Scions: Revelation

by Patrice Michelle

  “I’ll be around.” She tried to walk away, but he didn’t let go.

  Instead, he spread his fingers wide and threaded them with hers, locking their hands together. “I don’t want you to go.” He glanced at their hands. “And I don’t think you want to either.”

  The warmth from his palm seeped into her skin, warming her chilled fingers. She followed his line of sight. Her fingers dug into the back of his hand, clasping tight.

  Emma jerked her gaze to his. “I—”

  “Dance with me, Emma.” Using his hold, he pulled her close. When her chest aligned with his, he wrapped his arm around her waist and locked her against him.

  The rough rasp in his voice ignited her body. She loved the way her name sounded coming from him. Much better than Hat Girl. Her nerves played havoc with her mind. He wanted to dance? She glanced at the rows of cars flanking either side of them. “We’re in a parking deck—”

  “Listen and you’ll hear the music.” He leaned close, his lips a breath away from hers.

  As his hand slid up her back under her coat and sweater, the searing heat from his palm branded her bare skin, and she began to hear the steady thump of a seductive beat in her head—deep music with erotic undertones, meant to seduce the senses, to lull her mind and insecurities.

  Emma realized she was dreaming. Even though she was a little sad that this arousing scenario was in her subconscious, the knowledge freed her from worry that she’d make a fool of herself by saying something stupid. This “dream Caine” was a figment of her imagination. She could be uninhibited and he would respond as if she’d said and done all the right things.

  Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pressed her body close to his muscular chest and whispered in his ear, “You take the lead and I’ll follow.”

  Caine’s dark eyes blazed. “Things aren’t always what they seem, Emma.”

  The low register of his voice made something fundamental twist deep inside her. His hard body pressed against her, combined with his invigorating smell, caused her pulse to whoosh in her ears. Her heart beat faster and the sound grew louder until all she heard was a blaring whaaah, whaaah, whaaah. She stiffened in his arms. The pace felt off. The steady noise was harsh and jarring.

  Emma jerked awake to the annoying sound of her alarm clock. Five in the morning. Ugh. She’d set the alarm so she could go in search of Casper before her aunt woke. The older woman would be frantic if she knew he’d gotten out again. The dang cat had slipped through Emma’s legs when she’d opened the door last night after she’d returned from the club. Hitting the off button, her heart thrummed as she lay back on her bed and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to recover the dream. But the wisps of the surreal fantasy slipped away.

  Her dream about Caine made her realize how attracted she’d been to him. She hadn’t admitted it to herself last night. Rolling over, she punched her pillow when she considered the fact she hadn’t given him her name. Most likely, he thought she was being coy and evasive, giving him the “challenge” he thought her to be. Ha! The truth was, she didn’t know what to say to someone like Caine—a man obviously assured in his seductive skills with women. Pushing him away was the best defense mechanism she could come up with at the time. Socially adept, she was not.

  Growing up home-schooled and living in the boonies over an hour from the city pretty much guaranteed she grew up smart but not very skilled when it came to making friends. She didn’t give Caine her name on purpose. That way, she could imagine all kinds of sexy scenarios between herself and this mysterious guy with his evocative smell, so long as she didn’t have any embarrassing “real-life” moments with him to get in the way.

  Emma sighed as she stood up and dragged on a pair of jeans and a sweater. Staring out the frosted window into the dark early-morning sky, she grabbed her coat. A few minutes later, Emma tugged the coat tight around her to ward off the frigid air and entered the dense woods surrounding their home, calling out in a low voice, “Casper!”

  Once she’d reached the stream a half mile from their home, she peered up and down the babbling flow of partially frozen water. Casper considered this area his personal hunting ground. She had no qualms leaving him out here on his own, but her aunt had other ideas, to the point the older woman had even put a lock on his cat door to keep him inside at night.

  Emma was freezing her butt off and ready to get back home to a cup of hot cider. “Casp—” she started to call again when a small bundle of pitch-black fur darted across the embankment twenty feet upstream. She stepped forward to take off after him, at the same time a few drops of ice-cold rain hit her nose. Smiling in satisfaction, she turned to head back home. Casper might like his freedom, but he hated being wet even more. He’d be meowing at their back door soon enough.

