woman.”
“Yes, but …”
Lucien stopped outside the door to the room they shared. “I’m not ready to go to bed.” He glanced toward the stairway at the back of the wing, the stair that led to the third floor. “Let’s do a little exploring, shall we?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Eve said, as he pulled her along, grasping her hand tightly and smiling as he guided her to the stairway.
“I slept all day, and I’m feeling so much stronger tonight.” He took a deep breath. “I haven’t felt this strong in years.”
An odd thing to say, given the circumstances.
He hurried up the stairs, all but dragging Eve with him. His eyes scanned the walls, and when they reached the third floor he grinned widely and dropped her hand to stride down the center of the wide hallway. He took a long, deep breath and lifted his arms, opening them wide.
“There’s so much energy here,” he said. “Power. Can you feel it?”
Eve shook her head. “No.” At the moment she didn’t care about the energy in this haunted hotel. “Don’t change the subject! You owe each and every one of our friends an apology,” she said.
“For being honest?”
“For being heartless!”
He turned on his heel and walked toward her, treading down the long hallway with a half smile on his face and his eyes locked to hers. Every stride was long and slow, as he walked toward her with purpose and vitality in every step.
“I didn’t know you could be purposely cruel,” she whispered as he reached her.
Lucien grabbed Eve close, spun her around, and pressed her back against the wall. “I don’t want to talk about them right now,” he said, placing his body close to hers. “I would much rather talk about us.”
“Do you have something rude and insulting to say to me?” she asked, trying to remain detached as he laid a possessive hand on one hip.
“You make such a beautiful bride,” he whispered.
“I am not your bride,” she said again, as he laid his other hand over the swell of her breast.
“Of course you are. You are my bride, in your lovely white gown, and I want you so badly.” He laid his mouth on her throat, moved his lips subtly, and caressed her breast through the thick satin. His hands were gentle and demanding, his mouth was warm and arousing.
“Lucien, you’re not well,” she protested, even as her body began to respond to his. They were lovers, and had been for months. He had taught her the art of pleasure, the joy of truly being with the man she loved. She was angry, she was confused, but as his hands caressed she could not help but be affected.
“Make me well, Eve,” he whispered as he stroked his hand down her side and then back up again. He cupped her breast, then flicked his thumb over the sensitive nipple. Her eyes drifted closed and she felt her own desire begin to grow. At her center, she melted. She’d thought she’d lost him, and yet here he was. Here they were. Lucien lowered his head and kissed her throat again, sucking gently until she moaned low in her throat. Then he moved his mouth to the flesh below, to the expanse of chest revealed by the low cut of her wedding gown.
“You’re right,” he whispered against the swell of her breasts. “I was needlessly blunt and crude tonight. I don’t know what came over me. It’s the possession, I suspect. A lingering weakness I have not yet conquered. I can conquer it, with your help. I need you, so much.”
It was what she had always wanted from Lucien.
She wanted his love, she had his love. But she wanted him to need her. To depend on her in a way he had never depended on anyone else.
“I do love you,” she whispered, taking his face in her hands and looking deep into his blue eyes. “But Lucien, you’re truly not well. Something happened to you, in this hotel. Something made you … different.”
“If I’m sick, you can cure me,” he said as he lifted her skirt and petticoat with both hands. “You can make me stronger …” his smile faded. “Or you can kill me. Which will it be, Eve?”
“I want to make you stronger,” she whispered.
“Of course you do.” He pushed the full, white satin skirt high and shoved his hand between her legs, caressing her beneath the linen drawers she wore. “You’re already wet,” he whispered.
“All you have to do is touch me,” she confessed, telling Lucien something he already knew.
His gentle fingers teased her, and once again he lowered his mouth to her throat. Oh, he knew what this did to her! He knew how to touch her, where to kiss. She began to relax in his arms, and all her doubts vanished. For now, at least. There would be time for doubts later. Much later.
She threaded her fingers through his hair. “Let’s go downstairs and back to bed.”
“No,” he said huskily. “I want you here. Now. It’s been so long.”
Her body wanted him, and reacted as it always did when he was near. Her heart wanted him. She loved him so much. But her mind … her mind was not sure. “Lucien, darling, I think you have a fever. You’re so hot.”
“I’m fine, I promise you.”
“You’re not strong enough.”
“I am,” he insisted, and then he showed her he had strength by pulling her body up against his. His fingers dipped beneath the bodice of her wedding gown, caressing soft skin, brushing against one bare, hardened nipple, sparking her passion for him to a new level.
“Love me, Eve,” he whispered as he held her close.
The last of her doubts dissolved. She reached between their bodies to unfasten the buttons that held Lucien’s arousal trapped. She freed him, caressed his length, and when he kissed her deep she tasted a passion that matched her own.
Lucien groaned as he ripped at the opening in her drawers. With a heave, he lifted her high. Eve wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, and she kissed him again. Deeper than before, hungrier. He took his mouth from hers almost roughly and pushed inside her in one long stroke. With her back against the hallway wall, her legs wrapped around him, and the skirt of her wedding dress bunched between them, he buried himself inside her with one long, hard thrust … and then became very still. For a moment he didn’t move at all.
