Labyrinth (22 page)

“You loved him?”

He’d introduced her to Jason Aldrich who became her first lover, and talked Laura Henderson, head cheerleader in high school, into getting her through tenth grade calculus. Margot had attended his and Cat's wedding. She grieved for a life cut too short, the violence of death, and the naivety that had clouded vision when it came to Cat—not just Donny’s, but hers. Understanding hit like a clap of thunder.

She straightened. “Oh my God, it’s my fault.”

“What?”

Margot met his gaze. “No one knew Cat like I did. I told myself she wouldn’t marry Donny for his money. I defended her. I swore she had gotten past the compulsive need to prove she was as good as everyone else.”

“You canna' blame yourself,” he said. “No one can predict such things.”

“Cat went behind Donny’s back and aborted their baby. She had no intention of being saddled with Donny, or a baby. Did Catraoine get away with the murder?”

“Aye, poisoning is nearly impossible to prove.”

“Not in the twenty-first century—not if you know what to look for. It’s time to wake up.” She met his gaze and her chest tightened as if squeezed by a vice. “If I could take you with me…” Margot traced his mouth with a finger. “Despite how strangely this dream started, I figure the way out has to be the same.”

Broad fingers closed over hers. “How did this
dream
start?”

Margot grimaced. “You’re going to ruin the moment.”

A corner of his mouth turned up and he stroked her hair.
“
Mo nighean donn
.”

A tremor rippled through her at the soft note in his voice. "What does that mean?"

"My brown haired lass."

He placed her hand over his heart and covered the flattened palm with his hand. The powerful thump, thump, thump of his heart beat against her fingers.

"Tell me how you came here this time."

“All right—” Her voice broke, and she flushed. She was acting like a high school kid. Margot swallowed against a dry throat, and said, “I fell asleep in a chair front of the fireplace. Instead of finding myself here as I did the other times, I dreamed Cat came to my room and put a damn voodoo spell on me.” Her stomach gave a nauseous turn. “If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect myself of taking drugs. Damn weird, even for these dreams.”

“Did she use sweet smelling herbs?”

“Sure. Voodoo is based on the use of herbs and spices.”

“Yet, in the past, you came here of your own accord?”

Margot nodded.
“Right.
I just fell asleep.”

“
Just fell asleep.
Lass ye are not sleeping, you never have been. Each and every time, you
entered
the painting. This time, Catraoine imprisoned you here just as she did me.” She opened her mouth to argue, but he seized her shoulders and gave her a hard shake. “Tell me this time is no different.”

Her blood went cold. This was different. Only, not for the reason he thought. There was something he didn’t know because she hadn’t known until this moment. All this time she thought she'd fallen asleep in front of the fireplace, but Cat’s appearance
wasn’t
part of the dream. She
had
sneaked into the room through a secret passageway and rendered Margot unconscious with her herb potion. Margot had experienced the affects of the drug as being sucked into the painting.

Panic rushed like a dust devil through her. How long had she been unconscious? Was she feeling no pain because there was no pain, or because Cat had used the same muscle freezing herb she’d used on Donny?

Margot envisioned herself laid out on the bed in her room, dressed in sexy lingerie as the dead women were, in readiness for the tortured Lord Colin Morrison to fuck her brains out in hopes that when she rode the wave of orgasm he would be freed from this prison. But magic didn’t exist, and people didn’t live three hundred years. But that didn't change the fact that like the women in her dream, the gold quilt on her bed would grow old and dingy, until nothing remained but dust.

“Sweet Christ,” Margot whispered. “Cat’s going to kill me.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Nay.”

The deep male voice yanked Margot from the memory of the dead women.

“It is not her you need fear, but Colin,” he said. “You must leave here. I…” His hands dropped from her shoulders. “I cannot protect you.”

Anger shot through her. She hadn’t survived thirty-two years in a
Mississippi
backwater town—twelve of those years on the
Wilkinson
County
police force—to end up a damsel in distress.

“I don’t need you or anyone else to protect me. There has to be a way out.”

Her gaze caught on the sword and dagger hanging over the mantle. Nothing in this dream could hurt her. Cat forcing more mind-bending drugs into her body or tossing her over the cliff Castle Morrison sat on
would
kill her. She needed to shock herself awake. Margot rose and hurried to the fireplace.

“
Kylyrra
," he said.

She pulled the dagger from its scabbard and slashed the blade across her palm. Pain sliced through her. Blood welled across her creamy flesh. The dagger was yanked from her, but she couldn’t tear her gaze from the sight of her bleeding palm.

Wake up.

“Have ye gone daft?” he demanded.

