Hell Transporter (Between) (21 page)

Because it’s cold and you might get lonely?

Because Mona was taunting me and I don’t trust her?

Because...

Because...

Because...

“I missed you,” he said, stealing the words from my lips. I nodded. That’s what I wanted to say and the fact that he said it first made my heart swell. His thumb traced the contours of my cheek, then trailed across my jaw. “Lord in heaven, you are beautiful,” he said, leaning forward slowly. Soft lips brushed against mine like a whisper, just a taste. His fingers threaded through my hair as he kissed me again, teasing his tongue across my lower lip. Desire quivered within me, building in intensity like a kettle on a hot burner. Stepping into his embrace, I blocked out everything but him: his body heat wrapping around me, his masculine scent filling my lungs, his touch turning every nerve ending into a live wire.

Blissful whimpers escaped from my lips as his mouth moved lower, down my chest. A growl of need echoed in my head.

I want ye.

He twisted us around and pressed me against the trunk of the tree, dropping his hands to the front of my robe. I sent him a mental picture of the two of us covered in nothing but the silver gleam of the full moon. His visceral reaction lit my skin on fire. I dragged his face back to my lips just as he hoisted me up so that my legs wrapped around his waist.

The wind began to howl and a dark mist swept across the moon’s path. The air felt good on my fevered skin at first, but a heartbeat later, I recognized the stench that had come to signify the presence of the demon. Keen disappointment landed with a thud in my gut, blocking out what should have been fear. Aiden set me on my feet and turned, knife in hand, ready to meet the enemy at last.

“Why does it always show up when we’re…” I wanted to scream, but then the truth smacked me in the face.

It needs us to be connected.

My mind raced through the scenarios where the hell transporter had appeared and every time, Aiden and I had been mentally connected. At the cabin, I’d been sending him dirty pictures before the howling stench ripped the air from my lungs. In the music room, I’d reached out to him to say hello before the beast had burst through the door.

And now this.

I didn’t know what it meant or how we could use the information, but the thrill of discovery soared through me at having figured out at least one piece of the puzzle.

No more warnings!
The transporter’s voice shrieked in my skull, batting away my newfound excitement. Wincing, I pressed my fingers to my temples and slid to the ground. Everything in me screamed to block it out, to run away, but somewhere deep inside my fear, I recognized that this might be my only chance to get inside the monster’s head. I curled into a ball at the base of the tree and concentrated on the thread of energy I’d felt upon hearing its hiss.

Show yourself, you coward!
Aiden spat back, calling to the beast through me. My head throbbed with the effort to contain Aiden’s thoughts and mentally grab hold of the transporter.

As you wish.
The darkness concentrated farther up the trail, snuffing out the moon’s radiance like a wavering candle. The connection flared briefly in my mind and I latched on to it, only to be sucked into the abyss of pure evil.

I was no longer cowering against the tree, peering into the black void of night. I was hunched over at the crest of the path, looking down at the Scot and his sniveling girlfriend.

Kill kill kill…
The mantra seared my blood as I took in the pathetic scene. She wasn’t fighting. She wasn’t even trying. Worthless bitch. I burned to destroy her, the weakling who stood in my way, who was fucking up my plans.

Not for long.

My slitted eyes flickered over the Scot who stood ready to fight with nothing more than that tiny knife. Fierce determination shone on his face. My tongue lolled to one side in anticipation of what I had in store for him. If only I could—

He suddenly lunged forward and I had to leap to the side to avoid his charge. Damn, he was fast. My claws dug into the bark of a nearby tree and I swung into the branches to clear his grasp. He scrambled after me, fists curled into instruments of torture, hatred pouring from his eyes. I led him on a good chase, away from the trail, but I didn’t have much time.

My gaze locked onto the girl and a violent, lusty excitement soared in my chest. I would tear her apart, rip her limbs from her body and laugh as her blood soaked into the ground.

