Whatever the animal was, she wasn’t staying around for introductions. She stumbled along the muddy edge of the stream, keeping her body low so she would be invisible to any attacker looking down from the road. Following the stream would bring her to a second road. Her rental car was parked only a few hundred yards away from that point.
Safe.
Her hands shook. She forced herself to stay calm. She was alive, no one’s captive.
Then a bullet hit the bushes only inches away from her hand. Kiera plunged straight into the mud and stayed down, breathing hard.
Reining in her urge to flee blindly.
But that was what they’d expect. Rule Two: Never do the expected.
Behind her the wind carried a man’s guttural shout of pain and a rapid burst of gunfire from the road.
She heard another growl, this one the short, angry sound of an animal that was cornered. Wounded maybe. Something about the pain held Kiera still. Her hands opened and closed jerkily. Climbing the slope, she crept through the woods far above the point where she had been attacked. In a beam of car lights she saw motion and dim, grappling figures. Another burst of gunfire drilled the creek she had just left. Back on the road a man shouted angry orders, again in a language that sounded Slavic.
Kiera’s foot struck a boulder. When she looked down, she saw she had stumbled over a man’s body. He was alive, judging by his labored breathing, and a revolver lay on the ground inches from his twitching hand. She didn’t think twice, scooping up the weapon. Instead of turning toward her car, she crept back toward the road.
Going back? This had to be insanity, even with a weapon.
Then the animal, probably some kind of mastiff or mixed-breed husky, gave another sharp howl of pain.
Kiera’s fists clenched. They were killing the dog.
The moon broke from behind racing clouds, giving her a glimpse of the scene on the road. One man was climbing into a waiting car. A second man swayed sharply, clutching his arm. He turned and gave harsh orders, gesturing to the far side of the road, where Kiera had crossed minutes before. He was sending his men after her, she realized.
Two figures vanished down the slope of the creek, and she saw the remaining man back up, suddenly frozen by something near the stone fence. Her breath caught.
A shadow separated from the tall grass. It was the biggest dog she had ever seen, long and sleek. Every motion carried the stamp of effortless, fierce power.
The man with the gun cursed, but the animal was faster, leaping through the darkness. Kiera heard four shots in quick succession.
She flinched, certain that no animal could survive such an attack at close range. With the pistol weighing against her palm, she reacted by instinct, flicking off the safety, dropping behind the foliage of a small tree and aiming carefully.
Her first bullet drove up gravel near the car’s back tire. Her second shot hit the back windshield, cracking the glass. She didn’t stay to see more. One small diversion was all she could afford. As Kiera dodged back into the trees, bullets tore off a branch near her hand. Footsteps pounded over the road.
He was coming after her.
She ran through the woods, caught in darkness as the moon vanished behind the clouds. With the attacker bearing down, she caught the lowest branch of a tree and swung one leg up. She clawed her way up another ten feet, then curled into a ball, absolutely still.
Grass rustled, and then a man ran directly beneath her. His footsteps hammered on into the trees.
Long seconds passed. The car idling back on the road gave two sharp bursts on the horn. Leaves scratched Kiera’s face and she felt a bug fall down the back of her jacket, but she kept resolutely still.
Twigs snapped. The man with the gun returned slowly, swinging his outstretched arm directly beneath her.
Through the leaves, Kiera saw the car lights flash to high, then flicker twice.
Some kind of a message, that was clear. She prayed it would call him back. But the man didn’t move, studying the darkness intently.
Sweat trickled between her shoulders. Another bug hit her cheek. The car horn sounded sharply.
The man strode off. Seconds later the car roared away.
Silence fell. The wind brushed her face.
But Kiera didn’t move. Her legs were locked, her muscles taut with the aftereffects of fear. The temperature had fallen and she began to shiver. Running through damp fields and crossing streams hadn’t been in her game plan when she’d dressed that evening.
