S
ykes’s hideaway, a blue-washed house set in a walled garden and hidden from surrounding buildings by palms and aged shrubs, had one entrance: from an alley beside a faded little hotel.
Willow stuck close to Ben’s side, but kept looking over her shoulder all the way to a gate in the wall all but hidden by swathes of red passion creepers. Mario remained draped over her shoulder and growling very faintly.
Neither Ben nor Willow spoke while they made their way through banks of billowing flowers, faintly luminous under the moon, to the gallery surrounding the house. They climbed steps to a front door where flowering vines looked heavy enough to bring down the overhang.
Ben took a key from his pocket and let them in, putting on a table lamp inside the door.
Minimalist. Sparse furnishings, but all beautiful original pieces, and she noticed most were eighteenth-century French.
Willow looked around, into a sitting room, up a flight of stairs to the left and back into gloom in the farther recesses. Panicky fluttering took over her stomach. “I
don’t feel safe anywhere,” she said. “Sorry, Ben, that just said itself. I don’t think I’ll sleep again as long as I’m waiting for that thing to come after me. We don’t know when or where it’ll show up. It is me it wants, isn’t it? Everyone who has died is somehow connected to me. And Chris is missing because of me. I don’t know where to go from here.”
“Go where you’re already going,” he said. “Face it head-on. I think most of what you say is correct, but it’s also more complicated. It has to be.”
He took her by the hand and they held on tightly, their arms shaking with the power of it. “So I face it, but I can’t stop it?”
“I can,” Ben said. “I did tonight, and I will again if I have to. I won’t let anything hurt you. You aren’t alone, and you’re not going to be. Not at all until this is over. Right now Sykes and Gray are out there working. Pascal, too. Marley’s been doing whatever she does in that workroom of hers and she’s not talking, which Gray says is a good sign. He says it’s also a good sign that she’s eating chocolate with both hands because it means she’s really into the project.”
“I don’t want her traveling out of her body looking for dangerous creatures,” Willow said. “Not now.”
She felt Ben’s close attention and raised her brows at him. “What? Why shouldn’t Marley use her power when it’s needed?”
Willow frowned. “I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. Where’s Sykes’s studio?”
“On the other side of the house. I’ve never been invited to see it. It was added on. There are skylights but no windows—or so Sykes tells me.”
She shrugged. “Mr. Mystery never disappoints. I’m told his pieces are sold before they’re finished, but I don’t even know what he makes—I mean, I don’t know if he chops bowls of fruit out of wormy wood or chisels the gigantic stone stuff with titles like
Doomed
on them that they put outside buildings.”
“Neither do I,” Ben said.
Mario gave her a lick and wriggled. Willow recognized the signal that he wanted to explore on his own and set him down. He rushed up the stairs at once.
“I know more about you than you know about me,” Ben announced, looking over her head.
The sudden announcement surprised Willow, but she collected herself fast. “That’s true.” Why pass up a good opportunity? “I always thought you’d tell me what you want me to know if you were ever ready.”
He looked into the sitting room with her trailing behind him. “When you’ve got questions, ask. I’ll try to answer. I’m a pretty simple man.”
Willow laughed aloud but controlled herself when Ben gave her the evil eye.
“I don’t want to stay on the ground floor,” Willow said. “I feel safer higher up.”
Ben didn’t comment and she appreciated that. Rather he retraced his steps and climbed the stairs. “I haven’t been up here, but Sykes said to use whatever we wanted.”
She felt herself turn a bit pink. “Some protective brother he is. Tossing my virtue to the wind. Or he would have been…” She let the words trail off.
“Not to the wind, just to an old friend he trusts and knows you’re already Bonded with.”
The dread word,
Bonded
. How could she be certain
Bonding really existed or that it was, as the family insisted, permanent?
“Because we were Bonded and nothing’s changed,” Ben said, undeterred by the slowing of her feet. “It’s a Millet thing, not a Fortune thing, but I’ve accepted it because I can feel it. And so can you.”
“Maybe we only imagine it.” She didn’t really care that he was letting himself read her mind. If she ever did care, she would tell him.
“You can say that after today?”
She really couldn’t and was glad.
“You’re not concentrating or you’d know you keep letting me into your mind.” He glanced back at her and reached the top of the stairs. “You’re asking me to come in. You’re communicating directly with me. I don’t imagine what I feel for you, Willow.”
The first room on the right, a bedroom with no frills, did have a red silk love seat at the bottom of a simple iron bed covered with a plain white spread.
“This could be Sykes’s room,” Willow said, knowing her brother’s simple taste, combined with his flair for the dramatic. “He would be the one to choose white everything for his bedroom—almost everything.”
“Must be his. He said there’s only one bed in the house.”
She looked dubiously at that bed. Did Ben expect her to sleep in it?
