Kiss of the Phantom (Forsyth Phantoms)

by Julie Leto

  “Like you were,” Mariah filled in.

  Mariah’s mother cleared her throat.”Yeah, like I was. I know you and your brothers paid a hefty price for my leaving, but I had to go. I thought marrying your father would be one great adventure. I’d have access to digs in parts of Australia that few have been able to explore at their leisure. And for a while, I was the happiest woman north of Alice Springs. But, honey, it wasn’t enough, and I—”

  “You don’t have to explain, Mum.”

  “Maybe I do,” she contradicted. “Maybe if I explained, you would stop running and would find what will really make you happy. Before you make the mistakes I did. Trying to be someone you’re not.”

  Mariah’s eyes stung. She must have splashed herself with a soap bubble. Or else she was breaking through barriers in her heart that she’d erected so long ago. She’d never thought about being a mother herself, but she supposed her childhood was a prime example of how not to parent. Maybe she could pull off the whole nurturing thing someday if she had the right man to balance out her imperfections.

  Someone patient. Kind. Honorable. Someone who would encourage their children to explore the world and be honest and authentic about who they really were.

  Someone like Rafe.

  A sob broke through from her chest, unwelcome and unbidden.

  “Mariah, sweetheart, you tell me what’s wrong right now.”

  She couldn’t do this, could she? Open up to a woman she’d distrusted for so long? Was this what Ben meant about letting people in? About putting family ties above all others, even when her mother had not?

  “I’m messing it all up, Mum,” she confessed, deciding she no longer had the strength to hold on to her resentments from the past. “He respects me for exactly who am. He doesn’t compare me to his wife or want me to be like her. I’m the only one who does that, and I’m not sure why. He wants me for me.”

  “His wife?”

  Mariah swiped away the tears she now acknowledged were streaming down her face. “She’s dead. It was a long time ago. But I’m pushing him away. I may have already lost him.”

  Her mother’s laugh was something between a bark and a cry of relief. “Sweetheart, you’re the expert at finding things that other people have hidden and protected. Use your own talents on yourself. Whomever you’ve lost, you’ll find—if you want to badly enough?”

  24

  Rafe emerged from the stone to find Mariah asleep in a chair near the window, dressed in a fluffy white robe, a telephone cradled in her lap. A tray of food sat beside her, heartily picked over, though Rafe did manage to snag what he now knew to be called a french fry. Even cold, the delicacy pleased his palate. After draining the last of Mariah’s beer—now warm and more familiar than the questionable American preference for serving the beverage cold—he grazed his fingers over her cheek until she woke.

  “Hi,” she said, struggling to sit when she must still be sore from their encounter the night before. “When did you, um, wake up?”

  ‘Just a moment ago,” he said. “I might have suspected I’d finally died, I slept so soundly. I dreamed of you.”

  She snatched a half-filled glass of water and drained it in one long gulp. “I hope I was doing something fun.”

  “You were weeping.”

  And from the condition of the skin beneath and around her eyes, he realized that he might not have been dreaming at all. She blinked and he noticed thick, red veins streaking toward her amber irises.

  “Was I?” she asked.

  Her nonchalance betrayed her.

  “What happened while I slumbered?” he asked.

  She poured herself more water from a sweating silver pitcher. “Just had a long talk with my mother. I learned a lot.”

  “About?”

  “About me. About her. I think, when all this is over, I want to go home to Australia for a while. It’s been too long.”

  He heard a change in the melody of her voice, as if wanting to return to her homeland had struck a chord deep inside her—a tune of measured optimism. He forced a smile. He could not imagine going anywhere so far away when he was about to reunite with his brothers—and yet, he hated the idea of Mariah traveling continents away without him.

  But he had no right to indulge in melancholy. Night had fallen. It was time for him to meet his brothers. “Where is Paxton?”

  “Who? Oh, Paschal. I don’t know,” she replied. “He was supposed to be waiting for us here when we arrived this morning, but he and that Gemma woman must have gone to the island.”

