"Ashton, the old man's death had nothing to do with you."
"You don't know that. We were only out there because of me."
"Because you called that there was something out there. Nobody else thought anything of it. We all figured it was a couple different Devils running around, making trouble. You said there was a pattern, but you couldn't place what it was, and sure enough, there was something there."
"Don't patronize me, Hewitt."
"Samson, tell him."
"He's not wrong. I mean, you know—Louisiana's pretty quiet, right? So we have some time to spare, and we've gone over it a few times. We have plenty of time to look over reports coming in, folks sending messages asking for our help, right? So we look for him. The thing that took the old man."
"Yeah, I thought we were all supposed to be doing that."
"Haven't you been?"
"Yeah, but I mean—what are you getting at?"
"We figured out a long time ago there ain't a snowball's chance in hell we find the thing."
"So, what, you stopped looking?"
Hewitt shrugged, and then Ash couldn't hold the frustration back any more. He pulled back and slugged him in the mouth.
"You stopped looking, you son of a bitch?"
"We can't figure what to look for, Ashton. You're the only one ever saw it! And, no offense, baby brother, but you ain't exactly around to consult on that shit, are you!"
Ashton settled back into his seat, straightened up his clothes. "Not exactly, no."
"Nobody blames you, Ash. Not for the old man." Samson's face was in an unusually sincere expression for a moment before twisting into an impish smile. "And as for slugging Hewitt… Well, I say you deserve a medal."
Ashton didn't smile back. Instead, he turned to lay down on the bed. "Whatever you say, man."
Thirty
It was an odd thing, having someone ask you to marry them. That it was someone who was already married to her mother only made it stranger. That it was a non-human someone… well, perhaps it was all strange, wasn't it?
There was nothing normal about the situation, which made it all that much harder to do what Cora had always done. She was used to everything being a simple matter of manners and grace. Now she was starting to realize, however, that the ground beneath her feet wasn't supported by anything at all. She was just wandering in the darkness, and any minute she could break right through the thin ground and be totally alone.
Ash, she thought, was not coming. If he was, then he would have done it by now. That he didn't was as clear an indicator as anything that something was very, very wrong. Maybe after the way that she had left it, he thought she was choosing to stay.
Or maybe he couldn't come back for some reason. Maybe he'd caught wind of the Devil that had killed Martin, and had overturned their train. The thing that had been after them all this time. He'd tried to shoot it before, but he said that they all had a physical presence. Something that made it so that they could be close enough to where they were doing their thing.
She hadn't seen anything physical but the dust on the wind either time. Just a strange apparition made out of dust and tricks of the eyes. If the dust was the physical presence—well, for one thing, that was a terrifying thought. She pushed it out of her head. And besides, Ashton had shot it. The apparition had disappeared, but it had reappeared again, right outside the hotel.
So he sure hadn't killed it. Could he?
Maybe whatever it was had gotten him. It seemed keen on killing anyone around her, and it had gotten most of them. Maybe it just took a few extra tries with Ash.
She laid her head back and tried not to think too much about what it would mean to marry a Devil. She wouldn't be able to go back home again. There would be no justifying why she'd gotten married. She couldn't even say 'I got married to bring Momma back to life,' because they'd throw her in an asylum somewhere.
The choice wasn't going to be easy, and the more that she thought about it the more she realized exactly how not-easy it was going to be. but that didn't mean that there wasn't a right thing to do, either.
She looked out the window in her room. Her mother's room had a window, too, just like it. Some clever design of the house that allowed about every room to have a window in it, in spite of the house being so large. She couldn't figure out how they did it, with all the rooms like that. Something about light shafts and cleverness, Cora thought.
The night was dark, and no moon. She hadn't seen one all night, and she knew that it rose right in view of the window. She should've been able to see it, but all she could see was the black and the stars, and the tops of the trees a little way down the mountain where Enoch hadn't cut them away for the house.
She should have been asleep. She should have been asleep an hour ago, but Cora had tried to for a while. The thought just kept running through her head, what if I'm wrong?
The whole suggestion—that Enoch could take her energy through fucking—was absurd. Or, it sounded absurd, at least. Especially when he insisted on marrying her first, which didn't seem like the sort of thing that a monster would do in either case. The idea that he could bring people back to life, but couldn't do it this time…
All of it seemed somehow suspect. Like it was all crafted to get something out of her that she couldn't quite put her finger on.
But over and over again, that voice in the back of her mind.
What if you're wrong?
What if it was completely within her own power to bring Momma back, and all she would be giving up would be a little social life she'd never particularly enjoyed back in Detroit and the chance at a marriage with some stuffy old wealthy man who probably wouldn't respect her and definitely wouldn't be anything like as polite as Enoch.
Nor, she added before she could stop herself, as exciting as Ash.
She didn't like that she had thought it at all. She shouldn't have, because Ash was, for all intents and purposes, off-limits. But it hadn't stopped her, no more than it had stopped her from having sex with him. She made a mental note not to mention that to Enoch, just in case she decided to change her mind.
