Chapter Five
Middle Of The Night
Ravensmire Castle
The Master’s Suite
Something woke her. When Elizabeth heard it, her eyes popped open, and it took her a few minutes to figure out where she was, and what was going on. All around her, at first, the surroundings were unfamiliar, until they weren't.
That’s when she recalled that she was in Scotland and safely tucked away in the castle.
Thank.
Freaking.
God.
Now that she realized that, she could stop dreaming about her case and chasing Devon Slater. Because of how he’d died, she was reliving her choices, and that was stressing her out.
It wasn’t her proudest moment, and Elizabeth knew it would be something she carried on her soul, forever.
Honestly, it was rare she regrated much in her life, but that case had tested her boundaries, nearly breaking her.
So, waking up wasn’t a bad thing.
For.
Sure.
As she lay there, that’s when she heard the sound again. It was faint, but there was definitely something.
She had mother’s ears, which meant she didn’t sleep through the sound of children crying, vomiting, or general mayhem that shouldn’t be happening in the middle of the night.
As it seemed to get louder, that’s when Elizabeth tried to focus on the sound, figuring out that it sounded like doors opening and closing.
No, slamming.
What was this?
In the middle of the night?
Seriously?
Glancing down at her watch, it was the middle of the night, and there was no freaking way that Michael or Graham would be slamming doors, and since there were no kids anywhere near here…
Well, that only left two other options.
Someone was breaking in, or she was getting an up close and personal view of the witching hour.
Oh, boy.
It was wild how that was even a possibility. In her world, seldom did she have to worry about ghosts going bump in the night. It was almost always the bad guys.
It was funny.
At one point, her world was normal, but this was just more proof that it was spinning out of control, and no one was at the helm.
Here she was, in a haunted castle.
Away from her family.
And it had been by her own damn choice.
Yeah, wild.
Well, it wasn’t going to stop, clearly, so that meant she had to take care of business.
It appeared she was going to do something so ridiculous, like explore a haunted castle in the middle of the night to see what was going bump.
Oh, she’d lost her damn mind.
Pulling the feather-down blankets back, she put her feet on the floor and tried to figure out where the sounds were coming from in the castle.
Yeah, something was going on downstairs.
It sounded like someone wanted her attention.
Well, well, well…
This was a bad time to be in a country without a gun. If it was an intruder, she was going to be bare-knuckling it. Granted, if she started screaming, Michael would pop up.
There was no doubt there.
A part of her said to go wake him, but she’d heard them earlier that evening, and they sounded like they were going to need some sleep.
If the room was a-rockin’, she wasn’t going a-knockin’.
PERIOD.
Padding her way, barefoot, to the door, she carefully opened it.
The sounds were definitely coming from downstairs in the castle. Someone had a vendetta against all the doors and cabinets.
That was for damn sure.
As she prepared to head down, that was exactly when she heard it.
Crying.
Oh, Jesus.
That wasn’t a man’s voice. That was most definitely a woman’s that she heard. Oh, and she was taking a wild stab at who it would be.
Ceit.
Yeah, she didn’t like this.
Now, she had to investigate, simply because she was one hell of a curious cat.
You know…
The ones that got killed by ghosts in a haunted castle when you interrupted their little funfest.
Yeah, on top of that, she should be freaked out, but instead she was weirdly calm.
Moving down the stairs, she peeked around the corner, and that’s when she saw the back door wide open. In that moment, there was panic that maybe this wasn’t a ghost.
Maybe they were being burgled.
Uh-oh.
Then again, with the castle being this far up into the mountains, who in their right mind would do that? Oh, and risk running into a big dude like Michael?
That was insanity.
So, she was going to investigate.
Yep.
She was insane.
Moving toward it, she pulled it the rest of the way open, and stared outside. It was pure darkness, and so shadowy that she couldn’t even see the courtyard.
Damn.
It got dark in Scotland.
Did they not have stars here?
Because that black inkiness didn’t exactly make her feel all warm and fuzzy.
Stepping back inside, she closed the door, and that’s when the hair on the back of her neck stood up. In that moment, Elizabeth knew she was NOT alone.
Turning, she came face-to-face with something that terrified her.
HERSELF.
Well, not exactly. Instead, it was someone who looked just like her.
Immediately, she took a step back, and there was melodious laughter.
“A’m Ceit. Welcome tae ma home.”
That was all she had to hear.
She was talking to a ghost. That’s when Elizabeth just about freaked the fuck out.
Meanwhile…
All he knew was his phone was beeping, and all the old habits of working security came back to him. It was second nature, and immediately, he was focused on that.
