Fantasy Man Page 4
Gone where?
He checked the kitchen counter again, but he hadn’t missed a note. Nor was there a text on his cell phone. He rang Claire’s, and heard it chime by the box of old journals.
Rosa’s journals.
He crouched. One journal lay on the coffee table. A scrap of paper torn from a magazine stuck out from it as a bookmark. He flipped the journal open.
Claire had found her evidence: the mosaic floor was old. Unless the unnamed archaeologist had been a conman.
Had enthusiasm overwhelmed her and she’d gone to Labyrinth House without him? Without her car?
Ridiculous to worry. She had probably gone for a walk. A dog the size of Leo needed exercise.
But she’d known he was returning.
He paced the house, annoyed at his own restlessness. His feet led him to Oliver Jade’s painting in the parlor. The bright colors of it showed Labyrinth House garish and new, a Hollywood fantasy in the sunlight.
“Shit.” The pine trees in the painting bent and writhed. Then, in a blink of his eyes, were still.
Illusion or insanity, he stopped fighting the urge to chase after Claire. He was going to Labyrinth House. He scribbled a note on a piece of paper torn from the notebook that lay discarded beside Rosa’s journals in case she wasn’t at that damned house. “Call me!”
The front door slammed behind him.
“Where’s your proof?” Claire stood in the hallway of Labyrinth House. Ian hadn’t wanted Leo to come with them, but she’d insisted. The dog had rode in the back seat and now, in contrast to his usual curiosity in strange places, stayed glued to her side. He probably sensed her emotional turmoil.
“Upstairs.”
In the shadows last night, the dilapidation of the house had been romantic. Now, uncertain and mistrusting the hectic fidgetiness of Ian’s movements, Claire saw only squalor and broken dreams. She trailed him up the stairs.
His familiarity with the house indicated he’d been here before, which was disconcerting. Had Marc been right in his suspicions?
At the top of the main staircase he turned left and unhesitatingly opened the door that hid the stairs to the lop-sided turret. “The dog should stay here. The steps are narrow.”
Leo rumbled low in this chest.
She’d never heard him growl before, not even at her step-brother. Leo was a friendly-natured dog.
“He should definitely stay down here,” Ian said. “Tell him, Claire.”
Leo’s head turned. He looked back down the main stairs, toward the front door.
She and Ian automatically followed his interest.
Ian swore.
She felt a surge of both relief and pain at her own suspicions.
Marc strode through the open door. “I should have guessed Ian would be involved.” He looked strong and definite, impatient even. There wasn’t any indication he feared some plot was about to be exposed. “What are you doing up there with him?”
“I’m going to show my sister proof that you’re a lying, scheming bastard.”
Time hung suspended as Marc stared at her. “You believed him.”
“No. I don’t know.” She started down the stairs.
“Claire,” Ian called urgently and went to grab her. Leo woofed a warning not to touch her, and he swore.
“Ian said you bought all great-granddad’s paintings. Everything Dad sold.” She stopped three steps up from Marc, looking down. Close enough to see his eyes narrow and glare in Ian’s direction.
“Someone’s been busy snooping.”
“Is it true?”
His gaze shot back to her face. “Am I on trial?”
“Marc.” She pleaded with him to understand her confusion.
Behind her, the turret door banged and Ian’s running footsteps faded upwards. Whatever proof he was after, it no longer mattered. The disillusion in Marc’s eyes hurt. But she had to know.
“Did you know about Labyrinth House before I told you about it?” Two steps down brought her level with him.
He turned and walked away, out to the courtyard.
Leo slipped past her and followed him.
She stood alone. Upstairs Ian sought who knew what. Out in the courtyard, the man she feared she was falling in love with, thought she was a faithless witch.
Her breath shuddered and she went after Marc.
Chapter Six
Marc stood by the figure of the minotaur in the mosaic maze.
By daylight, Claire’s fear the previous night seemed impossible. Ghosts didn’t exist. She might be romantic, but she was also practical. Besides, that fear of sound and fury was nothing to the grief that gripped her now.
Loyalty was Marc’s hang-up, and from his perspective she’d shown none. She’d let Ian’s doubts infect her.
I didn’t. Not really. But she couldn’t find words.
Marc watched broodingly as she approached. He’d fought a demon for her last night—or had he faked the demon? Had Ian? Confusion muddled her thoughts.
