Bound by Dreams

by Christina Skye

  Kiera thought of the fragile lace glove, safe in its old box. She thought of her mother’s letter of explanation to her brother, safe in Kiera’s suitcase now. Her mission in England was done, a promise completed. Down the long row of trees, the lights of Agatha’s Mini Cooper slowly faded.

  In the sudden darkness, Kiera felt starkly, painfully, alone.

  A BRANCH TAPPED at the broad French doors of the second-story bedroom. The moon climbed higher, shrouded by rising clouds. Rain before morning.

  Too restless to sleep, Kiera tried to knit, but for once she found no peace in her fiber or stitches. On the wall, an exquisite map showed the old coast and ships at sail.

  Captivated by the map’s exquisite details, Kiera rose to trace the coast, her fingers sliding over cool glass.

  There were so many memories here. So much history and so many lives.

  Nearby another map hung. This one showed a high keep and a twisting moat. The term Draycott land took on a new meaning as Kiera studied the yellowing paper.

  Nine centuries of Draycott hands had protected the abbey’s slopes and woods, spilling their sweat and blood. This image of that history touched something deep inside her.

  But she didn’t want to be touched. She wanted nothing to do with the Draycott family or its long, convoluted history.

  Air stirred. Did she hear a low rustling in the hall? Maybe Calan had returned?

  Kiera crossed the room and threw open the door.

  Shadows gathered beneath paintings of hunting scenes and wild Scottish crags. Dim light touched beautiful old carpets. But the corridor was empty.

  Of course the corridor is empty. He’s not coming back until very late. And when he does come back, he won’t be lurking outside your bedroom.

  Angry at her own restless emotions, Kiera ran a hand through her hair and muttered crossly. She refused to give in to temptation. As soon as it was light, she was leaving. She had promised Calan she would stay for one night, but tomorrow she would put Draycott Abbey out of her mind forever.

  It was her family’s wish and her mother’s wish.

  With sleep retreating as a possibility, she decided a cup of her favorite herbal tea might work miracles. A few minutes later she stood in the silent kitchen, impatiently waiting for water to boil.

  As she was pulling down a cup and saucer, Kiera saw two boxes with foreign postage, pushed to the front of the counter. A handwritten note from Agatha was taped to the larger box.

  She didn’t want to snoop, but even a quick glance left her frozen. Unable to look away, she stared at the sealed lid.

  According to Agatha’s note, the boxes held some kind of new field safety gear. She mentioned a tactical suit and new Lexan face shields. They had been delivered that week for Calan’s work.

  Tactical suit and face shields.

  Ordnance? Some kind of military work? No, Agatha’s note mentioned “your new field safety gear.”

  Calan did safety work that required armor and face shields?

  Cold brushed her skin. Her mouth felt dry and gritty as she stared at the big box with rows of foreign stamps and special handling instructions.

  She stood listening to the teakettle begin to hum. She remembered how intense he could be, how deeply focused. She remembered how careful his touch could be. Was he a dedicated idealist or was he a cool, cynical playboy far too skilled at persuasion?

  The shrill whistle of the kettle finally cut through her tangled thoughts. She poured her tea and walked back through the silent house.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about those boxes.

  Light from an iron sconce touched the beautiful room with its blue silk wallpaper and blue damask coverlet. Crisp white bed linens shone beneath antique lace, some sort of ancient Scottish crest embroidered on each pillow.

  It was a very long way from her family’s rural stone farmhouse in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Every inch of the room held the mark of Calan’s keen mind and good taste.

  Irritated, she finished undressing and climbed into bed. With her clothes still at the inn, all she had to sleep in was a soft shirt of Calan’s. With every movement the fine cotton played over her skin, teasing her senses.

  Heat filled her face. Who was the real Calan MacKay? He had seduced her first with that smoky, lilting voice, and then brought her to stunned pleasure.

  Now he captivated her again, this time with the charm of his house. Kiera sensed this was a man who hid his talents well.

  Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t drive him out of her mind.

  Wanting came, sharp and unmistakable. How could she possibly leave when she had so many questions clamoring for answers?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A SMALL CURRENT OF AIR brushed Izzy Teague’s neck as he finished a call to Nicholas Draycott. He spun around, scanning the room, missing no detail.

  No one there.

  Scowling, he peered into corners and shadows, then turned back to his titanium case.

  He was still irritated at how the Scotsman had caught him unprepared in the car earlier that evening. There had been an uncanny silence and speed in the man’s movements.

  Frowning, he hunched over a wiring diagram that just didn’t make sense.

  Draycott Abbey was a perfect place for ghosts. Experience had taught him that the ancient house could get under your skin and make you imagine all kinds of strange shapes and noises.

  If you let it.

  OVER ONE HILL and around a wooded curve.

  Nicholas Draycott muttered as he shot along the deserted country lane. He’d finally escaped the murderous traffic from London. Now the abbey was only a few kilometers away.

  As always, the sense of home called to him, restoring his sanity after a day of chaos and uncertainty. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a deer plunge from the trees. Biting back an oath, he slammed on the brakes.

  The deer bolted back into the darkness.

  Minutes later the abbey’s great iron gates rose up before him, ornate in the car lights. Although he preferred his habit of opening them by hand, he’d been persuaded to add a remote unit as a security precaution, so he sat in the car, watching the heavy iron panels creak open.

  The sound was warm and familiar, part of the abbey’s welcome. This always was and would be home, he thought. The place that had been his lodestone, his first and best haven. His wife understood his love for the old abbey. Nicholas suspected that she loved the place almost as much as he did.

  The thought of Kacey sent a smile curving over his lips. When the Balkan summit was done, he was going to take her and their daughter away to a quiet island in the Caribbean for a long holiday.

  No cars. No cell phones. No faxes. No death threats or extremist groups.

  But before that there were a thousand problems to negotiate and dangers that could not be ignored. His mind continued to race as the gate halted, and he scanned the trees for unusual movements. Reassured that all was well, he drove inside, cueing the big iron panels to close behind him. If anything broke the infrared beam behind his car, it would trigger the new security alarm inside the house. The upgrades were a step in the right direction, but Nicholas knew there was much more to be done before the summit.

  He should have called in Izzy sooner. He should have—

  Regret was a waste of time. His safest option right now was to back out entirely and have the government switch to another venue. Yet Nicholas knew the reality of volatile Balkan politics. The meeting was too important to jeopardize. If there was a return of hostilities and more dead, he didn’t want it on his conscience.

  Behind him the gates clanged shut.

  He was halfway down the hill when the moon broke through the clouds and he had his first glimpse of the abbey. Wind ruffled the silver face of the moat as a bird called somewhere in the high woods. Moonlight clung to the twisted chimneys on the roof. Then a movement. Something seemed to drift in shadow near the north face.

  A figure or a dream from memories?

 
The skin tightened between Nicholas’s shoulder blades. He heard the distant sound of church bells on the wind, rising and fading, half real and half phantom.

  More old legends that would not die.

  As a boy he had been raised on stories of a brooding ancestor who walked the grounds on windswept nights, accompanied by his faithful gray cat with keen amber eyes. Old family servants and relatives had insisted there was truth to the stories. Nicholas had seen too much over the years to scoff at any of the odd tales that he had grown up with.

  Tonight the faint bells sounded like a warning.

  There was danger in what he had offered, danger to his house and to his family. But he had taken all possible precautions to protect Kacey and his daughter. That left the abbey to consider, along with the difficult process of dealing with the brigadier’s security team.

  He needed an update from Calan. They would go over the details of the summit preparation, while Calan and Izzy targeted any weak spots in the planned installations. After those additions were complete, the abbey would be in safe hands.

  Nicholas frowned at the ghostlike movement on the roof.

  Safe?

