Rebecca screamed, her throat instantly burning from the raw, sudden abuse of her windpipe.
She dropped the clipboard, clasped her hands over her mouth, and gagged, frantically trying to back away from the door. There was a beautiful blond woman lying on the floor at the gladiator’s feet. She was clearly unconscious, and her neck was stained with dried, crusted blood. Oh dear Lord, what had he done to her?
Rebecca had to get help.
She had to call 911.
She had to get away!
Now.
Before she could turn and run, the man’s head rocked forward; his smooth, constricted pupils met hers; and his lips turned up in a dark parody of a smile, as sardonic as it was savage. “Where are you going, Rebecca?”
one
The man knew her name.
Rebecca’s heart seized in her chest as an abrupt surge of adrenaline flooded her veins, and for a moment, she actually believed her heart might stop, just simply quit beating, right then and there. She was going to drop dead from fear.
Embracing the sudden surge of cortisol instead, she gasped for air, sprang out the door, and leaped over the dried vegetation in a mad dash to scramble away.
And then she froze in midair.
What—the—hell?
“Get in the house!” A thick, gravelly voice reverberated all around her, rattled her bones, and caused her teeth to chatter. The male gladiator was looming in the doorway—and just how had he moved so quickly?—staring at her with those otherworldly, moonstone-gray eyes, and his thick, sculpted lips were plastered into a scowl, his wrists still stained with blood. She tried to kick her feet, to no avail, to force her body back down to the ground, but she couldn’t.
She couldn’t.
There was nothing she could do.
There was only him.
The terrifying man, his ungodly power over her desire to escape, and his otherworldly control.
For a moment, Rebecca couldn’t help but wonder—was he the devil with flesh and blood, a reincarnated Viking from a time gone by? Somehow, she knew he was a thousand times more lethal than any stalker. His presence was so fierce, so intimidating, so all-pervasive and exacting.
Rebecca wished she could just disappear.
Or die.
A silent scream echoed in her mind, but it didn’t pierce the air. Whatever he had done to her body, it had obviously included her throat, and she was utterly helpless to defy him. And then, as if of their own accord, her feet drifted softly to the ground, and her body began to slowly rotate, turning clockwise, toward the fearsome man. She felt like a puppet on a gifted master’s strings, and something deep inside of her recoiled.
This wasn’t right.
This wasn’t natural.
This guy—was he even human?
Indifferent to the dark crimson stains on the pads of his fingers or the cuts still scoring his palms, the Viking tried to take a step forward and stumbled to the side, staggering in the doorway. Was he drunk? High? Or just tanked up with malicious intent? He braced a heavily muscled arm against the doorframe and ran his free hand through his strange mahogany hair, deepening the perfect, tapered layers with highlights, streaked in blood. He looked like he was struggling, trying to make sense of his surroundings, straining to regain his bearings. “Becca,” he whispered, once again using her name. “Come to me, angel. I can’t come to you.”
Rebecca shuddered at the terrifying intimacy of his words, their audacious, affectionate nature.
Come to me, angel?
Was he insane?
She couldn’t move!
And even if she could, hell would freeze over three times; pigs would fly as commonplace as birds; and Rebecca would have to lose her reasoning mind to ever consider such a demand.
No way.
No how.
And then her feet began to move…to swiftly shuffle forward…carrying her toward the man she feared more than death itself, taking her to his doorstep.
Rebecca whimpered helplessly as she quickly closed the distance between them. What the hell was happening! Why was this happening? Who was this guy—what was this guy?—and how was he moving her body with nothing more than his will?
Halting no fewer than twelve inches away from his towering frame, Rebecca peered into the stranger’s haunted eyes and winced. Despite the fact that his pupils were constricted—he was clearly on something—his features were utterly arresting: perfect, harshly masculine, and set in a cold mask of granite. One look into those devilish eyes, and she knew he possessed an iron will, an indomitable spirit, and a complete lack of mercy toward anyone who opposed him, anyone who got in his way.
Stunned by the stark revelation, Rebecca began to sob.
She may as well have been locked somewhere with Trevor, her stalker, waiting to hear the explosion of a gun. “Oh God,” she whispered beneath her breath, finally finding her voice, “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what you want, but please, just please…let me go.”
He shook his head reflexively, like a dog stepping out of a bath, like he was trying to clear an entire attic littered with creepy cobwebs. “Sh,” he droned in that powerful voice. “Too loud.” He took a careful step back and gestured toward the foyer. “Come in.”
Rebecca shook her head emphatically. “No way,” she managed to squeak.
He blinked several times, extended his neck to rest his head against the doorframe—as if he was so very weary—and then he rubbed his eyes and sighed. “I’m not going to hurt you, Becca. But I can’t…not now…get in the house.”
She stiffened. “No.”
He hung his head and growled.
Growled.
Like an animal.
“Get in the house,” he repeated, and just like that, they were both standing in the foyer, and the huge thick-paneled door closed behind them.
Rebecca screamed like her soul was in danger, and the sound was her only lifeline.
