 
## Roses & Haunts

### A Caprice Halloween Special

#### Book Five of the Caprice Chronicles

##### Selena Page

### Roses & Haunts

#### Copyright © 2016, Selena Page

####

###### Copyright © 2016, Selena Page

###### First electronic publication: October 2016

######

###### Selena Page

###### http://www.selenapage.com

###### All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded, or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author's permission

######

###### This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

######

Caprice Chronicles

###### Love & Accusations

###### Smoke & Longing

###### Roads & Royalty

###### Sin & Redemption

###### Roses & Haunts

###### Dirt & Desire – Coming November 2016

###### Blood & Wine – Coming November 2016

######

###### Find Selena Page online at http://www.selenapage.com or e-mail her at selena@selenapage.com

######

######  Join the Family and stay up to date with the latest news, sneak previews and more from the Caprice Family!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

# Chapter 1

"We're lost."

"We are not lost."

Alynia Tintreach nee Caprice eyed her husband with a steel-colored, penetrating glare from the passenger seat. In typical Iowin fashion, he ignored it. For a moment, she toyed with the idea of flicking her straw at him. The imagined joy of watching irritation and a fine splattering of cherry soda paint his Irish-pale profile with more than just shadows was well worth any future retribution.

As pleasurable as that fantasy was, the thought was fleeting. The fading afternoon light turned his dark gold hair all shades of auburn, tossing hints of fall colors across the angles and planes of his face. They'd been married a little over a month now and when he was at his most stubborn, she couldn't help but stare at him in disbelief and love.

Disbelief that they had survived so much.

Disbelief that they were still alive.

Disbelief that he was really hers now and she was his, always and forever.

Now they were on their honeymoon. Finally. It had taken that long to clean up the mess in Miami following the final defeat of the dark warlock known as Sean Shadowblack. Her "sudden" resignation from the Miami-Dade Police Department and his rapid dismantling of the Tintreach Empire nearly shattered their newly rekindled love. Still Iowin wasn't completely free of his brother's influence. Each day brought him a step closer to who he used to be, and she knew it would be a long climb from the dark back into the light.

Traces of the Empire clung to him like a fungus, like the ghosts of a blood-soaked battlefield wherein the ground never truly dried. In a fit of the trademark Caprice Family temper, she'd thrown his phone into the trunk, hoping to cease its constant ringing. Her husband was NOT the leader of a drug-running Mafia-like mercenary squad anymore. Even that haunted her, and she swore she heard the damn thing vibrating over the blasting notes of DMX's 'X Gon' Give It To Ya' pumping through the car speakers.

Alynia cranked down on the pounding bass, bringing the volume to less window-shattering decibels. "We're lost," she tried again. "Did you hear me?"

"Unfortunately," he slanted a lopsided grin her way, softening the harshness of the word with love.

That earned the aforementioned straw-flick, droplets of soda adding a touch of crimson to the shadows caressing his cheek. Rather Impressionistic in her opinion. A Study in Red on Annoying Husbands. Bestseller if she ever saw one.

His response was typically Iowin. A flash of pink tongue across expressive lips, slowly and deliberately ensuring she got an eye full of the motion. Starting at the bottom pout and working its way counter-clockwise around his mouth, his tongue vanishing around to the other side in a way that made her want to whimper. Not to be left out of the torment-the-wife show, his right hand rose slowly, sliding the dripping cherry sugar from his cheek to his mouth where his tongue picked up the clock sweep.

Amazing talent he had with that tongue, enough that her own moistened her lips in reflex. Or was that anticipation?

"I hope you intend to keep that promise," she grinned. "Teasing your wife like that can be considered a crime."

His hand reached over, captured her fingers in his, and brought the simple gold of her wedding ring to his lips. "Planning to arrest me for it? I thought you gave up the badge."

"Badge, yes. Cuffs? Well, I just knew there were things I forgot to surrender."

"Now who's making promises, love?"

She chuckled, happily using her straw for its intended purpose and watching the trees blaze past in an impressionistic pattern of their own. They could have gone anywhere in the world for their honeymoon, yet settled on upstate New York of all places. The soda lost some of its sweetness at that, the real reason they were in the States and not on some tropical paradise intruding on her bliss.

They were here because her parents had demanded it. Okay, precisely because her mother had cried over the phone when Alynia mentioned she married Iowin in a quickie justice of the peace kind of deal. No flowers. No dresses. No family. Just her and her husband. Simple, right?

No. Not by a long shot.

Her mother lost it with the waterworks as if Alynia had died rather than just gotten married without her. Maybe in Heather Caprice Rozhenkos's opinion, it was one and the same. Her father, a bear of a Russian if there ever was one, had literally threatened to make her a widow if she didn't get home ASAP and explain herself. Everyone in the little town of Autumn Falls, NY, knew that if Miss Heather cried, Mr. Antoly did anything to make it stop. Anything. There were a few whispered jokes that the men who went missing back in the seventies were men who made Ms. Heather cry.

There were a few who didn't joke about that, even in whispers.

That pretty much steered the course of their travels.

The bond of magic between them, which saved them during Sean's attack, was the only thing that saved them from Papa Antoly's wrath. It wasn't their fault they'd accidentally merged their souls together in a night of unregretted incredible sex. Well, they did let the man fill that part in for himself. Regardless, the act was committed, done, and sealed with a magical kiss.

The promise of a real wedding in front of the whole family sometime soon mollified her mother, and soothed her father. By near future, they meant in the next year. With her mother planning everything. Alynia shuddered, nightmares of fluffy bridesmaid dresses dancing like anti-sugarplums across her gray matter. "We're lost."

Iowin sighed through gritted teeth, the playfulness of before gone. "For the last time, Nia, we aren't lost. I know where we are."

She lifted one coal black eyebrow. "Really? There are that many oak trees in upstate New York which happen to have a bus stop beneath them?"

It was his turn to lift an eyebrow at her. "Can you think of a better place for one?"

"Hrm," she squinted out the windshield as the road curved to the left—yet again. "I suppose they all have a mother in a bright yellow sweater, three kids, and an orange pumpkin-themed stroller exactly three inches to the right of said bench. Stars above, Iowin, you're right. How can we be lost?"

The emerald gaze hitting her this time had heat to it, and not the type spurned by impromptu slushy painting.

She smirked. "Admit it."

Iowin puffed up his chest, taking a deep breath and—

—exhaling it in a slow sigh of defeat.

"Fine. We're lost. Are you happy?"

Alynia stomped hard on the budding smugness rising inside her, hoping that he couldn't sense it through the bond. The way his face hardened slightly let her know she failed.

"You're so cute when you pout."

"And you're going to pay for that when I'm able to take both hands off the wheel."

"Oh, promises, promises," she teased.

The full weight of that jade stare hit her, and the tightening of her body let her know he'd keep his word. She'd pay for taunting him. Oh, she'd pay... in so many delicious ways. Her cheeks flushed at the very thought of it, her lips parting of their own accord, tongue begging to slip between them in hopes of tasting some lingering bit of what they'd done earlier that morning before setting out on this trip.

Smugness boiled through the bond all right, glittering with the sharp-edged laughter in his eyes. He knew what his stare did to her, and he made no qualms about showing it. The chuckle that left his lips was infuriating and endearing all at once.

"You're a right bastard sometimes, Iowin Tintreach," she grinned around her straw.

"Aye, you love me for it."

"Forever," she leaned over and kissed his cheek before fishing her tablet out from between the seat and the door, jabbing the thing to life. A map loaded on the glowing surface, a scan of one so old she barely made it out. But that was the bad that went with the good of 'getting away from it all.' No cell signals this deep into the wilds of New York. No people. No bother. No modern GPS locator. "So earn that love and get us out of this loop. We're coming up on that mother and kids again. For what, the eighth time?"

Iowin frowned at that. "Don't you think that a trite odd?"

Alynia glanced back up from the map. "What's odd?"

"That we're passing this mother and her children for the eighth time."

She rolled her eyes and smirked anew. "Well, that's what happens when one is looping the same road over and over again. The road isn't infinite, love. We're going to circle around until we—"

"That's my point," he interrupted, his frown deepening to a scowl. "How long does it take us to make the loop?"

She grimaced, glancing down at her watch. He did have a point. It took a good thirty minutes to circle back around to Mom Stop Number 27 as she'd started to call it. If they'd passed it more than six times—honestly she hadn't started to count until recently—then...

"It shouldn't take more than twenty for a bus to get to the stop, right?" she murmured. "There's no snow on the ground yet. But, I mean, the bus could have been delayed, right?"

The lack of confidence in her own words betrayed just how little she thought of that. Neither believed in coincidence and neither one liked the way the facts were stacking up. Alynia and Iowin both peered at the mother as they passed, Iowin downshifting to a lower gear to get a better look. Everything was just as she had described it before: mom in yellow, stroller in an eye-wrenching contrasting orange, three kids in various stages of reading a book, playing on a tablet, or being held in mom's loving embrace.

All the same.

Exactly the same.

Like they'd never moved at all.

She didn't need to tell him to do it. Iowin hit the brakes hard, tires squealing a protest to the sudden lack of momentum. But they weren't the only things not moving.

Alynia threw open the door, hand slapping at her chest until her fingers closed around the Caprice Family amulet she always wore tucked beneath her shirt. The bond with Iowin gave her access to his powers, true. But it didn't grant her all his knowledge with them. She needed to learn and master all his spells. For now, she had to rely on her tried and true methods, and that wheelhouse included activating the stored power inside an artifact. Namely, her artifact.

It was a gentle spell, a small one that let her shift events backwards in time just a few seconds. Like peeking into the past with one eye closed and the other squinting. Minutes rolled backwards in her mind's eye, showing the arrival of the mother and her children. And then... stopping. Just stopping. Freezing in time, as if Lady Fate had taken a selfie with the fam and plastered it across her personal blog. Only in this case, the blog was reality and the fam in question hadn't thanked her and walked away.

They were still saying 'cheese.'

"They aren't moving, Iowin," she breathed. "They haven't moved in hours near as I can tell."

Gravel crunched beneath his feet as he crossed over to her, the telltale _click_ of a hand-held crossbow arming itself in one hand. She didn't need the bond to know his other held her trusty glock out towards her. Instead of police issue, this one was an artifact all of its own, the trigger only pulling back for her finger. He passed it to her without having to glance away from the tree line, taking up position at her back.

"Nothing's moving here but us, love," he whispered. "Look at the trees."

Focused, dispassionate cop eyes surveyed the roadside, her lips compressing in a thin line. Frozen. This entire swath of road was just... frozen. There was no other way to describe it. Branches displayed themselves in unnatural positions, leaves knocked free in what should have been a crisp autumn breeze hung suspended in the air. No birds sang, no crisp snapping of twigs as small woodland animals went about their business. This was a deserted stretch of state highway dotted here and there with deer crossing signs. Nature, by all rights, should have been alive and well and giving the proverbial finger to the urban encroachment of man.

All she could hear was their own breathing, and all she could taste was her own heartbeat.

Both hands locked around her weapon, bringing it up high and near her face. "Stunner," she whispered, feeling the weapon vibrate in response, magic turning her 9mm rounds into mini-tasers. They wouldn't kill, but they'd knock the fight out of anyone.

Like, say, the son of a bitch responsible for the impromptu Thomas Kincaide painting they were now standing in?

"Stunners won't help," Iowin shook his head, casting his senses about. "There's no one here, Nia. There's no life here that I can detect outside of us."

"I'm open for suggestions, then."

"Get in the car. Let's go."

She hesitated, old cop instincts kicking in. "What about the mom and her kids?"

"Either we're standing in a frozen moment of time, in which case they are long gone to their safe destinations," he shook his head. "Or they're already dead."

She swallowed the curse before it left her lips and bolted back to the car, Iowin quick on her heels.

"GO!" she called.

He didn't need the verbal recommendation to be elsewhere. His foot hammered the gas nearly before his ass was in the seat, tossing his weapon to her and grasping the shifter with the same hand. She barely had time to catch it and plant her own behind into the soft leather before the car was squealing anew, this time much louder than before. Gravel flew behind them, obscuring the scene of mother and children in dust. Speed limit signs were outright ignored and Iowin worked the motor as hard and as fast as he could. Good German engineering all but flew down the secluded road, the time-frozen trees whipping past in a blur.

"One trip," she muttered, juggling both weapons and the shoulder strap until finally managing to click the seatbelt into place. "For once, I'd love for us to go on one single trip that didn't end in some kind of a race for our lives."

"From your lips to God's ear, Nia."

The trip around the frozen loop took less than three minutes. Mom Stop 27 loomed ahead of them once more, everything as eerily silent and empty as before. The road, she noted, bore no tire marks from their squealing attempted escape. No dust and debris marred the pristine bright yellow of the Mom's sweater, either.

"Jesus," she breathed.

Iowin downshifted, pulling the Jaguar out of the red. "Speed isn't going to help us. I think we're well and truly stuck."

Alynia gritted her teeth, raking fingers through her midnight hair. "Then let's break the loop," she glanced over at him. "Take us off this road."

He blinked at her once, slowly. "Where? There's no side road that I could see, and this ride isn't exactly equipped with 4-wheel drive."

"If we're truly stuck, we aren't going to get off this road anyway," she pointed out. "If we aren't, this may be our only chance to escape Bob Ross's personal hell."

Again he blinked, not getting the reference. Alynia gestured around her in exasperation. "Do any of these trees look 'little' or 'happy' to you?"

A hint of a grin tipped his lips, and he shifted the gears once more. "Leave it to you to make jokes."

"It's that or start screaming. Your choice."

"How about Option C?"

"What's that?"

"Praying."

