Chapter 1
"Damn my luck!" she hissed to herself as she ran; back down the path; back through the dark, tangled forest; back toward the place where her car was concealed. Back the way she had so carefully come; only difference was: now she was alone.
She wasn't a coward, and her first instinct was to help her unwilling companion against the slow, scarecrow-like thing that had attacked them; that had probably recently spent its nights drinking or sniffing away brain cells. But her sharp eyes had discerned something else, a tall figure, faster-moving, with long arms that were possibly attached to wings. She hoped to stars she was wrong on that, because although flying would not help it reach her through the tangled forest...it might move over it all and wait for her along the road; if the damned thing KNEW when she had entered the grounds and how she had come...how they had come.
Could it know? How were they spotted? Did Blackthorne have such abilities...or was he just lucky...and she unlucky. She guessed it was that, just a bad roll of a dice. She tried to think carefully even as her eyes tried to direct her sprinting legs around the rocks and over the roots while still moving as fast as humanly possible.
She had almost convinced herself that she would chance it and return to the car. She almost could see where it was hidden when suddenly, as if steered by an unseen passenger she turned away and moved away from the car and in the direction of town. A path that would certainly bring hours of lost time, countless scratches and tears and only exhaustion waiting at the end. But also she might live another day and have the opportunity to try again.
Damn Blackthorne and this house! The annoying thing was that even if Hecate would allow her to escape from this stupid man or whatever he had become, she knew she would have to return to him. Her pride, her definition as a human being demanded nothing less.
