Forget Me When the Sun Goes Down (Forged Bloodlines Book 11) (3 page)

“Now that’s a fine thing then,” Rob declared with a smile.  “Congratulations to the both of you.  I wish you every happiness.”

“Thanks ever so much,” Carys beamed, her hand dangling so we could all see the ring. 

“Yes, congratulations,” I added, offering my own two cents.  I might not care for the girl, but they did look happy together.  Maybe she wasn’t always such a snooty b.i.t.c.h.?

“Thanks,” Ulrik said with a tight smile, looking a touch stunned at the rapid turn of events, and I could relate.  I wasn’t sure what I did or didn’t feel for my husband yet either.

“I’d say we break open a bottle or two to celebrate, but I’m afraid it don’t change the fact that we’re still trapped here.  Wherever here is,” Rob pointed out.  “Hows about we split up and take a look at this place in more detail?  Anyone finds an open door or even a window give a shout out, yeah?”

“That sounds like a plan,” Ulrik nodded in agreement.  “Only keep an eye out.  There’s no telling who or what else we might find in a place like this.” 

“Okay,” I nodded.  “I think the kitchen’s through there.  Let’s see if there’s another phone jack in there that might work,” I suggested.

“I mean it, you two.  Stay together, and don’t try anything foolhardy.”

“It’s okay, we got this,” I promised, my voice dropping to a whisper as soon as Ulrik and Carys moved away to the opposite end of the room.  “Boy, he sure is bossy.”

“Too right,” Rob muttered, leading the way. 

“I mean, what does he expect us to do?  Split up and go traipsing through darkened corridors in our underwear?  This isn’t some cheesy horror movie.” 

“I hadn’t planned to leave your side, though I wouldn’t mind seeing you in your unmentionables.”  Rob’s lips twitched into the faintest smile, and I bit back a laugh, not wanting the others to think we weren’t taking things seriously.

“Well, you never can tell.  If we can’t bust our way out of here, you might be seeing them sooner than later.”

“The things you say...”

All at once I wasn’t standing in the hallway to the kitchen at all.  I was in the same room I’d seen before in that brief memory, when I’d seen him give me my ring. 

I leaned forward, brushing my lips against the corner of his mouth.  Rob startled, his eyes flying open, but he didn’t pull away.  We stared at each other, neither of us so much as breathing, and then he closed the distance between us, his lips covering mine.  His kiss was slow and thorough, as though we had all the time in the world, but it packed no less heat than the fervent kiss in the rain.  That first kiss had taken me by surprise, and I was too shocked to do much more than react, but this kiss…  It wasn’t just a kiss… it felt like… like the way a song moves you, that’s the only way I can describe it. 

Emotion swelled with every brush of his lips and rasp of his cheek.  I breathed in the heat of him, stealing his breath and it warmed me to the core.  With each slow, drugging kiss, I was bound tighter and tighter to him, and all I knew was, I wanted more.  He felt it too, I knew he did.  Not just from the way his heart quickened every time I touched him, or the way his breath hitched in time to mine, but I felt it deep in my bones, the way an old man knows the certainty of a coming storm.

“You alright, luv?” Rob stared at me with concern when I blinked and found myself back in the present.

“Yes, I... I think I remembered our second kiss.” 

“Oh?”

“It was a super good one too,” I admitted, taking in a shaky breath, still feeling the heat of it.

“Tell me about it.  Might could jog something loose in my brain as well.”  His eyes dipped to my lips, and the hallway suddenly felt very intimate in the faint light. 

“Well... it was slow at first, like I wasn’t sure what you’d do when I kissed you.”

“Can’t imagine I’d react unkindly to such a thing,” he remarked, drifting closer, and I moistened my lips.

“But then you kissed me back, and the way you held me, was like you never wanted to let me go.”

“That sounds about right to me,” he nodded, his eyes fixed on my lips.  “Keep going.  What about you?  What did you want?”

My back came up against the wall as he leaned in, not quite touching me anywhere, but I could almost feel him there, the air crackling with energy between us.  “I wanted you,” I answered simply, my voice dropping to match his low tone. 

“And what do you want now?” he pressed, his hands landing on either side of me, trapping me against the wall with his body. 

What did I want?  What a loaded question.  I remembered clearly how much I wanted him, how deeply it touched me, how much more it was than a simple kiss.  But what did I feel now?  I drew in a breath, taking in his scent of bay rum aftershave and the faint hint of cigarettes, and it felt so familiar I wanted to cry. 

I didn’t know him, but I
wanted
to.  

