The Episcopal preacher at the small church she attended spoke of demons, but she thought them nothing more than myth to frighten people into attending. Her theological beliefs were tied to the science and medicine she studied, not along the lines of accepted religious doctrine. But those creatures…Horned, winged, overtly sexual. The small sparks returned to her vision. If demons were real, those thirteen creatures certainly fit the description.
“You are breathing unevenly,” he said.
“I know.” She scowled and glanced out into the darkening forest. Was her horse, Mazy, still grazing nearby? Not likely. She would have bolted with the storm. Was the forest safe at night? Hardly. Safer than the man before her? Most likely. Safer than the demons who wanted him to rule the world? Definitely. Now from which way had she come?
Anna hiked her skirts. Without letting her rational mind stop her, she shot out from under the man’s light touch and ran. Branches snagged immediately at her face and hair, and she swatted them out of her way. Her dress caught on a jutting limb from a fallen branch, as if grabbing her. She knew it was futile, but she still gasped when steely arms hauled her off the forest floor.
“I will scream,” she warned, her voice high pitched.
“You already are.” He pulled her into his chest and began to walk in another direction. Toward Kylkern or away? Damn her lack of directional sense.
“There are Macleans close by,” she warned. “They will come when I call.”
“Kylkern Castle is far off. And you are quite alone out here.”
She was pathetic at bluffing. Patricia said it every time they played cards. “Where are you taking me?”
“To my home.”
“You are kidnapping me?” she asked.
“If I let you down, will you walk beside me to my home?”
No! she thought. “Yes,” she said.
He studied her face, and a grin turned up one corner of his mouth. “You lie. Even without being able to read your mind, I know you just lied.” He snorted softly as if pleased with himself and turned, weaving them through the trees.
“Put me down,” Anna said.
His stride was purposeful and sure. “You aren’t safe out here. My house is safe.”
Anna’s stomach clenched. “Highly doubtful.” Her voice rose despite her attempt at remaining calm and furious, which was much preferred to panicked and begging.
The moon was on the rise and shed a slight silvery glow through the trees. The man’s mouth softened as he stared toward her face in the dark. “You are safe with me. I will always protect you.”
Anna twisted. If she could just get her feet to the ground…but what then? The man was obviously stronger. He tightened his hold slightly. “You are not in danger,” he said, his voice calm as if he spoke to a hurt sparrow he intended to doctor. Insane. He was insane! She’d seen her share of mental illness coming through the doors of the London Hospital. Just how insane was he?
“Clearly, I am in danger,” she said.
“They can’t harm you when you are with me,” he said, his voice firm and tight. “You are not in danger, Anna Pemberlin.”
“With you? King of the demons? I think that title has danger in its very definition.”
Only the rhythmic pull and release of his breaths answered her. The stillness of night fell around them until Anna could only see where the moon cut down through the branches. The night brought a chill and smelled of damp, musty leaves. Jostled and bent, she grabbed onto his shoulders to find a more comfortable seat in his arms. He carried her with a fairly smooth stride considering he maneuvered up and over boulders. She felt his heart beating against her arm. Assuming that demons did not possess human hearts, he should at least be human.
“King of the demons. Would that make you Satan?” A bubble of stomach acid wafted up her throat and she swallowed. If he said yes, he’d either be delusional, or she was surely going to Hell as the queen of Satan. She should not have asked.
“I’ve never met Satan,” he said. “If he exists, he hides from me.”
“That does not make me feel better,” she murmured. She rubbed at the throbbing at the back of her skull. Her limbs tightened as he marched up ledges. Surely he would slip. But he cradled her effortlessly, the muscles of his arms obvious in his short-sleeved tunic. He knew this path well.
“Have you forced many women to your lair then?” she asked. The moon splashed against his face and she noticed a smile on his strong mouth.
“This is not a humorous situation,” she said.
His gaze turned to her, watching her in the fragmented light and shadows. “Your bravery makes me smile. And no, I have not taken other women before. You are the first.”
