Twiceborn (15 page)

“Running to Valeria won’t save him.” She walked out without even glancing my way. “Remember—no one in or out but me.”

Micah nodded and locked the door behind them. I stalked over to the glass doors myself. How dare they lock me in here like some piece of baggage to be collected at their leisure?

Fists clenched, I looked out on the sunlit courtyard and planned a thousand painful deaths for Jason and the mad griffin bitch.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

By mid-afternoon my inventiveness had run out and my temper had climbed back down out of the stratosphere. Oh, I was still mad—at these freaks for holding me against my will, at Ben for getting me mixed up in this in the first place, at Jason for … well, for being Jason.

No one had come or gone since he’d stomped off in a tantrum. Typical Jason move—it brought back a lot of memories.

Knowing he was a dragon made sense of a lot of things. No wonder I’d always found it so hard to stay mad at him, whatever he did, however many other women he slept with, always promising this was the last time. My sister had accused me of being a doormat. I’d thought so myself.

Turns out I wasn’t so spineless—just charmed into forgiving him. My skin crawled at the memory of him forcing his will on me. It had felt like a fog invading my mind. Such a sickening feeling of helplessness, like being a prisoner in my own body. He’d been so sure he could still get me to do or say anything he liked, just like the old days. But I’d fought back, and hadn’t that shocked him!

Better get used to it, arsehole.

And this was the man I’d chosen to father my child.
Good job, Kate
.

If Lachie had been half-dragon, what did that mean? It was hard to imagine my scrawny little munchkin as something quite so imposing. Scales instead of curls, claws instead of grubby little-boy fingernails. Not that it mattered any more. Jason had seen to that.

Time to stop dancing to his tune, or that of his so-charming griffin associate. That was a strange relationship. Where did the power lie? Nada had made no secret of her hatred of him, but empty threats seemed the best she could manage without the absent Valeria’s say-so.

Now there was someone I didn’t want to meet. Best to be long gone before she arrived.

The balcony door was out. Shame I didn’t have a bobby pin—I might have used it as a lock pick. Not that I had the faintest clue how to pick a lock, but I itched for action and mere details weren’t going to stop me.

Kicking my way through the glass, while it might make me feel better, was bound to attract attention. The way I felt right now, that didn’t seem such a bad thing. Restless energy fizzed inside my skin, desperate for release. My shoulder itched like the devil, but it wasn’t sore any more. My headaches and sickness had melted away too, leaving me ready to take on the world, or at least a werewolf or two. Only the tiny voice of reason reminding me what had happened in my last encounter with a werewolf led me to the en suite, where the window wasn’t locked.

It wasn’t big, either, but big enough for someone my size, though it might take some acrobatics. I stood on the bath and fiddled with the flyscreen. Somehow I managed to get it off without dropping it outside. Then I hoisted myself up and got my head and shoulders out the window.

Immediately I saw the problem: a sheer drop onto sandstone flagging. Even if I could wriggle myself around and get out the window feet first, it was too high. I’d be lucky if I only broke my legs.

A white-hot knot of rage tightened inside me. The blue vault of the sky beckoned, tantalisingly close. I wanted to spread my wings and leap out into that vast blue emptiness, free of this prison. Free of this lump of useless flesh.

How dare they keep me here against my will? Who did they think they were?

I brought my gaze down from the clouds to the gravelled driveway below, the garage and the high sandstone wall around the property. On the street behind, a small Asian woman walked her fluffy white dog past the back gates, enjoying the sunshine. I ground my teeth. Even the stupid mutt on its leash had more freedom than I.

Something about the woman penetrated my ferocious sulk: the way she carried herself, or something in the tilt of her head. I knew her.

I leaned forward, the window sill cutting into my ribs, toes grazing the edge of the bath. She glanced up, apparently casually, and our eyes met through the wrought iron gate. Then she was gone, hidden behind the wall again.

I eased myself down from the window and picked up the flyscreen. Micah’s deep voice growled something in the corridor outside my room, and I froze, but he didn’t come in. My hands clenched on the screen. Just let him, and he’d be wearing this as a necklace. A terrible longing to smash his head like a watermelon filled me. I could do it so easily. Filthy dog.

