Rampant

He gripped at the back of a nearby chair as he staggered. His heart felt incredibly tight in his chest and he looked to Annabel, seeking reassurance.

Again she shook her head, but this time she also put out her hand to him. It lured him, lured him inexorably to her. How he had loved her, all these years. He swallowed, hard. This was wrong, it couldn’t be. She was meant to come to him, not him to her. She would want to take the chance he had created for her in this world, the chance to live again, surely? And yet the thing he wanted most in the world beckoned to him again, her hand outstretched.

Oh, how he longed to touch her, to hold her.

Unable to resist, Cain took a step closer.

Zoë’s heartbeat was so erratic that she could hear the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears. What the hell was it that she was supposed to know? Every time she looked at Gray, she felt his encouragement. He’d caged Cain from behind, urging him toward Annabel. He’d already told her that Cain wouldn’t leave the house alive, but she didn’t want that on his hands. She wanted to find the thing that Annabel needed.

All she had to do was figure out what was needed. She wasn’t afraid. Gray had put a protection spell on her and she believed in him. Desperately playing for time, she spoke to him again. “Tell me, Ewan, are you not the one who is responsible for her death?”

That touched a deep chord. His face contorted and horror shone in his eyes. Was he remembering now? He shook his head in denial, never once taking his eyes off Annabel’s ghost. “What do you know of what we had?”

“I know how much you loved her, and that you still do. But I also know how vindictive and angry that made you.”

That touched more than a chord. He seemed to buckle in front of her eyes, his spirit visibly crushed, as if his soul was being taken from the inside.

Zoë swallowed hard. Annabel pushed her on. “It’s your time, Ewan Findley,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t falter quite so much. “You sold your soul for three hundred years. Annabel has come to lead you because your time is up.”

“You’re lying! She’s here to be with me again, because I want her back.” He shook his head again, his eyes filled with confusion.

“Annabel doesn’t want to be with you in the real world. It is Irvine she loves, it always was.” Zoë could scarcely believe she was saying these words, and yet there was immense power in them. Cain was a broken man.

“Not supposed to be this way!” Cain cried as he staggered toward Annabel, one hand clutched to his chest, insanity in his eyes.

Annabel spoke within Zoë’s mind. Destiny showed you the way to end this.

Zoë pressed her fingers to her temples.

“I have faith in you,” Gray whispered across to her, his gorgeous eyes filled with love and encouragement.

She didn’t want to let him down. She didn’t want to let Annabel down, either, or her mother.

I never let anyone down and I’m not going to start now!

Think, think, she urged herself.

Destiny would know the way, but how, how? She thought of her mother as she always did. “Pass the crystal, spread the tarot,” she used to say. The panpipes would be playing on the stereo and the white wine bottle would be there next to the candles that she surrounded herself with.

Her head shot up. The cleansing power of the flame! Yes, her mother had said it every time she lit a candle.

As if to confirm it, Annabel nodded and appeared as she had that morning, fire licking along the underside of her arms, ghostly smoke and flame all around her. Cain was right up against her, but he was so lost in his goal that he didn’t notice the ghostly fire.

Zoë reached out to the old range that stood behind her, turned a knob and hit the automatic ignition. As a ring of flame danced into life, Annabel opened one hand to it and Zoë watched in astonishment as the flame bent in the air, drawn to her.

Can I really do this? she thought, unnerved.

“Bloody hell,” she whispered. The house would go up, and Cain was so far in denial he might not even notice. But Cain had meant to kill her, to sacrifice her life for another, and this house was Annabel’s anchor, an anchor she no longer needed. It was always Annabel’s Haven, and this is what she wanted. Zoë faltered as she thought about all the passion, the pain, the pleasure and the heartbreak that love had brought about for these two souls and those around them, the ugly emotions that it had stimulated, and the forbidden deeds that had followed. Love demanded simple honesty and faith, and where there was none it could not grow or thrive.

“It’s his time.” It was Gray, and he was beside her in a heartbeat, drawing her away from the range. “You found the natural law,” he whispered, and there was fierce pride in his voice. “There is destruction even in nature. It’s the way of the world. Cain could walk away now, but Annabel has his heart. It was always the way of it.”

They headed for the doorway, fast. The flames from the range had already licked along the work surface. Zoë’s emoti

ons welled as she saw Annabel as she would have been on the funeral pyre, ensconced in flames and smoke. But this time her eyes were open, there was no rope around her neck, and her arms were embracing the man responsible for her death.

Cain saw the flames, and wept aloud, grief and anger in his voice. “No, not like this,” he bellowed, his scream of anger reverberating through the house.

“Hurry,” Grayson said, hauling her away. They darted the length of the hall and out onto the lane. Lightning flashed overhead. Standing back from the house against the sea wall, they watched.