  Rafe’s chest tightened. “The island with Rogan’s castle?”

  She nodded and yawned, then stood and stretched her limbs. “Yeah. Ben and Cat went after them. Ben said he’d call if anything was wrong, though I suppose he might not have been able to get through. I was on the phone for a while. I’ll call the front desk and see if we have any messages.”

  “No,” he said, pointing her toward the bedroom. “Dress. I will call.”

  Mariah’s eyes widened, but she obeyed nonetheless. When she’d closed the door behind her, he stared at the phone, wondering precisely how to make a call, when the device rang.

  He picked up the receiver and held it to his ear as he’d watched Mariah do so many times. “Yes?”

  “Rafe? Rafe Forsyth. Is that you?”

  The voice was female, husky, deep and wholly unfamiliar.

  “Who is this?”

  “Your destiny, lover. I’m the woman who can set you free.”

  ***

  Paschal snatched the phone from Gemma. “Who are you calling?”

  The old man could be damned stealthy for someone who should be walking with a shuffle. Or a cane. She supposed she should be happy he didn’t have the latter or he might have thwacked her over the head with it. “None of your business,” she snapped.

  He grabbed her roughly by the arm, and though she tried to tug away, his grip remained steady. She was starting to think it was a major mistake to come to this island. Ever since they’d arrived, Paschal had become stronger and incredibly more stubborn. Though he’d given her free rein to explore the island, which was really nothing more than sea grass, palmetto bushes, palm trees, sand, rocks, birds and crabs, he’d hardly let her look around the castle at all. When he’d finally allowed her to enter, he’d kept her corralled in the downstairs rooms—a grand dining hall, new modern kitchens, several studies and a lounge. All had been scrubbed and renovated to far above current architectural standards—meaning, they’d lost some of their authenticity. Besides examining some beautiful mosaics and stained glass reportedly original to the structure, she’d been bored out of her mind.

  The furnishings were mostly antique, but Rogan hadn’t sat on a single chair or touched any of the various vases, candelabra or portraits. She’d skimmed a few books on Romani culture from the library, which had kept her entertained while the construction work continued on the upper floors, but she longed to explore the towers and turrets and secret hiding spaces. Now that Ben Rousseau and Catalina Reyes had arrived, Paschal had reinforcements to keep her in check. What she needed was a distraction. What she needed was his brother.

  “Tell me whom you called,” he insisted.

  She handed him the damned phone so he could check the caller ID. “I called Rafe at the hotel. He and Mariah should have been here by now.”

  Paschal’s silver eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why do you care if he’s late?”

  “You want to meet him, don’t you?”

  “I’ve waited sixty-five years. I can wait another half hour.”

  “I’m bored,” she admitted. And antsy. Before calling the hotel, she’d experienced an ominous sensation that had descended with the darkness. She’d attributed the phenomenon to frustration, but maybe it was something more.

  “You’re the one who wanted to come here,” he reminded her.

  “To look around,” she argued. “Explore my forebearer’s legacy.”

  His clever smile sliced away any
chance she might have thought she had of rooting around with no supervision. “Construction workers have been swarming this site for over a year. Do you think we’d leave anything of value just lying around? Like, perhaps, the legendary Source of Rogan’s magical power?”

  Frowning, she grabbed her phone back and trudged up the beach toward the path to the castle. He wasn’t lying—but he wasn’t really answering her question, either.

  “Maybe it’s the walls,” she supposed. “Those are original, aren’t they?”

  “The walls, the windows and the mosaics. Not much else.”

  “Then why won’t you let me go upstairs?”

  “You don’t have a hard hat,” he replied.

  The wind had kicked up around them. Though the small strip of land several miles east of St. Augustine in the Atlantic was called Isla de Fantasmas by the locals, Gemma had yet to meet a single ghost. Or phantom. She was anxious to see for herself if the stories Paschal had told her were really true. A curse that could trap a man’s soul and the essence of his body inside an object for over two centuries would require substantial magic. And she wanted it. It was, after all, her birthright.

