The Secrets of Roan Island

33. Ruby

33

Ruby

I startle awake, gaze flicking around the room. I’m not in the library anymore, and the room is dark. Too dark.

“Noah?” I whisper. I’m in a bed, which calms my immediate fear that I’m back in that morgue. I can just barely make out the shape of furniture around the room. I’m fairly certain I’m in the parlor where I’ve been sleeping. But something seems off. A prickle at the back of my neck, like someone’s watching me.

My heartbeat picks up, a loud percussion in my ears, overwhelming any other sound. I reach across the bed, needing to feel Noah near me.

Except the bed is empty.

He’s working. He’s just working. I fret, tossing and turning in the sheets without him. He must be working again, right?

I sit up, determined to go help him. But I need light first. Feeling around, I find the matches I left on the table near the bed. Before I can light one, a pungent smell, bright and cloying in my nose, makes me pause.

A flicker of fire sparks across the room. A match, lighting a face.

The light goes out too quickly for me to distinguish the features, but my pulse swells, painfully tapping out a beat that’s loud and deep in my ears.

“Noah?” I swing my feet over the side of the bed and wish I could see better in the darkness of the parlor. There aren’t any windows in the room—there are no operational windows in the Gate House at all—which makes the space unnerving.

“Would you please just light the candle? I can’t see a thing.” My voice wavers more than I’d like. Since coming here, I’ve had to face my fear of the dark more than any other time in my life, but it still plagues me. Fears like these don’t just go away.

I strike a match, and the light flares again, casting a horrible shadow over the face I saw before.

Not Noah. Hammish. He looks unhinged, his black eyes reflecting the flickering light back to me.

The match goes out.

My scream sticks in my throat the way screams sometimes do in a dream. Is this a dream? I pinch the flesh of my arm. It hurts.

With trembling hands, I drop one match, then strike the flint with another. The light flashes, revealing Hammish’s head, tilted in a strange, animalistic way.

I swallow, trying to get my pounding heart out of my throat.

“H-how are you here?” I squeak.

The bell didn’t go off. If it had, Noah would be here. Unless he’s hurt. Oh, please don’t let him be hurt.

The match dies, leaving behind the imprint of Hammish’s disturbing smile.

“You smell like my son.”

I swallow my yelp—somehow, he’s closer. Too close. I don’t need the light to recognize the disgust in his tone.

Another match flickers, illuminating his face inches from mine.

“We’ll fix that, won’t we, pet?” He licks his lips, revealing the tips of his incisors.

At the same moment I open my mouth to scream, the match goes out, and Hammish is on me. He clamps my jaw shut, gagging me as he locks my arms at my sides.

I buck and kick and scream, but it’s no use. Hammish holds me tight, chuckling in my ear at my efforts.

But I won't give up.

Please, Noah, hear me.

My foot catches the end table and something clatters to the floor, probably the candelabra I left there.

“Naughty, naughty, Professor,” Hammish coos.

A bitter acidic taste floods my throat as I gag.

Hammish pulls me across the room, away from the only door, and my heart sinks. Noah checked the parlor for secret passageways but didn’t find any. He said he and his brothers spent most of their childhood searching for the manor’s secrets and never found any in the Gate House, but he still checked just to be sure. They thought the only way in and out of the Gate House was through the portrait upstairs.

Clearly, they were wrong. Hammish knows the house better than they do. Yet another point in his favor.

But I won’t let that discourage me. I twist and lunge. To no avail.

Just as Hammish kicks at a decorative flourish on the wainscoting, the parlor door bursts open, cutting the dark with light.

Noah.

One step and he drops to the floor, writhing, eyes wide, filled with agony. He doesn’t make a noise, but I feel his pain as if it’s my own.

My chest seizes. I fight with everything I am, needing to get to him. “Noah!” I scream against the hand covering my mouth.

“Now, now.” Hammish laughs at his son’s pain, tugging me even tighter against him. I’ve never wanted to kill someone. Even David. But I want to rip Hammish limb from limb.

“You never fail to surprise me, son,” Hammish says. “You want what I have, but you aren’t smart enough to best me.” He clicks his tongue. “Are you smart enough to know what will happen if you follow me? I will hurt her to hurt you. Another tool to control you.”

Noah groans, the first sound he’s made as his body contorts. “Don’t,” he grits out between clenched teeth. “Please.”

Hammish laughs. “Too easy.” Then he turns away—forcing me in front of him—as if he has nothing to fear with Noah at his back. I scream, then bite my tongue when I realize it just makes Noah cry out in even more pain.

