Chapter 15
NICK
Sally had always said Nick slept like the dead. That the house could be falling down and he wouldn’t hear a thing. But tonight, he couldn’t sleep at all. How could he?
The house was unsettled. So were the woods. They always reacted to each other.
And he knew why. Of course he knew why.
Alexandra de Wilde… or rather Dr Alex O’Neill. She had laid claim to the land and the woods had heard her. It all came back to her. She shouldn’t be here at all. But what could he do? He couldn’t make her leave.
He tossed to the side and stared at the photos beside his bed.
Theo had taken the picture of him and Sally, that glorious day in the woods, when the sun had shone on them and they had thought there was no danger.
He didn’t have one of Theo who had always preferred to be on the other side of a camera anyway.
‘Who’d want to look at my ugly mug?’ he’d said with a laugh.
But he hadn’t been ugly. He’d been beautiful.
Just like his sister. Nick closed his eyes with a groan, dismayed to find his thoughts going there again.
When he opened them, Sally gazed back at him from all those years ago, judging him the way she always had done.
She could always take one look at him and see into his soul.
Whereas Theo… Theo would drive him up the wall, argue with him over anything, and make him laugh so hard he thought he’d cry. Theo had been a breath of fresh air.
How did he explain any of it to Alex? That there was nothing wrong with the plumbing. That the moment she left the room he had turned on the water and it had been crystal clear. That the house was unsettled by her presence here and so was he.
So unsettled.
He would sound like a madman. He could only imagine what her lawyers would make of that. They wanted him out of Wildewood Hall.
Alex wanted him out of Wildewood Hall. That was why she was here, wasn’t it?
He rolled onto his back again, staring at the ceiling as he huffed out a breath. His face itched under his beard. He really needed to get rid of the thing. He hated it. It just seemed like such a lot of work and who was there to care anyway?
Sasquatch, he thought bitterly. That wasn’t far from the truth. A wild thing from the woods. A monster. It really shouldn’t bother him quite so much as it did. He felt like a fool.
Alex had been in here, in his room just this morning. Well, in the ensuite. But you couldn’t get in there without going through here and…
He growled to himself. Why was he even thinking about that?
And when he’d found her in the woods, right at the heart of the wild wood, he’d been so taken aback, and so afraid. Anything could have happened to her in there. She was a de Wilde, even if she denied it.
Look what had happened to Theo, and he loved the place with all his heart. He had given himself to it body and soul, and it had taken his life.
Nick closed his eyes and tried to will himself to go to sleep.
It didn’t work. It never did. And his thoughts kept straying back to Alex.
He couldn’t help that. There was something so bewitching about her.
The way she frowned, the way she tilted her head to one side when confused or dubious – which was frequently.
The way she had looked, standing in the woods, with sunlight streaming through the shifting leaves, falling around her in green and gold, illuminating her.
Alex, in the woods. The last place she should be. Just like Theo.
It would never be safe. Never.
Not for them.
But at least he’d found her. At least he had brought her back here. Even if here was the last place she should be as well.
He had lost Theo in the woods. He had lost Sally to the house. He was alone here. And that was how he should be. It was safer for all concerned.
The music started first. He heard it filtering through the house, almost designed to tease and cajole.
Nick let out a sigh and tried to wrap the pillow around his head.
Alex hadn’t said anything about it so he had to hope she simply didn’t hear it.
Some people didn’t. Some people drifted through life without any problem whatsoever. Whereas he…
There had been nothing but problems. Ever since he’d first stupidly set foot on the grounds of Wildewood Hall all those years ago.
But if he hadn’t there wouldn’t have been Sally, or Theo, or—
A thump sounded outside in the hall, further down the corridor towards Alex’s room. Nick opened his eyes and sat up carefully.
No one else in the house but the two of them.
There was no one to laugh, no one to sing, no one to cry out. And yet there they were, those voices, right on the edge of hearing. It started with the sound of a gathering, then a party, and then… then something wilder.
Laughter, gasps, the wild carnival of sex and debauchery underneath him in the morning room on the lower floor. So much laughter. Mocking, horrible, endless laughter.
And then a scream. Followed by a bone-shattering crash.
Nick was up out of the bed before he knew what he was doing. Two strides took him across the room to the door but when he grabbed the handle to yank it open, it wouldn’t budge. He tugged on it, turned the handle this way and that but nothing worked.
‘No!’ he snarled. ‘Open up.’
He brought both hands to bear on it, trying to force it open first with just the handle, and then with one hand braced against the frame. The door rattled on its hinges but it wouldn’t open.
‘Damn it! Open up!’ He tried again, but the door remained wedged shut. ‘Let me out!’
Alex was in trouble out there. He just knew it. Right down deep in his chest, where everything was hollow and scraped out, he knew it.
‘Alex!’ he roared. ‘Alex, are you okay? Can you hear me?’
He tugged again.
‘Please, come on. Please help me. Let me out. I have to help her.’
A breath brushed against his cheek, an icy cold touch on his shoulder, and Nick sucked in a lungful of alarm.
The scent of woodlands and wildflowers surged up around him and tears stung his eyes. He blinked them back, furious, and backed away from the door, releasing the handle. His body felt like lead. Too big, too clumsy. Useless.
‘Please,’ he whispered.
The air was so cold now. The whole room. All the heat had been sucked out of the air, out of him as well. Even as he watched it, the handle rattled twice, then turned and the door swung open with an agonised creak.
‘Thank you,’ he whispered, breathless, shivering.
Nick bolted from the room, down the hallway to the top of the stairs, lungs burning, heart hammering.
There was nothing there. No one visible anyway.
But the air was still like an icehouse and he still couldn’t quite catch his breath, not now.
For a moment he heard the echo of laughter again, childish and bright.
But there was nothing innocent in that sound. He knew that. Nothing whatsoever.
The house went still. Horribly still. He could feel it watching him, that oppressive sense of being examined, of something waiting to see what he would do. The expectation.
He looked down.
He didn’t want to but he had to. It was just like that night. The night Sally—
A figure lay, sprawled, at the foot of the stairs.
‘Alex?’ he whispered, as if he could deny it. As if he could make it not real, not true. As if her name was a talisman that might save them both.
She didn’t move. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. It simply couldn’t be happening. It had to be a nightmare. Another one. But it wasn’t Sally this time. It was Alex.
Nick thundered down the stairs to her side, his heart louder than his footsteps. ‘Alex?’ He dropped to his knees. Not that he was sure he had any strength left to stand anymore.
It was just like Sally. Exactly like the night she—
He pressed his hand to Alex’s throat and let out a sob as he felt a pulse. Strong, certain. She was alive. She was still alive. Thank Christ!
‘Alex? Dr O’Neill? Shit, Jesus, Alex, can you hear me? Please, try to open your eyes. Say something. Anything.’