Darkness Bound

by Stella Cameron

  Quiet fell between them again.

  “I’m in the way,” Niles said hurriedly. “If you still want me to come, I’ll be back later. I thought about you and wandered right on over. That was pushy of me.”

  Leigh smiled slowly. “You and I could do with a crash course in saying what we mean when we mean it. I’m just going to be fiddling around, too. I’m making lasagna, garlic bread, and a salad. Are you any good at washing salad stuff and chopping it up?”

  His smile turned her heart as it had outside Sally’s shop.

  “I’m the most accomplished salad stuff washer for miles around,” he said. “Wait till you see me chop. You’ll be jealous.”

  She started unpacking and he took things from the other bag. That’s when she noticed a bottle sticking out of each of his large jacket pockets.

  “You’ll break those against the table,” Leigh said, nodding. “Are you a closet boozer?”

  Immediately, he hauled a bottle of red wine from one pocket and a bottle of white from the other. “I wasn’t sure what to get so I got one of each. I’ve got a couple more down at my place in case we need them but I didn’t want to give the wrong impression.”

  “Red with lasagna,” Leigh said. “But how about we have a glass of white while we work?”

  Immediately he took the bottle of white and Leigh found two glasses. She set them on the table and looked at them with a sad little squeeze of the heart. Whatever happened, she must not think of the last time she and Chris did each thing here. There were a million last times to get through and she had to be strong.

  “Bottle opener?” Niles said.

  “Drawer to the left of the sink.”

  She set to work, making a meat sauce from a recipe she and Jan had concocted when they were little more than kids growing up in New Orleans. They both loved it. While the sauce simmered, she sliced mozzarella cheese and opened a carton of ricotta.

  Niles, she noticed, didn’t do more than sip his wine now and again, but he chopped a mean tomato and washed lettuce until it squeaked.

  “We didn’t say a toast,” she said, glancing at Niles over her shoulder. He had shed his coat, hung it on the back of the cleaning cupboard door on top of Chris’s old flight jacket. A dark gray cotton shirt with a black turtleneck underneath suited him. Probably, anything would suit him, but his eyes looked even more blue tonight.

  “What shall we drink to?” he asked, handing over her glass.

  She said, “New beginnings,” without thinking, and felt a faint heat in her face. “That’s for me because I’m starting over. What about you?”

  The quizzical way he returned her gaze made Leigh sense he knew she had tried to cover because she thought he might take the toast wrong. Or right. She looked into her glass.

  “New beginnings will do for a start,” he said, clinking his glass against hers. “And possibilities, good starts, the unexpected… hope.”

  Leigh had to take a breath before she said, “I second that and I’ll drink to it.”

  Tension crimped her shoulders and her movements felt jerky. When she looked at Niles, he was watching her mouth. She rested the rim of her glass against her bottom lip.

  His next smile was quick and as fleeting as the way he ran the tips of his fingers down the side of her face.

  She put down her glass and started putting lasagna noodles into boiling water. While her back was to him, she heard him start to chop again, chop and whistle.

  Leigh closed her eyes. Chris used to whistle.

  “Can I use one of these wooden bowls?” Niles had taken a big salad bowl from a shelf and she nodded.

  While she finished making the lasagna and getting it into the oven, Niles lighted both fireplaces. He had offered to light a fire and she had asked him to do the second one, too.

  Chris had often insisted on having both fires alight when it was really cold, and he delighted in watching people’s reactions when they first came into the house.

  The kitchen grew too warm.

  Leigh opened a window an inch or so. The table there was the only one she had and she didn’t want her guests sweating over dinner.

  A green checked tablecloth, washed enough times to make it soft, matching napkins, and the white plates with blue stripes around the rim didn’t make for an elegant setting, but everything was cozy.

  She found a vase a little larger than the circus glass with room for several stems and went through the door to the side of the house. A nearby holly bush was loaded with berries and if she could make it there without falling on her face, a few sprigs would be perfect.