Whew. Easy there. What the hell was the matter with me? I sank down on the edge of the bath. Was this schizophrenia? Where were all these violent thoughts coming from? I felt like Dr Jekyll being taken over by Mr Hyde.

A small but distinct snap sounded under my hands. I’d broken the aluminium frame.

Who was I kidding? Schizophrenia didn’t make you throw up stones or see auras around people. And it certainly didn’t give you the power to fight off your sleazebag ex’s psychic assault.

Something had happened to me—or more likely, been done to me—and it was all tied up with those lost moments in the garden with Leandra. Just as well she was already dead—I could have killed her for the mess she’d made of my life. Admittedly it hadn’t been all sunshine and roses before, but at least people hadn’t been lining up to kill me before she’d stuck her nose in.

To have any chance of figuring it all out, I had to escape. I eyed the broken flyscreen, weighing my options. It didn’t take long. If the window was the only way out, there was only one thing to do.

I raised the broken screen and slammed it down as hard as I could into the bath.

Then I bolted into the bedroom and scrambled under the bed, heart racing.

A voice in the corridor: “What was that?”

A dust bunny tickled my nose as I pressed my face against the carpet, trying to make myself as small as possible. Most people, presented with an open window and an empty room, would leap to the obvious conclusion, however unlikely it seemed. Hopefully werewolves were no more likely to think things through logically than anyone else.

The door opened and a pair of black boots came in, paused, then hurried to the bathroom.

“Shit. She’s gone!”

Another pair of boots joined the first. “Out there?” Micah’s voice. “She’s crazy. Get downstairs and find her. She can’t have gotten far after a fall like that.”

I listened to their feet thudding down carpeted stairs, heard the shouts as others joined them. I’d kicked the nest good and proper, and now all the little ants were scurrying. It was enough to warm a girl’s heart.

I slid out from under the bed. No time to lie around. When they couldn’t find me, someone would use their brain and realise I could never have jumped from that window. I had to get moving.

First I had to find Ben. I hurried down the corridor in the direction they’d taken him, heart pounding. What now? Knock on every door and hope Ben answered and not some werewolf?

The room next door seemed too close. They didn’t want us whispering secrets through the walls. At the one after I brought my lips to the crack between the door and the frame.

“Ben?” I didn’t dare raise my voice, but it still sounded loud in the empty corridor. I glanced over my shoulder, jumpy as a teenager trying to sneak out of the house. And how
were
we going to get out of the house, even if I managed to find Ben and free him?
Later. One problem at a time
.

No one replied, so I moved on to the next door. Only three more before the corridor finished at a set of double doors.

“Ben? Are you there?”

I heard movement, then his voice, deep and low. “Kate?”

Weak with relief, I leaned against the door. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Was all that commotion you? What did you do?”

“Long story. I’ll tell you later. How are we going to get you out of there?”

“See if you can find the keys. Try Nada’s office. It’s the one at the end of the corridor.”

“How do you know?”

“Been here before. Hurry, before someone comes. And be careful.”

“Okay.” Hearing his voice made me feel better. A faint scent of pine forests reached me through the heavy oak panels, or was that my imagination? “Don’t go anywhere.”

I listened at the double doors at the end of the corridor. Nothing. Probably everyone was out looking for me. And if I wasn’t quick they’d find me, too.

I eased the door open and slipped inside.

The walls were lined with bookshelves, but Nada’s taste ran to romances and soft porn rather than accounting texts or the usual kind of legal tome found on office shelves. I suppose it counted as an office, because it contained a desk, but it didn’t look like a place where any real work happened. The leather chair sat square behind the desk, pushed in neatly, as if it rarely saw use, and the desk itself, though large enough to dance on, held nothing but a computer and a neat organiser full of pens.

I glanced around. Armchairs and coffee table, no filing cabinets—what kind of office didn’t have filing cabinets? It looked like the desk drawers were the only place to store anything. Noiselessly I padded across the deep soft carpet and opened the top one. More pens. Office supplies.

