You have to run, Lex. You have to get out of there.
It sounded like her father. It sounded like Theo. The voices on the edge of hearing, but there all the same. But they were gone. Theo was gone. And her father had died twenty years ago, because of her. He had been trying to protect her and it had taken him. Because of her. It was all her fault. It had always been her fault. She hadn’t been fast enough. She hadneverbeen fast enough. They had gone to the wild wood.
Tears burned in her eyes and she fixed her gaze on Nick until the image blurred and twisted. It was Blaise Chambers crouching there, rising slowly, holding out his hand. He didn’t believe she’d bolt now. Because he was right. Where was there to go? Maeve had taken the idol out of its containment and Alex should have put it back. But she hadn’t. In the darkness, in the earth under the house, the roots of the wild wood had tried to smother its power. It was loose now, in the undercroft, filling the whole house with its power.
She had let it tempt her, seduce her, and then she had let it use her to seduce Nick. He was gone. And this was all her fault. Again.
The house was Crom’s and the forest was Nick’s and now Nick belonged to Crom through Chambers’ possession of him…and she had nothing. Not to mention that the wild woods hated her family, every last one of them. She had betrayed whatever thin trust it had been willing to build through Theo, through Nick, through her feelings for him. She had given him over to its eternal enemy. There was nothing and nobody at all to help her now.
She didn’t have any choice. There was only one thing she could still do.
Alex ran.
And the moment she bolted for the door, Nick leaped forward in pursuit, letting out a savage roar of triumph that the hunt was on at last.
CHAPTER 46
ALEX
Alex tore down the hallway, heading for the front door and the nearest way out. But as she reached the glass doorway, the rolling thunder in the air made her hesitate. Just in time too. The glass partition shattered, shards exploding in every direction, crashing down onto the floor. Barefoot and helpless, she backed up.
No way out, not through there.
Blaise, still wearing Nick like a tailored three-piece suit, leaned on the doorframe leading into the drawing room, watching her nonchalantly.
‘You’re going to have to come back eventually,’ he said, in a lazy drawl. ‘There’s no way out of this. Not now. Not tonight. Go out into that gale and it will kill you. Go into the woods and they will kill you. They know you for the traitor you are now. Just like your father. Just like your brother. Give in, Alexandra. Come here and do as you’re told, woman.’
No. No, she was never going to do that. The very fact he thought he could just command her like that was infuriating and that edged out the terror just enough.
Alex glared at him and he twisted poor Nick’s beautiful face into something snide and superior, which just made her even more indignant.
She bolted the other way, heading for the kitchen and the back door. He’d follow. She knew he’d follow.
He had to.
Alex grabbed the corner of the door to the kitchen and slammed it behind her, throwing herself towards the boot room and locking that door after her as well. The back door was still bolted, the panel Nick had put over the window barely keeping out the storm. She dragged back the heavy iron bolt with sluggish fingers, fumbling as she did so.
‘Don’t be foolish, Alexandra,’ his voice – not his voice! Nothis! – came from the kitchen, almost a sing-song of amusement. Blaise was coming and she couldn’t get the bloody door open. She was going to be trapped in here with nowhere to go.
Finally, as if in answer to her muttered prayers and curses, the bolt gave and the wind threw the door in, almost taking her off her feet as it did so. She was driven backwards and she felt the kitchen door behind her buck as Blaise threw Nick’s body against it. He’d be through in seconds, she knew that. Or he’d find another way. Between them Nick and Chambers knew where all the keys were kept, every passageway and secret path in this place inside and out. And he was strong enough to just break his way through the door if pressed. Blaise wouldn’t care if Nick was hurt. Not now. He was just a tool, a blunt instrument.
Alex ran, letting the night and the storm envelop her in their own madness.
The wind screamed at her and the rain lashed against her face. She was drenched in seconds but she couldn’t stop. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t see where she was going. Invisible hands guided her now, instincts and terror leading the way. The wild wood might hate her family, but it was the only hope shehad left to her. She stumbled forward, barefoot and desperate, slipping in mud and sliding beneath the canopy of trees which lashed back and forth in the storm. She had to shield her face and head as the world flung the debris of the forest at her, steel herself and press forward as the wind tried to drive her back.
‘Please,’ she yelled, and her voice was instantly snatched away. ‘Please, you have to help him. You have to help me help him. Please!’
She was back in that nightmare, running desperately through the woods which hated her and all her kind, pursued, hunted. Blaise Chambers was coming to get her and all she knew was that her father had screamed at her to run, so she had run. She had never stopped running.
And her father…her mind threw up that familiar wall of blackness, that thing she didn’t want to remember. Because why would she want to remember his death? Why? It had all been her fault. He’d tried to protect her and he’d paid for it. Like Nick.
Crom was going to kill Nick if he couldn’t have her. Through Blaise, he would tear Nick apart if they had to. And it was all her fault.
Alex sobbed and fell, her hands slamming down on nettles. The pain sent shockwaves through her, forcing her up again, making her stumble onwards in her heedless flight.
Behind her something was coming through the trees, something fast and deadly. The hunter. The wild thing. The beast…
This couldn’t be happening. Not again. Not with Nick this time.
