Darkness Bound

by Stella Cameron

  The photograph was on a table near one of the chairs. Gib hadn’t stumbled across it, because she hadn’t left it in an obvious place in the condo. He had gone through her closet and found it in a box on a top shelf where she had put it for safety.

  In the morning she would make a call to the building manager and get the locks changed. That would keep Gib from “checking” on her place again.

  She looked at Chris’s face, and saw only his smile while he held her hand to his lips. The satin flowers in her own hair made her chuckle a little. Those had been purely for Chris. Leigh wasn’t a flowers-in-the-hair girl. She had loved the slim white Vera Wang dress she had worn, though.

  A wedding day to remember.

  How could she ever forget even a second of that Wednesday.

  Okay, the best way to be sure no one thought she was hiding from the past was to pull it into the light. Front and center. On tiptoe to reach the high wooden mantel on her favorite of the two fireplaces, she put the photo in the middle. The silver frame was at odds with almost everything else in the cottage.

  Time for that brandy.

  She curled up in a chair with the glass, turned off the one lamp still on, and stared into the fire.

  Gib had done the opposite of what he had intended. She was glad to have the only photo from that special day where she could see it easily. It felt right.

  A smattering of pops on the roof startled her. But she knew that sound; fir cones tumbling from overhanging branches. She was allowed to jump at anything tonight. But with a few hours between her and what had happened outside she could almost believe she had imagined the whole thing. After all, she had checked her neck again after dinner and there was no mark to be seen.

  Tapping on the window jarred her all over again. Get it together, Leigh. When didn’t it rain around here? It was a good thing she loved the weather on Whidbey and never felt as good as when she was there.

  Leigh looked over her shoulder. Drops hit the window glass and glittered there, but in the weak porch light she saw snow mixed with the rain.

  And she saw a shadow appear outside, behind one of the open curtains. Someone… or something… sat down carefully in a chair on the porch and rocked slowly back and forth.

  Her heart and stomach went on a collision course. Even breathing through her mouth and closing her eyes didn’t slow the pounding in her chest.

  Niles would come if she called—and he would come quickly.

  But he had early work in the morning.

  Jazzy was no attack dog but she still wished he were there with her. His bark could be useful.

  Carefully, she slid from her chair to the floor where she lay still, her face tilted to watch for fresh movement outside, for what felt like an hour.

  The shadow figure continued to rock in its shadow chair.

  Keeping low, Leigh crawled toward the window, pausing only to take her cell phone out of her pocket. At Niles’s suggestion she had put his number on speed dial and now she was grateful.

  What did she intend to do when she reached the window? Confirm what she already knew—that someone was hanging around on her porch?

  No. If she was immediately beneath the window, tight against the wall, she would be almost impossible to see from outside.

  The figure got up again and disappeared from her sight.

  The chair continued to rock.

  Leigh buried her face on the backs of her hands against the floor. Sweat ran between her shoulder blades. She hated doing it but she had to call the police. The darn “smart” phone was so smart it took several clicks and pokes, while the readout light kept going off, to get to the dial pad and punch in the three numbers. Lousy cell reception out here didn’t help.

  A male voice asked her what kind of emergency she had.

  “Intruder,” she whispered. He was out there somewhere.

  The emergency operator repeated the question and Leigh whispered, “Intruder,” again.

  “You’ll have to speak up. I can’t hear you.” The voice wasn’t unkind.

  A board groaned on the porch. He was back. Leigh put her hand over the phone to hide the glow.

  “What’s going on?” the man on the phone asked.

  Leigh craned her neck to peer up at the window again. At first she saw nothing different. Then she made out the figure again, leaning against the wall of the cottage, so close he would be able to look in… or reach the front door in a few strides.

  “Hello—”

  She cut off the guy on the phone and peered closely at the keypad to find 5 and call Niles.

  Niles felt himself swim out of unconsciousness but with no recollection of actually going to sleep. He must have hit the bed without finishing undressing and as good as passed out.

  Foggy-headed, a little sick to his stomach, and bathed in sweat, he clawed his way from the nightmare that plagued him when he was troubled.

  Shit, the banging in his chest was too familiar. He heard a noise like something whistling over his head. The bullets again. And he felt the sand sucking at his boots, slowing him down.

  Desperate, he flung himself from his belly to his back and jackknifed his knees. His head came off the pillow and landed hard against his legs. “You took your eye off the ball and it cost Gary his life.”

  When he was rational, he could justify that whatever had happened to his friend could have happened no matter what any of the rest of them did.

  Shadowy figures slipped unseen along the ridge above their heads. They waited until Niles and the others had gone around the next bend, all but Gary, and then they dropped him so fast he didn’t have time to make a sound. Even given his strength, there were too many of them to fight off.

  And they had left with him the way they came, leaving no sign of what had happened.

  Niles turned his head sideways and opened his eyes. That was the scenario he had dreamed up, or dredged up from his nightmares, and it repeated itself. Less and less often, but no less devastating when it did come.

