Born to Bite (27 page)

Frowning at the idea of hurting this dear woman, Eshe tried to push her way into the housekeeper’s thoughts to make her stop as she moved toward her again, but whoever was controlling her had a firm grip on the woman’s mind. She couldn’t get in to free her, and instead had to leap back several feet as the carving knife came stabbing at her again.

Eshe bit her lip on a curse as she slammed up painfully against the opposite counter from where she’d first found the woman, and then dove to the side to get out of the way as Mrs. Ramsey kept coming. It didn’t give her much respite. Mrs. Ramsey merely followed, but Eshe was getting tired of this game, and when the woman swung the knife again, instead of backing away or moving, she shot her hand out to catch her wrist, wincing but not letting go when the knife sliced into the skin of her arm.

“What the hell?” Armand was suddenly there beside her, taking over restraining the woman. He was shirtless and his face was like thunder as he asked, “What the hell is going on?”

“She’s being controlled. Hold her,” Eshe snapped and clasped her hand over her cut arm as she hurried past him. There were two windows in the kitchen, one over the sink looking out across the backyard, the other by the table overlooking the side yard, but the window by the kitchen sink was better positioned to see more of the kitchen, and when Eshe slammed out the back door onto the porch, she really expected to find the culprit who had been controlling Mrs. Ramsey there. She didn’t, however, and cursed as she ran down the steps to hurry around the house, knowing that whoever it was would have seen her head outside and taken off right away.

As Eshe expected, when she turned the corner there was no one in the side yard, but the bushes at the edge of the woods were still moving from his passage through them. Eshe started forward at once, intent on chasing the culprit, but she’d barely taken a couple of steps into the woods before she realized how foolish that would be. Coming to a halt, she peered around. The trees were old here and tall, their leafy branches blocking out the sunlight so that it was dark and there was no ground cover. All there was before her were dirt and tree trunks and an expectant silence that had the hair crawling on the back of her neck.

He was there somewhere, Eshe knew it, waiting, either behind one of the wide tree trunks or even up a tree in the branches overhead. Probably hoping she’d keep coming, maybe even holding his breath in expectation, and most definitely armed. Eshe just wasn’t stupid enough to go traipsing where he wanted when she was injured, unarmed, and barely even dressed.

“Eshe?”

That shout from behind made her glance back the way she’d come. It was Armand, and it sounded like he was outside now. She hesitated, glanced forward again, but saw nothing, and when Armand shouted her name again, sounding closer, she began to move quickly backward for several feet before turning to hurry back out of the woods. Eshe was glad she had when she saw that he had hurried after her as barefoot as she in just his jeans and without even thinking to grab a weapon.

“Are you all right?” he asked worriedly, rushing toward her. “You’re bleeding.”

Eshe opened her mouth to assure him she was fine and then paused and turned her head to the side to listen as she heard a vehicle engine start up somewhere on the other side of the woods. She briefly considered running up to the road to try to see it, but knew she’d never get there in time and turned back to Armand with a sigh. “I’m fine. Let’s get inside and out of the sun.”

Armand nodded, his gaze moving over the woods behind her and then to the road, but then he slid his arm protectively around her and hurried her across the yard, but heading for the front of the house rather than the back.

“What did you do with Mrs. Ramsey?” she asked as he opened the door for her to precede him into the house.

“She just suddenly collapsed. I left her in the kitchen,” Armand muttered, ushering her up the hall and back into that room. He barely spared a glance for the woman on the floor as he urged Eshe toward the table. “Sit down. I’ll get the first aid kit and some blood.”

Eshe grimaced and removed her hand from her wound so she could get a look at it. There was a lot of blood running in trails away from the deep cut, but it was already stopping, the nanos repairing and healing her now.

“Don’t bother with a first aid kit. A towel and blood will do,” she said on a sigh. It would just be a waste of good bandages. It wouldn’t take long for her arm to heal. Her gaze slid to Mrs. Ramsey and she sighed again as she took in her slack face. The woman would be confused and distraught when she woke, very distraught if whoever had controlled her had left her aware while doing it. It would mean she’d have to be wiped and sent away. But she was going to have to be sent away temporarily anyway, as would the new manager, if their culprit was going to start using them to do his handiwork.

