The Beholder (7 page)

He grew uncomfortable and poked the fire again, fighting the intoxicating force drawing him near her. He felt his beast growing aroused at her nearness, too. He quelled an overwhelming desire to crawl into bed and lay beside her, feel her skin against his, inhale her sweet breath again. He wanted to consume her and stop these insane cravings. He knew what a junkie must feel like, and he hated the vulnerability of it. He’d made a point of staying away from all women, human or seniph, since Daphne’s death, and he couldn’t allow Nina Rainwater to change that. No, her glamour had no power over him
if he didn’t allow it. All it took was self-discipline. And he had that in spades. And once she awakened and he questioned her, he’d be rid of her for good.

But what to do with her in the interim? He couldn’t stay here and be this close to her. He jabbed at the fire again and scowled at the spitting flames that consumed her purse and blackened the smiley face on her wallet. Abruptly it occurred to him what he could do with her.

Nina awakened, her forehead pounding. Moldy dank air filled her senses and drew her brows together. A pain shot through her forehead. It all came back to her now: being chased by the seniph, bumping into the limb.

She reached up to rub her forehead but found her hands bound with duct tape. Her knees and ankles, too, mummy-style. Then she recalled the seniph chasing her. He must be holding her prisoner. Dread gripped her, and her eyes flew open.

Overhead a hazy dim bulb burned from a bare socket. It hung from a bare rafter in the center of the room, throwing dim golden shadows around her. She was in a dungeon—no, there were shelves and shelves of wine bottles packed around her. A wine cellar?

She raised her head and noticed she was lying on an old army cot. Someone had thrown a bunch of blankets over her—not very clean ones, either. They were moth-eaten and grease-stained and looked as if they had been down here longer than the wine. So her captor had tied her up in this horrible place, but worried about her comfort. How thoughtful.

She guessed she should be grateful she was still alive. That really didn’t make her feel much better—especially now. So much for positive thinking.

Something rustled and chattered near her. The sensations of insatiable hunger and curiosity filtered into her thoughts. She shifted her gaze to the floor as two small creatures scurried beneath the cot, their long tails swishing, their feet making a delicate pitter-patter on the brick floor. Rats. The least of her worries.

The resourceful little rodents tested the legs on the cot to see if it would hold. Rats weren’t so bad. She was always finding them and nursing them back to health. They were intelligent creatures and appreciative and always sad they wouldn’t be able to talk to her anymore when she released them back out into the wild. She’d also helped rat owners when their pets were going through some emotional trauma. Most of the time they were just plain lonely and the installation of another rat into their cage did the trick.

It was the were-rats you had to watch. They marauded through urban areas at night. When they shifted, they turned into city rats as large as labs, but not as friendly. They’d grab humans in a minute and pull them down through a sewer drain and make a tasty meal of them. Lord help anyone who ventured down into their sewer territories uninvited. If she had to go down to discover the source of a shiver, she had to clear it with the local “king” first. And each city had its own monarch. It wasn’t a pleasant experience dealing with were-rats. Regular rats received most of the blame for the damage
were-rats left behind. Didn’t seem fair. Maybe man would one day recognize his ignorance.

The industrious rats found a way to lever their bodies against the wall and the cot legs, then clambered up beside her. They reared up on their hind legs and sniffed the air for her fear. When they found none of the usual human dread that accompanied the sight of them, their eyes gleamed and their whiskers quivered. Their curiosity overcame the last of their reticence, and they crawled cautiously toward her.

“That’s right, come on,” Nina cooed, though she knew they couldn’t understand her yet. If it had been their spirits she was communicating with, it wouldn’t have been a problem, but in their present living state she had to touch them to give them an order they couldn’t refuse.

One of the rats grew bold and edged along her legs and sniffed the blanket covering her legs and thighs. The other followed, its pink nose twitching. Brave One scampered up her leg and hopped onto her stomach.

She opened her fingers as wide as her bound wrists would allow and grabbed the rat by his neck.
Gotcha, my friend!