“Evie,” he whispered, as he began to rock into her more tenderly. “Is this a dream?”
“No. It’s very real.” She held on tight and moved against him. The hands that held her gentled.
Lucien placed his mouth over hers and kissed her ardently as he made love to her. Thick and long, he filled her. He stroked her. She moaned and he caught that moan between parted lips. As they came together, rocking and swaying in their own time, Eve was able to forget how she had found Lucien on the lobby floor, how he had changed, how he had suffered and made the others suffer. No matter what happened, when they became one the world was a better place.
He pounded against and into her, and she held on tight and moved her hips into and against his. Nothing else mattered, but that she wanted him faster, harder. He gave her everything she wanted.
She climaxed while he was buried deep inside her, and so did he. Her body shuddered; his did, too. They held on to each other as the waves of passion unleashed washed over them.
Joined with him, holding him, she knew in that moment that everything was going to be all right. Her doubts and her fears were senseless. Everything was going to be fine. They would return to Plummerville, get married, have children, and live together happily for the rest of their lives.
“That was … different,” she said as Lucien lowered he
r to her feet.
“Yes, it was. Very different.” He held her close and looked up and down the long, silent hallway. “Evie?”
“Yes, darling?”
“Where are we?”
Eight
Lucien sat on the top step of the stairway that led down into the lobby, his head in his hands. “I didn’t say that. Please tell me I didn’t say that!”
He’d gone to sleep with Eve sitting at his side, and awakened inside her, not in the bed they’d shared last night and most of today, but standing in the third floor hallway with Eve’s back against the wall and her body wrapped around his.
He lifted his head and stared at the friends who surrounded him. They didn’t look like friends, at the moment. Katherine was red-eyed and pale, and Garrick, who stood beside her possessively, was openly furious. Hugh hung back in a way he never had before, and Buster was blushing and embarrassed.
And Eve … she stood at the foot of the stairs with Daisy at her side and glared at him as if he were a stranger. Her face was still flushed, her gown more mussed than it had been when he’d last seen her, her hair fell down around her shoulders in tangled waves … and she was afraid. Of him, he supposed. And who could blame her?
Of all of them, she should be the one to understand. “Didn’t you know?” he whispered. “Couldn’t you tell that it wasn’t me?”
“No.”
“It was you,” Lionel said, stepping forward. Apparently he had said nothing hurtful to Lionel over the dinner table … perhaps because whatever had possessed him had known that Lionel saw too much too easily. “You spoke with your own voice, and there was none of the weakness that usually comes when you channel. I tried to see more over the dinner table. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t see into you. I thought you had learned to block me, but apparently you were sleeping and a dark entity had taken over. It was that entity that was able to obstruct my ability to see into your mind.”
“Is he gone?”
“No,” Lionel said succinctly. “He’s hiding, for the moment, waiting until he’s strong enough to kill what’s left of you.”
What’s left of you. Lucien shuddered. Was he already fading? Already less than he’d been when he’d walked through the front door of the Honeycutt Hotel?
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know. I never would have said those things.”
“You might not have said them if you’d had the choice,” Katherine said as she took one angry step forward. “But you meant them. Every word.” In her prim black dress and with her hair pulled severely back, she was the picture of propriety. And she was furious. With him. With her dead husband. “All this time you’ve been telling me that you could send Jerome away, and you never bothered to tell me that I was the one keeping him here. That he’s somehow attached to me.”
“I didn’t think it would serve any purpose to upset you,” he said, reaching for a composed tone of voice even though inside he felt like he was falling apart. Eve had been trying to teach him discretion … and this is where it got him. He should have told Katherine the truth weeks ago!
O’Hara advanced, tugging on his muddy brown jacket as if to straighten the garment, and bravely sauntering onto the stairway that led to the second floor. Lucien sat on the top step, tired and confused. He was not confused about this man, though. Where O’Hara was concerned, his feelings were crystal clear.
“You …” Lucien said hoarsely. “You I really don’t like.”
“Fine,” O’Hara said, unconcerned. “When we get out of here in one piece, you can take all your irrational, unfounded jealous rage out on me. Until then, we need to stick together and fight this … thing.”
“How do we do that?” Lucien asked.
“This is not your normal nasty spirit, Lucien. He’s old, and irate, and dangerous, and he’s actually in the hotel.”
“We’re all in the hotel,” Lucien snapped.
O’Hara shook his head. “No, he’s in the hotel. He’s a part of the structure. This spirit, this thing, it’s in the walls, in the floors, in every grain of wood and chip of stone that make up this hotel.”
“Oh,” Daisy squealed.
“How can that be?” Lucien asked.
O’Hara stopped when he was halfway up the stairway. “He died here, a very long time ago. Before the hotel was built, he bled into the ground beneath. He was …” O’Hara’s brow wrinkled, his eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what or who he was, but he had tampered with dark magic best left unexplored, and when he died his soul remained in the land.”
