Secret Worlds (248 page)

Her struggles did nothing but make him more intimately aware of her form. Made his cock more aware of her closeness. He stifled a groan. She was curvier than he’d noticed when she’d run across the field. Too soft to be a warrior. Her panting breaths pressed her small breasts in a tantalizing rhythm against his chest. The feel of her made his heart punch against his ribs, so loudly it echoed in his eardrums.

He recognized her. Not her form, or her voice, but something in her called to him, caused long-dead desires to flood him. After Boudica’s death, women had come in a seemingly endless stream of nothing. Looking at her now drove the wisps of their memories from his mind.

Something in Boudica had connected to his soul. It had been severed when she’d died, and a part of him had died with her.

Nay, this woman was far different from the one he’d known, but it didn’t seem to matter. He’d felt dead for two millennia, but here, lying in the grass atop this woman, his woman, made him feel alive again. He would do anything to protect her. Even if he couldn’t keep her.

She heaved up and head-butted him in the forehead.

***

Ow!
That had hurt.
Right, no more head-butting.

It hadn’t even fazed the giant of a man who loomed over her, his strong jaw set. His face was cast in shadows, giving him a sinister air despite the evenness of his features. He was handsome in a rough way, with dark hair and eyes, and for some reason, it scared her even more. Evil should be visible on the surface. Diana’s heart beat so fast that it felt like it might vibrate right out of her chest.

“Let me go!” She thrashed beneath him, pushing against the broad wall of his chest. Futile. He was huge, his muscular form pinning her to the grass, trapping her like a bird in the paws of a greedy feline.

He stared down at her, searching her face as if he thought he should recognize her. Her breath caught when the confusion in his gaze morphed into desire.
Don’t look at me like that.
But she shivered. Visions of him kissing her flashed through her mind even as it chanted
get off, get off, get off!

Did she have some type of fetish for men who scared her? It was sick. She should fight him.

But even as her heart pounded, the chill that thrilled along her nerves began to falter. She should be scared, and she was, but she could swear there was something familiar about him.

He removed his left hand from her wrist, but she wasn’t fast enough. He trapped both hands above her head with his right hand and ran his other hand down her waist to her hip. He squeezed and her stomach dipped. The smell of crushed grass wafted around her, mingling with his heady, masculine scent.

He was looking at her like he’d been waiting to see her for ages, but when he slid his hand back up her waist, she tensed.

“What’s your name?” His voice rasped over her nerve endings.

He was attacking her. She should be afraid of him. But her body wasn’t, almost as though it recognized him.
No.
She was stronger than her body, and this was madness.

“Get off me!” She thrust her knee upward, nailing him between the legs.

He cursed, and a grimace twisted his handsome features.

She used his shock to her advantage and funneled her anger and fear into a great shove against his chest. He’d dropped his guard, and she was able to wriggle out from under him. She scrambled on the wet grass, then heaved to her feet and sprinted down the field.

Desperate to reach the dim yellow streetlights ahead, she pumped her arms faster, breath sawing in and out of her lungs as she ran. The lights ahead glowed, beckoning. If she could just reach the lights...

Footsteps pounded behind her, sending her heart into her throat. They were coming fast. Way too fast. No escape. She was swept up into his arms before the thought left her mind.

“Stop running,” he said. “I’m here to help you.”

She whimpered and began to struggle. He glowered at her, beautiful in a terrifying way. A dangerous way. She twisted in the iron cage of his arms.

Trapped. She didn’t stand a chance against his power. With her rage gone and fear overwhelming her, the strength seeped out of her muscles. Though she pressed weakly against the hard planes of his chest, she knew she wasn’t going anywhere.

Out of tricks.

He strode toward an inconspicuous black car in the small parking lot next to the park. He yanked the passenger side door open, almost growling as he did so, but placed her gently on the seat.

“Where are you taking me?” She cowered in the seat next to him. She was beyond caring that she was acting like a terrified mouse, cringing from a broom. He hadn’t blindfolded her, which meant he wasn’t planning to let her live. She had no control over what he could do to her, and it terrified her.