He struggled in fear for a second; then her thoughts worked through him and he became pliant. She gave him a mental order. His free will balked for a nanosecond; then he relaxed and began gnawing on the duct tape between her wrists.

The second rat, a female, very pregnant, couldn’t stay away. Mrs. Rat crawled up Nina’s hip and perched in the hollow of her stomach.
Hello to you, too.
Nina stroked
the rat with her index finger, and it looked content and a little dreamy-eyed.
Join your partner, thank you
. She felt the rodent’s will become her own, then released it.

The female scrambled down her legs and paused near her ankles. She felt a light tugging as the rodent chewed on the duct tape.

You’re good little soldiers.

They seemed content with the praise.

She decided to take advantage of them once more and asked,
Where am I?

Van Cleave mansion,
Brave One answered.

Good eating in the winery. Lots of grapes. Tasty, not like this nasty tape.

Sorry. Is the owner a seniph?
She prayed the answer would be no, but she had a gut feeling her prayers were futile.

Yah-uh. Kane Van Cleave. We don’t go near him. Seniphs aren’t good. Make us afraid. We stay down here.

We don’t want to die. Can’t, can’t, can’t.
Mrs. Rat’s thoughts broke into the conversation.

Her captor’s name was Kane Van Cleave. Her stomach clenched at the thought of him. She grew impatient waiting for her liberators to finish their job and asked,
Are there windows down here?

No, no, no. Only one way in and out for humans—the stairs.

In a few minutes, the rats freed her. Nina jerked off the rest of the tape, stretched her wrists and her ankles, then rolled off the cot and pulled down her sweater.

She watched the rats scamper off into the shadows.

Now to escape without detection, hopefully. She found the staircase, eased up the stairs and reached the door. Gently, she tested the knob.

Locked.

She headed back down, hating that she was losing precious seconds. After a frantic search, she came up empty-handed. She had to elicit the rats’ help again. They pointed her to a cabinet that held a bucket with old tools. She grabbed the flat-head screwdriver and sneaked back up the stairs.

After some careful twisting and jamming, she paused and listened at the door.

Nothing.

She eased the door open only wide enough to peer through.

Four gas sconces burned in a long hallway that seemed to stretch on forever. The ceilings had to be twenty feet in height. Dark mahogany wainscoting covered the walls. Beautifully carved rosettes and lions in different poses decorated the paneling. Gilded laurels and vines of flowers outlined the ceiling tiles. She could see a window at the end of the hall. Not just any window, but a massive arched thing at least fifteen feet high. It would have looked at home in a castle. Elaborate stained glass covered every inch. A huge letter
V
slashed across the middle, cleaving the glass into thirds. Ivy crept along the
V
and formed weird hieroglyphic-looking symbols. The darkness behind the window didn’t do the work of art justice. She wondered how late it was and how long she’d been down in the basement.

The opulence and size of the mansion lent it a hollow,
uninviting feel that consumed everything, that seemed to say, “Enter at your own risk.” Nina much preferred her grandmother’s tiny rancher, where she had grown up. This place was too formal and austere, and, what was even worse, Kane Van Cleave could be lurking somewhere in this place.

She gulped, then made sure the coast was clear and quickly opened the door, hoping the hinges wouldn’t creak. They moaned, but softly. Her shoes hissed on the Persian hall runner. Gritting her teeth, she tiptoed down the hall.

She could only turn left into another hall. This mansion felt like a giant labyrinth with no escape. A kingdom for a window she could open or a door leading outside, she thought ruefully.

She reached the sleeping quarters. All done just as lavishly as the rest of the house and in varying colors. She passed a blue, green, lilac and pink room.

She paused at the end of the hall and ducked in a yellow and gold room. She didn’t dare turn on a light, but from the hall sconce she could see it was a beautiful room, with brocade gold and yellow curtains and a four-poster mahogany bed with a canopy that matched the drapes. The posters were as large as her waist: hand-carved and museum-quality.

