Crimson Dahlia (3 page)

Lila
lifted her head from Marcus’s shoulder and stealthily wiped the drool off her
cheek.

“I
caught that,” Marcus’s deep voice rumbled beside her.

Lila
froze. “Girls can drool, you know,” she said.

“Mmmhmmm.
And apparently they can also snore.”

“Did
not!”

“Like
a freight train,” Ben, one of the younger members of Marcus’s clan, said from
across the room.

“It’s
amazing that such a loud noise can come out of such a little nose,” Simon,
another of Marcus’s clan, added.

“Nice,
guys. Thanks,” Lila grumbled.

“Leave
the poor girl alone,” a female voice interrupted.

“Thanks,
Carrie,” Lila said.

“Even
if she does keep us all awake with incredible amounts of sound,” Carrie added.
The small group erupted in laughter.

“I’ll
have you know that I hate the lot of you,” Lila declared.

The
laughter just got louder but abruptly silenced at the sound of the door being
unlocked. The people remaining in the cell with Lila shifted to block her from
view. Despite Lila’s protests, Marcus insisted that they hide her as long as
they could. Her role in stopping Maddox when he’d invaded the Vyusher castle
the year before made her a marked woman.

A
familiar debilitating pain wracked through Lila’s body, and she heard a male
call her name in a sing-songy voice. “Lila Jenner, where are you?”

Lila
swallowed a gasp and cowered down a little lower behind Marcus’s broad back.

“I
know you’re here, Lila,” the over-sweet voice continued. He was getting closer.
Not that their cell was all that large to begin with. A big hand clamped around
her arm. “Gotcha!”

Lila
couldn’t even open her eyes because the pain was still so intense. She felt
someone lift her and drag her out of the room. As soon as the door was closed
and locked behind them, the agony stopped. Lila sucked a ragged breath of relief
into her lungs and then stiffened. She opened her eyes to find Maddox staring
directly at her. Standing right behind him was Ariel, her shoulders slumped in
despair. So Maddox was using Ariel’s nerve control on them. The poor girl
wouldn’t even look at Lila.

“I’ve
been looking for you, Lila,” he said with a sinister smile. “You managed to
stay hidden for quite a while. I only found out about you by accident.”

Lila
said nothing. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking how they’d
figured out they had her.

Maddox
nodded at the large man holding her, and they started moving down the long,
dark hallway. It reminded her a bit of the dungeons in the Vyusher castle. But
she knew that Selene now had guards patrolling there, so that couldn’t be where
they were.

“I
wonder… how did you manage to hide from us when we brought you in?” Maddox asked
conversationally. “We had no idea that you were here instead of with the
Vyusher all this time. And I pride myself on knowing these little things.”

Lila
continued to maintain a neutral expression. She kept count of the doors they
passed in the hopes of coming back for Marcus and her friends at some point.

“Our
telepath managed to unearth the fact that Selene’s tracker, Sheila, has been
looking for you for some time. It took a little longer before we discovered
that you went missing with a contingent of Louisianan Svatura. That’s when we realized
that we had you.”

Lila
gave him a bored look.

Maddox
simply shrugged. “Not interested? I’m sure Selene will be. Or, perhaps, your
family?”

They
came to the end of the long corridor and got into a rickety old elevator. Lila counted
five floors before they stopped. The elevator doors opened to reveal a hallway
that reminded her of a hospital, sterile and white. She was escorted down a
series of halls until they ushered her into a room. Inside the room was a
raised table, padded, with straps for her wrists and ankles.

As
soon as she saw the restraints, Lila backed up. The large, silent man with them
grabbed her waist. Lila went crazy, kicking and scratching and biting at
anything within her reach.

Suddenly
that horrible, razor-like pain pierced her, and Lila collapsed on the floor.
The agony was so intense this time that she vomited. She didn’t even notice
that they’d picked her up and strapped her down to the table until the pain abruptly
ceased.

Lila
worked to slow her labored breathing. A tall, slender woman with light brown
hair and hazel eyes entered the room. Lila suppressed a shiver at the cold
smile the woman offered her.