He started the car without answering. The quiet streets of one of Edinburgh’s outlying neighborhoods flew by, a black and white blur illuminated by the moon. She desperately tried to remember the turns they were taking and the street names, but the lefts and rights had long since begun to collide in her mind. He drove so quickly, with a cold control that made her nervous and even less likely to remember where they were going.

“To the university.”

She flinched at the dark timbre of his voice, and he scowled. Apparently he didn’t like that she was afraid of him. Too bad.

“What do you mean? The University of Edinburgh? Why would you take me there?” This had to be some kind of joke. They had left the city and the University of Edinburgh miles behind, and were now in the rolling countryside surrounding the city. A dark copse of trees, looking like something out of a Halloween tale, passed on their left.

“No’ that university.” He jerked the steering wheel left, and she sucked in a breath as the car turned smoothly off the road and headed straight for an enormous oak only a few feet ahead of them, its twisted branches reaching for the dark sky. She opened her mouth to scream, but before she could utter a sound, the car passed smoothly through the tree.

“What?” she squeaked. The trees around her began to disappear.

“This university.” A towering wrought iron gate appeared. Two large gargoyles clutched gas lanterns at the entrance, and he slowed the car to a crawl as the gate parted to admit them.

She expected to hear it creak ominously and spiders to drop down from the pinnacles at the top, but it swung open noiselessly. Wait, had one of the stone statues grinned evilly at her?

There was nothing ahead of her but a manicured lawn dotted with large oaks. After a moment, a collection of enormous buildings came into view. The elaborate stonework that decorated most of the buildings suggested that they were old, and that this was no normal university.

She laughed bitterly. As if elaborate stonework was all that indicated this wasn’t a normal university. Disappearing trees and a gate that could keep out an army suggested something wasn’t quite right.

They approached a stone courtyard surrounded on all sides by ivy-covered buildings. The sculptures and stonework that decorated the eaves and windows stood out in stark relief. Creatures of myth crouched, frozen in stone. Twisted and curving decorations filled the spaces in between. Were they Pictish? Viking? Celtic? They looked like a bit of each.

Though it was dark, several beings rushed around the courtyard—all of whom looked very human, thank God, intent upon reaching their destinations. If only she could get their attention, but if they were part of this crazy place, would they even care that she was being abducted?

Her captor parked beneath the single huge tree in the middle of the courtyard. Its twisted roots pushed up through the cobbled ground and looked as if they had been doing so for centuries.

“Doona even think of calling to them for help.” Her abductor glanced at her, knowledge of her plans in his dark eyes.

“I—I wasn’t going to.”

“Sure you weren’t.” He reached over and unbuckled her seatbelt. She scrambled away from him and out of the car, hanging onto the door for support. He strode around the back of the car.

“Come on,” he said gruffly when he reached her. He grasped her arm, as if he knew somehow that her brain had shut down from too much foreign and impossible information, and led her toward a building at the back of the courtyard. Its mullioned windows gleamed in the light of Oliver Twistian lamps while elaborate gray stone carvings of scenes from history covered the facade.

If she squinted, she thought she could make out Caesar, Vercingetorix, William Wallace, and dozens more. At the very top of the building, directly above the large double doors that marked the entrance, a female warrior stood, draped in ancient garb. She looked familiar, but Diana couldn’t place her. Something wasn’t quite right about her, though. She was whisked inside before she could figure it out, and she tried not to let her mouth drop at the sight before her.

“Where are we?” The foyer was enormous, with a strange false sunlight streaming through the glass dome above and gleaming softly on the parquet floor. There was no way this room could be so big given the size of the building she’d just walked into, but after being attacked by actual monsters earlier, she had bigger problems to worry about than a trick of the light.

He didn’t answer, but led her through a doorway and down a wide corridor. She caught a glimpse of a cavernous library on her right and almost craned her head to see more of it. Bookshelves rose two stories high and books were piled upon tables and chairs.

