Forgotten (6 page)

He was real and he was more frightening than
any nightmare could ever be.

Kate looked up at him, her heart pounding in
her chest. He was massive—6’8 at least—with shoulders fully twice
broad as hers. Either one of his muscular thighs was as big around
as her waist. His hand, when he held it out to her, was a big as a
catcher’s mitt.

“
Kate,” he growled, in an
inhumanly deep voice. “I’m here for you. I finally found
you.”

Kate stumbled backwards, trying to get away
from him but he was blocking her only exit from the narrow hall,
his muscular shoulders filling the tight space.

“
No!” she gasped. Just as
it had when she saw him in the food court, her pulse started racing
and she suddenly couldn’t get a deep enough breath. She took
another stumbling step, tripped over her sensible work heels, and
fell flat on her back.

Trapped! I’m
trapped!
her mind screamed.
He’s come for me and now I’ll never get
away!

“
No!” she moaned again
when he reached for her. She tried to roll away but he was too
quick. One big, hot hand closed over her wrist and pulled her to
her feet.

His touch had an immediate
effect on her and
not
a good one. Had her heart been racing before? It was beating
triple time now—pounding so hard it felt like it was trying to beat
its way right out of her chest. Her breath got shallower and
shallower until she felt like she was sipping air through a straw.
Bright stars started to dance in front of her vision.

Panic attack—I’m having a
panic attack!
She’d never had one before
but her aunt had been subject to them. Kate had always prided
herself on being too strong for that kind of weakness but here she
was, following in her relative’s footsteps in the worst way
possible.

“
Kate?” he asked, looming
over her, still holding her hand firmly. His piercing blue eyes
were actually
glowing
in the dim hallway, Kate saw.
“Lalli?”
he rumbled in that deep
voice. “What’s wrong? Don’t you know me?”

“
I…I know you…” Kate’s
voice shook and she felt like her heart might burst. But suddenly
the Knowing was on her and she couldn’t stop the words from coming.
“The Beast…you’re the Beast,” she whispered. “Oh God, the Beast has
come to devour me!”

“
What in the Seven Hells?”
He dropped her hand abruptly and took a step back. “Baby, no—what
are you talking about?”

The minute he wasn’t touching her anymore,
some of the panic eased. Not much—Kate still feared for her life.
But at least the stars stopped exploding in her field of vision and
she no longer felt like she was going to pass out.

She took a deep, shaky breath and another
measured step away from him. Somehow she had to get around
him—somehow she had to get free.

“
Kate?” he said again and
was there hurt and confusion in those glowing blue eyes? Kate
didn’t know and she didn’t care.

“
Look,” she said evenly.
“I don’t know who you are or how you know my name but you’d better
get out of my way
now
if you don’t want a hole blown in your guts!”

She’d been too panicked and too close to
passing out earlier to think of it but now she gripped the Glock
and pulled it out from under her arm in one smooth motion. She
pointed it at the huge man and made a shooing motion with it.

“
Go on—get out of my
way.”

He looked at her incredulously.

“
You’re not serious. You
won’t shoot
me.”

“
I’d shoot anybody who
attacked me in a dark hallway and you’re no exception, buddy,” she
snapped. “You might be too big to take down with one bullet but
that’s okay—I’ve got a full clip. And I’m going to empty it into
your stupid head if you don’t back up nice and slow and let me out
of here.”

“
All right…all right.”
Still looking at her like
she
was the crazy one, the big man raised his hands
and began backing down the long, narrow hallway. Kate advanced on
him steadily, making sure to keep well away from him. He was
freaking
huge
and
those muscular arms of his promised he had a long reach. She didn’t
want to give him a chance to get his hands on her again.

“
Kate,” he said again but
she shook her head.

“
Zip it, buddy. Not
interested.”

“
But if you would
just
listen
to me
for a minute…”

“
What part of ‘not
interested’ do you not understand?” They were almost to the end of
the hallway now—Kate could see her freedom in sight. She motioned
with the gun again when it seemed like he might be slowing down.
“Keep moving. And once we’re out of this freaking hallway, you’re
going to take a right and walk away from me nice and slow. You do
anything else and I’ll shoot first and ask questions afterwards,
you got it?”

He was still backing away but now he shook
his head.

“
I don’t believe you—you
won’t shoot your own mate.”

“
My
what?”
They were finally out of the
hall but instead of turning to go, he was just standing there,
staring down at her.

“
Your mate,” he said
quietly. “
Lalli,
I’m your
mate.
What you humans call a husband. I’m a Wulven Kindred and
you’re my bride—my wife.”

“
You’re crazy,” Kate said
flatly. And he certainly looked it. His black hair was long and
shaggy and his face was badly in need of a shave. Now that she saw
him in the light, she could tell the piercing blue eyes were
red-rimmed, as though he hadn’t slept in weeks.

“
I’ve been looking for
you,” he said softly. “For so long. I was so afraid…”

“
Tell you what,” Kate said
evenly. “I don’t know where you saw me or why you fixated on me but
you need to take your crazy and move along. You go away and forget
about me and we’ll pretend this never happened. But you
mess
with me again and
I’ll blow your head off!”

He shook his head in despair.

“
Kate,” he whispered
hoarsely. “Baby, do you really not know me?”

“
I’ve never seen you
before in my life,” Kate said, glaring down the barrel of her
Glock.
Except in your dreams,
whispered a little voice in her head but she
pushed it away. “And I better never see you
again
if you want to keep
breathing,” she continued. “I mean it, buddy—
back off.”

