Chapter 5
Chapter Five
What perfect fucking timing.
Sterling launched himself up the stairs to the front entrance of the Willoughby’s manor and skidded across the polished tiles in the entry as he turned to look for Edwina.
She had both hands buried in her skirts as she sprinted across the lawn behind him. “Go!” she yelled, seeing him turn to wait for her.
Very well then. Sterling bolted through the house, heading for the sunroom where the butler said that Lady Willoughby had fainted.
“Eliza!” Lord Willoughby shook his young bride frantically. “Eliza, wake up!”
Servants filled the doorways. Sterling pushed his way through them. “Out of the way! Hurry now, let us through!”
And then he burst into the sunroom.
There was a heavy pall in the air over Lady Willoughby.
Goosebumps lit over his skin as soon as he strode within ten feet of her, and a sudden menacing urge to be elsewhere flooded through him. No wonder the servants didn’t dare get close.
Only Willoughby could stomach it.
“Oh, thank God!” Willoughby said, looking at him helplessly. “It’s just like before! She just collapsed and she doesn’t appear to be breathing!”
“May I?” Sterling set his hands in the air above Lady Willoughby’s chest. There was a spark deep within her, battling for life, but it was as if that choking thickness was smothering her.
“She’s still alive!” Sterling grabbed the entity by the metaphorical throat….
But it was as if the creature simply slipped through his fingers.
Not a ghost. Not a phantom.
Not a gray lady.
It was like nothing he’d ever handled before. He wasn’t even sure it was… tangible.
Merely terror and dread, and an overwhelming pall of fear lighting along his nerves.
A shadow appeared, malevolent golden eyes popping open and locking upon him.
Then hands were rushing at him, wrapping around his throat.
Ice. It felt like ice.
In his throat. Catching at his breath. His lungs arrested.
Sterling staggered off the daybed and collapsed on the floor, trying to snatch at the set of hands strangling him.
“Begone!” Light suddenly flooded through the room as Edwina finally appeared, summoning a set of mage globes that swirled around her head. “Release him!”
And with her words, she cast her magic out in a net, locking around the entity trying to strangle him.
The hands vanished.
The sensation of ice left him. Sterling flipped to his hands and knees with a cough, clasping one hand against his chest.
The sensation of doom completely evaporated.
It felt as if the heat and light of Edwina’s presence could conquer even darkness itself.
“Damn it, Sterling.” She knelt beside him, resting her warm fingertips against his chest. Instantly, the pain and ache within his lungs vanished. “I told you that you were dangerously unguarded against psychic assaults.”
“What was that thing?” Willoughby demanded.
Lady Willoughby sat up with a gasp as if she’d been thrust under water, and whatever had been holding her down had finally let her go.
“Eliza!” Willoughby turned and captured her face in his hands. “Eliza, my love. You’re back! You’re back!”
“What happened?” she moaned, touching her chest. “What was it?”
“Fetch her tea!” Willoughby yelled as the servants bustled and scurried about. “Fetch the priest!”
Sterling pushed to his feet, dusting himself off. There was worry in Edwina’s eyes as she straightened his coat and shirt.
“Sterling?” she whispered.
“I’m fine.” Warmth shivered through him as she flooded his aura with heat and light, realigning it. “Did you see anything?”
“The entire room was blotted out with darkness,” she replied. “It was like wading into a raw cloud of rage. All I could see were your boots lying on the floor. And then as soon as I summoned a mage globe, it fled.”
“Rage?” That was unusual. He’d been feeling dread. “Where did it flee to?”
Edwina bit her lip and glanced sideways at Lady Willoughby.
Right. This discussion could be held later, in private. There was no point in alarming the locals, all of whom were practically defenseless in the wake of such an attack.
“Fine. You lay some wards over Lady Willoughby. I’ll go hunting and see if I can find anything lingering around the house.” He turned to go, but Edwina caught his sleeve.
“You are not fit for any astral projections,” she said sternly. “Not right now.”
He plucked her fingers from his sleeve. “Your wards are better than mine. And I’m fine, Edwina.”
“Sterling—”
“Later.” He stepped back.
Willoughby turned on them with a rage. “What the bloody hell was that?”
Three hours later, Edwina kicked her shoes off as she entered her bedchambers.
She’d spent hours tracing wards and protective spells around both Lady Willoughby and the house, whilst Sterling meditated and tried to project himself astrally in order to see if some sort of presence was haunting the house.
Whatever had struck Lady Willoughby down was gone again. Vanished as if it had never existed, but Edwina could feel something twining its way around Lady Willoughby’s soul as she’d laid her wards.
