Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
When Logan didn’t appear at breakfast or morning tea, Haven wondered if he was going to avoid her until she found a way home.
As the late morning ended, she came in from the garden through the doors into his study.
She didn’t know why she wanted to enter through there, but she knew she couldn’t accept his rejection, not after everything they’d shared.
He may have said no with his words, but his body thrusting into hers again and again had said yes.
“Good afternoon, Haven.” His deep voice sent a thrill through her. Even though she wanted to see him, she didn’t expect him to actually be there.
She forced a smile.
“Good afternoon, Your Grace.” She’d chosen to use his title. He wanted to keep her at a distance? Then so be it.
The trip back to the manor last night had been torture.
She’d followed him from the clearing through the maze of darkness-kissed trees to where they’d left the horses.
When they arrived back at the house, Millie had already taken dinner in her rooms, which was fine with Haven because she didn’t have the stomach for food or polite conversation.
She’d wished Logan a good night, and hurried to her room where she immediately burst into tears.
Thirty minutes of headache-inducing sobbing later, she dried her tears, ripped the Roma clothes from her still-sensitive body, and crawled into bed.
Hoping to God she could fight off her vivid memories long enough for her brain to enter REM, she closed her eyes. She had opened them seconds later with a curse.
Sleep eluded her, and the lack of rest was taking its toll on her spirit. She couldn’t take much more before she broke. How much more emotional damage could she endure before she cracked beneath the weight of her own fears and desires?
She didn’t know, but if she ever made it home to 2025, she’d swear off men forever.
Gathering her thoughts, she turned to exit the study the way she’d come. It had been a mistake to come, but she had to see him. Hear his voice. Smell his scent. She couldn’t explain it.
She took one last, long glance at him, and her gaze caught on something in his hands.
Curiosity reared its unwanted head, and she paused in her stride.
It was a book, and his attention was focused on its open pages.
Looking up, he seemed to remember her presence, and pulled away from whatever he’d been reading.
“Look here.” He laid the large tome on the desk, and waved her over.
What could he possibly want to show her?
She hesitated a second before hurrying to his side to peer down at the inscription he’d indicated.
“According to this book, there is an ancient Romany tale of three sister goddesses. The Tres Deae. Ahmi, Ohni, and Ooma.”
Her fear and anxiety forgotten, she exclaimed, “Ahmi! That’s the name Perez told me when he first zapped my brain with his memories. It’s the name of a goddess?”
Now they were getting somewhere.
“Apparently so,” he replied, reading further. “Ahmi is the ancient Romany goddess of passion and impossible love.” He cleared his throat, and ran his hand over the lapels of his coat, smoothing invisible wrinkles.
“Her sisters, Ohni and Ooma, are the goddesses of justice and balance, respectively. According to this passage, when a certain incantation is recited, and the price met, an acolyte can bind an unbeliever into servitude to the sisters for eternity.”
“Oh God, that’s terrible!” The blurry picture of what happened to Perez came into focus. He’d betrayed Aramina, and Aramina used the power of an old spell book to enchant him. She locked his soul away inside the cold, golden pocket watch, totally expecting him to pay for his betrayal with his soul.
What a heartless bitch!
If anyone knew what heartbreak and betrayal felt like, it was Haven.
She’d fallen in love with Elgin, a gorgeous, charming seducer.
It wasn’t until after they’d spoken their wedding vows and rumpled the marriage bed that the truth of his duplicity came out.
He loved to gamble, and he’d lost more money than he could ever pay back.
He’d met her, saw her innocent na?veté and his chance to get out from under the thumb and threats of his investors.
He married her, informed his bookies that his new wife would take on his debts, and skipped town.
Two months after he’d abandoned her, shady, shark-toothed bruisers came knocking. She was horrified, shocked, scared for her life, and heartbroken. She had never felt more violated.
Yes, she’d experienced betrayal, but she would never curse Elgin’s soul into slavery to three vindictive sister goddesses. No one deserved to lose their soul. Not even Elgin.
She looked up in time to catch Logan staring at her with a questioning expression.
Let him look.
“What else does it say?”
He stared at her a moment before glancing down at the book.
“Those who’re bound must do as the goddesses command, for eternity.”
“So there’s no way to free his soul? Get him out of the watch? There’s no way to get me home?”
Hope faded.
She sagged where she stood, trying to swallow the lump of tears forming in her throat.
Logan studied the words before him, a deep furrow marring his handsome face. “There’s nothing here about time travel, so I am not sure if your situation is at all related to Perez’s enchantment.”
“It has to be! Why else am I here?” There had to be an explanation, she just didn’t have enough of the pieces to put the puzzle together.
He looked up then, his gaze meeting hers. A look of tenderness warmed his expression.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
Unfolding his large frame, he stood straight, turning to place his hands on her shoulders.
In what was surely meant to be a gesture of comfort, he rubbed her arms. The warmth of his fingers against her sensitive skin turned her attention from puzzles to pleasure.
What was meant to bring comfort brought prickles of awareness, and a new level of tension hijacked the room.
As tension built, his hands stilled, but he didn’t remove them. The warmth of tenderness filling his eyes before was replaced by a much hotter emotion.
Ravenous want.
His gaze burned into hers, leaving her gasping for air. She couldn’t stop the rapid rise and fall of her chest, nor the quickened beat of her heart, nor the overwhelming urge to feed his hungry want with the entree of her body.
