Chapter 12
Crazy Mary felt a chill. The icy sensation slithered along her spine, and she knew exactly what it meant. Trouble, most likely aimed at her. She frowned, and the uncomfortable pull of skin served as a grim reminder of the unsightly puckered scars that marred her face.
The light clink-clink-clink of spurs and the distinct tapping of boot heels on the wooden floorboards drew her attention to the approaching man.
He strode forward with purpose. The pearl-handled revolver rode low in a holster, lovingly clinging to his upper left thigh and declaring he meant business.
Licking her dry lips, she let her eyes roam upward from lean hips, over a trim, flat stomach and muscled chest, to broad shoulders straining the threads of his cotton shirt. She lingered long enough to release an appreciative sigh before continuing her visual journey.
God, what a face!
His was seemingly strong, but a full beard hid the lower half.
For all she knew, he could possess a weak chin, but somehow, she didn’t think so.
Intense amber eyes touched on her, locking on the jagged mark running from her left temple across the bridge of her nose, then shifting, likely to the one running from mid-eye to the right side of her mouth.
Disfiguring blows had created a permanent, gruesome half-smirk that mocked the world and invited fists, kicks, or hair-pulling.
But revenge was always hers. Tormentors always received a nasty electrical shock, which usually deterred anyone else smart enough not to risk a strike.
The dark-haired man crouched in front of her, one knee braced on the sawdust-covered floor. A wide, beaming smile transformed his features from worried to radiant. Joy bloomed across his face. A pure, soul-deep happiness, as if his heart found what it had lost.
Her own heart thumped in her chest, skipping a beat when he addressed her.
“Hello, sweetheart. You don’t know how long it’s taken me to find you.”
Mary jerked at the familiarity in his husky voice.
“Y-you know m-me?” she rasped, her words scratchy and broken. It was the first sentence she’d spoken in over six weeks. Until now, head gestures, grunts, and single-word responses were all she’d needed. No one cared to make conversation with a wounded bird.
He frowned. His eyes dropped to her scars again, and with a cautious hand, he traced their path.
She flinched, expecting the familiar zap her body utilized to defend her.
Instead, his touch flooded her with warmth, wrapping around her mind and coaxing it to remember.
Yet any knowledge of her previous life stayed stubbornly locked away, despite the stirring shadows and whispers of recognition.
It was as if her brain had woken to possibility.
His frown deepened. “I do. I—”
“Step away from her, mon ami.”
Mary’s blond Guardian didn’t look up from his poker hand, but the tension in his body gave him away. He didn’t need to move to make his presence threatening; his energy was far-reaching.
“I’m not your friend,” the newcomer snapped over his shoulder, not taking his gaze from her. “And she’s with me, so feel free to fuck all the way off.”
She sucked in a breath so hard she choked.
No one talked to Draven Masters that way. No one. Even the most foolish recognized his air of authority. But this man with his hardening features? Yeah, he couldn’t care less. If anything, he was furious Draven had the nerve to address him.
“Go,” she whispered. “Go… or he… kill… you.”
The stranger’s amber eyes were turbulent. “I’m not leaving you, Abbie.”
“Ab-bee?”
The scrape of chair legs signaled Draven’s rise. He loomed large and ominous as a funnel cloud. Yet the man with the beseeching expression ignored him, except to motion for him to wait.
“Look, it seems you’ve forgotten, but your name is Abigail Monroe. Your mother and I call you Abbie, and we’ve been so worried about you.”
Mary tried the name on for size, but it didn’t fit. Tears stung her good eye, and she blinked rapidly. “Not… familiar,” she whispered.
“It’s okay.” The stranger’s voice turned tender. It soothed, easing the panic threatening to overwhelm her. “It’s going to be all right. I promise.”
Before Draven could intervene, her hands acted of their own volition, sandwiching his face between her palms. “No shock… when touch?”
He grinned, and the love in his smile radiated to her toes. “Oh, I always feel a shock when you touch me, my dearest, but not in the way you mean.”
Heat rushed through her. After all this time, all the insults and slurs cast her way, she wouldn’t have believed she could be embarrassed. Yet here she was, blushing like a sixteen-year-old debutante at her first ball.
“Are we…? Did I…?” She was helpless to form the words and dropped her hands to her lap. “Never mind.”