  With each step Emma took back toward her house, something didn’t feel right. The air felt heavy and thick as if an ominous hush had fallen over the woods surrounding their small stone house—waiting for her to return. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she neared her home. Heart thumping, she picked up her pace and broke into the clearing to see steady rain sliding in quiet rivulets down the high-pitched roof over the front porch. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling…

  She came to a halt when she saw fresh, deep tire marks in the gravel driveway, as if a big truck had come and gone. Her pulse thundered in her ears at the sight of the front door standing wide open. Icy fingers of fear for her aunt traced down her back. Her boots made heavy thumps across the wooden front porch as she ran inside screaming, “Aunt Mary!”

  The house appeared empty, eerily quiet. She raced toward her aunt’s bedroom and her voice echoed in the hall as she gave another shrill cry for her aunt to respond. Emma’s stomach knotted with each step she took. The lamp lay broken on the floor beside her aunt’s bed—the only indication of trouble, other than the open front door. Emma rubbed her neck and glanced around the bedroom.

  Her aunt’s purse was still on the dresser untouched. So was her jewelry box. They hadn’t been robbed. Feeling as if her safety and privacy had been completely ripped from her, Emma crept back down the hall toward the front of the house, trying not to panic for her aunt. Their car was still in the driveway, so unless her aunt had walked out, she didn’t leave on her own. Where had her aunt gone? Completely perplexed, she pulled the front door closed.

  As soon as she shut the door, a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. Emma’s heart seized and she stared at the bold, black letters scrawled across the white surface. Want to talk to you. Go to the club again tonight. Be there at ten. No police.

  To the club again? The note had to be for her. No police? Did that mean the person had taken her aunt to make sure she would comply? Emma bit her lip and swallowed a sob. Even though she was alone in her house, she felt as if every move she made was being scrutinized, like she were a fish floundering around in a fishbowl.

  Running down the hall to her bedroom, she grabbed her purse, her cell and keys, then headed back to the front of the house. She couldn’t stay here another moment. Her home had been invaded and being an hour away from the city felt—for the first time in her life—too secluded.

  Casper’s angry meow drew her attention and Emma grabbed a towel and unlocked his cat door at the bottom of the back door. He tried to dart past her, but she was too fast, grabbing the cat up and drying him off with brisk strokes. The cat yowled his displeasure and scratched her to be free. The moment his feet hit the floor, he made a beeline down the hall for her aunt’s dirty-clothes basket—his bed every night.

  Emma considered taking the cat with her, but Casper was as undomesticated as they came. He was used to the wide-open wooded spaces, not a crowded city full of concrete. Her aunt wouldn’t forgive her if he got run over. Sighing, she filled Casper’s bowls with enough food and water to last a few days and made sure the cat door was in the unlocked position so he could come and go as he pleased.

  When she started back through the kitchen, her gaze landed on her
aunt’s plastic pillbox. Emma had filled the seven days of the week full of meds for her aunt yesterday. Renewed panic ramped inside her as she slipped her aunt’s medicine box into her purse. Mary needed her pills or she ran the risk of a heart attack.

  Closing the front door, Emma locked it, then quickly bolted for her car. Suddenly, the dense woods appeared sinister, surrounding the area around her house in a shroud of damp darkness. Emma’s heart hammered out of control. Every sound seemed to echo in her head: the gravel under her boots, her erratic breathing, even the crows in the trees above squawking incessantly.

  Once she’d pulled her car onto the interstate that led to the city, the rain began to come down harder. Emma gripped the steering wheel tight and sobbed in worry for her aunt. Her first natural instinct was to call the police, but she couldn’t jeopardize her aunt’s life. No police. What if the kidnappers got angry and hurt her aunt?

  Why did they want to meet me at the club? Who was doing this? She’d only talked to one person last night. Then again, Caine had really wanted to know her name or her number. At the time, she’d assumed she’d just intrigued him with her evasive responses. Dear God, had he followed her home? Could Caine be the one doing this? Had she somehow unwittingly brought some psycho-stalker to her home? She began to shake all over.

