Roses & Haunts

by Selena Page

  She took it, stepping down into the center of the candles. “What do we do?”

  He dropped the vial directly onto the fire in response, a shower of blue-white sparks exploding upwards into the sky. The candle flames took on the same color, the ghostly, unearthly fire motionless in the light breeze. No longer flickering. No longer comforting. And that horrible pressure returned, pouring through some invisible hole above them. Almost as if the ghost goo sparks seared an opening in the protective magical dome around them.

  He took both her hands in his, their fingers entwined, and brought them to his lips before holding their arms out to their sides. “Now I just need you to do that time walk spell you used earlier today. Just think about it, and use me as your amulet. The flames should do the rest. If I’m right, I’ll serve as a more powerful anchor to the present. The ghost goo’ll act as the arrow seeking the source of the power. It should, in theory, draw your focus right into the past. We’ll be able to see, first hand, just what caused the Headless Horseman to appear.”

  She eyed her beloved once, closing her eyes and doing as he asked. Their bond flashed before her mind’s eye, the Caprice sigil encircled by the three-pronged Tintreach lightning bolts, and cracked neatly down the center. Power, raw and infinite, spilled from that bond and into her soul. She rocked up on tiptoes, hands sliding along Iowin’s until fingertips brushed fingertips, her spine bowing with the rush.

  The last time she’d called upon their bonded power, she’d been on the verge of dying. Anger and frustration and pain had served as quite the buffer between herself and that rush of sensations. Not to mention the real fear of losing Iowin again so soon after finding him.

  Time spun before them, twisted and elongated as the world accelerating around them at rapid speeds. Only, it wasn’t the world. It was time. And it wasn’t going forwards, but backwards. Back to the moment where they’d encountered the Horseman, and back further still.

  The world melted and reformed over and over in a reverse process as the years rewound themselves. Back to where the road was paved in the 1950s… back to when the bridge was constructed in 1910, and back to when there was no road at all. Back to a sky so blue it hurt to look at, clear of ANY pollution at all. Back before the industrial revolution, to when some guy named George had just started bitching about having to take on this newfangled mantle of “President” after winning that little skirmish called the American Revolutionary War.

  Back until the world erupted in blood and violence.

  Alynia gasped, fingertips slipping from Iowin’s hands, the images snapping into crystalline focus with that loss of contact. Akin to the feeling of someone pulling the plug on their video tour of the past, leaving them stranded on the one rather unhappy moment of death.

  No, not them, she realized with a sickening sensation. Her. It had left her alone on this battlefield, surrounded by death both present and future.

  Iowin? Iowin, where are you?

  The equivalent to mental static answered her call, and in the back of her mind, she felt the echo of throbbing pain. Not unlike being thrown backwards by the power they’d used, striking her head on something heavy and solid. He was alive, just not conscious by any stretch of the imagination.

  And one didn’t need to stretch their imaginations far to understand how utterly deadly that was at the moment.

  Cannons fired and men screamed, the ground soaked ruddy from the blood of the dying on both sides of the conflict. Through the columns of smoke and the far-off screams of the wounded, she glimpsed the band of red-coated men moving through the field.

  Mercenaries, they had to be. They moved with a precision that didn’t come from a boot camp kind of training, and more with the ease of men bonded through years of serving together. That kind of experience lent its own grace and style to the movements of its members. And it showed in the speed of their kills, the expertise of each swing, strike, and shot that couldn’t have come from farmers and tradesmen forced to take up arms to defend their fledgling nation.

  One rider stood out above all the others.

  She’d know the set of those shoulders anywhere, the way that body leaned forward to pull the sword from its scabbard on the saddle. The proud pounding of those hooves across the muddy battlefield was as distinct as any fingerprint.

  The Headless Horseman.

