The Ruby Kiss by Helen Scott Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

shadow moving among the trees.
    “Nightshade?”
    She prayed the creature she could sense was the nightstalker, but she knew that was wishful thinking.
    “I can smell her. She’s the one.” Sibilant words whispered on the wind.
    Ruby launched herself forward, only to pull up short when a dark figure stepped into her path. She jabbed out with her fist, made contact at groin level with soft, fabric-covered body parts. On a hissing rush of breath the figure jackknifed over. Ruby pushed past and ran blindly in the direction of the house.
    On either side of the path, between the tree trunks, shadowy figures tracked her. Ruby’s lungs burned with her pace and panic, and as soon as she broke from cover two creatures converged and tackled her. A steely grip encircled her arm, yanking her to a halt. Winded, she couldn’t put up much of a fight.
    The two creatures pushed her down to the ground, pulled her hands behind her back, and tied them together. A third set of boots appeared near her face. She turned her head away and buried it in the madly sprouting grass, hoping their owner wouldn’t kick her in retaliation for punching him.
    No blow fell, so she raised her face, gasping air into lungs crushed under the weight of a knee on her back. Sibilant yet rattling breaths sounded close to her ear. The stench of rotting meat filled her nose, making her gag. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the moonlit silhouette of a birdlike face with spiky tufts of hair.
    A rough hand grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. “Not much to look at, but Twister’s desperate for the new Mistress. She’ll net us a pretty penny,” one of her captors said. “We’ll take her back along the Darkling Road.”
    “What if the Master of the Darkling Road catches us?” the second creature asked.
    “He’s too busy with his harem and his pretty friends to notice.”
    Ruby goggled. Harems and mistresses? What century were they living in? A string of swear words rattled through her head, but she didn’t have the breath to get them out of her mouth. Still, one thing was sure: If this guy Twister who was desperate for a mistress laid a finger on her, she would make him wish he’d never been born.

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Chapter Three
    For the fourth time, Ruby spat out the disgusting rag her kidnappers kept forcing into her mouth. “Let me go you filthy, stinking beak-noses.”
    They’d taken her along a strange shadowy pathway through the Scottish countryside that they called the Darkling Road. Her feet hurt where her boots had rubbed them and her legs ached from the unaccustomed exercise. She’d temporarily given up fighting for freedom because even if she escaped she would be trapped in this weird other dimension or reality. She’d never imagined the supernatural could be like this. The creatures she’d met when she was a child had all lived in the normal world.
    After what felt like hours, the creatures pushed her off the path and out from between the tangled roots of a massive tree into a new woodland scene. The fresh, pine-scented air told her they were back in her normal reality even before the ground vegetation burst to life around her feet. The seething mix of fear and anger she’d kept a tight lid on overflowed. She kicked, screamed, and tried to twist out of her captors’ hands, but she was already exhausted and the three creatures easily overpowered her.
    They kept a tight hold on her while they cut the plastic twine around her wrists, then dragged her through the woods toward the sound of voices. The forest gave way to an open area thronging with people. Wood smoke hung in a pall against the dark sky above the crowd.
    The babble of strange voices and the discordant notesof foreign music disoriented her. Ruby sucked in a smoky breath, struggled, then shouted for help. The onlookers stared at her curiously, but no one challenged her captors. As she stared around, she saw creatures she recognized from her mother’s books. Many of the crowd looked