Secrets of the Highwayman (21 page)

“You don’t have to meet him if you don’t want
to.” Melanie was leaning her cheek against the cold glass of her bedroom window. “You can stay away until he goes. This will just be a preliminary look through the house, so it shouldn’t take long.”

Nathaniel sat in the chair, his legs stretched out in front of him, staring at his boots. As soon as they’d returned to the house, Suzie had told them about the phone call, and then dragged Eddie off to his cottage to give them time together.

That was a joke. Melanie was standing as far away from him as she possibly could, and she could still feel the power zapping between them like some electrical connection gone crazy.

“I’d like to meet him,” Nathaniel said, showing his teeth in what was meant to be a smile.

“No, you’d be sure to say something to piss him off. I need him. I know what he wrote was horrible and
wrong, but I don’t want him here for his writing skills. I have a job to do, remember?”

“How could I forget?”

Melanie sighed. “I’m sorry. I know this is difficult for you.”

Nathaniel uncurled himself from the chair. “I can’t help wondering what things would be like, now, if Pengorren had never come to Ravenswood. Would the house still be full of my family? A living, breathing home instead of this dusty monument.”

“We’ll find him, Nathaniel. We’ll stop him. You can go back in time and make everything right.”

“But I won’t have you,” he said softly. “Will I?”

“If you’d seen what I’ve seen, you’d thank God for that!” she burst out, and moved toward the door. But as she passed, he caught her hand to stop her, pulling her off-balance. She tumbled onto his lap. It felt like a physical and emotional earthquake erupted between them. Disoriented, hurting, she couldn’t breathe.

“Dear God…” Nathaniel gave an agonized groan.

Melanie struggled, trying to get up, to push herself away from him, but everywhere she touched his skin was warm, and she wanted to kiss him, lick him, suck him. “This isn’t right,” she protested huskily.

He wrapped his arms around her, the air fizzing and sparking. She lifted her face to his. The desire between them was so powerful there was no fighting it even if they’d wanted to. His mouth came down on hers, and they kissed mindlessly, wanting only the pleasure of their bodies touching and moving together.

She felt carnal, completely wild, and Nathaniel
seemed more than willing to accommodate her. She dragged at her clothing, pulling and kicking her shorts and panties down her bare legs, and ripping her top as she tugged it off. The clip on her bra wouldn’t undo, so she forced it open. Naked, she threw herself against him, dragging his ruffled shirt up over his stomach and chest, planting openmouthed kisses against his warm, salty skin.

He leaned back in the chair, letting her have her way. She fastened on his nipples, tugging them with her teeth, only just stopping herself from biting him. Because she wanted to draw blood. It seemed important to taste his blood.

Fighting her own need, trembling with the effort, she clasped his face between her hands, pressing kisses to his mouth and his jaw. She could feel his erection through his trousers and straddled him as best she could in the confined space, fitting herself to him.

His eyes sprang opened, blurred with passion, and he lifted her, stumbling, and fell onto the bed with her in his arms. Instantly Melanie tried to climb on top of him, wanting him inside her, her nails raking him. But he pushed her off, back onto the mattress, holding her there with one hand on her midriff while with the other he fumbled to unbutton his trousers. His bootheel was caught in the covers, and he cursed, letting her go so that he could free himself.

While he was distracted she launched herself at him again. She felt so strong, so primitive. A sleek, wild animal. She began to lick at him, her hands sliding down his hard stomach, under the cloth of his trousers. He
jerked when her fingers closed on him and groaned when she squeezed, just enough. He was looking up at her, dazed, a forest creature caught in the snare and unable to help itself. Not wanting to help itself.

Melanie smiled into his eyes and then with a snarl she bit him, hard, just below his collarbone.

Blood filled her mouth. And it tasted good. At the same time she felt her own blood singing and her body shaking with the power surging through her.