  Careful to be quiet—she didn’t want Niles rushing to do the job for her—she closed the kitchen door again and picked her way toward the woodpile. The holly she had in mind was behind the lean-to. Pungent scents of pine, earth, and cedar filled her nose, and cold snapped at her ears.

  When would she learn not to come out here without a flashlight? At least she had thought to put the long kitchen shears in her pocket and wear gloves so her hands wouldn’t get torn to shreds.

  The berries seemed shiny black in the near complete darkness. A faint moon hovered behind slinking layers of cloud in mottled grays. The best pieces of any bush were always high up. She thought of gathering blackberries in summer and how the fattest, most ripe berries inevitably left her with a multitude of long, often bloody scratches.

  She edged around the bush, stood on tiptoe, and reached up with her shears. It took three attempts to cut a laden twig and let it fall. Breathless, she paused before rising to her toes again and brandishing the shears.

  Leigh concentrated on snagging what she wanted but couldn’t help noticing how her form threw a tall, wide shadow, and how the shears seemed at least a foot and a half long.

  Still on her toes, she opened her mouth without knowing why. The shadow shears pointed down, toward her; the ones she held were straight up, the blades closed on the branch she wanted.

  The moon wasn’t strong enough to throw shadows, and even if it were, it was in front of her, not behind.

  Keeping very, very still, and choking silently, Leigh fought to order her thoughts. If she screamed, Niles would probably hear and come. But there would be time for whoever was behind her to make a killing strike, then attack Niles as he came from the house.

  The slightest move detached the shears from the bush. Leigh changed her grip to hold them like a knife and swung around with her arm raised.

  She tried to scream but no sound came.

  Between her and the lean-to, and a vast tree at the opposite end of the little building, a figure hovered. Without substance, rippling like misty white water, it curved high in the air and bent over her. Leigh could see the tree through the figure as if it and the tree were one.

  A shrieking laugh tore through her head, growing higher and higher until it floated away like discordant notes played on a flute.

  She dropped the shears.

  With no warning, no perceptible change of position, the figure shrank and became barely taller than Leigh. Where there had been no features at all, great yellow eyes blinked at her and a mouth as wide as the big tree’s trunk stretched as if in a grin, turned up at the corners, and revealed pointed teeth.

  The mouth came closer, and closer, opening wider until she knew its intention.

  A thick, fleshy tongue protruded to lap her face, slither around her neck, and suck her head into the gaping jaws.

  chapter FOURTEEN

  NILES FELT A BREEZE, sensed its prickling cold, smelled scents from the forest.

  And he felt danger, heard Leigh thinking his name.

  He put the fire tongs down quietly and strode to the kitchen on soft feet. As he entered, the breeze became a blast of wind through the open door. It carried the odor of decay, the stench of death. Outside there was a death slave; zombie, werewolf, fae, even werehound, the dead creature’s animated carcass had been kept to do dirty work for some malevolent force.

  Fighting his own instinct to change and take
advantage of the anonymous cover of his hound form, Niles flipped off the light. Darkness was his friend. He saw better in the dark than most people did in daylight.

  Slipping rapidly outside, he stared out among the trees. To call for Leigh could work against them. And if she discovered he could talk into her mind, the shock might kill her.

  Summoning the skill he rarely used, he flew straight up without the aid of trees to boost him. To fly unaided in the open made him too likely to be seen, but all he cared about now was getting to Leigh. From high above the ground where he could have a wider view of the area, he scanned carefully, tree to tree, space to space. He picked out wild animals, small and large, scurrying or slinking on their way, and he looked into the eyes of an owl wise enough to remain silent.

  There it was. Fading into the trunk of a tree, the ghostly form of a decaying woodsman fae.

  There was no time to puzzle out the first appearance of such a thing on this island—as far as he knew. But Sally must be questioned without angering her.

  He hovered, made a half turn, and saw Leigh—in a huddled heap on the ground.