“Yes. You’re mine, and I’m yours. And I’ve come a very long way to take you home.”
“Mary? Do you know this man, ma chère?” Draven’s question was gentle, but his eyes were granite-hard as they locked onto the stranger.
She wanted to say yes. Part of her encouraged the lie, but she shook her head in slow, heartbreaking denial.
The man’s brows clashed together. “You do, Abbie, and you need to come with me. There’s no time to lose.”
“She’s goin’ nowhere,” Draven declared. “Move out, now.”
The newcomer stood, and his hand dropped to the gun at his side. “I’m not telling you again. Back the fuck off. I’m taking her home.”
“Pausa!”
Everything around them froze at Draven’s snapped command. The world went still, motion suspended in time. Only Mary, Draven, the dark-haired stranger, and Jonas Thorne remained in motion.
Movement by the door drew her eye.
A man with white-blond hair—hair just like hers!—sauntered toward them.
“Far enough, fella,” Jonas said, sweeping his fan of cards closed and setting them neatly on the table.
The big blond grinned. “You must be Sheriff Thorne. Those sapphire eyes, the golden hair, and the blood-borne arrogance give you away.” He jerked his thumb toward the man still kneeling by Mary. “Wilder is, too, but he gets his coloring from his mother’s side.”
Jonas blinked, then stared hard at the man by Mary. “Thorne. Is it true?”
“Yes.”
“And a young Draven Masters,” the blond giant crowed as if delighted. “It’s certainly a mind fuck.”
Her Guardian scowled. “Are you claiming to know me?”
The weird electric tension grew too much, and Mary curled in on herself, pressing her forehead to her knees.
Go away. Go away. Go away, she chanted silently.
Fire built beneath her skin, rising until she worried she might combust, and as with every instance before, her wishes failed to carry her away. No escape. Only pain. With a choked sob, she tore at the silver bracelet encircling her wrist.
“Go away!” she screamed.
The gambler whom Castor called Draven swore as his pinky ring flared to life.
“She’s tryin’ to teleport!”
Wilder dropped beside Abigail and wrapped his arms around her.
“Abbie,” he whispered, his throat thick with emotion. “Abbie, you’re safe, sweetheart. I promise, you’re safe now.”
Seeing her curled in the corner of this godforsaken saloon had been a fucking head punch. But he’d used the few precious seconds before she looked up to school his expression. He hoped like hell she hadn’t seen his horror at finding her so broken.
The scars didn’t bother him other than to remind him of the pain she’d suffered.
Though why a Guardian and warlock with powers such as theirs hadn’t already found a way to restore her to full health was in question.
When Wilder got Abbie home, he intended to bring her to the Aether and bargain for his help.
But if those angry, disfiguring marks were now part of her, so be it. He’d love them, too. Abbie’s true beauty had always resided in her soul, anyway. Outside trappings didn’t matter in the entire scheme of things.
What absolutely shredded Wilder’s heart was her nonexistent memory and fragile mental state.
But he had hope.
She hadn’t shied away from him as Shadow mentioned she had with others. Hell, she’d touched him and searched his face, as if seeking the familiar. Her confusion wrecked him, bringing to light the terror she must’ve felt when she first landed in this time.
“I’m here, sweetheart. It’s me. Your Wild Man,” he crooned, using the name she’d always called him when he came back from a climb, scruffy, dirty, and in dire need of a shower. She’d never minded. Her smile, when she saw him, was always enough to melt stone.
“I’m sorry I took so long to find you,” he said achingly, rocking her gently, uncaring how long the Guardian could freeze the world. In the back of his mind, he was vaguely aware Draven had to be nearly as powerful as Castor to manage it.
Lifting his gaze, he met Jonas’s eyes. Wilder was counting on their familial relationship. If his Thorne code of “family first” was as strong here as in the present day, he might be able to aid in their return to the future. Without magical abilities, they were dead in the water.
Resting his cheek on her tangled mess of hair, he said, “Thank you for looking after her, Mr. Masters, but I’m taking her with me.”
“Non. Not gonna happen,” the gambler said, stepping forward. “La dame est mine.”
“She’s not chattel,” Wilder snapped, feeling feral and protective of his mate. “She doesn’t even know who she is, and she’s certainly not staying where she’s banished to a corner like a mongrel.”
