by Erica Woods
The fists curling at my sides spoke of loss of control, loss of the cold wall of ice that shielded me from dangerous emotions. Once more I cast a look up at the window sheltering the new female in our midst, and I made a vow right then and there, that no matter the cost, I would find her secrets before she could destroy us all.
21
HOPE
Over the next few days my nerves were shot. I kept waiting for Ash to barge into my room, eyes flashing with fury and demanding to know why I’d lied to Lucien about changing my bandage and taking care of my wound. I imagined his disbelieving face when I’d be forced to show them my thin scar—the only reminder of my injury—and all four men’s tight, angry features as they showed me the door.
But nothing happened.
And while I tiptoed around, terrified my deception would be found out, I discovered they had a routine of sorts. And a bond that went as deep as any flesh and blood family I’d ever known.
Not that I’d known many.
Every day, all four men gathered for both breakfast and dinner. I had a feeling conversation would have flowed had I not been there, but as it were, Ruarc scowled a lot, Lucien was icily polite, and Ash watched everything with an inscrutable expression. Only Jason seemed to be himself, poking and prodding at his brothers, a huge grin cracking his face whenever he provoked a reaction. He even included me, seemingly determined to make me have fun.
And I probably would have, if not for the scars of my past and the fear that they would be uncovered.
Breakfast ended the same way each day, with Ruarc and Ash leaving the house only to return several hours later smelling like horses and sweat—a masculine combination I found appealing rather than unpleasant.
Lucien left around the same time, but he must have remained close. He appeared throughout the day, sometimes in response to one of the others calling him, other times to get a bite to eat or grab this or that. The scent of sharp citrus clung to his clothes—when he didn’t smell inexplicably like pine and wood. But underneath it all he was just Lucien. And unlike the man, the smell beneath the others was warm, enticing, and dangerous. Like spring and summer and man rolled into one.
I found myself drawn to that smell, occasionally inhaling deeply when he was near. Once he’d caught me, and my cheeks had grown so hot I had rushed from the room to find the closest mirror, convinced my face was on fire.
Unlike the others, Jason didn’t seem to have anything that needed to be done until later in the day. He stayed in the house with me, and only left after lunch when Ash returned to do whatever work he did in his office.
The first day after the incident that I—in my head—guiltily referred to as ‘the great deception,’ I was surprised to find Jason waiting for me with a pair of sunglasses in one hand, a box of strawberries in the other.
“We’re going outside,” he said with his usual, charming smile. His short hair was delightfully tousled and still wet from his shower, his blue shirt clung to his frame, and his jeans rode low on his narrow hips.
He looked good.
And I felt like a gray mouse standing next to a beautiful wolf.
“You’ll need these, love.” Ignoring my hesitation, he tilted my face back and slid the sunglasses over my eyes. “It’s bright outside today.” His hand lingered on my face, cupped my cheek while he stared down at me with an expression that was almost . . . tender?
My breath caught, my stomach tensed, and an explosion of butterflies burst to life inside me.
I didn’t know what I was waiting for, why I wanted to run and shout and collapse to the floor all at the same time. Before I could figure it out, Jason drew back, held out his elbow with a lopsided smile, and winked. “You coming?”
The incident from the day before had apparently been erased from his memory. Or maybe it hadn’t been a big deal to him? I’d expected stilted conversation and awkward silences. Maybe even accusing eyes to go with what he’d said after the weird moment we’d shared. But this . . .
This was better.
Much better.
I took his proffered elbow and allowed him to lead the way.
We spent an hour on the porch swing, eating strawberries and enjoying the sun. After so many years in a cell, just being outside was a luxury. Jason didn’t miss the way I stretched my neck and closed my eyes, enjoying the beam of light caressing my face. And neither did he miss the way my skin flushed.
Two or three minutes after we went outside, he rushed inside for a cap—a bright yellow one that I suspected matched his shirt from that first day—and plopped it down on my head despite my protests that I’d never once burned.
“And how many days have you spent in the sun lately?”
I halted my protest and let him steer the rest of our conversation. It didn’t take me long to notice that while he rarely stopped talking—a relief since my talking skills were rusty after mainly chattering out loud to myself for the last eighteen years—he didn’t reveal much about himself or his past. He spoke mostly of this place and told a few stories about his brothers that revealed nothing about any of them except that they clearly loved each other like family.
Longing swept over me with brutal force.
Family. A place to belong. Love.
Things I’d had once upon a time, before I’d destroyed everything. Things I no longer deserved, would never deserve again. But knowing this did nothing to stop the yearning that built with every day I remained with this strange but tight-knit family.
A yearning I could ill afford to harbor.
I was still struggling with my feelings by the time Jason brought me back inside and left for work. Maybe that was why Ash’s offer to show me their library a few minutes later left me reeling with excitement.
He led me past the kitchen, ignoring the door to his office on the left, and carried on to the end of the hall.
“You’re welcome here any time,” Ash said. He tried to usher me past him, but I was frozen in the doorway.