  His head thumped. He heard the shriek of a bullet again and started to fall backward onto the mattress.

  It wasn’t a bullet. He scrambled from the bed and ran for the living room. His cell phone was in the pocket of his parka and he’d dropped it on the couch.

  He found the phone but it had stopped ringing. Probably wasn’t important but he didn’t avoid calls. He checked and the last one had been made from a number he didn’t recognize.

  Shrugging, he scuffed back the way he had come, looking at the readout. Someone had left a text, too.

  Three words: I’m in trouble.

  That was Leigh’s number.

  Wearing only his jeans, and barefoot, he tore from the house, made it up the bluff in two giant leaps and with the aid of a couple of jutting rocks, and rushed the cottage.

  Where was he?

  Leigh barely got the three-word text sent when the front door burst open.

  She would not throw up, not now. “I’ve got a gun,” she yelled, longing for it to be true. “Stay where you are.”

  There was no response, no sound at all except for the softly deadened swish of snow-laden wind through the open door.

  Leigh ground her mouth into the back of a hand, willing herself to kill even the slightest sound she might make.

  She prayed Niles wouldn’t call back.

  A piece of furniture was moved, its wooden legs scraped across the floor. Cold air kept pushing through the door, biting at Leigh’s cheeks. She strained to hear—anything—but there was nothing now.

  Except that soft, small beat of a heart she had heard when Niles was still there.

  Her eyes stung and she pressed them shut for an instant, clearing her vision. What happened next depended on her and her own wits. She had to do something.

  From somewhere out there came the round, echoing hoot of an owl.

  Time dragged, second by second. She was hot despite the wind from outside.

  She didn’t know what she felt or thought but pressure
built in her head. Noises crowded her skull.

  Run. Her only chance was to get ready, then spring for the door. If she could make it to the forest she could lose him. But she would be target practice as she crossed the snow she was sure covered everything by now.

  In one smooth movement, she crouched, ready to explode for the door.

  A hand on the back of her neck lifted her into the air by her hair and the back of her sweater.

  A second hand crushed her face so tightly she fought for air.

  chapter SEVENTEEN

  WRONG WAS WRITTEN all over Two Chimneys Cottage. No lights inside, the front door wide open, and the kind of silence that made Niles’s nerves hum from what he could not hear.

  Inside that cottage someone wanted to scream. He couldn’t risk trying to communicate with Leigh in case she did hear him, overreacted, and gave away that he was nearby.

  With the doorway near, Niles stared, deepening his dark-sight, seeking the distinctive thickening that would pulse, showing life.

  And there it was, a man with his back toward him, dragging something—dragging Leigh. Niles had no doubt of it and he set his teeth, regulated his breathing, made himself wait the seconds it took to be sure he wouldn’t cause more damage to the one he cared for by striking too soon.

  A man suddenly lifted a body as if it weighed nothing, slung it over his shoulder, and bolted outside.

  Leigh.

  Niles was on the man, peeling her away, dropping her to the snow and tearing after his moving target. “Don’t leave this spot,” he told her.

  The other man moved with incredible speed but not so fast Niles couldn’t catch him easily enough.

  Slamming his hands down on the other’s shoulders, he threw him facedown and fell on top of him. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Now. Tell me your name or you’re a dead man.”

  Not a word.

  “Why Leigh? Did someone send you?”

  Beneath Niles, the man curled his knees into his body and tucked his head down. With one hand, Niles picked him up by the back of his coat and shook him like vermin. Somehow the other guy remained curled up.

  This one was familiar. The realization blasted through Niles’s mind but his senses weren’t picking up the signs that usually helped him identify a known foe.

  “Boss?” Sean’s mind speak was clear. “Trouble? I’m coming. Do we need others?”

  “Just you but don’t interfere unless I ask you.”

  The next move was expected but so expertly executed, it worked—just.

  Rotating his body, head over tucked knees, the enemy smashed his feet under Niles’s jaw and knocked him off balance for the second it took to keep on rotating.

  Like a solid wheel spinning on a programmed course, away went the man, across the snow toward the forest.

  Niles landed on him the instant before he saw the shadowy forms of wolves waiting between the great trunks. He counted five before he felt the sinuous unfurling beneath his hands, heard the cracking open of a man’s bones, the flaring of his form into a massive animal with thick fur.

  Niles was one of the few who were even stronger as humans than as hounds; nevertheless he knew he must change to protect that secret.

  The animal howled and turned to fly at him. From behind Niles soared Sean, or rather Blue, heading for the other one’s belly.

  And in the precious seconds lost by Sean’s well-meaning move, intended to give Niles the time he needed to complete his change, the stranger bounded into the ranks of Brande’s wolves, ranged beyond the edge of the forest now. They wheeled in one phalanx and retreated, zigzagging, howling.

  Niles swore, but so did Sean. “Bad move on my part, boss. Sorry.”

  Pulsing in every nerve, Niles sank away from his hound form until he could pull his jeans on again. He pushed his hands through his hair. “If you wanted us to keep on living, you probably just made a great move,” he said. “There were enough of them to tear us apart.”