His foot hit the gas, and he wrenched the wheel to the right. A small path, barely large enough to fit their car down, opened up before them within the trees. It had to have been an individually worn hiker trail, possibly an illegally made road through government-owned land. For camping purposes, maybe? She tried to tell herself it didn't matter as her teeth clicked around in her head, the car's suspension shrieking in time to the undercarriage bouncing on the uneven dirt path. Branches clawed at the roof, at the doors of the car, threatening to crack the windshield. She didn't want to think about what they were doing to the paint job. Iowin agreed, keeping his foot on the gas, urging their silver steed faster. Until the branches grew to be too many, the leaves thicker, crushing inward. Until they couldn't see anything.

"S-s-stop!"

For the second time that day, dirt and dust obscured the rear window, the seatbelt slamming hard against her chest. Breath whooshed out of her lungs, the car skidding on the loose dirt and stones. But stop they did.

"You okay?" she glanced at her husband.

"Aye," he replied. "You?"

"Yeah. We're alive. Yay us."

His hand found hers again, his other unlatching her seatbelt and pulling her across his body. His mouth crashed into hers, the kiss frantic and filled with all the adrenaline-fueled worry he couldn't give voice to in light of what they'd just faced. She answered that kiss with a relief all her own, arms wrapping around his neck, holding him like he was the only thing holding her to reality.

If they were in their reality anymore.

"So," she whispered as they came up for air, the steering wheel her new seat. "Do you hear that?"

"Birds," he answered, arms resting around her waist. "I hear birds."

"Do you think we're out of the... whatever the hell that was?"

He closed his eyes, throwing his senses across the winds. "I think so. There's life here where there wasn't before. An abundance of life and... magic."

That gave her pause. "Good magic or bad magic."

He lifted both eyebrows at that, lids slowly following suit. "All this time studying and you still don't understand that magic isn't good or bad. It's in the heart of—"

"Yeah, yeah, in the heart of the user. Intent is everything. Obey your thirst. I get that. And you know what I mean. Is the magic you feel slathered with good or bad sauce."

Again, he closed his eyes. "I can't tell. It's old and lingering, but I can't tell either way. It feels... I don't know, like a spell that started pure and ended less so?"

"Great. Possibly a felony witch with good intentions to arrest," she pulled herself from his grasp, albeit a touch reluctantly. "Let's see where we are."

He put the car into gear, moving at a much easier, less bone-jarring pace. The trees thinned slowly, the path pretending to a be a road widening into something that aspired to a decent travel path. A narrow cobblestone lane replaced the natural forest floor, winding with a casualness that would have been picturesque under normal circumstances. Up in the distance, an old-fashioned covered bridge spanned a shallow bubbling—or was that babbling (she never really understood the difference)—creek. Beyond that, thank all the stars ever, was the most beautiful highway road sign she'd ever seen.

White lettering on a blue background proclaimed "Gas" to the left and "Motel" to the right.

"Take it slow," she urged, eying the bridge cautiously. "That thing looks like it was built when dirt was young."

"No kidding."

She was so focused on the road that she didn't see the shape charging at them until it was too late. A black streak exploded from the left, darting directly into the path of the car. Iowin cursed, slamming on the brakes and locking the damn things up. Alynia groaned, the shoulder harness biting into her chest and side of her neck. There was going to be a bruise there in the morning, she just knew it.

"What the hell?"

Iowin was already acting before she finished her statement, his crossbow in one hand and a ring of angry red flames wreathing his other. It took her a moment to wonder why he was ready to blast someone to ash with that spell, her gaze flicking forward through the windshield—

"Fuck me," she breathed.

The horse was all black, from hoof to mane to rolling dark eyes. The bridle and bit were black, the saddle also the color of mourning. Which fit the theme of its rider quite well, in fact. Black boots clung to the leg all the way up to the thigh, black riding breeches revealing heavily conditioned and bunched muscles. A long black coat and shirt with one of those frilly lace collars covered the chest, crisscrossed with black leather bandoliers. One other feature dominated the rider, and it wasn't the gorgeous black cloak and gloves that completed the blast-from-the-past he was rocking.

Or rather, it was the lack of one other dominating feature that caused her to leap out of the car and point her gun at his chest.

"Where the hell is your head?!" she shrieked.

"Show us your hands," Iowin said a second later, the faint rattle in his voice the only betrayal of the fear he obviously felt, too. At least he pulled it together enough to do the responsible thing and ask for hands.

Blue-white light blazed to life, a halo surrounding it.

"I'll repeat," her finger found the trigger, the gun a steady reassurance versus all the insanity this trip had become. "Show us your head. Knock off this bull-crap and you won't get hurt."

The headless man lifted one hand in response, and pointed a finger directly at Alynia. Blue-white light flickered to life against that black-gloved digit, exploding outward like a tiny star. A star intent on landing right between her pretty gray eyes. A second later that offending digit was wreathed in crimson flame, Iowin's magic searing into the whatever-it-was and lighting the rider up like a bonfire. Somehow, the headless freak managed to shriek, the flames spreading wildly across his body. It wasn't enough to stop the thing's spell, but it was enough to knock his home run into a foul ball. The bolt of blue-white streaked past her face, slamming into the hood of the car. Oily, nauseating smoke rose in its wake.

"That's my wife," Iowin hissed, red flames crackling in his eyes, mirroring the fire in his palm. "Leave her alone."

Their attacker turned his horse with jerky motions, bolting towards the covered bridge.

He disappeared the instant they crossed the threshold.

Alynia lowered the gun, stepping slowly away from the smoking hood of the car. Silver paint peeled and cracked, acid-like hissing filling their ears. She didn't want to say it. She really didn't. But the words just tumbled out on their own.

"Did we just get run off the road by the fucking Headless Horseman?"

Wide emerald eyes connected with hers and his mouth twisted on the words as much as hers did. "Looks like."

# Chapter 2

The car was fried, and that was putting it mildly.

Every hose in the engine was melted, every spark plug blown, and every piece that should have moved fused to the pieces that shouldn't. Which were now moving quite well on their own, if one considered dropping out of the bottom of the car as 'moving well.' Whatever this ghost or whatever had tried to do to Alynia, it wasn't sent with warm fuzzies. It had been a killing stroke, and that was more than enough to set Iowin on a warpath. She was used to people trying to kill her on a regular basis. Part and parcel of having been a homicide cop for nearly a decade. He should have been used to it, too.

Adding a new piece of jewelry on each of their left hands had surely changed more than her last name.

All said and done, it appeared Mr. and Mrs. Tintreach were going to start their honeymoon on the outskirts of a little village known as Sleepy Hollow, NY. Home of a single covered bridge, about two stoplights, one mechanic, and a motel that sported Ted Nugent-eque decor. It was either the beginning of a really bad horror movie, or a supremely horrific porno. She couldn't tell which.

It was a good thing her father had packed them off with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. It was his way of making peace.

The motel room wasn't much to look at, but it was warm and dry and smelled faintly of good strong cleaner. That, and it had the best free Wi-Fi she'd ever found at a rooming establishment. Though that could also work with the fact that, by her estimation, she and Iowin and the elderly woman behind the desk were the only inhabitants of the twenty-room little sleep-and-go. Considering the clerk, a Mrs. Irving, handed them an old-fashioned metal key and had them sign a paper register, she doubted very much that they'd share bandwidth with her tonight.

She flopped on the full-sized bed, her laptop out before her. Whisky burned down her throat as she split the screen between local maps of Sleepy Hollow and all the information she could find on the Headless Horseman. There wasn't much that was reliable, and yet there was a metric crapton of fiction to be found.

The original story of the Headless Horseman loaded, and she skimmed it quickly. If she was to take it as gospel, her would-be Headless Assassin was the ghost of a Hessian soldier who died when someone blew his head off with a cannonball.

"That'd piss me off too," she murmured.

"What would?" Iowin called from the tiny closet pretending to be their bathroom.

"Having my head blown off with a cannonball. I think our ghost has reason to haunt."

"But does that justify freezing a moment in time?"

She shrugged before she realized he couldn't see it. "Makes you wonder why that particular stretch of road? Why that particular woman and her family? And why were we caught up in it? Unless your family fired the cannon that lopped off his think box, I have no idea why we were caught in it."

The thought of pure coincidence danced in the bond between them, quickly discarded before she lifted a mental eyebrow. Coincidences existed, even for a Caprice witch. But rarely, if ever, did they happen when magic was involved. Real magic required the use of will, of desire, of some sort of need to create an effect. Magic was specific that way, and targeted and coincidence were about as far apart in definition as good TV and reality shows.

"Too many questions for my liking," he answered, stepping around the corner. "At first light, let's grab a rental and return to the crime scene. Now that we know this has to do with an apparition, there may be clues that we missed."

"Maybe," she swallowed the last of the whisky in her glass. "I doubt it, though. We might have better luck scraping some residue from the hood of the car and..."

Words faltered as her gaze swept over him, and she was more than keenly aware that her husband wore nothing but an ill-fitting motel towel. The thing barely wrapped around his hips, gaping wide on the side and exposing a very generous expanse of muscled thigh. She'd often referred to his skin as Irish-Pale, the type that burned in the sunlight rather than tanned, but against the stark white of the standard-issue motel towels, his flesh glowed a delicious tan, like a very light caramel.

She wanted to taste him on her tongue again and again, licking wide generous stripes across those muscles until he was begging beneath her, until his hips bucked and his gasps begged her to do other things with her tongue.

Iowin shifted slightly, one foot falling behind him, knees flexing. Her desire must have shown on her face as he set himself to accept a charge, or at the very least a leap. Iowin cocked his head to the side, eyes never leaving hers, and she wondered if she'd growled faintly beneath her breath. Or possibly he was listening to the bond, the metaphysical energies streaming between them betraying every thought and desire. Well, if that was the case...

She pumped every delicious thought of what she wanted to do in that moment directly into his brain space, watched his eyes darken with that knowledge, and was rewarded by a faint shifting of his shoulders in the doorway. A suppressed shiver of anticipated pleasure, perhaps? Her tongue slipped over her lips as she rose to her feet, tasting the whisky all over again.

"Guess that means we're stuck here for the night," she said softly, taking one step towards him.

"Guess so," his eyes tracked her every moment. "Ghost hunting at night is fantastically stupid, especially if we don't know exactly what we're up against. Though I suspect you have an idea what to do with those hours."

She crossed the distance in seconds, taking his mouth with hers. Tasting him as her hands slipped over his damp skin, fingers twining in damp silken hair. A growl escaped his mouth into hers, his hands wrapping around her waist and nearly crushing her against him. Post-shower steam was a delicious sensation, battling with the A/C at her back. She pushed herself against him, framing him in the doorway. Searing his back with the heat and his front with the cool, and in between them both she moved.

One tug had the towel falling from his hips, exposing the rigid length of him, hard and throbbing, his hips already moving in tiny thrusting motions. Her eyes lifted to his, her mouth pressing his in a tender kiss—

—before she found other parts of him to taste.

"Jesus God in heaven," he gasped, hands slamming into the doorframe hard enough to crack the wood.

Taking that as the sincere compliment and permission that it was, Alynia wrapped her mouth around his cock, ever so slowly coaxing him in deeper with her tongue. His body trembled, her tongue flicking beneath the head, to that ridge right where the head met the shaft that seemed meant for this sort of torment. Slowly, ever so slowly, she moved her head back and forth, pulling him with the motions. He went up on tiptoes, and within the bond, she felt him struggling to hold still when all he wanted to do was give into the pleasure, to writhe as she worked him as only she knew how.

Her hands caught his hips, pinning them in place with just a touch. _Don't you dare let go_ , she whispered across his soul. _Those hands will stay there until I say otherwise_.

Tiny flakes of white paint drifted down from the doorway, his fingernails digging in as he did his best to comply. _You vicious woman,_ he moaned. _What have I done to earn your ire?_

You refused to admit we were lost. This is all your fault.

Wait, I promised you'd pay for that.

_If you think I need to make promises to follow through on an act, you married the wrong woman_.

Spasms wracked his body as she increased the pace of her movements, her sucking rhythm, bringing him so close to the edge and then slowing down. Her tongue explored him as it had so many times already, savoring the smooth shaft that glided against her tongue. Hot satin within her mouth, his taste better than caramel, burning her up better than the whisky. She moaned around him, her own body undulating as much as she could on her knees, pressing her breasts against his legs, the thin cotton of her T-shirt and bra like sandpaper against her nipples.

God, she wanted free of those ridiculous clothes. Why hadn't she stripped before she'd started this?

Oh, that's right. Because _he'd_ started this. Came out of that shower with just a towel and water clinging to his form. Again, all his fault.

"Yes," he growled, hips pumping in perfect harmony to her movements. "Yes, god, all my fault. I deserve this. I deserve all of this. I'm such a stubborn husband."

Her fingernails dug into the taut flesh of his ass, and his cry ratcheted up her desire another level. Her hips moved in time with his, faster and faster, the pleasure building and sharing through the bond. He growled more than gasped with each sweep of her tongue, with each movement of her hips. And one hand lost its grip on the doorframe, fingers wrapping into her hair and wrenching her head back at the last possible second. He came hard, screaming out her name as he crashed to his knees, his seed shooting over her shirt, over the breasts she used to torment him just as desperately as she did with her mouth.

He fell against her and sent them crashing to the floor, one hand slamming forward to catch his weight. Breath heaving in and out of his lungs. It seemed like forever until his eyes focused, until blood flowed equally to all parts of his body again.

"Christ, Nia," he breathed, fingers caressing her lips. "What you do to me, love. What you do to me..."

"I do because I love you," she whispered, kissing those fingertips.

He chuckled deep in his throat. "Liar, you do it because you love seeing me like this. Helplessly weak, and hopelessly in love with you."

"Well, there is that," she smiled, drawing his mouth into a deep kiss. "I do love the way you move for me. Only for me."

"Only for you," he echoed, the simple words reverberating in her soul like a sacred vow. "Always only you."

