Lips brushed against hers and something kissed her, delving deep into her, every touch maddening. She couldn’t see him but she could feel him. She could barely feel anything else. The pressure all around her deepened its grip. Hands slid down her sides, and then his fingertips were on her skin. Clothes meant nothing to him.
‘Don’t…’ she tried to say.
‘You don’t mean that. I know what you want. Your own body betrays you. Let me show you. Surrender to me, Alexandra.’
The mouth trailed down the side of her neck, captured one hardened nipple and he sucked hard, making her gasp out loud.
‘I’m a god,’he whispered.‘I joined myself to Crom. I made that bargain long ago. And now you have released the strongest part of me. Locked in the dark, lost in the depths beneath the house there was little I could do but influence life above. But now…now… We have tasted the blood of the guardian and it is so sweet. Let us take more, you and I together. Let us devour him…’She could feel the wolfish grin against her flesh, the touch of his teeth.‘With the idol free of the pit, I can show you pleasure the like of which you have never known. We will bring it into the light, you and I. And with him, I can be everything you could ever wish for. All you have to do is give him to me. You can do that, Alexandra. Give me a new life and I will give you everything.’
His questing fingers slipped inside her, finding the warm depths of her body and her soul, twisting and stroking until Alex’s head fell back, helpless before him. Ghost, god, who knew what he was? But all her defences were nothing now.
The two of them, Chambers had said. The ghost and the god.
She was a fool. What had she been thinking?
Pleasure rippled through her body, raw and terrible. A spear of desire that shook its way to her core and left her gasping and desperate.
‘Let me in, Alexandra. Let me give you everything. Worship me and I will adore you. You’re the last of the de Wildes and you carry the blood of the women of Kilfayne, those very witches who imprisoned Great Crom. And now, my beloved, you will set us free.’
The candle went out. Only the firelight illuminated the room and she was trapped. In the mirror over the fireplace, she could see her reflection, silhouetted against the flames. Her skin was flushed and gilded as the infernal light touched it. And all around her, the shadow wound itself like a great boa constrictor, tightening its grip, burrowing into her and weaving spells beneath her treacherous willing flesh.
She was alone in the house. Nick was outside somewhere in the storm. But he was near the forest, near the trees. Surely, they would protect him. She had to warn him! She tried to reach out again, tried to catch that sense of the wild that had come to her in the undercroft when she had needed it most. It slipped away from her.
‘Not this time,’Blaise chuckled.‘Do not fear. You will both be ours. The last of the de Wildes and the last guardian of the wild wood. Don’t you see, my beloved? You are the key we have been waiting for. You are the bait for this trap. You made him fall. And with him everything holding us trapped in this place will fall as well. My lord Crom and I will be free at last. Free ofWildewood Hall, free of the wild wood itself. There is a whole world out there ready for us to make our own.’
CHAPTER 44
NICK
The wind and rain buffeted him from the moment Nick stepped outside into the night. The torch he’d taken from the boot room was barely any use. He put his head down, shoulders to the storm, and forced his way across to the plant room in the old dairy. He had to drag the door closed behind him and that was a brief respite.
Storm Ferdia still howled outside but at least in here he wasn’t being drenched and battered at the same time.
There was no power. That was obvious. The mains were out, probably a line down on the way up here from the village. He just needed to get the generator up and running and they would be grand.
The machinery was cold and dark, and the small stone room stank of petrol.
His throat tightened as he realised what he was standing in.
Someone, or something, had opened the cap and pumped the fuel out of the generator. It spilled across the stone flags, seeping in between the cracks. Even if there was enough left in it to start the machine up, doing so would be a massive fire hazard.
Thank God he hadn’t tried to come out here with a candle. Not that the flame would have made it this far in the wind and the rain.
But why do this? And how?
He stepped back, wary now. ‘Sally? What’s going on?’
But there was no answer. There couldn’t be an answer. Sally was gone. Theo had come to get her when Alex called him.
Alex. He’d left her alone in the house.
A house which wanted to be cold, dark and isolated. A house which wanted her for itself. It had already locked him out once to have its way.
This was wrong. All of it was wrong.
They shouldn’t have left the fucking idol out of the hole. They should have just put it back down in the ground where the roots could hold it. Better yet, he should have mixed up a ton of concrete and poured it over the bastard thing.
The pain in his leg became a burn. He thought he heard laughter. Dark and knowing, mocking, a laugh which had haunted him for years.