  That much hadn’t changed. And Paschal knew it. Ever since she’d learned about her psychic gift, he’d taken to keeping his own counsel. Even when reviewing the documents from her former family home, he’d remained close-lipped about any information he’d discovered. He did not trust her, and while logically she couldn’t blame him, she had to admit that the sudden distance stung.

  So instead of focusing on that angst, she’d imagined the grand possibilities of meeting his youngest brother, who, still trapped by the curse set by her ancestor, possessed what could be a great and terrible magic. If she got him alone...if she spent time with him, could she absorb his magic as she did other paranormal gifts?

  She glanced over her shoulder. The water rippled over the shoreline, spewing white foam that glistened in the moonlight. Clouds scuttled above them, but she could see quite a distance. Not a single boat approached. And yet, why did she feel as if someone were about to pop up behind her and say, “Boo!”

  “Did he answer?” Paschal asked.

  “What?” she said, startled.

  “Rafe? Did he answer your call?”

  “Oh,” she said, inhaling a calming breath. “Yeah, they’ll be here shortly. What about Damon and Alexa? I thought you expected them hours ago.”

  Paschal frowned. “Bad weather delayed their flight. They won’t arrive until tomorrow.”

  He turned, his gaze suddenly lost across the inky dark water. The sound of the waves lashing at the rocky shore did not quell what she suspected was his great anxiety. It certainly hadn’t done much for hers.

  “I’m sure they won’t take off in dangerous weather,” she assured him.

  “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

  Almost instinctively, she touched his arm. With a moment’s concentration, she caught an image of boys playing in a garden. Twins with golden streaks in their hair and a third boy with a black ponytail standing on the perimeter—watching, but not running with the others.

  An outsider.

  “Is that why you’re so nervous? Meeting a brother who...” She concentrated harder. Images she could see. Emotions were harder to pinpoint, since the faces of the people in the visions were often blurred and the sound muffled. “I know now. Didn’t quite fit in? You know what they say about time and wounds. Besides, he’s your brother.”

  Paschal took a great inhalation of ocean-scented air. “When’s the last time you visited your brother in jail?”

  She snorted. “Keith and I were never close. We were pitted against each other from childhood.”

  “In many ways, so were we.”

  He spoke without an ounce of malice, but a boatload of regret. A thrill of a secret scurried through her. “Really? Why? Was it because he’s only your half brother? Or was it something better? Like an old rivalry? Perhaps over a woman?”

  Paschal’s frown deepened. “You assign your gender too much credit for the discord between men.”

  “Ha! Women have been starting wars since Helen of Troy. Is that it? Was it a woman?”

  He started walking toward the castle. “Some wars rage much deeper.”

  “This sounds interesting,” she said, purring her words as she sidled up to Paschal in the sexy way that had once been such second nature to her. Now, she wasn’t flirting as much as she was trying to get under his skin.

  Paschal ignored her.

  Once inside, the soaring ceilings, carved buttresses and sparkling stained-glass windows, illuminated by exquisitely crafted gas torches, stole her breath. Nightfall had definitely added to the beauty of the place. She had no trouble imagining herself the queen of this castle, though she continued to struggle with the sense of entitlement that had haunted her since her arrival. This would get her nowhere. Rogan had existed a very long time ago. She was only the great-times-twenty-granddaughter of Rogan’s grabby younger brother. No one was going to hand her the keys to this place anytime soon.

  But under the circumstances, she couldn’t resist posing the one unasked question that had hung in the air like an unpleasant smell since they’d arrived.

  “Do you think Rogan is still alive?”

  Paschal gave no hint of surprise. He merely gestured her into a lavish library to the right, directly away from the dining hall where Catalina and Ben had spent the day poring over the documents Paschal had brought from the archives, looking for something the old man might have missed. “I’d rather talk about Rafe.”

