Chapter 32
NICK
Nick snapped his eyes open with the horror of what he had just done and the words he had said. It was like a bucket of cold water. No, worse. Far worse.
He stared down at her face. Her beautiful, horrified face. Firelight turned it golden, her eyes already brimming with molten tears.
He’d sensed Sally’s presence around him, the scent of wildflowers and her acceptance of this, of him and Alex, her joy in his joy. She’d told him to go to her. He had been so grateful that she would give him this, that she would release him at last. To Alex. So he’d thanked her.
The words were like ash in his throat now and dark laughter echoed on the edge of his hearing.
‘I—’ he began, and couldn’t get any further.
‘Please, just… just get up…’ Alex whispered, refusing to make eye contact with him now.
No, this was all going wrong. Completely, utterly wrong.
He drew back, fighting the urge to just take off outside, into the deepest part of the forest and never emerge again. That would be fair, wouldn’t it? But Christ, he wanted to. He needed to. He was a creature of need. A monster.
Alex grabbed her shirt and pulled it on, then her jeans, never looking at him.
Nick couldn’t move. But he had to do something. He had to stop her before everything was ruined.
‘Alex,’ he tried again. His voice cracked as he said her name.
‘Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have pushed things. It’s my fault.’ Her voice sounded leaden, as if she was forcing the words out. No matter what she was saying, she didn’t believe it.
But it wasn’t her fault. This was all him.
‘Alex,’ he said again and reached out to touch her shoulder. She froze and, to his horror, he could see the tears spilling over her eyelashes, firelight making them glow. When she didn’t pull away, he drew her closer, wrapped his arms around her and held her. ‘I’m sorry. Truly. I’m so sorry.’
She just shook her head. And what else was there to say?
He’d called out Sally’s name, not hers. He’d called out her name a thousand times before when they were here together.
For a moment, just a moment, he’d been lost, and so grateful that Sally had been there, and let him go to have this with Alex.
And it wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t right.
But there was no denying that it had happened.
Alex trembled against him.
‘I don’t know what came over me,’ she whispered. The wash of shame hit him like a wave. He cursed himself.
Even though Alex had been all he could think of, all he could feel… he’d said Sally’s name.
He was an idiot. A fool. A bastard.
‘I’ll make it up to you,’ he managed at last. ‘Any way you want. Any way I can.’
But what could he offer her? How could she want anything from him now?
He kissed her hair, inhaled its floral scent and the traces of the sweet earth and leaves of the wild woods that lingered in it now. She was still a de Wilde, after all. He would protect her, keep her safe.
Why had he said Sally’s name? He had felt acceptance, pleasure in his pleasure. For a moment he’d thought she was releasing him, letting him feel all he had lost again, with Alex. For just a second it had felt like they might have a future.
And he had screwed it up. Completely.
Or had it all just been some kind of cruel trick?
A flare of anger took him by surprise. Not at her, never at her.
At the house. At the woods which had reached out through him and used her.
At the trees. For the first time in his life, Nick felt a low burst of rage at the world that had made him.
How could they do that? How could they use him to hurt her like this?
‘Alex,’ he murmured.
‘Stop.’ The word was sharp, and laced with pain. She turned away, wrapping her arms around her chest. ‘Stop saying my name. It’s too late.’
Nick cursed himself, and his stupid voice. This was all some kind of vile joke, something the house had dreamed up to torment them both. And it was working.
‘It was a mistake,’ he tried again.
‘Yes, all of this. It was all a mistake. I’m an idiot. You’re still in mourning and I took advantage of that. If anyone should be apologising—’
‘What?’ He pulled back, and gently as he could, turned her around so he could see her face again. Alex didn’t fight him but once they were face to face she stared resolutely into his eyes. She wasn’t kidding. She was in deadly earnest. ‘You don’t understand—’
‘You loved your wife and lost her. You clearly aren’t over it. I should never—’
‘No. I mean, yes, I loved her. And yes, I might never be truly over losing her. But I wanted this. I wanted you. Please, Alex, listen to what I’m saying. I want you. Have done since I first saw you. And I lost Sally long before she died. Her and Theo—’
Now she really did jerk back in his arms, horror painting her features. ‘Sally and Theo? Oh, Jesus, Nick! What did my brother do?’
Oh, that. He hadn’t got around to explaining about that. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing that was easy to broach. He shrugged. ‘Fell in love. Sally was easy to fall in love with. So was Theo. And I—’
And I’m not, he wanted to say. I’m a monster. I’m a means to an end. Maybe I always was. Oh, she was good to me, and I adored her. But…
It wasn’t a matter of who loved who, or who was married to who. The land here wanted what the land wanted. It wanted him and Alex together now. So did Sally.
