Coveted (2 page)

 Chapter Two

S
hayla strode over the
Scottish moors, snapping pictures at random, her mind on the destruction of her
hotel room and not the beautiful countryside.

She’d arrived in
Scotland three days ago for a job. A once-in-a-lifetime trip. She should be
thrilled. She would be, too, if the trip hadn’t been an escape from the
horrible mess she’d made of her life.

For the first time in
months, she was finally safe. No obsessively looking over her shoulder. No late
nights waiting for the bastard to strike. She’d let down her guard and permitted
herself to believe, just for an instant, that it was finished.

It didn’t take long
to discover her stalker had followed her thousands of miles across the Atlantic.
Plastic creaked, and Shayla forced her fingers to relax their strangled hold on
the camera. It was a poor substitute for his scrawny old neck.

Earlier that morning,
she’d dropped her best friend off at the train station, assuring James, yet
again, that she’d be absolutely fine on her own. She was safe. But when she’d
returned to her room the door had been ajar.

Paralyzing fear had grabbed
her by the throat.

It had taken all her
willpower to put one foot in front of the other. She had to know. Her hands had
shook so badly, she’d dropped her bag twice before working up the courage to
shoulder open the door.

Everything had been trashed.

Every belonging she
hadn’t taken with her had been smashed or shredded. The bed had been gutted,
sliced in half like some kind of animal sacrifice. Inches of pillow feathers twirled
across the floor. But what drew her horrified gaze was the obscene message spread
across the walls in thick, dripping letters in blood-red paint.

Thou shall not
suffer a witch to live.

After three hours
with the police, she’d been desperate to get away. There had been no physical attack
on her person, nothing was taken, no evidence left behind. The police here and
home couldn’t do anything but file a report. Told her to keep on her guard, not
go out alone, and take meticulous notes on any future attacks.

Which was absurd.

She’d met her stalker
six months ago. She’d actually done a job for him. Maybe too well. The
sixty-year-old retired priest had since dogged her every step, searching for
proof that she was a witch.

At first, she brushed
him off as harmless. Then he began leaving notes with her neighbors and fliers
on cars in her neighborhood, detailing intimate information about her life. She’d
joked it off as a cruel prank, but people began to avoid her. She wasn’t sure
if they believed the lies or just didn’t want to get involved.

She couldn’t blame
them.

Then things
escalated.

Slashed tires.

Threatening letters
and emails.

Hang-up phone calls
at all hours. She hadn’t slept for more than thirty minutes at a time in weeks.

The old guy had
stamina. She’d give him that.

When he started hounding
her family, he’d gone too far. She went to the police. But when she got to the
part her stalker was a priest, she saw the doubt. Saw the look in their eyes
shift from victim to troublemaker.

Even with the evidence
she’d collected, they could do nothing.

She kicked a rock off
the path, cursing the justice system. Not one to meekly give up, Shayla did her
own digging

And found something
even more disturbing.

There was no record
of a priest by the name of Father Patrick. His parish had never existed. He’d
paid cash for her services, so she had no leads.

He was a ghost.

The rotten bastard
had lied about everything.

Shayla had enough.
She didn’t feel physically safe anymore. Her younger brother had insisted on
self-defense training, working over every inch of her until her muscles
screamed for mercy. He might be a pain in her ass, but as far as he was
concerned, no one messed with his sister but him. The next time she saw the old
goat, she’d give him something to worry about besides badgering her.

There were billions
of men in the world. Go into any town, walk into any store, and she practically
tripped over them. But instead of finding Mr. Right, she’d landed an insane non-priest
bent on destroying her life.

And Shayla had no
idea why.

Her mother moaned
that if she had a man in her life, none of this would’ve happened. She didn’t
seem to understand Shayla didn’t want a man to protect her. She wanted an equal
partnership. Mother was a tyrant who henpecked her husband at every
opportunity, while he adored her dainty feet even as they walked all over him.
As the eldest, Shayla was expected to marry first, much to the amusement and
relief of her siblings. She received the brunt of their mother’s badgering.
Within a year of her eighteenth birthday, she’d been being labeled incorrigible,
not to mention a few other unflattering names.

Though she’d never
admit it aloud, Shayla longed for the romance of falling in love. Craved the
intricate steps of courtship.

She half-heartedly
lifted the camera and snapped a picture of a tumble-down castle in the
distance. The hundreds of painstakingly cultivated flowers gave the castle a
bit of whimsy, as if the previous owner still painstakingly tended the grounds
after hundreds of years, but even the beautiful scenery couldn’t pierce her
foul mood.

She actually kind of
wished her stalker would show, just so she could put a stop to his nonsense and
be done with it. She sincerely doubted he really believed she was a witch.

No, he wanted
something from her.

Men like him always
did.  

Each incident
isolated her from her friends and family. He was methodically separating her
from those who cared. And he did such a damned good job of it, too, that she
hadn’t even noticed until she was alone.