“I thought you would,” he said. “I’ll keep watch so you won’t have to worry.”
“I guess I really am an open book to you,” she said. And he was right, as long as he was with her, she felt safe. “Ben, you are human, y’know.”
He pulled his long-sleeved black T-shirt over his head and gave her a piercing look. “We both know that.”
“You aren’t like other men, but you can be hurt. If you couldn’t, you wouldn’t have blood on you now.”
“True.”
She was making a hash of this. “I couldn’t handle it if something happened to you.”
He paused, then tossed the shirt on the bottom of the bed. His torso and arms were long and lean, the muscle well developed. As he was right now, he seemed invincible.
“Why did you send me away?” he asked.
“I can’t talk about that.”
“I don’t want to think about living without you, Willow.” He undid his buckle and whipped the belt from his jeans. “Don’t duck this—give me an answer. I’ve earned it.”
“I don’t want to mistake a habit for something more,” she said. “You’ve always been around—all my life.”
“When you were a little kid I thought you were a nuisance,” he said with a grin. “That changed.”
She nodded and bit her lip.
“What happened today wouldn’t have happened out of habit, would it? It was all new—still is. I want you. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. Something like this doesn’t strike twice.”
He was offering himself on a platter. An amazing man who could have his choice of women, and he wanted her. That made them equal but for one thing: Willow’s questions were growing deeper.
“I can’t deny that I’ve got so-called powers anymore,” she said. “How do you feel about that?”
He grinned. “It’s the greatest.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re coming into your own, and you aren’t fighting it anymore. You’ve got a lot to add to the picture. You and I are going to make some team.”
“Go shower,” she told him. If she kept pushing in this direction, she would only manage to persuade herself that he wouldn’t want her if she was normal.
With a long look, he headed for the bathroom, but paused on the way. “Would you feel better if you came in with me?”
“Depends what you mean by ‘feel better.’ I think I’ll hover near the door.”
“I’ll leave it open.” Even with his back to her he radiated smugness.
Willow heard the shower go on and stood close to the door, where steam soon started to creep out.
For the first time in hours she thought about Mean ’n Green. She couldn’t abandon the people who depended on her—for services or for their livings.
She looked in a mirror on one wall, not that she could do much to improve herself when her purse was downstairs—and she wasn’t going down there alone. Her hair shone as brilliantly red and curly as usual, but her eyes were underscored with dark shadows. “Glad I looked,” she muttered.
This was ridiculous. She was held captive by something she had never seen.
But she had seen what it was capable of. Ben told her he got the cuts from glass, and she assumed he told her the truth, otherwise he’d be worrying about his future. But she didn’t like to think that protecting her had caused him to collide with glass.
She thought of all those who were ranging around trying to keep her safe. What kind of danger was she exposing them to?
Willow’s anxiety embarrassed her so she stood where Ben wouldn’t see her when he got out of the shower. The water droned on. Evidently, he was addicted to long showers.
The room canted to one side.
Willow stumbled, grabbed a chest of drawers and saw its drawers fly open. Lamps shot from tables and smashed. The lowered slat blinds rattled and swung.
She looked toward the bathroom. Steam billowed, thicker, from the partly open door, and the sound of splashing water grew louder.
A rumble, deep beneath her, brought a bubble of fear to her throat.
Earthquake?
No, she’d never been in an earthquake.
The house was collapsing.
Without warning, Marley appeared in the doorway to the bedroom.
Willow took a step toward her, but Marley held up a warning hand. Her pale face twisted as if with pain, and Willow could see waves of tremors passing through her body.
“Marley?”
Marley shook her head, no, pleading with her eyes. She slipped inside the room. The blue smock she wore was one she used for her refinishing work, splotched with varnish and paint. Her feet were bare.
The edges of Willow’s vision turned fuzzy, faded to gray. A pale green and glaring light illuminated Marley.
Willow moved toward her sister, feet dragging, each step threatening to tear her farther away. She tried to shout for Ben, but any sound choked in her throat.
She was awake.
She was conscious.
This was real.
The wall behind Marley disappeared, replaced by the entrance to a hole. The light she made shivered against the edges of the hole, but everything beyond was black.
A sound started far away and approached, gathering volume until a boom vibrated through Willow’s body. Marley tilted her head on one side, and she cried tears that swept to wet her smock. Her hands turned this way and that in begging motions.
Once more Willow attempted to reach out, but cringed away, horrified at the eruption of a huge head from the dark tunnel behind Marley. An enormous, beaked head, no visible eyes, and a beard of misshapen fat hanging beneath its beak.
The head undulated from side to side, the great beak opening slowly to reveal a thick tongue while vast shoulders squeezed through and a wing that seemed to fill the room shot free and gave a swinging flap.
The rush of air upended Willow. She fell, scrambling away, and finally screaming.