How could he tell Alex that? He’d terrify her again. That seemed to be the only thing he was good at.
At least the woods didn’t want her life. But they wanted everything else.
The house seemed to give a ripple of satisfaction. He felt his desire stir again. Already. The wild was gone now, sated. And the house was still waiting.
Wine and firelight and the two of them alone together and…
Give in to your nature. Be what you were always meant to be. Take your due.
He drew in a ragged breath as the darkness in him surged up again. His skin tingled, the heat beneath it spreading. No. Not like this. The house had got a taste of desire, and it wanted more. It wanted her. It would use him to get her.
‘No,’ he murmured to himself as if he could make it real, make himself believe it.
This wasn’t right. He felt like he was being forced into something.
He’d felt that since the first moment she had arrived.
Like they were both being manipulated. Like something was trying to push the two of them into bed together. And then what?
When they lost themselves in each other again, in that wild pleasure, what would it do?
What would they do? Had it been like this for Theo and Sally?
Had the house manipulated them like it was trying to manipulate him?
Because if so… they had not had any choice, if the entity infecting the Hall made them, had forced them…
Then it wasn’t a betrayal, was it?
And he wasn’t the monster he feared he was, tied and bound to this place, created to serve and protect it. Made to love against his will…
Because he had loved. Loved Sally, loved Theo.
He had been in the cellar and he had sensed it. He didn’t have a name for it. No one did. Just… the thing in the cellar. Sally had called it an old god. Professor de Wilde had called it a dark entity in his notes. Theo had called it the monster. And sometimes that bastard.
Chambers had made sacrifices in the earth beneath the house, that was what they said, that he had died there. He had woken it through rites of blood, and shed the last drops of his own there in the end.
Nick was no stranger to the other, to the way it moved through human flesh and changed it. But the communion he found in the wild wood was so very different from this. Now he was at war with himself, torn in two by conflicting powers. One from the shadows and the dirt, the other from the trees.
‘Oh Nick, love,’ he almost heard Sally’s murmur of dismay. The scent of wildflowers rose around him but so too did something else, something rank and putrid. ‘Nick, what have you done?’
It wasn’t his fault. It had never been his fault. The anger that rose inside him was blind and furious.
If anything, it was her fault. Sally’s fault…
He’d had a life and lost it. And after that, after the fear and the pain, he’d been at peace. And she had stolen it from him. She had stolen everything from him…
His hands shook. He balled them into fists at his sides. That wasn’t right, was it? It couldn’t be. Because he loved her still, beyond reason, beyond rationality. Sally was everything. It was written on his bones.
‘I told you not to touch her,’ Theo whispered, his voice full of sorrow. Had Theo known this would happen? How could he have known?
‘Nick? Are you okay?’ Alex’s voice cut through all the echoes of the past. Even now, even hurt and upset, she saw him in pain and she cared.
How could she care so much? He’d done nothing to deserve it.
Nothing. Alex’s hand, still shaking, touched his face, her fingertips so light and cold against his flesh.
‘No,’ he said again. His own voice sounded strange to his ears, slurred and deep, a growl.
He was losing himself. Those weren’t his thoughts.
He needed to get out of the house. ‘Stay here,’ he told her, aware of the rough edge to the words.
He couldn’t help it. ‘Don’t follow me.’ He needed to get away from her. He needed…
Her… her body against his again, her skin pressed to his, lips on him and his on her… gasping her name as he filled her… making her his at last, again and again, until he had all she was able to give, and then still more and taking and taking and…
It was too much. Far too much. The need, the hunger, the urge far too strong. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him. Nick had always been a careful lover, giving and open, and the demands coursing through him right now were as far from that as it could get.
The darkness was too strong. Chambers reaching out, determined to use him. To hurt her.
The bastard…
He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He wanted her. Too much. Far too much. As much as he had ever wanted his wife. Or any other lovers. More. Far more. He didn’t know if that was real. Not anymore. He didn’t know if any of it was real… what he felt for Alex, or what he had felt for Sally, and Theo…
He didn’t know if anything he felt was real. Not now. It broke his heart. He could feel it cracking in his chest, his racing pulse tearing it apart.
He just couldn’t.
Nick bolted for the door leading outside, down the hallway, through the kitchen and out into the night, sprinting for the woods as fast as he could.
It was like an infection, that thing beneath his skin, in his blood, trying to make him into someone he was not.
He could hear Chambers’ laughter ringing through his head.
He needed the green, the wild. Like Sally had said, he needed salvation from something even more ancient and less human than the monster even now intent on using him. They had brought it here, the two of them, him and Alex, drawn the wild into the house and tangled themselves together with it.
They had woken it. And they had woken the house.
And that was dangerous. Especially to a de Wilde. He had to get away from her, away from Alex.