  Life had taught him that you were never as safe as you hoped. His months in Thailand had brought him bitterness and betrayal. He had nearly died during his brutal captivity, and when he’d come back, he was a changed man, withdrawn, emaciated and unable to trust anyone. He had lost his sister during that grim time, and the loss still clawed at his memory.

  Elena had been headstrong, beautiful and proud. Half his friends had been in love with her when they were growing up. Even young Calan had been touched by her kindness. Damaged and frightened, the young Scottish boy had needed all the friends he could find that first summer Nicholas had met him.

  Now he was the strongest person Nicholas knew.

  If only he would stop all this rootless wandering. If only…

  Leaves swirled up against the windshield, carried by a gust of wind.

  Nicholas pushed the past out of his mind. The future was his focus now, and how to prevent anything that would shatter the safety of this place he loved so well. Tomorrow his new safe would hold detailed munitions records to be discussed during the summit, to pressure all the delegates into negotiation. Not even his wife and his closest friends could be told about this sensitive information, by the prime minister’s directive. It was too late to turn back, Nicholas thought grimly.

  MOONLIGHT DAPPLED the high roof. Wind tossed flying white petals over weather-grayed stone.

  Fragrance drifted. Space seemed to gather, shimmering and restless.

  Out of the night Adrian Draycott walked, carrying a patch of moonlight on white lace cuffs. He studied the distant woods and then leaned out over the parapet, his eyes dark.

  Danger, he thought.

  Clearly, it comes now.

  There was never peace or rest for the guardian that he was and had been for nine centuries and more. The weight of the abbey’s protection fell on his broad shoulders. Always the duty and the danger.

  Always one more task to complete.

  Gravel raked the air, swirling over the deep shadows.

  And then a rustle at his boots. Gray fur and keen amber eyes caught in a pool of moonlight.

  “Ah, Gideon. Well met, my oldest friend. Just at the moment when I feared to sink into ill thoughts.” The guardian ghost of Draycott Abbey set one boot on the edge of the high parapets, perched above empty space. “Do you feel this new thing carried on the air, pulling me from rest?”

  The cat padded to the edge of the roof and sat on the ancient stones near his friend and master. His tail flicked sharply.

  “Yes, Nicholas has come back. Almost at the moat, and his thoughts are weary. Danger follows him like trailing smoke. I wonder that he cannot feel it clearly.”

  The cat meowed.

  “Humans. Limited in so much, and fierce when they are thwarted. Contentious and lacking in humor.” Adrian ran strong fingers over the cat’s thick fur. “Yes, I remember that they can hold strength and certainty. I remember what it meant to laugh and dream in human form. And well I remember the pride, which has set its hand on all of Draycott blood. Sometimes I think pride is our curse.”

  The cat brushed against his boot, amber eyes unblinking.

  “Useful? If tamed, possibly. If used to a good end, certainly. But which of us has the strength to control his pride?”

  Silence stretched out, as restless as the shadows that drifted at the edge of the roof. Cold grew, nearly visible in its density.

  Then car lights appeared at the top of the long driveway.

  Adrian’s lace cuffs fluttered in an unseen wind.

  The car stopped. A door opened.

  Nicholas Draycott picked up a single bag, stretched and then strode into the beautiful old house.

  “He doesn’t know that nobility and honor have their limits,” Adrian murmured to the cat at his feet. “He will have to learn, though the learning will cost him dear.”

  Suddenly Gideon meowed. With one paw he struck the air and a dim spiral rose, turning slowly.

  Not physical, yet glimmering with life, its energy drawn from the abbey’s very heart.

  “The mark,” Adrian said dourly. “Now you’ve done it. That is woman’s power turning there. Be careful where you touch or you’ll be tossed full off this roof, my friend.”

  The cat sat in fascination, watching the silver mark spin, slowly twisting into variations of its intertwining curves.

  Fragile, restless and powerful, the image grew.