In fact, he wasn’t the only one.
It brought both him and Graham wide awake.
“Oh, shit. That’s the door alarm,” Michael stated, throwing back the covers and pulling on his discarded jeans and shirt. Old habits die hard, and he sprung into action.
“We have a problem,” Michael said, yanking up his fly.
Yeah, they did.
Someone accessed the castle, and at the same time, Elizabeth Blackhawk was there. Now, Michael believed he’d made a tactical error, thinking she was safe behind the gates.
This was a HUGE issue.
Not far away, Graham was doing the same thing.
“Someone is breaking in? Oh, shit! I’ll get the gun,” he said, knowing that they kept one there in case of…emergencies. Most of those emergencies were related to owning a ‘farm’, and if the animals had to be put down.
Yeah, Michael didn’t like this.
Not.
At.
All.
His heart was going a million times a minute, as he tried to figure out how the hell this happened.
There was never anyone near the castle, and Elizabeth arrived, and all of a sudden, it happened? The first thing that popped into his head was the Russian spy that was still out there.
He knew there was one left.
Now, the alarms were going off on his phone?
Yeah, Michael was betting that wasn’t a coincidence.
“Skip the gun! Let’s get down there,” he stated, not wanting to kill anyone there. Honestly, he was an Archangel. In hand-to-hand, he was more than lethal.
This person had done fucked up.
This was NOT the castle to break into.
Flinging open the door, they moved to Elizabeth’s room to ensure she was safe and found it empty.
Oh.
Jesus.
Christ.
Now, Michael was freaking out because if anything happened to her…
Heads.
Would.
Roll.
She’d trusted him to keep her safe, and now, she was missing, and the door was open. All he could hope was whoever came in here didn’t grab her and run.
“Pull up the cameras,” he said to his husband. “We might need to hunt for her outside if someone took her. I don’t like this!” he admitted.
Yeah, him either.
As for the cameras, Graham could do that.
As they raced down the stairs, they reached the bottom and came to a stop. It was so fast that Graham slammed into the back of his husband since he’d been on his phone, accessing the cameras.
Elizabeth was standing there.
Alone.
As he surveyed the room, the lights were on, but that was normal. They were motion-activated when someone came into the room. Not far away, the weirder situation was that the kitchen door was wide open.
As they stood there, watching Elizabeth to see if she was okay, she didn’t move.
Not.
At.
All.
In fact, she was eerily still, staring off into the distance as if she was lost in thought.
“What the hell?” Graham whispered. “Is she okay, Laddie?” he asked.
Honestly, he wasn’t sure.
This was new.
Never in all of his seven years of working protection duty for the Blackhawks had anything like this ever happened.
All Michael knew was that this was terrifying to see. The woman stood there not far from the island, just staring ahead at the kitchen, not moving.
She looked…
Scary.
Out of it.
HAUNTED.
Michael didn’t know why that word popped into his head, but that’s what he’d thought. She looked freaking haunted.
What the hell was this?
One of these things was definitely NOT like the others, and that thing was bizarrely happening in front of them.
“I think she’s sleepwalking,” he whispered. “She’s never done this before. In fact, I’ve never seen anyone do this. I’m not sure what the hell is going on.”
Oh, well, it hit Graham as to what was going on.
And Graham’s eyes went huge.
“The ghosts,” he whispered. “It was off today. She came here, and it all started back up. I don’t think this mystery is done. I don’t think we put it to bed, Laddie, because we ALSO put her to bed.”
Oh, tell him about it.
Yeah, he’d been thinking the same thing.
“I think we have a problem,” Graham stated.
This was oddly familiar to him. Not that long ago, when Tony and Gabby showed up here to work on the skulls, Gabby had dreams, and she had actually been caught sleepwalking to the tower to jump.
This was alarming.
And unsafe.
“What do we do?” Graham asked.
Michael wasn’t sure.
“I don’t think we should wake her. I think I read that you’re not supposed to do that. Let’s see what she does. Then, we’ll get her back to bed, somehow.”
That worked for him.
As she moved from the kitchen, they followed her, not sure where she was going or what she was going to do.
What they did know was this was NOT on their BINGO cards for tonight. What started as a calm, sexy night was turning into one hell of a free-for-all.
The whole castle was stirred up, including the living there.
NO.
Scratch that.
The activity wasn’t just stirring.
It was appearing, with a vengeance.
Meanwhile…
At first, she was terrified by what she was seeing and hearing, but Elizabeth knew that this wasn’t real.
Ceit couldn’t possibly be real.