Gift of Gold (Gift #1)

Or perhaps that subtle confidence had started growing in him the day he had found Verity.

Jonas shook his head, groping for the reason why he had gotten away with handling the pistols.

He remembered picking up one of the guns and simultaneously reaching for Verity in his mind. She had been there, running ahead of him down the corridor. He had chased her. He hadn't been able to touch her but had gotten close enough to learn that she exerted as much pull on him as the gun itself.

What's more, the twisting ribbons of emotion were drawn to her. She could chain them.

Verity.

If he could touch her now, Jonas knew, he stood a chance of escaping the compulsion of the rapier.

He had to get to Verity.

Jonas struggled to his feet. The effort sent him reeling against the bed, where the metal plaque was jarred from his grasp and hit the floor with a sharp thud. The rapier bounced free, clattering.

Before Jonas could get out of the way, the weapon rolled twice and came to a halt against his bare foot.

Fury rippled through him. Raw, murderous, overwhelming fury. He would kill the man who had tried to rape his lady. He would see the bastard's blood soaking into the tiles of the palazzo before the light of the new day dawned.

Jonas reached down and scooped up the rapier. He had to get to Verity. His red-haired lady was in mortal jeopardy. He had to get to her and kill the man who threatened her.

Chapter Nine

VERITY was hovering on the edge of a dream when the door to her bedroom opened with a crash. She struggled up out of sleep, wondering vaguely if the storm had smashed one of the insect-eye windows.

Sitting up against the pillows, she blinked sleep out of her eyes.

Although the room was in darkness, she noticed a patch of lighter gray where the door should have been. It was then she realized that the door was open and she was looking out into the shadowed hall.

Before she had time to wonder how the door had been flung back on its hinges, she saw the figure of a man looming in the opening. She could barely make out the object he held in his light hand. Then it came to her.

A rapier.

She tried to scream but in that instant the man moved into the room, gliding forward in a fencer's crouch.

Lightning crackled outside the window, briefly illuminating his lean, powerful figure and the menacing shape of the naked blade he held. She knew then who it was. Stunned shock ricocheted through her.

"Jonas!"

The figure jerked at the sound of his name as if one of the bolts of lightning had struck him. She saw him shake his head as if to clear it and then he came toward her soundlessly to stop at the foot of the bed. While she saw the blade gripped firmly in his hand, it was not pointed at her. Verity scrambled backward until she was crouched against the wall.

"Jonas, for God's sake, what's wrong?" The words were hoarse with fear and tension.

"Touch me." Jonas's voice was so raw it was almost unrecognizable. "Touch me."

He was in the grip of some terrible nightmare, Verity thought. As long as he held the rapier, she didn't dare get near him. Caught up in his fevered dream, he might easily mistake her for some imagined foe.

He held the rapier as if he knew how to use it, even in a nightmare. Warily she edged over to the side of the bed.

It was then she realized that there was something wrong with the room. It seemed to be curving around her, cutting her off from reality. A new fear washed over her.

"Jonas, wake up. Do you hear me? Wake up!"

He tracked her sidling movements with eyes that burned in the darkness. "Verity, touch me. Hold me or I'll never make it. Touch me."

She wanted to run but the desperation in his voice forbade it. Verity got to her feet beside the bed, her nightgown tangling with her legs. She took a deep breath, searching for the words that might bring Jonas out of his delirium.

He took a step closer to her and she realized that now he was much too close. She was trapped.

The room finished its bizarre twisting movement and she was back in that terrible corridor she had found herself in the night Jonas had picked up the dueling pistol.

"Verity, don't run from me."

She heard the words in her mind, echoing down the tunnel from a great distance. They sent panic through her. She knew now for certain that it was Jonas who was hunting her in that dark, endless corridor. In her mind she tried to flee but her legs would barely move. It was like running through quicksand. She was in a waking nightmare of her own.

"Hold me. Hold me or I'm lost."

The words were a fierce command and a poignant plea. It was the plea that touched her soul. Verity came to a shaky halt in the corridor and turned helplessly to confront the man who pursued her. She could not run from that desperate demand.

For a shattering instant she couldn't see him. The tunnel was dark and yet there was shape and form to it.

She was aware of Jonas's presence, aware of him closing the gap between them, but she could not yet identify him. Something moved in the shadows and once more Verity wanted to flee. Every instinct warned her to turn and run.

"No. Don't run from me. I need you. Help me."

Verity gasped for air as if she had been running for her life. And then she took a step forward in the bedroom. Simultaneously she was moving again in the corridor; making her way toward the voice that had called out to her. Shadows swirled mistily around her. She was afraid to look at them too closely.

Lightning crackled again and a fierce, hot whiteness temporarily lit the room. Verity, dazed, saw two realities at once, die room where she had been sleeping and the inside of the dark corridor. Jonas still held the rapier there in the bedroom but he was holding out one hand to Verity. His lightning-lit face was a mask of savage intensity.

Verity saw the hunger, desperate hope, and violent command in his eyes before the white glare faded.

She hesitated no longer. She didn't know what was wrong but she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jonas needed her.

She broke free of her paralysis and hurled herself across the room into his arms. She came up against his hard, bare chest with enough impact to send a shudder through him. He brought his left arm around her in a rough, near-violent embrace.

"Verity."

In the corridor in her mind, she simultaneously found Jonas in the shadows and reached for him. His outstretched hand touched hers. Ribbons of violent color, black, bloody, some the shade of steel, roared out of the tunnel's darkness and whirled around her as if drawn to her. She had the impression they wanted to cling to Jonas but were sidetracked by her presence.

Verity tried to scream and couldn't.

"It's all right," Jonas said there in the corridor. "They can't hurt you. You have power over them. You draw them and hold them. You can chain them for me; you're my anchor."