Kept: An Erotic Anthology (42 page)

“A thief is a thief,” he added.

Finally, I placed his accent. Scottish. What the hell was this Highlander on steroids doing in small town Maine? Had I been transported into some kind of Mel Gibson movie?

Down we went, to the foyer I’d come in, then through a door that led to a dark staircase. My scalp ached. I could almost feel clumps of my hair dislodging from the root.

“Ow!” I dared to complain. “You’re hurting me.”

Surprisingly, he loosened his grip. Not enough for me to do anything but go where he took me, but it hurt a bit less. The three of us descended a set of stone stairs that ended in a cellar.

Shit. I was so screwed.

A light clicked on to reveal what looked like mainly storage space. Except for a small section to the right, where a set of manacles hung from the wall. My stomach rolled and my knees started to shake. Panic hit, and hit hard. It took all I had to stay standing.

The man released my hair, obviously not concerned that I would flee. I had one exit and he was blocking it.

A patch of blood smeared on the wall near the manacles caught my eye. I gasped then backed away a few steps.

And this is where I die.

In a house of God. How ironic.

The man peered down at me, almost smirking. “Aye. That’s from the last man who tried to steal from me.”

My mind whirled. I knew I needed to defend myself, explain this was all a misunderstanding, but I couldn’t get my mouth to move. “I…I…”

They stared at me. The priest fiddled with a rosary, looking unsettled. The Scottish man merely raised his brows, waiting.

“Speak, girl,” he ordered. “Or has your courage abandoned you?”

I cleared my throat, steeling said courage. “I-I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I wasn’t trying to steal anything. I don’t even know what it is.”

“Then what are you doin’ here? Hiding in the bell tower, tinkerin’ with things that aren’t yours doesn’t seem verra innocent.”

“I’m sorry.” I gave them my best innocent wee lass face. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m really sorry. I just came inside to warm up and I got a little lost. I ended up in the bell tower and it made me curious how it all worked so I just meant to walk around, that’s all. Then I saw the blue light in the brick and I thought maybe it controlled the bells. I don’t know what I was thinking. I shouldn’t have even come inside. I’m sorry.” I stopped rambling when I realized the guy called Baen was chuckling. It was hard to tell at first because it seemed so unnatural with all the scowl lines etched in his face. But his chest rumbled and white teeth showed between his lips.

He was laughing at me?

Annoyed, I let loose a little growl. “Well, if you believe it was an accident, will you let me go now? It’s not very nice to drag girls into bloody cellars and scare them half to death. Isn’t this supposed to be a sacred place and all that shi – er, stuff?” I gave the priest an apologetic smile.

“Oh now look who’s turned into a spitfire,” Baen taunted. “The wee lass thinks she’s safe and scolds us for scarin’ her.”

I put my hands out in a peaceful gesture. “Look. If you don’t tell anyone about me touching whatever that gadget is, I won’t tell anyone about you going all caveman on me.” I pointed to my hair, probably a tangled mess now. Not that my brown curls could ever be called tame. “I’m pretty sure this counts as assault.”

His sarcastic smile faded in an instant. He took a step toward me and I gulped. I started to move back then thought better of it when I realized I’d only be closer to the torture chamber.

Instead, I tried to stand my ground, stood up straighter and looked him in the eye. I had rights. This was fucking America, not whatever land and time he’d been dropped in from.

“Now
you
look, girl,” he said, eerily quiet. “Your little curiosity did some serious damage.” His gaze bore into mine and I found I couldn’t look away. “And now you’re goin’ to fix it.”

Eyes, almost unnaturally green, kept my attention captive. Mesmerizing.

Wait. What?

I gave my head an inward shake, trying to clear whatever spell he cast. “Fix it? I don’t even know what
it
is. I have a phone. I can call someone for you if you –”

“Baen,” the priest said. “Must we involve the girl? She’s young. She’s frightened. This was clearly all a big accident.”

Baen swung his head to face the priest. “The Clypeum can only be controlled by the last person to touch it. In this case, that’s her. Somehow, in her
curiosity
,” he spat the word with disgust, “she managed to turn it off. We’ll need to bring it to the Order.”

Clypeum? The Order? This was a joke, right?

The priest frowned but nodded.