  “I want to know about both,” she said. “You’ve regaled me with tales of this castle and of your childhood in England and Valoren, but you somehow managed to neglect to tell me anything interesting about either your brother or my ancestor. Your brother, who is still alive after two hundred and sixty-odd years. Like you. And Damon. And Aiden. There has to be a chance, at least, that Rogan’s alive somewhere, too.”

  “We’ve no indication of that,” Paschal said, a bit of a snap in his voice.

  “Actually, the indication is talking to me. You lived. Why not him?”

  “It was his magic that trapped us.”

  “I believe that,” she assured him. “He was powerful. That much we’ve all figured out. But why would he save you and not save himself?”

  “Save?” His volume rose. “Is that what you think he did to us? Save us?”

  “You didn’t die that night,” she insisted. “Or the next morning when that army descended on the village. No one died. No one was there to die.”

  “You’re wrong.” A voice from the doorway sliced into the echoing quiet all around them. Ben and Cat came into the library behind the man who had to be Rafe Forsyth.

  Gemma’s heart skipped a beat and she gulped painfully. She’d thought Ben was on the hot side, and the natural attraction she’d felt toward Paschal in spite of their age difference had been undeniable, but Rafe’s dark skin, penetrating eyes and proud mien captured her fantasies in an elemental way. Unfortunately, he had a woman attached to his arm whose eyes, the moment they clashed with Gemma’s, warned her to stay away.

  Gemma forced herself to stand up taller. “I’m sorry?”

  “You said no one died in the village, and that is a lie. My wife was murdered hours after I was captured by Rogan’s curse. Her throat was slit and her blood soaked into the ground not three paces from where I was trapped, unable to save her. Unable to avenge her. Thanks to your ancestor’s black magic.”

  His eyes flashed with something inherently more frightening than anger. For an instant, Gemma thought she felt the floor beneath her feet shake, but the woman beside him, Mariah Hunter, she assumed, tightened her grip on his arm, and the unsteadiness stopped.

  “Rafe?” Paschal said, his voice tremulous.

  Gemma bit back the myriad questions that tumbled in her brain and instead allowed the brothers to greet each other. They clasped hands at first, and then embraced, and th
e fire she’d seen flash in the Gypsy’s eyes melted away with warmth for his long-lost sibling. Mariah watched, her eyes glossy, until the two men sat to talk. She then turned and left, a little unsteady on her feet and suddenly looking a little green. She disappeared with Ben and Cat into the dining hall. Gemma considered hanging around the library and seeing what she could pick up from the brothers’ conversation, but she couldn’t resist an opportunity to explore the castle without an escort.

  She headed toward the main hall, but found her way blocked by an invisible barrier just beyond the threshold.

  When she spun around to complain, Rafe was directly in front of her. She jumped back. Taller, broader and twice as intimidating as he was from a distance, he would have made her stumble if he hadn’t caught her by the wrist.

  “Don’t,” Paschal warned. “Don’t touch her.”

  “What?” she asked, insulted. She might have the ability to soak up his magic, but she didn’t have damned cooties. “I’m not going to hurt him.”

  “Explain,” Rafe demanded, turning on his brother after breaking eye contact.

  Paschal traded the fearful look on his face for a mask of indifference. “Let her go. She can do no damage up there.”

  Rafe stared at her long and hard, as if searching for signs of Rogan’s face in hers. Cold tendrils of apprehension ran sprints up and down her spine. She had the strong suspicion that if she shared so much as the same nose, Rafe might tear her in half where she stood.

  Then the atmosphere shifted. He turned away, and she guessed she was free to go.

  She headed straight for the stairs, leaping around crates and heavy machinery, getting away faster than her cool demeanor normally allowed. In a collection of tools on the landing, she found a flashlight. She shone the beam up the grand staircase, which turned sharply to the left and into total darkness. The ominous feeling she’d experienced near the beach returned full force. No matter what Paschal said, she knew there was something in this castle that belonged to Rogan. Something that belonged to her.