“What happened?”

“What’s going on?”

Eshe glanced around to see Bricker and Anders rushing into the room, both of them in only jeans, sleep still evident in their eyes. However, while Bricker was suffering a serious case of bed head, Anders’s hair apparently didn’t dare present itself so. Every short strand was in place. It figured, she thought, and then glanced to a half-naked Armand as he hurried to her side with a towel and several bags of blood. Here she was surrounded by beefcake and she simply wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it. Didn’t that just figure?

“What happened to Mrs. Ramsey?” Bricker asked with dismay as he spotted the woman on the floor and moved to check on her. It was Anders who first noticed Eshe’s arm and asked, “What happened? I heard Armand shout.”

“I’m not sure,” Armand admitted when Eshe remained silent. He dropped the bags of blood on the table and began to wrap the towel around her arm as he said, “I woke up to find Eshe gone, came to find her, and Mrs. Ramsey was—” He shook his head, either not sure what the woman had been doing, or unable to even say it.

“I came down to get something to eat and someone controlled Mrs. Ramsey and had her trying to slit my throat,” Eshe said dryly when Anders glanced her way.

“What?” Bricker looked at her askance.

Eshe nodded her head, but when she opened her mouth to speak again, Armand brought one of the bags of blood into view, her fangs slid out, and he popped the bag on, silencing her.

“Feed now. Explanations after,” he growled when she glared at him. Ignoring her then, he turned to glance at Mrs. Ramsey and told them, “Mrs. Ramsey had a knife, Eshe was cut and holding her wrist to keep her from stabbing at her again when I came into the room. I grabbed Mrs. Ramsey, and Eshe immediately rushed outside, probably to chase after whoever was doing the controlling. Mrs. Ramsey collapsed and I hurried outside after Eshe.”

Anders spun on his heel, heading outside no doubt, but paused when Bricker said, “Don’t bother. He’s gone. She heard him drive away.”

Eshe glanced his way with a start and then rolled her eyes when she saw he was concentrating on her face. He was reading her, of course, and probably enjoying being able to, she thought with annoyance, and mentally called him a little pissant when her thoughts made him smile. That just made him laugh, however, and Eshe sighed and shook her head, then glanced to Mrs. Ramsey when the woman gave a little moan and began to stir. Bricker had raised her upper body to rest against his chest rather than the floor and the woman took that in with surprise as she returned to consciousness.

“What happened?” she asked weakly.

“She doesn’t remember a thing,” Anders murmured quietly. “She was thinking of making coffee and then woke up on the floor or, as she’s thinking, in this handsome young man’s arms,” he added with amusement.

“I’ll take care of her,” Bricker said quietly, helping the woman up. He led her from the room, his concentration on Mrs. Ramsey, no doubt calming her and rearranging her memories as they went.

Eshe watched them go, then tugged the finally empty bag from her teeth and murmured, “She can’t come back until this is resolved. He might use her again.”

When Anders raised his eyebrows and glanced in Armand’s direction, he sighed wearily and nodded. “It’s for the best. We’ll have to send my new manager, Jim, away until this is over too.”

“We’ll handle it,” Anders assured him, and slid from the room.

Armand handed Eshe another bag and sank onto the seat next to her. His face was troubled as he watched her pop the bag to her mouth and then he said, “They controlled Mrs. Ramsey because they didn’t want to be recognized themselves.”

Unable to speak, Eshe nodded. It was what she’d been thinking too.

“So it’s someone I know,” he continued, following the thought.

Eshe nodded again. She wasn’t terribly surprised by this possibility. After all, strangers didn’t usually fixate on a person for so many centuries without knowing them, but it seemed obvious that either Armand really hadn’t thought that could be possible, or he’d just not wanted it to be and convinced himself it couldn’t be, because he appeared to be staggered by the possibility and struggling to accept it.

“Who?” he asked finally, and there was a combination of pain and anger in his eyes as he peered at her.

Eshe pulled the now-empty second bag from her teeth and said, “We’ll find them.”

“When?” he asked, the anger and frustration in his eyes creeping into his voice.

