by Linda Fallon
He stopped speaking when she hit him again. “Shut up! You’re nothing. You don’t scare me, you don’t scare anyone. You’re a pathetic, sad shell of a spirit. My insipid cousins are more frightening than you are.” It took a great effort, but she smiled at him. “Look at you, helpless as a kitten. If you’re so strong, then why don’t you fight me? Come on, Scrydan, at least pretend to put up a fight.” She hit him again, with her left hand this time.
“Stop it,” he commanded.
She hit him again. “You’re so pathetic. Melissa got the best of you, and now I’m winning, too. You just can’t seem to defeat a woman, Scrydan.”
“She was a witch,” he said tersely, “not a woman. And you are nothing. You can’t hurt me. You can’t change what’s going to happen here tonight.”
“Can’t I?” she whispered, and then she hit him again.
O’Hara glanced around the suddenly quiet room. It was too quiet here, as if everything had stopped. The ghosts were gone, or at least hiding.
“Can you stand for a moment?” he asked, assisting Daisy to her feet.
“Of course,” she said, stepping away from him.
He walked to the door, reached out and touched the doorknob. It turned, but when he pulled it didn’t open. Still, it seemed less sturdy than it had been a few hours ago when they’d first been imprisoned here.
He turned to smile at Daisy. “Come give me a hand.”
She ran to join him, placed her hands over his, and together they pulled. The door didn’t open, but it did move. A little. They tried a few more times, but were still unable to get the door open.
“I think we’ll be out of here soon,” he said.
“Really?”
He nodded, and then moved back to the door to lay his hands against it. There was no shock, this time, no heat of the fire. Just a restlessness. Restlessness and a lot of pain. Old pain. New pain. Struggle.
“O’Hara?” Daisy said shyly.
He dropped his hands and turned to her. Daisy Willard was likely the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. More than that, she had allowed him to lay his hands on her. Women who knew what he could do didn’t do that. Not ever. There had been no lasting relationships for him, no one to talk to at the end of the day. Truth be told, he had once envied Eve and Lucien so much it tasted bitter.
“Everything’s going to be fine, I think,” he assured her.
“I think so, too.” She squirmed where she stood, looking very much like a lost little girl. “Everything feels … different, doesn’t it?”
She had no powers, to speak of, but her instincts were in fine working order.
“Yes, it does,” he answered.
Daisy Willard, more beautiful than any woman had a right to be, rocked up on her tiptoes and lifted her chin slightly. What a magnificent woman she was! When they got out of here, he was going to stay in Plummerville for an extended visit. He was going to call on Daisy like a proper gentleman would. He was going to take her flowers and candy. He was going to court her, well and proper.
“You won’t … tell anyone what you saw when you touched me, will you?” she asked nervously.
“Of course not.”
He could see well enough to notice that she bit her bottom lip in consternation. “Given the circumstances, it would probably be best if you didn’t even tell anyone that you touched me at all.”
His heart fell. “Certainly,” he said dryly.
“I … I thought we were going to die,” she explained. “I never would have … you know what I’m trying to say, I suspect.”
It hurt, more than he’d expected it would, to hear Daisy admit that she’d only allowed him to touch her because she’d believed it was her last night on this earth.
“You don’t tell anyone my name, and I’ll keep your little secret, as well.” Hers was not a little secret, of course, but a deep-seated pain. One he would never share with another living soul no matter what she said or did when they left this room.
She nodded. Had he actually thought for a while that when they got out of here Daisy Willard would give him the time of day? She had clung to him tonight because she was afraid. She would have clung to any man who had been here to protect her.
“The power in the walls is weakening,” he told her. “Since we’re not feeding Scrydan the fear he needs, he’s losing his strength. Right now he’s … fighting.” Fighting and losing, perhaps.
“And besides,” he added in a biting voice. “I’m sure your Viking will be here to rescue us all as soon as the sun comes up.”
