Shades of Winter

by Linda Fallon

  From this vantage point, she saw that Elijah followed at a distance. Her breath hitched. The boy who had done his best to save Lucien could not come near this hotel. Not with the battle that was still being waged.

  How close would Lionel have to be to sense that Elijah was following? How close to the hotel before the psychic might receive a message from her? This place was not safe for a child, she knew that with all her broken heart.

  O’Hara walked around the corner of the hotel, staring up at her window the entire way. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snapped.

  “It was the only way,” she explained. “You’re all out and safe. That’s all that matters.”

  “It is not!” he shouted. “How can I get back in?”

  “Tell him not to try,” Scrydan whispered. “Tell him if he comes back into this hotel, I will have his entrails for supper.”

  She didn’t even look toward the bed. “You can’t,” she said, her insides twisting. “It’s too late for that.”

  Daisy came running around the corner, and O’Hara snapped his head around to look at her. “I told you to stay with the others!”

  “I don’t have to do what you say.” Daisy tilted her head back and looked up at Eve. “I didn’t want to leave you in there,” she explained. “This cretin carried me out of the hotel.”

  “Cretin?” O’Hara repeated.

  “Good for him,” Eve said. “Now I want you to make him do something he doesn’t want to do.”

  “Gladly,” Daisy said.

  “Make him take you and the others back to Plummerville.” She nodded toward the approaching Lionel, Buster, and tethered horses. “There’s your escort home. Go out to meet them, and tell Lionel that Elijah is following. Send the boy home. Tell him not to come here again.”

  “Why not?” Scrydan asked softly. “I won’t be here much longer. The boy never seemed very tasty, in any case. He doesn’t have the proper imagination.”

  “Can’t you climb out the window?” Daisy asked in a loud whisper everyone could hear.

  “Tell her if you try the very walls will shake you loose and you will break your sweet neck,” Scrydan whispered.

  “I can’t,” Eve answered simply, staring down at Daisy and O’Hara. “Tell Lionel there was a Melissa here …”

  “It’s time for you to untie me,” Scrydan interrupted angrily. “I held up my end of the bargain, now it’s your turn.”

  Eve closed the window, turning her back on O’Hara and Daisy’s shouts.

  “As soon as they’re gone,” she said confidently.

  “That wasn’t part of the deal,” Scrydan said, yanking at his right hand and making the headboard crack and jump.

  With only her in the house, his energies would be more focused. He would get stronger. Eventually he wouldn’t need her to untie him. He’d break free on his own.

  “It’s a part of the deal now,” she whispered. “What’s your hurry?”

  “I’ve been trapped here for a very long time,” Scrydan said. “Too long. Until Lucien came along, I had forgotten what it felt like to breathe and taste. I had forgotten what it felt like to glide inside a willing woman.”

  She had begun making love to Scrydan, last night. God in heaven, just last night! But it had been Lucien who made love to her. Lucien who came to the surface to protect her. He wouldn’t let Scrydan hurt her, not if he had any strength left.

  Lucien was still there, weak but not yet gone.

  “If you’ve waited this long, you can wait a while longer,” she said.

  “I’ve waited long enough.”

  Eve paced restlessly, while Scrydan muttered and yanked at the ropes that bound him. After a few long minutes had passed, she returned to the window. Sure enough, O’Hara and Lionel were leading the others away from the hotel. Elijah was heading toward home. She closed her eyes. They were safe. It was the only way.

  She turned around to find Scrydan smiling at her. “Now you will let me go?”

  “Not yet.” Her wedding gown had what seemed like a hundred tiny buttons down the front. Yes, they were elegant, but what had Laverne been thinking! She began to unfasten those buttons.

  “What are you doing?” Scrydan asked.

  “You’re going to kill me. You have at least been honest with me about that.” She did not so much as slow down as she continued her chore, eyes on Scrydan. “Maybe I want to hold Lucien one last time before I untie you. Maybe I want to touch him, flesh to flesh, once more.”

  “Lucien isn’t here.”