Leo hunted happily in the weeds around the edge of the courtyard. Late summer grasshoppers chirruped. City traffic sounded from beyond the house.
“Did you buy all of Oliver’s paintings?”
“Yes.” Uncompromising.
She circled away from him, both figuratively and literally. On the ground, to the far left of him, a dancing girl was picked out in blue tile. Claire blinked at the pattern and realized she stood at the entrance to the maze.
“I follow through on all my projects,” Marc said. “I was curious if your dad could raise the money to cover Ian’s debts. I went and saw the first painting offered for sale. It was the tortoise and Medusa. I hadn’t encountered Surrealism before then. It spoke to me, as the critics say.”
She scuffed leaves away from the dancing girl. The figure wore a crown on her head and carried something in her hand. Claire looked back at Marc. “I can understand Surrealism appealing to you. You deal in dreams.”
“The gallery owner quoted your great-grandfather. Oliver said he painted truths recognized in dreams but not by reason. I understood that. I couldn’t justify why I wanted those paintings, but I knew they would be something people wanted.”
She nodded. “Surrealism is popular again. It goes by different names, but that intangible expression of desire is wanted whenever times are tough. People go searching for meaning. For hope.”
“Yes,” he said bleakly. “We all hope.”
She abandoned the dancing girl and started toward him.
“Stop there,” Ian shouted from the entrance to the house.
She continued anyway, sick of listening to him, and the bullet zinged up from the dust at her feet. Pieces of tile stung her jeans-covered legs.
“Claire!”
“Don’t move, Marc.” Ian’s voice broke, unholy triumph shrilling it. “This time I’m in control. I call the shots.” He laughed. “All the shots.”
“Okay.” Marc froze, two steps in front of the minotaur’s figure. His hands fisted at his sides.
“Where’s that damn dog?” Ian demanded.
“Here. He’s here.” Claire called Leo to her and held on tight to his collar.
“I’ve always hated that damn dog. When you brought it to Yvette’s house I tried to poison him. He wouldn’t eat it.”
“Good dog.” She patted Leo unsteadily. She’d taken him to her dad’s house when she’d moved in to look after her dad. Ian had already been there, drowning in misery and grief. She hadn’t guessed Ian’s fear had gone so deep as to threaten an innocent dog.
Stupid indignation flared as well at the claim that her dad’s house was Yvette’s. Her dad had bought it ten years before he met Yvette.
“What do you want, Ian?” Marc asked calmly.
The pistol that had been pointed at Claire and Leo wavered in his direction.
“Justice,” Ian hissed. “You stole everything from me. You and Claire.”
“Me?” She couldn’t think how. All she’d done for the past two y
ears was support him, a guest in her father’s house.
“Your dad thinks you’re all he has. He doesn’t even notice me,” Ian said. “But if you’re gone, it’s just him and me. Everyone knows a painter’s works increase in value when he dies.”
She gasped.
“He should have died in the accident. Not Yvette. She wasn’t meant to be with him. Mom should have been there for me. She’d have looked after me.” Suddenly he smiled. The cheeky grin looked grotesque above the gun. “This is better. I’m glad Marc chased after you. At first I thought he’d ruin everything, but now I know. I’ll make it look like he shot you, then turned the gun on himself.”
Leo growled.
“And I’ll shoot that monster dog first.”
“No!”
But even as she flung herself in front of Leo and Marc hurled himself at Ian, something darker and more violent engulfed the courtyard.
Claire had dismissed last night’s events as overwrought imagination. She was certainly overwrought now, but there was no explanation but the supernatural for what rose out of the mosaic.
The minotaur was loose and its roar swallowed the report of Ian’s pistol. He emptied it shooting at the solid darkness that hunted him. Last night the minotaur had charged them with violence, an animal defending its territory. But now, stalking Ian, it emanated death.
Her faithful dog abandoned heroics and dashed through the open door, fleeing the courtyard.
Marc grabbed Claire. “Come on.”
“We can’t just leave Ian.”
Her stepbrother flung the gun away, running as Leo had, for safety.
“Happy?” Marc pulled her toward the walkway.
The minotaur seized Ian’s shoulder and hauled him relentlessly back to the mosaic, back to the heart of the maze. It dropped the moaning man at its feet and looked across at Marc and Claire. One contemptuous, human foot kicked Ian into silence. The minotaur spoke.