  Only, he wasn’t headless. Long dark hair flowed down across his shoulders, his face broad, made of planes and angles and chiseled perfection. From a distance, she picked out the deep blue of his eyes. Like the deepest parts of the ocean. Blood caked his clothing and face as he shouted orders to the others of his unit. They attacked the neophyte American fighters, cutting through them like warm butter. No emotion touched that chiseled face as cries for mercy or surrender echoed in the distance. No quarter was given, either. Her eyes widened as he spurred his horse into action, and began decapitating a line of American captives.

  They sure as shit weren’t soldiers. Stars above, some of them weren’t old enough to shave!

  A line of captives, she noted, that ended right at her feet. She leapt out of the way as he charged, diving to the right and rolling onto her back. Her gun, her precious always-trustworthy gun, rolled with her in a two-handed grip as she leapt to her feet.

  She fired once, twice, the sound of her Glock barely a whisper against the cannon blasts. And speaking of the thing that shouldn’t be slamming around her, a cannonball blew through the air near her, the heat of its trail singeing a line of scarlet pain across the side of her face. She threw herself flat into the mud again, grabbing handfuls of it and slathering it across the burn. She’d worry about infection later, after she stopped the searing of her tissues.

  But the good news? Between the cannonball and his galloping attack, she’d managed to get one shot close enough to nip off a lock of his glossy mane, and that got his attention real fast. He yanked up on the reins, his horse dancing on two legs and spun about. She scrambled to her feet and held her weapon at the ready, making sure zero quarter was given in her gaze. A fitting return to what he’d just done to those boys, not to mention the slinging of blue-white death her way just a day before.

  “I will shoot you,” she screamed. “I will end this all right now and head back to my life. Give me the reason. I just need one.”

  The Hessian pulled to a stop right in front of her, either not understanding she had the upper hand—or was that upper weapon—in this little O.K. Corral they were pulling. His jeweled eyes never left hers, and he spoke at her in what had to be German. She shook her head, a single controlled movement from the right to the left and back again.

  The gun never wavered, and wariness replaced the confusion on that handsome face. “Woman,” he said at last, the English word so wrapped in the German accent that she wasn’t certain he spoke it in English at all. “Woman, why are you here? Go home, else you meet a gruesome fate.”

  “Like, say, what you just did to those prisoners?” she fumed, the horror of spurting blood from freshly-sliced necks more than fresh enough in her memory.

  He scowled, as if he found his own actions distasteful. Imagine that.

  “War is war,” he said at last, wiping his sword on the sleeve of his jacket before sliding it back into its sheath. “They understood this before they fought.”

  “No, they didn’t, and you stay right where you are, asshole. They’re fighting for their homes and their way of life. They didn’t have a choice. You, on the other hand, know exactly what you’re doing.”

  He finally dared to look away from her hands, and, unbelievably, his eyebrows tried to merge with his hairline. Those blue orbs rushed right back to her face, a hint of… dear stars in every heavens ever, was that color on his cheeks? Was the son of a bitch blushing?

  “What the hell is your pro…”

  And then she was treated to equally flabbergasting sight of him attempting to lift his eyebrows and bunch them together low over his eyes at the same time.

  “Are you having
a seizure or what?” she blurted. “What is wrong with you?”

  His horse danced from foot to foot impatiently, feeding off the uncertainty in its rider’s emotions. “You are woman,” he tried again. “Language. You should not use such language. Clothing… You need more.”

  It was her turn to look positively pole-axed, and the absurdity of his statements caused her to seriously glance down at herself. Jeans. T-shirt. Jacket. Boots. Fully covered if ever she was.

  She realized her mistake a moment too late. He leapt from his horse, one hand wrapping around her wrist and forcing her hands high into the air. His body tackled her back to the muck-covered ground, and she managed to get a knee up between them, taking him square in the solar plexus. He grunted, accepting the pain like a champ and rolling with the momentum of her attack.

  One shot left her gun. Only one, before enough circulation vanished from her fingers due to his crushing grip. She lost her grasp on the gun, the weapon vanishing into the muck. Her free hand balled into a fist, cracking into his exposed side. Ribs broke under that blow, she was certain of it, and the pain should have been enough to force him to retreat. Not this man, she thought bitterly, and cursed as he yanked her forward and wrenched her arm behind her. She found herself slammed between the brick wall of his chest and the unrelenting ground beneath her.