And it was her turn to gasp as he rose up on his knees, straddling her. Those strong fingers, sexier for the paint dust coating them, for knowing she was the reason he'd mangled a perfectly good doorframe, gently plucked her T-shirt from the waistband of her jeans.

"You're dirty, Nia. We can't have that."

And he tore a straight line through the thin cotton of her shirt, parting it from her body like opening a present. He fell on her then, mouth hot and hungry, his tongue working lazy circles on her taunt stomach. Tracing the old scar from a knife wound she'd caught when taking down her first drug dealer. Tracing up to the rough patch of flesh just below her left breast, the burn mark of a witch who'd tried to literally pull her heart out of her chest for a dark ritual. They'd taken her down together, too. Always together. A road map of scars like badges of honor across their skins. Each a testament to the lives they saved in both the human and magical world. Scars the media would consider ugly and shameful, to be hidden rather than glorified.

He tasted each anew like a fine wine, loving the marks of their life together, turning imperfections into masterworks.

"I love you," she gasped as he found the front latch of her bra, freeing her from the confinement. "I do truly love you with all my heart."

"No," he whispered, mouth grazing over her left nipple, his hot breath teasing its tip to hyper-awareness. "You love me with all my heart. Because that's what's here," his hand rested gently over her chest. "I gave you my heart, and you gave me yours. It's right here," He tapped his chest. "And I love you with all your heart, Alynia Caprice Tintreach."

Was there any other combination of words that were sexier, more devastatingly awe-inspiring, than that? If there were, she'd yet to come across them. She nearly came on the spot, her eyes squeezing shut as her hips bucked against his. Begging, pleading through her jeans for him to do anything with those hands, with his mouth, rather than speak. He obliged, lips closing over her erect nipple, the slight pain of teeth like a symphony dancing up her nervous system. It was her turn to buck, to writhe beneath him, to beg through the bond for some kind of release. To beg him to never stop.

If there was ever a moment she wanted to hang suspended in time, it was this one. On the worn motel rug in a nowheresville town, just she and the man she loved, chasing a ghost on her honeymoon. Seriously, did life get any fucking better?

The answer came in swift motions, his hands making quick work of her jeans and panties, and flipping her over on her stomach. Those strong hands slid up her body, raising goosebumps as they went. Tracing further up her arm, sliding them over her head and under the foot of the bed. Her fingers found the metal legs of the bed frame, and his closed hers around them.

"Don't you dare let go," he growled into her ear.

He pushed her to her knees, wedging them apart just enough to...

"Fuck, fuck, FUCK!"

She wasn't given to poetry like her husband, the gift of the word lost on her almost before she was born. Over the bond, she felt what the repetition of that one word did to him. It was music to his ears, music that lit up his soul. His tongue entered her delicate folds, the salty sweet taste of her bringing a moan from his own lips. Searching for that one spot he'd found the last time they were together, the one that... ah, there it was.

There was literally nothing in the universe for a long, long while. Nothing but blinding white light and pleasure so intense she thought she'd died. Did she cry out? Make a sound? Did she have a mouth anymore to do any of the above? Did it matter at all?

I promised you would pay.

You bastard, Iowin. You unbelievable magnificent wonderful bastard.

Really, unbelievable? Can you believe... this?

Two fingers slipped inside her without preamble, without warning. Rough, strong, and she was so wet for him that he glided into place and found her center in a moment. Her head snapped back, spine arching, mouth wide with a soundless scream as the orgasm rocked her.

God, he always knew how to do that. Knew how to work her, bring her, love her. Never afraid of hurting her, never ending in his quest to show her just how many ways there were left to pleasure her body.

The fingers vanished, and his tongue returned. Alynia shuddered as she came again, his tongue mercilessly working her clit as she had his cock. No quarter was given, no amount of pleading on her part would make him slow or increase his pace. He'd ride her pleasure like it was his own, like she had done with his, storing it up within their bond and pouring the concentrated essence back inside them until she was screaming. Literally screaming, the bed rocking as her hips rocked, as his body moved with hers, as his tongue kept contact with her core and lashed her over and over again.

She had a moment to thank god that they were the only ones in the motel, that their room was far, far away from sweet old Ms. Irving. She came so hard, so violently, that she shoved the bed frame, slamming the headboard into the wall. The picture above it cracked and fell behind the frame, splintering glass shards. She didn't care, not when she was flying apart at the seams and falling into darkness.

# Chapter 3

The rental car wasn't fast, wasn't silver, wasn't leather, and definitely wasn't a rental. The outlying area of Sleepy Hollow wasn't big enough for a rental car company. Hell, it wasn't big enough for a real grocery store. So they'd settled on borrowing Mrs. Irving's 1985 Plymouth Voyager. Much like the motel, and Alynia was beginning to believe much like Mrs. Irving, herself, it was old and well loved, reliable if you treated it right. And, in exchange for a promise to change the oil and a few hoses, they didn't have to worry about replacing the picture in their room.

"These things happen," Mrs. Irving had said with a knowing smile.

Alynia wasn't certain whether to be embarrassed or proud that the blue-haired caretaker had an inkling as to just why a picture would fall off the wall just above the bed of a newly married young couple. Then again, the many pictures of grandkids and great-grandkids on the check-in counter, combined with the french-fry and candy stains on the Voyager's floor, could only have come from the aforementioned grandkids and great-grandkids. That pretty much let her know the sweet lady knew her way around a bedroom, too. Again, she didn't know whether to shudder or find a way to ask the woman for tips.

Thankfully, that last thought caused Iowin to blush and all but drag his wife out of the room. The fact that Mrs. Irving giggled—giggled!—a bit ensured the doorframe in their bathroom would most likely be repaired before they returned, too.

"Do you think the Foundation has anything to do with this?" she asked, slipping the travel coffee they'd picked up at the only gas station in town. "The more I think about that time freeze back there, the more I have to assume this was a trap."

Iowin finished chewing a mouthful of nuked breakfast burrito before answering. "Highly unlikely. They would have had to know we were heading in this direction to begin with. _We_ didn't know we were heading in this direction until yesterday."

"And the kind of power that goes into this sort of time freezing spell would take a while to prepare," she nodded in agreement. "It's not an off-the-cuff ritual."

"You have been studying," he smirked around another mouthful. "I'm so proud of you."

Her response to that was a one-fingered salute, to which he simply grinned anew. "Anyway, it was a passing thought."

"Not all bad magic is aimed at us, love. There are plenty of people in this world without the craft that anger those with it."

"But enough to bring the Headless Horseman back to life?"

"You're assuming he's really a ghost and not a projection. Besides, all our research points to the fact that the Hessian was a fictional character."

She lifted the vial from her jacket pocket, shaking it slightly until the blue-white smoky residue within twirled around and around. "Uh, I doubt a projection threw that kind of power at my head, thank you very much. The Horseman in the story may have been fictional, but he was based on actual German Hessian soldiers sent to fight in America. It's not a long stretch to believe at least one Hessian warrior actually died the same way the dude in the story did."

The grin turned into a deep scowl. "I'm not ready to take this on face value just yet. Let's unmask the bad guy first before we start turning fiction into reality."

"Jinkies, Shaggy, wouldn't that require Old Man Smithers to, you know, have a head to unmask?"

That slanted look returned her way. "I don't know, Velma, is it easier to believe the ghost of a fictional three-hundred-year-old Hessian is roaming about upstate New York, or that someone wants us to believe the ghost of a fictional three-hundred-year-old Hessian is roaming upstate New York?"

"Point," she conceded. "I'll reserve judgment until we know what we're facing. But when we eventually are hip-deep in ghosts, I do reserve the right to call told-you-so's."

"I love how mature our relationship is."

"So do I," she beamed a great big grin at him, causing him to grin in return.

The bus stop, or Mom Stop No. 27, was thankfully vacant when they pulled the old minivan to a slow and gentle halt next to it. No trace of the mystery mom and her kids, and the only spooky thing worth noting was the fresh dew evaporating in the crisp morning air. In the distance, a deer peeked between the trees, watching with dark, penetrating eyes. Birds sang in the trees. It was every happy little forest painting come to life. The important part being that everything was alive and moving like it should. Nothing was frozen in time.

Her fingers clasped her amulet once more, time blurring backwards within her mind's eye.

"Anything?" Iowin asked, his voice sounding far away.

"That depends. If a wild squirrel is our culprit, then his paw prints are all over this thing," she sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose as the vision faded. "Nothing outside of nature has touched this place since we stopped here yesterday. From what I can tell, the mom and her kids got on their bus and left the area like they should have. Has the ghost goo reacted to the location?"

Iowin fished the vial of vapors from his pocket and gave it a good shake. "Nothing."

"Then this isn't ground zero for whatever spell caused the world to stop."

He didn't like that news any more than she did, she could tell from the look on his face. They stared at one another for a long moment before turning in unison to gaze a short distance up the road. To the place where the sudden need to off-road had been so paramount.

"Stay behind me," Iowin ordered, hoisting the bag of magical gear onto his shoulder.

The feminist in her raised its ugly head and snorted. "Why? Think I can't handle myself?"

"Oh, I know you can, beloved. This is for two reasons: the first being I want someone capable at my back if I'm tracking a suspect up ahead, and secondly, whatever this is didn't try to take me out yesterday. It aimed for you."

"You think it was a deliberate attack on me?"

His lips set in a grim line. "The spell heading towards you is the only thing I've been thinking about since we decided to come back here."

Alynia kept her gun loosely gripped in one hand, the amulet wrapped around her left fist, and followed him. "Why would it come after me?"

"If this is truly a ghost, it's attracted to sources of power. Before you argue, I understand my magic is more powerful than yours, bond or not. But what you outshine me on every time is—"

"The Caprice curse," she snarled. "Yeah, I get it. I'm a fount of dark-stained magic."

"You're not. The curse surrounding your bloodline is. It follows you, and shines like a beacon to anything connected to darkness."

"Like ghosts," she finished for him, the words more a statement than a question. "Jesus, I never catch a break."

"Forever," he said simply, like she already needed a reminder of their vows. "What comes at you comes at me. Forever and ever."

The sad fact of the matter was he was right, at least when it came to her family's curse. The thought of any action she took negatively impacting him was ridiculous. She'd eat her own gun before she'd allow anything to hurt Iowin. And yet, because he loved her, he'd ride right into the mouth of Hell and grin that lunatic grin of his the entire time if it meant they'd be together. It was easy enough to promise when the chips weren't down, and she had a sneaking suspicion he was about to learn just how much he'd anteed into Fate's pot by linking himself to a Caprice witch.

She hoped he was strong enough to handle it.

The broken path eventually smoothed into hard-packed dirt, the covered bridge looming in the distance. Alynia took a deep breath, casting her senses around and backward, watching the fight happen anew. She saw it in slow motion, and stood beside herself as the apparition coalesced into being. Because that's what it did—manifested right in front of that bridge—in a swirling of shadows and air far too cold to belong there. At the time of the attack, she'd been a tad occupied by the blue-white death trap he'd fired off at her to notice the little details. She saw it clearly now, and it wasn't an illusion or by any definition a real ghost.

Unless ghosts suddenly had the ability to rip portals through time and space, an ability the most powerful (and insane) of her kind wouldn't attempt on their best day.

She paused the memory with a thought, moving through the landscape to examine the entire scene. Behind the not-a-ghost, the portal wavered like the flickering of a candle flame. Enough detail made it through the wavering to make out a little village on the other end of the covered bridge. Quaint and very retro (late 1700s retro if the legends were true), there was a part of her that expected a reed-thin guy to come walking up the bridge in Revolutionary era duds while whistling a jaunty tune.

"It's a ghost," She murmured, hoping Iowin could hear her. "But it's not like anything we've ever encountered. It's... from another time and place, Iowin. It's here because it wants to be here, not because it's trapped here."

"So it's not a ghost. Ghosts can't do that," Iowin replied, his form more ghostly to her than the moments displayed before her eyes. "It's more than a specter and less than alive. I'm sorry. That's the best I can give you until we know more."

Alynia closed her eyes, reluctantly untangling her soul from the currents of magic that wove her spell. When she opened them again, Iowin stood before her, a hand resting gently at her waist.

"So it's not a ghost and it's not an illusion," she whispered. "And it's not a witch. What is it?"

"Time to find out."

As far as ritual casting went, this was one of the creepiest.

It hadn't taken long to hike across the bridge and into the direction of the village she'd glimpsed through the portal. Nature had reclaimed most of the area, and no foundations or ruins remained of the tiny village of Not-Sleepy-Hollow. Because she refused to call it that, flat out refused.

There was a resonance to that stretch of woods as they pushed their way between trees and around thickets of wild lavender roses of all things. Weren't roses out of season now? And why were they blooming in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere? She made a mental note to ask her cousin Miriam about that later. God—and possibly Miriam—only knew what grew in the wilds of the world.

She'd stick to her concrete jungles, thank you very much.

None of these random distracting thoughts were going to make her problems go away. They certainly didn't help with the way her gun swung this way and that, ears pricking at each crackle of leaf underfoot and each sway of branch. And... and wasn't she supposed to hear animals chittering—they chittered, right? Why weren't they chittering or chirping?

Admitting it or not, she was literally walking into the old tracts of land that once held the village the first incarnation of Tarrytown, and the source of the Headless Horseman legend. The closer they came, the more the magic tingled at the back of her neck. Something had happened here, something hinting towards the bad. Old, too old for her to put her metaphysical finger on it. Something that had caused this part of the town to be lost and forgotten.

Dammit, why weren't there any birds in the area to sing at them?

Alynia dragged her mind back to the task at hand, watching Iowin clear away the last of the overgrowth that had reclaimed the early incarnation of Tarrytown, revealing a flat square of land resembling the outline of a building. They'd chosen this place specifically for the tingles, the way the remnant magic congregated right in its center. The moment the last stick was tossed aside, the very air around her thickened, a pressure like a massive storm was about to burst at any moment. Iowin must have felt it, too, his hand reaching for the crossbow on reflex.