  “It’s too bad I feel worse about them leaving than if they had attacked us. They could have taken us—why didn’t they?”

  chapter EIGHTEEN

  NILES CAME from the side of the cottage and Blue was with him now. Leigh dashed to meet them.

  “Where were you? You scared me to death.” She snapped her mouth shut. She sounded like a mother who just grabbed her child to safety beside a busy road. “I’m going to call the police now,” she added, more subdued.

  “I understand,” he said, surprising her by hooking an elbow around her neck and pulling her close to his wet, naked chest, resting his cheek on top of her head. “You scared me when I saw that text. But we’re both okay. Let’s get you inside.”

  His feet were bare but he didn’t seem to notice, or to care that he was soaked. They walked into the cottage together.

  Leigh turned to him. “That man—”

  “Is a mystery,” Niles finished for her. “But I’m going to find out all the stuff he obviously doesn’t want me or anyone else to know.”

  “What do you mean?” She wound her arms around his waist. She really had been terrified he would be… killed.

  “First things first. What are you going to tell the police?”

  Leigh looked up into his face. “What happened. That someone broke in and was trying to take me away. And you saved me.”

  “Do you think he intended to assault you?”

  She didn’t want to think about it at all. “He could have done that without trying to take me somewhere. I don’t know what he was going to do—murder me, probably.”

  “Don’t,” Niles said, stroking her hair. “And I don’t think that’s what he wanted to do. Look, I want you to sit down and listen to me. If you still think calling the police is the best thing to do, I’ll be right here to back you up.”

  He steered her to the couch and gave her back the brandy glass. She peered at him through the gloom and noticed he didn’t attempt to touch the brandy he had left on a table earlier.

  She reached to turn on another lamp. “Suddenly I want lots of light around me,” she said, trying a smile.

  Niles watched her but she had no idea what he was thinking.

  “I feel like that brandy now,” Niles said. He got up, drew the curtains—closing out the snow that fell increasingly heavily—and went to the door. “Just going to make sure Blue’s comfortable.”

  “Let him come in.”

  “He’ll be staying right where he is for the night—and probably every night from now on. If he’d been there earlier our friend would have lost parts of his body.”

  He let himself out and almost immediately returned. “Blue likes his spot. And he’s a working dog so he expects to have an important job, like looking after you for me when I can’t.”

  She was important to him? Or was that a willful bending of what he had said? Leigh looked away. “You need to get dry. I’ll fetch a towel.”

  He didn’t say anything when she returned, or make any attempt to take the towel from her.

  Leigh blotted his face.

  Niles stood still, his hands on his hips.

  She went behind him to rub his back then returned to dry his chest. And finally she had to look at his eyes.

  Not a flicker. Just intense concentration on her until she managed a smile and he tipped up the corners of his own mouth.

  Droplets glittered in his dark hair. “Can I rub the drips out of your hair?” Her voice cracked.

  “Anytime you want to,” he said, dropping to his knees in front of her.

  His hands, settling at her waist, made Leigh jump but she set to work briskly drying those almost black waves—curls at the moment.

  He muttered something.

  “What did you say?” She stopped for a moment, looking into his upturned face.

  “Only that no one ever did this for me before. I wouldn’t want anyone else to do it for me but I’ll run around in snow and rain every day if I can come back for more from you. I feel comfortable with you.”

&n
bsp; He spoke so simply, nothing fancy or thought through with care, but every word touched her heart. Leigh caught her bottom lip in her teeth and blinked rapidly. She tapped him on his very nice nose and rubbed his hair with all the energy she could muster. She rubbed until he laughed and stopped her.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Now let’s take off your shoes or whatever those silly little boot things are.”

  So quickly she just about fell onto the couch, he sat her down, pushed her to lean against one arm, and pulled off her ankle boots. “I like those boots,” she told him.

  Intimacy spun like a net between them, getting more complicated, more high-stakes, and totally irresistible. What Leigh was starting to feel about this man was a little scary. She was in serious “like” with him.

  “Is it okay if I sit beside you?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  He sat close enough to settle her cold feet on his lap. She wore damp socks and he peeled those off. Unlike her brisk efforts, Niles treated her gently, drying between her toes and the bottoms of her feet until she giggled and jerked. He finished but kept his big, warm hands on her skin. When he leaned his head against the back of the couch, arching his strong throat, opening his muscular torso to the play of shadows from a lamp, Leigh had trouble swallowing. They were quiet for a while.

  “I have enemies,” Niles said eventually. “I’m pretty sure who they are but I don’t have the evidence I need against them. It’s too bad that guy got away tonight.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t. I’ve led a life you know nothing about.” He paused, making sure she was looking right at him. “I don’t want you to know the details of everything that’s happened to me except that I’ve never used violence gratuitously. I hate violence.

  “Someone has a score to settle with me and you look like a great way to do that. They can tell you’re becoming important to me and they figure that by taking you, they can draw me after them and do whatever they’ve decided will even the score.”