  Silver swirled into new patterns. “Very old is that mark, even older than this roof. Older than the Virgin Queen who used it for her own ends. I remember the first time Good Bess made that sign, marking a secret message to the King of France. A Draycott lady among her waiting women carried the letter at great risk.”

  The cat’s fur rose on his back.

  “Difficult? Aye, so was she. Difficult and far more. But also brilliant. A woman capable of great charm, when politics or situation required. The mark became a sign of special favor to the women who served her. And one Draycott woman served her more than any others.”

  Adrian studied the twisting shape. “Past and forgotten, it is. Yet it is here, strong as ever. The Draycott women carry the energy about them always, even if they know it not.”

  The gray cat meowed.

  Adrian frowned. “You saw this shape? But where…” Adrian turned slowly. “On a lace glove, hidden in a box on the floor? And you saw it also on the Scotsman?”

  His eyes turned to the far woods, where a swift form moved from shadow to shadow. Only a ghost such as Adrian would have noticed the movement.

  “He hunts with rare skill tonight. And the mark is truly there?”

  Gideon’s tail flicked sharply.

  The silver image swirled again.

  “On his arm?” Adrian rubbed his neck. “The library will hold the truth of it. Unfortunately, we have no time to be at our books. The grounds must be walked. The walls must be checked. These men brought by Nicholas are to be trusted, their skills drawn and made greater by ours, though they know it not.”

  Adrian raised his hand. His words drifted through the air.

  “Above and below. Protection in hand and word. In all places and times.” Light shimmered and grew, haloing the roof and touching the roses. The figure in lace and black velvet moved from corner to corner. “Above and below,” he repeated intently.

  Finally the whole house was wrapped in a faint veil of silver.

  The abbey’s guardian prayed it would be enough for what was to come.

  THE WOODS WERE SILENT.

  A racing shape passed the moat.

  The small creatures nearby were still, frozen in burrow and nest. The terror of the Hunt touched the air.

  As the moon vanished in clouds, tracks crisscrossed the muddy slope beyond the stables. A bird shot from the trees as the long grass parted and shook.

  He found more footprint
s, the acrid ash from a dropped cigarette, the exotic mix of tobaccos burned into his memory for later reference. Up the trail, other footprints merged, drawn from separate vantage points in the woods.

  These men had been waiting. The moment the abbey’s alarms had been triggered by the government troops from London, these men had crossed the carefully hidden sensors, undetected in the chaos. The Hunter’s muscles clenched in anger at the realization. Ten feet away he found the metallic scent of chemicals, caught in the upraised leaves of clover along a small creek.

  He savored the scent, dragged it over his tongue so that it swirled through his nose. The molecules were bitter, complex, a particular mixture of opioids that eluded him now.

  No matter. Now was not for logic or science or thought.

  Now was for the Hunt.

  THE WIND SIGHED in the high woods.

  The thing in the grass moved. Shuddered. Bones slipped. Muscles clenched, twisting in the Change.

  The grass rustled and parted in a sudden wind.

  Then a man walked from the shadows, his body scratched and bruised, his bare feet streaked with mud. Slowly, he took the pile of clothes from beneath a bush, stretching with confident grace.

  When he was dressed, Calan MacKay studied the darkness. His muscles ached. His legs and feet were cut. Bruises ringed his right wrist. He had pushed himself to the very edge of exhaustion.

  But his search was done.

  The Scotsman had found exactly what he needed to find.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “HE’S TAKING TOO LONG, blast it.”

  Nicholas Draycott paced the library, glancing out into the darkness. “How long did you say he’d been gone?”

  “Over an hour.” Izzy Teague leaned back from the cluttered table and stretched. “I wouldn’t worry. Your friend strikes me as a man who can handle himself just fine. He got the jump on me without much effort,” Izzy grumbled.

  “I told you to expect that.” Nicholas took a last glance out the window, saw nothing unusual, and went to pour them both more tea. “I suppose I’m a little jumpy. I don’t like putting my house—not to mention my family—at potential risk.”