Laine breathed in the softness of rain-washed air, air that felt like silk, like slippery darkness layering the garden in mystery.
It brought up the image she used to try to expand her consciousness—a garden with wildness at its far end. She had never penetrated it. She let her eyes adjust, listening to the small night sounds of insects and rustling leaves, a far-off car horn and, somewhere across the river, a horse neighing.
It was good to be outside, especially with so many glittering crystal stars overhead. Plus, the moon was almost full.
The sight of it gave her a shiver, and she looked down before its brightness captured her eyes. She could see pretty well, and found herself drifting down a flagstone path toward some white flowers that glowed like miniature ghosts under the shrubs.
The fact that Innis wasn’t here shouldn’t be so annoying. He’d turn up when he wanted to, likely at the least convenient moment.
She bent to inhale the white flowers’ vanilla sweetness. No doubt her mother would know what they were, and if they were good for anything. Or possibly if they were poisonous. It’s surprising, Bethea had told her, how many deadly things wait in plain sight for you to take a nibble. The flowers bent toward her, their leaves arching forward like grasping hands. She pulled back, taking care to stay on the stone path.
Laine sensed movement before she heard or saw it. Her ears twitched. Someone was emerging from under the trees, looking like a moving shadow stepping out into the moonlight. Oh, God. The man from the dining room. Indignation and intense curiosity mingled, and she felt light-headed. It might be smart to zip back inside.
He stopped on the path a few feet away, and seemed to be trying for a pleasant demeanor. Laine kept her face blank.
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.” His voice was clipped, abrupt, his accent not like the locals she’d heard, but a kind of smoky-peat mix of Scotland and London. He was definitely a few octane levels above the guys she was used to.
“You didn’t startle me. It’s just—” Just what, exactly? Just that she should turn on her heel and march back inside, not stand under the moon looking at his mouth? “I didn’t expect anyone else to be out here,” she finished lamely.
He had his hands in his pockets, perhaps to try to soften a threatening image. In the hotel, he’d looked thin, too tall for his weight, but now she could see he had a taut, sinewy strength.
“I suppose I caused a scene in there.” His voice didn’t sound very contrite, and she narrowed her eyes. What will you say now to convince me of your pure heart? She waited, and he continued, “I’m trying to sort something out, and I need information from these people.” These people. He looked back at her, coming up with a wry smile. “They are apparently immune to my charms.”
Laine bit her tongue. What charms? “It’s none of my business,” she said, beginning to walk away. Before she had taken two steps, his hand was on her arm, his fingers sliding down her bare skin to encircle her wrist and pull her toward him. She froze, feeling her heart kick into high gear. Don’t stand here like a ninny! Scream, push him away, something! But her voice stalled in her throat.
“A word of advice,” he said, not letting go. “Don’t wander alone around here, especially at night. I can tell by your accent that you’re a tourist, so you’d be unlikely to know, but there have been several attacks in the area. Young women like you.”
She jerked her arm away. “Next you’ll tell me that I’m perfectly safe with you.”
The man was like a thundercloud. Electric, dangerous. She’d have a hell of a fight if he decided to hurt her.
Without a trace of irony, he said, “You’re safe right now. I can’t guarantee tomorrow.”
Laine’s fear turned to anger. Was he trying to frighten her just for sport, just to show her what an ignorant newcomer she was? He could be lying. She’d find out from Mrs. Griffin just what was up. “Why don’t you go in and harass the staff?” she snapped. “They must be used to it.”
Again he smiled, a brief thinning of his lips that made her seethe with fury. He stepped back and spread his hands, bowing to her in mock courtliness. “Ah, but I’d much rather harass a beautiful woman.”
That comment was best ignored. He waited a beat, nodded and turned to go.
Then he turned back. “My name’s Arren Tyrell, by the way. Just in case you have the slightest interest in knowing it.”
Laine’s training kicked in before she could think of a saucy reply. “Laine Summerhill.” After a second’s thought, she added, “I’m waiting for my brother. He should be here any moment.” Perhaps he’d buy that and leave. My big nasty brother.