"It's high noon," she said aloud, more to herself than to remind him. "Why does it feel like it's midnight in a graveyard?"

"Good question."

"I'd prefer a better answer."

"Wouldn't we all?" he glanced at the bag over his shoulder. "Help me set up a protection circle. It may not do much, but I'll take little over nothing at this point."

Chalk and candles were pulled from the cavernous depths of the bag, wood seasoned in sage and other incense made for the most comforting campfire. The flickering of yellow flames against the four pure beeswax candles placed at the cardinal directions soothed the edges of her raw nerves. The moment he finished drawing the circle, sealing it with a kiss of his power, the pressure vanished. It was just the two of them again, standing like hipster, wannabe-Wiccan tourists in a circle of chalk and flame if anyone happened to pass by. God bless the Internet, she thought with a wry smile. The indifference of the world population as a whole was the greatest cover their kind could ever enjoy.

Iowin popped the cork on the ghost goo, holding it out between them. "You ready for this?"

"Not really," she said honestly, staring at the circle. "Do we have a choice?"

He shrugged. "We could always get back in the car and head out. It's not like we're stuck here."

Alynia shook her head, sighing heavily. "When have we ever left anything as 'someone else's problem'?"

"Just saying it's an option."

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "No, it's never an option for me. I'll take my vows to protect and serve all the way to my grave."

"Once a cop, always a cop," he smiled gently, holding out a hand.

She took it, stepping down into the center of the candles. "What do we do?"

He dropped the vial directly onto the fire in response, a shower of blue-white sparks exploding upwards into the sky. The candle flames took on the same color, the ghostly, unearthly fire motionless in the light breeze. No longer flickering. No longer comforting. And that horrible pressure returned, pouring through some invisible hole above them. Almost as if the ghost goo sparks seared an opening in the protective magical dome around them.

He took both her hands in his, their fingers entwined, and brought them to his lips before holding their arms out to their sides. "Now I just need you to do that time walk spell you used earlier today. Just think about it, and use me as your amulet. The flames should do the rest. If I'm right, I'll serve as a more powerful anchor to the present. The ghost goo'll act as the arrow seeking the source of the power. It should, in theory, draw your focus right into the past. We'll be able to see, first hand, just what caused the Headless Horseman to appear."

She eyed her beloved once, closing her eyes and doing as he asked. Their bond flashed before her mind's eye, the Caprice sigil encircled by the three-pronged Tintreach lightning bolts, and cracked neatly down the center. Power, raw and infinite, spilled from that bond and into her soul. She rocked up on tiptoes, hands sliding along Iowin's until fingertips brushed fingertips, her spine bowing with the rush.

The last time she'd called upon their bonded power, she'd been on the verge of dying. Anger and frustration and pain had served as quite the buffer between herself and that rush of sensations. Not to mention the real fear of losing Iowin again so soon after finding him.

Time spun before them, twisted and elongated as the world accelerating around them at rapid speeds. Only, it wasn't the world. It was time. And it wasn't going forwards, but backwards. Back to the moment where they'd encountered the Horseman, and back further still.

The world melted and reformed over and over in a reverse process as the years rewound themselves. Back to where the road was paved in the 1950s... back to when the bridge was constructed in 1910, and back to when there was no road at all. Back to a sky so blue it hurt to look at, clear of ANY pollution at all. Back before the industrial revolution, to when some guy named George had just started bitching about having to take on this newfangled mantle of "President" after winning that little skirmish called the American Revolutionary War.

Back until the world erupted in blood and violence.

Alynia gasped, fingertips slipping from Iowin's hands, the images snapping into crystalline focus with that loss of contact. Akin to the feeling of someone pulling the plug on their video tour of the past, leaving them stranded on the one rather unhappy moment of death.

No, not _them_ , she realized with a sickening sensation. _Her_. It had left her alone on this battlefield, surrounded by death both present and future.

Iowin? Iowin, where are you?

The equivalent to mental static answered her call, and in the back of her mind, she felt the echo of throbbing pain. Not unlike being thrown backwards by the power they'd used, striking her head on something heavy and solid. He was alive, just not conscious by any stretch of the imagination.

And one didn't need to stretch their imaginations far to understand how utterly deadly that was at the moment.

Cannons fired and men screamed, the ground soaked ruddy from the blood of the dying on both sides of the conflict. Through the columns of smoke and the far-off screams of the wounded, she glimpsed the band of red-coated men moving through the field.

Mercenaries, they had to be. They moved with a precision that didn't come from a boot camp kind of training, and more with the ease of men bonded through years of serving together. That kind of experience lent its own grace and style to the movements of its members. And it showed in the speed of their kills, the expertise of each swing, strike, and shot that couldn't have come from farmers and tradesmen forced to take up arms to defend their fledgling nation.

One rider stood out above all the others.

She'd know the set of those shoulders anywhere, the way that body leaned forward to pull the sword from its scabbard on the saddle. The proud pounding of those hooves across the muddy battlefield was as distinct as any fingerprint.

The Headless Horseman.

Only, he wasn't headless. Long dark hair flowed down across his shoulders, his face broad, made of planes and angles and chiseled perfection. From a distance, she picked out the deep blue of his eyes. Like the deepest parts of the ocean. Blood caked his clothing and face as he shouted orders to the others of his unit. They attacked the neophyte American fighters, cutting through them like warm butter. No emotion touched that chiseled face as cries for mercy or surrender echoed in the distance. No quarter was given, either. Her eyes widened as he spurred his horse into action, and began decapitating a line of American captives.

They sure as shit weren't soldiers. Stars above, some of them weren't old enough to shave!

A line of captives, she noted, that ended right at her feet. She leapt out of the way as he charged, diving to the right and rolling onto her back. Her gun, her precious always-trustworthy gun, rolled with her in a two-handed grip as she leapt to her feet.

She fired once, twice, the sound of her Glock barely a whisper against the cannon blasts. And speaking of the thing that shouldn't be slamming around her, a cannonball blew through the air near her, the heat of its trail singeing a line of scarlet pain across the side of her face. She threw herself flat into the mud again, grabbing handfuls of it and slathering it across the burn. She'd worry about infection later, after she stopped the searing of her tissues.

But the good news? Between the cannonball and his galloping attack, she'd managed to get one shot close enough to nip off a lock of his glossy mane, and that got his attention real fast. He yanked up on the reins, his horse dancing on two legs and spun about. She scrambled to her feet and held her weapon at the ready, making sure zero quarter was given in her gaze. A fitting return to what he'd just done to those boys, not to mention the slinging of blue-white death her way just a day before.

"I will shoot you," she screamed. "I will end this all right now and head back to my life. Give me the reason. I just need one."

The Hessian pulled to a stop right in front of her, either not understanding she had the upper hand—or was that upper weapon—in this little O.K. Corral they were pulling. His jeweled eyes never left hers, and he spoke at her in what had to be German. She shook her head, a single controlled movement from the right to the left and back again.

The gun never wavered, and wariness replaced the confusion on that handsome face. "Woman," he said at last, the English word so wrapped in the German accent that she wasn't certain he spoke it in English at all. "Woman, why are you here? Go home, else you meet a gruesome fate."

"Like, say, what you just did to those prisoners?" she fumed, the horror of spurting blood from freshly-sliced necks more than fresh enough in her memory.

He scowled, as if he found his own actions distasteful. Imagine that.

"War is war," he said at last, wiping his sword on the sleeve of his jacket before sliding it back into its sheath. "They understood this before they fought."

"No, they didn't, and you stay right where you are, asshole. They're fighting for their homes and their way of life. They didn't have a choice. You, on the other hand, know exactly what you're doing."

He finally dared to look away from her hands, and, unbelievably, his eyebrows tried to merge with his hairline. Those blue orbs rushed right back to her face, a hint of... dear stars in every heavens ever, was that color on his cheeks? Was the son of a bitch _blushing_?

"What the hell is your pro..."

And then she was treated to equally flabbergasting sight of him attempting to lift his eyebrows and bunch them together low over his eyes at the same time.

"Are you having a seizure or what?" she blurted. "What is wrong with you?"

His horse danced from foot to foot impatiently, feeding off the uncertainty in its rider's emotions. "You are woman," he tried again. "Language. You should not use such language. Clothing... You need more."

It was her turn to look positively pole-axed, and the absurdity of his statements caused her to seriously glance down at herself. Jeans. T-shirt. Jacket. Boots. Fully covered if ever she was.

She realized her mistake a moment too late. He leapt from his horse, one hand wrapping around her wrist and forcing her hands high into the air. His body tackled her back to the muck-covered ground, and she managed to get a knee up between them, taking him square in the solar plexus. He grunted, accepting the pain like a champ and rolling with the momentum of her attack.

One shot left her gun. Only one, before enough circulation vanished from her fingers due to his crushing grip. She lost her grasp on the gun, the weapon vanishing into the muck. Her free hand balled into a fist, cracking into his exposed side. Ribs broke under that blow, she was certain of it, and the pain should have been enough to force him to retreat. Not this man, she thought bitterly, and cursed as he yanked her forward and wrenched her arm behind her. She found herself slammed between the brick wall of his chest and the unrelenting ground beneath her.

The brief thought of 'they don't make them like they used to' flitted across her mind as she jabbed her palm straight up into his aquiline nose. The crunch of cartilage sang like victory, and the pain of her attacks finally slowed him. Just enough to let her put distance between them. But not enough to cause him to let go of her wrist.

"Hands off, Hessian!"

He glared at her, blood spurting from his nose. "You are no lady."

"Gee, what was your first clue?"

To her shock, he actually smiled at that. "Fire in you."

Did he just insinuate that... Seriously? She groaned. "If you are about to spout some bad-romance-book cliché about taming my fire and making me your respectful little wife, I'll shoot you without a thought. I'm already married, and I don't like you. Smart men usually run when I say that."

The Hessian climbed to his feet, forcing her to rise as well or dangle from his hand like a tassel. He straightened his posture, reaching slowly up to undo a clasp at his throat. Buttons, she realized. He was undoing buttons of his jacket. And she watched as he held it out to her.

"You are undressed."

Jesus, were they back on this track again? She wasn't undressed by any modern standar--Oh. Oh! Shit. In his time period, she was very much undressed. Mud-stained T-shirt clinging to her every curve just proved that she wasn't wearing a corset. Not to mention the lack of skirt.

"You're giving me your coat?" She asked incredulously. "What happened to kidnapping me?"

He took the moment to pull a kerchief from the pocket of the offered coat, holding it up to his nose. "You are my prisoner, ja. But you need clothes. I am not a rake."

Well, apparently, it was okay to kill boys on a battlefield, but he drew the line at harming women. It was sweet and confusing at the same time. Was it more sexist to think him sweet, or was it less because of the time period? "You and whose army is making me a prisoner?"

She regretted it the moment the words left her mouth. Of course his eyes tracked above her head. And of course she heard the _click-clack_ of musket hammers pulling backward. He'd ridden with five other men, after all, and wasn't this a case of Deja vu.

"Just for once," she sighed, reluctantly accepting the mud-stained jacket he slipped over her shoulders. "I'd love to face a dangerous man without his entire crew pointing guns at my back. Is that too much to ask?"

"I am Captain Jerrick von Knyphausen," he said, either ignoring her comment or not understanding it. "Your name."

It wasn't a question, yet it was punctuated by the pressure of a bayonet at the back of her neck. "Alynia Caprice Tintreach."

"Ah-Line-Eh-Ah," he sounded out her name, fumbling around the words. "Nein, impossible. Is not a real word. What does this word mean?"

"It means 'she who will beat your ass over all this.'"

"Language," he admonished, harsher this time. "A definition of a fighter, then. Fine. We shall call you Aloisia. It means woman warrior."

"I didn't ask to be adopted," she snapped. "I have a name, and I like it. What I don't like is this conversation, and I'm leaving it now."

"Not adopted. You are my prisoner. Bring her."

A hand landed on her shoulder, most likely belonging to Knife-Wielder at her back. Some things just didn't need words to be understood, and she raised her hands before her. Rope wrapped around her wrist tightly, enough left as a lead to drag her if needed, and she gritted her teeth as Captain Douchebag hoisted her up onto his horse, his arm tucking her tightly against his chest.

"My camp is not far from here. You will find clothing there."

"And an entire camp of misogyny and repression? Can't wait for that shit show."

"I do not understand your words. Explain them to me."

Whether as a last act of defiance, or because she didn't have the patience to follow that last command, she closed her teeth around her tongue and just shut up. Some things weren't worth trying to explain.

# Chapter 4

It turned out that the camp wasn't a camp. It was a village, or rather, it was a random collection of buildings that someday would be a village if given the chance to grow up and prove itself. The arm securing her tightly to him wasn't broken by any stretch of the imagination. More like an inflexible bar of steel thickly covered in muscle and cotton. She'd tested the escape theory only once. And when she'd regained consciousness a few minutes later, she thought better of trying to slip from his grasp.

For the moment.

Having the breath choked out of you via an arm around the diaphragm wasn't fun. In fact, she wasn't certain if a few of her ribs now matched his.

"Are you going to execute me?" she had the temerity to ask as they passed into the village.

He shook his head. "Why would I do that?"

"Uh, because I attacked you?"

He chuckled, and she took a tad bit of satisfaction at the wincing/wheeze that followed the sound. Yup, definitely at least one broken rib. Points for her. "You are a woman, and you did not outright attack my men at first sight. I will not take your life until I have proof of your involvement in the war."

She glanced over her shoulder at him, met those sapphire eyes with her own. "Then what's the plan, ace?"

"You are my prisoner."

"We've covered that, about a thousand times already. Maybe this is my fault and I'm not dumbing this down enough. Does prisoner mean jail? A cage? What's going to happen to me?"

