Always (5 page)

I rounded the corner of the house and saw the tree right away. I didn’t see Hunter though. Where was that old dog?

“
Hunter,” I called in a loud whisper. “Here, doggie.”

I approached the tree as quickly as possible, and circled the large trunk. Hunter wasn’t there anymore. I found the rope that he had been tied to, but when I followed it, nothing was at the end.

“
What...” Maybe the dog had gotten loose. I walked a few steps into the dark shadows. “Hunter?” There was something lying in the grass a few feet away.

My chest rose and fell rapidly, and my heart was pounding. “Hunter?” I took a few more steps. The shape didn’t move.

I brought my hand up to cover my mouth. Brown fur ruffled in the slight breeze. Blood was splattered in the grass around the body of the dead dog.

I felt my stomach tighten up. I was too scared to scream, too scared to even move. Whatever had done this to Hunter must be close. I had just seen the dog alive from my bedroom window. My arms and legs began to shake. I needed to get back to the safety of my room.

I turned to run back to the house and slammed right into a dark chest. My scream died in my throat when a huge fist clamped hard on my shoulder. I realized with a growing horror that I might pass out.

“
Wh…who..?”

So suddenly that I didn’t know what was going on, the man dressed in black was gone.

“
Hey,” a familiar whisper was at my ear. “Did you miss me?”

“
Marcus,” I grabbed tight to his arm.

“
Are you hurt?”

“
No. But Hunter…”

“
What hunter?” He looked around with wild eyes.

“
The dog,” I croaked.

His eyes traveled to where I pointed to the dead dog lying in the grass. He pulled me behind him in an instant. “Did he hurt you?”

“
The dog?” I was confused. Did he think I had killed Hunter for hurting me?

“
The man, Claudia. Ryan.”

“
Ryan? Do you know that man?” My mouth dropped open at the realization.

A low, deep laugh started on the breeze, and traveled to where we stood. “Marcus!” A deep voice called.

“
He’s a coward,” Marcus snarled in my ear. “He hides in the darkness.”

Another dark laugh was his only response. I suddenly felt a sharp pain on my arm and shoulder. When I looked down, I was shocked to see deep claw marks up my arm and all the way to my neck.

“
What was that?” I asked in a near panic.

Marcus growled into the wind, a frightening sound that almost made me cower away from him, but the answering growl had me back to pressing myself against him.

“
Marcus?” I pulled on his arm. “Let’s just go.”

He looked down at me, nodding even as he dragged me along the yard. “Go inside and lock your door,” he hissed.

I screamed and ducked low to the ground when something flew over our heads and slammed into the front door. The body of Hunter rolled away from the door to rest at our feet. I let out a small scream and flinched back.

Marcus pulled me back before the dog’s body could touch my feet. “What does he want?” I screeched.

“
You,” the man growled.

“
You won’t have her,” Marcus growled back.

“
Is that a challenge Letrell?”

Marcus twisted me around to position me further behind his back so quickly that my feet were momentarily off the ground. My heart raced ahead of my breathing until the only sound I could hear was the blood pounding behind my ears.

“
Run, run as fast as you can,” the man taunted.

I felt Marcus’s tremble under my hands and then we were running. He was pulling me along behind him so fast that my feet were barely touching the ground. When I almost fell, he righted me in a swift motion, and we kept going.

I felt the wind ruffling my hair, and I was reminded of riding on the back of a horse, only this was much more frightening.

We ran on, so far that the trees thinned out to the rocky patches that would eventually become the mountain range.

Marcus ducked behind a large tree that had grown along the bottom of the rocky surface and pulled me close to his side. He pressed his finger close to his lips as a warning for me to be quiet. I nodded quickly, my eyes wide.

Marcus turned to me with narrowed eyes, but I couldn’t help that my breathing came out in raspy gasps, or that my heartbeat echoed off every rock. I had never before been chased in the night from my bedroom out to the edge of the forest.

He leaned close to whisper in my ear, “Are you okay?”

“
Not really,” I whispered loudly.

“
Shh.” He peered around the tree, not making a sound.

I worked hard to control my breathing. Who was that man? And why was he chasing us? What did he want with me?

I wrapped my arms tightly around myself, both for comfort and warmth. I was too scared to cry or even move.

Just when I had started to breath normally again, I felt Marcus tighten against me. Before I could find my voice to ask him what had happened, I heard the sound of an approaching horse. I took a deep breath and held it there.

A large, dark colored horse came into view. The rider appeared to be a large man, but I couldn’t see very well in the dark. He didn’t even slow down when he passed us. I waited until he thundered out of sight before I let out the breath I had been holding.

Marcus turned back to me. “It’s alright now,” he said in a loud whisper.

“
Who was that? Why is he chasing me?”

“
His name is Ryan.”

“
Friend of yours?”

“
Absolutely not.”

My eyes pricked with unshed tears. “Why is he chasing me?” I asked again. “What does he want?”

I heard his deep sigh. “Ryan has been following me for a while now.”

“
You mean tonight?”

“
No. He seems to show up where ever I am.”

“
I don’t understand.” I shook my head back and forth quickly.

“
I wouldn’t expect you to.” He took a hold of my elbow and pulled me back out into the open.