“This
lovely lady, whose name is Melanie, is not our telepath. There’s very little
you could tell us right now, having been in that cell as long as you have. But
we can’t have you trying to escape. That just wouldn’t do. Melanie is here to
help with that issue.”

Lila
regarded Maddox with a stony glare.

“I’m
going to give you one chance. Join us. As one of our wolves.”

Lila
was going to say
no
immediately, but got sidetracked by his last
comment. “I’m not a wolf.”

Maddox
smiled. “We have ways to deal with that. But you have to volunteer for the
transformation. Your answer?”

Lila’s
glare turned icy. “I’d rather die.”

Maddox
gave Melanie a small nod, and she slowly approached. Lila twisted and squirmed
away from her as much as her bindings would allow, but her actions were futile.
Melanie reached out and gently tapped a finger right in the middle of Lila’s
forehead.

Lila
felt as though she were falling, like Alice down the rabbit hole. As she fell,
she could tell she was losing herself. Losing sense of time and space. Losing
her thoughts and memories. She fought it with everything she had in her, every
bit of stubbornness. All she could think was…
Hold on to who you are. Don’t
forget. Don’t forget
.

She
kept falling.

Don’t
forget. Don’t forget.

Floating.

Don’t…
forget…don’t…

Lila
shook her head.
What was I thinking?
Panic started to set in as she
couldn’t remember what it was. Something important. She gasped as memory
returned.
Don’t forget. What’s my strongest memory?

Lila
fought the fog pushing in on her mind.
A memory to hold on to… think of
something…
She took a deep breath, calmed herself and thought hard. And a
memory, vibrant and bittersweet, suddenly came to her.

Ramsey.

*****

Ramsey
snapped awake with a jerk. He could feel the fire inside him burning and took a
moment to calm himself, bringing the inferno back down to smoldering embers. As
soon as he felt under control, he allowed himself to think about what had just
happened.

He’d
been sleeping when suddenly he was standing in a thick grey mist.

“Selene?”
he called out. He knew she had the ability to visit people in their dreams,
though she’d never done so with him.

Ramsey
waited, listening.

“Ramsey.”
Lila’s voice,
though it sounded barely above a whisper, tore through him.

Ramsey
took off at a sprint in the direction he thought it’d come from. “I’m here!” he
yelled. “Lila?”

The
thick fog parted, and suddenly he could see her. Ramsey stopped dead in his
tracks.

What
the hell?

Lila
was swimming in a pond, laughing, looking like a water sprite. And Ramsey could
see himself there already. He was standing on the shore watching. They were
talking, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. Ramsey tried to move
closer, but couldn’t. Then Lila pulled back her arm and sent a spray of water
splashing toward the version of him she was talking to.

And
that’s when he’d jerked awake.

He
recognized the scene he’d been watching. He’d lived it once... a long time ago.

“Ramsey?
You here?”

The
sound of Charlotte’s voice snapped Ramsey out of his reverie.  He hadn’t
thought of that moment with Lila in the pond in a long time. He’d painstakingly
pushed the memory of that night to the bottom of his mind.

Shocked,
he realized it was already morning. He should’ve been awake and packing up camp
a while ago.

“Yeah,”
he called out. “Just a sec.” With a grunt, he rolled up his sleeping bag and
unzipped the little door to the tent.

“You
okay?” Dexter asked.

Ramsey
glanced up from tying his shoes. “I’m fine.” He stood up and gave them both a
hug.

Charlotte
handed him a bag full of food, clean clothes, and a charged cell phone. There
weren’t a lot of outlets in the woods. Not that he got a signal most of the
time out here anyway, but it was better than nothing.

“Thanks,”
Ramsey said. He glanced at the dying campfire and tossed a few small branches
on it. Then he went about getting his breakfast started. Charlotte insisted on
helping him, so he let her take over and settled on a nearby log.