  “Yes, he is.” She took her time removing her wedding dress. It was a chore Lucien himself should have taken on days ago, in their own bedroom, standing beside their own bed. She didn’t hurry, but it wasn’t a pleasant task. She only got through it remembering that Lucien was in there, somewhere, and this might be the only way she could reach him.

  They were at least a mile away from the hotel, and still Daisy chattered in O’Hara’s ear. “I can’t believe you’d leave them there!” She sniffled and wiped at the tears running down her face. “How could you? What kind of a man are you?”

  She didn’t take her anger out on everyone. She didn’t harangue any of the others. Only him.

  “If I were a man,” she continued, “I’d still be there fighting for my friends. If you hadn’t physically dragged me out of the house …”

  “Daisy, be quiet,” he insisted.

  “I will not …”

  O’Hara glanced at Lionel, who rode blissfully alone. “Have we gone far enough, do you think?”

  Lionel closed his eyes and took a deep breath while his horse continued unerringly forward. “Yes,” he finally said.

  “Far enough for what?” Daisy asked.

  One by one they all brought their horses to a halt beneath the shelter of a cluster of trees that grew beside and over the road.

  O’Hara ignored Daisy—no easy task since she was riding behind him and hanging on for dear life—and addressed the men. “Garrick, Buster, we’ll leave it to you to see the ladies safely home and get Hugh to a doctor.”

  “I’m fine,” Hugh said, in a voice that told everyone present that he was not at all fine. “My place is with you two.”

  “You’re going back?” Daisy asked breathlessly. She leaned as far to the side as possible without falling off, so that all O’Hara had to do was twist his head slightly to see her.

  “Yes,” he said, offering a hand to assist her to the ground. “Of course.”

  She took his hand comfortably, no doubt forgetting for the moment about his ability. He tried to block out the feelings that came through, but the sensation of worry was too intense to ignore. Worry for her friends. Worry for him. She hung tightly onto his hand for a moment before she made an effort to swing down. Buster was there to assist her.

  “Be careful,” she said, looking up at him.

  “We will.”

  “I didn’t really mean what I said,” she chattered. “I know you’re not a coward. I knew you wouldn’t just ride off and leave Eve and Lucien there to … to …” Maybe even Daisy knew that death wasn’t the worst of the outcomes that awaited her friends. “Be careful,” she said again.

  Lionel started riding slowly back toward the hotel, and O’Hara followed. Leaving Daisy behind was much more difficult than he’d expected it might be.

  “Will he know we’re coming?” he asked, setting his mind on the task ahead.

  “Maybe,” Lionel said, his mind already working. “It depends. If Eve is putting up a fight, maybe Scrydan will be too occupied with her to sense us.”

  “Maybe,” O’Hara muttered.

  “I think I know what to do to get them out,” the Viking said thoughtfully. “It will be dangerous, but it might be the only way.”

  “Just tell me what to do. I think we’re well beyond worrying about danger, at this point.”

  “True enough,” Lionel said absently.

  Much of the snow was gone, but patches of white remained in the shadows of the tal
l evergreens. Icy snow crackled beneath the horse’s hooves, as they retraced their steps. At least Daisy and the others were safe, and Hugh would soon see a doctor. No matter what happened, he could take comfort in that.

  “O’Hara,” Lionel said in a lowered voice, as they passed beneath the limbs of a tall evergreen tree. “Daisy Willard doesn’t like me. She likes you.”

  “We agreed a long time ago not to read one another,” O’Hara snapped.

  Lionel grinned. “Oh, I didn’t read you, Quigley. I read Daisy.”

  “What’s the knife for?” Lucien asked as Eve climbed onto the bed, her wedding gown and underclothes discarded. She had to think of him as Lucien, not Scrydan, to do what had to be done.

  “For cutting the ropes,” she explained as she clutched Buster’s knife a little tighter in her right hand, “when the time is right.”

  “Now is the time,” he insisted.

  “Not yet.”

