When she had washed her face and teeth, she felt a little more alert, but still puzzled and uneasy. How had she gotten here? She was certain she remembered being led back to the tower room. Her mother and Brigit had accused her ….
She had gone back! As tired as she had been, she knew she hadn’t dreamed that. And she had fallen asleep huddled on the floor.
The dream about the beast hadn’t been a dream at all. He’d returned for her, placed some sort of spell on her and brought her here. This time, she was in no doubt that he had placed a spell on her. It had been dreamlike--she hadn’t been able to fully awaken--but not a dream at all.
He’d tried to trick her again!
She frowned at that thought. Why? He had said it did not matter to him whether she was willing or not, and she had had no trouble believing that. He was a demon, after all. Perhaps there was some sort of limitations, however, that he could not overcome? Perhaps he could not ravish her?
She didn’t think that she believed that, but what other reason could there be?
She jumped when the door opened, only slightly relieved when she saw that it was the imp, Jala. Carrying a tray into the room, Jala slammed it onto a table so hard that the dishes on it rattled. “Food,” she snarled irritably, then turned and stalked out once more.
Colette realized that she was hungry, but she was reluctant to take the offering.
Trying to ignore the appetizing smells wafting from the dishes, she looked around the room instead. There were four windows in the outer wall, all very narrow, but not so narrow she could not climb through them.
And she was alone.
The temptation washed over her to attempt escape. If she could make her way home she could bring her father and many men back and rescue her mother and sister.
But what if she couldn’t? What if the demon simply placed a spell upon the abbey and they never found it?
She felt almost ill at the war waging inside of her. She wanted to run, to save herself, but she didn’t think she could live with herself if she left them to die. And even if her own conscience didn’t weigh her down, everyone else would condemn her for being such a coward.
Turning away from the temptation the windows offered with an effort, Colette surveyed the rest of the room. It was a very large room, but not richly appointed. The huge four poster bed and the massive fireplace with its ornately carved surround were the most luxurious appointments in it. Aside from the bed, there was very little furniture. The floor was stone, as were the walls. One large rug covered a rectangle of space between the bed and the small table with two straight chairs on one side. Beyond the bed hangings, there were no drapes around the windows to cut drafts, and no hangings upon the walls. A tall armoire stood along one wall, a chest at the foot of the bed, and the washstand along another wall. One high back, overstuffed chair stood near the hearth--the same chair the beast had sat in when he had fondled her.
Warming at the memory, Colette looked away at once and spied a chest near the door that she hadn’t noticed before. It looked familiar. Frowning, she gathered the linens around her to keep from tripping over the fabric and moved closer.
It was her traveling chest!
A wave of dizziness washed over her as shock jolted through her system.
The chest had been left with the broken down carriage.
Certain she must be mistaken, Colette moved to the chest and knelt beside it, pushing the lid up. It was filled with her belongings as she’d suspected and she merely stared at the familiar things, wondering about poor John Coachman.
The beast had gone for the chest or sent the imps. What had happened to the poor man?
Abruptly, Colette sensed a presence behind her. She whirled on her heels, sprawling in the floor beside the chest when she discovered it was Nuri and gaping up at him fearfully.
He frowned at her expression, gesturing toward the trunk. “I have brought your belongings.”
Colette swallowed with an effort. “What happened to John?”
Puzzlement and suspicion drew his brows more tightly together. “Who is John?”
“Our coachman. He was hurt when the wheel came off the coach. We were going to send back help.” It hit her then that the poor man was very likely dead from his injuries.
The demon knelt, catching her upper arms and drawing her to her feet. Without a word, he turned her so that her back was to him and placed his palms on either side of her head. Uncomfortable with his nearness, she immediately tried to move away.
“Be still and I will show you what you want to know.”
She did not trust him, but the offer was too much temptation to resist.
He leaned down until his face was near her ear. “Close your eyes.”
A shiver skated down her length, but she did as she was told. Again, he placed his palms on either side of her head. Almost at once an image began to form in her mind. Through a veil of fog, she saw the broken coach. Men surrounded it, among them William and Robert. At a short distance from the others, she saw her father, mounted on his favorite stallion. His face was drawn with worry as the men with him dismounted and pulled John from the carriage. Another man, one she recognized as their physician, knelt in the road beside the injured man, examining him and binding his broken limbs.
Colette shifted uncomfortably, wanting to pull away, disbelief tightening inside her.
This wasn’t true vision. He was showing her what she wanted to see.
“Be still.”
She subsided, but this time only because of the harshness of his voice that told her he was impatient with her efforts to move away.
After a moment, she saw her father lift his head. The worried look on his face became an expression of surprise and then gladness. The mist parted and she saw Brigit and her mother stumble from the woods wearing nothing but their under clothes and those torn to shreds. Both bore expressions of fear and bewilderment until they saw her father.
