Nick swung his legs around so they were beneath him and he crouched there, silhouetted in front of the fire, like a great cat about to pounce. ‘There’s nowhere to run to, Alexandra,’ he told her, still smiling. Like it was all a game.
And maybe it was to him.
‘Nick…’ she whispered, but she couldn’t keep the hopelessness from her voice or her eyes. Because that wasn’t Nick, was it? Not anymore.
And she knew full well what it was.
He shook his head slowly and the smile widened still further until he was showing his teeth. Almost like a snarl.
Not a guardian, not anymore.
A hunter. Feral and dangerous. A predator.
And she remembered, all those years ago, in the darkness.
The cold arched roof of stones closing over her and the stench of mulch. The darkness pressing in on her, suffocating her. Dad’s hands falling still, limp on the rich and hungry earth.
Down in the undercroft where her father had found her and tried to help her. Where Crom had taken him and made him its creature.
The gleam of gold beneath rotting foliage. Eyes that didn’t see, but saw everything, the mouth hanging open, hungry and waiting.
The idol, waiting for her, ready for her to free it. For all this to happen.
The taste of blood in her mouth, choking her, and the world blurring through tears and terror.
Just like now.
‘Are you going to run?’ he asked, amused at the whole idea. ‘If you run, my sweet Alexandra, I’ll have to chase you. Isn’t that what happened all those years ago? Your father told you to run. And look how that turned out.’
‘Run, Alex! You have to run!’
And she had run, out into the night, out into the trees. Because the trees were the only defence against this being, the final line of defence. The trees and the spirits wound through them. She’d called out, begging for help, praying for their guardian…
But the guardian was gone. Nick was…Nick was gone.
There had been no guardian back then. No Nick. Just her father. She had run and her father had followed and…
But he had been trying to protect her. He had always protected her. From the family curse. From the ghosts. From Blaise Chambers and the thing that haunted this house…
Hadn’t he?
‘You have to run! NOW!’
He had been lost too. He had been…been…chasing her…hunting her…
He had come after her. Not to protect her. Not anymore. Her father had already been gone long before he pursued her into the woods.
‘You were always mine,’ Blaise growled. ‘You always will be. I will find you in any lifetime, in any form. Eternity binds us together, Alexandra de Wilde.’
Something struck the windows behind her, and she heard the crash of glass breaking, and suddenly the night tore into the ancient building, the wind and the rain and the darkness in a maelstrom of chaos.
She spun around to see the debris strewn across the carpet and the furniture, and a tree branch like a huge grasping hand reaching into Wildewood Hall, as if it was trying to grab her. She backed up towards the doorway leading to the hall, barefoot and wearing only a t-shirt and jeans.
‘Where are you going?’ Nick’s voice teased in that terrible sing-song way.
The storm was upon them. And the wild woods didn’t have a guardian anymore. She had handed him over to their enemy, who had made him its own.
There was only one thing to do.