If she got near the
old coot, maybe she could glean something from his past that she could use
against him and force him to leave her alone.

Or break his legs.

Either would give her
the same results. The thought almost made her smile.

The problem was she was
in Scotland, the most romantic spot on the planet, and she was alone. Oh, she
knew James wasn’t the one, but he was the closest she’d been able to find.

He was every woman’s perfect
man.

Rich.

Good looking.

Just not perfect for
her.

There was no spark.

Her mother insisted
excitement was overrated, that Shayla could be happy with James if she put
aside her fantasies and settled down.

But one word stuck…
settled
.

She didn’t want to
settle
for a man. She wanted the perfect love her grandparents had.

She just had to locate
him first.

Too bad she was
beginning to suspect that wouldn’t happen in her line of work. She’d have to
give up her magic. It was becoming progressively more dangerous, both
physically and emotionally.

Though the priest wasn’t
her first stalker, he was the most persistent.

Maybe a warning of
things to come. A shiver worked down her spine. It was time for her to decide
what type of future she wanted.

She was supposed to
be a Seeker, able to locate the most obscure items. She was the best in her
field. Even being selective, she had a list of jobs waiting for her attention.

Which made her search
for the elusive
one
all the more ironic. She’d never been able to use
her faerie magic, as her grandfather called it, when doing a search for
herself. It was considered personal gain and against the rules.

That left her stalker
as the only man in her life.

So when she’d
received a job offer for an obscene amount of money to go to Scotland and
listen to a pitch for a new job, she’d jumped at the chance. Her
over-protective family had agreed, insisting she get away…until they learned
her destination.

They forbade her to
leave, insisting it was too dangerous, which was ridiculous, since the family
had emigrated from Scotland some three hundred years ago. Any lingering danger,
if there had ever been any, had long since turned to dust.

All the stories about
guardians and werewolves her grandfather whispered to her when she was a kid
flashed through her mind. He’d warned that her fate and that of the guardians were
intertwined, that her destiny lay in Scotland.

Her childhood wonder
had faded years ago, the stories merely fairytales, told to her by an old man
who’d suffered from Alzheimer’s. And despite all that, her heart ached that she
was in Scotland without the old man. It had been ten years since his death, and
she still missed him. Missed his romantic stories.

Scotland was
everything her grandfather had said and more. The mystical places he’d
described so vividly lay stretched out before her.

She’d just arrived a
few centuries too late to witness the magic firsthand.

But her family had behaved
as if they’d never see her again. The only reason they’d relented and she
wasn’t physically locked in their basement was because James had offered to
accompany her.

She and James had
dated for three weeks before realizing they were better friends than lovers. He’d
stepped up and promised to keep her out of trouble. Her mother readily agreed,
as if spending time alone together would change them back into a couple.

James took his job
seriously, delivering her to the inn with a minimum of fuss. He got her
settled, unobtrusively checking out her room, even peeking under the bed. It
had taken her the whole plane ride to convince him he couldn’t miss his medical
conference in London just to sit around babysitting her.

But the magic of
Scotland was tarnished by the troubles that followed her around like a shadow
she couldn’t shake.

It was time to finish
this nonsense.

No more running from
her problems.

The first step would
be to purchase essential supplies for the week, finish the job quickly, and not
allow her stalker to get the upper hand. She’d deal with him, then she’d figure
out a way to avoid the bleak future stretched out before her if she was forced
to give up the job she loved. The wind kicked up, penetrating her clothes, and
she shivered. She shoved her camera back in her satchel, but when she turned to
head back toward the quaint little inn her prospective boss had rented for the
week, there was no sign of civilization, only a huge-ass dog sitting amongst
the heather.

Watching.

Waiting.

Shayla bit her lip,
debating her choices. She tried to glance around without actually losing sight
of the dog.

No owner.

And certainly no tree
close enough that she’d be able to climb and get away from those super-large,
saber-toothed type teeth he flashed about if he decided to give chase.

Then a big tongue
lolled out, giving her a doofus grin as if to say
‘See? I’m Harmless’
.
She wasn’t convinced, but she remembered spotting him sneaking around at the
inn. There was no road behind him, no discernible path. She must have meandered
off course. She glanced at her watch and cursed to see that hours had passed.

Shayla didn’t panic.
She was never lost. All she had to do was focus on her destination, and she
would find her way there.

Eventually.

It was part of her
gift that came to her like second nature.

But she didn’t care
for the look of the black thunderclouds rolling in over the sea. The sky had
darkened threateningly, the storm clouds boiling up from out of nowhere. The
dog barked then paced back the way they’d come.

As though offering to
lead her home.

Only one problem.

She’d never make it back
before the storm struck.

She glanced toward
the castle, the only visible shelter, and a spurt of unfamiliar indecision made
her waver.