Chapter 3
Marigold’s father had been Reginald Rollins, youngest son of the Patriarch.
Her mother had been from another magical family, the Fletchers.
Abigail Fletcher had fallen in love with Reggie when they were both in school together, being trained to use their mid-level mage powers.
They’d both been sent off to a foster family who ran a mage school, and being away from their parents had allowed them to bond as two souls, meant for each other.
Neither family had been happy to discover the alliance.
The Fletchers were an old and moneyed magical family that didn’t overtly cross the line into the dark arts.
The Rollinses, on the other hand, were infamous for the dark mages that sprang from the bloodline.
Worst among them had been Reggie’s father, Jeremiah.
He’d become the Patriarch of the family by killing his own siblings who wouldn’t play along, and he’d led the entire family down a very dark path.
When Marigold heard that Jeremiah had been killed in the action at the estate, she wanted to laugh with joy, no matter how sinister that might seem.
Jeremiah had been the one to destroy her parents.
He’d been the one to imprison her, and mold her power, and shape her tortured psyche, for his own use.
Other members of the family might be the ones directly responsible for her day-to-day existence, but she knew at the heart of it all was Jeremiah.
He was the one giving the orders. He was the one making decisions that affected her existence in every possible way.
She hated him. Her own grandfather and she detested his very existence.
To find out he had died, and his plan to summon untold number of demons had failed utterly, brought Marigold intense satisfaction.
Someone had finally stopped him. She was grateful to whoever had done it, and though she might never be able to repay it, she owed them a debt.
More hope. That’s what she had on hearing that her grandfather had finally been defeated.
More hope that there were forces out there who could stand against the darkness.
Her parents hadn’t been strong enough. Not on their own.
But there were those out there, she now knew without a doubt, who could stand up to Jeremiah and those like him, and bring Light into the darkness.
It was her greatest wish that she might somehow find these people and help them in whatever way she could before she ceased to exist. For a long time now, she had known her days were numbered among the Rollins family.
Jeremiah had been gearing up to some great magic workings that would drain her dry and leave her an empty shell, if she survived at all.
Marigold had truly believed that the day of the demon summoning might’ve been her last on Earth.
She had heard Jeremiah’s plans. She knew that he intended to use every mage in the family to the last of their own strength, then they would use hers.
Use it, abuse it, dry it up and exhaust it utterly.
He’d wanted to prove himself to his Venifucus allies, and to do that, he had to do something really big.
If he lost her as an asset in the process, he wouldn’t have cared.
As long as he got what he wanted, which was to move up in the ranks of the Venifucus.
The evil bastard. He had imprisoned and tortured his own granddaughter for years, stealing her power.
Jeremiah didn’t love anybody but himself.
He might talk a good game about family and sticking together, but none of it was true.
She had studied psychology in her self-directed university program.
She knew what a psychopath was. She could see first-hand what narcissism did.
And sociopathy. Examples were all around her in the Rollins family.
Aunt Petty had taken Marigold to one of the many family mansions scattered around the Houston area.
Most of them had secure rooms that Marigold was well acquainted with.
They weren’t dungeons, per se, but close enough for the modern era.
At least they had television and Wi-Fi, though Marigold’s ability to communicate with the outside world was severely limited.
However, she could access data pretty freely.
The family didn’t want a nincompoop among its number, and there wasn’t much else for her to entertain herself with.
Marigold was lucky, in a way, that she loved to read and learn.
“Get in there and don’t cause any trouble,” Aunt Petty had said, jerking Marigold by the arm and shoving her into one of the secured rooms in her own home.
Marigold didn’t fight. Didn’t object. She knew better than to put up a fuss. Petunia in a rage was a scary thing to behold, and she was damn close to it right now. Marigold’s best bet was to get away from her aunt and wait until things settled down.
She really wanted to know the full extent of the failure at the estate today, but she had very little access to that kind of information. Still, she fired up the computer in the room and searched for what little she could find about disturbances in the Houston area earlier that day.
What Marigold really wanted to do was next to impossible. While the family was in such disarray, she knew it was her best chance to get free of them. She wanted to run away, but she’d been locked in. Again.
If she’d had control over her own mage power, there would have been no lock in the universe that could hold her.
But she had never been trained, and her power had been locked away by trauma, only surfacing when under duress.
After that, it had been utterly controlled by the mages around her.
They had locked her power down so tight that she couldn’t even test a ward by herself.
Of course, there were other ways, and she wasn’t sure if Aunt Petty had taken the time to put a magical ward on the door before she left.
If she’d been so distracted as to not put a ward on the door, then the only thing holding Marigold in this suite was a mechanical lock.
And, thanks to her wide-ranging studies, she knew how to pick those.
There was nobody in the house right now, except Aunt Petty and maybe the chauffeur. He might’ve been sent off to get other survivors of the melee at the estate, so it might just be her aunt. If so, Marigold might be able to avoid her and escape.
Considering the fact that she hadn’t expected to live past today’s activities, Marigold didn’t think she really had much to lose by trying.
If she got caught, they would hurt her. Of course, if she stayed, eventually they would hurt her again too.
Either way, she was in for some pain, and there was the added enticement that, if she actually succeeded, she might be free of them.
Marigold didn’t have many possessions, but she packed a small bag with a few things from around the room that she might be able to use while on the run.