  She unfastened the buttons that kept his trousers closed, her fingers trembling. They’d made love many times, but this was different. Scrydan ruled Lucien’s head and his body. But not his heart. Somehow she was sure of that. The demon hadn’t taken over completely. Not yet.

  Beneath the confines of his trousers, he was already hard. She freed him, caressed him.

  “You could untie me so I can properly participate,” Scrydan said, a leer in his voice. “Or are you perverted? Ah, I’ll bet you and Lucien used to play this little game. Did he ever tie you up and take you rough? Did he ever hurt you?”

  “You know he didn’t,” she whispered. “Lucien loves me. He would never hurt me.”

  “So you think I’ll let Lucien come out to play just because you want to be his trollop one last time?” Scrydan grinned and winked at her. “You may continue. I don’t find you at all unpleasant. But understand that there’s no one here but me, Eve. Maybe you know that. Maybe you like me more than you’ve been letting on.”

  Surely he knew suggesting that she might find him attractive would be repulsive to her. Scrydan was a demon, a monster. She loved the man he had captured.

  “Lucien is here,” she whispered. “I can smell him. I can feel him.” She ran her hand up his chest and rested her palm over his heart. It beat too fast, and had since the battle inside Lucien had begun. She leaned in close, dangerously close, and raked the tip of her nose against his throat. Her tongue flicked out and tasted his sweat.

  “I’m still going to kill you when we get out of here,” Scrydan promised.

  She straddled him as she had earlier, only this time his manhood was freed and she was naked. He was so close to being inside her, so very close.

  “It won’t work,” he whispered hoarsely. “All you’re doing is making me stronger.” He leered at her, stared at her bare breasts and flicked his tongue in that direction.

  “Then why are you so worried?”

  “I’m not worried,” he assured her. “You’re nothing, lover. You can’t hurt me. You can’t push me aside to bring back a man who no longer exists. Continue, if you insist, but it’s me you’re ravishing, not your beloved Lucien.”

  She couldn’t believe that he was right. Lucien had fought his way to the surface once before, when Scrydan had been inside her. He would do it again. He loved her that much, she knew it.

  “I think you know it’s only me,” Scrydan whispered. “Maybe you don’t care whose spirit is inside this body. You only care about the body itself.”

  He was trying to repulse her, trying to make her surrender before she’d even begun.

  So many nights she’d touched this body, this man. She knew him so well. Every curve, every hollow. More than that, she knew the heart that beat in this chest, the spirit that was Lucien Thorpe.

  Eve held her breath as she guided him to her, as she moved against him so that he entered her slowly. He lay there, motionless, that damnable smile on his face. Scrydan was here, he was in control, but Lucien was here, too. She felt it with all her heart.

  “I love you, Lucien,” she whispered as she moved gently atop him, her hips swaying. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything in my entire life. Even when I’m angry, even when I don’t think there’s any hope for us, I love you.”

  The knife was in her right hand, grasped tight. Her left hand reached out to touch Lucien’s cheek. A cold wind from nowhere circled around her, chilling her bare body. She paid it no mind. There was only Lucien, and the way they came together. Nothing else mattered.

  He didn’t make a move to bite her, as he had earlier. She rose and fell slowly, taking him in deep, closing her eyes and remembering all the times they’d been together this way. It was more than sex, more than physical.

  Lucien was the better half of her, just as she was the better half of him. Separate they were less than they were together. Together they could do anything. Together they could fight this thing that had taken up residence in Lucien’s body.

  The cold wind died, the man beneath her moved his hips and moaned low in his throat. Eve opened her eyes and knew without a doubt that she was looking at Lucien. Those were his eyes, staring at her. “Fight him,” she whispered as she lowered herself to take him deep again. “You’re mine, Lucien. I won’t let you go so easily.”

  She reached out to sever one rope.

  “No,” he said as the blade touched twine. “Not yet. It’s not time. He’s still here.”

  “Fight him, Lucien. Fight him for me. For us. For the life we will never have if he wins.”

  “Evie,” he whispered.