Creaking, shaking, the house trembled on its foundation, and Willow cried, “Marley,” while she hid her eyes.
At once a force scooped her from the floor and threw her against a wet wall. It held her there, trapped, unmoved by her flailing fists and feet.
“I’m coming,” she yelled, using her nails to strike out until a talon took hold of both wrists and squeezed them
until the bones ground together. “Don’t hurt her. Please.” She yanked and tugged but her wrists wouldn’t move.
“Be still.” A voice near her ear sent pain through her head.
“What do you want?” she cried.
“Just be still.”
Panting, she stopped twisting her wrists, stopped bucking her body and pumping her feet.
Slowly, completely terrified, she opened her eyes.
Water from Ben’s body soaked her dress.
H
er wrists would be bruised. Ben hated that he’d caused that. If he hadn’t stopped her, she could have clawed his face until he couldn’t see to help her.
“Willow?”
Limp, she sagged in his arms, her head dropped back. Her skin glistened with sweat.
He shook her. “Willow, talk to me. It’s Ben. I’m here.”
Willow came up through layers of darkness, gathering anger, gathering strength, and screamed. She tossed, trying to get free. “Marley,” she called, tears clogging her throat. “Wait for me, Marley.”
Ben shook her harder. He dared not put her down because he knew she would run. “Look at me.” He let her legs slide down and held the hair at the back of her head.
“Look at me, Willow.”
Her eyes opened, as if from troubled sleep, and she blinked at him. Slowly the focus cleared. Ben didn’t slacken his grip. She would regain control, and he could only guess what she might do next.
“Did something attack you?” he said, trying to see her skin without attracting her attention too much. “Tell me, for God’s sake.”
It was Ben who held Willow against his naked body. Water dripped from his hair, over his shoulders and chest.
She pushed at him. “I’ve got to go. Please, Ben, don’t stop me. They’ve got Marley. It’s got Marley. Over there.” She tried to twist and see behind her.
“The house shook and everything broke,” she said, pleading with him to understand. “Glass everywhere. It was an earthquake, then that, that—It came. It wants me, not Marley. I have to go.”
“Talk to me,” Ben said. “Slow down. What did you see?”
In a rain of hands and feet, butting him with her head, Willow battered him. He grabbed one of her wrists and she bit his hand. Her strength was abnormal, crazy.
Closing his hands around her waist, he held her at arm’s length, but she jumped and crashed both feet into his diaphragm, shoving herself beyond his arm’s reach, and shot from his grasp.
She landed on the floor and scrambled.
Ben caught a foot, but she rotated her entire body, launched through the door and stumbled to the top of the stairs.
“Don’t come nearer,” she said, pointing both first fingers at him. “Stand there.” Her eyes, the pupils hugely dilated, raked around.
“Calm down—”
“Shut up
. Don’t tell me anything. It happened. Everything fell over and broke. There was a hole and Marley was in front of it. It was a raptor coming for her. One of its wings was…” She wanted to see her sister’s face.
There was no hole, no tunnel, no bearded, beaked head—and no Marley.
Willow buried her head in her hands and backed away. “It took her,” she sobbed. “What have I done? She’s gone. Marley!”
Ben had barely an instant to stop Willow from careening backward down the steep flight of stairs. He threw himself at her, wrapped her in his arms and groaned aloud when they fell onto the edges of the steps.
With Willow on top of him, he ducked his head into her shoulder and cushioned her. His muscle and bone thumped on hard treads, banged downward until he slewed sideways and stopped.
Willow trembled. She couldn’t keep still. When she opened her eyes again, Ben’s head rested against a stair and his eyes were closed. He breathed through his mouth.
But he held her so tightly her ribs felt bruised.
She put a hand either side of his face.
Ben didn’t open his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer.
Willow kissed his neck, kissed the pulse that beat heavily there. She touched his face again and again, ran her fingers through his hair. “Ben?”
She could see into the bedroom. The lamps stood where they always had been, and they weren’t broken. Nothing looked different from when they’d first gone into the room.
“Ben, look at me, please.” She wiggled, then held completely still when his grip tightened even more.
“I saw it. It took Marley away. Please, help me.”
“I’m going to,” he murmured. “Just give me a little time, okay?”
“But Marley—”
“Nothing’s been broken. There hasn’t been an earthquake.”
She couldn’t budge a millimeter in his arms. “I felt it and saw it. Broken glass.”
“Do you see any broken glass now?”
She went limp. “What’s happening to me, Ben? I’m not doing all this to myself, am I?”
“No. You’re getting a crash course in being what you truly are, is all.”
“But Marley—”
“If something had happened to Marley, I’d know,” he told her. “Sykes would have contacted me.” His head ached, but not so much that he didn’t feel the throbbing at every point where her body met his. “But let’s call them.”
