Ever Tempted (19 page)

“No. I would have freaked out. I’m surprised you had any help left with her acting all bat-shit.” Shelby’s spell book slid off her lap. “Did she say anything?”

“That was my next question,” Anna Marie said.

“She made sure I knew she was aware of what she was doing. That she wasn’t out of her mind. Yet. Grace loved to get her way by manipulating situations. After she knew she couldn’t get me to come to her by force, she started doing things to gain more of my attention. I guess to get Marshall Rollins to hate her that much more. He already wanted to get rid of her, but she knew if she made an embarrassment of the family long enough, he’d jump in head first and help her with winning me over. If that didn’t work, she would have taken me against my will.” I stared at the floor.

“Damn. She’s relentless.” Anna Marie shoved her glasses up.

“You have no idea. That’s why she’s lying in a hole in one of those tunnels instead of resting half-humanely on a bed upstairs.” Shelby leaned back.

“So you’ve got a sleeping spell on her?” Anna Marie asked.

“Yeah, I guess it’s one that will hold her until we find what we need. I found it in the one book here that’s written in English that a layman could understand. After I did the requirements and said the words, one of the house staff came to me in a panic. Allie’s personal assistant had passed out cold.” Shelby straightened, arms folded with a shit-eating grin.

The rest of the evening, we looked through as many of the books as possible. I even ventured to the library to see if any of Ava’s old books had anything we might be able to use. When I got into the room, I just couldn’t focus. There were too many books. And so little time. I sank into the armchair facing the big bay window.

Marshall Rollins’s big desk and high back office chair sat between me and the view.

Why couldn’t we have just one normal life? All the rest of the Rollinses had no trouble living here. They lived everyday life with no problem whatsoever, and I had to struggle to make it through an hour.

This is why it was easier not looking for her.

Not that I didn’t want her to be happy, to finally find love, but I could imagine Allie could be content. This was no way to live. She needed to be without me.

“Oh my gosh. I see why Shelby gets so frustrated with you. Could you whine just a little more?” Kaitlyn pulled the library double doors shut behind her and flopped onto the sofa. “Yes, I know it sucks, but giving up is not the answer. We are going to put her in the ground and do away with her spirit once and for all. And when this is all said and done, you and Allie will never have to speak of her again.”

I simmered in self-pity. Silent. Going over all the ways I hadn’t committed suicide yet.

“And who’s to say if you did skydive from a plane and accidentally forget to pack your parachute that Grace would stop tormenting Allie after you died? Now that Grace knows where she is, you’d be dead, unable to do a thing but watch as Grace did anything and everything she wanted to Allie. There’s no easy answer. But you don’t have to try to find the right one alone. We’re here to help. Ava saw to that. She knew something we didn’t.” Kaitlyn stared at me with her eyebrows perked and an oddly unsettling smile. Now was not the time to smile.

“That’s another thing. Why couldn’t she just tell us what the answers were before she died? Why does everything have to be a riddle?” I felt like a five-year-old boy.

“Ava Rollins hated lazy people. So it follows that we’re going to have to work for this solution. So far she hasn’t been wrong. She just didn’t plan for an act of God. Of course, I’m pretty sure she thought the crew she threw together would be able to put their heads together and beat any obstacles that came our way. I still believe in that. I believe in us. Don’t give up.” Kaitlyn sounded like my mom in that moment too.

Funny how I kept going back to thoughts of my mom. My original mom.

“She had a lot to do with how truly sweet you are when you’re not being a dick.” Kaitlyn tossed a throw pillow at me.

I caught it. “Lately, that’s a lot. Sorry.”

“I think we’d do good to make sure Grace is still safely knocked out. Stop wallowing and go with me?” Kaitlyn yanked my arm and pulled me up.

* * * *

The basement stairs creaked as I loped down them. The girls’ happy thoughts and hopeful conversation floated up. “…and we might be able to get two spells to work together to stop her. I’ve found a few that exorcise demons. Not sure if that’d work on a human spirit.”

“Speaking of demons, Cole and Kaitlyn are coming down so we can go check on her as a group. And yes. I’m pretty sure God would classify her as one of the worst of Satan’s minions. I don’t want her to be up roaming around while we’re thinking she’s still unconscious.” Shelby was getting better at multitasking. Hearing, reading, talking, topping me at being a world-class smartass all at one time. I was going to have to buy her dinner or something.