But she was alive. There was a sharp beauty to the night, to the chiaroscuro pattern of the leaves caught against the faint moonlight. Closing her eyes, she breathed a sigh of thanks.
Still shaking, she swung her legs over the lowest branch. With trembling hands she hung for a moment and then dropped to the ground, wincing at a sudden pain in her foot. There was no sign of pursuit. The night was silent as she crossed the road warily.
Dark tracks lined the mud. A man’s jacket lay nearby, dropped and forgotten. There was no sign of the big dog that the men had been tormenting, probably a guard dog from one of the surrounding estates. Yet there had been something strange about the animal’s size and its powerful movements. Even now the memory left her with an unsettling sense of savage strength held in precarious control.
And as she stood in the clearing at the edge of the road, looking at the distant line of the abbey’s roof, Kiera had the strangest sense that someone was watching her.
But nothing moved; nothing barked or stirred in the foliage.
“Who’s there?” she whispered.
A bird cried in the distance. Goose bumps rose along her arms. Time to leave, she told herself firmly. If someone found her here, with the marks of the attack all around her, she would have no easy way to explain. And there was always a possibility that the thugs might come back.
Fortunately, she had planned for a quick escape. Her backpack was hidden in the grass near her rental car, and her keys were under a rock nearby. Yet still she didn’t move. Something called her gaze through the trees, toward the moon touching the distant hills.
In the sudden silver light she saw the sharp outline of Draycott Abbey’s parapets. Kiera fought against a strange, almost hypnotic force of calm from the sight. Despite her anger at the Draycotts there was so much beauty here. So much history.
Then she felt the weight of the gun shoved into her pocket. It would have to be disposed of safely. She remembered there was a church about a mile from her hotel. She could remove the last remaining bullets and then slip the weapon into the mail slot.
One problem solved. Kiera took a deep breath.
That left her whole future yet to tackle.
HE LAY in the high grass, shaking.
Shaken.
His speed was gone, his muscles jerky. Blood covered his ear and dripped into his eye. He remembered the metal blade and then the sudden slam of bullets. He hadn’t reacted fast enough, never suspecting an attack at Draycott’s very border.
No excuse for bad judgment. No excuse for stupidly letting down his guard. He had too much to hide to ever be stupid or careless.
He made a short, angry sound and stood slowly in the darkness, wincing at sharp pains in a dozen places.
Wind in his face. A thousand sounds from the forest around him. None of them were caused by men.
He shook off the grass and dirt and watched the moon’s fierce silver curve climb above the abbey’s roof.
Change, he thought.
His nails dug at the damp ground, muscles tensed. But his body refused. Every nerve fought the familiar command.
From the woods came the low cry of a bird. The night called him to run, to feel the moonlight on his bare skin. Change, he thought furiously. And still nothing happened.
He remembered a sharp stab at his shoulder. They had used some kind of needle during the struggle. The darkness blurred as he sank to his knees. With a fierce effort of will he clawed his way back over the stone fence, back onto abbey ground.
He had to change. All his will focused on the command, yet no muscle shifted. Weakness pulled at him. The ground swayed.
Death moved in his eyes and he smelled its bitter breath on his face.
Not yet, he swore, struggling over the grass. Instinct told him he had to keep moving, that the toxin coursing through his veins would affect a man far worse than the creature he was now.
Damn them.
With a growl of pain he leaped over the cool earth, forcing stiff muscles to full stride. His vision blurred with pain, but he kept moving.
He smelled her suddenly. Loping through the woods, he came to the boulder where she had sat in the moonlight only minutes before.
Minutes that felt like a cold eternity now.
Her tears still clung to the damp grass. The scent dug under his skin, spelling the essence of female, and his body responded with almost painful awareness. Searching the rock, he found more of her scent, captured in a fallen square of cloth. His hunger grew and he realized there was danger here, danger from the blind urge to leap the fence and stalk her faint tracks until he ran her to ground.