  Where could she go for a place to think? Whom could she trust? Right now her boss, Jared, was the closest Emma had to a friend. He’d always been understanding about her situation with her aunt’s medical needs and endless doctor appointments. She tried to call Jared’s cell, but her cell’s coverage was spotty this far from town.

  An hour later, as Emma parked her car behind Jared’s Java Café—space was surprisingly available in the wee hours of the morning—it started sleeting. Rain and sleet coated her hair and coat by the time she climbed the metal stairs that led to Jared’s apartment above the store and banged hard on the door.

  Bleary-eyed and bare-chested, his short blond hair in bed-head disarray, Jared yanked open the door with a baseball bat in hand. “What the fu—” He lowered the bat to his side. “Emma?”

  She stood there, shivering and incoherent. “Ja—Jared. I need a place to stay for a bit.” Her legs barely held her upright.

  The bat clattered to the floor and he caught her before she collapsed. “Emma!”

  When he lifted her in his arms and kicked the door closed behind him, Emma began to shake all over. She was soaked through. Her breathing came in erratic pants and her teeth chattered. “So c-c-cold.”

  A half hour later, Emma emerged from Jared’s bathroom, steam rolling out behind her. Tucked in a thick terry towel, her wet hair hanging around her shoulders, she turned down the hall and entered the kitchen.

  Jared raised a blond eyebrow right before he poured her a mug of coffee. He’d shaven and pulled on jeans and a sweater while she’d taken a shower. When she sat down at the small two-seater table, he set the coffee in front of her. “Want cream?”

  She nodded mutely.

  Grabbing the milk from the fridge, he pushed the carton toward her and sat down in the chair across from her. “Start from the beginning.”

  Seeing him like this, outside of a boss-employee situation, he appeared so much closer to her age, even though he’d just turned thirty last month. Emma glanced down at the coffee mug tucked between her hands. “I—um, it’s complicated.” If she told him everything, he’d insist she call the police. She couldn’t put her aunt in harm’s way. What she needed was a safe place to stay and think.

  “What happened? Did you argue with your aunt or something?”

  She met his concerned, deep blue gaze and wished she didn’t have to lie. “Yes, I brought up moving to the city. She refused to budge. We had a huge blowout.”

  He glanced at the streaks of dawn just showing through window and his eyebrows shot up. “This early in the morning?”

  Unable to meet his steady stare, she quickly made up the rest of the story as she poured milk into her coffee. “I was supposed to start my classwork early and get it e-mailed off to my professor before I had to take my aunt to her doctor’s appointment later this morning, but I couldn’t sleep. I tried to talk to my aunt about possibly moving closer and that’s when the fighting started.” Glancing up at him, her voice trembled. “I just needed to get away for a bit. Can I stay here?”

  “Don’t you have to take your aunt to the doctor in a few hours?”

  His question twisted a knife of worry deep in her gut. Her aunt was a tough cookie. Not much scared the woman. Please let her heart be able handle all that’s happened to her, Emma silently prayed. And whoever took her better not have harmed a single gray hair on her head! “My aunt called a friend to take her so I could come into work on time.”

  When he didn’t answer right away, she grimaced. “At least I won’t be late for work today.”

  Jared smiled. “There is that.” Standing, he walked over and picked up his phone from the counter. “I can’t have you serving customers in a towel. My clothes dryer’s on the fritz. I’ll call my little sister to bring you some girl stuff. She’s about your size. Until then, I’ve got something you can borrow.”

  Relief lifted some of the weight off her chest. “Thanks, Jared.”

  He looked up from dialing. “Your shift starts in a few hours. You can use my bed to catch up on some sleep.”

  She cast a gaze over her shoulder to the living room. “I’ll crash on your couch if that’s okay.”

  Once Jared hung up with his sister, he walked into his bedroom and then came out and placed a stack of clothes in her arms. “Here’s something to wear until my sister gets here.”