Colette’s eyes flew open. She jerked away from the demon, putting some distance between them. “That’s not real. You made me see what you knew I wanted to see!” she said accusingly.
His face grew taut. “It is real. You know that in your heart.”
She shook her head. “You’re just trying to trick me again.”
His lips tightened. Without a word, he caught her arm in an unyielding grip and dragged her from the room. She had to scurry to keep up with his long stride, tripping on the linen she was still wrapped in. When they reached the tower room, he flung the door wide, releasing her arm at last.
Fearful, Colette moved into the doorway and looked around. There was no sign of either her mother or Brigit. Their muddy gowns still lay on the floor where Jala had left them, but there was no other evidence that they had even occupied the room.
“They’re not here,” she said bewilderedly. “What have you done with them?”
“You saw,” he said tightly.
She whirled on him angrily. “I don’t believe! I don’t trust you. You deceived me twice already, tried to trick me. Why would I believe you?”
“I gave you what you asked for,” he growled angrily. “Now you will give me what you offered.”
“I’ll do not such thing, for I do not believe for one moment that you have kept the bargain at all. You have put them in the dungeon--or slain them!”
His eyes narrowed. “Search then. You will not find them for I have freed them.”
She found herself staring at nothing more than a swirl of dark smoke as he vanished. Swallowing, afraid to hope that what he had shown her was true, she left the tower room and began to search for her mother and sister, calling out to them as she moved down one dark hallway after another, peering into room after room until she lost count of the number.
The place was a maze. For hours she wandered, down narrow stairs, up another set, down into the dungeons where she searched every cell, and then up again. She searched the room in every tower, weary from searching but too anxious to stop and rest.
She was so tired she almost felt like weeping when she saw a tub filled with steaming water sat before the hearth. The tray that Jala had brought earlier was gone, but the small table had been set with two place settings.
Nuri was sprawled in the chair before the hearth, his gaze brooding as he studied her.
She was not comfortable with the idea of bathing in front of him. Having done so the night before had not cured her of her embarrassment over her nakedness or the strangeness of bathing beneath the gaze of a stranger.
She was too tired and too miserable to ignore the temptation of the heated bath, however. Finally, she moved to the tub, discarded the now filthy linen sheeting and climbed into the hot water.
“You did not eat.”
She didn’t bother to open her eyes. She felt ill from not eating and from the exhausting search. “No.”
“You will grow weak.”
Wryly, she thought she already had grown very weak. She had barely had the strength to climb the stairs and none to resist the temptation he had left for her. She wondered if she cared. Her mother and sister were gone, and she had no idea of whether she could trust that they were safe or not. Could she flee to save herself without that certainty? What if it was only another trick and she discovered when she had found her way back that she had left them behind to suffer alone and afraid?
With an effort, she sat up in the tub and bathed the filth she’d gathered along the way in her search, dust, cobwebs, muck from the damp, earthen floors of the dungeon. She was so listless when she had finally cleaned herself, all she could think about was climbing into bed and sleeping.
Nuri would have none of that. When he saw that she had finished, he pulled her to her feet and wrapped her in a fresh length of toweling, drying her as he had the night before. “I’m too tired to eat,” she complained as he drew her toward the table.
“But you will eat.”
Clutching the linens around her, she eyed him resentfully as he settled across from her. “I should dress.”
“Why? I mean to bed you when I have fed you,” he said matter-of-factly.
Colette blushed to the roots of her hair. What little appetite she’d had vanished.
Completely illogically, her body tensed with the heat she’d felt before when he’d caressed her.
Jala appeared with food.
“I will dress before I eat,” Colette said stubbornly.
He studied her in tightlipped silence. “You will eat--willingly, or not.”
Colette subsided, deciding it wasn’t worth a battle of wills. She was hungry, and she could not defend herself if she was weak from hunger.
The food was surprisingly good. Colette found her appetite returning the moment she took her first bite. She ate far more than she should have and not nearly as much as she wanted.
“More.”
It was an order, not a question. “I can not. I have eaten my fill.”
“Then it is no wonder that you are so puny,” he growled irritably. “Or perhaps you are too anxious for desert to eat more?”
Colette immediately felt ill with nerves. “I am too full for desert,” she said a little breathlessly, willfully misinterpreting his comment.
“You will be fuller.”
She felt her cheeks flame. Deciding that pretended ignorance would get her no where, she sent him an angry glare. “I do not make or keep bargains with demons--who have no honor, and are not above using their magic to trick the unwary.”
“Then I will take what I want,” he growled, surging out of the chair.
Her heart nearly failed her as he rose above her, towering, making it impossible for her to ignore the fact that she was no match for him at all. “You will have to take,” she said shakily. “Amuse yourself if you must. I can not stop you, as you well know. But I will not yield gladly or willingly. You can not make me believe the lies you placed in my mind. For all I know you have slain my mother and sister and it revolts every feeling to even consider laying with….”