*
Katherine rested her head on Garrick’s shoulder. Jerome was gone, and the kitchen was quiet. Very quiet. She suspected that Jerome was gone not just for tonight, but forever. Garrick had taught her to let him go. She wished she could be certain that he was truly gone.
No one had ever held her the way Garrick held her now, warm and tender. It was very nice, in an unexpected way. She couldn’t get close enough to the man who held her.
“I don’t want to die,” she whispered.
“I know.” Garrick raked his hand up and down her back in an attempt to comfort her.
Katherine lifted her head to look at him. She had never suspected that he had feelings for her. Not Garrick. She had never suspected that she might have feelings for him. Feelings that slept so deep she hadn’t know they were there. “You don’t know. For a very long time, I didn’t care. There wasn’t much to live for.”
He smiled. His neat little world had been turned upside down, the dire situation they were in was far from over, they both knew that there couldn’t ever be anything between them if they made it out of this hotel alive, and still he smiled.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.
“You say that in the dark,” she teased.
“I can see you, Katherine. In my mind, I carry this precise picture of you.” His fingers barely brushed her cheek. “Your skin, so pale and soft. Your nose,” he brushed the tip of his finger there, “regal and perfect. Your lips”—his finger brushed against her mouth. “Which I now know feel and taste as wonderful as they look. And when morning comes and I see you by the light of day, I know you’ll be even more beautiful.”
“I’m not …”
“You are,” he interrupted. “Don’t argue with me about this, Katherine.”
She touched his hair, those soft, fair strands, and he leaned forward to lay his mouth on her throat. The unexpected sensations he had brought to life began to slowly and insistently grow once again. All it took was that sensual touch of his lips to her skin. She closed her eyes and sighed. She felt so alive.
Katherine Cassidy was no untried maid. She was a widowed woman who had shared a bed with her husband for years. But until tonight, no man had ever truly made love to her. She hadn’t known what love was, until now.
No one had ever taught her to be bold, and she had certainly never wanted to be. Garrick made her want to be bold. She wanted to surprise him, the way he had surprised her.
While he kissed her, she untucked his shirt and slipped her hands beneath to touch his skin. He was warm, hot even, and when she stroked his skin he brought his mouth to hers and kissed her deeply. Her lips parted as she tasted him. Her body shuddered.
“Why couldn’t we have been trapped in a bedroom?” Garrick asked hoarsely. “With a nice, soft bed and a quilt or a blanket and …”
Katherine decided to be truly bold, and reached down to touch his erection. “Are you complaining?”
“No.”
*
This is not Lucien, Eve reminded herself as she hit him again. She wasn’t an extraordinarily strong woman, but still the effects of the blows she’d delivered were beginning to show on his face. A trickle of blood marred the corner of his mouth. His jaw was red, the flesh by the corner of his eye beginning to swell.
“Fight me, you son of a bitch,” she whispered.
“Evie, I couldn’t possibly hurt you.”
This was not Lucien, no
matter what he said. Not entirely, at least. Lucien was in there, but Scrydan was in control. It was Scrydan she fought.
The sky outside her window was no longer black. It was gray. Morning gray. With any luck, Lionel and Buster would be here soon, and she could set Lionel to discovering the spell that would weaken Scrydan. That wouldn’t happen if Lionel couldn’t open the front door and come inside.
Fighting Lucien was harder than she’d expected. Every strike hurt her, more than it seemed to hurt him.
Eve drew back her hand again, but stopped with her fist in midair. She couldn’t bear to hit the man beneath her again. There had to be another way to fight him, another way to weaken Scrydan. She relaxed her fingers and laid her trembling hand on his face. Her knuckles were raw and red, she had hit him so hard, so many times.
“Lucien, can you hear me?” she whispered. “I know you’re still in there.” She let her fingers stroke his stubbled cheek. “I love you. No matter what happened to bring us here. No matter that I don’t know in my heart that we’ll ever make things right. I love you.”