“Where are you taking me? Who are you?” To her relief, her voice didn’t shake nearly as much, as if the books had imparted some of their strength to her.

“You’ll see soon enough.” He opened a door at the end of the corridor and nudged her inside, shutting it behind her.

Tonight, Esha Connor hunted evil.

Wet gravel crunched beneath her boots as she crept through the deserted underground streets of Edinburgh. Shivering, she pulled up the zipper of her snug leather jacket. She felt a bit like the Tomb Raider, if Lara Croft had worn jeans instead of shorts, brandished magic instead of thigh-holstered guns, and been accompanied by an irritable black cat. She rarely wore anything else, favoring the practical, and forgettable, ensemble. It allowed her to go about her business without drawing attention. Or so she told herself.

The truth—that other Mytheans could usually feel her coming and would run for it—just sucked. Their loss if they did, but why give them a heads-up? Especially the one she didn’t want to run away.

Her black cat, the familiar who was ever present at her side, nearly blended into the surrounding darkness as he strolled quietly along, slinking from one strange scent to another, ever watchful. Though she could smell only rain, dirt, and the light scent of decay, her companion would pick up on the subtler aromas. They were usually the interesting ones.

The unrelenting dark of the tunnel-like street was softened only by the small ball of cold fire she held in her palm. Its dim light glinted off the soot-black fur of Chairman Meow.

She could barely hear the bustle of the city above, though the steady drip of water through the dirt overhead echoed as it hit the ground. Drip, drip, drip. She spent so much time down here hunting rogue Mytheans that she barely noticed the annoyance anymore. The Chairman stopped abruptly near the crumbling stone wall that formed the side of the subterranean street.

“What do you smell, Chairman?” Her voice was soft; it would be inaudible to anyone but the cat, who listened for it constantly. He turned to look at her, citrine eyes glinting in the light of her carefully cradled flame. He had the strong, masculine visage of a large tomcat, his fur shiny, medium length, and constantly disheveled.

One low, deep meow reverberated in the stillness, and though reading his thoughts was beyond her powers, she understood his intention. The Chairman smelled evil, greasy and dark, a smear on the night that had been left behind by someone, or something, passing in the shadows.

Shit.
It was exactly what she’d been afraid of when she’d entered the underground for a routine rogue hunt and realized that something felt very off. She’d immediately set out with the Chairman to find the source of it.

She smirked. Curiosity wouldn’t kill her cat, and it wouldn’t kill her, either. She’d made it alone this far through brains and brawn—magical brawn, at least—and she looked forward to the rest of her immortality.

Esha was a soulceress, a Mythean whose power was linked to souls. Not only did she draw her power from the immortal souls of other Mytheans, she had the ability to see the evil in a being’s soul manifested as black shadows that hovered around them.

From the feeling of the underground tonight, there were shadows here that were growing freakishly large. And from the Chairman’s meows, she’d almost found them.

Good.
Once she located them, she’d dispatch them, as she had with the rest of the truly evil ones.

“It’s just too easy, Chairman,” she said to the cat. Her ability made her a natural justice dealer and even paid the bills. Every kill meant a deposit in her account by the university, who paid her to off the most evil Mytheans who might reveal their existence to mortals.

She continued down the corridor after the Chairman, sidestepping the bones of some creature she couldn’t identify.

Access to this underground world, and the large Mythean community from which she could draw her power, were the primary reasons she’d settled in Edinburgh. The city had long been a haven for the supernatural community of the British Isles. The eclectic inhabitants of London’s northern sibling had at times been composed of everyone from kings and the literary elite to the unsavory beings of the thriving underground world.

Chambers, streets, and alleys had been dug out beneath the teeming streets of Edinburgh over the centuries. In the past, the chambers and corridors had been workshops, the sites of legal commerce, dens of iniquity, and the tragic underground slums housing the poorest members of society.

Modern mortals had turned some of the old workshops and slums into pubs, dance clubs, and tourist traps. But they were the exceptions. Far more Mytheans had taken over other underground spaces for various purposes, both legitimate—at least, as legitimate as possible—and nefarious.