“The red caps surrounded us, and Pamela said she was right behind me. I got you down the stairs, realized she wasn’t with us, and went back for her.”
He pulled back the covers and helped me into bed, then crawled in with me, pressing his body along the length of mine, laying his arm across my hip to avoid my ribs. Heat from his body wrapped around me, burrowing under my skin, and with it came a sense of calm.
He tucked his mouth close to my ear. “She had killed all but two of them, and they had her pinned down, unconscious. I killed them, then brought her down to you.”
I breathed in his smell, fought the drowsiness that pulled at me. “And at Louisa’s place?”
A rumbling growl escaped him. Maybe Pamela and Crystal weren’t the only ones who needed to learn some control. This was not good; I needed them to be able to work together.
“She wrapped me up so I couldn’t move.”
I waited for him to say more, and when he didn’t, I didn’t dig. There was no point. If he could move past the incident at the house, it wouldn’t matter what had happened. We were a family, and I had to believe that above all else, Liam and Pamela would hold to that.
Now if I could just figure out who had wanted to keep us in London, and who had saved our asses on this side of the veil. Then I could relax. Or at least know whose ass to kick, and whose to—no, not kiss. Thank, who to thank.
Liam’s breathing evened out in a matter of minutes, a tactic I’d never really learned. As drowsy as I was, there was too much going on inside of my head, and too many questions left unanswered for me to just ignore them.
Of course, when Giselle materialized on the rickety chair across from me, I suspected I was asleep, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure.
“Rylee, you are sinking fast. You know that, don’t you?” She leaned back in the chair, looking as solid as if she were really there. There were subtle differences though. Her hair was no longer white, but had darkened to the dirty blonde I remembered from pictures long before I’d met her. More than that, her eyes were clear of the madness she’d suffered from for so long. She laced her fingers, tucking them under her chin. “You cannot run from what you are.”
“Are you a ghost, or am I sleeping?” I asked softly, not wanting to wake Liam.
Giselle smiled. “You are awake. I heard your call for me, when your heart broke. But I couldn’t cross the water. It is a barrier to much of the supernatural.”
I wanted to get up, to reach out to her, but I knew that as a ghost, she would be immaterial. A tear slipped from my eye, and I scrubbed it away. Probably just a result of the herbs Louisa stuffed into me. “I thought you’d abandoned me.”
Her smile faded at the edges. “I will do my best to stay with you, as long as I can. But each time I come to you, I am pulled a little further through the veil. I have a duty on my side of the veil. One that I cannot ignore.”
“Then you thought I needed something, that it was worth it to let me see you?”
She nodded. “I am forbidden from telling you all I’ve learned since I crossed over. But I can tell you that what your eyes see, and your ears hear, they can be deceived. Those that you love, they can always be saved.” Giselle grimaced and clucked her tongue. “I cannot say more than that.”
“Do you know who saved us? Or who set us up?”
Leaning forward, she locked her eyes onto mine. “They are the same person.”
Well I’ll be screwed sideways into next week.
Her eyes softened with sorrow. “I must go now, Rylee. Do not fight your destiny so hard. You are meant to stand between our world and the darkness that would swallow it. This moment, these dark days are what I trained you for, though the madness carried much of my understanding of the prophecies away. Believe in yourself, you are strong enough to carry this burden. And when the time comes, I will be there.” Her voice faded along with her body, but I continued to stare at the spot where she’d sat.
Dead, she was more lucid than she’d ever been in life. Yet, her words still swirled like a deadly, mind-numbing fog in my head. She’d trained me to stand between the world and the darkness? Had she known the prophecies all along? Had I been just a tool to her? No, I couldn’t believe that. But why hadn’t she told me? Chills swept through my body, and I rolled so that I could bury my face against Liam’s chest. At least with Liam I knew he loved me for nothing more than who I was; he didn’t want to use me, or make me face demons, he didn’t want to put me in the line of fire.
No, Liam was the one place I would always be safe. And with that thought, I finally drifted off to sleep.