Scrydan scowled from behind long strands of dark hair that had fallen across his face. “Do you really think that matters?”
“I do,” she answered calmly as she lovingly brushed those strands away from his face. “I believe love is stronger than hate, stronger than fear. It’s certainly stronger than you. I don’t imagine you understand that concept. Love.”
“Lust,” he countered. “What you two felt for each other, before I arrived, was lust. Nothing more.”
“Not lust, not mere affection … love. It’s what brought me here. It’s what keeps Lucien alive, even now.”
“Not for long,” Scrydan whispered. “He’s almost completely gone, you know. He’s weak.”
“I don’t believe you.” She wondered if he could tell how much of a lie that was. Probably so.
“Would you care to make a trade?” he offered casually.
Her heart clenched, and every nerve in her body went tense. “What kind of trade?”
“I let your friends go. All of them.”
“They’re still alive?” she asked.
“At the moment, yes.”
She couldn’t believe him, couldn’t trust him at all. But what choice did she have but to listen? “And what do you want in return?”
“You release me, and then we walk out of here together.”
“Why? Why would you let us all live?”
“I see no reason not to be honest with you, Evie. I won’t keep you alive very long. These hands will choke the life out of you, once and for all.” He flexed his bound fists. “When the time is right, of course. When it’s just the two of us. I might allow Lucien to hang on just long enough to watch. Between the two of you that should provide a feast of fear that will keep me strong for a very long time.”
“If you have Lucien’s body and you’re away from the hotel, why do you need the fear?”
He leaned close to her again. “I like the way it tastes.”
If Lucien didn’t walk out of the hotel, she didn’t care if she survived or not. She didn’t want to die … but to sacrifice herself for five other people didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
“You would have to let them go, first,” she whispered.
“You don’t trust me, Evie?”
“No. I don’t trust you and I never will.” She took a ragged breath. “And stop calling me Evie,” she commanded hoarsely.
That request made him smile again. “Do we have a deal, lover?”
Her life for five. It wasn’t much of a choice. “Deal.”
O’Hara was pacing again, hands behind his back and steps long and quick, while Daisy stood very still, hands clasped and mind spinning. They were no longer lost in complete darkness. Morning was coming, and with it a gray light that broke through the window and illuminated the room. It was a shabby, dusty room, she now saw, and there were spiderwebs in every corner.
It was best not to look at the spiderwebs or the old bed or the chair where they had passed much of the night. Watching O’Hara was more comforting than allowing her mind to wander.
He was angry, still. He would never forgive her that one foolish lapse, in thinking Lionel a Vikinglike manly creation! Not that it mattered if he forgave her or not. If they got out of here, Quigley O’Hara would leave Plummerville rather quickly, she assumed. Why would he stay? Certainly not for her. He led an exciting life. He’d surely find Plummerville, and her, incredibly boring. It was just as well that he get out of town before he could inadvertently let her secret slip.
Everyone made mistakes. Most were not as colossal as hers, but still …
Who was she kidding? Even if O’Hara had once liked her a little, he didn’t now. He knew she was weak, and flighty, and stupid. And she’d been right all along. He didn’t care enough about her to forgive her one mistake from so long ago that she no longer felt like the same girl who had fallen in love and let her heart and her body rule her head.
It might be different if that night hadn’t been so memorable, in a wonderful way. She might be able to dismiss the horrid mistake if that night had been dark and painful and frightening.
That night had been none of those things. She’d loved lying with Tucker just as she’d loved him. She’d adored being a wife, before she was actually a wife. She’d enjoyed the sensations, the closeness, the way it felt to have the man she loved inside her. That wanton streak she’d discovered that night, the passion she tried to hide, only made her guilt sharper, harder to bury.
She tried to soothe her worries about O’Hara and the jaded past by thinking of other things. Poor Katherine and Garrick. Until recently, they hadn’t been able to get along at all. They had done much better, of late, but she wondered how they were faring, wherever they might be trapped. The kitchen, she supposed.