You will die tonight.
Her whole body twitched and I knew she’d heard. The war cry that erupted behind me told me the Scot had heard as well.

I crashed through the brush toward her. She didn’t move, just shivered like a mouse before the cat’s jaws, but her eyes grew larger than the moon as I bore down on her. She was making it too easy. She was taking the all fun out of it.

Kill, kill, kill…
The master will be pleased. I will be the favorite. Even if she does just lay there like a rag doll and deny me the pleasure of hearing her scream, it won’t matter. She’ll no longer interfere and the Scot will be mine. I’ll accomplish my mission and return to the master, who will elevate me to my rightful place.

A desperate longing for acceptance and appreciation clawed its way through my gut at the thought, but I pushed it aside. Emotion is nothing more than foolish weakness and the master does not suffer fools, I reminded myself.

Summoning the wind’s power, I flew forward with the speed of a raging fire and grasped the girl’s hair in my talons, yanking her limp body up off the ground. I wouldn’t have time to savor her death. The Scot was raining down on me. No matter. One quick snap and she’d be dead. I wanted to see her eyes as she died, as the light dimmed from the inside out. When she met my gaze, I froze.

I was looking back at myself. She was in my—

Pain exploded in my shoulder as the Scot’s blade pierced my skin.

NO!

He was too close. I could not let him get close. Slamming the girl to the ground, I called upon the darkness and joined the slithering black mist.

Aiden arrived at my side just as the smoke dissipated. The transporter was gone. My mind snapped back into my own head with the force of a mallet to my skull. My whole body shook with terror. Every inch of my skin crawled with the evil I’d been steeped in. My stomach revolted and I turned away from him to vomit in the grass. Aiden’s blade lay on the ground in front of me, slick with blood.

“Lindsey. Lindsey!” he repeated, dropping to his knees. Shock numbed my senses and I stared at him, not comprehending. “Are ye hurt? Can ye walk?”

I nodded, not sure if I could walk or not, but I was definitely hurting. Pain radiated from my neck down my shoulders, the byproduct of having been lifted off the ground by my hair. My legs felt like spaghetti noodles, wobbling beneath me as I tried to stand. Aiden grabbed his dirk and swiped it on a clean patch of grass before sheathing the weapon on his belt. He stood and lifted me into his arms as if I weighed nothing at all.

“I’m taking you home.”

The fog in my head started to clear and the aches in my body made themselves known. Nothing felt broken, but everything hurt: my hips, my shoulder, my head. I was a discarded, crumpled up ball of paper that could never be smoothed straight again. A soft bed where I could retreat and nurse my wounds sounded like heaven, but it also sounded like giving up. And now that I’d been inside the vicious beast’s head, giving up wasn’t an option.

I would kill it or die trying.

Most likely die trying
, my inner voice chimed in and I slapped it across the face. I was not a pathetic weakling. I had a weapon now and I would not lose. I
could
not lose. Pushing past the pain, I realized Aiden had carried me nearly all the way to the car.

“We can’t go home. I can’t just leave Stephanie.”

He continued walking as if I hadn’t spoken.

“Aiden, stop.”

He finally slowed and pinned me with a look that said he was not hearing any arguments about staying. Cradled in his arms, I could feel the rapid beating of his heart and knew he was fighting to maintain control. The tension in his jaw, the tightness in his shoulders… fury was consuming him from the inside out, fury at having let the creature escape.

“I did it,” I whispered. “I got in the transporter’s head.” Excitement and fear bubbled inside me. I didn’t know what it meant, but it was something. Something more than we had before. And now that I had a hold of that string, I would pull and pull until the whole damn thing unraveled.

“What do you mean?” He finally set me on my feet and I explained how I’d seen through the transporter’s eyes. “Did you find out where it’s hiding?” I shook my head and he swore, staring at the ground. “So how exactly does that help us? The beast nearly killed ye right before my eyes! Now it’s gone and I’ve no idea how to find it.” The frustration in his voice was pushing my buttons, but I tried not to get sucked in.