  “Fight him for the children we haven’t had time to make. For all we know the first of those babies is growing inside me right now. If we let Scrydan win that baby will never be born. We’ll die here in this awful place, you and me and our babies.”

  “I won’t let that happen,” Lucien whispered hoarsely.

  “I know you won’t. Resist him, Lucien, push him out. You have the strength, you have the will, and you have me.” She swayed into him, rose up slowly. “Don’t let him sleep, don’t let him hide. Push him out and once he’s gone close the doors in your mind so that he can’t find his way back in. He’s been working too hard to hold on to you and control the hotel and the spirits in it. He’s weak. Now’s the time.” She reached out and cut the rope that tethered one hand to one headboard post.

  Lucien’s arm snapped up and around to grasp her tight. He swayed against and into her, and she shifted the knife to the other hand and cut the other rope. As before, that arm encircled and held her.

  It was Lucien who held her, she knew it as the angry hotel began to shake. The walls, the floor, the furniture. It all quivered with anger.

  “Lucien?” she whispered.

  “Yes, Evie, it’s me.”

  She kept her arms around him, smiling as one last time she sank down to take him as deep as possible. The pleasure exploded inside her, and as she clenched around him Lucien quivered and found his own fulfillment. While the angry house shuddered, while the doors banged open and shut, they dismissed everything but each other.

  Eve was warm again. Lucien’s heart had returned to a normal rhythm. They were one, still, physically and spiritually. Together they had pushed Scrydan out. At least, it seemed that way to her.

  “He’s gone?” she asked as she disentangled their bodies and cut the ropes, one and then another, that bound Lucien’s legs.

  He nodded. “Completely. Can we get out of this cursed place?”

  “Please.” She grabbed her wedding gown and stepped into it, quickly slipping her arms through the sleeves. There wasn’t time for anything else, not for shoes or her chemise or that expensive corset. She tugged on the gown and buttoned a few of the tiny buttons down the front.

  “You can finish that outside,” Lucien said, taking her hand and all but dragging her from the room. They ran down the stairs, toward the front entrance to the hotel. Lucien tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “No matter what you do,” Eve said, “keep those d
oors in your mind tightly closed. Don’t let him back in.”

  Lucien nodded as he glanced around the large room. “So many spirits.”

  “You can’t let any of them in,” she insisted. “You know what happened last time.”

  “I wish you had brought the specter-o-meter.”

  Now she knew she had Lucien back! “How do we get out of here?” She held his hand tightly. Separate, they were both vulnerable. Together they were unbeatable.

  They heard quick hoofbeats, and ran to a window to look outside. It was O’Hara and Lionel, their horses approaching the hotel at breakneck speed. They both dismounted and ran toward the hotel. It was Lionel who saw them first.

  “Is the door refusing to open again?” he asked loudly, so they could hear him through the shuddering walls.

  “Yes,” Lucien shouted back. With one hand he tried to lift the window. It didn’t budge. “I’m going to break this window.”

  “No!” Lionel shouted. “Wait.” He closed his eyes and went still there on the porch, but only for a moment. When he opened his eyes he laid them on Lucien and stared a moment longer. Was he weighing Lucien? Making sure it was truly Lucien he was rescuing? Finally he smiled. “Stand close to the door and be ready to run, but stay well away from the windows. I have an idea.”

  *

  “Are you finally going to tell me about this idea?” O’Hara snapped as Lionel walked away from the hotel.

  “The message from Eve, the mention of Melissa, opened a new door. I had a vision that a window was broken, and it started a reaction of some kind.”

  “A reaction,” O’Hara repeated.

  “Windows exploding. Walls crumbling.” Lionel looked at O’Hara. “The end of the Honeycutt Hotel and everything in it. Scrydan is weak, perhaps weaker than he has ever been. Now is the time to strike. If the hotel dies, he dies.”

  “And the trapped spirits?”

  “Finally free to move on.”

  O’Hara nodded.

  “But it’s dangerous,” Lionel added. “I can’t be sure exactly what will happen. Nothing here is as it seems. My visions are altered in this place. Everything here is warped.”