She tried to quiet her mind. Her eyes ached from tiredness, even after she closed them. It was time to sleep, and she wasn't going to let a little distraction get to her, not if she could help it. She forced herself not to think about anything, and reached for the warm oblivion of sleep.
Her dreams weren't so bad, this time. She chastised herself when she woke up for having those kinds of thoughts. Two men at once? Nobody had ever proposed it, and in her waking mind she hoped nobody ever would. She couldn't be married to two men. She couldn't have a life with Enoch and Ashton both.
The law would never allow it, but more than that, Ashton seemed too buttoned-up to allow a Devil in his house, regardless of who it was. But in her dream it had all seemed perfectly plausible. A pleasant breakfast, talking to her two beloved husbands, both of them doting on her…
And then after breakfast, they took a trip over to the bedroom, and… she shook her head to get the images out, pushed herself out of bed and stripped off her bedclothes to let them air out. It seemed that as cold as it had been during the night, she'd been sweating. The dream still hadn't faded when she coyly wondered to herself why that had been. It certainly wasn't anything to do with her, was it?
No, it couldn't be. That would be unladylike of her, and she was never unladylike. She made a mental note never to think about what she'd been thinking about again. Then, a moment later, decided that she wasn't going to be so hasty. After all, there was a whole world of possibility out there.
A knock at the door made Cora press herself against it to keep it closed against anyone coming in and seeing her standing there in only her skin.
"Yes, who is it?"
"Cora? It's Delilah. Are you alright?"
"Of course, everything's all right. Why shouldn't it be?"
"I don't want to get you worried, darling, but… Harriett's not doing so great, so we were afraid that,
whatever it was took your mother, maybe it was, you know… catching."
Cora pursed her lips. No, she was fine. She was sure of that much, at least. But if Harriett was in bad shape, then…
She let out a breath. She hadn't had a choice about her mother. Nobody had given her a choice. Maybe it would have been too forward, but, Cora thought, she would have rather made that choice for herself. Bringing her mother back from the dead was one thing. She wanted to do it. Oh, God, did she want her mother back.
But could she let another woman die because she was selfish? She already knew the answer before she pulled herself away from the door.
Nobody was going to die because she was too sheepish about what she was going to tell her family.
Thirty-One
Ashton couldn't get off the train fast enough. No, that wasn't true. Samson couldn't get off the train fast enough, and Ashton was only a few steps behind him. But good lord, could that boy move when he wanted to. And after their little chat in the morning, it seemed that none of them absolutely wanted to be in the same room any longer than they had to.
An ideal reunion, it wasn't. An ideal lead-in to the job they were about to do? It couldn't have gone much worse. But now they were there, and it was time to get to work.
The manor—Ashton couldn't think of it any other way—was a few hours south of there, and if they didn't wait around, they could be there by sun-up. Of course, that carried with it dangers of its own. Only a fool would be caught outside, in this territory, at night. They'd dodged a bullet, somewhat.
The new moon had been last night. If they'd given it a shot then, there wouldn't have been much they could do but get themselves killed. Instead, it would be at least marginally better, and at least marginally was as much as Ashton could hope for.
"Ash."
He slowed a minute but didn't turn. He and Hewitt hadn't had the best working relationship so far this trip. He might be provoking something by not looking the man in the face, but he wasn't going to provoke something by doing it.
"Don't rush."
He took in a breath.
"She's been in there for a week, Hewitt, you know that ain't going to be good. We'll be lucky if—"
"You're right. We will be lucky if we find her alright. And I know we can't afford to risk your girl's hide, neither."
Ashton decided that he shouldn't lie by trying to protest.
"But if we wind up dead before we ever get there, what's that going to do for her? A whole lot of nothing, and you know it. So let's slow it down, take it easy, and do this smart."
Ash let his shoulders slump.
"You're right. I know better than that." He forced his legs to turn him around. "And I'm sorry about hitting you."
Hewitt gave a dismissive shrug. "I know what you're about, Ashton, you don't have to say nothin' to me."
Ashton's mouth spread into a straight-line split across his face. "Thanks. We might be able to make the next town if we're quick."
"Is it safe?"
"I stayed there two solid days before I found her, so I sure hope to hell so."
"Alright, then. Let's get going."
Ashton took them by the stable and they got another couple of horses that looked sturdy enough to take a hard ride. He wasn't telling the whole truth, and Ashton knew enough about himself to know that neither of them would believe the lie anyways. If they were fine with going, then they were fine with getting there a little past sundown. The risk wouldn't be too much until midnight, and if they were very quick, they might only be able to see that tiny sliver of a moon as they crossed into the town.
Ashton forced himself to wait. It was too tempting to head off without them. He knew the way, and they knew how to follow. They'd be behind him in no time, once the man was paid and the horses saddled up. If he didn't take it at full speed, then they could catch up no problem.
That is, if they pushed their horses. He knew that was the panic talking in his ear again. Wait for the boys. Wait until they're ready, and then you all three go together. That was the right way to do it, not to try to force yourselves to hurry it up and risk getting yourself killed because you didn't have backup.