Eve was with Lucien … or Scrydan. What if he managed to get free? She’d seen him there as they’d walked down the second floor hallway, tied to the bed and looking terribly wicked. Would Eve be persuaded to let him go, in these circumstances?
Hugh had fallen, O’Hara said. Which meant that if he had survived he was all alone. That would be the worst, she imagined, to be alone in this hotel all night with no one to talk to. With no one to hold.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
O’Hara stopped pacing and glared at her. “For what?”
Daisy shrugged her shoulders. “Just for … everything. I would not have survived the night sane and sensible if not for you.”
“I suppose you’re welcome,” he said ungraciously.
“There’s no need to be snippy.”
“I think there’s every …”
Before he could finish the sentence, the door popped open. All the doors popped open. She heard them, up and down the hall, on the floor below. The doors creaked and banged and whooshed, as they opened one after another. O’Hara wasted no time. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her from the room. As they ran down the hallway he gave her one brief, biting instruction. “Don’t look back.”
She didn’t. O’Hara practically dragged her through the hallway and down the stairs to the second floor. It was a quick, breathless trip.
Even the front door had been thrown open, and morning light spilled into the lobby and up the stairs. Hugh was lying on the floor in front of Lucien’s room, conscious but barely so.
One door in the hotel remained closed, and that was the door to the room where Lucien was bound and Eve waited.
“O’Hara?” Eve called through the closed door.
“I’m here,” he called. “What happened?”
“Take Hugh and Daisy and get out of here. Katherine and Garrick are in the kitchen. Make sure they get out, too.”
“What about you?” O’Hara asked angrily.
A deep voice mumbled something indecipherable. Lucien, but not Lucien.
“You don’t have much time,” Eve said desperately. “Take everyone and get out!”
O’Hara looke
d at a dazed Hugh and then at Daisy, and cursed beneath his breath. “Let’s go,” he mumbled as he lifted Hugh to his feet. The older man could walk, but not without assistance.
“You’re not leaving her here!” Daisy said as she followed O’Hara to the stairs. “You’re not leaving Eve here to … to battle that thing alone.”
“I’ll come back when the rest of you are safe,” he said in a low voice.
“That might be too late!” Daisy said as she followed him down the stairs. As they reached the lobby, Garrick and Katherine emerged from the dining room. It looked as if they had passed a dreadful night. They were both rumpled and flushed, and their clothes were askew as if they’d been fighting something horrid all night long. Poor dears.
“Out,” O’Hara said with a nod of his head toward the front door. “Now.”
It was all the instruction Garrick and Katherine needed. They ran for the open door, hand in hand.
Daisy stopped a few feet back from the door, while O’Hara assisted a weak and groggy Hugh onto the front porch. “I can’t go,” she said softly. “I can’t leave Eve here!”
O’Hara said nothing. He handed the care of Hugh over to Garrick and stalked back into the hotel lobby. He was going to help her save Eve. Together they would …
He grabbed her, tossed her over his shoulder, and carried her onto the front porch. And the moment he unceremoniously dropped her onto her feet, the front door to the Honeycutt Hotel slammed shut.
Fifteen
Eve perched nervously on the edge of the mattress. Scrydan smiled at her. She didn’t even try to fool herself into thinking that Lucien was with her. The man before her was all Scrydan.
“Well?” he snapped, tugging at his bound wrists.
“When I’m sure everyone is safe I’ll let you go,” she said softly. Calmly. She needed calm, at a time like this. Eve rose from the bed and walked to the window. Dawn was here … so beautiful. The snow would probably all melt today. There were no clouds to keep the sun from the frozen ground.
She lifted the window and let the cool January air wash over her. In the distance, she saw Lionel and Buster riding toward the hotel, leading several horses as they hurried in this direction. Good. The others would be safely away from here soon.