  Niles tried but failed to stifle his fear, his anger, and landed a few feet from her. “Leigh?” he said, running to kneel beside her. He felt her shiver and relief fueled fresh rage. “Leigh. What happened?”

  He started to turn her over but she resisted, whimpering and struggling against him.

  “It’s Niles,” he said. “You’re okay. Hey, you’re with me and you’re okay.”

  She remained bent over, her face buried in her hands.

  Gently, holding back the inhuman potential of his strength, he scooped her into his arms, turning her as he did so. And she rolled to press herself against him, still covering her face.

  A wide mark circled her neck. Wide and red with darker specks of blood just beneath the skin.

  And her hair was damp.

  The woodsman had put his mark on her—to please his master no doubt. And to warn Niles not to get in the way of the fae. By nature the woodsmen were not violent, but death could change everything and here it had.

  Niles carried Leigh to the cottage, into the living room, and started to set her down in an armchair. She threw an arm around his neck and hung on.

  “Tell me about it, Leigh.” Brushing back her hair, stroking the side of her face, he willed her to be calm.

  She held him tighter, buried her face in his chest. Niles’s heart slammed. His arousal was instant and insistent. He spread his hands on her back and rubbed softly back and forth.

  “It was huge, tall, with a knife in its hands. When I turned around it was milky, misty—formless. Then it shrank until it was no bigger than me—”

  The words tumbled out and Niles’s fury grew. Was the zombie woodsman Brande’s? Did he and his wolves want to plant more seeds of trouble in the community and cause people to panic, in addition to getting rid of Leigh and the nuisance she could be to the wolves if she mated with Niles?

  Why try to force confrontation?

  He hushed Leigh and kept on holding her firmly. She weighed very little. These humans were fragile creatures. He wanted to make her his, to keep her with him forever.

  This fierce protective urge, this possessiveness… was this how love began? He thought back to his days in Wyoming, to the woman he had known there, his fiancée.

  No, this wasn’t exactly like that, but then his life had been predictable, the future warm, filled with the promise of home, a loving wife, and children. That had been before the winter of destruction, before the mad hound had come.

  “I didn’t imagine it,” Leigh said in a small voice.

  Of course she would not expect to be believed. “Of course you didn’t.” He took her to the bathroom and set her feet on the floor, turned her to face the mirror, but kept an arm around her waist.

  “Look at your neck,” he told her, holding back her hair.

  Leigh looked and horror darkened her eyes. “What was that thing? Niles, I don’t want to leave this place, but when my sister and her husband see this, they will pry and insist I go with them.”

  He could not let that happen, but…

  With one finger, he subtly traced the line on her neck, at the back, beneath her hair. “Perhaps you should leave,” he said, frowning at her in the mirror.

  She met his eyes. “I’m afraid to stay, but I don’t want to go,” she said. “In Seattle I felt as if I was slowly fading. I didn’t care about anything anymore. I’ve started to live again here. Chris would have wanted that and he always wanted me to be strong.”

  Her expression was stricken and he wondered how often she had spoken aloud about her husband. He also wondered when she would realize how quickly she was bonding with him. She must be responding to the chemistry they shared. Niles had barely dared to hope this would happen.

  The red slash was gradually healing and disappearing. Niles touched it again and the repair worked even faster. Leigh had not noticed.

  With absolute certainty that he was right, Niles held her shoulders and told her, “This happened to drive you away.” Away from him, away from the hope she brought to his kind. He continued, bending the truth this time, “There are some who love to play tricks on those they think are weak. We’ve had trouble with some serious pranks and it’s causing argument among those who know about it.” She was not ready to learn the depths of depravity already at work.

  Color slowly seeped back into her cheeks. She never took her gaze from his. “Could rubber do this?” She reached her fingertips to her neck. “Thrown quickly around, then pulled away again? It would break the capillaries and scrape the skin.”

