Unconventional

Then a sound came, shattering the silence. The unnerving snap of a twig or branch, out near the treeline…

Gasp!

I woke crudely and abruptly, shoving my dream away. Confusion set in… until I remembered where I was. Who I’d been with. What I’d done.

There was an arm wrapped protectively around me. I wriggled free and saw it belonged to Chase. I sat at the edge of the bed for a moment, trying to remember where I’d put my clothes. Or rather, where they’d stripped them from my body, before ravishing me for that second round.

That’s when I realized… Julian was gone.

But is he?

I checked the window, but he wasn’t there. His shirt however, still lay crumpled in one corner of the floor.

I wanted to crawl back into bed. To spoon up against Chase’s warm, naked form, and drape his arm back around me.

Instead I pulled on some panties and a fresh T-shirt, then padded down the stone steps.

It was possible Julian was checking on the castle grounds. We’d moved the trail camera to cover the rest of our supplies, but that meant leaving the field unwatched. Not that I cared, really. Whoever was still skulking around out there was wasting their time with an abandoned farm field.

But they cared. My two lovers and protectors.

I moved through the kitchen, which was undisturbed. I checked the front door, to find it still barred from the inside. My confusion grew. So much of the rest of the keep had been closed off, sealed up by my uncle until he could get around to it.

I was halfway back to the steps when I heard it — a noise, floating in from the left of me. A cracking sound. Or maybe the sound of something being dropped or broken…

The Great Hall.

It was the single largest room in the keep. One filled with so much dust and dirt, my uncle had draped a big sheet of plastic over the hole where the door once was.

I crept slowly up to the sheet. I could see it moving. Billowing outward, as if from motion or air currents, or—

CRACK!

My heart was pounding as I yanked the sheet aside. My eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the relative darkness when the beam of a flashlight swept over my eyes.

“Madison!”

The masculine but familiar voice sent a wave of relief crashing over me.

“Holy shit, you scared the bejesus out of me.”

Julian was standing along the opposite wall, ankle-deep in a pile of dirt and rubble. He held a long black Maglite in one hand. In the other, he clutched a piece of broken stone.

“What are you doing?” I asked, still shielding my eyes with one arm. Gratefully he lowered the beam.

“Investigating,” he said.

The room was lit by temporary fluorescents, but the lighting was poor. I made my way over, moving carefully with my bare feet. Trying to step only on the smooth spots.

“You’re doing work down here now?” I said to the stonemason. I blinked at the vast pile of stone and mortar. “What time is it, anyway?”

“No idea,” he answered, turning back to the wall. “And I’m not doing work.”

He shook another stone from the wall, shattering the mortar around it. It broke free, and he dropped it into the pile.

“So you’re taking the place apart, then?” I chided him. “Brick by brick?”

Julian dusted his hands off before placing them on his hips. “Someone was.”