“Will you remember what I said, Miss Summerhill?”
“Of course I will.”
Apparently satisfied, he turned and vanished into the night.
Well, thought Laine, as her heart slowed to its normal pace, that certainly was odd.
Could he be the one attacking young women, simply afraid to try anything so close to the inn? Somehow she doubted it. It would have been easy for him to silence her and do what he liked, though she’d bet she could outrun him. At least with him lurking around in the bushes, the regular rapists would have to take the night off.
She rubbed her wrist where he’d held her, feeling an electric tingle, as if he’d been full of whatever it was that storm clouds are made of. Charged air looking for release, lightning setting fire to the helpless earth.
She didn’t think of herself as helpless.
Where am I? she wondered, as the electric tingle faded. Geographically, temporally, spiritually? Though it looked like a respectable, middle-class lodging in cozy old England, this building and its land were different: they were alive with the cold fire of the moon and stars, throbbing with magic as if ancient blood ran through it all, as if the crazy lawn were made of thick, green fur; as if under it lay the beating heart of an animal. She could feel it, like the movement of her own blood.
And under that lay a silver net of power, borne by water deep underground, catching energy as a fisherman’s net catches fish.
She searched her heart for fear and found wild exhilaration instead. But . . . it would be stupid to prowl around in the middle of the night all by herself. What if there really was an attacker on the loose?
Laine was reluctantly heading back inside when she heard a voice.
Innis’s voice. She was sure of it.
Right down the path that led under gnarled old fruit trees toward the stable area. What on earth was he doing down there? He’d never been interested in horses. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it was his voice, sounding older and deeper than the last time she’d heard it. Someone else was there too, laughing.
“Innis?” Treading carefully on the stone path and steps, she headed down. “Innis, is that you?” Her hand brushed a plant, which whipped back on its stem as if startled, showering dozens of petals in a spiral spray. She heard herself give a small shriek and watched as the petals flipped in crazed circles on the stones, like fish glittering in the moonlight.
She heard laughter again and stilled herself, listening hard. Oh, let it be the horses again . . .
“Innis!” It was probably just stable hands, or the horses’ owners. Horses did not laugh.
The petals had stopped moving. She stepped over them and brushed a tickle away from her neck. It returned annoyingly. Her hair was swirling very slowly around her neck, gently, tighter and tighter. The long, brown strands knit themselves like fingers stealthily getting ready to strangle her.
Circles. The moon circling, her hair obeying, grass and petals performing their own tiny orbits.
She pulled her hair back and, fingers shaking and clumsy, dug in a pocket for a hair-tie and wound her hair into a tight knot.
The night air burned cold on her skin. Hardly daring to blink, she crept forward, her toes in her sneakers feeling for the steps. The moon didn’t help at all. Shining slashes of pale light made it hard to focus, and squeaks and rustlings in the bushes made her heart leap and tremble. She longed intensely for Innis at her side right now. Innis believed in aliens, ghosts, vampires: any kind of magic. He was there for it, and he’d be there for her, teasing courage into her heart.
The sounds from below had stopped.
Perhaps she’d only imagined his voice. Go back, you idiot.
But now she was at the stable, smelling the familiar warm odor of horse and hay and manure, almost as intoxicating as the flowers. Fear retreated, pushed aside by memories of happy hours spent hanging around horses and mucking out stalls for a chance to ride.
There was no light, and no one seemed to be around. You’d think there would be a motion sensor to trigger lights. She stood still, listening hard. Damn. Either she’d been fooled by her own imagination, or whoever it was had left.
The stable loomed over her, big enough to hold a dozen horses and their feed and tack. She groped along the wall to the wide double door, which stood open, though a large metal padlock dangled open from its clasp. As she examined the lock, she saw it gleam briefly copper, then blacken into iron. Holding it made her fingers throb with cold as if it were made of ice. The damned thing was as magical as the guardian grass.