  He smiled, attempting to lighten the tension. “I shall have to watch out for you, ma’am. I believe you would make quite the practical joker.”

  Her smile was a poor effort but it was a start. “Should I try to reach my sister and ask her to come tomorrow instead of tonight?”

  That was an idea with possibilities. They would undoubtedly stay together, alone, and that could only hasten whatever was to happen between them. “It’s too late,” he said regretfully. “They’ll be here in half an hour or less. Can you handle it?”

  She twisted in his arms and surprised him with a quick but convulsive hug. “Thank you. With you here I can do it. But I warn you—they can be, well, difficult. Gib is overbearing sometimes.”

  “Sounds entertaining.” He inclined his head to look down at her. “You think I’d miss a chance to watch your family dynamics?”

  “Niles!” She pretended disgust.

  “What can I tell you? I’m a voyeur. Probably repressed.”

  She kissed him quickly on the cheek.

  And he had a tough time not kissing her back—on the mouth and elsewhere. Instead he ducked as if he were peering at her neck. “Will you look at that, it’s just about gone.”

  Leigh took another look in the mirror. “How can it be? It is. If I put on a scarf they won’t see.”

  They won’t see if you don’t put a scarf on. But it was better not to make her think too deeply. “It must have been more a rub than anything else and it’s fading fast. Go get a scarf. I’ll check the food to make sure it’s not burning.” Like he knew anything about cooking! “And I’ll throw more wood on the fires. It looks great in here.”

  Her smile was genuine this time, warm and almost happy, although she glanced anxiously at the window. “Thank you. You’re… you’re something.”

  She sped up to the loft, and he went into the kitchen. There were no evident burned parts on the lasagna so he assumed it was okay. Then he remembered something he’d heard Sean mention and turned the dial down to lower the heat. Cooking had become Sean’s unlikely hobby and he considered himself a budding gourmet chef.

  A log on each fire and they were as ready as they would be. For what, Niles wondered. Why would a woman like Leigh care so much about these other people?

  She ran back down the stairs. As usual she wore black, plain, slim pants, a round-necked top wi
th long sleeves, and flat shoes. But she had added a chartreuse scarf.

  “You look great,” he told her. She looked better than great. Soft, sexy, a coat of gloss on her full lips catching the light and making him swallow hard. “How long will they stay?”

  Leigh skidded to a halt and laughed aloud. “You are so funny. Whatever is on your mind, you say—no pretense. I like that. You don’t hide anything.”

  His own face felt like stone. If only she knew how much he hid. At the same time as he imagined feeling her naked in his arms, he had a gut-punching image of her looking at him with revulsion and he swallowed. She must learn to love him before she found out the rest.

  That was another new realization. “I’m a mystery really,” he said, raising one brow. “You just haven’t figured that out.” If it was going to happen at all, the sooner they became sealed together, the better.

  Not that he had any certainty she would want to accept him once he let her see his hound.

  Leigh looked at the floor and put a hand on his chest.

  “What?” He was determined not to invade her mind.

  “I think you and I are going to make a good team—at least tonight,” she said.

  chapter FIFTEEN

  NILES HAD NOT CONSIDERED what Gib and Jan Hill would be like but if he had, he would have been wrong.

  There was a lot of silence around the table in Leigh’s warm little kitchen. “More salad?” she asked Jan, who smiled but shook her head, no. “How about you, Gib, you were always a salad man?” Leigh talked enough for all of them, trying to fill in the silence. Niles figured the shock she had been through made her chatter.

  “Not for me,” Gib said.

  Gib had a narrow but good-looking face with guileless brown eyes. Niles didn’t think the eyes mirrored the man’s nature. Despite a crew cut, his black hair showed a lot of gray. His wife didn’t look like her sister but she was appealing in a different way. Small but not as thin, Jan’s expression gave a lot away, or it did to Niles. This was not a happy or relaxed woman. Dark shiny hair and green eyes should have been arresting but anxiety dulled her.