Tremors Read online

  Certain images contained within this e-book have been digitally marked by Digimarc Corp. If you purchased this e-book from a source other than Ellora’s Cave or one of its known affiliates, contact [email protected] immediately. Please note that reading this e-book without first purchasing it through legitimate means is illegal and can result in heavy fines. As always, our authors thank-you for your support and patronage.

  Tremors

  An Ellora’s Cave Electronic Publication

  In association with author Jaid Black

  All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN # 0-9707169-4-X

  © Copyright Jaid Black, 2001.

  http://www.ellorascave.com

  This book/e-book may not be reproduced in whole or in part by email forwarding, copying, fax, or any other mode of communication without author and publisher permission.

  Edited by Lee Haskell

  Warning:

  The following material contains strong sexual content meant for mature readers. “Tremors” has been rated NC-17, erotic, by five individual reviewers. We strongly suggest storing this electronic file in a place where young readers not meant to view this e-book are unlikely to happen upon it. That said, enjoy…

  To Fredrik, and happy endings…

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  Göthmoor, Sweden

  Present Day

  Pulling the black cloak more securely around her body, Marie Robb alighted from her rental car and into the chilled night air. Her nipples hardened instantly as the cold, moaning wind seeped through the cloth of the woolen garment and permeated the single layer of the silk evening gown she wore beneath it. Throwing a long honey-colored tress over her shoulder, she visually scanned the area to either side of the dirt road.

  “Great,” she sighed. “Just great. There’s nothing around here for miles.” Rubbing her arms briskly to ward off the chill bumps quickly forming on her flesh, she took a deep breath and looked blindly out into the night, her gaze flicking across the desolate dirt road her Saab had just sacrificed a tire to. “Daddy always said never take the back roads.” She sighed again. “But do I ever listen? No way.”

  Kicking the deflated Saab tire with the toe of her stiletto pump, she let loose an expletive as she thrust her hands to her hips in frustration. Of all the times not to have heeded her father’s advice, Marie thought, why did she have to go and do it while traveling in a foreign country?

  Shaking her head, she opened the passenger door to the Saab, gathered up her purse, and slammed the door shut behind her. The sound reverberated into the dark night and through the forest trees that surrounded her on either side, underlining the fact that she was indeed in the middle of nowhere. Chills raced up and down the length of her spine as Marie considered for the first time just how alone she was. Alone and without any manner of protection.

  Suddenly she wished she’d heeded more of her father’s advice. Namely that she’d actually showed up to those self-defense classes he’d enrolled her into.

  Chastising herself for allowing her overactive imagination to get the better of her, she straightened her spine regally, thrust her chin up a notch, and determined to find a path that would lead to…anywhere.

  “Besides, Marie,” she reminded herself firmly, “you came to Europe to find yourself, to grow up and make your own way in life. You didn’t come here to convince yourself that daddy’s right and that you’d be better off marrying a doctor, bearing a couple of children, and living in a house with a white picket fence smack dab in the middle of Green Acres.” That was her father’s idea of happiness, not hers. “And this place,” she muttered as she flicked her gaze about, “is most definitely not Green Acres. More like The Haunted Forest from The Wizard of Oz.”

  The wind began to moan, inducing a few new chill bumps to course down her spine. The sounds of unknown forest creatures grew prominent as she noticed them for the first time. A rodent of some sort slithered by, causing her to yelp.

  This, she decided, was definitely not what she’d had in mind when she’d flown to Europe to experience new things.

  Biting her lip and saying a quick Hail Mary, Marie scanned the area once more, trying to find a path she could traverse that would lead her to some sort of help. She’d almost given up entirely when, a minute later, a faint moonbeam spilled over an area of the forest, highlighting a barely worn but definite path that led into it.

  Swallowing roughly, her eyes widened as she considered the fact that she had no makeshift light to take with her into the forest. Yet she would have to enter it. There was no aid to be found on this abandoned dirt road she was standing in the middle of.

  Ignoring the wind that whipped the heavy black cloak about her, Marie threw her purse over her shoulder and resigned herself to the inevitable. She would take the path. She had to. There was no other choice.

  Her heart rate picking up inexplicably, she walked slowly toward her destination. Every step felt heavy and methodical, as if an unseen force had somehow zeroed in on her and was pulling her into its midst.

  When she finally made her way to the edge of the dirt road she felt tired, like she’d walked ten miles instead of ten paces. Shaking off the bizarre feeling, she stepped onto the grassy terrain that led into the gut of the forest. Her costly designer heels sunk into the muddy earth, bringing her height back down to its true five feet and six inches.

  Taking a deep breath, Marie stared wide-eyed down the narrow path for as far as the eye could see. It didn’t escape her notice that she couldn’t see very far down it, and that there was no telling how deep into the woods it went…or where it might lead to.

  It was the last thought that made her shiver, a condition that seemed to worsen with each bogged down step she took. “Well Marie,” she muttered under her breath, “at least you haven’t bumped into Count Dracula yet.”

  A bat swooped down, hovering over her head for an extended moment before disappearing into the thick of the black woods. The forest seemed to swallow the winged creature whole, welcoming it into its depths.