“I...”

“Hey, over here!” Ulrik called out from the other room, and our heads both swiveled in that direction.  “I found another one.”

Rob let go of me, and we scooted back to the great room in time to see Ulrik carrying a girl, her body limp and unresponsive.  He laid her on the ground by the fireplace and brushed the hair away from her face.  She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a pale pink sweater, her straight blonde hair reaching well below her shoulders.  Her features were close enough to Carys’ and mine that we could’ve all been sisters, but I didn’t recognize her either. 

“Looks like she was bleeding from the ears at some point,” Ulrik reported, pushing the hair behind her ears.

I leaned in to take a closer look, spotting the crusted blood.  “Ick, poor thing.  I wonder what happened to her?”

“Is she...” Rob dropped to his knees beside her, his face pinched with worry as he laid his hand across her forehead.  “Where did you find her?”

Ulrik jerked a thumb over his shoulder.  “Over there by the wall, she was mostly covered by the drapes behind that chair.  I almost missed her entirely, but I spotted her foot.”

“She’s a witch!” Carys declared, pulling an oversized book out from the curtains.  “She must be the one who trapped us in here.  We should tie her up before she wakes.  Then we can force her to pay for her crimes!” she added hotly, blue eyes blazing with intensity.

“Well, she’s dead now, so I guess it doesn’t much matter,” Ulrik reported, setting back on his heels.  

“No... she can’t be dead,” Rob frowned, rubbing the inside of her wrist.  “She just wants a bit of time to wake up is all.”

“Rob, do you know her?” I asked, kneeling down beside him. 

“No, but... look at her, she’s just a bitty thing,” he frowned.  She did look all of five feet tall, I had to agree.  “She don’t deserve to die, witch or not.”

I reached out to touch her arm and found her cold as death itself – no pulse, no breath, no sense of any life in her at all.  But CPR had worked on Carys.  “It couldn’t hurt to try CPR on her.”

“That kissing game?” Carys scoffed.  “Like as not she wants to molest another female,” she added under her breath, still clutching the book to her chest, but I heard her just fine.  I ignored her, that seemed to be working out for me, so far she hadn’t contributed anything useful to our group beyond finding the spellbook. 

“She’s only trying to help,” Ulrik said softly to her before turning to me.  “Look, if she’s been out like this since we woke up, I doubt CPR is gonna do a thing for her, but you’re welcome to try.”

I knew he was right, but Rob looked so distressed, I asked his opinion too.  “Rob, what do you think?  Should we try CPR?”

He was still looking down at the girl, a puzzled look on his face.  “No, I reckon he’s right.  Whatever happened to her, I don’t think we can do anything to bring her back.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, twining my fingers through his as he rose to his feet.  “Do you think we should go through her pockets to see who she is?”

“Nah, don’t matter much now, do it?” Rob sighed, grabbing a throw blanket off of a chair to cover her.  She was petite enough that it covered her entirely.   

We all stood around staring down at her with varying degrees of sadness.  Though I felt no familiar pull toward her, it did make me sad to see someone so young die, witch or not, like Rob’d said.  Only Carys seemed wholly unaffected, paging through the book.

“Is it a spellbook?” Rob asked, looking over her shoulder. 

“I think so, but I can’t make heads nor tails of it,” she sighed in disappointment, tossing it negligently onto the nearest chair.

“Have a care, that might be our only way out of here,” Rob scowled, retrieving the book. 

“Fat lot of good it’ll do us if none of us can read it,” she retorted, but the rest of us took another look. 

The pages were weathered and stained, as if the book had been bound a long, long time ago, with flowers and herbs pressed between some of the pages, and occasionally, a lock of hair tied with ribbon.  I couldn’t read it either, though a word or two looked familiar. 

“Do either of you recognize the language?” I asked the men, and Rob shook his head.

“It’s all nonsense to me.”

“It’s old Norse,” Ulrik said, not quite ready to let it go yet.  “I can make out a word here or there, and I could probably sound them out well enough to read an incantation, but not well enough to figure out what spell to use to help us out.”

“Which leaves us exactly where we started, plus a dead body,” I sighed, setting the book carefully on the coffee table. 

“Our objective hasn’t changed then,” Ulrik said.  “We check out the rest of this place and see what else we can find.  There’s always a chance that one of these two will be able to read it,” he gestured to the two men who continued to sleep. 

“What are the odds of that?”  They didn’t seem good to me.