He threw the knife aside with such violence it hit the brick wall of the fireplace and landed with a clatter on the
hearthstones .
He grabbed her wrist.

Margot lifted her gaze to his face. “It’s so real.”

He balled her fist to staunch the blood. “Nothing could be more real.”

He pulled her to the bed and pushed her onto the mattress. She sat like an obedient child while he fetched bowl and pitcher from the small table beneath the window, then ripped a strip of fabric from the sheet. He pressed the cloth against the bleeding palm. When she didn’t move, he grasped her other hand and pressed the fingers against the rag. He tore several more strips, poured water into the bowl, dipped a strip, and wrung it out.

He removed the blood-stained cloth from her hand, tossed it onto the table beside the pitcher, and dropped onto one knee in front of her. “What did you hope to accomplish with such insanity?”

A tremor radiated through her stomach. “Am I too far gone to wake up?”

Maybe Donny had been lucky to die in ten minutes.

He began cleaning her wound with a strip of cloth. “I counted thirty-five sun rises before finally accepting the truth.”

“Truth?” she repeated. “Voodoo is a tool used to control the ignorant. It isn’t real.”

“When you find yourself back in that chair before the hearth, tell yourself that—but get as far away from Castle Morrison as ye can before closing your eyes again.”

She would get as far away from this house of horrors as possible—and Cat was going to prison.

“The legend says you can only be freed while fucking a woman.”

His head snapped up. He stared for a moment,
then
went back to cleaning the wound. “You forget, I am no' Colin.”

“You’re saying he killed those women?”

He tossed the blood-stained rag onto the table with the other one, took a fresh cloth from the pile beside her, and began wrapping her palm. “How is it you know of the spell that imprisoned Colin and me?”

“It’s big news.”

His gaze jerked onto hers again.
“Big news?”

“The castle is a high priced hotel. People pay big money to get a taste of seventeenth century life.”

"Hotel?"

"An inn, a place to stay away from home."

He stared. “You mean there is an ample supply of women frequenting the castle?”

“That’s right.”

His mouth thinned. “When you return, destroy the painting.”

“Cat owns the castle.”

“She will continue to feed him victims.”

But it wasn’t
victims
Cat intended to feed the killer ghost, but a single victim: her.

“Why does she want him out—that’s right, the
treasure.
”

“They were lovers.”

“Lovers?”
Margot gave a harsh laugh. “Seems like a helluva lot of work just to get laid.”

He looked up at her, clearly not understanding.

"She is going to a lot of trouble for a good fuck."

His mouth thinned. “Their union transcends the physical.”

Voodoo herbs and sex.
Drugs weren’t her style, but she’d heard they could induce mind-blowing sex.

He grabbed a clean strip and wrapped her palm more tightly over the other cloth. “This will do until you can have a physician see to the wound.” He tied off the end and stood.

Margot stared at the hand. Did people dream of cutting themselves and, if they did, was it this real? Dreams always seemed real while in the dream state, but this…
what if this is more?
a
small voice whispered.

Ridiculous.
Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, all fairy tales of enchantment, not legend.
Yet, how could she explain knowing what he looked like, the buckle with the driftwood badge…even his kilt? In fairy tales, the princess had to be rescued by the handsome prince. Colin Morrison was supposed to be rescued by a porn queen. But the murdering Lord Morrison didn’t deserve rescuing.

What about the kinder version who had tended her wounded palm? Margot watched him carry the bowl and pitcher back to the table against the far wall. He had been banished to this place by a brother and his witch lover. So why was there a provision for Colin who wasn’t supposed to be here, but none for Logan who the spell had been meant for? Voodoo spells could always be reversed. There were counter spells, ways to reverse spells or bounce them back to the sender.

Disgust rolled through her. Spells, this place, Colin Morrison, none of it was real. Cat was real—and the only threat. Margot jarred from her thoughts as he lowered himself onto the bed beside her and covered her wounded hand with his.

“You are trembling.”

She laid a hand on his arm. “If I don’t wake up, I’m as good as dead. Cat won’t hesitate to kill me. Every time I’ve fallen into this dream, there’s been only one way out.”

She covered his cock with a palm. An answering pulse nearly made her want to cry. He lifted a hand to her cheek. Margot stilled, startled by the tenderness is his touch. He traced a finger along her cheek, across her lips,
then
gently pushed her back onto the mattress. She closed her eyes as his mouth descended on hers.

Moist lips covered hers and his erection lengthened beneath her fingers. She squeezed and the rod hardened to pure steel. His tongue gently thrust past her lips and tongues swirled in a wet dance that sent a jolt of desire straight to her sex.