Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(5)
Author: Kristen Ashley

Colin was a man of many passions and refined tastes. Only the best suited him and he only accepted the best. He knew passion and desire; he liked sex, enjoyed it immensely but it was always just that, sex, an experience, a release. The act of intercourse was another skill to acquire, hone and use with ruthless determination to meet his own ends.

But he’d never felt a desire so strong it was a need before, desire that was so insistent it was nearly violent.

But he felt that with Beatrice.

Colin lifted his mouth from her nipple and looked at her face. He was surprised to see her lustrous dark locks had turned gold. Her hazel eyes were warm, melting to a liquid brown and when she opened her mouth and whispered, “Colin,” her voice was husky with her own need.

He had to have her, immediately, he could not, would not, wait a moment longer. He pulled himself over her, opened her legs and her hands glided into his hair.

He opened his mouth to say her name but somehow “Beatrice” wasn’t right.

But he had no time to sort his confusion because he was ripped viciously from her arms as they were both hauled out of the bed.

At the side of the bed, strong hands holding him back as he struggled, he watched as the faceless, dark entities that kept him hostage tore her out of the bed the other way.

He roared his fury, brutal feelings he didn’t quite understand surging through him as he watched her battle across the room. Colin came to the instant realisation that she was life to him, she was breath. The world, the entire world, his whole being, heart and soul, was wrapped up in her.

He struggled fiercely but in vain. He watched, his gut wrenching in despair, as the sharp, shining blade swiftly, without delay, slid across her throat causing hideous blood to splatter everywhere from the gaping wound at her neck.

He woke, somehow, even though it couldn’t be possible, to a high-pitched, blood-chilling, woman’s scream.

Chapter Two

Dream Man

Sibyl Godwin woke to the thunderous, rage-filled roar of a man.

Her eyes flew open and Bran, her cat, flew off the bed with an angry mew while Mallory, her dog (who had been taking up most of her wide mattress) jumped awkwardly off the other side and began barking.

The roar could not have come from the throat of the man of her dream.

That throat, in her dream, had just been slit.

She realised she was panting and absolutely, utterly terrified.

The shutters were closed on the windows and she threw back the heavy covers of her bed, running to the windows and throwing them open to let in the moonlight.

There was no moonlight.

She ran back to the bed and switched on her bedside lamp, wondering distractedly why she hadn’t thought of that first.

“Be quiet, Mallory!” she ordered and her mastiff immediately sat, his large tongue rolled out and a glob of drool slid off the side of his lip and landed with a plop on the carpet.

“That’s disgusting,” Sibyl told the dog affectionately as she shakily sat at the edge of the bed.

Her dog came forward, his whole body moving in opposite tandem with his fiercely wagging tail. He nudged her trembling hand and she sat there, petting her pup and trying to get control of her panic.

Something, she knew from years of experience with this type of thing, was terribly, horribly wrong.

“I need to call Mom,” she announced to Mallory and he just looked at her, all of his earlier mood gone, currently in blissful dog world as she scratched behind his ears.

She opened the drawer to her bedside table, took out the calling card that was her lifeline to home and grabbed the phone. She carefully dialled the numbers on the card and then added the memorised numbers that she knew would ring the phone in her parents’ house in Boulder, Colorado.

“Mom?” her voice was just as shaky as Sibyl felt and even though thousand of miles separated mother and daughter, Marguerite Godwin heard the tremulous tone.

“My goddess, Sibyl, what’s wrong?”

“Oh Mom, I just had the most terrible dream.”

And then, Sibyl started crying.

* * * * *

Sibyl Godwin had led a charmed life.

She was born to Albert Godwin, an Englishman, a professor of Medieval History and an amateur archaeologist and Marguerite Den, a hippy, a follower of Wicca and a hopeless romantic. Her parents loved each other with a love that just made your toes curl with happy delight at the sight of it.

Bertie and Mags had two daughters, Sibyl and Scarlett. Sibyl, named thus because Mags thought it was appropriately witch-sounding. Scarlett, after Mags’s idol and the best romantic heroine in the history of woman (which, at worst, was only a few short days after the beginning of the history of man, if one believed that sort of thing), Scarlett O’Hara.

Mags and Bertie loved their daughters with a love that was a shining testimony to all that was good and right about parenthood.

Even if they were just a tad bit weird and a much larger bit eccentric.

Mags, Sibyl and Scarlett happily followed after Bertie from teaching post to teaching post, at the University of Arizona, UNLV, UCLA, UC Berkeley (which Mags adored) and, finally, he gained tenure at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Mags spent a lot of time communing with Native Americans, opening sacred circles in the mountains or the dessert depending on where they lived (often she would simply resort to their backyard which frightened (or annoyed) the neighbours because she would do this skyclad, or utterly naked), doting on her small family and fretting after her two daughters.

Not that there was a great deal to fret over, Sibyl and Scarlett were both bright, vivacious, thoughtful and had wonderful senses of humour.

Sibyl did have a bit of a temper (or more than a bit on occasion and an explosive bit on other occasions).

And Scarlett had a penchant for collecting and discarding men (not on occasion but all the time).

Sibyl, Mags was convinced, was a clairvoyant, often having strange, vivid dreams of events that came true. Mags was certain these were premonitions if only her daughter would just learn to read them. Mags tried to help Sibyl channel this extraordinary power but Sibyl didn’t have any interest (much to Mags’s everlasting chagrin).

Further concerning Mags and Bertie was that Sibyl, from a very early age, had the deep belief that she would one day meet her one and only true love. A knight in shining armour, kind, loyal and strong, her soulmate, heartmate and helpmate. Sibyl knew to the depths of her very soul that one day she would meet this man who would turn her world golden and provide her with all the joy and happiness she could endure.

Scarlett was, luckily (in Bertie and Mags’s opinion), a lot more down-to-earth.