No keys.

My palms started to sweat. Time was running out. I rifled through the other drawers, horribly aware of the noise I was making. Where else could they be? It had to be somewhere handy. I got down and peered under the desk. A secret compartment maybe?

“Looking for something?”

I jumped, slamming my head on the underside of the desktop. Nada stood in the doorway, flanked by Micah and another guy who could have been his twin. Same dead eyes and surly expression. Nada’s face lit with glee, her smile mocking as I crawled out from under the desk.

She had something in her hand. “This, maybe?”

I stared, my vision narrowing. I didn’t see the men move as I lunged across the room, only felt them as they slammed me back against a bookshelf. Half a dozen books tumbled around me, but I only had eyes for the stone.

She had the channel stone.

I twisted and struggled in Micah’s grip, but I might as well have tried to wrestle a statue. There was no moving him. Nada’s laughter floated behind us as he hauled me back down the corridor and locked me in my room again. Someone shouted from behind a closed door.

Long moments passed before I realised the voice had been Ben’s. By then my throat was raw from screaming obscenities. I stared out the balcony doors, blind to the view; that damned black stone filled my head. The channel stone. How could I know its name but not its purpose? I longed for it, with a physical craving more desperate than a pack-a-day smoker giving up cigarettes.

Seeing it again had caused me, quite literally, to lose my mind. I’d become someone else, my consciousness completely taken over with the need to possess it. All thought of keys or escape had vanished in a roar of need. Awareness of it still thrummed through my body.

Madness. I hugged myself hard, trying to hang on to Kate, to find myself again in the midst of strangeness. Poor Ben. He must be worried sick, hearing me dragged screaming down the corridor. Deep purple bruises flowered already on my arm where Micah had manhandled me back to my room.

The source of the bruises appeared in the courtyard below, another couple of thugs in tow, and I stepped closer to the glass to watch. After a moment a regular convoy emerged from the garage—two vans and a four-wheel drive like the one we’d arrived in last night. Surly guys streamed out of the house and piled in. Wherever they were going, it didn’t look like a social call.

“Give my regards to Alicia,” said one who appeared to be staying. I had to strain to hear through the glass.

Micah frowned. “Let us worry about Alicia. You focus on your own job. I don’t want to hear you let the girl escape again.”

“No problem, boss. Don’t get your fur singed, okay?”

Micah growled and the guy skittered back inside like a kicked puppy.

Finally Nada came out and got into the four-wheel drive with Micah. I felt a sudden wrench. What the—?

It hit me then—the channel stone. Somehow I knew Nada had it. I swear I felt a tug as the car moved off and the distance between us grew. Unconsciously I turned in its direction as it disappeared around the house, as if I were the needle of a compass and it my true north.

Bloody hell. I sank down on the bed. I knew then, as well as I knew my own name, that I had to get that stone back.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I woke from a dream of blood and terror. My body felt unfamiliar, as if I were wearing someone else’s skin. Though my chest heaved with the pain of remembered agony, my groping hand found nothing but the bandage around my shoulder.

The room was dark and the house still; it must be the early hours of the morning, when even the late-night revellers have gone home to sleep and the streets are empty. Not even a ticking clock broke the silence. The mound of cushions I’d hurled off the bed made a strange lumpy silhouette by the locked door, like a collapsed hay stack. The one pillow I’d kept was warm beneath my cheek.

I could have been the only person alive in the whole mansion. I knew most of them had cleared out with Nada—I’d only seen Kicked Puppy Guy all day. He’d brought my dinner and refused to speak. Evidently when Micah kicked someone they stayed down.

In the silence I heard the faintest click and rolled over, seeking its source. Cool air caressed my face.

I’d hardly registered that the balcony door stood open before a dark shape moved in the shadows by the bed. I inhaled sharply, but before I screamed the house down it stepped into the moonlight.

“Luce!” My whole body sagged with relief. “What kept you?”

She froze. Then I saw the knife, raised to strike, blade glinting in the moonlight. I scrambled away in a tangle of sheets, heart pumping. Why was everyone trying to kill me all of a sudden?