“I won’t harm her,” Baen said, softer now. “As long as she’s telling the truth.” He turned his gaze on me and glared.

I tried not to shrink back. If I was going to get anywhere with this man, I’d have to speak up for myself. Time to grow a backbone. I couldn’t with Jared, who I’d broken up with several times yet he continued to act as if it’d never happened. I put up with his lingering because my father pressured me to. He only wanted a partner in his drug business.

But this time, I was in deep shit.

“I’m telling the truth,” I explained, “but I can’t go anywhere with you. I have to work in the morning.” I had no idea what or where the Order was, but it didn’t sound like it was just around the block. “If you want, I can try to press some buttons to turn it back on but then I have to go.”

Baen stared at me for a moment, as if determining whether I was serious. Then he laughed. “Aye. Here, lass.” He thrust the object out to me. “Press some buttons.”

I stared at the device in his palm. Was this a trick?

“Go on,” he said, smirking. “Turn it on.”

“Okay.” Slowly, I took it from his hand. I studied the buttons, trying to remember what I’d done in the bell tower. I tried pressing one that looked familiar, but nothing happened. I tried another and another. When the thing didn’t light up, I admitted I had no idea what I was doing and sighed. “Maybe it needs a new battery.”

Baen’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Guess that means you’ll be coming with me.” He plucked the thing from my hands and walked away.

“I have to get ready for Mass,” the priest said, eyeing the stairs.

My captor nodded and started rifling through boxes lined up against the other wall. “We’re leaving straight away.”

“Uh, where exactly are we going?” Maybe he’d make this easy and say the Lion’s Club downtown or something.

“Scotland.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. He didn’t even spare me a backward glance.

“Um.” How could I put this nicely? “That’s kind of impossible. I don’t have a passport.”

“You don’t need one.”

Fuck. The man acted like he had every intention of dragging me halfway across the world, whether I wanted to go or not. I took a step toward the stairs.

The priest frowned at me. “I’m sorry you got mixed up in this, child.” He took my hands in his. His skin felt papery but warm. And there was some strength there when he squeezed my hands.  “You can trust Baen. He has a good heart.”

The man had a heart?

The priest waved his hand in the air in the shape of a cross then walked silently up the stairs. And I was left alone with Mr. Manners, the unstable man-bear. How fast would I have to be to beat him up the stairs? I counted them in my head. There were only twelve.

“Don’t think of running, girl.”

I jumped at the sound of his voice. How did he know? He wasn’t even facing me.

“I’m in no mood to chase down disobedient women.”

Disobedient? That chafed. I let my pride fuel my courage. “Listen. I’m not…” I shifted my stance and cleared my throat.
Come on, Maggie. Man up!
“I’m not going with you.”

I grimaced, waiting for the ire. He ignored me as he continued his search through the boxes.

“Did you hear me?” I said, trying not to stammer this time. “I can’t be much help anyway. I suck at technology stuff. I can barely work my iphone. Everything I touch breaks.”

“Aye, I can believe that.” With a grunt, he heaved something out of a box then turned and dropped it on the ground. “Here we are.”

A canvas sack. Baen seemed pleased with it – he stared down at it, smiling. I wasn’t comforted.

“Um. Yeah, so…” I stepped back slowly. “To sum things up. No passport. Work in the morning. Not going. Best of luck.” Chancing fate, I turned for the stairs.

Baen was in my path before I saw him move. My mouth fell open as I stared at his chest. I could swear it was as wide as the stairwell. His defined pecs were visible through his thermal shirt. Jared was all skin and bones and sometimes made me feel like a heifer, even though I was considered average to most people. What would it be like to be with someone so…large? My gaze slipped to his crotch.

Fuck. My cheeks heated and I squeezed my eyes shut.

“I can force you,” he rumbled.

What? In my mind, he held a handful of my hair again, pushed me down on my knees, popped open my mouth with his finger on my chin…

“I can force you to come to Scotland,” he said.

Scotland? Oh. God! And here I’d been thinking…

What the fuck was wrong with me?

He’d manhandled me easily enough earlier. It wasn’t a stretch to believe he could make me do anything he wanted. Panic struck, hitting me square in the chest.

Breathe. Just breathe.

