Labyrinth (25 page)

Margot yanked her gaze onto Cat. “What the hell kind of evil have you conjured?”

Cat’s eyes were wide with fear.

“What is it?” Margot took a step toward her, but rough fingers seized her arm and swung her around.

She side-kicked Colin’s ribs.
He stumbled backwards, righted himself, and charged shoulder first into her solar-plexus. Air gushed from her lungs. She wheezed in breath as they crashed into the wing-backed chair and fell onto the carpet, bonded in a death-hug. From the corner of her eye, Margot caught sight of a figure in the smoke, a sword gripped in his right hand, eyes blazing. The rush of wind grew louder.

Colin grabbed Margot’s skirt and yanked it hip high. She wedged a knee between her and Colin, and jabbed his left eye with a forefinger. He bellowed in pain and rage. She shoved him backwards and rolled to the side. They both shoved upward, Colin's back to the fireplace.

“Colin!” Cat shouted above the noise.

The smoky figure reached from the twisting incense cloud and swiped at Colin with the sword, but the vaporous weapon disintegrated around him in a puff of mist. Colin shook his head as if the drugged incense had penetrated his brain. The figure’s eyes locked with hers and stepped forward in slow motion as though trying to escape the pull of some great magnet.

Margot took an involuntary step back before realizing the mistake. Colin lunged. She pivoted, leg swung high for a kick, but he swerved aside and seized her shoulders, shoving her against the fireplace. The edge of the mantle dug into her shoulder blade. Sharp pain shot down her back and the room dimmed around her.

Colin leaned so close she could taste his breath. “You will not escape me out here as you did in there.”

A firm hand closed over her shoulder. She twisted her head to the left expecting to see Cat, but the hand that gripped her stretched from the smoke. Margot stared at the oddly familiar fingers. Cat’s scream jarred her. Margot tried to twist free, but the fingers tightened painfully on her shoulder and propelled her to the side as a fist shot from the haze and struck Colin’s jaw.

Margot landed on the carpet and hit her head on the leg of the fallen chair. Spots raced across her vision. Cat’s screams mixed with the roar of wind. Margot’s vision blurred and she turned too quickly, causing her head to swim. Through the fog that veiled her brain, she discerned a tall figure emerge from the smoke. She gasped.

Colin.

No.

She shoved onto an elbow.

Logan
.

Colin rushed
Logan
—or was that Logan who rushed Colin? They were exact twins. But
Logan
had emerged from the picture with a sword in hand. He swung the sword. Margot cried out when Cat rammed him as he brought the sword down for a lethal blow.
Logan
stumbled and Colin punched his ribs. Margot grabbed the chair arm to pull herself upright.
Logan
whirled as Colin grabbed the chair, wrenching it from her grasp, and smashed it across
Logan
.

The sickening crack of wood against ribs turned Margot’s stomach. Colin seized
Logan
's sword hand.
Logan
punched Colin’s jaw with a hard left. Colin’s head snapped back. He shoved
Logan
against the fireplace and banged the hand gripping the sword against the brick.

Margot pushed onto her knees. Cat dove for a piece of the broken chair, and Margot shoved upward, lunging for her. She grabbed Cat in a bear hug and they hit the carpet. Cat slashed at Margot with her nails. Pain ripped down Margot’s neck. She recoiled.

Cat’s eyes blazed. Margot rammed an elbow into Cat’s shoulder. She cried out and grabbed a fistful of Margot’s hair. Margot jammed her fingers into Cat’s left eye. Cat released her with a cry. Margot leaped to her feet. Cat shoved onto her knees.

“You’ve been a thorn in my side too long,” Cat ground out.

Margot gave a harsh laugh. “Not nearly long enough.”

Cat sprang to her feet and charged Margot. Margot deftly stepped aside, and hammered Cat’s ribs with three punches as she stumbled past. Cat whirled, breathing hard.

“You always did fight like a girl.” Margot punched Cat’s stomach.

She doubled over with a whoosh of air from her lungs. Margot
pivoted,
leg high for a kick. The ball of her foot made hard contact with Cat’s jaw. Her head snapped back. She swayed, eyes rolling into the back of her head, and toppled over onto the floor.

Margot whirled. One brother punched the other’s jaw. He charged, shoulder first into the brother who had punched him, and propelled him back. Both men hit the bed and rolled from the mattress onto the carpet. One seized the other’s throat.