At first she didn’t feel the pain and then her head jerked up, and she realized he’d taken a hank of her hair in his fist. He wrenched again, dragging her mouth away from his shoulder. He was hurting her, but she didn’t care. There was power in making him do this, Nathaniel who had never voluntarily caused her pain. She smiled into his face, enjoying his hard, angry expression and the glitter in his eyes.

“Say it,” she ordered him, her voice deeper and huskier than it had ever been. “Say you want me.”

Confusion flickered in his eyes.

At the same time, deep inside, Melanie knew this wasn’t right. Love wasn’t meant to be like this. But she couldn’t help it. She’d lost the ability to control herself, and if Nathaniel lost it too…She struggled to escape the dark emotions fighting for dominance inside her, but they were taking her over.

“End it,” she growled. “You have to end it, now!”

“Melanie?” he said, but he knew what she meant. She could see it in his face.

He flipped her over onto her front on the mattress. He was so strong, and she reveled in his strength, in the
possibility of violence. Because power and violence fed whatever was growing inside her, that part of her she knew wasn’t mortal. Pengorren’s legacy.

He was behind her, holding her down as she snarled and fought, her nails crooked like claws. She wanted to hurt him. And then the hard length of him was pressing against her, seeking entry. Blindly she lifted her hips to give him access, barely able to breathe because he was pushing her face against the mattress. He thrust in, almost brutally, except that she was so ready for him that he couldn’t have hurt her. She heard his groan as he went deep, sheathing himself in her slippery heat.

She could lift her head. He was gripping her thighs now, holding her in place while he thrust into her. She clutched the covers with her fingers, pushing back at him with her hips. Mindless with a pleasure beyond anything she had ever known. All she could do was go with it. And then she came.

Her shouts were half-delirious, foul things she had only ever said before in anger.

Vaguely she felt him thrusting harder, faster, and she was peaking again, and then all coherent thought was lost in the explosion of ecstasy that ignited between them. Nathaniel collapsed on top of her. He was heavy, but there was something comforting in having him there. A moment later he was easing himself to one side and then he reached out an arm and dragged her limp body in safely against his.

She curled up in his arms, her pounding heart gradually returning to normal, the colored lights inside her head slowly extinguishing. She felt his warm breath
on her hair and the rise and fall of his chest against her back. He kissed her nape, tenderly. The violence was gone, just like the storm, leaving them to wallow in peace.

But Melanie knew it was an illusion. The storm would be back again, and next time they might not survive it. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. And then she tasted his blood in his mouth and could have wept.

“I’m frightened,” she whispered. “I hurt you. Just like Pengorren hurt his women.”

“I’ve had worse things done to me.”

“Nathaniel, if I ever—”

But perhaps he knew what she was going to say, because he leaned forward and caught her earlobe between his teeth and nipped it, so gently. “There,” he whispered, “now we’re even.”

“No, we’re not.”

“I love you,” he said into her hair.

She gave a shaky chuckle. “It’s the glamour, stupid.”

He kissed her again. “Probably.”

If things got worse, she vowed, she wouldn’t stay here with him. She wouldn’t risk doing to him what Pengorren had done to the women who loved him. She’d go away. Maybe she’d stand on the half-moon beach and let the tide come in and take her out to sea.

Nathaniel lay and listened to her breathing growing soft and relaxed; everything that Melanie wasn’t when she was awake. His shoulder ached where she’d bitten him, but he didn’t move to check it. He didn’t want to wake her, and it was true what he’d said, he’d had worse.

He wished he knew what was going to happen to them. A slow anger was burning in him at the unfairness of it all. To find the woman you love and want to spend your life with, and at the same time to doubt every sweet moment of it. That Pengorren was gradually destroying them both for his own ends, turning their love into something dark and evil, driven by pain and suffering.

At least they now knew that Pengorren was living in this time. He was old and weak, and he needed Melanie to stay alive. He was vulnerable.

Nathaniel pressed his face to her hair, breathing in her scent.

“I’m going to find him,” he murmured, “and I’m going to do what I should have done last time.”

He closed his eyes.