“Now, Professor. There’s no reason for that. You’ve been trying to get a meeting with me for the last several weeks. I suddenly find myself available. And eager to talk.”

I feel his excitement as his body presses against my back, and I want to gag. As much as I’d like to knee him in that sensitive spot, I’m unable to from this position. I still try, but he twists away from my attempt.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he says in a strangely teasing tone. “None of that. We can play rough later.”

A rough growl rips out of Noah as Hammish nudges open a panel in the wall with his foot and pushes me into a dark hallway. Away from the light. Away from safety. Away from Noah.

Once the wall closes behind us and we’re well into the passage, Hammish chuckles and prods me faster. “Come with me, and I’ll release him.”

I don’t know the limits of Hammish’s power, if he can hurt Noah from a distance or not, but I won’t risk causing him any more pain.

Hammish clamps his hand around mine and leads me through twisting passageways, up and down stairs, through more secret hidden doorways—a maze hidden between the walls. I try to pay attention, but it’s too dark, and all I can think about is Noah. Is he still under Hammish’s sway? Is he still in pain?

Hammish chuckles, as if he can read my mind. “He’s fine, but only because I need him for Solstice.” He drags me down another corridor. “He’s made a foolish mistake, taking what’s mine.” His grip tightens.

“I’m not yours.” I pull against his hold just as something sticky brushes my cheek. Spider webs.

Hammish stops, and I run into his back.

“You fight me, and the punishment for his insubordination will be worse. Do we understand each other, Professor?”

I close my eyes and breathe through my nose, trying to calm my thoughts. The idea of Noah in even more pain is abhorrent to me. It makes my stomach roll. “Why are you doing this?”

He drags a sharp claw down the side of my cheek. “Your research, Professor. You were getting too close.”

“To the truth about the women?” My gut clenches. “Why not just kill me?”

“If you don’t turn, you’ll be dead soon enough. No sense wasting a perfectly good test subject.” His leering gaze lingers a bit too long on my breasts. I tug my half-buttoned dress closer and hastily do up the rest of the buttons to the neck.

He smiles. “I don’t need you to turn, but a smart woman, a beautiful one like you, is the only kind of mate deserving of me. My mate, Elssa, was brilliant.”

“What happened to her?”

“She didn’t listen and got too close to the humans.” He spits the last word, then pulls me along again. “You’re all jealous of our power. You may be weak creatures, but you’re vicious and numerous. Like ants. When the first settlers learned what we are, their fear and prejudice led them to attack. Elssa died trying to reason with the unreasonable. She may have been brilliant, but she was naive and didn’t listen to me.”

He jerks me down another passage, then unlocks a door and drags me through it before locking it behind us. “You remind me of her. Though I’m hoping for more obedience.”

My stomach turns. “I don’t want to be with you.”

He barks out a laugh. “What you want has nothing to do with it, girl. I need a mate to open the portal. To get my family away from this death trap of a planet.” He spins me against the wall, hot breath heating my face. “You’d make a good mate.” His eyes go black. “Breaking you would be a delight.” He leans closer, but suddenly his nostrils flare, and a look of disgust crosses his face.

I’ve never been so grateful to smell like sweat and sex.

Hammish steps back. “Live or die. Doesn’t matter to me. I’ll get what I want either way.”

“If you just give Noah some time, I’m sure he can find a solution for turning people without all this bloodshed and force.” It’s a foolish move, bargaining with a madman, but I try all the same.

“Noah will never solve the problem.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re dealing with human scum, and the truly worthy are rare. Are you a jewel among them?”

I don’t say anything after that. He’s delusional, and there isn’t any reasoning with a man lost to his madness.

By the time Hammish stops again, I’m completely disoriented. My feet ache, and I’m wheezing from the dust and the exertion. We’ve been through secret passages within secret passages. I don't know if I'm even in the Gate House anymore. Noah will never be able to find me here. Wherever here is. Even if he did, he can’t stand against Hammish. I saw that first hand. If I want to get out of this, I’m going to have to save myself.

Hammish comes to an abrupt halt at a narrow wooden door. He pulls out a copper key. It’s not the first door he’s unlocked, but this time, he shoves me ahead of him. It slams shut before I can turn around. I pound on the heavy wood, my heartbeat a frantic counterpoint.

From the other side, Hammish snarls, “Prepare yourself, pet. In a few hours, you’ll feel my bite.”

It’s then I scream.