Lionel leaned against the banister at the foot of the stairs. “A lot of people died here, on this ground, long before the hotel was built. People passing by, travelers, would be overcome with rage. Hate. Jealousy. There were bloody battles over the very spot where he died. And all the while he collected souls. Scrydan,” Lionel said quickly, as if the name had just come to him. “His name was Scrydan, and he didn’t want to be alone.”
“I think this Scrydan must’ve somehow influenced the man who built this place,” O’Hara said. “Why else would a man build a cathouse out in the middle of nowhere?”
“A what?” Daisy squealed.
O’Hara turned to look down at her. “Pardon me, miss. An entertainment house, a jolly place for lonely men, a …”
“Do you mind?” Daisy snapped. “How rude.”
“In any case,” O’Hara said when he turned to face Lucien again, “it didn’t remain a … house of ill repute for very long. Men did come. The place had a reputation for pretty, willing, adventurous women. But too many of the customers who came here never left. People talked, business suffered, and years before the war began the place was shut down.”
“Soldiers!” Lionel said brightly, again as if the thought had just hit him. “Soldiers hid here, and they died here. They even fought here. Not just the enemy, but one another. The soldiers fought over food and imagined insults.” His brow furrowed. “They killed comrades with their bare hands.” He literally shook off the unpleasant thoughts. “Then after the war, the original owner’s grandson decided to turn the place into a spa. There are mineral springs not far from here, and he hawked the hotel as a resort, to those who could afford to pay the exorbitant sum he asked.”
“And again,” O’Hara said, “too many guests died violently. That’s bad for business, no matter what kind of business it might be.” He turned to stare pointedly at Daisy, who ignored him.
“So this hotel is just a big trap,” Lucien snapped, “and I walked right into it.”
“More or less,” Hugh said in a lowered voice. “I believe this … man, spirit, ghost … whatever you want to call Scrydan … gathers his strength from the fear and death of others. But you, Lucien, you’re different. After we arrived and his plan for your death was thwarted, he discovered that he could stay within you for extended periods of time, something he had not found possible with other living beings. For years he’s watched his imprisoned spirits do his dirty work for him, and on occasion he has entered living beings for short periods of time to compel a victim to kill. But he was not able to remain long inside a living being without exhausting himself, until you came along, Lucien. He is able to tap into your mind, he can live inside you. And I’m afraid he likes it.”
“Why are you seeing all this now?” Eve asked sharply. “Why didn’t you know about this Scrydan last night or this morning?”
“He was able to block us completely, for a while,” Lionel answered calmly. “But what happened this evening was challenging for him. He stumbled, just enough for us to get a glimpse of what he’s done and what he’s capable of.”
“We have to get out of here,” Garrick said. “Tonight.”
“We wouldn’t get far,” Lionel said. “It’s already dark, the snow is deep, and we have no horses.”
“Tomorrow morning, then,” Buster said.
“Tomorrow morning. We should stay together tonight. No one goes off on their own,” Hugh commanded.
Daisy nodded enthusiastically.
“One word of caution,” Hugh added calmly.
“One word?” Katherine shouted, balling her fists and turning on the older man. “Given the circumstances, I think we deserve more than one word!”
Hugh remained serene. “This spirit, it feeds off of pain and fear. That’s why it drew bits and pieces from Lucien’s memories and said those upsetting things at dinner. It meant to disturb us all. Scrydan wants you to be afraid. The best thing any of you can do, to help us all get out of this place, is to remain calm.”
Daisy laughed. “Calm? I can’t possibly …”
“Try,” O’Hara interrupted. When Daisy looked like she was about to argue with him, he continued. “Please, you must try.”
Daisy nodded, but she remained obviously skeptical.
“Where is he now?” Lucien asked. Lionel closed his eyes, while O’Hara grasped the banister and then ran his hands along the polished wood. “Where is Scrydan?”
“He’s resting,” Lionel said. “Since he’s not yet in complete control of your body, his time with you saps his energy, just as it saps yours.”
“But at the same time he’s still here,” O’Hara said, “still in the walls and the ceiling and the floor, still powerful.”
“And Lucien,” Lionel said as he opened his eyes. “He’s still inside you.”
Eve sat on the lobby sofa, Daisy at her right, Katherine on her left. Eve Abernathy was not a high-strung woman. She did not sob, screech, or lose control of her emotions. There had been times when she could have lost control, but she hadn’t. She was a sensible woman who knew there was no benefit in giving in to hysteria.
But at the moment something inside her wanted to scream and cry.
Why hadn’t she seen that Lucien wasn’t Lucien? Why hadn’t she known that no matter how he valued honesty he would never insult his friends the way he had at dinner? Why hadn’t she known that the man who’d seduced her was not the man she loved, but a stranger? An evil stranger who wanted them all dead.
Lucien was upstairs resting, hopefully sleeping, with Hugh and Buster close at hand. She should be there, she should be watching over him … but she couldn’t bear to face him, not now.