why I want to leave. You’d want to as well if you’d seen what I did.”
Robbie pushed his silver-framed glasses up his nose with his fingertip. “Maybe we should go. It’s getting late, and our parents will be looking for us.”
“If you really came here, prove it,” Martin sneered, ignoring Robbie. “Show us where you were, where she was.”
Charlie’s heart beat harder, the spit in his mouth drying. The cold prickle creeping along his skin intensified. He was suddenly certain they were no longer alone in the woods.
He wanted to go home, but he didn’t want to lose face in front of his mates. Martin would never let him live it down. “Fine. I’ll show you exactly where I saw her.”
The sooner he did, the sooner he could get the hell out of there. He crunched through dead leaves littered over the forest floor. As he neared the ridge, that horrible stench, like rotting garbage, intensified. The bog, Martin had said, and he had to be right. What else could it be?
As he climbed the steep, rocky slope, he glanced back at his mates. They watched him with wide eyes, faces pale. Except Martin. He stood with his arms folded over his thick chest, head tilted and a smirk stretched across his face, as if convinced Charlie would back out at any moment.
Stupid Martin. He’d show him who was shit-scared.
Charlie continued up, grabbing saplings to pull himself along. He should have told them he’d seen the witch at the bottom of the ridge, then he wouldn’t—
The wind blew, and he froze, heart jumping into his throat. Voices. He was certain he could hear whispered voices, their words impossible to understand. He whipped his head side to side, scanning the thick cluster of trees surrounding him for the source. Nothing.
“Do you hear that?” he called down.
Dev and Robbie frowned, shaking their heads, but Martin stepped forward. “I don’t hear anything. Now, get moving.”
Had to be the wind. But why hadn’t the whispers stopped when the wind died? Instead, they were growing louder. How much farther to the top? He looked up and his breath lodged in his throat.
A dark shadow stood at the top of the ridge, less than ten feet from him.
Black fear coated Charlie like oil. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.
“Holy shit, do you see that?” Dev’s shrill, almost girlish scream exploded in the quiet, shattering the paralysis gripping Charlie’s limbs. He turned and started running down the rocky hill. He didn’t care what Buldger called him.
The rubber soles of his trainers slipped on wet leaves and moss. He fell face-first, slapping hard against the lumpy ground and sliding down the sharp slope. Air rushed from his lungs in a whoosh. He threw his hands forward to protect his face and head. Something sharp jabbed his hip, but the stabbing pain barely registered as he slid down the rest of the hill. When he finally rolled to a stop, his gaze locked on milky eyes in a bloated, dirty face.
He screamed and scrambled back, unable to look away from the dead man staring back at him.
“Are you all right?” Robbie asked, coming up behind him, his voice breathless as if he’d been running. “What is that?”
Charlie swallowed, but didn’t speak. He couldn’t. Somewhere during his tumble down the hill his voice had vanished, along with his ability to truly grasp what he was looking at.
A glistening pinkish-gray worm slithered from the dead man’s nostril and plopped to the ground. Charlie’s stomach lurched. He turned and puked, until his insides were empty and his throat raw. When the dry heaves tapered off, he glanced at the top of the ridge. Whoever had been up there was gone.
Charlie turned to his two mates standing over the rotting corpse. “Where’s Buldger?”
“He ran,” Dev said, then pointed at the mangled midsection of the body. “I bet that’s James’s hired man who vanished. Looks like someone’s been eating him.”
Chapter One
Brynn was no stranger to bad days, even worse than this one, but by God, today certainly ranked in the top five.
She peered up through the sleet-streaked windshield at the large Tudor building before her. Yellow light glowed from leaded windows like beacons in the late afternoon gloom. A wooden sign mounted over the door with the words Iron Kettle Pub swayed in the wind, the grinding squeal from the hinges audible even inside her rental car.
She didn’t want to go in, but she didn’t have a choice. She was lost and needed directions. She glanced at the folded instructions on the passenger seat. Accurate directions.
Or maybe she should find her way to the nearest hotel and call it a day. She could always start over again tomorrow. Just the idea of a clean hotel room, door locked against the world, while she crawled into a warm bed and pulled the covers over her head drained some of the tension gripping her neck and shoulders.
You’re only putting off the inevitable.
She let out a slow sigh and rubbed her tired eyes with her fingertips. What was she even doing here? She should turn this car around and head back to the airport.
Of course, that would mean crossing the suspension bridge back to the mainland again. Images of huge steel girders poking through the mist like pointed teeth, thick cables swaying in the wind and dark churning water flashed through her mind. Her stomach jumped.
Forget it. She’d stay and deal with her newfound family. Better to face a potentially murderous father who hadn’t bothered with her in almost twenty-five years, than face that bridge twice in one day.
She snatched up the directions, opened the car door and slid out. Sleet slapped her face, stinging her bare skin like frozen needles. The tangy smell of the sea flooded her nostrils.
She pulled her coat tighter around her middle, ducked her head against the wet wind and hurried across the gravel parking lot. As she weaved between several cars, her foot sank ankle-deep in a frigid mix of water and slush, soaking through her leather boot and coating her skin in liquid ice.
“Shit.” She yanked her foot from the puddle and looked down at the sopping mess. Even the hem of her pants was wet. Just perfect.
First, seven hours on a flight from Chicago to Manchester, eating rubbery chicken and watching some craptacular movie with singing cheerleaders—while the old lady in the seat behind her hit the back of her chair whenever she tried to recline—followed by a two-hour drive to the Isle of Anglesey and a near nervous breakdown while crossing the bridge from the mainland. And now this.
Maybe it was an omen. As if fate was warning her to get back in her car and drive as far away from here as possible.
Or maybe she’d just stepped in a puddle.
She drew a deep breath, squared her shoulders and marched to the pub with as much dignity as she could while her foot slopped in her boot. Once inside, soft light and warm air heavy with the mixed scents of wood smoke, fried food and alcohol wrapped around her. The pub looked exactly like an English—or Welsh, as was the case—pub should. Wide, plank floors, gleaming wooden tables and plush burgundy benches at the booths, even a fire crackling in a huge stone hearth.
Two elderly couples shared a table in the center of the room. A middle-aged woman and her teenaged daughter sat in one of the booths running along the far wall, and three more men were perched at the L-shaped bar.
The door swung shut behind Brynn, closing out the frigid afternoon, and all eyes turned to her.
“Come in out of the cold,” a woman called from behind the bar, her loud voice deep with a smoker’s rasp, oddly incongruent to her melodious accent. “What can I get to warm you?”
“Oh…um…nothing, thanks.” Brynn pasted on a fake smile that made her cheeks ache, and