Again, he frowned as he glanced over the village. "This is my camp. You will stay here until I contact your family."

"And if you can't do that?"

There was a fractional shrug. "I am certain I can," He retorted. "Trust me."

Trust him? Oh, that was rich. "Douche."

"What does this word mean, this doutch? You say it so often. Dutch, do you mean? I am not Dutch."

She brought her bound hands to her face, wishing she could grab handfuls of her hair and pull. If Carmina ever heard about this, she'd never live it down. Her cousin would laugh and laugh. Figures the one Caprice without the vocab skills God gave a high schooler ended up with a half-baked Hessian as her captor. And speaking of half-baked, where the hell was her husband? Alynia cast her limited senses about, doing her best to imitate the spell that came so naturally to Iowin. A pulse along the bond, a spark of love and frustration and outright anger burned inside her heart.

She nearly wilted with relief in the Captain's arms. Iowin was awake and alive and nearby, thank all the stars ever. The fact that he was pissed probably meant he witnessed her abduction, and that probably meant he was working on some sort of rescue plan. Her part in the plan: stay alive, gather intel, be ready to move when he moved. Or so she hoped.

Prayed, really.

Alynia peeked between her fingers as they entered the village proper, watching as others peered through curtained windows, or stopped their stroll through the village to watch the returning mercenaries. No one appeared wounded, she noted in relief. There were no bodies strung up on posts, no one swinging from makeshift gallows like every bad movie ever portrayed. No cages sporting slaves, no one in chains drug along by British. The few women she glimpsed in the streets stared at her in a mixture of shock and concern, hands resting gently on their escort's arm.

She'd worked enough domestic violence and rape cases in her career to know the body language of someone beaten into submission. No one screamed for freedom.

In fact, the only way she knew this whole village was under enemy domination at all was the patrol of guards ringing the top of the city walls. That and a hint of fear in the eyes of the menfolk as Captain Jerrick rode past. He'd kidnapped her, but all signs pointed to him keeping his word. These people were his prisoners and this village was his, but it could have been so much worse. Oh, so much worse. He'd earned a half-point. Maybe a quarter-point.

It depended on how long it took him to piss her off again.

He chuckled softly, the sound rumbling in his chest. "You expect worse of me, ja?"

"Reading my mind, there, Captain?"

His smile would have been charming if not covered in mud and blood and other things. "Nein, reading your body. You calmed when seeing the people are unharmed. I said before I am not a rake. You are my prisoner, protected by that status."

"Until you say otherwise?"

Another fractional shrug. "Obey me. Obey the laws. You will not come to harm."

"And if one of your men decides otherwise?"

It was the wrong thing to ask, and the blaze in those blue eyes let her know that quite well. "My men are not rakes. I will kill a man who touches you without reason. I promise, it will not be my men."

What could she say to that? Nothing. Alynia fell silent as they approached a three-story house in the center of the village. It had the distinct look of an inn, dual chimneys in the back pumping out a delicious blend of wood smoke and freshly baked bread. Her stomach agreed with the assessment, rather loudly, and the brick wall at her back chuckled again.

He pulled the horse to a stop, a young boy rushing out of the stable to take the reins. Knife-Wielder dismounted first, the reason she knew it was him having everything to do with the bayonet held in his left hand. His right reached up towards her, silently offering his hand. Her instinct begged to make his nose match Captain Jerrick's via an up-close-and-personal with her steel-toed boot.

That arm crushed against her ribs again, and she let out her own grunt of pain. Dammit, she kept forgetting he was a trained warrior, and as much as he treated her like a petite damsel in distress, he read her every movement like she was a dangerous suspect in his sights. Holding her securely against him like that was for more than a chauvinistic feel-good on his part. It let him keep an eye on her through her body movements and allowed him to keep his eyes focused on outside threats.

Dammit, she wasn't supposed to approve of that. But again, her estimation of him rose a notch.

"I surrender," she gasped, hands unsuccessfully trying to pry his arm free.

"Do you?" He asked, his other hand slipping into her hair and yanking her head back, staring hard into her eyes. "Do you know what that means? You are fire. Trouble. I do not want trouble here. Obey me, Fraulein Caprice. All will go well, ja? Do not obey, and I will be forced to hurt you until you do. Do not make me."

Translation: He had her number, alright. And he wasn't going to buy any sale of good behavior on face value. She'd earned his eye, and it was going to stay transfixed on her until he was certain she'd truly capitulated.

She swallowed hard, her head cranked back at a painful angle. "I understand."

"Give me your word."

"I give you my word that I won't start trouble here."

He eyed her much like Iowin would, and she had to wonder if her poker face was truly that terrible. Slowly, he let go of her hair, nodding once to Knife-Welder. The bar of his arm blessedly released, and she more crumbled downward from the horse than slid off. Christ on a cracker, the man was strong! Knife-Wielder took up the steel arm duty, catching her as she slid. One quick movement sliced through her bonds. A second movement tucked her in close under his arm while she regained her breath.

"This is a good place," Captain Jerrick dismounted, tossing his reins to the boy. "You will be cared for here. Do not make me—"

"Yeah, yeah, do not make you regret this. I got it the first time."

"I do not think that you did."

She finally drew in enough breath to let out a decent sigh, clutching at her side. "Look, you son of a—"

"Captain!" a voice shouted warmly.

Three heads whipped towards the double doors of the inn. A lovely young woman, who couldn't be more than twenty if she was a day, skidded to a halt on the flagstone steps. Copper-colored hair glinted in perfect ringlets across her shoulders, pinned in all the right places for that soft romantic look every damn damsel favored. Her gown was the color of fresh hay, the light yellowish gold making her hair shine like polished metal, like someone had spun copper ore into delicate hair. Wide brown eyes warmed at the sight of him, her skirts clutched in petite hands, ready to rush to his side.

Until she focused on more than just his face. Namely, the Anti-Three Stooges arranged before her: Bloody, Grumpy, and Unwilling. Two guesses were all that was needed to figure out which was which.

"Oh, Captain, what happened?" She rushed forward anyway, plucking a handkerchief from her cleavage and making a beeline towards Captain Jerrick's busted up nose. As if the cotton could magically cure the damage.

Captain Jerrick took a page from Alynia's book, wrapping an arm protectively around his broken (Ha!) ribs, yet making the motion a part of the formal bow he executed in the girl's direction. "Fraulein Linnet," he greeted just as warmly, accepting the token of affection and placing it to his nose. "I am a mess, my lady. Do not approach. I will ruin your dress."

"Fiddlesticks with my dress," she cooed—actually cooed!—hands dancing lightly just above his soiled clothing. "It will clean or I'll fetch a new one. Who did this to you?"

Alynia half expected those blue orbs to shift her way, and she was all prepared to jump on that grenade. Hell yeah, she'd kicked his ass. Hell yeah, she'd do it again. And yes, she'd be most willing to teach any woman who wanted to learn how to put a kidnapper in their place. However, his eyes remained locked on the honey-brown of Linnet's.

"Battle is battle, my lady. I will not talk of such to polite company. I bring you a gift instead," he gestured towards Alynia. "I found your cousin on the side of the road and in need of help. Bandits took her escort and her goods. I brought her to you in good faith," His expression dared Alynia to open her mouth in contradiction. "Fraulein Linnet Caprice, I present your cousin, Fraulein Aloisia Caprice."

# Chapter 5

Surprisingly enough, she wasn't wearing a corset. All those bodice-ripping romances had it wrong. Linnet called the garment currently holding her bosom upright and wrapping around her stomach a "stay." Alynia had to hold back the obvious jokes regarding the name.

The thing was comfortable enough, rather like a PVC top back in her goth days. So comfortable, in fact, that Alynia made a mental note not to fight her mother if the suggestion of a corset-top wedding dress entered the conversation. As much as she hated to admit it, the skirts weren't all that horrific either. They were rather light given the amount of them she had on her body. It was the combination of stiff petticoats and the stay that was the hardest thing to get used to and walk in. Alynia couldn't shake the feeling of having that many yards of linen hanging off her ass, and that, combined with the corset-like stays, turned actions as simple as walking into a freaking Olympic event. She'd had no idea how much she normally slouched when she walked, sat, or stood still.

The stays apparently knew, and like a fabric version of her grandmother, it made her sit up straight whether she wanted to or not. She perched on the edge of a chair, afraid to lean back and crush the series of folded bows and fabric attached to her skirt, and unable to slouch due to the stays reinforcing her spine from outside her ribs. Thank every star ever that Captain Jerk hadn't broken one of her ribs with the press-and-squeeze maneuver. Otherwise the stay thing was a serious no-go. She had the feeling he knew just how much pressure to apply to a woman's ribs to induce unconsciousness without doing damage. And it wasn't from any creepy-stalker-murderer vibe, either.

No, just the creepy beheading boys on battlefields vibes. Alynia rubbed her eyes, trying not to groan aloud. She'd seen some truly horrific stuff in her line of work, but nothing was going to make her forget the image of those boys losing their heads.

Linnet tsked, the sound resonating like crystal rather than sounding vexed. "Don't do that, my dove. We're going to have to start your eyes all over again."

"Sorry," Alynia reached towards her hair, and then stopped at a rather annoyed stare from Linnet. It'd taken two hours and god knew how many pins to set her hair in colonial ringlets. No need to start that all over again, too.

Alynia ground her teeth and did her best to remain still. After the initial shock of meeting her ancestor, she'd been all but tossed to the proverbial she-wolves of the village. So many women all aghast at her horrible experience. So many women digging through their closets to find articles of clothing to fit the poor 'Lady Aloisia' and soothe her troubled mind. Captain Jerk wandered away the moment the first word of condolences fell from kind lips, a bit of a smirk playing across his lips. The bastard. Cloth descended into her lap by the bolt-load, shoes and a few small pieces of jewelry found their way into a large chest. Coin changed hands for the goods, Linnet dutifully counting out the money from a pouch that looked suspiciously German. Well, the crest on it didn't look like anything she'd ever studied in American History for that matter, and it certainly wasn't the crest of the Caprice Family.

Next was the hot bath treatment and being told not to come out of the water for at least an hour. Doctor's orders, they'd said, treating hot water like it was the cure for everything.

Maybe it was to them. A hot bath: the 1789's version of penicillin.

She said a silent prayer to whoever was listening for all those vaccines she received as a child.

Finally, a bowl of stew and several thick slices of fresh bread were brought to her little room, again with orders to eat all of it and rest. Her stomach rumbled, the coffee she'd imbibed for breakfast had all but evaporated in the hours since heading back to Mom Stop 27. She all but descended on that bowl of stew, thankful no one was around to witness the obscenity by which she consumed every drop and every crumb of that bread—regardless of how hard that was in her stay.

She shook her head ruefully, and focused on the plan: fuel up quickly, find Iowin, and GTFO. Iowin was out there somewhere. She had to find him, then find out what was bringing the Horseman forward to their time, and... and...

...and she realized her second mistake of the day as her fingers numbly dropped the spoon. The food. They'd drugged her food. The spoon clanged like a gong against the polished wood, at least to her ears, and her knees hit the floor. The room stretched out before her eyes, wavering in and out of focus, the door suddenly eight million miles away. Her hands were next to greet the floor, followed by her shoulders, and then her head. Across the world, the door slipped open, a familiar set of boots tromping towards her like stomping elephants.

"Fuck me," she cursed, her voice thick and her words slurred. "You drugged me, you asshat."

"Ja," the Jerk in question replied, slipping an arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees. "Valerian root in your stew. Helps to sleep. You need to rest."

"Not an... a damsel in... distress."

"Nein," he laid her gently in the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. "I do not know what you are. I know what you are not. You are not a rebel traitor. You are not British. Your weapon is stranger than your clothes. I will learn what you are, Fraulein Aloisia, before our time is through."

Great. She'd run afoul of the Hessian equivalent of a CSI, who'd managed to have her weapon collected by one of his minions while she was bound like a gift. Classic her.

Wasn't life... just...

Darkness.

That was until Linnet shook her awake the following afternoon, and the whole 'dress the damsel' ordeal worked its way into full gear.

"Why do you do that?" Linnet asked, gently rubbing the cream rouge into the apple of Alynia's cheek.

"Do what?"

"Constantly mutter to yourself. I thought you mentioned a see-es-eye? Is that a French word of prayer? It sounds French to me."

Alynia fought for the millionth time not to smack the girl's fingers away from her face. "What makes you think it's French?"

"Captain Jerrick informed Father that you were my father's sister's daughter's cousin from France, seeking asylum here in the colonies. That's why your letter of introduction was lost along with all your belongings," she made with the pity-face again. "I'm so sorry for your loss, cousin. I can't understand the madness gripping your country. To side with the rebels against the Crown? It's not right."

It was a good thing Linnet was applying mascara to Alynia's eyes. It gave a great excuse to stare at the woman unblinkingly. "So you and this village are loyalists to the Crown?"

Her pretty little pout rolled into a bit of a frown. "We are loyal to those that serve our interests," she said politically.

"Like, say, Captain Jerk?"

She laughed, the sound like goddamn bells. "Captain Jerk? Oh, I shall have to call him that from now on if he lets you do it. Isn't he such a wonderful man? Forsaking his homeland to help us keep our own."

Any minute now, Alynia was certain Linnet was either going to break into song al la Disney Princess, or words like 'swell' 'dreamy' and 'swoon' were going to take center stage in her vocab. Either one was going to lead to Alynia performing a swan dive out of the third floor window to get away from it. The girl seriously had a crush on the Hessian. Truly and utterly batting her eyes at a blood covered general who should have lost his head on—

Oh hell.