“No, he’s right,” Rob chimed in.  “It ain’t time to throw the towel in yet.  For all we know there’s a window we can climb out of, or the bloody chimney for that matter.  Let’s go check out the rest of the house, yeah?”  He held out his hand to me. 

“Sure,” I smiled, threading my fingers through his.  “Let’s go check it out.”

The kitchen didn’t turn up much other than some candles, which made the rest of the search easier as we got farther away from the fire in the great room. 

“You’d best let me go first,” Rob cautioned as we approached the bedroom at the end of the hall. 

“Why, what are you expecting to find in there?” I whispered, holding tight to the candle. 

“Don’t know, that’s the point.  But if there’s to be any danger, I should be the one stepping into it first.”

“My hero,” I grinned, and he gifted me with one of his half smiles.

“Danger is my middle name.  Or it could be Wallace,” he added with a shrug before stepping into the room.  I followed, bringing the light, figuring that if someone was hiding inside, Rob would want the light to see his opponent.  But nothing leapt out to meet us.  Instead, we found a nice sized bedroom, decorated in the same rustic style of the great room, with a large bed dominating the decor. 

The windows over the bed were shuttered closed as well, but a tiny strip of night sky was visible overhead where they weren’t a perfect fit.  “Mr. Buns,” I grinned, scooping up a stuffed bunny rabbit, his ears flopping as I hugged him close.  Rob fixed me with a raised brow, and I shrugged.  “What?  That’s his name.  I guess this must be my room.”

“Our room,” he amended, nudging a masculine looking pair of boots in the corner of the room with his toe. 

My bag was on the low dresser opposite the bed.  At least, I assumed it was my bag.  I couldn’t fault the owner’s choice of clothes, in any case.  My favorite was a t-shirt with the Doctor and Rose recreating The Kiss on V-J day.  Yep, I was pretty sure it was my stuff, since I couldn’t picture Carys being caught dead in a Boba Fett t-shirt either. 

“Right then, let’s see what we can see,” Rob said, rubbing his hands together before hopping up on the bed to reach for the windows.  Unfortunately, the windows in the bedroom were just as barricaded as the ones in the living room, no matter where he tried them.  “Bloody hell, we’ll be trapped here for all eternity,” he growled, punching his fist into the center of the barrier, which crackled in a shower of blue sparks, but held firm.

I flinched at the display of temper, another memory striking me in that exact moment. 

Rob’s fist smashed into the bedside table, obliterating the alarm clock.  “Bloody fucking hell!  Can’t a bloke get a moment’s peace?”

I froze at the violent outburst, my heart leaping into my throat.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”  I started to say, but he didn’t want to hear it.

“I don’t want to have a fucking heart to heart, alls I want is some peace and bloody quiet.  Is that too much to fucking ask?”  His face contorting with rage, he picked up the lamp and hurled it with impressive force at the bathroom door, where it smashed to smithereens.   

“Rob,” I breathed, words failing me in the face of the second outburst in as many minutes.  But he was gone in the next instant, stomping heavily into his old room to slam the door hard enough to rattle the pictures on the walls.

I froze in place, stunned by the violent memory.  I had no context, no way of knowing if this was a usual occurrence between the two of us or not, but from his current outburst, it didn’t look good.

Rob noticed me standing there staring at him, my arms drawn in tight.  “What?”

“Nothing, I had a flash of memory there.”  I wasn’t sure I wanted to get into it.  What would be the point?  We didn’t have all the facts.  All I knew was, I wasn’t as at ease with him as I’d been in the kitchen hallway, not anymore. 

“Sounds like a bad one from the looks of it,” he frowned, hopping off the bed.

“You were just really angry.”

“Me?”  His brows rose in surprise.  “I didn’t... I didn’t hurt you, did I?”  Now he looked scared.

“No,” I answered quickly, relieved that he seemed mortified at the idea.  “At least, I don’t think so.”  I had the feeling that had been the end of that argument, but what if it wasn’t?  What if I’d chased after him and he
had
turned that temper against me?

His thoughts seemed to mirror my own.  “I would never hurt you,” he said, his brows drawn together in concern.  “Not for any reason.”

“I know,” I said instinctively, and I hoped it was true.  “Let’s keep looking around, okay?”

“Anja...”  The misery hadn’t faded from his expression.

“What?”

“That there by the window was frustration is all, it wasn’t aimed at you in the slightest.”

“I know.  It just triggered that memory, and...” 

He reached for my arms, his movements slow in case I wanted to pull away before his hands lightly skimmed over my skin.  “I’m sorry for what I done.  Whatever it was, I promise I’ll keep a lid on my temper from now on.  I know that can’t excuse what happened in the past, but I’ll make better choices now.  Alls I need is a chance.”