  The brief thought of ‘they don’t make them like they used to’ flitted across her mind as she jabbed her palm straight up into his aquiline nose. The crunch of cartilage sang like victory, and the pain of her attacks finally slowed him. Just enough to let her put distance between them. But not enough to cause him to let go of her wrist.

  “Hands off, Hessian!”

  He glared at her, blood spurting from his nose. “You are no lady.”

  “Gee, what was your first clue?”

  To her shock, he actually smiled at that. “Fire in you.”

  Did he just insinuate that… Seriously? She groaned. “If you are about to spout some bad-romance-book cliché about taming my fire and making me your respectful little wife, I’ll shoot you without a thought. I’m already married, and I don’t like you. Smart men usually run when I say that.”

  The Hessian climbed to his feet, forcing her to rise as well or dangle from his hand like a tassel. He straightened his posture, reaching slowly up to undo a clasp at his throat. Buttons, she realized. He was undoing buttons of his jacket. And she watched as he held it out to her.

  “You are undressed.”

  Jesus, were they back on this track again? She wasn’t undressed by any modern standar--Oh. Oh! Shit. In his time period, she was very much undressed. Mud-stained T-shirt clinging to her every curve just proved that she wasn’t wearing a corset. Not to mention the lack of skirt.

  “You’re giving me your coat?” She asked incredulously. “What happened to kidnapping me?”

  He took the moment to pull a kerchief from the pocket of the offered coat, holding it up to his nose. “You are my prisoner, ja. But you need clothes. I am not a rake.”

  Well, apparently, it was okay to kill boys on a battlefield, but he drew the line at harming women. It was sweet and confusing at the same time. Was it more sexist to think him sweet, or was it less because of the time period? “You and whose army is making me a prisoner?”

  She regretted it the moment the words left her mouth. Of course his eyes tracked above her head. And of course she heard the click-clack of musket hammers pulling backward. He’d ridden with five other men, after all, and wasn’t this a case of Deja vu.

  “Just for once,” she sighed, reluctantly accepting the mud-stained jacket he slipped over her shoulders. “I’d love to face a dangerous man without his entire crew pointing guns at my back. Is that too much to ask?”

  “I am Captain Jerrick von Knyphausen,” he said, either ignoring her comment or not understanding it. “Your name.”

  It wasn’t a question, yet it was punctuated by the pressure of a bayonet at the back of her neck. “Alynia Caprice Tintreach.”

  “Ah-Line-Eh-Ah,” he sounded out her name, fumbling around the words. “Nein, impossible. Is not a real word. What does this word mean?”

  “It means ‘she who will beat your ass over all this.’”

  “Language,” he admonished, harsher this time. “A definition of a fighter, then. Fine. We shall call you Aloisia. It means woman warrior.”

  “I didn’t ask to be adopted,” she snapped. “I have a name, and I like it. What I don’t like is this conversation, and I’m leaving it now.”

  “Not adopted. You are my prisoner. Bring her.”

  A hand landed on her shoulder, most likely belonging to Knife-Wielder at her back. Some things just didn’t need words to be understood, and she raised her hands before her. Rope wrapped around her wrist tightly, enough left as a lead to drag her if needed, and she gritted her teeth as Captain Douchebag hoisted her up onto his horse, his arm tucking her tightly against his chest.

  “My camp is not far from here. You will find clothing there.”

  “And an entire camp of misogyny and repression? Can’t wait for that shit show.”

  “I do not understand your words. Explain them to me.”

  Whether as a last act of defiance, or because she didn’t have the patience to follow that last command, she closed her teeth around her tongue and just shut up. Some things weren’t worth trying to explain.

