My Reluctant Warden (12 page)
Which brought up the question: how much of the whole daydream was his doing? Last night, he’d said I made my own choices. They’d certainly felt like my own choices. But would I have known if they’d been forced on me?
My head was reeling with the uncertainty of it all. I was beginning to feel trapped again, claustrophobic like I had that afternoon. I could have gone back down to the balcony. Instead, I went up to the sun room.
The smells, the moist feel of the air on my skin, the heat, all of it slammed into me as soon as I pushed the door open. They brought me back to the fantasy—and erased the feeling of entrapment. I stopped a few steps in and turned to the flower Morgan had touched.
Right here on this spot, we’d kissed, and there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that it had been my own doing. After all, he’d been surprised when I brought our mouths together. And if he’d only wanted us to have fantasy sex—sensual, soul-searing fantasy sex—he wouldn’t have needed to do the whole dinner-and-date charade; he could have made me enter his room when I’d gone to thank him for the shoes. The same shoes now dangling from my fingers.
Feeling reassured, I continued along the concrete path, thinking I might sit for a while in the center of the room—not to fantasize about my fantasy, no, I’m not that pathetic. Really.
Except, when I passed the curve in the path and the armchairs and chaise lounge came into sight, I realized I wasn’t the only one who had sought refuge here. Mr. Ward slouched in the same chair he’d occupied in our minds, his feet up on the coffee table in front of him, his gaze fixed straight ahead of him. A bottle of alcohol was on the floor next to him.
I froze when I saw him. Very slowly, a little afraid that a sudden movement would attract his attention, I took a step back. I was about to turn around and walk away when he said, low enough that for a second I wondered if he’d spoken at all, “I’m sorry.”
Was he speaking to me? He hadn’t moved or given any indication that he knew I was there. Should I reply and risk intruding? But if his words had been meant for me, what was he sorry about?
I hadn’t decided yet whether to ask or just leave when he answered.
“I’m sorry you got caught in this. This is a… family matter, and you’re being used like a pawn by someone trying to make a point. It’s not a fate I’d wish on anyone.”
The echo of Morgan I could hear in his voice drew me forward. And yes, I knew that technically he was Morgan. But how else could I distinguish between those two sides of him—the one I wanted to kiss and the one that mostly brought snark out of me?
Very slowly, I approached the sitting area. My first instinct was to sit by his side, like in the fantasy, but I changed my mind halfway through. Better to keep some distance and remember this was a different situation altogether. If I forgot, I might try to do something stupid again, like I had in the bedroom. So I sat on the chaise lounge, sideways to keep my feet on the ground, on the other side of the table across from him.
He picked up the bottle from the floor and held it out toward me without a word. I shook my head.
“What point is Mi… is Delilah trying to make?”
In my head, I couldn’t think of her as anything other than ‘Miss Delilah,’ but aloud at least I could refuse her the honorific.
Mr. Ward shrugged. “Nothing that would matter to you,” he said, and even though I was right across from him, he wasn’t looking at me.
“Well, it’s the reason I’m here, so excuse me for thinking it does matter. A lot.”
My voice turned harder with each word. It had absolutely no effect on him. My irritation grew a little deeper.
“In the… in the fantasy? You said you were still trying to convince her to free me. How can you do that when you’re here and she’s in Paris?”
He frowned at that. “Paris? How do you know she’s in Paris?”
“When she called, I could see the Eiffel Tower behind her.”
He nodded thoughtfully, his frown deepening a little more as he took another swig from the bottle and set it down again. Supporting himself on one arm, he raised his hips off the chair—a move that wasn’t suggestive in the slightest and didn’t cause my breath to hitch in my throat, not at all—and fished a half crushed pack of cigarettes from the back pocket of his pants.
“Well?”I said, watching his every move as he pulled a cigarette from the pack and brought it to his lips. “Are you going to go there and drag her back here?”
My fingers twitched. I couldn’t wait for him to light up. I hadn’t craved a smoke as much as I did right then in a long, long time. Was I under that much stress? Of course I was. And it wasn’t just the whole compulsion and captivity thing. It was also about the two sides of the man facing me, and how conflicted I was about him.
He’d pulled a metal lighter from the pack, but he only played with it and didn’t even flick it open. Tugging the unlit cigarette from his lips, he answered without looking at me. “It’s useless. She’d be gone by the time I got there.”
I watched him play with the cigarette and lighter. He was avoiding my gaze. What was he not telling me?
“So… We’re just going to wait for her to come back?”
He stood. “I told you, I’ll do my best to get you out of here. But I don’t know how long it’ll take.”