“Hey, we don’t know anything about the circumstances.  I’m sure I’m blowing it way out of proportion.”

“I’m still sorry. As long as it was me put that look on your face, I’m sorry.”

Whatever had happened between us in the past, I knew what I saw in his eyes now, and there was nothing but tenderness and love.  “It’s okay.  Let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill.  We’re all frustrated with being trapped in here, I can understand you losing your cool.  Let’s just keep looking around.”

Rob accepted that, but he didn’t let me go.  “I remember something about you too, you know.”

“You do?”  It stood to reason, I’d had a few flashbacks already.  “What was it?”

“I remember you claiming me as your own, shouting it for any who cared to listen.  I mean to be worthy of your love, at all costs.  I swear it.”

I pulled away but only got two steps before he caught my wrist and pulled me back.  Rob brushed the hair away from my face, cupping my chin as he drew me near.  His words were soft, but no less powerful than my noisy declaration.  “I lay claim to this woman, my life for hers.” 

I don’t know who kissed who first, I only know that we stood on the side of the road, the wind whipping my skirt and hair into a tangled mess but I didn’t care.  All I cared about was the man in my arms.  It wasn’t frenzied or sexual, but an admission of love so profound it transcended words and became music.  It swelled between us, my heart so full I couldn’t contain it all, and tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. 

His thumb brushed against the moisture gathered there when the kiss drew to a close.  “You alright?”

“Just happy.” 

“Silly chit,” he smiled with a shake of the head, pulling me into a tight hug, his body shielding me from the worst of the wind.  Not that either one of us was much bothered by the chill in the air.  It was a perfect moment in time. 

“You really love me,” I murmured, still bathed in the memory of his love.

“Do I now?”  Rob’s lips cocked into a half smile that made me laugh. 

“Well, I mean, you did.  I had a good memory, and we were crazy in love with each other.”

“Don’t seem too hard to imagine,” he smiled, his thumb reaching up to stroke the line of my jaw, and I leaned in to his touch. 

“I don’t have to imagine it, I felt it.  You claimed me right back.  It was only a couple of lines, but I felt it.  We belonged together.  And when we kissed, it was perfect.”

“You’re the perfect one,” he rumbled, hands framing my face as he leaned in close, moving slow, giving me plenty of time to pull away.  Only I didn’t want to pull away.  This man was my husband, and somewhere deep inside of me that love was buried.  I wanted to recapture that feeling out on the side of the road, with all of that hope and love focused on one man who made me deliriously happy. 

His lips closed over mine, the rasp of his stubble tickling as he expertly coaxed my response.  My lips parted, tongue sweeping out to tangle with his.  It felt right, familiar somehow; the taste of him, the feel of his hands clutching my shirt behind my back, the way my body molded to his as it’d done it a hundred times before.  Rob held me as if he never wanted to let me go, and in that moment, I didn’t want him to. 

The kiss came to a close, and I got another one of his half smiles.  “I reckon we should get to what we’re supposed to be doing in here, yeah?”

My eyes flicked to the bed.  Did he mean what I thought he meant?  Warm fuzzy memories aside, it wasn’t the  time or the place, nor was I ready for such a thing. “Um...” 

He cocked a single brow.  “I meant look around for something useful?  But if you’ve other ideas, by all means, I’m ready to entertain them.”

I’m sure my cheeks flushed bright red.  “No, looking is good.  The sooner we search the place, the sooner we get out of here,” I agreed, swallowing back my embarrassment.  “Should we move on to the next room then?”

“Let me have a quick look in my bag first,” he replied, picking up the duffel bag from his side of the bed.  Rooting around, he withdrew a gun from between a stack of clothes, checked the ammo, and stuck it in the back of his pants. 

“Ah...” I stared at him in shock.  Did he always carry a gun?  “What are you doing?  Is that a good idea?”

“It’s mine, ain’t it?” he replied without skipping a beat. 

“I guess so, but do you honestly think you need to be armed?”

Rob turned to face me, his voice lowering.  “Don’t any of us know each other from Adam.  Could be any one of them is responsible for locking us in here.  Alls I want is to be prepared.  You can understand that, can’t you?”

It
was
his gun, I supposed he knew how to safely handle it.  He’d certainly looked capable enough.

A stream of profanities sounded from deep in the house, definitely angry, and definitely male.  My first instinct was that Ulrik had gotten hurt, but it didn’t sound like him at all.  “Something tells me one of our friends is up.”