‘Alex?’ Nick murmured. His voice carried a strange reverberation, as if it was so much bigger than it sounded, as if the whole forest filled it. And perhaps it did. ‘Alex,a chuisle mo chroí, look at me.’
She blinked and her sight returned to her. Nick was kneeling before her, where the pit had been, his smile so perfect. The one sight she craved above all else.
He was safe. He was here.
Or else, the more obvious thing struck her, they were both dead and this was some kind of afterlife which she had never really believed in.
Nick gave a soft laugh as if reading her thoughts. Because he had always seemed able to do that. ‘We aren’t dead,mo stór. Far from it. We have never been so full of life. Come on, let’s get out of here, you and me.’
‘How are you here?’ she murmured, as he lifted her from the dirt floor which now was covered in green and growing things, all entwined together. The pit was gone, buried in a mass of vegetation, criss-crossed with roots and branches, still moving, reclaiming this place. Trees had torn through the ceiling and had burst through up into the study, and were still forcing their way onwards through the floors and walls of Wildewood Hall. One of the unused bedrooms above it was no doubt gone as well, along with part of the attics.
‘Nick, answer me.’
‘The wood sent me back. For you. Hush now. We’ll talk later. Let me get you to safety.’
Nick carried her up the stairs, and out into the hallway, and from there to the kitchen. He always gravitated to the hearth. Alex stared at the remains of the Hall as they went, the devastation from the broken windows, the deadwood and broken stonework in the drawing room, and the very much living wood which had erupted in the study behind her, and she wondered how on earth they would explain any of this to the insurance company.
But for now, Nick held her. Nick was there. Real and solid, and he felt so very human. As exhaustion took her, she decided that she would just be happy with that.
CHAPTER 50
ALEX
Nick made tea. Of course he did. What else was there to do in a crisis? Or at least, in the aftermath of one. When Alex woke again, he’d pulled on some clothes and, but for his dishevelled hair tied back in a loose knot, and the leaves still tangled in it, she wouldn’t for a moment have guessed that anything supernatural had happened at all. That he hadn’t been swallowed back up into the forest, that he hadn’t been the oak at the heart of the wild wood. That he was just a man and she was just a woman and there had been a terrible storm.
Because all of those things were in fact true.
As well as all the rest of it.
The dream, or nightmare, whatever you called it, it was all real.
After they had drunk all the tea in the pot, Alex realised she was still covered in dirt and blood and God alone knew what else so they made their way upstairs by torchlight. Her room was still and quiet and the oppressive atmosphere was gone. The painting was just a painting now, and Blaise Chambers was a man long dead and buried.
‘I can get rid of it if you want,’ Nick said when he caught her glance. ‘I can take it outside and burn it right now.’
Alex smiled at him. It was still raining, the dawn barely breaking through the clouds. ‘Good luck starting a fire in that,’ she told him.
All the same, he took the painting off the wall and hurled it down the corridor towards the stairs. They listened to it bang and crash down the stairs until it fell to the hall floor.
It was almost dawn, and the wind had died down. The rain was just rain now and Nick was here with her. He paused at the doorway to the bedroom, hesitant, so Alex threaded her fingers through his and tugged him inside.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Absolutely sure,’ she told him, without hesitation. ‘Take off those clothes. We need to wash and warm up.’ And then she realised what she had just said, the other implications that might come from those words, and her commanding manner. ‘Nothing else. Not unless you want to.’
His hand closed on hers, warm and gentle, but firm. He managed a smile. ‘Of course I want to, Alex.’
After what had happened earlier, she decided that was far more than she had hoped for. Too many lines had blurred and Chambers’ malign influence had been so strong she was barely sure what had been real and what had not.
Alex swallowed hard and Nick lifted her hand to his lips, kissing her tense knuckles carefully.
‘Let’s revisit this later,’ he murmured. ‘Go and shower. I’ll see you in a?—’
He was leaving her? No. She couldn’t let him do that. She pulled his hand to her chest and held it there. The sudden terror that swept over her at that thought made the world spin sideways.
‘Don’t. Please, don’t go.’
She was safe with him. She would always be safe with him. And right now, she needed to be safe.