And then he would have her.
He turned to stare back toward the road, pulled in every nerve and muscle, drawn by unexplainable need. In that heartbeat pain became his friend, forcing his focus to the cuts and welts that throbbed fiercely.
Still groggy, he burst over the hill, driven by sudden anger.
And then the world tilted. Darkness swallowed him under its wings like the rest of its creatures of night.
CHAPTER TWO
THE SCOTSMAN OPENED his eyes slowly. His skin burned with the clarity of his dreams. He felt sated, still wearing the heat of a woman’s naked skin on his.
For long moments Calan MacKay savored the dream memories of sleek sex, of soft laughter and passion given and fiercely taken. Then pain swallowed the pleasure, spitting him out into cold reality.
Naked and bruised under a tree in the abbey’s high meadow.
He was bleeding at his shoulder and forehead, his arms streaked with mud. A harsh, metallic taste filled his mouth.
Drugged, he thought. The injection had knocked him out for the rest of the night, no simple matter given his strength and size. The attackers had been well prepared, damn them.
The sun was just clearing the treetops as he stood up, grimacing. All the night’s memories flooded back with sharp clarity.
He knew that Nicholas Draycott was expected home at eight, and Calan wanted to be ready for his old friend. First he had to recheck the grounds and study the footprints near the road. With luck he could find the used syringe, too. He was headed in search of his clothes when he saw a piece of white silk caught on a lavender plant.
Hers.
The scent was clear, even to his weakened human senses, a mix of cinnamon, sunshine and lavender. Calan wondered who she was and where she’d gone. What had left her full of such anger at the abbey?
He frowned as he closed his fist around the scrap of soft silk. The pull toward her was fierce, and for a man like him this attraction was dangerous.
But he needed answers, starting with why she had been attacked. He remembered how she’d returned from the woods, boldly firing to frighten off their attackers. Calan had been half blind, struggling against the numbing effect of the drug at the time. Without her diversion, his fight might have been far more harrowing.
What kind of woman would come back to save a wild creature?
He rubbed his burning shoulder, frowning. He did not take any gift lightly, and hers demanded a grave weight of repayment. He had no choice but to track the mystery woman down. At the very least he had to be certain she was safe.
In the distance a truck motor raced, and he drew back into the shadows of the trees, following a path to the small glade where he had left his clothes and belongings the night before. He had two hours to scan the road and the attack scene. From there he would pick up her trail, which should lead him to her car. At the least he would note the direction she had traveled. Then he’d put all the details in Nicholas’s hands.
One thing he knew without question. He would see her again. She had saved his life and he must offer her an equal service in repayment.
But Calan had a grim suspicion that he would see their attackers again, too.
This time he would be ready for them.
THE DUSTY OLD TRIUMPH ARRIVED twenty-two minutes early. The tall English driver looked distracted as he strode across the abbey’s cobblestone courtyard. Then his handsome face curved into a broad grin.
Calan was sitting on the abbey’s bottom step, waiting for Nicholas Draycott’s arrival. He had washed away all traces of mud and dried blood in the stream beyond the meadow and the long welts on his arm were now hidden beneath his jacket.
As Calan’s oldest and closest friend, Nicholas was aware of Calan’s chaotic boyhood and strange talents though Calan had never revealed all the details. Nicholas had respected that reserve, never prying further.
“Just look what the tide has washed in. Are you flotsam or jetsam?”
“According to maritime law, am I goods floating after a wreck versus goods intentionally thrown overboard? I don’t recall jumping from any nearby ships, so that must make me flotsam. Floating debris—probably from the wreckage of my life.” Calan smiled with a trace of bitterness. “As for you, rules of salvage are in effect. You must return me in the event of any official claim from contending parties.”
Nicholas shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere. It’s far too hard to track you down. You never leave contact numbers or an e-mail address. It’s as if you vanish from the face of the earth between visits.”
