Dweller on the Threshold (24 page)

Knowing I’d disturb it stopped me for about half a minute before I silently turned the handle and hurried through, shutting the door behind me. Two floor-to-ceiling windows flanked the south wall. Shadows lengthened on the old wood of a table as the sun’s slow slide toward land played out through the sheer curtains over the window. I hadn’t realized so much of the day had passed.

I looked up at one wall and lost my breath.

It was like someone had dipped fingers into a jar of slippery color and painted life onto the stone. I touched one shimmering tint, expecting to find damp heat, and instead felt the small bumps and chips, the cold wall. I rested my cheek against it, letting the chill creep in to battle the heat. This scene, this world, had been painted by someone who suffered a loneliness I thought I’d understood, but never truly could. Not without living as many years. My breath hitched and tears burned the backs of my eyes. He had painted his home—all his homes—on the walls and in every stroke, his memories and his pain mixed to breathe history and life into what had been cold stone. A family, people who had obviously been real because every curve, every aspect of their features had been created with such loving detail.

I felt more than heard him enter the room and briefly closed my eyes to curse my inattentive guides.

Turning, I used the wall to support suddenly weak legs as he crossed the floor in a determined stride that scraped my gut raw. His wet hair had been slicked back, throwing his stark masculine face into sharp angles and curves. His gaze never wavered, fury darkening features that spoke more of his Minoan heritage than the painting behind me.

A man born from spilled blood, from torture, bred to fight. A man who did not want anyone seeing so far into his soul.

If he knew what I really saw.... the tangled black mass of trapped souls around him. Countless victims of a man who’d lived through more wars than peace—he would probably kill me. Nikolos wouldn’t want anyone knowing his secrets. Especially something like this.

How he still lived I didn’t know. I stepped away from the wall only to be forced back against it. His hot breath brushed my cheeks. I didn’t trust him but I wasn’t afraid of him. Maybe I should have been, but I was feeling a bit reckless from the powerful emotions. I felt a tangled need to hug him or offer him something—anything —to ease that loneliness.

I raised my chin, met his gaze and ignored the burning in my lungs as something very elemental, something basic and raw, clawed its way free. Taking a deep breath, I couldn’t stop myself from lifting my arms to tangle my fingers in his, long, slippery wet hair.

“Fuck it,” I whispered before slamming my mouth onto his.

His body went stiff for about a second before he groaned and pressed his chest into mine hard enough for me to hit the wall. His hand wrapped around the back of my neck before sliding around to cradle my chin. His fingers were so long, the ends still circled the side of my neck. He used his thumb to tilt my head and slant his kiss deeper. Heat spun low in my stomach as he pressed that thumb under my bottom lip to open my mouth. His tongue slid into my mouth. I groaned, feeling dizzy as I met his caress with my own.

I stood on my toes and pressed my body as close as I could, feeling the crush of my breasts against the harder planes of his chest. He smelled of sandalwood soap and man. I was pretty sure I might stop breathing at some point because an excitement I’d never experienced had me trembling violently.

His hair slid heavy and wet through my fingers, his mouth was hard and hot on mine—his body radiated a heat that made me want to climb him and wrap my legs around his back.

I hadn’t realized feelings like this existed—not really.

Elsa certainly hadn’t told me. That basketball player I slept with certainly hadn’t shown me. All I could do was give myself over to it.

I gasped as one of his hands cupped my shoulder, smoothed down my arm and clutched my waist. His fingers kneaded my hip, the heat of his hand easily slipping past the thin barrier of my shirt to my skin beneath. Next thing I knew, he was sliding both hands down and around to span my back and press me as close as possible.

I groaned again and felt an answering rumble in his chest. He suddenly pushed away from the wall and me. Gasping, I wasn’t sure my legs would hold me, so I put my palms hard on the flat surface behind me and did my best to stay balanced. Everything below my waist felt loose, warm. I stared at him, taking in his ashen expression—the slow shaking of his head, the way his hands clenched and unclenched as he fought the need I could see raging through his body. His black hair, which had felt like heavy satin in my hands, draped over part of his face so I could only see one shining dark eye staring at me.