Wasting little time, she then set about picking the lock, gratified and a little amazed to find that her aunt had, indeed, forgotten to lay the magical ward on the door that would zap her if she managed to get past the mundane mechanical lock.
Marigold stepped over the threshold, holding her breath to see if she would be struck down by her aunt’s magic, but it didn’t happen.
There was no ward. Marigold was free of her prison, for the moment.
Now she had to get free of the house and then get off the grounds without drawing any attention.
She wasn’t sure she could do it, but she had to try.
*
Five Days Later
“Gavin, you’re not going to believe this. There’s a Miss Rollins here to see you.” Amelia, the new receptionist at Kinkaid’s downtown satellite office poker head into Gavin’s security office.
Amelia’s eyes were wide and her expression one of disbelief.
She was one of Gavin’s young cousins, given her first job for the family business, looking to work her way up and learn the ropes.
She was a lioness with sharp maternal instincts to protect just about everyone who came under her care.
When she grew up a bit more, she would be a force to reckon with, and everyone had thought putting her in Gavin’s office would be good experience for her.
“Did she give her first name?” Gavin asked.
“Marigold,” Amelia replied quickly.
Gavin shook his head, unsure what was happening. Had his quarry just walked into his office like a lamb to the slaughter? He’d been searching out information on Marigold Rollins for the past two days, without much luck.
“She looks pretty rough, boss,” Amelia volunteered.
“In what way?” Gavin asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Her clothes are dirty, and she looks like maybe she’s been sleeping outside. She’s kind of disheveled, but her eyes are clear. And scared. She looks desperate, to be honest, and she smells like bravado covering up fear.”
Amelia’s senses were as sharp as any lion shifter’s, and she had the added benefit of being both maternal and female.
Her instincts and experience as a woman would help her evaluate another woman’s state of being better than any male.
That was just the way of things. Gavin accepted her words at face value, but he’d make his own determination once he saw the woman in question.
“I guess you better send her in then,” Gavin said, standing behind his desk, just in case.
“Do you really think that’s wise, boss?”
“I’ve been looking for this woman, and she turns up on my doorstep.
Now, that could just be a case of the universe laughing at me.
It could be some sort of machination by the Rollins family.
It could be just a huge coincidence. Or it could be the Mother of All taking a personal interest in our affairs.
Whatever it is, I’m going to have to figure it out.
To do that, I’ll need to speak with the woman and see what she says. ”
Amelia shook her head, her eyes wide as Gavin went through all the possibilities.
She was young—barely twenty—but she had good instincts, and with a little training and experience, she would go a long way.
Gavin just hoped he was doing the right thing and that Amelia was learning proper and safe procedure from his actions. Only time would tell, he supposed.
“Escort her in, then go take a break. Give the Alpha a call and let him know what’s happening, please,” Gavin instructed.
If this was some sort of sneak attack, Gavin didn’t want Amelia caught in the crossfire. He also wanted somebody else to know what was going on, just in case. Amelia nodded, her expression as serious as Gavin had ever seen it. Then, she turned to usher Marigold into the office.
Amelia was professional and polite. She smiled at Marigold as the other woman crossed over the threshold into Gavin’s office, and his heart went out to her.
She was thin and waif-like, with long hair that framed an elfin face.
Her skin was pale, as if she didn’t get outside much, and her eyes were a lovely shade of cornflower blue.
They were wide and weary as they met his gaze.
She looked scared and uncertain, but she didn’t back down. He could respect that.
Her steps were a little shaky. She looked exhausted, as if she was on her last dregs of her energy.
Those pretty blue eyes had dark circles underneath.
She looked like she’d been through the wars, but she was also one of the most beautiful creatures he’d ever beheld.
Gavin got a grip on his fanciful thoughts as Amelia escorted Marigold in.
“Can I get you any coffee or refreshments?” Amelia asked, her voice as gentle as Gavin had ever heard it.
“Why don’t you go down to the cafeteria and get us some sandwiches, Amelia, if you would be so kind, and something to drink. Ask the kitchen to put together a cart and ring me when it’s ready,” Gavin directed, wanting to get Amelia out of the office without any fuss. Just in case.
By the time the cart of food was ready, Gavin would have to make a decision about Marigold Rollins.
Surely, by that time, if she was going to attack, she would’ve already done so.
If not, then Gavin wanted to make sure the woman didn’t leave his office—if he decided to let her go—without having eaten something.
She looked half-starved to his senses, and he felt a deep-seated need to make sure she ate.
He didn’t know where that was coming from, but it was instinctual.
The lion that shared his soul was rumbling inside him, angry at the state of the woman before him.
She was a shadow of the woman she should be.
Pale, shaking with either fear or exhaustion, or maybe both, and on her last legs, if he was any judge.
“Please, take a seat, Miss Rollins. What can I do for you?” Gavin asked, trying to present a polite facade while his inner beast paced and rumbled in displeasure at her appearance.
Marigold didn’t so much sit down as she collapsed in the guest chair placed in front of his desk.
Her eyes closed momentarily as she sat, and Gavin started to believe that this visit might be legitimate after all.
She certainly didn’t look like she was in any state to launch an attack on him or anyone else.
She looked more likely to swoon, and not in the romantic sense of the word.