  Chapter 4

  It turned out that the camp wasn’t a camp. It was a village, or rather, it was a random collection of buildings that someday would be a village if given the chance to grow up and prove itself. The arm securing her tightly to him wasn’t broken by any stretch of the imagination. More like an inflexible bar of steel thickly covered in muscle and cotton. She’d tested the escape theory only once. And when she’d regained consciousness a few minutes later, she thought better of trying to slip from his grasp.

  For the moment.

  Having the breath choked out of you via an arm around the diaphragm wasn’t fun. In fact, she wasn’t certain if a few of her ribs now matched his.

  “Are you going to execute me?” she had the temerity to ask as they passed into the village.

  He shook his head. “Why would I do that?”

  “Uh, because I attacked you?”

  He chuckled, and she took a tad bit of satisfaction at the wincing/wheeze that followed the sound. Yup, definitely at least one broken rib. Points for her. “You are a woman, and you did not outright attack my men at first sight. I will not take your life until I have proof of your involvement in the war.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him, met those sapphire eyes with her own. “Then what’s the plan, ace?”

  “You are my prisoner.”

  “We’ve covered that, about a thousand times already. Maybe this is my fault and I’m not dumbing this down enough. Does prisoner mean jail? A cage? What’s going to happen to me?”

  Again, he frowned as he glanced over the village. “This is my camp. You will stay here until I contact your family.”

  “And if you can’t do that?”

  There was a fractional shrug. “I am certain I can,” He retorted. “Trust me.”

  Trust him? Oh, that was rich. “Douche.”

  “What does this word mean, this doutch? You say it so often. Dutch, do you mean? I am not Dutch.”

  She brought her bound hands to her face, wishing she could grab handfuls of her hair and pull. If Carmina ever heard about this, she’d never live it down. Her cousin would laugh and laugh. Figures the one Caprice without the vocab skills God gave a high schooler ended up with a half-baked Hessian as her captor. And speaking of half-baked, where the hell was her husband? Alynia cast her limited senses about, doing her best to imitate the spell that came so naturally to Iowin. A pulse along the bond, a spark of love and frustration and outright anger burned inside her heart.

  She nearly wilted with relief in the Captain’s arms. Iowin was awake and alive and nearby, thank all the stars ever. The fact tha
t he was pissed probably meant he witnessed her abduction, and that probably meant he was working on some sort of rescue plan. Her part in the plan: stay alive, gather intel, be ready to move when he moved. Or so she hoped.

  Prayed, really.

  Alynia peeked between her fingers as they entered the village proper, watching as others peered through curtained windows, or stopped their stroll through the village to watch the returning mercenaries. No one appeared wounded, she noted in relief. There were no bodies strung up on posts, no one swinging from makeshift gallows like every bad movie ever portrayed. No cages sporting slaves, no one in chains drug along by British. The few women she glimpsed in the streets stared at her in a mixture of shock and concern, hands resting gently on their escort’s arm.

  She’d worked enough domestic violence and rape cases in her career to know the body language of someone beaten into submission. No one screamed for freedom.

  In fact, the only way she knew this whole village was under enemy domination at all was the patrol of guards ringing the top of the city walls. That and a hint of fear in the eyes of the menfolk as Captain Jerrick rode past. He’d kidnapped her, but all signs pointed to him keeping his word. These people were his prisoners and this village was his, but it could have been so much worse. Oh, so much worse. He’d earned a half-point. Maybe a quarter-point.

  It depended on how long it took him to piss her off again.

  He chuckled softly, the sound rumbling in his chest. “You expect worse of me, ja?”

  “Reading my mind, there, Captain?”

  His smile would have been charming if not covered in mud and blood and other things. “Nein, reading your body. You calmed when seeing the people are unharmed. I said before I am not a rake. You are my prisoner, protected by that status.”

  “Until you say otherwise?”

  Another fractional shrug. “Obey me. Obey the laws. You will not come to harm.”

  “And if one of your men decides otherwise?”

  It was the wrong thing to ask, and the blaze in those blue eyes let her know that quite well. “My men are not rakes. I will kill a man who touches you without reason. I promise, it will not be my men.”