  Her green eyes rounding, Marie laughed nervously. “Damn,” she breathed out, “I better quit mumbling. Everything I say seems to be coming true.”

  Reaching out in front of her, she lifted up the arm of a low hanging branch and moved to the other side of it. The branch slammed down behind her, enveloping her into the heart of the path. Muttering something incoherent about daddy and where was the old bastard when she needed him, Marie shook off her misgivings and continued down the path once again.

  The crisp wind whipped the black wool cloak about her legs, parting it on one side and revealing the slit the slinky black evening gown made to her upper thigh. Her coif came undone, causing her long golden locks to spill from the barrette she wore and cascade down around her waist. Absently, Marie drew the hood of the cloak up and around her head, not thinking twice about the black barrette now lying discarded and forgotten in the muddied path.

  The trail was so barely traversed that it was hard to make out where she should and shouldn’t walk, but a faint sprinkle of moonlight continued to trickle down through the trees, illuminating the path just enough to enable her to go on.

  For miles Marie walked, each tree having the same appearance as the last, every step taking her further and deeper into the forest’s lair. She was tired, so incredibly exhausted. Every bone in her body seemed to ache, reminding her of how stupid she’d been to drive the Saab down a back road in a country she’d been in for all of two days.

  And all because of him. The stranger. That mysterious man she’d met just a few hours past at the opening of the Göthmoor Museum’s exhibit on ancient cultures.

  He had told her that this was a good way to come. He had claimed that he’d driven the dirt road several times en route to his
estate and that it was a reliable shortcut. And Marie, naïve fool that she now realized she was, had believed him.

  And why had she taken him at his word? she asked herself for the hundredth time in the past few hours. Why, when everything about the stranger had sent little danger signals jolting through her body?

  Panting heavily for lack of air, Marie sank to the ground of the forest, not caring that her cloak became muddied in the process. Closing her eyes and breathing deeply, she scooted up against the bark of a tree and considered the answer to her own question. She knew the answer already, of course. She would not only have to be naïve but incredibly stupid not to.

  She had wanted, quite simply, to escape the stranger’s unnerving presence. She would have done anything, gone anywhere, taken any supposed shortcut in creation, to put as much distance between him and herself as possible, as quickly as possible.

  Even now in her mind’s eye she could see the man’s tall, brooding form hovering over her. When she closed her eyes like this it wasn’t difficult to visualize the harshness of his austere features, the black of his short cropped hair contrasted against the silver at his temples, the icy blue of his eyes…and the way those eyes had undressed her, piece by methodical piece, throughout the course of the evening.

  Marie had felt the stranger’s gaze on her at all times. Whether meeting her own gaze dead on or boring a hole into the back of her as she made her way by each displayed piece of the exhibit, she had felt the possessiveness in his wolf’s eyes clear down to her toes.

  The knowledge of it had frightened her, and just as terrifyingly, it had also induced tremors of desire to curl up in her belly. She had never been the type to want a man at first glance. Especially not a stranger so mysterious, and if one listened to village gossip, so evil as well.

  It was those eyes, those damn eyes, she decided. The same clear blue predator’s gaze that had undressed her body as though he owned it. The same wolf’s eyes that had mesmerized her as he’d come to a halt before her and made his intentions known. “You will belong to me,” he had stated simply, matter-of-factly, in a deep rich voice whose English was heavily accented. “To me and to no other.”

  Marie’s large green eyes had widened. The boldness of his words coupled with the smooth as brandy baritone of his voice had disconcertingly caused her nipples to harden of their own volition. “I-I don’t know what you mean,” she had blithered out dumbly, not knowing what else to say. Men didn’t just walk up to women and say such things. “I will belong to no one but myself.”

  His eyes had roamed down then, leaving her face and settling on her cleavage. Marie had sucked in her breath as one of his large hands had cupped a full breast, his thumb rubbing the nipple through the sheer silk of her evening gown, inducing the bud to lengthen and harden for him. One side of his mouth had lifted in a knowing smile. “You lie,” he had murmured.

  “I-I need to go,” she had breathed out. She felt threatened. Men don’t do things like that. “I have to go back to the hotel now.” With great effort, Marie had broken his gaze and began to back away from him.

  As a reply, he had merely nodded his head, his gaze considering her every movement. “You are staying at Göthmoor’s one and only inn, I presume?”

  She hadn’t answered him. Rude or not, she had only thought to be away from him. He was strange. Odd. Men just don’t walk up to women and fondle their breasts. Giving him her back, she had turned and began to walk away.

  “There’s a dirt road behind the museum,” he had called out quietly, undaunted, seemingly unaffected by the fact that she’d just given him the cut direct. “It’s a short-cut. I use it myself. It will take you home.”

  Home, Marie thought morosely, as her eyes flicked about the forest and she sought to steady her breathing. She’d give anything to be back home in the states this very moment, snuggled up with a book, her favorite blanket draped across her legs.