“I hallucinated,” she mumbled. “They’d think I was mad if I phoned them.”
“You are not mad,” he said.
“We should get up,” Willow said. An ache started between her legs and contracted muscles in every direction. Her cotton wraparound dress was wet against her skin. Her damp bra scraped nipples already burning from Ben’s touch.
She wasn’t only wet on the outside.
“Willow, I won’t let you run from me again,” Ben said. There was nothing light about what he said, or how he said it. He had put her on notice.
“I…I can’t breathe,” she said. “I
feel
everywhere. It’s you, it’s touching you.”
“We’d better get used to it,” he said. “You’ve marked me, Willow, and I’ll stay marked. I want to.”
“When they talk about pleasure and pain, this is what they mean, isn’t it?”
He gave a short laugh and eased to sit up on a stair with her hugged in his lap. “I doubt it, my love. This isn’t anything earthly.”
“Ben…”
“Yes.”
“Nothing. I keep making you suffer, but you don’t go away.”
“Get used to it. You’re my drug, Willow.”
“Let’s go to bed,” she said. “Let’s take what time we can before it all starts again.”
He couldn’t think of anything more appealing, but he didn’t fool himself that their troubles had really paused. They could choose to make themselves a little hiatus, though.
Her knuckles brushed his contracting belly. “You’d better not punch me, warrior woman,” he said.
With her eyes lowered, she pulled the tie on her damp cotton dress undone. She opened the front and shrugged her free arm loose.
Then she looked up at him. “My dress is wet.”
Ben kissed her, taking his time, smoothing her hair away from her face. He stroked her from neck to back, down her spine to her waist, up her arm, into the dips beneath her collarbones and over the soft rise of her breasts above her bra.
She sighed and shuddered, moaned at the electrical responses they both absorbed.
And he tucked the ends of his fingers under the edge of the bra to catch the very edge of a nipple. He played there, taking his time, changed his grip and pressed his hand flat over her ribs, her belly, and came to rest over the tops of her thighs where they met her body, and her warm little mound.
Willow turned in his arms, tried to get even closer. The skin he didn’t touch clamored; the skin he did touch pulsed.
“You seem pretty comfortable sitting on a naked man’s lap,” Ben said into her ear, running the tip of his tongue around the folds. “It can’t be too comfortable.”
She tapped him lightly. “If you’re looking for compliments, you’ve got them. You are a hard man.”
They didn’t laugh.
Ben got her up the stairs and into the bedroom without dropping her, and stood her on the floor by the white-covered bed.
He stood back just far enough that she could see all of him. His drying hair had begun to shine again. A faint sheen threw shadows beneath his cheekbones—and in dips beneath muscles that flexed with the slightest move he made.
The heat Willow felt had nothing to do with embarrassment. Need set up a steady beat, just beneath her skin, into every tissue, every sinew.
She wanted him again, so strongly.
Ben flipped the other shoulder of her dress and it fell to the floor. Once more he embraced her. She was so much shorter, but he hiked her up and held her so he could fit their bodies where they belonged. Her pelvis tipped into him and he gritted his teeth.
Willow eased her bra straps down and undid the front fastener. “I have to feel all of you,” she said, her voice a husky whisper.
He felt her, too. Muscles in his legs shook from the effort of holding back.
A heartbeat and she stood before him, naked.
She lay across the bed, her arms stretched above her head.
He made very sure she wouldn’t read anything in his mind unless he wanted her to. Looking down on her, he admitted that in many ways he was merely a man, a man with the luck to have found a woman who turned lovemaking into a mystical adventure.
With his knee, he parted her thighs. Lowering himself, he supported his weight on his elbows and kissed every part of her he could reach. By the time he licked each nipple and took it between his teeth, she writhed and begged for him to stop teasing her.
“You think you’re the only one I’m teasing?” he said.
She knew she wasn’t.
Slipping his hands up the undersides of her arms, he laced their fingers together. At the same time he slid the tip of his penis back and forth over the slippery flesh between her folds.
Willow rocked her hips, called out to him, and he said her name over and over.
Like hot surf crashing over her, the release began and brought her arching up from the bed.
Ben felt her breaking apart and glided into her. She was so tight and he knew he was adding to the physical extremes she already confronted. He kept his elbows pressed into the mattress on either side of her, withdrew slowly, sucking air through his teeth and trying to swallow his own groans. He feared she might be sore from earlier.
“Let go,” Willow said. “I want you now.” She bit his shoulder, wrapped her legs around his waist and moved. She moved him in and out of her with the power of her beautiful, strong legs.
“I’ll always want you,” Ben told her.
Ben heard their cries, heard his name on Willow’s lips and hers on his own.
The night was black, red, thrashing, hot wet skin fused to hot, wet skin, and his only thought was that he wanted them to share what she felt now forever.