I got dizzy from the pain in that stare. It washed over me and my legs buckled as I slid to the floor.

Nikolos didn’t reach out to stop me—to help me up. I was glad since I thought I might shatter if he touched me. Despite the obvious dislike of our current situation, despite it sitting so prominently on his face, his body could not lie. Desire wasn’t the problem here.

No, it was fear.

Stark, raw and combustible fear—and it ripped into my heart with the speed of an arrow. I shook my head. “I won’t hurt you,” I whispered.

“You won’t mean to.” His words were low, his voice deep and rumbly as if pulled from the darkest part of himself. He wasn’t a man to admit weakness—any sort of weakness.

“I’m sorry for snooping.”

His shoulders eased and a faint smile fluttered over his mouth then disappeared. “No, you aren’t. That’s twice today I’ve caught you snooping.”

I kept my hands on the wall and used it to stand. I didn’t like having to stare so far up at him and I really didn’t like feeling so weak. And stupid. Later, when I was alone, hot shame would swamp me—probably hold me prisoner for most of the night.

But for now, we needed to get a few things straight. “I won’t apologize for kissing you. I’m not afraid to admit that something about you calls to me on a deep level I’ve never felt in my entire life. And I snoop because that feeling makes me nervous. Your sudden appearance and your knowledge of what’s happening to my sister makes me more than nervous—it makes me suspicious. I’m a cautious person.”

“Believe it or not, I understand.” He looked at the painting behind me before dragging his gaze back to my face. “You call to me as well.”

I swallowed, suddenly scared of what he might say.

“I don’t want them,” he said. “I don’t want these feelings you raise in me. I never want them again. I’ve had them before. I had wives. In Aegenia, my first wife was a warrior, much like you with hair of fire. She stood out amongst our people, tall and proud, and she loved me until she took her last breath. I will love her until I take mine.”

I couldn’t look at him. I hadn’t expected vows of love or anything of that nature. I turned to stare again at the painting. I could see her, first in the long line of years that played out on these walls. She didn’t look like me yet the resemblance in our hair was unmistakable—even on stone such as it was.

She carried a labrys, a double-sided ax, in her long-fingered hands and the smile on her face was no less mesmerizing than the complete and utter love in her eyes. I knew she’d been looking at him. There were more people on these walls. Another woman, this one with long dark hair. And children who looked like him.

Oh Goddess.

He’d had children. Had them, loved them… then outlived them.

Chapter Twelve

It wasn’t like I could run away. Where would I go? All I could do was scurry and hide like a coward in the first bathroom he’d shown us. I shut the door slowly so it didn’t slam and leaned against it to catch my breath. My reflection showed a face that had washed so white, I looked nearly as translucent as my guides. But the expression in my eyes resembled those of newly rescued animals in shelters—bruised and shocky.

I don’t know why, but seeing that man’s life painted with such delicate care on his walls had twisted something in me that felt like it would never go back into place. I’d glimpsed deep into the most personal aspect of his existence and seen the kind of pain no one could understand.

I flashed back to one image of a little girl, a small hand-carved toy horse cradled in her hands. She had his dark hair, the same slant to her eyes…

Dizziness made me close my eyes.

His expression when he’d backed away from me.
Man, it was ripping into what was left of my heart, which felt like so much broken, throbbing meat. I needed no explanation. How many loved ones had he watched die? It would make anyone skittish.

Stumbling to the counter below the mirror, I barely took in the shiny gray, brown and black granite, the modern, square, black, porcelain sink. My hands were shaking as I turned on the cold water, and I splattered some on the counters when I tried to splash it on my face.

There was a stack of small, plush hand towels next to the sink. I dried my hands and face and used another to wipe the countertops. It wasn’t like me to get this shaken up. Not at all.