  The bark of the tree began to chafe the skin on her back, reminding her once again that she’d walked for miles and still had not encountered a single soul, bringing home full force the totality of her predicament.

  Had he done this to her on purpose? Had the stranger been affected by her dismissal of him after all and seen to it that he’d gained some manner of revenge?

  Marie rolled her eyes at her own musings. How could he have known that the Saab would get a flat tire out in the middle of nowhere? No man, regardless to how mysterious and brazen he might be, could predict such an outcome.

  Or maybe, just maybe, the stranger had somehow known this would happen. Marie nibbled on her lower lip as she considered the possibility.

  Perhaps he had led her out here, fully aware of the fact that she would never find her way out, that she would travel in circles forever, that the forest was dark and frightening enough to conjure up many unpleasant images that would drive her slowly insane until death claimed her.

  “Stop it, Marie,” she whispered. “Stop freaking yourself out.”

  Climbing to her feet, she reached out for the branch of the tree and hoisted herself up. She winced as her overworked calve muscles protested at being reused so soon. She needed to resume walking. It simply didn’t matter how badly she felt all over.

  “Well,” she said to herself as she brushed some of the caked mud off of her backside, “at least he isn’t here.”

  A rumble of thunder crackled overhead, calling attention to the fact that a storm was coming. A warning signal trickled down the length of her spine, inducing her flesh to goose pimple and her nipples to harden.

  She knew that eerily familiar danger signal. She’d felt it countless times earlier in the evening. And now, somehow, Marie knew she was not standing in the forest alone anymore. There was another presence here now, a presence that was boring a possessive hole right through her body with his gaze.

  “I-I hope the answer is no,” she breathed out, “but I’ll ask the question anyway.”

  Her pink tongue darted out to wet her dry lips. She swallowed roughly, fearing that she was about to die, that the mysterious stranger meant to harm her. “Is s-somebody there?”

  Chapter 2

  He emerged from the shadows. The mysterious stranger. The tall, brooding man with the crystalline eyes. He was dressed in harsh black, from the shoulders of his noir greatcoat to the tips of his black boots. His gaze raked the length of her form, hovering overlong at her breasts and then again at the visible slit that ran the length of her thigh.

  Marie took a reflexive step backward, instinctively drawing the cloak more securely about her. Her breathing hitched as she considered the very real possibility that she was about to die—or be raped—or both...

  He was so much larger than she, standing at least six foot three. His musculature was sleek and honed, making her frame appear rather small and average next to his. And she was tired, so very tired. She could attempt to run, but in the end he’d catch her. Deep down inside she realized that trying to escape him would be futile. “What do you want?” she whispered. “Why are you here?”

  One dark brow shot up, delineating a scar on his forehead she hadn’t noticed at the exhibit. But then, she’d been too busy staring at his oddly clear, wolverine eyes to notice much else about him. She was noticing the scar now, however. She couldn’t help but to wonder how it had gotten there, or more specifically, what woman had put it there. Had she been screaming at the time, clawing at him in a vain attempt to stay alive? Marie took another step backward.

  The second brow shot up to join the first. A too-knowing smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I came to take you home, Marie.” He made the assertion quietly, his thick accent definitive. “Now.”

  Her tongue darted out to moisten her parched lips. His gaze tracked the movement, missing nothing, detailing everything. “How do you know my name?” she breathed out.

  “I asked around.” His large shoulders shrugged slightly, effectively dismissing the subject. Holding out a palm, he directed her to come to him. “
I shan’t harm you if that’s what you’re thinking. I’d never harm so lovely a creature.”

  A creature? Affronted by such a backward compliment from such an odd man, Marie’s posture went ramrod straight, her breasts thrusting outward. She considered the fact that now was probably not the time most conducive to debating his good manners or lack thereof, so she decided in the end to skip the chastisement. Knowingly, the corners of his mouth tugged upward again, letting her know he’d gotten the message.

  “Look Mister…”

  “Sörebo. Fredrik Sörebo.”

  Marie nodded. She cleared her throat. “Mister Sörebo, I…”

  “Please,” he interrupted, his gaze drilling into hers, “call me Fredrik,” he murmured.

  “Fredrik,” she repeated, gritting her teeth, “I thank you for offering to help me, but I’m doing just fine on my own. I don’t need your assistance.”

  He chuckled in response, his head shaking slightly. “You have no idea where you are, no clue as to where you are going. This is my land you are lost on, so I cannot, in good conscience, allow such a beautiful woman to roam about unattended.” His eyes flicked about the dark forest until they settled once more on her face. “There are wild animals out here, animals large enough to tear you into pieces,” he said in low tones.

  Marie’s large green eyes rounded considerably as the image he’d just conjured up took firm root in her mind. She drew her hands up and began to rub her arms briskly. “You will take me h-home, then? To the inn I mean?”

  “I’ll take you home,” he promised quietly.

  Marie didn’t care for his deliberate exclusion of the last part of her question, but understood at the same time that she had no choice but to go with him, odd or no. She was tired, cold, and the storm was growing closer. She needed to find shelter, even if said shelter was within Fredrik Sörebo’s estate. For now she would go.