Pursued (43 page)

The same color as my blood. Crimson—their sacred color,
she thought. And then the venom ripped the vault door off its hinges and the visions began.

“Quickly, drink!” the Elder with glowing eyes exclaimed. “The venom works with the speed of a striking snake—we must all drink if we are to share her pain.”

The Elders passed the cup among themselves quickly and then the one with glowing eyes pressed it into Merrick’s hand. He took a quick look at Elise as he drained the bitter dregs. He could feel nothing from her through their bond and she was just standing there, still as a statue, with her big brown eyes open but unseeing. It was obvious her gaze had turned inward.

She’s remembering,
he thought grimly.
Remembering what happened all those years ago.
He just hoped he’d gotten enough of the bitter juice with her blood in it to share her pain. He didn’t want her to have to go through this alone, whatever it was.

“Here it comes,” he heard one of the Elders say. “Brace yourselves.”

And then the dim leafy hut around him faded to nothing and he was standing somewhere else on an entirely different planet.

Earth,
he thought.
I’m on Earth.

He’d only set foot on the small blue-green planet’s surface once but he knew he was correct. Though how he could tell from his surroundings, he wasn’t sure. The room he found himself in was even darker than the hut he’d left. There were strips of dim white light—moonlight, he realized, from the Earth’s single moon—falling through the mostly shuttered window. The light helped his eyes adjust and he looked around.

Merrick had expected a scene of great violence, but it was quiet here—peaceful. There was a sleeping platform in the center of the room and the sound of soft breathing filled the air. From what he could see in the dim light, this area belonged to a female—possibly a little girl. There were small stuffed creatures that must be toys and a few dolls as well. Then he noticed the tabletop in front of the silvery mirror was covered in cosmetics and hair adornments. So, not a little girl, after all but a girl who was becoming a young woman and slowly leaving childhood behind her. Still, there was an innocence to the room and the sleeping figure in the bed that made his heart ache for some reason.

Suddenly there was a low creaking sound and a sliver of harsh yellow light appeared in the wall across from the bed. The sliver widened until it was a rectangle—a doorway, Merrick realized, his heart pounding against his ribs. And standing in that doorway was a huge, dark shape—obviously a male—who was watching the sleeping girl.

“Charles?” whispered the girl and Merrick recognized the soft, feminine voice at once—Elise. “What…what do you want?” she asked.

“Just wanted to check on you, princess.” The light shining behind the man turned his face to shadows but Merrick felt the threat of his presence anyway—felt those unseen eyes crawling over the young Elise’s skin in a way that twisted his stomach.

“Well, I’m fine.” Elise’s voice shook only slightly, but Merrick, who was so attuned to her, could hear the worried tremor at once. “And I have a big test tomorrow so please let me sleep.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” The dark man-shape she’d called “Charles” stepped silently closer. “I thought I might tuck you in.”

“Stop fooling around and leave me alone!” The young Elise’s voice was high and frightened now. “This isn’t funny, Charles—I’ll call Mom!”

The man chuckled unpleasantly. “Your mother had to run to the store for a few things and you
know
how long she takes to shop. So I think we have time for a quick bedtime story, don’t you, princess?”

“Stay away from me!” Elise was sitting up in bed now, the covers clutched to her chest protectively. “I don’t like it—I don’t want to do…to do
that
with you.”

He laughed again. “After what I caught you doing last week? I think you’ll
love
doing ‘that’ with me.”

Merrick could feel the girl’s shame—her sense of outrage and violated privacy as well as a sense of choking fear. “That was
private,”
she whispered.

“Yes, I know.” The man stepped closer, into her room. “And this will be too. We’ll just keep it between the two of us, shall we?”

He reached for Elise just as Merrick lunged forward, shouting, “No!”

“You cannot help her—this is a memory. A pain long since past,” whispered a voice from the corner.

Merrick whipped his head to one side and saw the three Elders standing there quietly, observing. Why he hadn’t seen them before, he didn’t know. But they were here now and apparently not interested in doing anything but watching.