Before I could say a word, he stepped away, not toward the staircase but in the opposite direction. As I watched him go, I wasn’t sure what annoyed me more: that once again he’d left me with no real answer, or that he’d taken away that damn cigarette without allowing me one whiff. Or maybe I was annoyed at myself for wanting to follow him so much —and not only for a hit of nicotine.
I went after him, following the path between tropical trees and blooming orchids, some flowers bigger than my closed fist. I didn’t catch up with him, and soon I was standing in front of a glass wall. I must have missed a fork in the path or the way to an exit, because I couldn’t see any door. Instead I saw Mr. Ward on the other side of the glass, leaning against a security wall and looking out to the lights of the city.
A red pinprick of light told me he’d finally lit up his cigarette, and again the need for nicotine flared through me. I was thinking about joining him when he pulled a cell phone from his pocket, pushed several buttons, and brought it to his ear. Who was he calling? Part of me hoped it was Miss Delilah, and that he really was trying to talk her into letting me go, as he had promised. Another, treacherous voice wondered if it would be so bad if I spent a few more days in the mansion.
Those fantasies were obviously not doing much for my sanity—or my self-control.
I was strong that night. I didn’t go after him or that cigarette, and instead I went back to my room.
But I can’t say the same was true all those other nights until Miss Delilah finally came back to New York.
To be continued in July 2013 in Awkward Holidays
Excerpt from
Bodyguards
In her dream, Vivien had run. Now, she remained frozen, unable to move as time flashed before her.
It made no sense.
None of it did.
The dead man, still as a rock, with a knife in his chest, blood soaking into the ground under him. The other one, his knives twirling and gleaming as he attacked Brad. Brad’s very presence on this trail when he had had no way of knowing where she would be. The knife that he, too, handled effortlessly. Or rather, knives. The killing blow had come from behind her—from where Brad had been. Had it really been Brad, the same shy man who thought dating her would not be proper, who had killed that first man? It had to be, since he suddenly pulled the knife out of the dead man’s chest to better counter his opponent.
What was going on?
Vivien wanted to run away, go home, and escape this madness. Or maybe wake up; this had to be another dream—another nightmare. The alternative was too outlandish. Yet she remained there, standing in the middle of the trail, watching sparks fly whenever Brad’s knives clashed against his opponent’s blades.
A tiny part of her, the part that remembered six years of fencing lessons, was in awe of the two men’s technique, of the speed and agility with which they handled their weapons. Silver flashed faster than her eyes could follow, but still neither of them seemed to be hurt, at least not yet. It was bordering on incredible, actually. Who could be that fast in wielding a weapon—any weapon?
All of a sudden, a thought struck Vivien, emerging from the haze of confusion. She had a phone! Why wasn’t she calling the police already?
With trembling hands, she fumbled to unzip her pocket and pulled her phone out. She had time to dial 9-1 before a strong, cold hand closed over her phone and gently tugged it out of her hands. She gasped and looked up into Brad’s steely eyes.
“Please come with me,” he said in a low voice. “You are not safe here.”
The second man was nowhere to be seen.
She hung on to the phone for a second, but when she saw the two knives sheathed on either side of Brad’s belt, the line of blood on his cheek, her mind turned blank, her fingers nerveless. He pulled the phone out of her hand and made it disappear into one of his pockets.
“Not safe?” she repeated, feeling a little numb.
“You will be, but not here. We have to go.”
He curled an arm behind her back and steered her away while barely touching her. In just moments they were out of the park.
Vivien couldn’t stop shaking. She wrapped her arms around herself, but it brought her no comfort. She wished Brad would talk to her, reassure her, explain what had happened—or say anything, really. Instead, he led her onward, his hand brushing against her back without ever settling there, urging her forward whenever she started to slow down.
“What...what’s going on?” she finally managed to ask. “Who were those guys? Why do you have knives?”
“I carry knives for occasions such as this one. Please hurry. We need to get you inside.”
The loop of images going through her mind suddenly stopped on that first snapshot: the black-clad man falling to the ground with a knife in his chest. She stilled, unable to take one more step, and stared at Brad with wide eyes.
“You killed a man,” she breathed, her disbelief shattering in front of simple facts.
Brad considered her with eyes that had never seemed so cold before. “Two. They were going to take you, so I killed them. I will do it again any time I have to, this I swear to you. Now please, I need to get you to safety.”
His arm pressed across her back, pushing lightly until she started to walk again.
Should she run? Vivien couldn’t decide if she ought to try. Brad would catch her easily if she did, but there were a few people on the street, cars driving by, houses where she could ask for help. Was it worth taking the risk?