  Emma waited until Jared was in the shower before she quickly changed into his clothes and then lay down on the couch. She didn’t think she could sleep, her head was so jumbled up with worry for her aunt, but she forced herself to close her eyes and lay very still even as her mind raced.

  A half hour later, Jared passed by the couch and lifted his coat off the rack by the door. “I’m leaving.” His hair was back to its normal finger-combed blond waves and he smelled like soap. “My sister should be by later with some stuff for you.” He shook his head at his jeans bunched loosely around her hips. “If she doesn’t make it in time, we’ll just have to declare it sloppy casual Friday.” Chuckling, Jared turned and opened the door. “See you downstairs later.”

  “Thanks, Jared.” Emma’s eyelids felt so heavy, she lay back on the couch and closed her eyes. As thoughts about her aunt filled her mind, her entire body sank deeper into the cushions, and she suddenly realized why she felt so tired. She hadn’t taken her vitamin last night or the night before because she’d run out. Sometimes it really sucked living with a vitamin deficiency.

  Her aunt would kill her if she knew Emma forgot to tell her she needed a refill on her pills. She’d lost count of the number of times Mary had pointed a finger at her, pale blue eyes squinting in her wrinkled round face. “I don’t want to lose you like I did your mom. It’s not something you grow out of. It’s in your genes, Emma Marie Gray. Don’t skip a single day.”

  Closing her eyes against the tears that threatened, Emma prayed she got to hear those stern words from her aunt again. As the hours crept by, she grew more and more tense. A light knock on the door jarred Emma from her worried thoughts.

  “Hey, it’s Jared’s sister, Tanya. I brought you some stuff,” a muffled female voice called through the front door.

  When Emma jumped up to answer the door, she almost fell over. Dizziness ensued and her ears rang. Shaking her head to clear it, she quickly pulled open the door. A woman with spiky, short blond hair blew her slant-cut bangs out of her eyes and handed Emma a black duffel bag. “Here ya go. I hope I picked some things that’ll work for you.”

  As soon as Emma took the bag, Tanya turned and headed back down the stairs, waving to her. “I have to take off or I won’t make it to work on time.”

  Knife-sharp frigid air gusted against the door, slicing through Emma
’s lungs as she called after Tanya, “Thank you so much.” Shivering, she cast her gaze upward. The rain had stopped, but the sky was heavy with bumpy white clouds. Snow was coming. Emma closed the door and glanced at the kitchen wall clock. She had a half hour to get dressed and make it downstairs before her shift started.

  Once she’d changed into Tanya’s pink retro Go-Gos T-shirt and a pair of dark jeans that fit a little too snug compared to how she normally preferred her clothes, Emma glanced at her long, black, bed-head hair and immediately searched through the duffel bag for a rubber band. After looking through makeup, shampoo and other girly stuff, she remembered Tanya had short hair and gave up her search in an effort to “finger-comb” her hair into some kind of order.

  Damn, she had all the pep of a slug. She needed to get her vitamin prescription refilled. Pronto. Grabbing her cell phone from her coat pocket, she found the phone book in a kitchen drawer, looked up the pharmacy then quickly dialed the number.

  “MedCare pharmacy,” a woman said in a cheery tone.

  “Hi, this is Emma Gray. I’m calling to refill my vitamin prescription.”

  Keys tapped in the background. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have a prescription listed for an Emma Gray.”

  “It’s probably under my aunt’s name. Try Mary Gray.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t give out that information, since you aren’t Mary Gray. I can tell you that we have never filled a prescription here for vitamins under the name Emma Gray.”

  Completely bewildered, Emma hung up the phone. Had her aunt filled her prescription at another pharmacy? She doubted it. Mary was a creature of habit in the highest order. When she found a pharmacy she liked—any store, for that matter—she stuck with it, even though she’d moved away from the city. Plus, Emma had always driven her there and waited in the car while Mary got the prescription filled.

  Pulling her vitamin bottle out of her purse, she held it under the kitchen light to see if maybe she’d dialed the wrong number. No, the number on the label was the number she’d called and the label was in her name, not her aunt’s. Emma squinted when she noticed what looked like writing underneath the label.