She let it go and looked into the stable; a central walkway divided two rows of roomy box stalls. Enough moonlight filtered in through skylights to see by. She stepped inside, her careful feet making nothing more than a soft shuffling on the concrete floor. The sweet scent of bran mash enticed her like candy. All the stalls she looked into were empty, their doors open to show straw bedding, dribbles of spilled grain, buckets of water held by brackets at easy drinking height for a horse.
Disappointed, she turned to leave, but then she heard a whicker and the rustle of straw. There was one animal here, in the farthest stall. She could see the gleam of its large, liquid eyes and the white blaze on its nose as the horse thrust its head between the iron bars that formed the door’s top half. When it saw her, the animal went mad.
Rearing and whinnying, it began to beat frantically with its hooves at the stall door, bucking and kicking. Laine stepped back, murmuring, “Easy . . . easy . . . I’m not going to touch you . . . ” She retreated, hoping the horse would calm down when it could no longer see or smell her.
Instead, the creature began to squeal and moan, and its kicking became more violent. Laine looked back, aghast, then ran for the flagstone path.
“I’m sorry, horse—I didn’t mean to scare you,” she panted as she warded off low-hung branches that slashed at her face.
Then someone grabbed her around the shoulders. She let out a yelp and began to struggle.
“Stop! Hold on!” It was a woman’s voice.
Laine dug in her heels and whirled around, pushing hard against thin, muscular arms.
The woman let go and dodged back, eyeing her suspiciously. Laine could see a pale face, long dark hair, loose clothing. “What are you doing here?” the woman demanded. She must have been running, for Laine could hear her panting.
“Nothing.” Laine, feeling truculent and uncooperative—and guilty—tried to dodge past her. But the woman moved sideways to block her way.
“Not so fast. What’s your name? You’re not from around here.”
“I’m staying at the inn, and I’ll tell you my name if you’ll tell me yours. We’re both out here in the middle of the night.”
“But I belong here,” stated the woman, not unkindly. She frowned at Laine and crossed her arms. “We’ve had some trouble. Vandals. Kids trying to spook the horses.”
Laine felt herself shrink. She’d certainly spooked the horse, but not on purpose. The animal was still kicking and pounding at the heavy wood stall door. “I thought I heard my brother down here,” she explained. “I thought I heard his voice. That horse—is it yours?”
The woman backed away a step or two, not taking her eyes off Laine, and Laine saw that her feet were bare. She looked like some kind of ninja warrior. “She’s new,” she said after a pause. “Very young, just brought in from up north. It’s taking a while for her to settle in. To see a stranger in the middle of the night—”
“I didn’t mean to frighten her.”
The woman finally appeared to judge Laine harmless. Laine tried to reinforce the impression by gazing guilelessly into her face. She’d been snooping around looking for magic horse creatures, truth be told, but why mention that now?
“My name’s Petra,” the woman said. “I board a couple of horses here.” She looked straight at Laine, as if daring her to question this statement.
Tension radiated from Petra. Laine could hear the horse in the stable behind her, panting harshly but no longer fighting. “I’m Laine. I’m visiting from Canada.” Laine, longing to know more, wondered if she could get Petra to chat a while. “Perhaps you’ve met my brother, Innis?”
No reaction.
Laine ventured, “So, where are all the animals?” She gestured at the stable. “Don’t tell me everyone goes riding in the middle of the night?”
Petra took another step back and raised her head as if sniffing the air. Her shadowed eyes contemplated Laine and her innocent query.
“There’s a show going on in the next county. Many of the horses are competing in it.”
“I see.” This sounded bogus to Laine, but she thought better of asking further questions.
Petra stepped aside to let Laine pass. She looked back to see the woman enter the stable, presumably to soothe the filly.
The moon had wheeled behind the trees, and the light was uncertain. She passed through the empty garden, thinking about the enigmatic Arren Tyrell.
She had an intense desire for him to appear again, to stride up to her and take her by the shoulders like Petra had done, pull her hard against his chest and tell her all his secrets. She was certain he had a lot of them.