The cannonball that nearly took her head off when she'd arrived in the past. Was that the one meant to knock the block off of Captain Assface? And speaking of ass faces, unless the drugs in her stew were LSD-worthy, she couldn't have imagined the flawless line of his profile as he lifted her off the floor. Flawless, as in no more broken nose. No raccoon eyes. No wheezing grunt from folding himself over broken ribs to lift her off the floor, either. While they were tallying the magical sins, just what had possessed her to devour that stew with a vengeance? She knew better than to eat anything brought to her by a captor.

She knew better.

It would have taken a miracle to make all that happen. A miracle, or, say... a rather powerful Caprice witch casting a spell on her.

Mayhap the one currently applying cream to her lips so they could go to dinner 'properly' attired.

"He doesn't know you're the one protecting him, does he?"

Linnet jerked, nearly dropping the lip brush. "What do you mean?"

Alynia pushed Linnet's hands away from her face finally. "Your father and Captain Jerrick. The whole village is under your protection spell, isn't it?"

Linnet tittered, the sound less like bells and more like strained glass about to shatter. "Now how could one woman do all that? I'm not a solider or a politician. I'm just—"

"A witch. Like me."

This time it was Linnet who messed up the makeup session, slapping fingers quickly against Alynia's mouth. Actual tears welled in those dark brown eyes. "Watch your tone, dear cousin," she whispered quickly. "Accusations like that can land a woman in the fires, even in our enlightened time."

She caught the other woman's wrist and yanked her fingers away. "Then tell me what the fuck you did," Alynia whispered just as furiously. "I'm willing to bet it was your magic I felt pressing down on me over two hundred years later."

Linnet gaped at her, lips twisting between a smile of amusement and a look of abject terror. Alynia sighed, clutching her skirts in both hands until her fingers shook. Dammit, where was Iowin when she needed him? He could make anything sound appealing and appropriate. Those words about the future coming off her lips must have sounded utterly insane.

The way Linnet made with the paleness, sitting down hard on the stool next to her, let her know she'd failed yet again to deliver the time-traveling news with delicacy.

"You can't be serious," Linnet gaped. "I'm not that powerful, no woman in our line has ever been that powerful in forever. And what do you mean centuries, as in from the future? Captain Jerrick said—"

"Captain Jerk lied to you," she said bluntly, relishing not a little the insult she threw into that name. "He did it for his own protection, and for yours. I know for a fact that he doesn't know what you are because he pointblank told me he doesn't know what I am. But he's going to find out, Lin. He's all but made it a mission to pull the secrets out of me, by hook or by crook."

"He would never!"

"He already promised me he would," Alynia said gravely. "Right in front of your house, he told me to obey or he'd put the hurt on me until I did. Does that sound like someone willing to turn a blind eye to a little witchy magic, especially if he learns you bespelled him, and I'm not talking about charm or beauty here?"

Tears spilled down those rosy cheeks, lips trembling. "It was only a protection spell. I only wanted to keep him alive so we could marry."

The impulse to shake Linnet until her china-doll head popped off and rolled across the floor nearly overwhelmed her. Alynia settled with rising to her feet, pacing the floor and rubbing at her forehead. Careful, of course, to make a full turn before pacing the other direction. Tripping over the skirts once while getting into them the first time was enough for a lifetime.

"Look, something else happened other than your charm spell, Linnet. Something powerful enough that Iowin and I rode the remainder of it down two hundred years into the past."

"Who is Iowin?"

"My husband."

Linnet let out her breath in a whoosh, looking like she might need her stay loosened, or whatever one did to keep a woman from fainting.

"You're married," she whispered, the sound suspiciously like a giggle. A giggle of relief.

Seriously, that's what the girl was taking away from this conversation? "What of it?"

Linnet sat up a bit straighter, dabbing the tears off her cheeks with a kerchief. "Nothing, I only meant that—"

Alynia shook her head back and forth, crossing her arms over her chest. "You honestly thought I'd want to take a run at Captain Jerkface?"

The girl had the grace to blush and look away. "Why wouldn't you? He's rich and strong, handsome, and honorable, too. His brother is Frederick II of Hesse-Kassel, a Landgrave. Think of it like a Prince of Germany. He has no heirs, so Jerrick is next in line for the title. Imagine getting out of this village and seeing the world, of never having to worry about money or food or wars ever again. Why wouldn't you want that, or him?"

Why not, indeed? She didn't have the meanness in her to break Linnet's heart with the truth. Money wouldn't stop wars or poverty or starvation. The world waited to erupt in Linnet's future over so much more, dragging every nation in to brutal conflicts, each one more bloody than the last.

"Because my tastes run towards the tall, blond, and emotionally irritating," she settled with instead, the dictionary definition of Iowin Tintreach. "I get the feeling Captain Fuckface only hits two of those on your scale."

"Fuckface," Linnet repeated, tasting the word. "Is that a French title?"

Dear god in heaven, she was going to have to say it, wasn't she? "Yes, but not a good one. Don't repeat that. Ever. If you would... wouldn't mind pardoning my French?"

A hint of the innocent light returned in Linnet's dark eyes. Impulsively, the younger woman threw her arms around Alynia, hugging her close. "I know we are going to be the best of friends, lady Aloisia. It's amazing to have someone I can speak to, someone I can be fully honest with about everything. Say we will be heart's friends forever."

Wow. If there ever was a reminder at how much she took her family for granted, it was that. She couldn't imagine going through the Caprice curse without the support system of her cousins. How had Linnet made it this far without it?

Oh, right. She hadn't. At least, not safely. They had the rabbit hole through time and a Headless Hessian ghost as proof.

"Tell you what," Alynia managed to extract herself from the hug without tearing either Linnet's gown or her own. More complicated than it sounded. "I'll do whatever I can to help you with this. In exchange, no more magic or wishing upon stars or whatever voodoo you did to save Captain Fu—Jerk's life out there on the battlefield, okay? At least not unless we are together."

Linnet thought about that a moment. "I won't undo what I've already done," she said slowly, meeting Alynia's eyes. "I love him. I won't lose him. But I promise not to do anything more unless we are together."

"One other thing. That protection spell you cast on Captain Jerrick? Do you have it written down anywhere?"

"I do," Linnet rushed to a chest in the far corner of her room, her skirts floating around her like the exotic wings of a bird. She fished out an old book, the cover and back nothing more than unfinished bark, the whole thing bound together with three strips of leather at the spine. Carved into the center of the cover, however, was the Caprice Family crest. "This was my mother's. She gave it to me before she passed away. She said it was her mother's and her mother's mother's and so on. If you promise not to harm it, I'll lend it to you."

Alynia clutched the book to her chest, felt the power thrumming through it. Her amulet picked up the echo, a second heartbeat above her skin. Whoever had made this book was powerful, indeed. And perhaps older than the Caprice Curse, itself. She prayed with all her heart that it was.

It might be the only way to get her and Iowin home.

# Chapter 6

"Linnet, may I come in?"

Alynia and Linnet jumped at the sound of the voice filtering through the wooden door, both women's hands reaching frantically for anything to toss over the bits and bobbles strewn across the dressing table. Normally the polished wood surface hosted a dozen or so glass bottles and pots of creams, artfully mixed here and there with intricately carves little wooden boxes containing Linnet's jewelry. Enough so that Alynia no longer had to wonder what prompted the perfume displays at the Macy's counter. Apparently, it was an old school setup women had been fawning over for centuries.

Most women, that is. Alynia normally ran from any form of clutter like it was a rare and deadly disease.

All that had been shoved aside, however, to make way for dip pens and ink, paper, and sand. The sand was to help dry the ink, not that she truly understood the concept. But considering fountain pens weren't really the rage in upstate little villages, Alynia had to make due with what she had. The dip pen it was, along with the sand and the parchment paper, and that thrice-damned spellbook. They'd spent the better portion of the day and into the night pouring over the spells in the old book. Locating the spell Linnet used on Captain Jerk had been the easy part.

Assigning it blame for the curse of the Headless Horseman? That was the impossible task. From what Alynia gathered in her limited studies, the spell should have only deflected bullets that caused deadly harm. It explained how she was able to break Jerk's nose and crack a rib or two. But that sort of spell shouldn't grant immortality in the form of ghostly apparitions.

Neither did it have the juice to freeze time around the location of its initial casting, nor to throw off echoes of its power nearly three hundred years after the fact. Conclusion: these weren't the droids she was looking for.

"Linnet, my dove, are you decent?"

"No, sir," Linnet called out quickly, eyes wide. "One moment. Cousin Aloisia is not decent."

Linnet swept an arm across the top of her vanity, a move Alynia rather approved of, papers slipping into the open drawer with proficiency. The inks in their colored pots indistinguishable from all other make-up pots on the surface.

"Not the first time someone's interrupted your work, eh?" Alynia whispered.

"It's my father," she whispered back fiercely. "You have no idea what I had to go through to get him to announce himself in the first place."

And with that, she reached out and grabbed one of the ribbons on Alynia's chest, one of the very ribbons Linnet had warned her against touching or snagging on anything for the sake of modesty, yanking hard. The bow unraveled itself, the center v-shaped frilly insert of her dress (called a stomacher of all things!), flopping open on one side and revealing a rather generous portion of stay and bosom. Alynia never got to protest the action, the other woman instantly grasped the untidy article of clothing and yanked it back into place, nearly yanking Alynia around in the process.

The door opened, revealing a rather thin man in his mid to late forties. His appearance set her cop senses tingling, searching for defects before she knew she was doing it. Long gangly arms and legs seemed out of proportion with the rest of him. Thinning gray hair made his face narrower, his nose more prominent. It was the coat that bothered her. His coat had to contain padding, attempting to make him more robust than he actually was. Reed-thin, spidery fingers and wrists did not belong to a man with the shoulder span he was trying to pull off.

God, he was the living embodiment of Ichabod Crane.

"Papa!" Linnet managed to shriek in a fair amount of startled surprise, tying up the ribbon with quick and deft fingers. "I did not say we were finished dressing."

'Papa' Caprice let his watery eyes wander the room, searching for all signs of mischief, Alynia was certain, before settling his gaze on his daughter. A smile cracked the stern countenance of his features, making him seem warm for a moment.

"Apologies, dear daughter," he intoned, gaze sweeping over Alynia before flicking back to Linnet. "I wanted to make sure you were joining us for dinner. Captain Jerrick has ordered a welcome meal for our dear lost cousin."

"You shouldn't have gone through all the trouble," Alynia put in. "I don't think I'm staying long enough to make it worth it, Mr. Caprice."

"Mayor Caprice is how the rest of the village addresses me," he replied, enough cool indifference in his tone to make her believe he wished she'd do the same. "You may call me uncle, or Uncle Henry, if you feel so bold. And what is this nonsense of you traveling on so soon? You've just got your feet under you," he tisked. "No, I will have a talk with Captain Jerrick. There is a war going on, Miss Aloisia, if you haven't noticed. For your safety, I'll see to it that you spend the winter here, as our beloved guest. After an extended stay, you may just change your mind and decide to stay here forever."

Linnet clapped her hands excitedly. "Oh, Papa, that would be most wonderful!"

Alynia forced a smile, flexing her knees in a tiny curtsey. Yeah, that tone stated he wanted her to stay as much as she did. "You are too kind, but I must decline. I have family out looking for me. It won't be long until he finds me."

"And we will welcome your family with every bit of courtesy as we have welcomed you," Uncle Henry replied, his eyes once more wandering the room, settling on the single dip pen resting on the vanity.

Currently dropping tiny little black tears onto the pale wooden surface. Inwardly, she cursed.

"I will not take a refusal on this," Uncle Henry continued, crossing over to that pen.

Behind his back, Linnet wrung her hands together, going pale.

"Letter writing?" Uncle Douchetool asked, too innocently. "Is that not an activity saved for the morning, when the light is best?" He tsked again. "We are in a war, darling daughter, and candles are best saved for emergencies. We never know when the traitors will cut off our supply lines again."

"Captain Jerrick would never allow that," Linnet replied a touch breathy, glancing at the stub as her father blew it out. Or rather, the drawer with their research notes right beneath it. "He found a way to keep us supplied the last time the traitors tried that."

"Yes," Uncle mused, a somewhat disapproving frown touching his lips. "Against all odds, he survived the traps and the minutemen that killed everyone else. Some would call his blockade running miraculous, almost magical."

Alynia lifted a mental eyebrow at that. Oh, goodie, Daddy Caprice didn't care for his daughter's choice in suitors. She filed that away for later use.

"I would—and have—called it God's own will that Captain Jerrick survived. He's too good for us, Papa, and you know it," Linnet said firmly, plucking two cloaks from the wardrobe. "You said dinner was ready and waiting? Best to not let it get cold. We should go."

She handed one to Alynia, draping the other over her left arm. With that, she headed for the door. Alynia moved to follow, making a show of fussing with her dress. Out of the corner of her eye, she witnessed Uncle Henry staring right at the drawer containing their notes and the spellbook. More than that, she witnessed the tight, wolfish smile that spread across that too-thin face.

She didn't bother to look away when his eyes met hers. No more than he bothered to wipe away that smile.

"I do hope you reconsider my offer," he said quietly, resting his hand on the drawer's little ivory handle. "I believe there is much you can do for us, Aloisia Caprice. My wife passed away many years ago, and my daughter is without a teacher. I'm strong in my power, nearly as strong as you are in yours. Strange, that. I didn't believe women of our family could host your strength. Regardless, it's easier for a woman to teach a woman, is it not? There is much we can offer one another."

Was that a proposal? Stars above, she hoped not.

"Sorry," Alynia tried to cross her arms over her chest, found her own cleavage in the way due to the stay, and settled with a cop stare. "I've already got plans for my future. And I'll appreciate you never doing again whatever it was that let you test my power."

"A minor spell while you slept," he waved a hand dismissively. "Similar to the spell Linnet used to heal you and Captain Jerrick. It allows me to sense a person's magical potential."

"That's how you knew I really was a relation of yours."