She hurried past an armoire and matching writing desk; they looked as if Marie Antoinette herself had used them. She paused before the windows, miniature versions of the hulking stained-glass window she’d just seen. She gazed outside. At least two stories up. It had started to snow, too. She could see the flakes within the
globes of lights that stretched along a vista of manicured lawn and an English garden. Was this the front of the mansion? She tried the latch.

Locked or frozen from age and lack of use.

With a heavy sigh, she gave up and returned to the corridor. In minutes she reached the end and another set of stairs, much grander, wider and spiraling downward. She peered over the carved railing. The staircase swept into a huge entrance hall, the likes which could make Donald Trump jealous.

Cautiously, she made her way down, her footsteps loud in the immense silence. The space was something to behold. She’d only seen one other to rival it, and that was in the Biltmore Estate. She had visited the North Carolina tourist attraction one summer with her grandmother and sisters. The Vanderbilts had nothing on the Van Cleaves.

The floor was solid white marble. In the center three steps led down to a monumental fountain. It gurgled and spewed water from the mouths of four full-size lions. A small rain forest of potted ferns and palm trees and flowers was nestled strategically around the base. Embedded lights shined up through the fronds and cast eerie shadows around the fountain. Over it all stood a black wrought-iron gazebo.

She counted four huge cathedral-type doors, spaced equally apart on the points of a compass, each leading off from the grand entrance. They were all closed. Kane Van Cleave could be behind any one of them, in beast mode, those predatory eyes waiting for her.

The hairs at the back of her neck prickled, every
nerve in her body screaming at her to choose correctly if she wanted to get out of here. She took a chance on the nearest door.

She tugged on the massive thing. The hinges creaked like dry, brittle bones. The sound drowned out the steady gurgle of the fountain and sounded like gun blasts. She cringed and slipped inside.

Humidity and warmth hit her right away and felt wonderful to her chapped skin. She was in a conservatory. There had to be a door for the gardener to get inside. Maybe she’d chosen the right way after all.

The scent of lush earth, moss and growing things filled the air. All she could see were green leaves and orchids of every variety. A waterfall babbled and trickled somewhere within the tropical forest of leaves, but she couldn’t see it. It was too dark, and there were only dim solar lights along the pathway. The beauty had to be stunning in daylight—if you weren’t being held prisoner in it, she thought dolefully.

She passed a sphinx statue covered in moss, then spied the glass door that led to the outside. Finally, salvation. Freedom. She could taste it and feel it. She headed down the narrow brick walk, carefully picking her way through the shadows.

A low, rumbling growl sounded behind her. It prickled the skin on the back of her neck.

Then something grabbed her from behind, and she screamed.

N
ina’s back plowed into a muscle-bound brick wall.

A massive arm clamped around her rib cage. The other hand gripped her neck in such way that if she moved her attacker could snap her neck. Long, powerful fingers pressed into her windpipe, while scalding breath singed the side of her neck and cheek. But the thing that made her dizzy and ripped through her mind like a machete was the sensation of Kane Van Cleave’s inner beast.

“I can smell your fear.” His deep voice was a husky growl in her ear; then he bent closer and sniffed her.

“Guess you like the scent. That why you take innocent victims?” she managed to ask, though a maelstrom of sensations bombarded her, sending her mind reeling in all directions. His face was a hair’s breadth away from her, and she felt his thick beard stubble prickling
her cheek. Each of his hot breaths sent warning goose bumps down her spine.

“My
victims,
as you call them, never live long enough for me to enjoy their panic.”

Her breath quickened, partly from her growing terror and partly from his emotions darting into her thoughts, the onslaught too intense even for her seasoned mind. Loneliness, sorrow, self-condemnation, rage inundated her. She absorbed the depth of his physical pain, the wound in his shoulder and arm he tried to ignore when he moved. But worst of all was the aggressive and unpredictable stirrings of his predatory side, screaming at her from within his body, a force stronger and more visceral than his human emotions. She recalled the bloodshed and carnage she’d witnessed between his beast and the gleaner, and she knew Kane Van Cleave was capable of much more brutality than she could ever imagine. A shiver shook her even as the tidal wave of impressions banged against her mind, sucking her under. She felt disoriented, and her knees buckled.