“
All right,” he said
quietly. “I’ll leave you alone.” He gave her one last, despairing
look and turned away.

Kate watched him go down
the deserted upper deck of the mall with a strange feeling in her
gut. Of course the big guy’s assertion that she was his wife was
insane but she couldn’t help feeling just a
little
sorry for him. Probably she
looked like someone he had lost. Maybe he had PTSD or some other
condition which was sad…but it didn’t make him any less dangerous,
she reminded herself.

She debated on calling the security office
and reluctantly decided against it. There would be all kinds of
questions about how such a petite woman had gotten away from such a
huge, menacing attacker without a scratch. And no doubt her gun
would come up—she didn’t want that. Speaking of which, she realized
she was still holding the Glock openly in the middle of the mall.
Quickly, she holstered it, glad for once that the upper gallery was
so deserted.

“
Well, I’d better get to
work,” she said to herself in a low voice and was glad to hear that
it didn’t tremble. She glanced at her watch and was surprised to
see that her break wasn’t quite up. The whole incident in the
hallway had barely taken two minutes—she wasn’t even going to be
late if she hurried.

Lifting her chin, Kate
walked briskly down the hall, her heart pounding to the beat of her
clacking heels. It was all right—everything was going to be all
right. The guy from her dreams had come after her but she had
confronted him and driven him away. And come to think of it, that
was probably what the dreams had been about all along. It was just
the
Knowing
trying to warn her she was going to be in danger.

But I’m fine now,
Kate thought as her store came into sight.
Just fine. Danger over. Crisis
averted.

She had never been more wrong in her
life.

Chapter
Four

“
Hmm…I don’t know.
It
is
a
lovely
piece.” The
customer looked at his wrist where the gleaming Yacht-Master Rolex
was nestled in a wiry growth of black arm hair.

“
It certainly is,” Kate
remarked, trying not to stare at the way the black strands curled
around the gleaming gold links of the watch. Her customer was
completely bald but he made up for it by being the hairiest man
she’d ever seen in her life.

This being Florida, he was dressed for the
weather outside, in shorts, a t-shirt and a very regrettable pair
of sandals. His arms and legs looked like they belonged to a
chimpanzee and curly black tufts stuck out of both the front of his
t-shirt and the back, proving he was every bit as hirsute under his
clothes.

Even his toes were hairy
like he was a freaking hobbit. Kate could tell because of the
sandals—
man-dals
her mom would have called them with a sniff—she hadn’t
approved of men wearing open toed shoes. It had never bothered Kate
much before, but in this case, she would have had to agree with her
mom’s opinion—the sight was pretty gross. Still, she had to control
her personal revulsion and just humor the customer.

The thing was, he
was
going
to buy
the watch. Kate had seen it the moment she shook his hairy hand
when he came back into the shop. He was rich enough that seventy
thousand was a minor splurge—he would buy it as a treat to
himself—the way Kate herself might have stopped by Haagen-Daz and
bought an ice cream cone if she’d been especially good that day and
gone to the gym. But he wanted to be sold on it—wanted to admire it
and be admired wearing it. So, even though her nerves were still
jangling from the strange encounter with the big Kindred, Kate
accommodated him…as well as she could.

“
Did you know,” she said,
“That every Rolex is subjected to numerous strenuous tests to be
certain they’re up to the high standards set by the
company?”

“
Is that right?” The
customer looked up from admiring the watch nestled in his arm
hair.

“
Un-huh.” Kate nodded.
“They go through over twenty drop tests where they drop the watch
from much higher than it would ever normally fall. And then there’s
the ram—it’s a kind of metal arm that shoots out and slams into the
watch face at the equivalent of five thousand Gs—hundreds of times
what it would be subjected to, even in the worst car
crash.”

“
Truly?” He looked
impressed.

“
Oh, yes.” Kate nodded
again. “And tell me this, Mr. Denrek—do you do any
swimming?”

“
Well…” He puffed his
hairy chest out importantly. “I’ve been known to do a triathlon
from time to time. I really enjoy competing in the Ironman
competition—there’s a swimming section in that.”

Kate knew none of this was
true—the customer had run a half marathon
once
and hadn’t been able to finish
it—she’d picked it up when she touched him. But she widened her
eyes anyway, as though she was awed.

“
Wow—isn’t that supposed
to be really hard?”

“
It can be.” He shrugged.
“If you haven’t trained enough. That’s why I try to spend at least
an hour a day at the gym.”

Sure you do.
Kate looked at the considerable paunch stretching
his t-shirt. She didn’t need the
Knowing
to know this was a fib. But
the customer wanted to be flattered and she needed to sell this
watch so of course she would go along with it.

For a moment she felt a
rush of despair. What was she doing here? She could have been using
her gift for something that mattered instead of picking some hairy
rich guy’s brain to sell him an overpriced watch. In fact, she had
a feeling she
had
done something like that in the past but she couldn’t be
sure. There were holes in her memory—the three year gap was the
biggest but it wasn’t the only one—not by a long shot.

“
I can see you work out,”
Kate said, getting back to business. She tapped the watch face
gently with one fingernail. “Which is why this is the watch for
you—it would suit your, uh, your
active
lifestyle.” She cleared her
throat. “You know that every Oyster Perpetual Yacht-Master Rolex is
subjected to stringent waterproofness testing? Before being shipped
every single one is tested at a depth 10 percent more than it’s
guaranteed for. Which means that—”

“
Which means you’re going
to hand it over or this pretty little bitch is going to be wearing
your brains on her blouse.”