Free The Night by Felicity Heaton Page A

Spirits? He shook his head again and slowly turned the knob. It eased open and he smiled at the fact it wasn’t locked.
    He slipped inside and froze as a noise came from the adjoining room.
    Casting a glance around the room he was in, he ran his eyes over the expansive kitchen and the dirty cat dishes that were now piled up in the sink.
    The house looked small from the outside, but in here it was a different matter. Each room was so big that if the magic holding it together wasn’t strong enough, the house would have exploded into one the size of a mansion.
    Funny, that someone who had lived alone all these years would need a house so large.
    He moved swiftly from room to room, following the sounds of the woman as she moved too, leading him deeper into the house. His eyes scanned over the dark interior, the curtains drawn wherever he went, and the walls covered in old paintings that were so encrusted with the dust of ages that he could no longer see their subject.
    He pressed himself flat against the wall as he came to the room she had stopped in. He could hear her moving things around. Glass clinked. Material swished. Paper scrunched.
    There was a sound of metal against glass, as though she was stirring something.
    Poking his head around the corner, he smiled as he saw that she had her back to him. He slipped into the room, treading on tiptoes across the dark patterned rug that covered the beaten floorboards. A grin crept onto his face as he hunched, his hands coming up as he moved to be within a few feet of her.
    She placed an empty bottle down on the cluttered desk in front of her and sighed as she looked at something in her hand. He couldn’t see what it was. Her body obscured it from view. Her other hand reached out to turn up the oil lamp a fraction so the room was brighter. It hurt his eyes.
    He raised his hands to strike.
    “Did you have to kill him?”
    The sound of her voice made him freeze to the spot with his arms still high in the air.
    When she turned to face him, tears were shining in her eyes. Zane closed his, hung his head and let his arms fall to his sides. He thought about what he had done and how guilty she could make him feel with a single look. He opened his eyes and brushed the tears from her cheeks with a gentle sweep of his fingers.
    His eyes widened at the sight of sharp claws where his fingernails usually were and he quickly moved his hand behind his back, not wanting her to see.
    “You know that I had to.” He turned away from her and looked at the drawn curtains. He could feel the night coming. It spoke to him, whispered words that lured him out into the enveloping darkness.
    She placed her hand on his shoulder, her feather-light touch telling him everything she wanted to say—she understood that he needed to kill.
    “He was sent here you know… told me all about you being a witch.”
    “That doesn’t mean he was sent here. The boys around these parts tell tales… in some I am a witch, in others I am cursed.”
    “He was sent here. He told me himself that he was a witch hunter. He was going to kill you.” His eyes met hers, his expression serious and not faltering when he saw her tears shimmering in the low light. Her eyes were like diamonds made of ice, lightest blue and sparkling. He had never seen eyes like hers. They were so pale and mysterious.
    She was so pale and mysterious.
    He looked away as his stomach twisted and knotted, telling him that he didn’t deserve to look at her when he had made her cry again. He always made her cry.
    “So you killed him.” There was a note of regret in her voice, as though she felt responsible for the man’s death because he had done it to protect her.
    He felt her hesitate and then closed his eyes as she pressed a kiss to his cheek.
    “Thank you.”
    He could still feel her sadness, as keenly as if it had been his own. He could feel it invading every inch of the room, filling the whole house, or the world. He sighed as he looked at her and