“So
how are things at Castle Werewolf? How’s Mary doing, Dex?” Ramsey asked. Until
just recently, Dexter had thought that his mother was dead. When Maddox had
attacked the castle and revealed a set of dungeons, they’d found his mother in there.

Dexter
shook his head. “She remembers more every day, but so far nothing significant.”

Charlotte
patted him on the knee. “At least she’s alive and well.”

“How
are you getting along with your new mother-in-law?” Ramsey teased Charlotte.

She
playfully threw a handful of pine needles at him. Dexter had found Charlotte,
his
te’sorthene
, after his mother had disappeared many years before.

“You
know my mother died giving birth to me,” Charlotte said. “So I love having a
mother, even if she can’t remember the past three hundred years very well.”

“Is
Mary sleeping better?” Ramsey asked. He knew that Dexter’s mom had nightmares that
kept her up nights, all about being kidnapped again.

“Now
that we’ve moved her into the same room as Angelica, she’s doing better. As
soon as Angie got near her, Mom conked right out.” Angelica was one of Selene’s
Vyusher who had the gift of soothing anyone in close proximity to her.

“I
thought Angelica never left the side of our little sleeping girl,” Ramsey said.

“That’s
our big news,” Charlotte said with a smile. “The little sleeping girl has woken
up.”

Ramsey
was shocked. The girl had been unconscious, yet inexplicably still functioning
for almost a year now. “When was this?”

“Just
today,” Charlotte said. “Her name is Talia, but she doesn’t remember much
else.”

“What’s
odd,” added Dexter, “is that Talia’s symptoms – loss of memory, for example –
are all very much like Mom’s. Griffin has been poking around in both of their
minds and also sees similarities. We think they may have been affected by the
same thing, or person.”

Ramsey
nodded. “Makes sense. And it means that someone with Maddox’s crew has the
ability to put people into some kind of hibernation.”  He frowned, remembering
his odd dream. The fog surrounding Lila was concerning.

“How
have you been doing?” Charlotte’s soft voice interrupted his train of thought.

“Frustrated,
as usual.” Ramsey ran a hand through his hair. “I feel like I’m close. She’s
somewhere in this area, but there’s nothing but trees and rocks as far as I can
tell. I haven’t found any kind of structure or sign of anyone.”

“But
you can still feel her?” Dexter asked.

With
a nod Ramsey thought about the strange link he felt with Lila. Nebulous and
uncertain, the connection wasn’t something he could control. All he could feel
was her presence, and sometimes her state of being. For instance, he knew she’d
been injured when she was kidnapped. But he also knew that the wound had
healed.

“Anything
we can do to help?” Charlotte asked.

Ramsey
shrugged. “What you’re already doing.” He nodded at the bag they’d brought him.
“Not having to stop for supplies or lug a ton of them around is huge—”

“Bit
of an emergency going on here,”
Griffin’s voice suddenly interrupted.
The three heard his voice in their heads as clearly as if he were standing
right there, even though he was still at the castle. Charlotte glanced at the
two men. “I’ll go check it out.” And she was gone.

Ramsey
frowned. “Huh…Wonder what all that’s ab—?”

Charlotte
popped back in before he finished talking. “You both should be there for this.”

Without
question, Ramsey and Dexter each took her hand. Instantly they were standing
inside the Vyusher castle, in a bedroom that Ramsey didn’t recognize. The entire
family was already gathered. The family had grown recently, but each was as
dear to him as his own family. Hugh and Lucy Jenner, Lila’s parents, were there
along with her older sister Adelaide. Adelaide’s
te’sorthene
, Nate, whom
Ramsey thought of as an adopted little brother, sat in the back corner.
Charlotte and Dexter Pierce had treated the two boys as their own for the last
seventy years or so. Lila’s adoptive brother, Alex Jenner, and his new bride
and
te’sorthene
, Ellie, were missing, still in Brazil trying to track
down the tribe Lila’d been trying to negotiate with just before she’d been
kidnapped. But Ellie’s twin brother, Griffin Aubrey, and his
te’sorthene
and the Queen of the Vyusher, Selene, were there. Even Desmond and Oren, two of
Selene’s closest friends among the Vyusher, stood off to the side. The only one
truly missing was Lila.

