He rolled onto his back again, staring at the ceiling as he huffed out a breath. His face itched under his beard. He really needed to get rid of the thing. He hated it. It just seemed like such a lot of work and who was there to care anyway?
Sasquatch, he thought bitterly. That wasn’t far from the truth. A wild thing from the woods. A monster. It really shouldn’t bother him quite so much as it did. He felt like a fool.
Alex had been in here, in his room just this morning. Well, in the ensuite. But you couldn’t get in there without going through here and…
He growled to himself. Why was he even thinking about that?
And when he’d found her in the woods, right at the heart of the wild wood, he’d been so taken aback, and so afraid. Anything could have happened to her in there. She was a de Wilde, even if she denied it.
Look what had happened to Theo, and he loved the place with all his heart. He had given himself to it body and soul, and it had taken his life.
Nick closed his eyes and tried to will himself to go to sleep. It didn’t work. It never did. And his thoughts kept straying back to Alex. He couldn’t help that. There was something so bewitching about her. The way she frowned, the way she tilted her head to one side when confused or dubious – which was frequently. The way she had looked, standing in the woods, with sunlight streaming through the shifting leaves, falling around her in green and gold, illuminating her.
Alex, in the woods. The last place she should be. Just like Theo.
It would never be safe. Never.
Not for them.
But at least he’d found her. At least he had brought her back here. Even if here was the last place she should be as well.
He had lost Theo in the woods. He had lost Sally to the house. He was alone here. And that was how he should be. It was safer for all concerned.
The music started first. He heard it filtering through the house, almost designed to tease and cajole. Nick let out a sigh and tried to wrap the pillow around his head. Alex hadn’t said anything about it so he had to hope she simply didn’t hear it. Some people didn’t. Some people drifted through life without any problem whatsoever. Whereas he…
There had been nothing but problems. Ever since he’d first stupidly set foot on the grounds of Wildewood Hall all those years ago.
But if he hadn’t there wouldn’t have been Sally, or Theo, or?—
A thump sounded outside in the hall, further down the corridor towards Alex’s room. Nick opened his eyes and sat up carefully.
No one else in the house but the two of them.
There was no one to laugh, no one to sing, no one to cry out. And yet there they were, those voices, right on the edge ofhearing. It started with the sound of a gathering, then a party, and then…then something wilder.
Laughter, gasps, the wild carnival of sex and debauchery underneath him in the morning room on the lower floor. So much laughter. Mocking, horrible, endless laughter.
And then a scream. Followed by a bone-shattering crash.
Nick was up out of the bed before he knew what he was doing. Two strides took him across the room to the door but when he grabbed the handle to yank it open, it wouldn’t budge. He tugged on it, turned the handle this way and that but nothing worked.
‘No!’ he snarled. ‘Open up.’
He brought both hands to bear on it, trying to force it open first with just the handle, and then with one hand braced against the frame. The door rattled on its hinges but it wouldn’t open.
‘Damn it! Open up!’ He tried again, but the door remained wedged shut. ‘Let me out!’
Alex was in trouble out there. He just knew it. Right down deep in his chest, where everything was hollow and scraped out, he knew it.
‘Alex!’ he roared. ‘Alex, are you okay? Can you hear me?’
He tugged again.
‘Please, come on. Please help me. Let me out. I have to help her.’
A breath brushed against his cheek, an icy cold touch on his shoulder, and Nick sucked in a lungful of alarm.
The scent of woodlands and wildflowers surged up around him and tears stung his eyes. He blinked them back, furious, and backed away from the door, releasing the handle. His body felt like lead. Too big, too clumsy. Useless.
