Bridget thought of his presence in her illustrations. While she couldn’t even begin to guess why, one thing seemed pretty clear. She and Khail crossing paths was no accident. But why did she have to be destined for a death-delivering, shapeshifting, cursed Cossack? Just once life could have given her the joy without the pain.
She should tell Khail about the sketches. But she guessed he wouldn’t know any more about their meaning than she did, and right now he looked emotionally wrecked enough.
Suddenly his face turned pale and he sat once again at her small kitchen table. His fingers gripped the edge as if he were struggling to remain upright.
“Is it getting worse? The buzzing?”
“Yes. The drone is getting louder…more persistent. They are gathering strength and as their determination grows, more of their collective thoughts make it through to me. The Unkind is determined to have you. But I am just as determined to keep you.”
Bridget set about making fresh coffee just to give her hands something to do. While her mind was exhausted, her body was wondering where the hell its morning walk had gone to.
Her cabin was the first thing in Bridget’s life to be totally hers. It represented safety, security and home. Every item in it was hand chosen with great care. So much care, in fact, that she considered the small log home almost an extension of herself. But right now all she wanted to do was leave it.
The walls were closing in on her. She couldn’t throw open the shutters and raise the window to breathe in the fresh, mountain air. She wanted the sun, not the dim artificial lighting from the few lamps they kept on. She feared she would lose her mind soon if she didn’t get out.
“Why are they just throwing their bird selves against the windows?” she asked after a few minutes of tense silence. “If they’re so determined to have me, why not change into men and beat the door down?”
“We have to be in the dwelling of the chosen one in order to change. It would be too tempting otherwise to simply try to live as men.”
Bridget was quiet for a moment, considering his words. The time was coming when a plan—no matter how bizarre—would have to be hatched. Being a prisoner in her own home sucked.
“How about this?” she asked casually. “We crack the shutters and let a bird get in. He changes into a man and we have a conversation. Either he’ll remain one with the flock and we’ll negotiate or he’ll somehow reclaim his individuality like you and I’ll have two naked guys stuck in my house with me.”
His expression was nothing short of horrified. “You would let the Unkind into your home? Voluntarily? Are you mad, woman?”
“If you have a better plan, spit it out because we have to do something. My sanity’s going to run out long before the food does.”
“I think that’s a bad plan. A very bad plan.”
She wondered if he was that afraid of his flock or if he just didn’t want another naked guy hanging around, stealing his thunder. “Okay…how about fire? We could make big torches and wave them around to keep the birds at bay until we get in my truck. Then we can at the very least drive to someplace more spacious and less remote to hide.”
“They would create an air current that would extinguish the flames as soon as you stepped out. There’s no place you can hide from them. Plus, if I walk out your door I’ll shift into bird form. Will you believe it’s me if I tap on your window with my beak?”
“Maybe I could put a necklace on you,” Bridget teased, imagining a big raven in her pearls.
Khail didn’t smile. “We won’t make it to your truck.”
“I have to do something!”
“What if it’s only me?” The question came quietly and the anguish in his eyes cut her to the quick. “What if, for some reason, you’re only immune to my touch? If you let another in and he succeeds where I have failed, my mind will break, moya kisa. My body will not die, but my soul will be dead forever. I cannot lose you.”
The intensity of his words backed Bridget up a few steps. Where did this bond come from? How could he be so powerfully attached to her in such a short time?
She knew, somehow, fate had brought them together. His presence in her sketches, her immunity to his deadly touch, suggested it was all part of some great master plan. And perhaps the immediate depths of his feelings for her were a part of his fierce warrior nature.
But her own heart refused to be so freely or quickly given, despite her already being closer to him than she had any other person in her life. And why, if fate meant for them to be together, was fate making it so damn hard?
“Another plan,” she said, changing the subject—too abruptly judging by the flash of pain in his eyes. “I’ll call somebody. I’ll call the fire department and tell them a flock of crazy birds is keeping me from leaving my house. Maybe they can spray them with the fire hose or something.”
“They can’t see them.”
“What?” Bridget threw up her hands in disgust. “Are you shittin’ me? The creepy werebirds with the supervillain touch of death are fucking invisible, too?”
“I don’t know why you can see us when nobody else can.”
She couldn’t do it any more. There was no way out, but she couldn’t be trapped like this for another single second.
“Fine! I give up.” She ran toward the door, ready to get it over with, but Khail grabbed her arm before she could reach the knob. “I can’t win, Khail. And I have to leave this house. I’ve been a prisoner before, and I won’t be one again. I won’t. I can’t!”
She fought him, kicking at him and trying to twist her wrists free. He held fast, absorbing the abuse and hauling her up against his body. His arms tightened around her, holding her close until her rage gave way to sobs.
Khail still tasted the acrid fear of her near death on his tongue.
He’d nearly missed her. The triumphant shrieking of the Unkind as she moved ever closer to their grasp had almost driven him to his knees, but then his fingers had closed around her wrist and he’d jerked her away from the door. They almost got her. The bastards had nearly taken her from him.
