Page 92 of Her Irish Treasures
I didn’t move, afraid to disrupt the vision and lose her again. “You see her too? You know her?”
“She was your cat before we moved to Kansas City. She was roaming around in the woods behind the trailer park. As soon as she saw us, she started running toward us, yowling and purring like she’d been waiting for us.” Her voice softened with awe. “Foryou. Now that we know… She recognized you, Riann. She’d been waiting to find you.”
My breathing sawed in and out of my chest. Jagged edges slipped and sliced inside of me. Something bad had happened to her. My stomach churned and clammy sweat dotted my forehead. I wanted to turn away, bury my face in my hands, and sob.
Her rumbling purr grew louder. She rubbed against me, twining around my leg, insisting that I pet her. Hold her. She was heavy and large in my arms, her black fur silky against my cheek.
“What happened to her?” Vivi whispered.
I flinched. On my hands and knees in the garden, I vomited into the grass. Wailing. Sobbing. Begging him to stop. She hissed and clawed at him, but she couldn’t get away. She wouldn’t leave me.
He’d killed her. Not just once but over and over. My mind reeled with the snippets of horrible nightmares. All the evil, cruel ways he’d devised to torture us. Because that was exactly what it was. He tortured and killed my cat, to torture me.
So he could feed on my pain and fear.
Night after night. The same horror.
Vivi’s arms tightened around me. I could feel her solid body against my back, her hands smoothing my hair, her voice. Trying to calm me, as she’d done when I’d first come to her house in the middle of the night. For weeks, I hadn’t been able to sleep without waking up screaming and sobbing, though I couldn’t remember why.
“You killed her,” I rasped. “Over and over. Then you took that memory from me, so I wouldn’t leave. So I couldn’t warn her. Did you resurrect her just to kill her again?”
“Oh no, honeybun. She did that all on her own. That’s how much she loved you. Which only made each night’s feast more sumptuous.”
Vanta’s purr rumbled louder. She looked into my eyes, and I finally saw the magic spiraling through her. She was no ordinary cat. She’d been trying to tell me the truth about my husband and why I was in Kansas City. All the things I needed to be doing to find my treasures. But he got to me first when I was away from her, and once that seed had been planted, she hadn’t been able to save me. She’d been trying to wake me up from the unending nightmare, even if that meant she was killed and tortured too.
She head butted me softly, rubbing her cheek against mine. Then she was gone.
I brushed my tears away. “I remember now. I remember how I got away.”
“Ah, yes, I would love to hear how you escaped.” His smile widened, all white, perfect teeth and glittering eyes of malice. He didn’t have to say so that he could prevent me from escaping again.
I didn’t mind telling him. In fact, Iwantedto tell him. I wanted him to know what had saved me. Besides, I needed to delay. Warwick wasn’t close enough yet.
“You were finished with her. With us.” I shuddered, not ready to look at the full memory in all its gory detail. “You were in the shower. I was locked inside the bathroom with you. So I wouldn’t hurt myself trying to get away, you said. You hadn’t wiped the memory away yet. I was huddled on the floor in the corner, as far away from you as I could get. In that moment, I knew the full scope of what you were doing. I knew that you would make me forget again. That it would happen over and over, and I had no hope of remembering. I’d tried to leave messages for myself before, but you’d always found them.”
Under the guise of taking a shaking breath, I risked a quick glance toward Warwick. He was still running in slow motion, his hair spun out behind him. His eyes blazing, his mouth slowly opening, moving. Perhaps he was talking to the rest of the guys, or trying to tell me something. I wasn’t sure.
“I realized that I was beside a full-length mirror. It’d fogged over, so I started to doodle in the steam. I hadn’t painted or created anything in so long. Even drawing on a steamy mirror was a relief. I drew Vanta on the glass. The way her tail flipped up when she was happy. I’d recognize that image anywhere, even just a few quick lines. I honestly expected you to see it and wipe it away, but you didn’t. You got out of the shower. Wiped my memory like you always did. Then left me to clean myself up, safe in the knowledge that all the horrible things you’d just done to me were forgotten.”
Crying softly, Vivi hugged me close. “You got out of the shower and saw her on the mirror.”
I nodded. “Vanta. Right there staring at me. A sick, horrible feeling clutched like a giant fist in my stomach. I didn’t know for sure what had happened, but it was bad. So bad that I had to go. I didn’t stop to think. I just threw on some clothes and climbed out the window.”
“Well done, honeybun.” Jonathan clapped slowly, mockingly. “That was an incredible tale. Yet I must admit that your plan to distract me from your would-be saviors is in vain. They can’t help you. Especially the leprechaun.”
He gave a careless wave of his hand, and Warwick shot up beside me, stumbling at his change in momentum. He whirled so hard and fast that his hair slung back into my face, enveloping me for just a moment in the warm scent of summertime flowers. “Riann. I can’t. Please don’t.”
I searched his face, trying to make sense of his words. His eyes were wide and panicked, guilty and heart-wrenchingly apologetic. “I know.”
“You don’t. You have no idea.”
Jonathan’s smile widened and he waved to my other men. Frozen between dimensions, they barely moved. Doran’s teeth were bared, his eyes blazing with rage. Aidan’s neck corded, his chest and shoulders wide, reared back on a deep bellow that I could feel in my bones, even if he didn’t make any sound. Cold blue ice, his eyes locked with mine. He could hear me, see me, but was unable to move. For him, for them all, it was the worst kind of torture.
Exactly why Jonathan wanted them to see.
Ivarr’s light boiled like a solar flare in slow motion, unable to break free. Keane had one hand near his mouth, the tip of one black gloved finger gripped in his teeth. Even filled with rage and desperation, his eyes were sultry, locked on me. Silently trying to tell me something.
No one would ever walk away from him unsatisfied. Then why did his eyes burn with never-ending hunger even now?