“
What if he comes back?” I squealed.

“
He’s far from here by now.” He looked in the direction the rider had disappeared. “Does he really think I would make the same mistake twice?” He murmured as if to himself.

I ran my hands briskly along my arms. “So what do we do now?” My voice shook.

Marcus looked down at me in surprise. Could he have really forgotten that I was standing there? “We’ll…uhh…we can make a fire.”

“
A fire?” My mouth fell open.

“
You’re cold.”

“
Shouldn’t I get back to my bed?” I raised both eyebrows. It seemed obvious enough to me.

“
When he doesn’t find us up there,” he pointed towards the long-gone Ryan, “he’ll go back to your house.”

“
Well…” I didn’t know what to say to that. We couldn’t just spend the night together in the woods. Is that what he was suggesting?

“
Come on, let’s get out of here.” He started walking further away from home.

“
Marcus! We can’t just…I mean, you have to take me home.”

“
Don’t worry Claudia, I promise I’ll get you home before first light. No one will ever know you were missing.”

Chapter
Six

We stopped at a small clearing not far from where we had hid. A large tree was lying on the ground, rotting. “You stay here,” he ordered with a wag of his finger.

“
Where are you going?” I inched closer to him, unwilling to be alone yet.

“
I’m just going to get some wood to make a fire.”

“
I’ll go with you.”

“
You stay here,” he repeated.

“
Why?”

“
I want to know where you are at all times.”

“
Then wouldn’t it be better if I stayed with you?”

“
Just stay here, Claudia. I’ll be right back.”

“
Fine,” I said through clenched teeth.

He was gone before I could call him back. I had never felt more vulnerable in all my life as I did while I stood there waiting for Marcus to come back. The darkness seemed to take on a life of its own, and it was trying to smother me.

I wrapped my arms tightly around myself, shivering from both fear and cold. I couldn’t hear anything except the wind rustling the leaves. I couldn’t even hear Marcus. How far had he gone to gather firewood?

I took a step forward, preparing myself to go after him when I felt someone touch my shoulder. I whirled around, panic closing the scream inside my throat. “Marcus,” I gasped when I recognized his brown curls. “You scared me.”

“
Where were you going?”

“
To…to help you.”

“
I told you to stay put.” He lightly pressed his finger against my nose.

“
I was just worried,” I shrugged my shoulders helplessly.

“
No need to worry, Claudia. May I call you Claudia?”

I groaned and covered my face with my hands. “I guess it hardly matters now.”

“
Excellent!” He clapped his hands together excitedly.

I almost smiled. “Should we get the fire going?”

“
We should.” He smiled again, which I couldn’t help but return.

He piled twigs and brush expertly and somehow had a small flame blazing before much time had passed. He added a large log and then settled himself on the ground.

“
This is definitely bad,” I breathed. “We should go.”

“
We’re fine here.” Marcus leaned back against the large fallen tree. The fire blazed bright against the dark sky.

“
If anyone knew we were out here alone…” I let my doomsday prediction trail off.

“
Are you going to tell anyone?”

“
No,” I gasped. “But what if Ryan tells someone?”

“
He won’t.” He lazily brought one hand to rest behind his head and stretched his legs out in front of him.

“
Aren’t you worried at all?”

“
Nope.”

I ground the back of my teeth together in irritation. Of course he wasn’t worried; he wasn’t the one getting married in three–now two–days. I couldn’t just sit out here all alone with a man I hardly knew. I crossed my arms tightly across my chest to keep the cold away. “We need to go,” I repeated.

In a flash, he was up on his feet and standing right in front of me. “Here,” he shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders.

“
I cannot.” Even as I protested, I pushed my arms into the too big sleeves. The warmth inside was too hard to resist and I found myself pulling the jacket closed tighter.

“
Now,” he fidgeted a little too long with the collar before going back to his makeshift seat on the ground, “we can’t go back to your house. If you would like, we can go to mine, but,” he wrinkled his mouth into a half frown, “that might be more difficult to explain.”

“
We…cannot possibly,” I sputtered.

“
Well, then,” he wriggled his eyebrows and patted the ground next to him.

My mouth fell open. “This is nothing to joke about,” I hissed. I stood stubbornly on the opposite side of the fire as him.

“
I’m not joking, just trying to make you more comfortable.”

“
I would be more comfortable in my bed.”

He pursed his lips and glanced around me into the dark trees. “We can go.”

“
We can?”

“
But I’ll have to stay with you–the entire night.” He grimaced.

“
Oh,” I grumbled. “Fine, we’ll stay out here, but I need to be home by morning.”

“
By first light,” he promised.

I brushed some leaves and sticks aside so I could sit on the ground close to the fire. After several attempts, I finally managed to get semi-comfortable.

“
Well, this is…cozy.”

“
It’s a shame we don’t have any tea.”

“
Indeed.” My eyebrows shot up. Marcus’s stare from across the fire was intense; he didn’t even blink. I tried to look everywhere but at him.

“
Do I make you uncomfortable, Miss Sinclair?”

“
Actually, you do, Mr. Letrell.”

He chuckled lightly. “And why would that be?”

My eyes widened. “I wish you wouldn’t stare at me so severely.”