Margot grabbed the broken chair leg Cat had dropped.

Which one was which?

Her heart hammered. They were identical.

The brother choking the other glanced at her. “Get out!”

She jerked her gaze onto the other brother. He gripped his brother’s arms in a frantic effort to dislodge the iron fingers wrapped around his neck. He swung panicked eyes onto her. Was that concern for her, or a plea for help?

“Get out!” the same brother shouted again.

Margot took a step toward them. If she helped the wrong one…indecision gripped her. How could she know? Could she stop them both, take time to figure out the truth?
If she let one kill the other—dammit.
She swung the chair leg across the shoulders of the man doing the choking. He cursed and the other one shoved him back.

The brother on the floor sprang to his feet. “Have ye no sense?” he shouted in a hoarse voice.

Margot looked dumbly at him. “What?”

“He cannot hurt you once you leave the castle. Go!”

The other brother bellowed in rage and charged. Margot slammed the arm leg down onto the back of his neck with all her force as he sped past. He bowed backwards and
Logan
rammed his fist into his face. Colin went limp and crumbled to the carpet.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Margot dropped the chair leg and rushed to
Logan
. He grunted with the force of her arms encircling his neck, and stumbled back before catching his balance.

He hugged her close. “How did ye know?”

“You said I had no sense.” She pulled back and surveyed the bloody gash on his cheek. “You look like hell.”

“Mayhap, but I am not
in
Hell.”

“I’m going to burn that picture.” She started to break away, but he held tight.

He shook his head. “I must return.”

“Return—what, are you crazy?”

“I cannot stay here.”

Sickening dread seeped through her. “You said Colin couldn’t hurt me if I left the castle. What did you mean?”

“He—we—cannot leave the castle.”

“That’s ridiculous. The painting—”

“The painting was our prison,” he gently interrupted. “But we survived only as long as it remained inside the castle.”

She snorted. “This isn’t possible.”

“Ye said those same words only moments ago
inside
the painting.”

“I-I don’t understand.”

“Then you must simply accept it.”

“Accept what?”

“I do not belong here.”

“But you
are
here,” she insisted.

“Aye, in Castle Morrison, but no' in your time."

“The castle exists in the twenty-first century.”

“Four hundred years?” he whispered.

“Three hundred, this is the start of the twenty-first century.”

He smiled. “Ah, then it is not such a long time after all.”

“I can live here with you,” Margot said.

His brow lifted. “Now you have lost
all
sense.”

“I won’t let you go back into that hell.”

“Not the painting,” he said.
“Home, my time,
1658.”

Margot stared. “You’re the one who’s lost it. Time travel isn’t possible.”

“Neither is magick possible.”

Panic squeezed her chest. “How do you think you can possibly do this?”

“The picture is the doorway,” he replied.

“The picture is the prison,” she insisted.

“The spell is broken.” He traced her cheek with a thumb. “You saved me.”

“You said you couldn’t be saved, yet you fucked me good and hard in order to get out. Hell, you even asked me if I was giving myself to you.”

Memory of his words, the harshness of his voice,
his
rough manner in those last seconds brought understanding. He had lied to her, but the lie hadn’t been that he
couldn’t
be saved, but that he wasn't going to let her give herself fully to him, give her life in order to save him.

“You wanted me to doubt in the end. You wouldn't be saved if I had misgivings, and you gambled that I could get back as I had in previous times. But you miscalculated. I did give myself to you, freely and completely. I couldn’t believe you were a killer.”

Margot rose on tiptoes and brushed hers lips across his. She broke the kiss, but he remained motionless as if willing the moment to last forever. His eyes opened and her heart constricted at the tenderness in his gaze.

“What are we going to do with him?” She nodded toward Colin.

“Take him back.”

“It’s not decided you’re going back.”

He looked as if he might argue, then his expression relaxed.
“As you wish, lass.
I will remain here.”

“Isn’t that better than taking a chance in there?”

His arms slid around her waist. “Being here with you is worth any sacrifice.”

“I wouldn’t say sacrifice. I can make it worth your while.”

But a sacrifice was exactly what it would be, she realized with a heartbreaking jolt. He would remain
inside
the castle. Once Cat was gone, someone would buy the castle. Even if Margot lived in
Scotland
, how often would she be able to come to stay for more than a few hours? How could he live here with someone else inhabiting the place? That existence would be little better than the one he'd lived the last three hundred years. Only this time, his hell would be of her making.