She looked out toward the thick tree trunks. Foolish! Good Lord, poor Patricia must be sick with worry. The wedding would be delayed all because Anna had once again been rash and averse to social dictates. And now she must get herself out of this mess. She couldn’t beat him physically. Perhaps psychologically.
“What is your mother’s name?” she asked.
He’d refocused his gaze ahead. “Gilla.”
“What would she think of you snatching a woman against her will?”
“Nothing. She died when I was one week old.”
Puerperal fever took many women after childbirth, even in the modern age of the 1890s. “Then who raised you? Not those demons, surely.” Demons. She felt silly using the title.
The man carried her over a stone footbridge covered with moss and canopied by bent black alders. “There were several humans who raised me,” he said, his voice hushed in the deep foliage. “Sister Elizabeth was my first caretaker.”
“You were raised in a convent?”
“An orphan house.”
“And a nun raised you?” she asked. What would the nun think of him living with demons?
“Five nuns raised me,” he said.
“A whole cluster?”
“No.” He ducked under low limbs and straightened, adjusting her in his arms. “Sister Elizabeth watched me until I could walk. Then Sister Mary, Sister Henrietta, Sister Margaret—”
“You were passed to each?” she asked. The man had no firm foundation in his upbringing. He could be a psychopath.
“Yes, as each one died, I was given to another until I was old enough to be left alone.”
“They each died? How..?” Anna’s words faded as her heart picked up a hard beat. She stared at the man holding her, his strength and calm nature at the same time, reassuring and positively chilling. “Did you..? I mean…”
“Did I kill them?” he supplied and stopped several yards from the trees. He let her legs lower until her feet touched the knobby ground.
She wobbled as her feet found purchase and looked up to search his face. Could he have? Could anyone beside Satan himself murder nuns? “Did you kill them?” she whispered.
The moon slanted stark rays across his face. The mask covering his stoic features slipped, showing a glimpse of torture. Say no, Anna willed. Say no.
She watched his mouth move on a single word. “Yes.”
****
Drustan studied Anna’s lovely features, so crystal clear in reality compared to his dreams. Her eyes widened, her lips frozen like the soft curve of a statue under the moon. She must think him a monster. Hell, she’d be right.
He looked beyond her at nothing, his chest tight with judgment. Maybe it was a mistake bringing her here. He would let her go once he knew she could be hidden.
“This is my home,” he said. When she turned in a circle in confusion he pointed upward.
Anna’s head tilted back, her gaze raised to view the grand cottage he’d built in the trees. “I’ve never seen its like,” she said.
The front faced down the hill with an arched door and two smallish eye-like windows. Massive trees held it up, growing right through holes he’d cut in the wraparound porch. A small cupola sat on top of the two-story house along with a capped pipe which served as a chimney.
<
br /> “You built this?” The awe in her voice was like the coolest wine on a sweltering day.
“Yes, Anna,” he said, letting her name slide along his tongue. How many years had he tried to decipher her name from his dreams, from the look in her eyes as she gazed at him from the fog? His whole life. And now he knew it. It was like uncovering a treasure.
“You may call me Miss Pemberlin,” she said in an attempt to snatch it back from him.
“I prefer Anna.” Even if he couldn’t claim another kiss, he would claim her name.
Her open mouth snapped shut, and she gazed back to the house.
He towed her behind him to the open space under the porch. He willed the square hatch in the deck to open, but nothing happened of course. He loosed her hand. Instantly, the hot stone in his chest expanded as if to prove it still existed. He only allowed a tendril to escape, lifting the hatch and sliding the coiled ladder off the edge. Anna jumped back as the heavy rope dropped.
Drustan caught the ladder and held it steady. “You will climb now.”
“Climb?” she asked, her voice pinched.
The woman of his dreams was turning out to be quite stubborn. “Up,” he looked pointedly aloft. “Onto the deck.” By now the forest was all shadows and layers of darkness. “Else would you rather face the wolves that roam these woods at night?”