He smiled. It was like watching a skull smile. "Very perceptive, my cousin. It's within my rights to deny Captain Jerrick's claim. However, as I said before, I believe we can be of mutual use to one another."

Again, she didn't miss the way his lips curved when he said Jerrick's name, like they didn't want to speak it at all.

"Again, I'm declining. In case you missed my meaning, I'll spell it out for you. No. I'm leaving as soon as my... family comes for me. I have my own plans for my future, and they don't involve playing Magical Mary Poppins to your kid."

"Cancel those plans," he ordered flatly, the snap in his tone making her want to tell him off on principal. "We've need for you in this village. You'll find life here as pleasant as a dream."

"What is it with every man in this village?" she nearly growled. "Ever heard of 'no means no'? I'm not suggesting I rethink the offer. I'm telling you no."

His smile never decreased. If anything, her refusal pumped more fire into it.

"I will make you change your mind. You'll agree to my terms, and you'll do it on your own. You'll see my way is the right way, just like every other dutiful patron of this village."

"Oh, just like Captain Jerrick does?"

The smile gained fire, all right. But so did the candle. Hell, she was certain his very clothing started to smolder with his outrage.

Good. If she could piss him off in one conversation, maybe, when the time was right, she'd blind him with his own anger issues. It wasn't the most useful tool in her arsenal. But considering she didn't have very many at the moment, she'd take what she could get.

And speaking of tools...

"Listen, you condescending chauvinistic little worm, I'm not going to bow to you just because you're the mayor. And I'm not about to—"

"Papa. Aloisia," Linnet's voice drifted down the hall. "Are you coming?"

Instantly the candle snuffed itself, the heat wafting off the man likewise vanishing. His head turned in Linnet's direction, hints of tenderness transforming his face from anger to doting father. As if someone flipped a switch. Creepy, that.

"Think on it," he hissed at her, brushing past and heading down the hall.

Alynia took a deep breath, uncurling her fingers from the fists in her skirts. _Iowin, where are you, dammit? I need you so much. I love you._

And then went down to play Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: The Colonial Edition.

# Chapter 7

The delighted look crossing Captain Jerrick von Kynphausen's unbroken face as she and Linnet crested the curved staircase, arm in arm, was almost enough to make her want to break his nose all over again. Linnet practically preened under that bejeweled stare, taking her skirts delicately in one hand and gently urging Alynia to do the same. With a sigh that wasn't anywhere near as lovely or perfect as Linnet's, she obliged, throwing a menacing glare at Captain Jerk as his smile became a smirk in her direction. She made a mental note to go hug every woman voter she ever found again. This oppression crap was intolerable.

Linnet made it look easy, and perhaps it was for her. Every eye in the room fixated on her copper hair, the pearl-like paleness of her shoulders and bosom under the flickering candlelight. She'd chosen a gown of the softest rose silk for the evening, a simple gold chain around her slender neck. One single ruby hung from it, the Caprice sigil cut deep into its depths. All the colors played gorgeously under the light, and even Alynia was caught up in the spectacle. Cinderella floating towards the ball to meet her handsome prince.

Only this time she had an ugly older stepsister on her arm, one she drug down with her no matter how much Alynia hesitated. And her prince happened to be a Hessian warlord.

Look out Disney, this wasn't your mama's traditional fairytale.

Captain Jerrick crossed the large common room in quick strong strides, his boot heels ringing out sharply on the polished floor, calling all eyes to witness their entrance. He took Linnet's hand for the last two stairs, kissing it gently, before turning his eyes on Alynia and offering his hand in turn.

She took it, grinding her teeth behind her fake smile. His eyes danced with quiet amusement.

"I hate you," she whispered behind gritted teeth. "Thought you'd like to know that."

His smile brightened a couple of watts. "You will change your mind, Lady Aloisia."

"When Hell freezes," she smiled, alighting the final two steps and managing a mockery of a smooth curtsy. "And my name is Alynia. Say it with me, now."

He planted a lingering kiss on her gloved knuckles. "Spoiled girl you are. That should be your name."

That earned him two lifted eyebrows. Okay, okay, it honestly earned him a punch in the dick. But in a room full of witnesses, most being his heavily armed comrades, that wasn't the most prudent of replies. She ratcheted up her fake smile. "Whatever do you mean, good sir?"

"I bring you safe to your family. I give you story to make sense of your clothing and lack of goods or money. I keep your reputation intact. You are safe. You are clean. You are clothed and fed, and yet you seek more from me?"

"Funny, I don't recall asking you for any of that."

"You didn't have to ask," Linnet chimed in, smiling up at the Captain. "Captain Jerrick is an honorable man who will protect anyone in need, even if they don't know they need it."

He smiled down at her in return, his profile softening. His face would never be open and honest, never as expressive as Iowin's with his emotions overtaking every inch of his features. But there was tenderness in that gaze, Alynia noted. The good Captain hadn't planned on finding the most precious jewel in the world while fighting the savages of America.

Shit. He loved her, perhaps as much as she loved him.

Yet Uncle Henry didn't love him, and the daggers glaring out of his eyes and into the Hessian warrior's throat was more than enough proof of that. Perhaps not everyone in the village was as Crown loyal as Linnet made them out to be. Perhaps the whole village was truly the prisoners Captain Jerrick claimed they were from the beginning.

She wasn't the only one that caught that glare, Linnet staring right back at her father just as balefully. Her slender fingers wrapped around the Captain's forearm, and to Alynia's eyes they looked like claws digging into what she claimed as hers.Tension replaced the joviality in the common room, the staring war going on far too long to be considered polite. Someone was going to have to act rather swiftly. And by someone, it usually meant her.

"Why, thank you, Captain," Alynia smiled, pretending to hide sudden laughter behind her hand. Hoping she didn't sound like someone trying to strangle a rooster. "I would be delighted to stroll about the place with you. And with my dear cousin as escort, of course. Why, what would society think otherwise?"

Uncle Henry's glare transformed into a frown, more confusion than anger, wondering if the newly-arrived Lady Caprice would be the one to turn the Captain's eye away from his only daughter. She suppressed another laugh, this one real, as she imagined herself trussed up like a Christmas ham and literally handed over to the Hessian on a silver platter. The card reading "Enjoy and stay the hell away from my daughter."

As quick as he was with the sword, Captain Jerrick was as quick with the politics. One hand lifted, palm up and offered to Alynia, the other offered in the exact same manner to Linnet. Both women stared at each other over the offered hands, and Alynia took her cue from Linnet. In unison, they placed their palms upon his offered palms. Captain Jerk turned his hands over under their gloved fingers, sliding his arms forward until each woman rested her hand squarely on his forearm. Perfectly polite and charming, as befitting a bachelor escorting two women of marriageable age.

"Thank you," Captain Jerk whispered as he led the way towards the gardens.

"No problem," Alynia whispered back. "Just remember who saved who tonight."

A fair amount of arrogance filtered back into his eyes. "Do you think that makes us even?"

Her laugh wasn't faked, wasn't hidden behind her hand, and was more like a snicker. "Oh, sugar, we haven't begun to tally scores here. I'm more than wicked furious with you over the whole drugging thing. What was that all about, hrm?"

Another freaking frustrating shrug out of him. "I needed time to investigate your items and your claims."

"You mean to see if I was truly a Colonial traitor."

"Ja."

"And I would imagine I wouldn't have woken if you'd found anything to substantiate that claim."

"Aloisia!" Linnet gasped, all but clinging to Jerrick's arm. "Don't say such things. It's unbecoming."

"Nein, she has a right to her answer. You would have woken. You would have had your trial. And, ja, you would have been executed."

"Well, isn't it lucky you didn't find anything."

"I did not say that."

Both women came to a stop, both staring at him with wide eyes. The double heartbeat of her amulet thrummed against her skin, and out of the corner of her eye, Alynia saw a flash in the ruby around Linnet's neck. Caprice magic held its proverbial breath in the air, waiting for use. Begging for use. Whispering the singsong lure of what they could do if they worked together.

"What did you find, Jerrick?" Linnet asked, breath catching on each word.

Alynia braced for the question, knowing she couldn't lie to him convincingly. If he asked her if she were a traitor to the British crown, if she was an American sympathizer, she was going to have to answer yes. She'd sworn on the flag since her first day of school, lived the American laws with every breath in her body, and defended them as an officer for most of her life. American through and through. There was no getting around it.

"You are not a rebel," he said, eying the two of them carefully. "My investigation is pending, however."

"How long until you close it?"

"I have authority to keep it open as long as I need."

"Meaning you can keep me in this village for the rest of my life if you so see fit."

"Ja. You have much to answer for when you recover yourself, Lady Aloisia," he took both their arms again, looping them through his this time as they were out of eyesight of others. "Until then, I have named you as my ward. You are under my protection, and will remain in Herr Caprice's home until I say otherwise."

"I don't understand," Linnet shook her head. "What are you looking for, Captain? If she is not a rebel—and I would stake my life on that—why does anything else matter?"

He tucked Linnet in close beneath his arm, much as Knife-Wielder had done to her. So much tenderness in that action, Alynia halfway expected him to brush his lips against those coppery curls and whisper words of how much he loved her innocence.

"Keep this conversation for another time," he murmured, smiling down at them both. "Do not fear, Aloisia. If my investigation turns up anything of a negative variety, there are those in my command willing to compensate for those mistakes."

Linnet brightened at that, grinning around the wall that was pretending to be his chest, to wink at Alynia. "That means someone has already asked for your hand, Aloisia. Isn't that wonderful? Perhaps we will have a double wedding. Sisters instead of cousins that way."

Alynia blinked once, again, and had to look around to see if they were talking to someone else who happened to have the name Aloisia. Because this certainly couldn't be happening to her.

"I'm already married."

"There is no record of your marriage anywhere in the state. I sent riders to inquire. Aloisia Caprice is a single woman traveling from Europe. Her escorts were murdered by rebels, her goods stolen to fuel their futile war effort. Aloisia Caprice is under my protection. I have documents in my possession to prove it."

Translation: he'd had someone draw up documents to prove his claims while she did her imitation of Sleeping Beauty.

She almost yanked her arm away, rage burning hot in her chest. Almost. Deep breaths and a What-Would-Iowin-Do mantra kept her in place. But it was a near miss. "My husband will come for me," she growled.

A fire of his own lit up those too-blue eyes. "He will meet my blade to answer for his crime against you. Understand, Aloisia, you have been given a second chance and a good life here in Sleepy Hollow. Do not throw it away on someone who left you stranded in a battlefield alone. That is unforgivable in any honorable man's eyes."

Oh, that did it. First, insinuating she was his property and then calling Iowin, of all people, a coward? "Look—"

"Captain von Kynphausen," a soldier called, marching into view around the garden wall before she could really get into it.

He held up his hand to forestall her, placing Linnet's palm tenderly in Alynia's. "Stay here," he ordered the two of them, stepping over to his officer.

They crossed several steps away, practically out of earshot, and began speaking softly in German. Alynia rounded on Linnet.

"What was that all about?" she hissed. "A double wedding, are you out of your damned mind?"

"What did you want me to say?" Linnet hissed right back. "That we're witches? That magic brought you here from two hundred years in the future? He'd burn us both alive for that! No, the only chance you have of returning to your husband is playing along. No matter how long it takes. If you have to marry whomever he's chosen for you, do it. So be happy if you don't feel it. Didn't your mother ever teach you anything about being a lady?"

"Fuck that, both to being a lady and being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Disregarding the fact that I'm married already, I sure as hell won't spend the rest of my life pretending to be what I'm not. That's what my mother taught me about being a lady. Never lay down for anyone for any reason. I'm not a doormat and neither are you."

Linnet stared at her, truly stared at her, like she'd gone mad. "We're women," she whispered. "Our lot in life isn't to be auctioned off so coldly. It's to obtain the best match, and hopefully fall in love with that one."

Christ, where was the I-Need-Feminism brigade when she needed one? If she had to endure a lifetime of this crap, she'd go absolutely bonkers. No, she'd end up throwing herself into the nearest Women's Suffrage movement she could find and probably end up beaten to death by all the men around her. Though she'd take more than a few down with her.

Ironically, the thought of kicking chauvinistic ass helped to dam the frustrated tears trying their best to escape her control.

Captain Jerk rejoined their little group, pausing to slip one finger beneath Alynia's chin and tip her face towards the moonlight. "Do not fear, Aloisia," the pad of his thumb delicately brushed at the tears in her eyelashes. "Joy will find you again, perhaps sooner than you think. You will never know harm in my care. Nor will you, Fraulein Linnet. You have my word of honor."

He produced a tiny knife and cut two of the lavender amnesia roses from the nearby bush, gently tucking one behind Alynia's ear, and offering the other to Linnet. She took it with a childlike delight, earning a chuckle from Captain Life-Wrecker, and inhaled the scent deeply. Linnet sank into his chest, fingers grasping the lapels of his jacket until they shook. His hand swept gently across her slender back, his face lowering to finally breathe in the scent of her hair.

Alynia stepped away, giving them their space and wrapping her arms around herself, searching through the bond for her beloved. He was alive, muting their connection for some reason. But he was alive, and he was coming for her. That's all that should matter. And yet...

Fear wormed its way into her heart, true fear that she'd end up trapped here in the past, bought and sold to some man as a wife without so much as her consent. God, this wasn't how it was supposed to end for her, was it? After everything she'd gone through, everything she'd sacrificed and lost just to be with Iowin again, was it really her fate to lose him so soon?

Dammit, Iowin, where are you? Why aren't you here?

_Aren't I?_ His touch whispered through the bond, a warm breeze of life flowing across her soul _. Turn around._

The solider Captain Dicknuts had been addressing was joined by another soldier, and in between them stood Iowin Tintreach. He stood there with his hat in his hands, shoulders tight and slightly hunched, worried that an awful fate was about to befall him. But the bond, the blessed bond of magic and love, echoed with his steely calm. It was so wonderful, so amazing to feel it again, to see him again, that she gasped.