That was the whole reason he'd gone and gotten them in the first place, but now at the first opportunity he was ready to ditch them because they took an extra ten minutes getting prepared. Ash shook his head and forced himself still.
When they were all up and ready he started. It wasn't wise to push the horses the whole way, but with daylight burning up it was hard not to. Ash pushed his mare about as hard as he figured it could handle. Then he pushed her a little harder. Time to find out what the girl was made of.
They rode together, slower than Ash wanted and faster than he thought was entirely wise. The mare was handling it like a champ, but he could feel her tiring. He traced their route on the map in his head. They were almost there. They might just make it in time to get into a room before all hell broke loose.
He held up a hand to keep his hat pressed down on his head and kept the horse moving, knowing by the sound that Hewitt and Samson were only a few lengths behind him. There was where the stage had gone down. Some time in the last week, someone had come by and cleaned it up.
Ashton remembered that long walk into town. It had taken as long as this whole trip took on horseback. Maybe longer. He made a mental note never to try that shit again. It was too dangerous, and besides that, the horses were faster. So long, that is, as Cora didn't have to ride one of them.
He saw the town at a distance and pushed the horse harder still. This was the final stretch, and he knew the route to the hotel wasn't far from the north edge of town. Ten minutes, tops, and Ashton would be going to fetch the stableboy to take care of the horses.
They hit the town going way too fast, and Ashton tied his horse up a full minute before Hewitt and Samson brought up behind. The same man who he'd been dealing with a week ago smiled at him, his crooked teeth a comforting familiarity that seemed more unusual in their ugliness than in how much Ashton found he liked the place.
The hotel was quiet, only a four rooms in the whole place and he'd taken one of them. The other three had been empty the entirety of his two-day stay, and now the man was about to get more business, Ash thought, than he probably ever fathomed.
Three rooms, three keys, and three bills to pay. Ashton dropped a ten dollar bill on the counter and told him to keep the change. They were only going to be staying one night, and then they'd be heading back out, after all.
The old man turned back with the keys in hand just in time for Ash to hand them off to Hewitt and Samson. They'd need to get inside, and fast. They were early, but not early enough. There were preparations to make before night fell, and they should have been done thirty minutes ago.
Thirty-Two
Cora couldn't believe the dress that they had ready for her. She'd come out here with three dresses, and it was easy to keep rotating through them, for the first few days. Nobody had said anything about it, so even though it would have been terrible embarrassing back in Detroit she let herself get used to it.
But when she'd told Enoch that she would marry him, if he thought he could save Harriett, the girls acted as if they'd been waiting on that signal for days and took her straight back to a room she hadn't been in before, one with a big bed with a white dress lying out for her.
And what a dress it was, too. Cora sucked in a breath the second she saw it. Finally, after a long time she turned to Delilah.
"Is that—for me?"
"It was your mother's. I know she'd want you to have it."
She could feel the hot tears already threatening to well up and spill out, and Cora couldn't do much to stop it but try. It was all too much.
"It won't be until tomorrow. We need to fetch a preacher, after all, and we need to fix up the wedding altar. But, oh, it will be a beautiful ceremony. I've seen three of them, and they just…"
Delilah daubed at her eye with a handkerchief. "It always gets me."
Cora smiled. She couldn't stop herself from smiling. It was too much to handle anymore. The tears came, burning hot lines down her cheeks, but she couldn't stop them, no matter how embarrassing it was. This was her mother's family. This was what she'd been so happy about in that letter.
She hadn't mentioned being sick, but maybe that was to avoid making Cora upset. The location had been wrong, too. There were unanswered questions, but there would be time for that. Ashton wasn't coming for her any more, and that meant that she had years to find out what had been going through her mother's head when she wrote that letter.
The thought that Enoch might not keep his word hadn't crossed her mind for an instant. In fact, the instant she'd seen him, he'd only been fretting over Harriett. He barely ate at breakfast and dismissed himself.
To his credit, though, Cora went to him with her idea. He didn't come to her. Then, as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she was gone again, bundled off into this room.
"This is the wedding bed. We leave it like this. Perfect. Every one of our sisters has the perfect wedding night, the best memory of their lives, in this exact room."
Another one of the wives spoke. "Perfect. Every single one of them."
Cora put a hand on one of the bedposts to hold herself up as everything continued to overwhelm her. "I'm sorry. I know you're all doing your best—"
"Cora, baby!" Delilah pulled her in tight and squeezed Cora into her comfortably large bosom. "Nobody is upset with you. We understand, don't we?"
A half-dozen voices rose in general agreement.
"You're overwhelmed right now. There's a lot going on. You're excited, you're probably pretty scared. But there's nothing to be afraid of, alright? Enoch—well, you know him. Would he hurt you?"
Cora took a couple deep breaths and tried to stop her tears. "No," she agreed.
"Would we let something bad happen to Carolyn's daughter?"
"No."
"So you cry as much as you need to, but just remember. You're going to be just fine."
Sadistic Master Bundle (BDSM Billionaire Erotic Romance) Page 19