She scrambled to the other side of the vestibule, pressed her back against a cool, slab-stone wall, and tried to make herself invisible. Her eyes darted this way and that, across the dark, empty space, as she scanned her surroundings out of desperation and habit: There were two gigantic log-pillars to her left, a potential place to hide. And high above her head, jutting from the ceiling, there were several more vertical log beams extending parallel from the ceiling. And Blessed Mother, protect her: The beams looked like perfect sacrificial anchors from which to tie her up, hang her like a lamb. All around her, and framing the door, were high granular walls made of thick, stacked stones, multicolored slabs of rock, and she couldn’t help but muse that he could crush her skull against any one of them, and none would ever be the wiser. The polished slate tiles beneath her feet gave way to wide-planked wood floors, and the planks led back to his great room, to the unconscious victim he had left on the floor.
Rebecca shuddered violently. She felt like she had entered the lair of a dragon, and even if his home was a rustic architectural marvel, it only meant he had refined, creative taste. He would use his imagination with her. “Please,” she pleaded again. “Please, just let me go.”
He pressed his eyes closed, tightening his lids, like her voice was causing him pain, and then he slowly shook his head. “Not gonna happen.” He pointed toward her small black purse, which was surprisingly still draped over her shoulder, and held out his hand. “Cell phone.”
She gulped in despair, but since she didn’t want to move toward him, she reached into the bag, slowly retrieved her smartphone, and tossed it into his palm.
He caught it without even looking, and then he tucked it into his back pocket and gestured toward the great room. “You can have my chair.”
Rebecca sniffled. “I don’t want it. Just please, let me—”
“Take a seat!” he bellowed, and she froze in place, terrified down to her very bones.
Holy Mother, the guy was unstable, maybe moments away from snapping. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, trying to keep he
r voice both steady and calm. “Do you want to talk? Perhaps if I knew what you were thinking—what it is you need—I could help you.”
He blew out a ragged breath and cringed. “Shit.”
Rebecca continued to tremble, and she hated every moment of her body’s instinctive reaction. She may as well wave a red flag in front of a bull. She swallowed her terror—or at least she tried—and appealed to him again. “You know my name…” She spoke softly. “I have no idea how…but maybe you’d like to talk.”
He didn’t reply, and she took it as a sign to go on. Hell, what did she have to lose? “What’s your name?” she coaxed, cautiously.
He chuckled, as if any of this was amusing. “Julien,” he rasped, and there was a faint, timeless quality to his gruff, masculine tone.
Rebecca gulped and pressed forward. “Okay…Julien…it’s nice to meet you.”
“Baby,” he whispered. “Stop. Just stop.”
She froze.
What now?
“Now, you get in the chair,” he said.
Rebecca shivered at the way he sensed her thoughts. How in the world did he do that? Was he gifted? Clairvoyant? She glanced over her shoulder at the great room and eyed the enormous lone chair sitting in the center of the cathedral-sized space, looming like a hangman’s noose atop the gallows, and tried to think of an excuse—any excuse—to avoid going further into the house. “It’s too dark; I can’t see.” And then, for the first time, she absently noticed that the house was silent. She could no longer hear “House of the Rising Sun” droning throughout the room.
He flicked his bloodstained wrist in an almost dismissive gesture, and two fireplaces suddenly sprang to life with soft, dancing flames: one, nearly ten feet into the entryway foyer, just beyond a magnificent set of iron-railed stairs; and another, at the back of the great room, just beyond the lone, ominous chair.
She blinked several times, trying to make sense of what had just happened, trying to locate the remote—the sensor—the technology that allowed him to start fires with his hands. “Thank you,” she breathed nervously, still intent on appearing calm.
“Sit,” he repeated, taking a languid step toward her.
She practically ran to the chair.
“I’m sitting,” she said, curling up inside the massive space and wrapping her arms tightly around her body. “I’m sitting.”
He nodded in approval, and headed toward the chair.
Rebecca glanced away, unnerved by his predatory approach. She couldn’t watch him advance, and she couldn’t stare at the floor. The woman—the blonde—was still there. Still unconscious. Still lying crumpled over, like a sleeping rag doll. And her throat was still caked with blood. The sight of her was simply too much to handle. Rebecca had to keep her wits.
She had to remain calm.
Choosing to glance, instead, around the fire-lit room, she tried to come up with a plan: On either side of the fireplace, just beyond the back of the chair, there were two large rounded windows, each set in a thick wooden frame, each high, rounded arc bordered in stone; and the centers were made of stained glass, not that hard to break. They had old-fashioned cranks for levers, and they didn’t appear to be locked. Perhaps she could escape through one of the windows—if he ever fell asleep.
She turned her attention back to Julien and waited.
What would he do next?
He met her gaze for the briefest of moments and something indefinable flashed through his eyes…
Anger?
Domination?
Possession?
She couldn’t say, but it gave her the chills.
The man looked at her like he owned her, like he wanted to devour her soul.
He prowled in her direction—and just why the word prowled came to mind, she couldn’t really say—but that was what he did. And then he stopped, just short of making physical contact with her legs, descended to the floor in a distinctly vulturine motion, and sprawled out in front of her, extending all six feet, four inches of his heavy muscular frame like a pagan feast in a macabre buffet.