“Someone’s
taken Sheila,” Griffin said grimly. Sheila was their tracker. As a Vyusher, she
could morph into a wolf. But more importantly, she had the ability to find
other people with powers and track them anywhere in the world. She’d been
working nearly non-stop the last month trying to find Lila, Marcus, and the
other Louisianans, but had been unsuccessful thus far.

Ramsey
sighed and looked at the ceiling. “Shit.”

“How?”
Dexter asked.

They
all turned to the tiny woman with light brown hair standing in front of them.
Ramsey recognized Maggie, one of Selene’s Vyusher. The girl was visibly shaken.
Des grabbed a desk chair and brought it over for her to sit on. Ramsey caught
the look of adoration Maggie directed Des’s way but could tell Des had
completely missed it.

Des
knelt down in front of Maggie and gently took her hands. “Are you okay,
Maggie?”

She
nodded.

“Tell
us what happened.”

Maggie
took a deep breath. “Sheila and I were in here. You know how she just started
college?” She glanced at Selene. “She was inspired by our Queen to experience
more than just the Vyusher way of life. I was helping her with a calculus
assignment.”

Maggie
looked down and seemed to realize that Des was still holding her hands. With a
light blush staining her cheeks, she continued. “There was no warning, no
noise, nothing. Sheila didn’t even sense them coming. One minute we were
studying, and suddenly a man and a woman were just standing there. Sheila
recognized the man, because she called him ‘Jordan’ just before they grabbed
her and disappeared.”

Griffin
looked at Selene. “Does the name Jordan ring a bell?”

Selene
nodded grimly. “One of Gideon’s lieutenants.” She looked at Maggie. “What did
the woman look like?”

Maggie
thought for a minute. “Similar coloring to me, but taller, super skinny.”

“Doesn’t
sound like anyone we know,” Des murmured. Selene nodded in agreement.

“I
hate to say anything,” Dexter joined in, “But does anyone else think it’s odd
that our sleeping guest woke up around the same time as this attack?”

They
all were silent a moment “You’re not suggesting that Talia had anything to do
with Sheila’s kidnapping,” Nate said.

Adelaide
raised her eyebrows at his defensive tone. “Well, we don’t really know anything
about her.”

“I’m
telling you, she’s not connected with this,” Nate insisted.

Adelaide
reached out to give his hand a squeeze. It took a second, but he squeezed back.

“We’ll
keep an eye on the girl,” Selene said. “And I’ll inform the High Council. We’ll
need to think about additional security measures.”

“I’ll
let Ellie and Alex know what’s going on,” Oren said.

Ramsey
glanced around. “Nothing I can do here. I’ll head back to my camp.”

“How’s
it going?” Selene asked him. She looked exhausted. Ramsey imagined being ruler
of the Vyusher might do that to anyone.

“Not
well,” he answered grimly.

“Keep
it up. I know you’ll figure it out and find her,” she said.

“After
all, you’re the most stubborn person we know,” Charlotte added with a wink.

Ramsey
smiled. “I don’t know,” he said. “We have some pretty stubborn people in this
family. Lila herself…”

Thinking
of Lila again triggered Ramsey’s thoughts about that weird dream. He glanced at
Selene. “Can you contact me through your dream control tonight?”

Selene
frowned and nodded. “Of course. Any particular reason?”

“I
just want to check something, and I need your help to do it.” Ramsey had a
suspicion, but he wanted to test it out before he got anyone’s hopes up.

He
received a round of hugs before he took Charlotte’s hand. Back at the camp, she
gave him another bear hug. “Lucy included some of her brownies for you,” she
said.

“Thanks.”
He grinned and then waved as she disappeared.

Ramsey
glanced around his campsite and the woods surrounding him. A sense of
loneliness rolled over him. Funny that he’d been such a loner for almost
seventy years, but now he was used to being surrounded by family.  He pushed
the feeling of isolation away. He’d deal with anything if he could find Lila.