Their library was . . . heaven.
Big, even bigger than their living room, and so light and airy it was better suited to a ballroom than a library. Three of the four walls were lined with shelves carrying more books than I’d ever seen. A desk sat along the back wall, three big windows behind it spilling in light. The ceiling was high, higher than the other rooms, and I wondered if this was two floors with no rooms above. Several comfy looking chairs were scattered all around the room, and the floor-space in the middle had been claimed by two rows of standing shelves—also holding books.
Everywhere I looked: books. For a girl who’d clung to sanity with the few—very few—books she’d been allowed access to . . .
I swallowed. Hard.
“Choose any book.” Ash nodded at the desk. “And when you are finished, if you cannot remember where it goes, place it on the desk and one of us will put it back.”
I turned to face him, a big, hard rock lodged in my throat. “Thank you.”
His gaze swept over my face, moved to look at the room behind me, and then went back to me. “I will be in my office. Come find me if you need anything.”
I stared after him until he disappeared behind the door to his office. Then I stared some more. Did he know the gift he’d given me?
So many books.
I stepped inside and slowly turned in a full circle, awed. Where should I start?
Even if I spent the next ten years reading, I wouldn’t be able to get through all of these books. And I knew so little. This was the perfect opportunity to learn, a chance to gain an understanding of a world I’d barely had time to live in before I was ripped away by the Hunters.
The Hunters . . .
A cold shiver traveled up my spine and bit at my neck with teeth made of ice. If I was serious about moving on, if I was going to rid the world of their evil once and for all, I had to start somewhere. Learning about the thing they feared—the thing I was no closer to discovering now than I’d been five days ago—would be my first step.
<
br /> Could that type of information be found here, in the library of four men who had about as much in common with the Hunters as this house had with my old cell?
No. I doubted the existence of such books in the first place. But then what should I be looking for? This was too good an opportunity to waste.
I turned in a circle, gaze sweeping over the endless choices. Countless titles. Novels across tons of different genres. A couple with the word ‘biography’ stamped across the spine. Non-fiction designed to teach and enlighten.
I need to learn . . .
I walked over to the shelf with titles on woodworking and the keeping of animals, dragging my hand over the worn spines. These books had been read. More than once. They weren’t for show, they hadn’t been bought and left forgotten. No, someone had studied them, closely observed—
I stopped, gaze caught on a big tome on the right.
An atlas.
I ran over and pulled it out, careful not to jostle its neighbors. To end the Hunters’ evil reign I’d need help. Resources. And though I hadn’t decided if I could bring that kind of trouble to my uncle—I’d never met him and he’d never cared enough to come check on us after my father died so why would he help me now?—it couldn’t hurt to be prepared. If I was going to find him I’d need to know where I was going. The name of a place was not the same as studying its location, seeing a map and learning its surroundings.
I moved to a comfortable looking chair, sat down with the atlas open on my lap, and located Canada.
I spent the rest of the day in the library, devouring everything I could find about my uncle’s country and searching for any mention of his family, the Sânriglas. They weren’t mentioned, and while that wasn’t unexpected, it left me with a strange mix of despair and relief.
The relief came as a surprise, a surprise I didn’t understand. But before I could dwell on it, movement outside distracted me.
It was the third time I’d spotted Ruarc from my seat in the library. The first time, he’d watched me through the window, an unreadable expression on his hard face, before disappearing into the woods. The second time, I’d felt a prickle of awareness along my neck, but when I’d turned Ruarc had been walking toward the forest only to disappear among the trees with startling ease. And now he was striding along the edge of the forest, covered in bits of leaves and patches of dirt. He glanced my way, a scowl taking over his features when our eyes met.
He moved like a predator. Even from this distance, I could see the flex of muscle beneath his tight, black clothes, the determined jut of his jaw. Power rolled off him in waves, and it wouldn’t have surprised me to see birds taking to the sky and critters jumping out of his way.
It wasn’t that he looked angry, I realized with a jolt, but determined. Stubborn. Obsessive, even. Like whatever task he’d taken on held his full attention, and nothing could stop him from finishing what he’d started.
A shudder of something that wasn’t quite fear captured my body. My eyes remained glued to the powerful male as he stalked out of sight. And when he was gone, it took me several long minutes before I could concentrate on the book I’d been reading.
The next day, straight after breakfast, I went back and scoured the library. I made a careful note of each title containing knowledge that I felt could be of use; navigation, hiking, crime novels that might help me learn how to avoid being caught, and even a book about business—maybe it would help me understand the Hunters better? Money, I’d come to understand, motivated people in ways I’d yet to wrap my mind around.
Unfortunately, I’d found no books that looked like they would mention the Hunters. None that would be of use to my other problem either. While I’d told myself the likelihood of finding anything about the evil inside me was less than zero, I couldn’t help but feel somewhat disappointed to be proven right. A small part of me had hoped to find a book titled ‘The monster inside and how to destroy it,’ or something equally damning to the thing that shared my body. But no such luck.