A weight lifted off my shoulders as I got nearer to the group of ladies in the center of the basement. They made it aggravatingly hard to be self-loathing.

I looped my arm around Allie from behind. My fingers ached to touch skin, but I had to deprive them of it for now.

Allie smiled up at me. “We’re getting closer. There are a lot of spells in here that might work on Grace if we can just find the right one.”

“Since it exorcises foul spirits out of the person holding it, why didn’t we just go get another Amiante stone or find the original one?” I asked Anna Marie.

“I don’t think we can trick her into entering Allie’s body again. She’s pretty smart.” Anna Marie got up. “I want to see this Olympic-size swimming pool of dead animals. Chalk it up as morbid curiosity.”

* * * *

“I can’t believe we’re standing over a hole of dead animal carcasses. This is decidedly the most disgustingly horrendous and kick-ass thing I’ve ever seen.” Anna Marie aimed her flashlight into the pit. Skeletons of large birds, a few cows, a goat, oh, another goat, and plenty of deer carcasses. They were my favorite meat. And I didn’t feel so bad about killing them. Davidson County’s overpopulation had become a problem with highly traveled roads. I had done motorists a favor by reducing accidents by more than half.

Grace’s new body lay on what was left of a bear after I’d torn into it. Bear was probably my least favorite of all the meats. I’d had it canned as a child when Mama used to can everything, and it was amazing. A lot like roast beef. But fresh off the bone was tough and almost stomach churning.

Anna Marie and Shelby’s thoughts were synonymous. They thought it was the coolest thing they’d ever seen.

I can’t believe I fell in that.
Allie looked at the roots hanging from the ceiling. “Could we please hurry? This place creeps me out.”

More for Allie than anyone, I said, “I’ll fill the hole in as soon as Sage’s body dies. This place isn’t one of my proudest accomplishments.”

“Hasn’t moved an inch.” Kaitlyn’s voice was hushed as if she thought Grace would hear us.

“She can’t hear us, can she?” The thought was alarming.

“No. She’s in a deeper sleep than a coma. If her presence was here, I’d know it. I could feel her.” Kaitlyn looked away from her body.

“I’m sorry you have to see this.” I hated that she or anyone had to smell the stench.

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed. This is actually brilliant. No one would ever guess you have to eat as much as you do when you shift because they’d never find the proof. And it doesn’t smell outside of the tunnel, so there’s virtually no evidence.” Anna Marie stared at the corners of the walls. It did resemble an Olympic-sized swimming pool. I’d dug the corners out almost perfectly.

“She’s going to be so pissed when she wakes up.” Allie crossed her arms and covered her mouth. She looked at anything but the pit. “I can’t stop thinking of the day I landed down there. I need to go.”

“You think we need to poke her? You know, to make sure she’s still alive?” Shelby kicked a pebbled. It pinged off a skull close to Grace.

Kaitlyn giggled. “No. I saw her chest move. You just want to poke her for the sheer satisfaction of it. Don’t lie.”

“Maybe,” Shelby said.

Allie

There’s nothing like getting the stench of rotting animals stuck in your nose. For a few days after my fall into the pit, every once in a while, I would get a whiff of dead yuck. The smell never came up through the basement from the catacombs, so it was either a flashback from the traumatic experience, or I’d missed getting some of that yuck off my skin. Given the girls’ vigorous scrubbing and thorough bathing to get the rotting chunks of animal off me, I was sure I’d been left traumatized.

I shuddered as I walked back up the steps from the basement. I was thankful there was a cook to prepare food here. I wasn’t sure if I could touch any sort of animal flesh, even if it was to give myself sustenance. Being a vegetarian was something I’d never considered until now.

It was around six thirty and no one had eaten yet. Now they wouldn’t want to. Or if they did, they had a stronger stomach than mine.

“Hey.” Cole caught up with me.

In front of the swinging kitchen doors, I waited. The tapestry on the wall depicted an army of angels fighting a demon.

“Reminds you of the girls?” Cole’s work-hardened hands slipped around my waist from behind. His breath was warm on my neck.