“I don’t know
exactly
how this helps us. But now that I know how to do it, I can do it again. Maybe then I can learn where it’s staying.”

“Meanwhile, it’s trying to kill us.”

I shook my head, realization setting in. “Not us. Just me. It doesn’t want to kill you.”

“What?” He gaped at me like I’d started speaking in tongues.

“I don’t know. I just… when I was in its head… it thinks I’m in the way, but it doesn’t want to kill you. I don’t know what it wants.”

He blew out a pent up breath and ran a hand through his hair. “That’s it, I’m not leaving your side.”

As if that would help. But I knew better than to say that out loud. For better or for worse, this was my fight, not his.

“You’re going hunting next weekend,” I reminded him.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.” He skewered me with a look and I shook my head at him. “Mom is coming down and will be here all weekend, so I won’t be alone. I told you before, Aiden, I won’t live like a hermit. Besides, all you had tonight was your knife. What if you’d had Ian’s rifle?”

A begrudging smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Aye, I’d like that.”

Grabbing his hand, I pulled him toward the warmth of the cabin, ignoring the shooting pains in my hip. “Come on, it’s freezing out here. You can sleep on the couch in the living room. You’ll be up before Steph, so she’ll never know you were there.” Before I got three steps, he stopped and pulled me into a fierce embrace. He took a deep breath as he held me, then let it go slowly.

“I never want to be that scared again,” he whispered into my hair. The tremor in his voice sliced through my heart. Still, I didn’t have words to reassure him, so I simply kissed him and sent up a prayer.

Chapter 27

Mom came down to the school the following weekend, full of wedding plans and excitement. I had to hand it to her, she had taken on the challenge of planning a wedding in two months with a sort of fervor I’d rarely seen in her before. She had checklists and timelines, and she peppered me with questions about decisions that needed to be made. She took all three of us girls to see the seamstress who was working on our dresses, and I trembled with emotion when I stepped into my wedding gown for the first time. The seamstress had done an unbelievable job creating the dress from my sketch and description, and I blinked at my reflection in the mirror, hardly able to breathe.

It was a shimmering silky white replica of the dress Aiden had cast for me to attend the ball in Versailles. Hunter green beads were sewn onto the skirt in an elongated diamond-shaped pattern, and the tight sleeves ended at my elbows in ruffles of lace. The gown flared at my waist while the skirt split in the front to reveal a ruffled green taffeta petticoat underneath, the mirror image of my French ball gown. My breasts filled the gathered silken pouch at the front as Mom zipped up the tight bodice from behind. She stood looking over my shoulder in the mirror, a range of emotions playing across her face. A lump formed in my throat and I swallowed it down.

“Thank you, Mom. For everything. It’s so…” I shook my head, trying to find the words to describe the beauty of the dress and what it meant to me. “It’s exactly what I wanted. Thank you so much.”

“We’ll pull up your hair and have ringlets curling down the back…” Her voice cracked and then trailed off as she played with my hair and tried to hide the tear that ran down one cheek. Twisting around, I hugged her tight and she returned it, taking deep breaths in my ear as she tried to get a hold of herself. She sniffed and pulled back, smiling brightly. “You look beautiful, honey. You really do.”

Jen and Steph came into the room in their bridesmaid’s dresses and squealed in delight when they saw me. “Oh my God!” they cried in unison and hurried over to hug me. The four of us laughed and hugged, admiring the gowns while the seamstress waited patiently to finish placing the pins, her own face lit with a grin.

~

The following Friday was my birthday, so Aiden and I went out to dinner with Jen and Paul to celebrate. Afterwards, Aiden didn’t take me back to the dorm as I’d expected, but drove me to his place in the country instead. When I quirked an eyebrow at him, a mischievous grin crept across his face.