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I back away, first one step, then another.
I blink,
And he’s gone.
I stare at the empty space, and shake my head, blinking hard.
He’s still gone.
He must’ve slipped between the buildings, but why?
I’m too nervous to find out, and so I turn to walk back to the house. As I do, two enormous shadows bound out of the trees and race toward me, panting and skidding to a halt in front of me.
I’m frozen as I stare at two of the biggest dogs I’ve ever seen.
“It’s okay,” I tell them, as they examine me with dark eyes. “I’m supposed to be here. I’m not an intruder.”
They stare at me.
I stare back.
Then one steps forward and nudges my hand, sliding his massive head beneath my palm like he knows me, like he’s not going to attack me.
“Castor!” Sabine yells from behind me. “Pollux!”
The dogs stand at attention, and when she yells Come, they do.
She looks at me. “I’m sorry if they got you muddy,” she tells me. “They’re the estate dogs. And as you can see, they aren’t always graceful.”
I follow her gaze and she’s staring at muddy paw-prints on my legs, and when did that happen?
“They’re fine,” I tell her, because they didn’t hurt me. In fact, even though they’re enormous, they have such sweet faces. Sabine acts like she knows what I’m thinking.
“They wouldn’t hurt anybody,” she tells me. “It’s their size that is intimidating.” She pauses. “They’d protect you with their lives, though.”
Me?
Before I can ask, she returns to the house and the dogs go with her. Down the path a ways, one of them pauses and turns to look at me, but then he continues on his way and I try to put my uneasiness to rest.
Why am I uneasy?
They’re just dogs.
And the guy I saw was just a gardener or something.
Nothing to be unnerved about.
Yet I’m still unsettled as I wash my face, so when I’m finished, I poke my head out into the hall. There’s nothing there.
With a sigh, I lock my bedroom door and I’m chilled from the wet English air. Glancing at the clock, I find it’s only six thirty. I can rest for a few minutes more, and I’m thankful for that.
Because clearly, jet lag has made me its bitch.
Chapter Twenty-Four
As I step into the grand foyer of Whitley, my feet have barely hit the floor when I feel the overwhelming sense of being stifled, of the coldness that permeates a person’s bones here. To put the feeling in perspective, my home in Oregon is a funeral home. Whitley is far, far worse.
Finn picks my hand, aware of my faltering steps. “You ok?” he whispers, his blue eyes searching mine. I nod.