“Kill him.”

Melanie stood on the cliffs below Ravenswood. Through the storm she could see it. A ship, rolling sickeningly in a heavy swell. What remained of the rigging was tangled about her, and the hull was tilted at an impossible angle. This was a disaster, and everyone on board must know it.

The ship wallowed in the breaking waves and then she began to list to one side. All the time she was being battered by the storm and pounded against the rocks. There were voices, rising above the wind and rain, the voices she’d heard before.

Help us!

“Oh God…”

The ship was on the rocks! People…people were
drowning. And she couldn’t do a thing about it.

Against her will, but needing to see, Melanie crept farther toward the cliff edge. The cold rain struck her face, and she had the mad urge to dive into the water and swim out and save at least some of them. Even though, deep in her heart, she knew they were already dead and what she was seeing was just a replaying of something that had happened who knew how many years before.

She stood and watched the old sailing ship rolling helplessly, already breaking up beneath the pounding she was getting, and the people running on the deck, slipping and falling, flailing in the water. They were drowning. Dying.

As she stared in horror at the scene before her, Melanie realized she could see their souls rising from their bodies. White and misty, like columns of smoke, they wafted upward. There were so many of them, they joined together until it was like a fog, growing thicker, until it all but obscured the scene of the tragedy.

The air crackled and zapped. She could feel the power, as if there was an electrical charge surrounding her. It was the same feeling she had when she touched Nathaniel. Her body began to grow stronger, taking in all the life essences around her. It was like being reborn, like being made young and strong again, only more so. She was a goddess, drinking in their souls. Or some sort of vampire.

Sickened, she spun away. She did not want this, she did not want to think she was capable of such a thing.

And that was when she saw Pengorren.

He was standing very still on the clifftop where the steps led down to the beach, watching the death and destruction taking place before him. And he was smiling. Because this was what he wanted. He had probably caused it to happen! A lantern burning in the wrong place, the warm light shining through the wind and rain and enticing the desperate ship onto the reef.

Melanie knew as if he’d told her that he wanted those people to die. More than that, he
needed
them to die, so that he could remain strong.

So that he could continue to live forever.

Just then he turned and saw her. His face changed, twisted into a mask of hatred. He came at her through the lashing rain, his eyes like burning lights.

“You!” he shouted against the storm, and reached for her.

At once Melanie felt herself spinning through the air, leaving the cliffs behind, until there was only sky all around her. A sweet young face filled her vision, framed by auburn hair, and with eyes so blue they hurt.

“Your Majesty?”

“Melanie, look. Look at what I’m showing you.” The queen of the between-worlds waved an arm that was covered in feathers. Melanie could see a room, and in it was Pengorren. He was holding a silver locket in his hands and as she watched he opened it. There was a miniature inside, but he pulled it out and set it aside, and she could see something else in the case. A gold disk with strange writing all over it. Suddenly the room vanished.

“See?” the queen said, and when Melanie turned to
her she saw that her face was narrowing and a beak was forming and her eyes had become those of a predatory bird. “He has the time-traveling key. It belongs to me. He stole it from me long ago. You must get it back for me, Melanie.”

“How—?”

But the eagle flapped it wings and rose above her, hovering on an air current. “Get me the key,” it shrieked, “and I will give you what it is you wish for.”

She watched it fly away, and then she was falling through the sky, the ground rising up to meet her.

“Melanie.”

She was dreaming, muttering and twisting, as if something had her in its clutches. Whatever the dream was about she wasn’t enjoying it. Pengorren again? Had he drawn her back into the past with him?

Suddenly afraid, Nathaniel sat up and shook her hard. “Melanie!”

She screamed.

Shocked, he pulled her into his arms, holding her, rocking her. She wasn’t crying, but every now and then a shudder would run through her body, as if she had a high fever, although when he felt her skin it was cold.

At last she drew a shaky breath and reached up to touch the wound on his shoulder, her fingers very gentle. “I need to bandage this,” she whispered.