She must have stepped forward, or he did, or both, because the space separating them shrank. His lips were inches away, and his hard, hot body strained against hers.
His lips met hers, and he groaned.
Haven answered with one of her own.
She parted her lips to sigh her appreciation, and he deepened the kiss, driving his tongue in to entice hers into a dance, age old and decadent. Wrapping her hands around the strong cord of his neck, she laced her fingers through the silken strands of hair brushing his collar.
Oh God, he was too damn sexy. Since she’d wound her arms around his neck, she couldn’t stop him from wrapping his around her waist and crushing her tightly against his body.
She wanted to be reasonable, to push him away, but his embrace was so secure, his lips so tasty, and his body against hers so damned exquisite.
She wanted to pull her arms down, tear away, break their kiss, breathe deep and figure out how to get home.
But the moment the idea crossed her mind, delicious sensation robbed her of her intentions, and replaced them with the urge to get closer, breathe him in, and spend the next few minutes being something other than a little lost time traveler.
He tightened his hold, securing her within his embrace. The bliss of their kiss quickly turned to pure rapture when the rigid evidence of his arousal pressed against her belly.
Oh. My. God.
Memories of the night before swept through her mind. His body against hers, deep inside her, filling, plunging, making her scream in mind blowing pleasure under the brilliant moonlight.
If she didn’t stop this soon, she’d lose her damn mind.
Bringing her brain, and body, and breathing under control again was like trying to hold back starving lions when a wounded, bleeding gazelle stumbled into view.
A knock at the door startled her, draining the strength from her arms, and the blood from her face.
She pulled away, but not before her heart leaped from her chest.
She would have laughed at how quickly he jumped away from her, if she weren’t so entranced by how incredibly hot he looked with his disheveled hair, cravat askew, flushed skin, gasping breaths, and a rock hard erection trying to breach the front of his pants.
She groaned again.
How was she supposed to keep her mind on Perez and his predicament if she couldn’t keep her mind off Logan and his goddamn penis? He stood more than six feet from her, but she couldn't stop devouring him, or from itching with the desire to touch him again.
Meeting his gaze over the distance, he was as bound as she was. She smiled, her lips puckering out into a pillow-plump bow.
She issued a seductive invitation to finish what they’d started. Later.
His black eyes burned in response.
She smiled again, but cold reality quickly replaced her mirth.
He’d ended their session of sex under the stars with an all-out ban on coitus. So why in the hell did he break his own rule? Either pleasure had brainwashed the both of them or something outside their control manipulated them. Again.
Unable to fight back the logical killjoy of her conscience, her mind turned to sobering thoughts.
I have to find out the connection. What does the enchantment have to do with me? What does Perez want, and why is he pushing Logan and I together?
Logan straightened his cravat, and tried to bring his tousled hair under control.
She smothered a giggle.
His erection began its descent into a more respectable place within his trousers, and he called out, “Come.”
The door opened, and a maid entered carrying the tea tray. After she left, the tension in the room returned.
He cleared his throat.
“Tea?” His voice came out on a squeak.
She shook her head, again squelching a laugh. The uptight duke wouldn’t appreciate her humor. “Is there anything else in the book that can shed some light on...well...everything?”
He bent over his desk to scan the pages.
After a minute of reading, he let out a frustrated sigh.
“This author is scatterbrained as a nitwit. While the information seems authoritative, his writing is jumbled and—wait, this might be something.” After reading the page a moment longer, he paraphrased, “This says there is a way to free the soul of the bound unbeliever. His enslavement can be lifted after he’s fulfilled three penitent tasks, one for each goddess: inflame passion between two opposing spirits, bring justice to a spirit broken by evil, and bring balance to a life fraught with impossible odds. ”
Inflame passion between two opposing spirits? Hell. She shoved that bit of information into the back of her brain, not willing to dissect and inspect it yet.
“That sounds like a lot of work for a trapped soul in a pocket watch. How is he supposed to do it all?”
Poor hocus-pocus bastard.
“The bound soul is imbued with enough power to carry out his tasks. Perez must fulfill each task—gaining more power with each. If he progresses favorably, the goddesses can choose to lend him more power. Apparently, his wealth of power depends on whether he’s getting the job done.
Once all three of his tasks are complete, he will be released from his bindings, and allowed to live a normal life. ”
“Inflame passion, bring justice, bring balance—are there any step-by-step instructions on how he’s supposed to complete these tasks? A magic-pocket-watch operator’s manual? Something?”
Desperation pushed deep, seeking to rob her of her remaining peace. She fought the urge to slam her hand against the desktop, and instead paced, her dress making swishing sounds in the heavy silence of the room.
He flipped through the pages again. Long moments passed. He shook his head.
“That’s it. There’s nothing else here other than the words to the incantation in Latin, and something referring to the onus required to make the incantation work.”
Curiosity and a sense of anxiety surfaced within. A shiver rocked through her. “What onus? You mean like a price or obligation?”
“Yes. According to this, the onus for cursing an unbeliever into servitude to the Tres Deae is a flesh price. The user must sacrifice a piece of their flesh for the spell to work.”
The floor teetered under her. Was that what she’d seen in her dream? Had that silly little girl offered up the flesh of her arm as a sacrifice for her spell?
Haven turned from the desk and made her way to the couch nearest the doors to the terrace. She sat. The burden of fear and hopelessness pressed down. It was all too much.
Strength leeched from her body, her limbs refused to move, and her neck was unable to hold the weight of her head.