How many times had he trod the path to the rose garden over the year, hoping to catch some fleeting feeling of closeness with her? Hundreds of times. He looked for her footprints in the soil, the beds she cleared, the new flowers she was studiously coaxing out of the ground with her skill and magic.
How many times had he stood at the entrance to the rose garden and scanned the area, hoping that she might be there even when he knew it was impossible?
His pulse jumped at the thought of doing the very same thing now,knowingthat she would be there. For once, he would look out across the garden not simply see moonlit blooms, buther.
…Except she wasn’t there.
Harlan stalked through the opening in the stone fence and down the gravel path between the beds.
The weight of fear increased until it felt like he could barely breathe under it.
There was no one in the garden. The only thing that caught his eye was a row of new rose bushes swathed in some sort of synthetic sheeting, insulating them from the cold night to come.
His heart began to pound in earnest as he swept his gaze over the rows and rows of spectacularly tended bushes, hoping he somehow missed her. If she had collapsed somewhere, perhaps—
A flash of white caught his eye. Prowling toward the greenhouse, Harlan narrowed his eyes at the sight of what looked like some sort of gun-shaped tool laying in the dirt by the covered roses.
It was hanging just over the edge of the bed and angled slightly toward the greenhouse.
Turning on his heel, Harlan held his breath as he made his way toward the shadowy shape of the glass and metal structure.
It was old, and when he realized his new obsession spent most of her time there, he demanded Mr. Eisele purchase a new one for her use. Even in those early days, the need to give her the very best the world had to offer rode him hard. If she needed a greenhouse, his witch would get the finest, most state of the art one available.
But his groundskeeper had come back the next evening grumbling that she didn’t want a new one, that it had historical significance, so would Mr. Bounds please allow it to stay?
Of course, he could refuse her nothing, even if he only wanted her to have the best, so he surprised Mr. Eisele by agreeing to keep it. What Zia wanted, Zia got.
Now, however, he wished he pressed the issue.
The interior of the greenhouse was obscured by over two centuries of discoloration and moss adhered to the thick, leaded glass panels, so it was impossible for him to make out any distinct shapes inside. Still, the sweaty skin on the back of his neck prickled when he reached for the brass handle.
She’s here.
Hunting instincts rising in a wave, Harlan slowly turned the handle and pulled open the narrow door. The scents of green things and dirt and water andherhit him first. Luscious rose, vanilla, and the smallest hint of salt made his mouth water, the gland in the roof of his mouth aching with a fierceness he had never experienced. The scent of her burrowed into him. Combined with the sound of her rapidly beating heart, it worked to make him instantly, painfully hard.
And then he saw her.
Sitting on an overturned bucket in the far corner, she stared up at him with slightly unfocused eyes. In an achingly soft, tremulous voice, she breathed, “Mr. Bounds? Is… that you?”
Fuck.
ChapterThree
There was terror,and then there was “sit in a pitch-black greenhouse for an hour until the door slowly swings open to reveal two blazing, night-glow eyes and nothing else”terror.
Zia wasn’t particularly fond of the dark when she had a nightlight and her favorite blanket. Butthis?This was fear on a level she had never experienced.
It was the kind that came directly from the oldest part of the brain — that fleshy stem that told the body what foods to crave, when to fuck, when to sleep. It was the part that saw snakes in fallen branches and faces in clouds and sweetness in bright colors.
It was the part that looked in the dark and saw death.
Zia sat perfectly still on her makeshift seat. Mere moments ago she was chilled to the bone and miserable. Now she felt almost outside of her body, entirely absent from the decision-making process that currently held her rooted to the spot.
She stared at those night-glow eyes — an almost electric green with candy-colored yellow centers, the hallmark of a predator — which could realistically only belong to one man, but… that really wasn’t all that comforting.
Zia stared at the vague impression of his broad shouldered shape, only truly given form by the placement of those eyes. Without them, she never would have seen him. Without the faintest whine of the old door hinges, she never would have heard him, either.
Her breaths puffed in front of her, hot and fast.
