“What? Leaped—” Oliver stammered out rushing closer, hoping to terrify them both. He spotted her gaze flicking to his and he scowled and roared. “I’ll kill anyone who spreads that lie!”
She squeaked, making Oliver’s day, but instead of leaping back and finishing what she’d started earlier, she swatted him. She would have hit him had he been corporeal. “Go away!”
Part of him was surprised by her again. Not everyone was afraid, but no one had ever tried to strike him. That just made her more dangerous.
“I will absolutely not go away!” he shouted. “This is my fortress. You go away! You’re the intruder here!”
She squinted her eyes in his direction. Was her vision of him fading? He stepped forward.
“I think he’s shouting at me,” she whispered on a shaky breath. “I hear something. It’s very faint.”
Her companion stepped away from her, apparently not wanting the air he breathed to be contaminated by a crazy woman having a conversation with the Ghost of Graven.
Oliver, on the other hand, could barely move. His breath, real or imagined, came hard. Could she truly hear him?
“You…you can really see him?” her friend asked.
She nodded—and then shook her head. “I think he’s gone.”
Oliver blinked. No. No, he wasn’t gone. Why couldn’t she see him anymore? Was that it for being seen for the next half dozen centuries? He couldn’t do it. Hewouldn’tdo it.
Her friend laughed. “You told the Ghost of Graven to go away and he did!”
Oliver didn’t care if he had blood to fire his veins or not. His fury was real. He reached out and pushed his index finger against the man’s forehead. “Get out.”
The woman’s friend paled. He didn’t hear Oliver’s voice, but the Ghost of Graven showed himself, directly in front of him, blue and bloating and half eaten by fish. Her friend turned and fled for the battlement exits. Oliver turned to have a look at the woman. What did she think of a man who ran away and left her?
She looked around, appearing less afraid but still cautious. Her fiery brown gaze passed him.
“Did you really leave?” she asked the air.
“No, I would never allow someone like you to order me—”
“You’re still here, aren’t you?”
He stared at her. Who was she that she could see him, hear him, sense him? “Lady—”
“You seem very angry,” she reasoned cautiously with a quirk of her russet brow. “Is it because you were betrayed?”
He should scream in her face, or appear to her as a rotting corpse. Instead, for a moment he let his gaze rove over the thick bun atop her head. He disappeared and then appeared again floating about her head. With a deep exhale, he caused a gust of wind from the dark skies to swirl around her until her hair came loose. It fell to her waist in thick, crinkly waves splashed in the bright colors of autumn and blew across her face. She stillcouldn’t see him but that didn’t stop her cheeks from matching her hair.
He stood over her, his eyes fastened on the full, natural pout of her softly painted red lips. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Eleanor would always hold that title. Perhaps it was because this woman was rather plain at first glance, that he allowed his vision to soak in the sight of her and make him want to smile. She was beguiling. He chuckled. He wouldn’t be fooled by a woman again. But he wanted her to see him. To feel another’s gaze on him—on the way he looked before he died—so he could feel…alive again.
He could force her to see him for a few moments, with a touch, as he’d done to her male companion. But that was a tactic usually reserved to terrorize, he wouldn’t try to frighten her. Besides, she’d vanquished her fear like a warrior heading for the battlefield. But he wouldn’t admire her. She was nothing special. He turned away to leave when another man appeared under the archway.
Oliver stopped and returned his incredulous gaze to the woman. How many men had followed her here?
“I’m Dave, the foreman on site.” Dave smiled at her, looking a little captivated by her hair, swaying like flames over her shoulders. “We’ll be starting soon.”
“Starting what?” Oliver demanded. No one answered.
“If you begin today,” she said, twisting her hair on top of her head and jabbing a pen into it to hold it in place, “you should be finished in three months as we planned.”
“What?” Oliver demanded. “Do you think you’ll be here for three months? I won’t—”
“You’ll find that I’m a man of my word, Ms. Montgomery.”
“—allow it! I…” Oliver’s lips snapped shut. Montgomery? Of all the emotions Oliver could feel, rage reigned supreme above the rest. Had the day finally come when he could take hisrevenge on a Montgomery? So what if she wasn’t Eleanor? A descendent was good enough. He would not only touch her, he would go into her and she would see, and what she saw would drive her mad. Letting fury rule, he moved forward and then rushed through her. Now, he did want to frighten her. He knew what he wanted this Montgomery woman to see. He’d driven many from the fortress with the vision of him as pale as death, decaying and grotesque while his gaze still held them still.
