Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(96)
Author: Kristen Ashley

A black-clad figure wearing a ski mask was holding a struggling Sibyl in the corner of the room, one arm gripping her about the waist, one hand held over her mouth.

Another figure wearing the same outfit was being pounded violently by the end of Mrs. Griffith’s cane, each blow causing an angry, pained grunt to come out of him.

“Let her go, I tell you!” Mrs. Griffith shouted.

Colin jerked out of his shock and exploded into the room, wresting the cane out of Mrs. Griffith’s hand and swinging it with far more force on the cowering figure. With furious pleasure, he heard it connect with a hideous noise of cracking bone at the same time the cane split in half and a stifled howl came from his victim. Wasting no time, the figure shoved Mrs. Griffith aside and, holding his injured arm in his healthy one, he ran from the small office.

Colin whirled on the other figure, raising the remains of the cane threateningly.

The figure let go of Sibyl’s waist, his arm went around his back and Sibyl took her opportunity to break free. She took one step forward but was yanked back as the man grabbed her hair. She gave a startled, pained cry and Colin took two quick, menacing steps forward when the figure’s arm whipped back around and Colin saw the glint on the blade of a knife.

“Call 999! Call 999!” Mrs. Griffith shouted repeatedly as she rushed (slowly) out of the office.

“Drop the cane,” the figure demanded, his voice rough and threatening.

He raised the knife to Sibyl’s throat and Colin froze. The dream seared through his brain, visions of her blood pouring freely from her throat and Colin felt fear spread through him like a virus.

“Drop the f**king cane!” the figure shouted.

Colin dropped the cane and held his hands up in front of him, his eyes never leaving the blade.

“Let her go,” Colin ordered, his words crackling with authority.

The figure yanked Sibyl’s hair again and she made another noise filled with pain and Colin’s body tensed in fury. He welcomed it as it fought away the fear.

Colin didn’t take his eyes off the pair and didn’t move. He thought, in an instant, if that blade slit her throat, he’d charge the man regardless, he didn’t care if it next penetrated his gut.

He was weaponless, powerless and if they came out of this unscathed, he was going to track this man down and take great satisfaction in wringing the air out of his body with his own two hands.

“Let her go,” Colin repeated and with a swiftness that surprised him, Sibyl was thrown forward. Colin caught her in his arms and wasted no time in whirling her behind the protection of his body.

As he did this, the figure ran by Colin and Sibyl and Colin immediately gave chase.

“Get to the Hall,” he ordered Sibyl, not breaking stride, “now!”

The man was out the Day Centre door, into the night and Colin followed him, running through the grass toward the church that was next to the Centre.

Then Colin heard a strange noise and felt a piercing, unexplainable pain in his shoulder but he was too intent on his pursuit to pay it any heed.

The man was fit, Colin realised, but Colin was also fit, swift and tall. He covered twice the distance with one stride as the other man could and he was soon gaining on him.

He was nearly upon him when he started to feel a penetrating sluggishness permeate his body. He reached his arm out to grasp the figure’s collar and found he could barely hold it up.

Colin shook his head to clear his rapidly blurring vision and saw the man pull out in front, doubling then trebling the distance as Colin fought the overwhelming, unusual, unexplainable lethargy stealing over him.

He struggled against it, wondering vaguely why he felt it at all but within moments he slowed to a halt, breathing heavily.

Then Colin lost his battle and collapsed to the ground.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Fear

Sibyl sat next to Marian’s hospital bed, leaning forward on the side of it, exhausted and stressed, she rested her forehead on her crossed arms.

The older woman lay sleeping now and, for the first time, Marian Byrne looked every one of her advanced years. She’d regained consciousness at the Centre, muttering strange, dire warnings about “dark souls” and vehemently lamenting “letting Granny Esmeralda down’. Sibyl and Bertie, witnessing her ranting, feared she’d sustained a terrible head injury as Scarlett carefully tended to her.

Marian had calmed by the time the paramedics arrived but Sibyl’s panic had increased when Colin hadn’t returned then escalated to sheer terror when she heard the police found his motionless body. Luckily (they thought), in their hunt for him, they discovered the tranquilliser dart that brought him low, a great deal of the tranquilliser still in the shaft. Sibyl did not consider this lucky at all, she was becoming far too acquainted with the awful effects of tranquilliser darts and couldn’t comprehend for the life of her why someone kept shooting beings she cared about with them.

In all the heartbreak and despair to which Sibyl’s professional life had forced her to bear witness, nothing affected her quite so profoundly as seeing her charismatic, powerful, rugged Colin taken, unconscious, into an ambulance. If Mags hadn’t been holding onto her whispering soothing words, Sibyl knew her body would have collapsed.

And she knew in that instant that she loved Colin.

She was in love with Colin and loved him with all her heart, through her blood, veins and muscles, down through to the marrow of her bones.

She’d finally found him, Colin was him. Her soulmate, the one she’d been waiting for, just plain hers.

There was no reason for it; he didn’t suit her, not in the slightest. He was autocratic, possessive, dictatorial and had far more money than one person with good conscience should. He was nothing like she expected her true love would be and somehow everything she wanted. She didn’t think it even had anything to do with reincarnated souls of dead lovers, they could have been entirely different people altogether and they would have found each other.

He wasn’t Royce but now Colin looked at her the same way as if she was the centre of his universe and nothing else existed or mattered beyond her.

Not to mention, he was a good man, he didn’t like to let on to that sweet, simple fact but he was.

So, there was nothing she could do. She let him into her heart or more to the point clicked him into the place that had been waiting for him since the day she was born.

And she thought he fit perfectly.

Colin had regained consciousness in Accident and Emergency not half an hour before, groggy for approximately five minutes, he shifted quickly to icy fury. Knowing with relief that he was going to be all right, Sibyl escaped to check on Mrs. Byrne and left Colin to talk privately to the police.