“I believe my chances might be better against wolves,” she said, her hands crossing over her stomach.
He rubbed his mouth, his muscles tight. Having dropped her arm, a simple thought would lift him onto his deck, but he couldn’t lift Anna with his magic. “It is much more comfortable inside,” he said, trying for a luring tone that just came out oddly villainous. He rested one foot on the first rung and lifted to show how sturdy it was. “A fire, food, even a National water closet. And…” He watched her as he stepped back to the ground. “I will do you no harm.”
Her eyes were dark and wide in the slight glow of moonlight. She took long breaths through her pert little nose. “Does kissing fall on your list of harm? Because it does mine, along with kidnapping.”
“I will not kiss you again unless you ask.”
She snorted and stomped her booted feet, the sound muted by thick moss that grew over the thick roots.
A breeze kicked up, rattling through the branches overhead and sending a shower of autumn leaves floating down. The sudden twisting of air alerted Drustan before the familiar whiff of death reached him. Drustan took ahold of Anna’s wrist.
“And grabbing me is also harm,” she bit out as he reeled her closer.
Drustan scanned the patches of velvety black sky beyond the foliage. “You need to climb the ladder,” he said, his voice gruff. “I will not hurt you or violate your person, but if you don’t hide up in my house, those creatures you saw earlier just might.”
Shadows hid her features, but she’d stopped struggling against his hold. “They left,” she whispered.
“They are returning.”
She swallowed and eyed the dangling ladder. This was taking entirely too long, yet to forcibly carry her over his shoulder up the ladder would be tricky and no doubt fall into her broad “doing harm” category.
Drustan released Anna’s hand and immediately felt Tenebris nearby. He spoke through his link to his friend. Frighten the woman. She must hide above. He also willed several gas lamps up in his house to flicker on.
He took her hand and placed it on the rope. A rumbling growl vibrated through the darkness from the bushes before her on the other side of the ladder. Anna jumped back, bumping into his chest, but Drustan wouldn’t let her move from the ladder. The growl grew like the nearing storm, until Tenebris snapped. The wolf’s yellow eyes brightened like twin sparks from the inky oblivion as Tenebris’s hulking body broke from the shadows.
“I told you there are wolves about,” Drustan said low. “We best climb before he attacks.”
Tenebris stalked forward, head low. Large to begin with, he puffed his coat over his haunches as he snapped and slathered foam from his exposed teeth. Hell, Drustan had no idea his friend was so talented.
The wind shifted, punching gusts of foul air around the large tree trunks. Fallen leaves skittered like frightened mice. “Now,” he said and lifted her higher onto the ladder. “Blast it woman, I can’t make you climb.” Tenebris lunged forward with a ferocious snap and growl.
“Blazes,” Anna squeaked and propelled herself up the ladder. The sway of her skirt slapped Drustan in the face as he held the ropes steady. He followed once the layers advanced.
Without touching her, the demons would know he was home even though they couldn’t enter his warded house. Could Anna mute their powers like she muted Drustan’s? Could that be why unease surfaced in Semiazaz whenever Drustan mentioned another dream about her?
He tapped directly into the wolf’s mind. They come. Run. Tenebris loped off into the thick woods. The demons had decided the wolf was a threat ever since Drustan had found him living with his sister, Kailin, when he was a boy.
Drustan gave Anna’s kicking boots a wide berth as she hoisted herself over the lip onto the porch. He pulled himself up easily and closed the trap door. Anna stood at the rail, on the surrounding wooden deck, watching the woods. “Go inside,” he said as the deck swayed with the movement of the supporting trees.
Anna’s pupils fully dilated in the faint glow of gas light from the window. “They are returning,” she whispered. He nodded. He watched the elegant column of her neck as she swallowed before pivoting toward the arched wooden door.
He leaned his mouth near her ear, the smell of some flower in her hair washing away the taint of the demons. “Stay inside, as silent as a corpse.”