Why do you defy us, Mikhail? Why do you betray the Unkind?
Leave her alone.
We will wait. Our patience is eternal.
He stroked Bridget’s hair while she cried, easily absorbing the blows when she occasionally hammered at his chest with her fists. Holding her kept him from beating his own fists against the wall.
He couldn’t protect her from this. He didn’t know how. With no horse under him or scimitar in his hand, he was no better than an old woman. And he was going to fail her as surely as he’d failed his wife and daughter.
Pain permeated his senses. He wanted this woman to be his forever. Not because she kept the Unkind at bay. Not because she was the first to survive his touch. But because he already loved her.
Bridget slipped away from him, but she didn’t move in the direction of the door so he let her go. Instead she went to the sink to splash cold water over her face. She shuddered a couple of times as she pulled herself together.
Mikhail.
Rage welled up inside of him, but the stronger his anger became, the louder the Unkind grew.
Mikhail…die… You must be punished. The woman must die. We are…coming.
The droning became more persistent and Khail instinctively moved toward Bridget as she turned from the sink. He reached out for her, but she pushed him away.
“Please, moya kisa. They are so loud in my head.”
"Oh, boo-fucking-hoo. Why don't you just leave me alone—go shit on somebody's windshield or something."
He watched—stunned by her anger—as she walked away. He forced himself to let her go despite his need for her. Her emotional upheaval was understandable, and yet her words still pierced him like a pike through his gut.
She was about halfway to her bedroom when they heard the scraping sound. He turned, trying to identify the source just as Bridget shouted, “The fireplace!”
Khail moved toward the coun
ter, intent on grabbing a knife from the block, but Bridget was moving toward the hearth. “No!”
She got there before he could stop her. Black feathers dusted her cheek as a raven, covered in soot and slightly bedraggled, flew past her. The flapping of its wings didn’t cover the scurrying sound of another making its way through the pipe.
“Bridget, go in the bathroom,” Khail yelled as the raven flew toward him. “Go now!”
He whipped the blanket from around his waist and swung it like a net. The bird didn’t have time to react and Khail caught it, gathering the blanket corners together like a hobo’s sack. He slid the ends under the heavy table leg. It wouldn’t hold if the raven shifted, but it bought him the seconds he needed to get to Bridget who, of course, hadn’t listened.
He watched her as she pulled a heavy, metal grate across the opening, and realized while he was capturing one of the Unkind, Bridget had quickly pulled paper and wood from a box next to the hearth and laid the makings of a fire. As the scraping sounds in the chimney grew closer, he watched her slide the top of the grate onto three pins which held it fast with quick turns of the heads. Then she pulled a long match from a tin box and struck it against the stone. Flame flared to life, and she poked it through the gate and set it to the crumpled paper.
The reaction of the Unkind was immediate and dropped Khail to the floor. He clutched his head, shaking it as if he could dislodge the agonizing screams of outrage. Behind him he heard another male screaming along with them, but he was powerless to move.
Bridget, he shouted in his own mind, but the words never left his throat.
Bridget knew the instant the bird had fully retreated from the chimney pipe because the smoke already burning her eyes started drafting properly. If the birds were smart enough to block her chimney, she’d be screwed—and even if they didn’t it would get mighty hot keeping a fire going day and night—but she’d cross those bridges when she came to them.
Now she had to deal with the two men writhing on the floor of her cabin. After grabbing a large—but manageable—chunk of wood from the box, she stepped over a now-naked Khail.
Oh God, she couldn’t believe what she had said to him. It was cruel, but she’d been so overwhelmed at that moment. She would have to make it up to him somehow.
But for now, the bigger concern—the naked blond guy covered in soot thrashing under her blanket.
Their physical torment already seemed to be easing, and Bridget’s fingers tightened on the log. She could knock him over the head, but she was afraid she’d kill him. A dead raven couldn’t negotiate. Then again, she probably couldn’t kill him—they were immortal, so the only result would be that eventually her arm would get tired.
When the man started to rise, Bridget froze. She had no idea what the hell to do now. Even though she’d suggested this very idea, she hadn’t really thought it through all that well. Thankfully, she heard Khail getting to his feet as well. At least she wasn’t alone.
“What’s your name?” she asked the new naked guy—who wasn’t nearly as impressive nude as Khail—and she was pleasantly surprised by the steadiness of her voice. She must be getting used to this horror novel crap, after all.
“We are the Unkind.”
“So I’ve heard. But what is your name?”
“We are the Unkind. You must die.”
Creep. Bridget jumped a little at Khail’s touch and she almost dropped the makeshift weapon she had no idea what to do with. He was silent, and she assumed the two men were either communicating telepathically or simply sizing each other up. She guessed the latter.
“I told you to hide in the bathroom,” he said to her in a low voice.
“I was busy. And why the bathroom?”
“So you would have water if I was taken and you had to remain in there.”
“You must die,” the blond said. “We are the Unkind.”