“Should I kill him?”
The question was for Marc.
“He would have killed your woman.” The voice was rough, as if the earth itself spoke.
“My Minos protects.” From the figure of the dancing girl rose a golden woman, a pillar of lightness to match the monster’s darkness. “Our mosaic is where lovers fight—and love. This man profanes it.”
“I’ll kill him.” The minotaur’s promise rumbled the ground.
“No.” Marc stepped forward. “I will deal with him. I’ll see there is justice.”
“And mercy.” Claire joined him. “We both will.” She clasped his hand. “Together.”
“Together.” The golden woman burst into flames on the echo.
When Claire opened her dazzled eyes, the courtyard held only Marc and herself—and Ian sobbing on the tiled floor. From the street came police sirens.
The neighbors hadn’t ignored gunfire.
Marc caught Claire close, kissing her fiercely.
“Can someone call the dog?” A man shouted. The police were there.
“I’m buying Labyrinth House.” Marc gripped the steering wheel of the rental car too tightly, but he couldn’t force himself to relax. Despite the long hours with the police, hours of sorting out Ian’s involuntary committal for psychiatric assessment and notifying Claire’s father, the adrenaline from the courtyard confrontation hadn’t faded. He knew he sounded aggressive.
“Good,” she said, surprising him.
“I thought, after everything…”
She put a hand on his knee. “The minotaur and his princess saved us.”
“How do you know she was a princess?” It was the least important question. He was riveted by the sensation of her hand on his thigh.
“The old legend says that when Theseus came to fight the minotaur, the Princess Ariadne gave him a ball of string to find his way back through the maze. It enabled him to succeed, but he abandoned her. I think the truth is more simple and more amazing. The Princess went into the maze herself and led the minotaur out. They trusted one another.”
She sighed, and with a faint suggestion of a caress, withdrew her hand from his thigh. “If I hadn’t doubted you, Ian wouldn’t have gotten either of us to Labyrinth House.”
“He’d have tried something else. The drugs destroyed his mind. He’s crazy.”
She shivered. The police had found evidence of Ian’s drug-taking in the tower room. He’d stashed more than a gun there.
“We’re nearly home.” Marc blinked as he heard his own reassurance. Home.
“Stay with me?”
“Yes.”
They shut Leo in the backyard and went inside. Their clothes marked a wanton trail from the back door to Claire’s bedroom. Marc tore her shirt and apologized roughly.
She caught his head, bringing his mouth to hers and silencing him.
This was a wild celebration of being alive. He wanted her naked and she was tugging at his jeans, pushing her hand in the opening. His breath strangled at her touch and at the hot, raw need in her eyes. Maybe the rest of their clothes just burned away, because they were suddenly skin to skin, and she was biting his shoulder as he thrust inside her.
The hard, primitive rhythm held them locked in near-combat. It was as if he couldn’t go deep enough, as if she couldn’t hold enough of him. Her nails raked his back, punishment and plea that she wanted more. He jerked her hips up before he climaxed, and she screamed as her own release claimed her.
“That wasn’t sex,” he said when he could breathe again.
“What was it?” She lay half beneath him, relaxed and sexy as hell. Her hand stroked the base of his spine.
“A lightning storm.”
“Mmm. Brilliant and explosive.” She smiled under his kiss.
“Claire?” He rolled onto his back, unable to look at her. “This isn’t casual for me.”
She raised on one elbow to study him.
He made himself look at her face and not at her beautiful breasts. This was important. “When I came to Los Angeles this time, I meant to start something with you. You’ve been haunting me, lady.”
“Truly?” She put a hand over his heart. “It was a mutual haunting, then. You’ve been my fantasy man for two years.”
“Except I’m real.”
“I had noticed.” She grinned and kissed him. “Don’t worry. I can deal with reality. Let me show you.”
Want More?
Discover the Collegium series, today. Paranormal romance and adventure with shifters, demons, dragons and more! Each stand-alone novel is free to read in Kindle Unlimited.
Demon Hunter
Djinn Justice
Dragon Knight
Doctor Wolf
Plague Cult
Hollywood Demon
Alchemy Shift
Go Old School in 2017
Phoenix Blood
Fantastical Island
Storm Road (out April 2017)
Catch up with Jenny Schwartz on her Facebook page, Twitter @Jenny_Schwartz, or at her website.