“You cannot touch her—you are a ghost here,” one of them said. “Besides, the girl already has a defender. Look.”

“What?” Merrick turned back in time to hear a deep, snarling growl. Then a large, furry shape rushed into the room and jumped onto the sleeping platform, insinuating itself between Elise and the dark man-shape. The animal’s mismatched eyes—one blue and one gold—blazed in the darkness and it snapped at the man warningly, its shaggy hackles raised in threat.

With a low curse, the man called Charles stumbled back just in time to avoid losing his fingers. “Stupid mutt!” he snarled as the dog continued to stand guard over Elise protectively. “Thought I locked you out of the house.”

“Buck always finds a way to me when I need him.” Elise spoke up, her voice quivering with emotion. “That’s why my father—my
real
father—gave him to me. To watch over me. To keep me safe from people like
you.”

“Well I have news for you, princess—your real father is
dead,”
Charles snapped. “And that mutt won’t always be around. We’ll have our moment together—don’t worry about that.” With a last, low curse, he slammed the bedroom door, leaving Elise and the dog in the darkness.

“Oh, Buck.” Elise put her arms around the shaggy neck and buried her face in the big dog’s fur. “Why won’t he leave me alone? I know I shouldn’t have been doing…what he caught me doing. But I never…never thought…” Her last words dissolved into tears and Merrick’s heart ached with her worry and fear and shame. He felt her guilt and the certainty that this was somehow
her
fault—the certainty that the man, Charles, would have left her alone if he hadn’t caught her in the middle of some guilty act.

She must have been touching herself—pleasuring herself,
he thought, his heart twisting as he watched her sob.
That’s why she got so upset the first time she let me touch her—it brought back memories like this one. Brought back all the guilt and the shame she’s feeling right now at this moment.

Because Elise
was
feeling it, all over again, he realized. She wasn’t just watching as Merrick and the Elders were doing—she was
reliving
the whole thing. And the Gods only knew what came next. He took one last look at the sobbing girl and the dog, which was whining softly and licking her cheeks, and then turned to the Elders to insist that they stop this experience right now…

And then the scene changed.

* * * * *

It was Spring—Elise could feel it in the soft, warm air currents that caressed her skin as she walked home. Her high school was only a mile from the house where she and her mother lived with Charles and she preferred to walk rather than drive the ostentatious red convertible he’d given her as a seventeenth birthday present.

A present, right. More like a bribe.
For awhile, her stepfather had thought he could somehow buy her favors with new toys and clothes, but Elise had put an end to that idea as quickly as she could. She wasn’t interested in his immense wealth or anything he could give her—she just wanted him to leave her alone. Unfortunately, that was beginning to seem less and less likely. Rather than backing off, he was stepping up his attentions to her, always trying to catch her alone so he could whisper something disgusting in her ear or cop a feel.

Elise
hated
the dirty way he made her feel when he touched her—when he even
looked
at her. Hated the nasty, filthy things he said when he knew no one else was around to hear him. She’d thought of trying to record him somehow and then playing the recording back to her mother, but she was sure it wouldn’t do any good. Her mother knew
something
was happening between her daughter and the man she’d married, but she didn’t know exactly what and worse, she didn’t
want
to know.

If only she’d
listen
to me,
Elise thought, kicking a rock from the gravel path as she walked. Though her house was only a mile from the school it was set far back behind a set of ornately scrolled gates and a hedge too high and prickly for anyone to get over or under without being scratched half to death.

Elise sighed. She knew well enough why her mother wouldn’t listen—she didn’t want to hear. Didn’t want to know what her husband was up to. Because if she listened to Elise and believed what she was saying, she’d be forced to move out, to lose everything her second marriage had brought her. And Elise’s mother was much too fond of her big house and fur coats and Mercedes LX to do that.