“As soon as the boys come back we’ll all get dressed and head over to John and Agnes’s house,” Eshe said quietly. “We’ll break the door down if we have to, but we’ll get in and talk to Agnes, then go to the Harcourts and do the same.”

“What if talking to them doesn’t get us any further than talking to the men did?” he asked quietly.

“Then we bait a trap,” Eshe said quietly.

Armand’s eyes narrowed. “What is the bait?”

When she merely stared at him silently, he shook his head.

“Not you,” he said grimly. “I’ll be the bait. I’d actually like to be. I want to confront this bastard.”

“We’ll talk about it after we’ve talked to Agnes and Mary,” she said quietly. “I still think we’ll learn something from them.”

“Why?” Armand asked with a frown.

“Because Annie learned something somewhere so I know there’s something to learn. We just have to figure out where she learned it and go there too.”

“You think she spoke to Mary or Agnes?” Armand asked with surprise.

Eshe shrugged. “Or William or John. We didn’t think to ask them if she’d been around to see them fifty years ago. But someone talked to her, and they said something that made her think she had the answers. We’ll find those answers too,” she assured him firmly.

“You sound so sure,” he said almost enviously.

Eshe shrugged. “I told you I’ve been most fortunate in my life. I don’t intend to let that change now.”

Armand stared at Eshe silently, her words ringing in his ears. She had told him she’d had good fortune in her life because she’d met her first life mate, Orion, while young and enjoyed eight lovely centuries with him. And if you looked at it that way she
had
been fortunate, but now he looked at her and recalled other things. That she’d lost Orion, as well as two out of eight of her children. She had lost people she loved as he had, but Eshe didn’t focus on that. Armand knew as surely as he knew himself that she had dearly loved her life mate and the two children she’d lost, and suffered those losses deeply, but Eshe chose not to linger there. She literally counted her blessings and saw herself as lucky to have the other people in her life and the other things that she considered blessings.

It was a matter of perspective, Armand acknowledged, and understood exactly why the nanos had put them together. He could learn from this woman. He could be happy with her. He could even love this woman. In fact, he suspected he already did. Eshe was strong and smart and didn’t flinch in the face of adversity, but rolled up her sleeves and charged ahead to confront it…even in nothing but one of his shirts, he thought wryly, noting what she was wearing.

Leaning forward, he pressed his forehead to hers and whispered, “Eshe, I want to spend my life with you.”

“Good,” she whispered back. “That was the plan.”

Smiling, he kissed her, a soft, gentle brushing of lips, and then pulled back intending to tell her he loved her, but paused and released her, sitting back in his seat as Bricker entered the room.

“I sent Mrs. Ramsey off with the thought that you two are on an extended pre-honeymoon and she is on the same extended paid leave and shouldn’t return until you call her,” Bricker announced, moving to the fridge to grab a bag of blood. He then glanced to Armand and said, “I hope you don’t mind, but she depends on her pay from here and I didn’t think she should suffer just because someone’s trying to kill you and the people you care about.”

“No, that’s fine,” Armand said quietly. He could afford it, and it was better than having her here to be controlled again. Next time the woman might have been hurt in a struggle, or even killed. He had enough deaths on his conscience as it was. And that wasn’t even considering what could have happened to Eshe if the housekeeper, or the person controlling her, had gotten in a lucky stab. Armand just didn’t want to think about that and was glad not to have to when Anders returned to the room now as well, garnering his attention.

“I’ve taken care of your manager,” the enforcer announced, pausing just inside the door.

“Paid leave until I call him?” Armand asked, knowing it wasn’t safe to have the manager there either. It seemed a shame to send him home to his family, though, even for just a week or so. He’d been pretty hyped about having his own place.

However, Anders shook his head and moved to the table to take one of the bags of blood Eshe hadn’t yet consumed and said, “A weeklong all-expenses-paid trip to San Francisco.”

“San Francisco?” Armand asked blankly.

“It’s where he’s always wanted to go,” Anders said with a shrug, sitting down with the bag. “He’s packing now. I called Lucian and he said he’d have to book the travel arrangements and charge it to you. He said he’d send a car for him within the hour.”