Furious, he grasped her arms, hauling her from her chair.
Colette swallowed with an effort, but she met his gaze unflinchingly.
He studied her face for several moments and released her arms, placing his hands on either side of her head as he had before.
Colette struggled, fearful at first of what he meant to do. The images began to form inside her mind, however, and she closed her eyes as a wave of dizziness washed over her. Almost at once the mists cleared and she saw her mother and sister in the sun room of their home. Brigit was weeping noisily in her mother’s arms. “I can’t believe it. I simply can not!”
“Hush now, dearest. You will make yourself ill! Your father will surely find her.”
Brigit sniffed. “But my party will be ruined anyway!” she cried out.
“Brigit! You do not mean that!”
Brigit looked up at their father guiltily. “What did I say? Oh! I am so distraught I don’t know what I’m saying. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Truly I didn’t!”
Colette broke free of the demon’s grasp and backed away several steps. Hurt formed a painful knot in her chest as she stared up at him.
“Do you still think I lie? Was that not the home you know?”
In her heart, she knew it was true. Yet, she still wanted to deny it, not only because it obligated her to keep the bargain she had struck, but because she was unwilling to think that Brigit cared no more than that for her.
She was spoiled, willful, and thoughtless. No doubt Brigit truly hadn’t meant the words the way they had sounded, Colette told herself. Naturally she was upset about her coming out party. It had been planned for nigh a year.
It was not as if she had not thought of herself. She loved her mother and sister, and she had been worried about them, but she had known her own chances of survival were better without them.
It wasn’t as if Brigit could actually help her.
Or that it would do any of them any good to mourn her loss.
She realized then that the main reason she was hurt had nothing to do with Brigit at all. Brigit was being Brigit. She had expected no better of her.
Her mother was still focused upon Brigit, however. She had not seemed distraught at all that her eldest daughter was still captive of the dreaded demon lord, Nuri, only concerned that Brigit would fall into hysterics and make herself ill. Her father had seemed appalled by Brigit’s remark, and yet he had not appeared to be particularly distressed either.
Did they not love her at all? Was her absence more of an inconvenience than a matter for distress?
She tried to shake the sense of abandonment she felt, told herself she was being far too sensitive when she had no more than glimpsed their expressions, but she could not. Doubt had entered her heart and would not be quieted.
She did not even object when Nuri lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed … but for the first time since she had been a small child, she wept.
Nuri’s hands stirred warmth to life as he stroked his palms over her body, but that only made the tears flow faster, for there was no love in his touch, no wish to offer the comfort she needed, only carnal desire.
He hesitated when he lifted his head at last to look into her eyes. His brows drew together in a frown that was part puzzlement, part irritation. “Why do you cry?” he demanded gruffly.
Colette stared at him in surprise. “I feel … lost,” she said finally.
He was silent as he absorbed that and considered it. Abruptly, he pushed away from her. “Mortals and their maudlin sentiments! Bah!” he growled angrily as he surged up from the bed, stalked across the room, and vanished in a swirl of dark smoke.
Chapter Five
For many moments after the de
mon had vanished, Colette wavered between the desire to yield to a luxurious bout of self pity and anger at his insensitivity. Amusement squelched both emotions as it dawned on her that she had dampened his ardor and sent him packing without even trying.
Why would he care if she wept while he had his way with her anyway? It could hardly be worse that screaming and fighting him.
But then he hadn’t wanted that either. How odd!
Evil demon indeed!
Of course, it did appear that he had evil designs upon her, or why else would he have freed her mother and sister?
That thought brought her to a realization that she had been too emotional to consider before. She was free to escape!
Scooting off of the bed abruptly, she rushed to her chest and opened it, digging out clothing and dragging them on quickly if a little haphazardly.
Out the window? Or down the stairs?
He would be in the great hall. She knew that.
Moving to the windows, she pulled the hide loose and looked down at the ground. The soil below was hard and strewn with pebbles--and it looked like an awful long drop even though she knew it could not be such a great distance. She was only on the second floor, after all.
After a little thought, she went to the door and tested it. To her surprise, the door opened. Anxiety tightened in her chest. Was he so certain she could not escape? Or had it been left unbolted because he was testing her?
She eased the door closed again, trying to bring her thundering pulse to a more comfortable level, chastising herself for her cowardice. Her mother and sister were safe. She had only to implement the remainder of her plan--to save herself.
When she had calmed her racing heart the best she could, she opened the door and peered up and down the corridor. Nuri would be in the great room. Very likely the imps would be somewhere close by their lord, if not in the great room itself. She had no confidence that she could slip down the main stair unnoticed, but she had found several narrow secondary stairs when she had been searching for her family.
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