She eyed the knives at his waist. He’d proved that he knew how to use those and had no qualms in drawing blood. What chance did she have when she had no weapon of her own?
And still, even after witnessing his fight, Vivien could hardly believe that Brad could or would hurt anyone, let alone her. Could it have been a prank? Fake blood, retractable blades, some elaborate act... The university had a very active role-playing group; she’d seen them on campus before, wearing realistic helmets and carrying swords as though they had been on their way to kill a dragon rather than off to attend a chemistry lecture. But why here, why now, why involve her?
Before she could make up her mind to run, it was already too late. They had reached an apartment building, and Brad guided her to a first-floor apartment. He reached to open the door, and as she watched his wrist when he turned the key in the lock, she realized it was all even worse than she had thought.
The skin on the inside of his wrist was pale and clean, free of any tattoo.
It wasn’t Brad. This man—this killer—had Brad’s face and voice, but he wasn’t—couldn’t be—Brad. Were they brothers? Twins? Or was it only a mask? An extraordinary coincidence?
It didn’t matter.
She jerked back, finally knowing what she had to do, if not what was going on. The only reason she had followed this man was because she had thought she knew him, and part of her had believed him when he said he had been protecting her. But if he wasn’t Brad, how could she believe anything he said?
She turned around, finally ready to escape, and gasped when she almost ran straight into Brad. Or was it someone else who only looked like Brad? Needing to know, she took hold of his hand and turned his wrist upward. The familiar tattoo gleamed under the hallway lights. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Brad’s gaze flew between Vivien and his doppelganger.
“What happened?”
“Inside,” the other man grunted, at the same time as Vivien said, “Help me! He killed two men!”
Brad’s reaction was nothing Vivien could have expected. His hand twisted in Vivien’s grip so that he captured hers and pulled her in through the open door.
“Only two?” he asked the other man. “Are there more coming?”
Never before had the sound of a closing door seemed so ominous.
“Probably. He sent us to get her, but knowing him, he sent another unit as back up.”
Stunned, Vivien let herself be led to an old, battered sofa that had seen better days. Her knees all but gave in under her and she sat, clutching her hands in front of her, watching the two men standing in front of her like mirror images of each other. Brad reached for the other man’s face and rubbed off the dried blood on his cheek with his thumb. The cut underneath was little more than a pale line, as though it’d been healed for days.
“Do you think they’re vampires, too?”
Vivien frowned, now certain she had heard wrong—either that, or it was all just a big game. Not-Brad never even cracked a smile at the word ‘vampire.’
“Probably. A unit usually has two vampires and a channeler. You did shield—”
“This place? Of course. With all the Quickening I could gather. She’s safe here. But if they’re looking for traces of channeling, they’ll find us fast. We should get her home and soon.”
At that, they both turned to look down at her. Yet again, Vivien was struck by how similar they looked. Still...something in the way they held themselves set them apart. Brad seemed more relaxed, while his double stood straight, his shoulders squared. He seemed ready to jump into action at a moment’s notice. And then, there were their eyes. Brad’s eyes were a pale blue, like a bright sky. The other man’s were blue-gray, almost metallic looking.
“What’s going on?” Vivien breathed. She hated how much her voice trembled, and tried to firm up her words when she said, “If this is all just a joke, I swear—”
“Vivien, no.” Brad stepped closer and sat on the sofa near her, his body angled toward her. “This is not a joke. You are in danger, and Aedan—” He nodded at the other man, who had retreated to stand by the wall. “—and I want nothing more than to keep you safe.”
“Safe from who?” She shook her head. “Who is he?” she gestured at—Aedan, was it? “Why did he kill those men rather than just call the police?” And speaking of the police... She held her hand out toward Aedan, palm up. “I want my phone back.”
Aedan didn’t move. His eyes were on her, as cold as ever, but he didn’t seem to have heard a word of what she said. He was as immobile as a statue, his hands at his side close to the knives. He was so still, in fact, he didn’t even appear to breathe.
“Safe from a very powerful man called Rhuinn,” Brad said, drawing her attention back to him. “He’s the ruler of our world. Aedan is my twin. He killed those men because they were after you and the police couldn’t have done a thing to stop them. And that is also why we are not going to call them.”
Annoyance coursed through Vivien, chasing away what remained of her fear. He had answered each of her questions, and still he hadn’t explained anything. She closed her hands into fists and stood. At once, both brothers tensed.
“You’re not making any sense,” she said as calmly as she could. “I’m going home.”
Continued in Bodyguards