Thing was, I was very afraid that I’d come to care for Nikolos on a level I wasn’t familiar with and it rocked my world. I never would have thought it possible to feel this so fast.

Taking one last look in the mirror, I ran my hands through my hair, then pinched my cheeks and left the bathroom, determined to shove my newfound feelings for the man to the back of my mind. It was time to focus on my sister and my sister only.

“We have company.” Nikolos rushed past me, Blythe at his heels.

They ran down the hallway as somewhere in the back of the house, a perimeter alarm sounded. I blinked into the brightness, willing my eyes to adjust faster after being in the dark, windowless bathroom.

Now, we ran toward the front gate. Once again, Nikolos held out one of his daggers to me. I didn’t hesitate, wrapping my fingers around the hilt. I also pulled out my new weapon, feeling marginally better with a sharp knife in each hand. Before we got close enough to see the gate, Nikolos touched my arm to stop me. Holding one finger over his lips, he sidestepped to the left and in between a thick stand of black ironwood trees, motioning me to follow. I did, doing my best not to step on anything that might make a noticeable sound.

My hands were sweating around the ivory handles.

I didn’t want to have to stab anything again. The feel of that knife sliding into the narrow passage between bony areas on that demon’s skull still haunted my thoughts. I nearly bumped into Nikolos when he stopped. He held me still, cocked his head and stared hard at me. He’d rebraided his hair. Silly thing to notice at such a time, but I was trying so hard not to focus on the new sound that trickled through the trees. A lurching sound, like feet shuffling. Gagging, I put my free hand over my nose. “Smells like vomit,” I whispered.

“It isn’t pleasant.”

“Do we have to get close? I saw a crossbow in your house. We could run back and grab it.”

He looked at me as if I’d grown two heads.

“I was just kidding. Sorry. I get weird when I’m nervous.” My nerves fled as it came into my line of sight.
Not an it.
Oh my Goddess, it wasn’t an it!
It was a person. A woman in her early forties, one who’d obviously cared about her body and stayed in shape—she lurched and banged her hands on the gate.

I shook my head. “We can’t kill her.”

“It’s too late for her. She’s gone. What you’ll be killing is not the woman you are seeing.”

It wasn’t the time to think of my sister, but I couldn’t stop. This woman could be someone’s sister, possibly someone’s mother. The back of my eyes burned as anger rushed up to choke me. “There has to be another way.”

Nikolos put his hands on my shoulders, nothing in his expression telling me he had trouble touching me—not as he had earlier. “That horrible smell tells us it’s too late for this one. We can’t let it roam free, killing indiscriminately. Death by Dweller Demon isn’t something anyone should suffer. You saw that in the hospital. They claw and rip and leave people in unidentifiable states. We have to kill this one, but we can’t until it emerges fully. The acid they use to melt the body will burn through your skin.”

My gut was on fire—a sick, hopeless pain making my heart pick up speed. “Are you saying that as this thing was coming to us, this person was still alive? That before the stink began, we could have saved her?”

He nodded. “You have to harden your heart to this, Beri.”

“There has to be another way to magically bind them or something, dispel them from the body somehow. I bet we can find something in that book the ghoul wanted so badly. We’re going to have to spend some time on it. No more shitting around.” I turned as the brush behind us rustled and Blythe stepped through. “Blythe, we have to find someone who can translate that book. And fast.”

“I’ll work on it. But I can’t do anything about this demon except try the confusion thing again…oh—” Her voice broke on that last breathy sound.

I quickly turned to the shuffling thing to see that parts of the body were already turning to mush. I shoved a hand over my mouth, horror making me feel as if my own insides were turning to liquid. I’d expected something like the last demons and in coloring, it was the same. But this one was smaller than the two we’d fought in the hospital. It was about my height, shorter than Nikolos. Humanoid and without the body slowing it down, its movements suddenly became smoother, fluid and it quickly shook like a wet dog to dispense with whatever still clung to it. I forced myself to not look at what was left of that beautiful lady.