“Call me a throwback that way. When I’m gone, I’m gone. Since I usually end up in remote places, neither type of message would do much good anyway.” Calan stretched, eyeing the viscount. “For a bureaucrat and landowner you look remarkably fit.”
“I’ve been outside a good deal in the last month.” Something passed over Nicholas Draycott’s face, though he tried to cover it with a laugh and a handshake. “All that can wait. I’m afraid Marston is in London, but I can round up scones and some lapsang souchong tea for you.”
“You remember all my dark vices, I see.”
“Only the ones fit for mixed company.” Nicholas opened the front door and moved to punch in an alarm code. Then he turned, shooting his friend a knowing look. “There are other vices, as I recall. And given that lean, tanned look, I see that you’ve been keeping yourself extremely active in those exotic places you favor. Where was it this month? Tanzania? Kashmir?”
“Sri Lanka and Morocco, if you must know.” Calan looked at the sunny entrance and giant spiral staircase. The abbey was as beautiful as he remembered, rich with the smell of freshly cut flowers. Every inch of wood and marble gleamed with polish and care. “So Kacey isn’t with you?”
“No, the family is in London at the moment.” Once again, tension crossed Nicholas’s face. “Let’s go up to the library. I’ve got some new wiring plans I’d like you to look at, if you wouldn’t mind. While you do that, I’ll track down that food and tea.”
“Sounds like a fair trade to me. Marston’s scones were always worth a king’s ransom.” Calan kept his tone casual, but he was considering how best to bring up the attack of the prior night and the woman whose rich, seductive scent kept drifting through his thoughts.
“Something wrong?”
Calan realized that Nicholas had turned to stare at him. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I know you damned well by now, MacKay. Nothing troubles you or frightens you. Yet right now you’re distracted—and you don’t want me to know it.”
“I forget you were our government’s best field agent, with a reputation for missing no detail.”
“Don’t change the subject. What’s wrong? Not your…health, I hope?”
“I’m in excellent shape. As shapes come and go,” the Scotsman said drily. “As for the rest, I think I’ll
have that tea first.”
“SO ARE YOU EVER going to stop?” Nicholas frowned at his friend over the silver tea set.
Even with Nicholas, Calan’s habitual distance was firmly in place. That reserve never left him, even around his few friends.
Calan sank into a thick leather chair beside the open French doors. “By that, you mean I should stop dropping in on you with no notice? I apologize for the inconvenience,” he said stiffly.
“Rubbish. I’m delighted to see you, notice or not.” Nicholas turned to fill their teacups. “I’m talking about this damnable travel obsession you have. I’ve barely seen you in the last four years.” Nicholas Draycott put down his scone, untouched. His eyes narrowed. “You never stay here in England. You’re constantly on the move.”
Exactly. And he would stay that way, Calan thought. Right up to the day he died. Ancient clan prophecies could not be changed, though Nicholas knew nothing of that.
Calan gave a casual shrug. “I enjoy new languages and new people. I wasn’t aware that travel was a crime.” He inhaled the smoky scent of the dark tea and smiled. “I’d forgotten how much I miss England. I’d also forgotten how beautiful this old abbey of yours can be.”
Especially by moonlight, with the clouds drifting like silver froth and rose petals carried on the wind. Such a night could make a man forget every promise, every duty.
But Nicholas didn’t know about his earlier visit or the attack that followed, and Calan wasn’t giving him the details yet. First he wanted to know why someone would be staking out the road at the abbey’s edge.
And who the woman was.
“Don’t change the subject, Calan. It’s time you turned in your frequent flyer cards. Settle down. Open another six software design studios, or whatever it is you do to make such obscene amounts of money.”
“Satellite mapping technology,” Calan said. “And I would hardly call my fees obscene.”
“More than anyone needs. I know you give away a large part of it to charities. I also know about your dangerous sideline.”
Bound by Dreams Page 2