“Yes. They’re going to find the cure to this curse. And when they do, I don’t want to think of the past ever again.” I sank back into him. A quick flash of him naked, slamming into Grace’s newly stolen body, or whatever she’d done to gain the use of it, assaulted me, but I shoved it away. I used to think Grace had been made by Satan, but now I wasn’t so sure she wasn’t Satan. She tried to ruin every precious moment I had with Cole.

That would stop.

It wasn’t his fault he looked like a Greek god with the manners of the finest nobleman. Most of the time. His rough edges were just as alluring. And he was mine. I suddenly didn’t care about food. I needed my strength, sure, but Cole gave me more will to go on than any eight-course meal.

“Let’s go to the cottage. I want some time alone with you.”

“Hmm.” He kissed my neck. “You’ve forgiven me faster than I thought you could.”

“You can’t help you’re hot.” I turned in his arms.

A flash of green that most people wouldn’t have caught sliced through his irises. His jaw worked. “I’m glad you still think so. I thought I’d find you packing your bags to leave this god-awful place and the life I’ve drawn you into.”

“Let the girls do their job. I’ll be waiting in the cottage. You go tell them to leave us alone for a while.” I cupped his chiseled jawline and pulled him down for a kiss.

Cole deepened the kiss as he searched for the sensitive skin at the base of my back. He slipped his hands under the waist of my pants and dug into my hips as he jerked me to him hard.

He groaned in my mouth as I eagerly and shamelessly fumbled at his pants. He dipped his head and breathed into the hollow of my neck. He bit, then nibbled as he shoved my hands up his chest. A sexy laugh mixed with tantalizing kisses found my collarbone. Under his shirt, tautly pulled muscles twitched at my touch. He pressed me against the cold marble walls of the hallway.

A clank and rattle in the kitchen reminded me of the setting.

I pushed him back. In the hallway, we could gain an audience at any second.

Breathing unevenly, Cole’s eyes sparkled, but he remained rooted.

“We’re out in the open. I don’t want to blemish the staff’s idea of my character. I’ll be in the cottage.” I turned but Cole caught me.

His eyes widened and darkened. “No. I don’t want you that far away from the house or the girls’ sixth senses.”

I straightened my shirt and glanced up and down the hall. “If we spend the night in my room, they’ll be so close they’ll be distracted with our thoughts. At least if we’re out there, there’s a chance they won’t hear every single second we spend together.”

“They can block our thoughts when they want to. We’ll have privacy.” Cole raked a shaking hand through his disheveled hair.

God, that was sexy.

“I’ll be back.” Cole jammed his shaking hands into his pockets and walked toward the basement.

When I regained my faculties—seeing his physique from the backside still addled me at times—I went up the stairs and searched through the clothes I’d bought when I was out with Dalton. Had I bought anything sexier than what a nun might wear to bed?

I tore the tags off a nightgown that didn’t make me look like I was at a nine-year-old’s sleepover party and took a shower in record time. I had the lacey little thing on before Cole got back to the room. I dried my hair into soft waves and stared into the mirror. Black lace looked nice against my skin, though it could have shown a little more cleavage.

Some of my summer tan had faded while Cole had been off at the motel working on keeping the animal at bay. A few days on an island in the northern Atlantic Ocean had faded it even more. Up there, there hadn’t been the chance for sunbathing.

The lace parted at my leg to reveal my crescent moon.

Would it be alluring or would it remind Cole of all he could lose?

I didn’t want him to think of anything but me that night. Not the old Annabeth, not the curse, not the half-dead body in the basement.

This was my time.

Staring at my reflection, it was amusing that I was so scared he’d somehow turn me away.

We were married now.

He took little convincing and was easily distracted. The door to my room opened and shut. If it had been anyone other than Cole, he or she would have knocked.

In the dim bedroom, Cole halted at the end of the bed. His jaw went slack and his weight creaked the footboard as he leaned back.

I flipped off the light in the bathroom, leaving only the moon’s silvery glow cascading through the windows. It was so bright out that one wouldn’t have needed lighting to guide them around the property.

He shook his head. “I didn’t expect…wow.”

“In light of everything going on, I think we need a distraction.”