It was like a rot deep within her.
Thorns curling around the lady’s lifeforce.
She’d locked it up as tightly as she could, but she feared it would break through again at some stage.
“I’ve sent for tea and supper,” Sterling said, striding into her room as if he had barely exerted himself today.
Edwina collapsed back on her bed. “Good. Wake me when it arrives.”
He tickled her toes. “No rest for the wicked, Edie. Now. Tell me what you saw when your drove it away.”
She sighed and sat up, punching a pillow into place. “It was like it was spawned within Lady Willoughby, and when it evaporated it simply returned to her.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Within her?”
It sounded ridiculous. “I checked her over most thoroughly. It’s not a possession.”
“She’s not with child, is she?”
Edwina screwed up her handkerchief and threw it at him. “Do not even think such a thing. She is not with child. There is no demon baby.”
Kneeling on the bed, he let himself fall forward until he was stretched out beside her. “Thank god. I cannot even imagine how that would have gone down.”
Edwina squirmed. Bare inches separated them. “What are you doing?”
“Trying not to think about closing my eyes,” he said.
She made a shooing motion. “Get off my bed.”
He stared at her with a blatantly hungry look in his eyes. “Make me. Or better yet….”
Join me.
The words blazed between them, unspoken, but ever the more powerful for it.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“I’m fine.”
“So fine that you let it get the drop on you?” Unlikely. Sterling had the finest defenses she’d ever seen before. Edwina reached out without thinking, cupping her palm against his cheek and closing her eyes. “It’s marked you.”
Instantly, she began to weave her spellcraft through him, shoring up the chinks in his psychic armor.
Sterling shuddered, but he leaned into her touch like a starving man.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“It went straight through that chink in your psychic armor as if it could sense it,” she pointed out.
“Most psychic entities do.”
“Is that what you think it is?”
Sterling shrugged. “I don’t know. Not yet. I caught a glimpse of it. I felt it. But it’s like nothing I’ve ever encountered before. I’ll meditate tonight on the situation and see if I can resurrect anything from my memory.”
Edwina sighed. “So what now?”
“We need to talk,” he whispered. “About what we were saying in the vault before the butler kindly interrupted us.”
Edwina opened her eyes and withdrew her hand sharply. “I thought we’d both said everything that needed to be said.”
He reached for her skirts, toying with them. “Edwina, you said you wanted me.”
She had to get off this bed. Surging to her feet, she moved toward the fireplace and gave it a poke. “To want something is such an emotional response. But is it the smart thing to do?” She turned to him helplessly. “We are on such uneven ground with this.”
A scowl touched his brow. “Why do you think I never bloody even hinted at my feelings while you were working for me? But you’re a venatori now—"
“I’m not talking about my career status,” she blurted.
She could see he didn’t know what she was talking about.
“You are… very experienced. And I am not.”
Ah. Recognition dawned in his eyes. “Well, yes. I did suspect.” He pushed to the edge of her bed and slung his legs over.
“I’m not insisting we take this any further than where you’re comfortable.
I want to woo you, Edwina. I want to enjoy flirting with you, and stealing kisses from you, and if this ends up in bed, then it ends up in bed.
But that’s certainly not my prime objective. ”
Her cheeks were so hot she felt like she could scald an egg on them. Only he could say such a thing with such a devil may care attitude.
“You have stolen everything from me, Edwina. My wits, my focus, a kiss—"
“A kiss? I seem to recall you being rather enthusiastic in repaying me in kind.”
“I barely got a chance to repay it.” He gave her a wry smile. “You do know what this means, don’t you?”
“What it means?”
His eyelids lowered lazily, though the smile didn’t diminish one inch. “It means… you stole a kiss from me, Miss Sheffield, and now I am rather inclined to give it back to you. And there’s no longer a single bloody barrier to my doing so.”
Edwina’s jaw dropped open. “What?”
“Gentlemanly conduct dictated that I kept my hands off my secretary.” He looked eminently pleased with himself as he pushed to his feet. “But now that she is a private investigator for the Order, it seems we’re on equal footing.” His voice roughened. “And that means all bets are off.”
Edwina couldn’t stop herself from retreating as he advanced. Capturing her hand, he kissed her fingertips.
“But you’re tired,” he said, brushing his thumb down the side of her face.
“And you’re unsure. And we both need to concentrate on the case.
I’ll leave you alone tonight. But once this is done, then you and I shall have a reckoning.
I want you in my bed, Edwina Marie Sheffield.
I want to know each and every part of you before we are done.
Fair warning, my love, I play dirty too. ”
And then he strode toward the door as if he hadn’t just dropped a grenade upon her.