Restless, frustrated with my lack of progress, I walked along the shelves. My right hand glided over the spines of each book I passed, my lips mouthing the titles. There were so many. Most of them interesting, a few I desperately wanted to read, even fewer I thought I should read. I plucked a book off the shelf, turned it to read the blurb when my gaze caught on the book my free hand rest on.
‘The Descendants of the Fae.’
I did a double take, but the title never changed. The Fae? As in—
A sudden tension between my shoulder blades, a weight to the air that hadn’t been there before. I spun around.
Ash was leaning against the door frame, eyes flicking over the volume I’d touched but not pulled out. “Do you need help finding anything?”
“No, I . . . I’m okay.” I quickly placed the first book back where it had been and stepped away from the shelf.
“Books might be one of the greatest treasures created by sentient life,” he said with a curious tilt of his head. “Each one carries its own secrets, answers to questions you might not realize you have been seeking. Each word, painstakingly chosen. Each chapter meticulously penned. Or typed, as it may be.” He straightened, and the effect was immediate. Every molecule of air around him sizzled with energy, with something I could sense but not understand. “Did you find what you are looking for?”
H-how did he know? I could have been reading for pleasure—I wanted to, I wanted to more than I wanted to take on the impossible task I’d set before me—and nothing else. “I . . .” No words would follow.
Gaze locked on my face, Ash merely nodded. “Would you like to watch a movie?”
I startled, as much from the sudden change of subject as what he’d said. “With . . . with you?”
One corner of his mouth tipped up and my cheeks burned. “That is the idea.”
“I-yes.”
“Good.” He kicked off from the frame and held the door open for me.
I hurried out, remembering last second to not move too smoothly, in case he wondered where my limp had gone. “Are the others coming too?”
Though I’d spent five days here already, I still didn’t know what Ruarc did with his time once he and Ash were finished in the stables—though finished was probably the wrong word seeing as they went back out before bed every night, probably to feed the animals. He seemed to do what could only be described as patrolling. I occasionally saw him roaming the gardens, disappearing into the woods only to reappear a few hours later, often bringing back half the forest in his hair and on his clothes. He’d never told me exactly what he did, and I’d never asked.
Questions invited questions, another reason why I’d refrained from asking all the ones burning on my tongue.
“Only you and I.” Ash led me into the living room and bade me take a seat. “I will be right back.”
While I waited for him to return, it hit me that I was never alone in the house. One of them always stayed behind if the others left. I wondered if it was because of me. Were they keeping an eye on me or were they protecting me?
Does it matter?
No. Not when, for the first time in so long I wanted to cry, I felt safe.
I don’t want to leave.
The thought left me cold. What . . . what about the Hunters? They would never stop hunting me. They would hurt any soul who gave me shelter. And they would keep ruining lives, shattering their victims’ sense of self until all that remained were broken husks and crushed dreams.
Somehow, someway, I had to stop them. Even if I could quell my conscience and disregard their victims, I had no hope of a real life as long as the Hunters existed. But . . .
What could a single person do faced with such evil?
Nothing.
I harbored a monster, a darkness that might be able to do some damage, but regardless of the cost, I would never allow it to be unleashed. Not the way it had been when—
A ragged hole opened in my chest, its edges made of acid that ate through my insi
des until the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding was forced from my lungs in a powerful gush that sounded suspiciously like a sob.
My eyes shot to the door, but either Ash hadn’t heard me over the strange popping sound from the kitchen—it sounded like tiny, muted explosions, the scent winding through the house was a mix of butter and salt—or he’d decided to give me some privacy.
I shook my head and pushed thoughts of the past back into the tiny box in the back of my mind. The box I never allowed myself to open.
My focus belonged to the here and now, the future, not the past. I kept telling myself I’d leave when I grew stronger, when I had the means to reach my uncle without dying on the way there. But even the possibility of finding the last member of my family had lost some of its shine.
I’m happy here.
The thought snuck past my defenses, filling me with such dread I thought I might pass out.
Happy? I can’t be happy.
Well, maybe contented was a better word?
Doesn’t matter. This is temporary.
Nothing had changed. The Hunters were still out there, still hunting me. And I was . . . lost.
“Here,” Ash said—I hadn’t been aware of his return, too lost in my own miserable dilemma—and placed a huge bowl of popcorn in my lap. He sat down, close enough that I was very aware of his presence, of his enticing scent, the steel below the smoothness of his skin.
Next to him, I felt small. Vulnerable. Protected. And a part of me had already begun to mourn those feelings, to miss them. Because in a small corner of my soul lived a piece of me, a piece uncorrupted by fear and indecision, a piece not yet twisted by the Hunters’ torment, a piece that knew what the rest of me was not yet ready to admit.
No matter what, I could not stay.
22
ASH
“Where are the others?” Lucien crossed the room, stopped by the edge of my desk, and glanced down at the form I was filling out. One brow arched as he pointed to a number at the bottom. “That seems excessive, does it not?”