Elise kicked another rock. They had been dirt poor when her father was alive. Dirt poor, but happy. And she hadn’t had to live under the constant threat of being touched against her will, either. Sometimes that threat felt like a huge, heavy stone hung around her neck. It was invisible—no one but Elise could see it. But it dragged her down constantly, weighed on her even when she was out with her friends and trying to be happy.

Just a few more months,
she reminded herself.
Just a few more months until I get out of here and go to college.
And she’d earned her own way, too—getting a full scholarship to UF in Florida.

It wasn’t the most prestigious school. Charles had offered to send her to Brown or Harvard if she would just let him…Elise pushed the thought away. She was going to UF because they were willing to pay everything from tuition, to books, to room and board, as long as she kept her grades up. And Florida was at the other end of the country—over a thousand miles from Oregon. Elise couldn’t wait to put that distance between herself and her stepfather. To turn her back on this awful time in her life and never look back again.

Her only worry was Buck. He was old now, but still protective—he’d saved her several times when Charles had gotten a little too frisky.
Not that he actually would have done
that
to me,
Elise told herself uneasily.
That would be going too far, even for Charles. He knows he couldn’t get away with it—doesn’t he?

Unbidden, his words to her from the night before came back with frightening clarity.
“That mutt won’t always be around. We’ll have our moment together—don’t worry about that, princess.”
Was he really that desperate to have her—to get into her pants? For years he’d pretended what he was trying to do was some kind of a game—laughing and kidding as though it was an inside joke between the two of them. Of course, Elise didn’t find it a bit funny, and lately—ever since he’d caught her touching herself when she thought the door was locked—Charles didn’t seem to find it very funny either. It was almost as though he could see her slipping away, getting closer and closer to college and out of his reach forever. But would that really make him desperate enough to force the situation? Surely not…

Uneasily, she pushed the unpleasant and frightening idea away and turned her thoughts back to Buck. Her mother had promised to look after him when Elise went to college, but Elise was afraid she wouldn’t keep her word very well. Her mother tended to be always busy with frivolous things—shopping and parties and playing Bridge with a circle of other ladies whose husbands were so rich they could do pretty much whatever they pleased.

What if her mother forgot to feed her beloved pet? Or what if she let Charles ship him off to the pound? It was obvious he didn’t like Buck—he saw him as a hated roadblock—something in his way to getting what he wanted.

But he wouldn’t really hurt Buck, would he?
Elise asked herself uneasily.
He wouldn’t be that cruel. He knows Buck is the only link I have left to my real dad.

“Here you go, honey,”
she remembered her father saying as he put the wriggling bundle of fur into her lap.
“His name is Buck—do you like him?”

“Oh, Daddy—he’s perfect!”
She’d lifted the puppy up to get a better look at him and gasped.
“His eyes!”

“Yeah, he’s part Husky, and sometimes they have that mutation. One blue eye and one yellow. I kinda like it.”

“I do too.”
She had hugged the wiggling puppy to her, laughing as his wet little tongue caressed her cheek.
“They’re beautiful.”

Her father laughed.
“I thought you’d like them. You just keep this little guy close, Elise. He’s going to grow up to be a big, strong, loyal dog—he’ll protect you, even when I’m not here.”

Tears filled Elise’s eyes at the memory of those words. Her father had been a Marine. The fuzzy puppy, which had grown into the huge, protective Buck, was an early gift for her eighth birthday because her dad was being deployed and wasn’t going to be there for her party.

As it turned out he never made any of her birthdays again. Two days after her party, they had gotten the news that he had been killed in the line of duty. Elise’s mother had grown cold and silent—had withdrawn emotionally just at the time Elise had needed her the most. And then there was no one but Buck. She still remembered crying out her pain into his soft, shaggy fur as he whined and licked her face, sensing her heartbreak and comforting her in the only way he knew how.

I can’t leave him here,
she thought with renewed determination.
I can’t trust Mom to take care of him or Charles not to take him to the pound. I’ll find a way to take him to UF with me. I
have
to…