Rebecca gulped.
“Just give me a minute,” he murmured, resting the back of his hand against his forehead. “I need a minute to chill.” Either he didn’t notice or he didn’t care about the woman lying no fewer than three feet away from him on the floor.
Perhaps she was already dead; thus, her presence didn’t matter.
Her well-being was of no consequence.
And that’s when it really hit Rebecca…
Hard.
Perhaps she was already dead, as well.
two
Julien Lacusta closed his eyes and tried to think.
Hell’s inglorious minions, this shit could not be happening.
Not like this.
Not right now.
But it was—oh, was it ever.
He slowed his breathing to match the flow of the H and let the wicked concoction run its course. He just needed fifteen, maybe twenty more minutes to come down, and then he could deal with the situation.
And the female.
His destiny.
Holy hell.
The dark, languid arms of the liquid O were just about to embrace him, hold the outside word at bay, when he felt Rebecca stir in the chair. She was trying to be as quiet as a church-mouse, sliding out of the leather seat, tiptoeing around Shelly Winters—oh, hell, Shelly Winters!—and making her way…making her way…where?
Ah yes, to the painted glass windows.
Son of a jackal.
“Sit back down,” he bit out through clenched, gritted teeth, not bothering to open his eyes. Yep, he heard her heartbeat stutter, caught the sudden inhale of breath, and listened as her footsteps receded back to the chair.
If this got any more messed up, Julien would gladly retrieve a dagger, hand it to the traumatized female, and help her behead him himself, perhaps remove his heart, just to mitigate the damage he had already caused. As it stood, he had no idea what he was going to do—what he wanted to do—with this Blood Moon. It wasn’t like he had a golden history with the subject or a burning desire to meet some human female, create some bullshit fairy-tale love story, and provide the Curse with a prize.
That had never been his dream.
Yeah…so…what was he saying?
His legs felt like barbells, heavy rods of iron, yet his head felt feather-light, like insubstantial cotton…floating…drifting… twisting in the wind.
There was nothing.
Nothing.
Thank the celestial gods.
For one blessed moment, there was nothing in Julien’s head—
Except…
That one thing…that…that girl…
The blonde or the brunette?
Something had bothered him…
A lot.
Ah, shit, Shelly Winters.
He moistened his lips with his tongue and tried once again to think.
Ramsey. He called out on a familiar telepathic bandwidth, the one used by the valley’s sentinels, not needing cogent thought to find it. Are you there?
Ramsey Olaru answered right away. What’s up, J?
Julien groaned. Seen the moon?
Ramsey grew ineffably quiet for a moment. Of course. What do you need, brother?
Ah, yeah, they weren’t really brothers, but the sentinels shared a sort of brotherhood with the tracker, just the same, an indescribable bond…they were…they were…
Julien! Ramsey’s deep, husky voice jolted him out of his distracted contemplation.
Yeah, I’m here.
What do you need, tracker? What’s goin’ on?
Shelly, Julien whispered with his psychic voice. She’s here, on the floor. Ah, hell… He sighed. I might’ve fed too much.
Where is your destiny, warrior? Ramsey intoned, his psychic voice sounding all at once grave.
Chair, Julien grunted.
Ramsey didn’t speak, but Julien felt a light tap on his temples, almost like a cerebral knock-knock, so
meone beating at the door of his memories. Master Warrior, Ramsey finally said, permission to enter your head?
It wasn’t exactly the formal protocol, but Julien got the gist. Shit, he responded.
Is that a yes? Ramsey asked.
Yes, Julien grunted, wishing he could get a complete do-over for the day.
Not unlike the stalwart pit bull that he was often compared to, Ramsey Olaru ramrodded his way straight into Julien’s gray matter, tunneled his way through his medial temporal lobe, and withdrew all the pictures, images, and short-term memories that he needed, greatly reducing Julien’s high. Ah, damn, brother, Ramsey clipped, once he had finally finished. Not gonna lie; I would hate to be you. He took a moment, ostensibly to process the information—or something—and then he chimed back in, speaking in Julien’s head. Nachari Silivasi is only two miles west of your estate, and he has his Mustang with him. He can get there faster than any of us, and whoever comes, he’s gonna need a car to transport Shelly.
Julien nodded, as if Ramsey could see him.
Brother?
Yeah, yeah, send him on.
Will do, Ramsey said. And once he gets there—what do you want him to do about Rebecca? Your destiny?
A deep, feral growl rose in Julien’s throat, and he practically hissed his psychic words: He doesn’t touch her, he warned, feeling suddenly defensive. Understood? That’s not his business. That’s not anyone’s business. Tell the wizard to stay clear of my female.
Ramsey spoke with even, deliberate words. You’re zoned out, J—
I don’t give a shit, warrior.
Ramsey took a calm, measured breath. Understood. He softened his tone, probably on purpose, and then he switched the focus of the conversation. Hey, you okay? I mean…effed up circumstance aside…are you all right?
Julien’s head fell a bit more to the side and his lids twitched, just a microscopic flutter, over his eyes.
Julien?