Bridget was pretty sick of hearing that. And she was about to tell him so when he made a sudden break for the door.
Chapter Four
The guy should have remembered the blanket, Bridget thought. By the time he slipped, recovered and started running again, Khail had time to react. She watched him tackle the intruder as though he were a linebacker instead of a Cossack. Just in case, though, she hurried to the door, wielding the log like a baseball bat. She couldn’t let him get to the door or to the shutters.
“She must die, Mikhail,” the blond said through gritted teeth as he tried to get his fingers to Khail’s throat.
“You are not taking her from me, Hermann.”
Bridget wondered if they all knew each other’s names or if their mental link simply coughed up whatever information they needed. She watched them wrestling on the floor, and her fear ebbed slightly while she pondered how ridiculous two naked men looking rolling around trying to thumb each other’s eyes out.
The small table overturned as each man fought for control. Khail managed to throw a punch to the jaw, snapping the blond’s head back. But then Hermann managed to get his hands around Khail’s throat and Bridget’s fear returned. She moved forward, hoping she could hit the intruder with the log hard enough to stun him without missing and hitting Khail instead.
Then suddenly they stopped. With no visible communication, they just moved apart and sat staring at one another, panting. Exertion and hostility had both of them flushed a deep scarlet, and bruises were already blossoming on Khail’s throat to match the ones on his adversary’s jaw.
“We will talk,” Hermann said, but his voice retained the slightly flat quality that told her he was still one with the flock.
“Do me a favor—fix the table and sit in the chairs.” Both men did as she asked, though the items that had been on the table remained scattered across the floor. “Now scoot yourselves in. That’s good.”
Now, at least, she could pretend they had pants on, which would make any negotiations slightly less unnerving. Khail nude she could handle, but Hermann was another matter entirely.
“Why are you not dead?” he asked bluntly.
“I don’t know. I’ve already gone through all this with Khail, and with your mental mojo, you should know that. I don’t know why I didn’t die. I don’t know why I can see you. And I don’t know why you still want me dead.”
“You have upset the balance.”
“I thought it was all about being random. You randomly tried to end my life, and I randomly didn’t die. Why can’t you let it go at that?”
Hermann looked decidedly perplexed, which Bridget took as a good sign. If they weren’t one hundred percent sure of what was going on, perhaps they could be swayed.
“Why do you think I didn’t die?” she asked, curious as to whether or not they had their own theory.
By now she’d set the log down and moved close enough to rest her hands on the table and lean forward. She realized her mistake a second too late.
Hermann exploded out of the chair, catching her on the way by. They hit the floor, her head thankfully bouncing off his arm rather than the hardwood floor.
His fingertips brushed her mouth and she realized his lips were moving. She had a quick flash of Khail doing that very same thing.
Oh shit. He was trying to kill her. She jerked her face away just as a growling mass of muscle collided with them. This time her head did smack the floor as Hermann was torn away from her.
A knee—she had no idea whose—caught her in the side and she rolled away. She scrambled for the log she’d carelessly dropped once the men were seated. Finally she found the chunk of wood. She pushed herself up, but her free hand slipped in spilled coffee and she went down again.
Black wings slapped her in the face and she realized with horror the men had shifted. Fear kept her frozen for a few terrifying seconds. Obviously she wasn’t as accustomed to this supernatural shit as she’d thought. The two ravens circled in the air like seasoned air combat veterans—feinting, testing one another.
Bridget gained her feet, but stood helplessly as they
began dive-bombing one another. She lifted the log, then lowered it again when she realized she couldn’t tell which one was Khail.
The ravens tangled amidst a flurry of wings and talons. They both shrieked and blood droplets hit the floor before they broke apart, each retreating to an opposite corner of the room.
Twice more they went at each other, and Bridget grew more terrified with every pass—with every spilled drop of blood. Which one was Khail?
An idea came to her, and she ran to the door and hit the switches for the full overhead lights. In the sudden glare she could see both ravens were tiring, both of them wounded.
She watched intently and finally spotted what she was looking for. As one of the ravens flapped his giant wings, a fine, almost invisible dusting of soot sifted to the floor. She eased forward, waiting for her moment. When the Hermann bird dipped as if about to swoop up under Khail, she swung like Babe Ruth and the raven sailed toward the far wall.
He shifted before the collision, and even though she was expecting it this time, the visual impact still stunned her. Khail shifted at almost the same moment, and she was dismayed to see him sink onto the couch, his chest heaving and blood running down the side of his face. There were numerous—hopefully superficial—slashes on his arms and chest.
He would have to wait. Hermann was crumpled on the floor in front of the fireplace. Bridget ran to the kitchen and yanked open the third drawer from the fridge—the dreaded junk drawer. It took only seconds to find the bag of zip ties. She grabbed a few and headed back.
Hermann was already stirring, so she acted fast. One zip tie drawn tightly around each wrist, then another connecting those two. She had no hopes they would hold him if he shifted, but he wouldn’t be grabbing at her again anytime soon.
Kiss Me Deadly Page 4