Chapter Three
Drustan turned outward. The wind whipped through the limbs above his head and caused the tree trunks to sway. Would Anna sicken from the rocking motion?
The demons took form below in their typical circle, each standing as far apart as the binding spell would allow. Slightly apart from the circle were the two who had been cleaved from the group to chase after Drustan as a baby, Erubus and Elathan. Severed yet still tethered. The Silver Witch’s curse seemed unbreakable.
During the first millennium of their bondage, the demons had viciously tried to tear each other apart. No doubt it was what the Silver Witch had hoped to achieve when she bound them. They were impotent in their rage, too busy trying kill each other to consider escape and revenge. But then Semiazaz had broken through their blood-haze enough to create a delicate balance of cooperation. They began to make plans, plans to seek revenge and take over the realm of times to create their perfect world, their Utopia.
“Where have you been, Drustan?” Semiazaz asked and levitated. The others followed as their tethers allowed. The demon leader had treated Drustan like a son while he grew, spending hours letting Drustan lament over the bullies who hissed at him and threw rocks. The others would take on human form, a nodding group of grandmothers and wise sages to listen and sympathize. But after one of the bullies had mysteriously run in front of a carriage and another had fallen down the stairs, breaking his back, Drustan kept his problems to himself.
“Here and there,” Drustan answered.
Semiazaz hovered slightly above Drustan so that he had to lift his chin to meet his adoptive father’s eyes. “We were at the stones and couldn’t sense you on this thread,” Semiazaz said, though his statement was clearly a question. “I didn’t know you were experimenting with traveling within other times.”
“I was worried about you, darling,” Bast said, her words coming out in a sexual purr. As usual she chose to appear nude, with sinewy arms and pendulous breasts. “You know it is dangerous to disrupt other times without thorough thought.”
Drustan stood, his arms crossed casually before him. “And yet our plan is to do more than disrupt the timelines.”
Semiazaz studied him, weighing his words. The older Drustan grew the more Semiazaz worried about his loyalties. The wizard knew tha
t Drustan despised the idea of killing his sisters. If they truly were averse to the restructuring of the temporal realms…well, he’d just have to convince them of the freedom inherent in stopping time from ruling them.
“Our snipping of certain temporal threads will be exact,” Semiazaz said. “Not random chaos like Drakkina thinks. A mistake could change the course of your history, son. We merely wish to protect you. Next time you thread, we should accompany you.”
Smash! Something, inside the house shattered. Drustan remained still. What didn’t Anna understand about keeping quiet? One of Semiazaz’s bushy white eyebrows rose over his black eye. “Company?”
“A cat,” Drustan said without hesitation.
Bast purred loudly and flicked her tail. She was either jealous or pleased.
With a twisting of his hand, Semiazaz sent the wind in a near tornado through the trees supporting Drustan’s house. Leaves slapped against the windows as the floor tilted and creaked with the bending. Acorns dropped and bounced like hail around Drustan. He grasped the railing and used his magic to repel the little nuts turned bullets.
He gave Semiazaz a wry smile. “You cannot dislodge my house, Semiazaz.” Drustan had built the house to flex and move with the trees. He’d learned from his wildly churning life that moving with the chaos was more stable than trying to stand firm against it.
Semiazaz stared past him. “Aye, you know that and we know that, but from her expression, I’d say your cat doesn’t.”
Drustan turned to see Anna’s pale face and saucer-like eyes framed in one of his front windows. “Stay inside,” he yelled to her. As long as she remained within his walls, the demons couldn’t take her.
“He has a woman!” Bechard, the tempest demon, roared. Drustan’s hands formed fists. Bechard was the most violent of the bunch, his thoughts always roiling and planning destruction and torture. Once free of Drakkina’s tether, the tempest demon would be the first to die at Drustan’s hand.
Megaira swooped closer, even risking a brush against Bast, to get a look. “Bring her out so we can all play,” she said, the serpents coiling her head tested the air with jutting tongues.
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