A calculating light entered Master’s whiskey-colored eyes as he studied them.
“I swear to the Goddess, if you’ve taken advantage of her, you’re a fucking dead man,” Wilder promised him.
“Stand up,” Draven ordered.
“Go to hell.”
“Time’s about to reset,” Jonas warned, scanning the room. “If you’re not back where you were, there’ll be questions. Do it now, friend.”
Reluctantly, Wilder eased his arms from around Abbie, hesitating when she clutched at his sleeve. “I’m not leaving without you, sweetheart. I promise.”
She let go, still rocking and never once looking at him.
“Christ.”
“Yeah,” Jonas said grimly. “She’s actually better than she was. We’ve been trying to repair her mind.”
“You’ve done a piss-poor job of it,” Wilder muttered, resuming his original kneeling position in front of her. “Castor, you may want to step outside. You walked in after.”
“Right.”
As soon as he’d cleared the swinging doors, the world snapped back to rights with a crackling pop and a fizz. Not dissimilar to a firecracker. Abbie flinched, and Wilder rushed to comfort her.
“She’s beyond your help, Thorne,” Draven said, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder.
Wilder shrugged him off and reached for her anyway. Scooping her up, he met with no resistance. “Point me to a private room.”
“I’ll show you,” a sultry voice offered.
He shifted, meeting the single-eyed, curious stare of a redheaded woman.
“I don’t know you, but I’ll gladly place my trust in you if you have Abbie’s best interests in mind.”
“Abbie?” Her frown was fleeting, followed closely by a warm smile. “Yes, it’s much more fitting than Crazy Mary.”
The moniker, after finding Abbie in her current condition, made Wilder want to spit nails, but he nodded anyway. If the woman was offering them kindness, he’d take it and be grateful.
“I’m Roxanne. People ’round these parts call me Roxy, with the exception of Jonas, who prefers Red,” she said as she led him upstairs.
“Wilder Thorne,” he clipped out.
Her stride hitched but smoothed in an instant. Had he not been following her, he wouldn’t have noticed.
“Any relation to our illustrious sheriff?” she asked politely.
“Probably. His resemblance to my cousin Alastair is strong, though we haven’t had the pleasure of meeting before today.”
“Yes, well, he’s notoriously tight-lipped about his family.” She stopped before a numbered door. “This room is usually pay-by-night, but is empty at the moment. Tomorrow, you can settle up with the hotel manager.”
“The hotel is over the saloon?”
“The cheap rooms are. If you’re looking for fancy, you’ve a longer walk ahead of you.” She sailed over the threshold, straight to the window, and raised the sash. “But I don’t imagine Draven Masters will let you go that far with his prized pet.”
Wilder saw red, and not the businesswoman in front of him.
“Pet?”
“Your reaction speaks well of you, Wilder Thorne. Perhaps you’re what this unfortunate dove needs.”
“Dove makes her sound like a prostitute, and she’s not,” he retorted. Instantly, he regretted his attitude, realizing he sounded disparaging of her career choice. “Uh, not that there’s anything wrong with—”
His attempt at a course correction met with amused laughter.
“It’s fine. I understand exactly what you mean, honey.” Her response suggested she’d encountered other idiots who were forced to backpedal. “And no, she’s definitely not one of my girls. But I’m happy you’ll be relieving Jonas of his burden.”
Beneath her calm, an unnamed emotion lurked. Jealousy? But why?
“Jonas, he didn’t—”
“No. He didn’t. He’s one of the best men you’ll ever meet, honey,” she replied with what appeared to be a sentimental smile for the man.
“And a finer woman never lived,” the man in question stated from the doorway. The intense blue eyes locked on her spoke volumes. Sheriff Jonas Thorne considered Roxanne his mate. It remained to be seen if she returned the sentiment, though all signs pointed to yes.
“Thanks, Red,” Jonas said. “If you’ll have soap and water brought up, I’m sure our new friend here will be appreciative.”
“Yes, ma’am, I would,” Wilder agreed. “Is there another available room for Abbie’s father?”
“Father?” Roxanne nodded absently as if thinking to herself. “It explains the hair.”
“Yes, Alexander Castor.”
“You said her name was Monroe,” Draven said, entering on the heels of his comment. Suspicion weighed heavily in his voice. “Monroe and Castor aren’t close. What are you not tellin’ us?