I thought back on what he’d said to the priest about the device. The last person to touch it while it was on controlled it. That was me. I had some power in this.

When I got my breathing under control, I looked up and gave him my best death glare. “You need me to turn it on. I won’t do it.”

He arched a brow. “You threatening me, lass?”

Lack of oxygen to my brain must’ve made me brave. “Yes.” I bit down on my lip to stop it from trembling. I wished I’d taken some kind of martial arts classes. Picturing myself karate chopping this guy was laughable. It’d be like trying to chop down a tree with my hand.

His chest puffed out as he rose to his full height, clearly trying to intimidate me with his size. I gulped. It was working.

Finally, he let out a defeated sigh. “I’ve been unfair to you. Sit down. I’ll explain everything and you can make up your own mind.” He gestured to a dusty chair near the boxes.

I stayed glued to my spot by the stairs. I was no sucker. This good cop routine wasn’t going to fool me. He was up to something.

A smile touched his lips. “You don’t trust me.”

“No kidding.”

“I’m no’ a monster.”

I snorted.

He braced his arm on the wall and stared down at me, smirking. “Where’s your courage, little spitfire? A moment ago you were threatenin’ me, now you’re too scared to learn the truth?”

The prideful side of me growled at his taunting. “Fine. I’ll hear what you have to say. But I’m not promising anything after that. And my threat still stands. I won’t help you if you try to force me.”

He reached toward my face and I flinched back. Frowning, he placed his fingers under my chin and tipped my head up. He assessed me, peering into my eyes as if he were trying to see inside my soul.

“A bonny thing,” he said, as if speaking to himself. “It’s too bad it’ll be pretend.” Without another word, he released me then walked past and sat down on an old couch.

“Huh?” What would be pretend? Nothing made sense yet and I was starting to wonder if it was all a dream. I pinched myself to check.

Ow.

“Would you say you’re an open-minded girl?” he asked from the couch then gestured to the chair across from him.

I shrugged then sat where he indicated. “Well, I kissed a girl once but…” It’d been my best friend and a silly high school experiment to check if we were lesbians. Now I understood it didn’t exactly work that way.

“Now that’s a pleasant visual, but no’ what I mean.” He chuckled. “I mean, do you believe in extra-terrestrials, things of that nature?”

“Oh.” I thought for a moment. Right now I was being held prisoner in a church cellar by a Scottish brute – I supposed anything was possible. Plus, I wanted to hear more so I nodded. “Sure. I guess.”

He shifted on the couch, leaned toward me. “In the earliest centuries of Anno Domini –”

“Anno what?”

“Anno Domini. The time period AD. So, roughly two thousand years ago, give or take. An alien race found the earth and sought to use its resources. Back then there were no weapons to fight them of course. Human were still a young species. But just like there are both good people and bad people here on earth, it is so beyond our world too. Another type of extra-terrestrial believed in protecting planets like ours from being harvested for our resources. After they fought our war for us, they gave five alien devices to five religious leaders to take care of. These are called the Clypeom. They scramble the signals coming from earth so other aliens can’t tell what resources we have here. It’s a deterrent for exploration. It keeps us safe. All five must be working, spread across the globe, to keep us hidden. When one fails, it weakens the shield. So you see how important these devices are?” He paused and gave me an expectant look.

I nodded numbly. Aliens? Either the guy was fucked in the head or he was messing with me.

“The aliens that made the devices also genetically engineered a race of humans that were bigger, stronger, faster, in order to help the religious leaders hide and protect the Clypeom.”

“Uh-huh.”
Smile and nod.

“That’s my people. The Order. We’ve been charged with breeding, raising, and training generations of our kind. We protect the earth.”

I waited for the punch-line. Moments passed and it didn’t come. “You’re shitting, me right?”

He scowled. “You’ve a nasty mouth, girl.”

I couldn’t believe I was wasting my time with this. Jared would be expecting me home any minute. I was officially creeped out, losing my patience, and ready to go home.

“First of all, my name isn’t ‘girl.’ It’s Maggie.” Why was I telling him this? “Second of all, if this is your idea of a joke, it isn’t funny. And if it’s not a joke, and you really believe it, then I think you need help. But it can’t be me. I’m sorry, but this is waaaay beyond my comfort zone.”