Nick glanced suspiciously at her, and then understanding seemed to dawn in his expression, and he nodded.
‘We still need to secure the house before the storm hits. And you’re probably hungry. I could make us some dinner.’
It wasn’t what she had in mind. But it was a start.
And the man could cook.
‘Dinner sounds great.’
Nick made a vegetable stir-fry, quick and crisp and delicately flavoured with a mix of spices Alex couldn’t begin to guess the composition of. It was probably witchcraft, she decided, chasing the last of the noodles around the dish so as to soak up the sauce. No,definitelywitchcraft. He was a kitchen witch – that was a thing, wasn’t it? – as well as a guardian of the forest.
And the most fascinating man she’d ever met.
Her face heated as she thought that and she made herself look away. Unfortunately, she glanced towards the door to the cellar and the darkness that was still seeping through the gap under it.
‘I’ll see to that next,’ he told her.
The thought of him going down there into the dark, with that thing lurking on the other side of the wall… ‘Tomorrow will do, won’t it? Once the sun’s up?’
If the sun came up. The wind was rising steadily outside now, hurling rain against the exterior of the house. She was half waiting for the windows or doors to burst open at any second.
But not even the storm would dare to invade Wildewood Hall.
‘Let’s get some wine and hole up in the drawing room for the night. Anything else can wait, right?’
CHAPTER 42
NICK
The bottles of wine were down in the cellar. Nick hesitated at the top of the steps, staring down into the darkness. But there was nothing there now. Couldn’t be. Alex had sent Blaise packing, hadn’t she? The idol was on the other side of the wall. It could rot there in the darkness.
He shook his head. He was letting all this get to him. It was just the cellar. He didn’t like the place but he had been down there a thousand times. It was creepy and dark. Nothing more. With everything that had happened, he was a bit shaken. Chambers was gone.
He made his way down the steps and reached for the nearest wine bottle.
There was a rush of wind from behind him, a foul miasma, and he spun around, staring back up into the light. Something fell from the lintel of the doorway up above him, twigs and old dried reeds and straw scattering like chaff. The charms collapsed, one after the other, all the way down the steps, fragments raining down. Darkness fell with them.
A shadow stretched down the steps, filling the doorway, cutting off the light from the kitchen. The solitary bulb down here flickered and died, while the dark shape loomed over him,misshapen and huge. Nick’s breath caught in his chest as if a vice had just closed around his ribs and tightened.
He stared up at it, his way out blocked, the step hidden from view by this thing. He felt rather than saw it smile, bare its fangs, and reach for him, claws sinking into his skin.
‘Wild thing…’it hissed. He could feel its breath on his face, cold as the grave, older…darker…‘Not much of a guardian, are you? More like a monster. Why not let yourself be wild? It’s what you want, after all. Why not take what you want? No one could stop you. Give in to your nature. Be what you were always meant to be.’
The bottle slid from his numb hand, crashing onto the floor and shattering. The violent noise broke the spell. Nick jumped back with a strangled cry,
And the shape at the foot of the steps was gone.
Nick cursed, fixing his mind on the trees and all the protection they could offer.
But the echo of that other voice was still there, in his blood, in his core. A pulse that would not be dismissed, working its way through him.
Wild thing…
‘Nick?’
Shit, that was Alex’s voice. She was up there in the kitchen, looking for him. How long had he been down here? It had felt like only a minute or so but Wildewood Hall played tricks. He could have been standing there like a statue for hours fighting off whatever entity still lurked down here.
He shook himself back to reality.