Captain Asscrackers spun in response, freehand landing on a dagger at his waist. Linnet huddled against him, peering in the same direction.

"Who is that?" Linnet asked, staring in Iowin's direction.

"Ah, him," Captain Jerk nodded, releasing his dagger. "That is Herr Ichabod Crane, the new schoolmaster."

# Chapter 8

She owed a lot of people money.

Funny, how that was the only thought coherently passing through her brain pan. Other bits of half-formed feelings floated around the periphery of that thought, all instinct-driven cries to run to Iowin, to throw fire and power at everyone else until her husband was free. Until they could find the location of their initial ritual, steal the book Linnet had lent her, and blow a hole back to their own time. Hell, bringing Linnet and Captain Jerrick forward in time with them wasn't completely out of the question at that point. He appeared bright enough to catch on to a modern life, and God knew Linnet needed a good dose of what it was like to be her own woman. Alynia's mother and grandmother would straighten Linnet out in a month flat. There were no other stronger women in the world.

But all of that was secondary to the wondrous truth that Iowin was alive. He was alive and he was there with her, filling every one of her senses. Surrounded by moonlight and the thick lovely scent of roses, and black lilies, and who knew what else.

Big reveals in the middle of fantastical gardens by moonlight just didn't happen. No damsel ever hitched up her skirt and ran with all her heart toward her beloved in a flurry of petticoats. Moments no longer occurred for a gal to be swept off her feet into a kiss that should have gone on forever. Nope. Never. All gone. That crap didn't exist anymore. Or if it did, it would never happen to her. She had bet real money on it.

Yet there she was, her coal-black hair spun in perfect ringlets down her back, a flower tucked behind her ear. A gown of pale green silk framed a square neckline of generous cleavage, tightening down her arms and her sides, only to float around her in a train of embroidered flowers. A delicate cloak hung loosely from her elbows, a wide-brimmed hat held in her gloved hands.

He stood in the moonlight, too, all six foot of him alive and well in 1789. Moonlight silvered that blond hair, made jade green eyes obsidian in color. Tight breeches covered him from waist to knee, black boots from the knee down. His coat was long and tailed, double-breasted and buttoned over his chest. A waistcoat peeked out here and there as was the fashion, a dagger at his side rather than a full sword. A stiff high white collar and dark tie completed the look. Well, that and the three-cornered hat he currently held in his hands.

She didn't need a big wedding after all, not after seeing him in this formal wear. Not after him seeing her in this dress.

Stars above, he fit. He literally fit with ease into the time frame like he was born to it. Earnest and innocent expression on his face, hints of fear peeking out here and there, wondering what he may have done wrong and what may have happened to bring him to a Captain's attention. Just a lowly schoolmaster looking to make an honest living in this world. Nothing more.

His eyes gave it away though; the trademark Tintreach power tossing glitters of emerald flame into the moon-darkened obsidian of his eyes. The moment they locked on hers, green sparks burst into writhing flame within the bond, his power sweeping her under. Rage, pure hot rage drove the metaphysical rivers to flood the banks of his control. Not at her, of course, but at the man who currently had his hand on her elbow, gently pressing her backward and behind him.

"Be on your way Herr Crane," Captain Douchenozzle declared, only half glancing at the supposed harmless schoolmaster. "You are dismissed."

Iowin managed a nod, bowing his head to hide the heat in his gaze, trying his best to assume humility. "Thank you, Captain."

He turned away, all that power retreating from her, banked by his need to hide what he was until he knew exactly what was going on.

"Wait," Alynia called, panic sticking in her throat. _Don't go, or at least take me with you. I can't manage another day of acting like a silly girl who doesn't have the fight or flight instincts God gave a fucking cockroach!_

The guards paused, each a step ahead of Iowin to put themselves between him and their Captain's new ward.

Beloved, don't. One of us needs to keep an eye on the Captain and his men, the other needs to be free to figure out what happened here. Magic caused the Horseman to break into our time from this village. We have the location. Now we need the spell. It'll be alright.

Says you! Where the hell have you been, anyway?

Following you, where else?

Iowin—

Ichabod. I'm Ichabod and you're... what did he call you?

_Aloisia,_ she snapped. _It means warrior woman in German._

Iowin flicked an appraising glance across the Captain from beneath his eyelashes, begrudging approval brushing her thoughts. Followed quickly by hating the fact that the begrudging approval was there.

"I... uh," she stammered, glancing between Iowin and Captain Jerkface. "I had a question about his teaching styles. Uncle Henry asked me if I knew Latin. I don't. Maybe he can teach it? It would provide distraction for me during the long winter."

_That man is a freaking faucet,_ Alynia growled. _Hot or cold, douchebiscuit or awesome. There's no in between. And that's what makes him—_

Dangerous. Extremely dangerous. Yes, I agree. Keep your wits about you, my Nia. He's suspicious enough of you already. I can tell by the way he watches you. And now you're making him suspicious of me.

Captain Jerkface the Too Observant tipped his head to the side, eyeing her more than her husband. "Well, Herr Crane. Can you satisfy the lady's request?"

Careful, here, Iowin. He's also the Horseman, which you would have learned already if you let me finish a thought. And tell the man you speak Latin, already!

He blinked hard, staring at his hat like it were the most interesting thing in the world. _Are you certain? He seems, I don't know, not right somehow. How did you—no, we're out of time. We can fight about this later._ "Yes, Herr Captain. I speak Latin. Some of it. Enough to teach the basics."

She turned quickly to Captain Paranoia, nearly tripping over the hem of the ridiculous dress again. How in the world had she ever thought it was lovely? Utter waste of cloth, space, and her time. "Then it's settled."

Captain Paranoia pursed his lips, eyes narrowing slightly at her. "You have accepted your place here rather quickly. Especially with the thought of tutelage from our new schoolmaster."

Alynia sighed, rubbing her temples. One day, she'd fight a bad guy without Sherlockian deductive capabilities. "Look, I'm trying to be happy like you said, okay? Let it be, Captain," she growled aloud this time. "Not everyone who crosses your path is an enemy. That way lies madness and you know it."

"It's all right, Captain," Ichabod the beloved Idiot cut in. "Uh, erm, if it pleases your lordship, I mean, sir. I would not mind a proper introduction to the ladies if I am to be instructing them." One of the soldiers, Knife-Wielder if she remembered correctly, earned his name yet again by drawing a blade at the mention of herself and Linnet. Iowin made a decent show of swallowing hard. "Proper introductions, that is, with your direct supervision, of course."

Captain Irritating walked over to them, offering his free hand to Alynia. Gritting her teeth behind her small smile, she curtsied and took the offered hand, letting him pull her closer to his side and further from her husband. The other soldier drew a second blade, and both held them down at their sides. Both stood ready to defend their captain and his wards if the schoolmaster so much as blinked wrong.

Both would die before they so much as lifted those blades, either by her hand or Iowin's. It was better if it didn't have to come to that.

So, distraction it was. Granted, her particular flavor of distraction involved her gun and a liberal application of sarcasm. This situation was different, and she was going to have to do yet another thing she swore she'd never do in her entire life.

She was going to have to be a girl, full-on weapons-grade girlie.

"Herr Crane, may I present Fraulein Linnet Caprice, daughter of Herr Henry Caprice, the village Governor," Captain Annoyance was saying. "And this is Fraulein Aloisia Caprice, my ward."

Captain Dickhead placed his hand on the small of her back, a gesture meant to be comforting. Also a gesture meant to show ownership of her life, claiming her as his property. Sparks danced in Iowin's eyes, a reaction he couldn't hide and a slip that Captain Over-observant didn't miss. His hand vanished from her back, settling on the handle of his dagger. Blades raised in the moonlight as his men followed the silent signal, glinting harsh and clean and yearning for dark liquid to coat them. Linnet gasped again at the sight of bare steel, all but flinging herself behind Captain Jerrick. He must have expected Alynia to do the same.

Fat chance of that.

Alynia dashed forward, interposing herself between Captain Jerrick and her husband. Her hand snapped forward, landing on Knife-Wielder's wrist.

"Don't," Alynia cried. "Please, it was just a turn of the shadows across Master Crane's face, that's all. Shadows play horrible tricks on the mind, don't they? He didn't upset me. Please, spare him."

Knife-Wielder had gray eyes, too, she noted. Lightly stormy eyes, like clouds after the rain finished falling, and dark brown hair with a slight curl. A tiny scar near his mouth added a kind of dimple to the left side of his face, causing a permanent sort of mischievous half-smile to rest on his lips.

"Fraulein," he said, nodding once to her and then to his Captain over her shoulder, slipping his blade back to his side.

Not into the sheath, she noted. "What is your name, sir?" she asked, pouring every inch of girlishness into the words as she could.

That surprised him, every bit as much as the warmth of her gloved hand on his arm. "Jonas, my lady," he replied, his English more refined than his Captain's. "Lieutenant Jonas Kraus."

What in the name of all the hells are you doing, Nia?

Shush. I'm playing my part.

By flirting with the man? Didn't you realize Captain Jerrick provoked me on purpose? He wanted to see what you would do as much as he wanted to see what I'd do.

Trust me, I'm aware. And I know what I'm doing. As I was so educated before you arrived, a woman has to pretend to be what she isn't in this time and place.

Feminism weeps.

And who was it that said it was a good idea to play our assigned parts in this badly acted play?

_Touché_ , he thought sourly.

Her snorted hint of laughter couldn't have been more well timed. Jonas smiled at her in response, obviously mistaking her reaction for that of a nervous girl attempting to contain her happiness in his company. Which he shouldn't, considering she was probably older than he was. But in this time of non-Clinique counters and harsh cake-soap facials, she could pass for a girl barely a few summers older than Linnet without a problem. Captain Jerrick certainly hadn't vocalized a problem with their interaction.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Herr Kraus," she whispered, lowering her gaze in what she hoped was a flirtatious manner. "Oh, and you as well, Master... was it Krabbe, you said?"

Really? Krabbe?

You chose to be Ichabod of all people. That just begs to be mocked. Why not Bram Bones Van Brunt, the village rowdy? Less likely to be bullied.

I couldn't find Bram Bones. I found Ichabod, or rather I found his house after he ran for his life. Apparently he had no stomach for a war nearly on his doorstep. He left his letter of introduction behind, though. Useful, that.

"Crane," Iowin gritted out between clenched teeth, trying not to glare at the muffled laughter of the soldiers to either side of him. "Ichabod Crane, Fraulein Aloisia. The honor is mine."

She turned towards Captain Jerrick. "Why is this man under guard? I mean, if I am allowed to ask, that is."

"Herr Crane wandered into village after dusk. I have placed a curfew while the rebels fight near our home, for the safety of all citizens. There are terrors in the night, Fraulein Aloisia, and I would not see them visited upon this peaceful village."

The cop in her reared its self-righteous head, breathing the fire of injustice across her soul. Oh, she just bet the curfew was for their protection. Just like the background checks and holding people against their will by, say, drugging them, was simply a minor inconvenience to their non-existent personal liberties. She had to remind herself that things like 'innocent until proven guilty' and 'due process' were nothing more than pipe dreams currently being smoked up by the actual members of the Continental Congress. If she remembered her history correctly, the ink wasn't dry yet on the articles penned by the Third Congress meeting.

Which all meant she had no legal leg to stand on, her beloved laws not yet ratified. No, there was only one law in Sleepy Hollow. Uncle Henry Caprice may be the mayor of this little village, but Captain Liberty-Smasher over there was the one calling the shots.

"Master Crane," she repeated, twisting her snarl into a smirk, joining in on the mocking of Iowin's assumed name. Her hand resting lightly on Jonas's arm. "I do hope you enjoy your time in this—our little village. Captain, should we not invite Master Crane to dinner tonight, a show of welcome? I'm certain he is weary from his travels and would enjoy a good warm meal."

"A lovely idea," Linnet added. "We can welcome Master Crane and my cousin, Aloisia, in a proper way. Please say you will entertain the idea?"

"And, if you will spare these two gentlemen," Alynia added, throwing a rather thinly concealed coquettish smile towards Jonas in particular. "They could ensure Master Crane behaved himself, since he is so new to th--our village?"

Captain Jerrick considered the request for a long moment, his eyes never leaving hers. Measuring, she was certain, and trying to figure out what game she was playing with him and his men. Maybe it was a trick of the shadows, but she swore she saw his nose twitch slightly. Probably remembering how this 'helpless little girl' had broken it and a few of his ribs during their first meeting. She made a show of frowning, lowering her eyes and gripping the sides of her skirts in frustration, then changing her mind and meeting Captain Jerk's gaze with an expression of seriously-I'm-trying-what-more-do-you-want-from-me. Those full lips tilted into a semblance of a smirk, the tension in his shoulders easing.

"I agree," he said at length. "Lady Aloisia should familiarize herself with her new home and its residents. My ward will be kept safe here for some time, I believe," he stared deep into her eyes, promising a whole other kind of conversation when he got her alone. "To recover from her ordeals, of course."

"Of course," Alynia nodded, actually biting her tongue and accepted his offered arm once again.

The fingers of her left hand lingered on Jonas's sleeve though, long enough for the polite distance in his eyes to warm as she stepped away. "Good night, Lieutenant Kraus. I hope to see you later tonight."

She flung the curls of her hair behind her shoulders, the rose behind her ear falling to the ground behind them.

"Bring him," Captain Jerrick barked.

As they turned the corner, Alynia saw Iowin immediately bend down to retrieve the rose. Lieutenant Jonas's blade lifted first, halting Iowin in mid-reach. He bent down instead, capturing the dropped flower and bringing it to his nose. The bloom found itself tucked into the breast pocket of his jacket. Lieutenant Kraus nee Knife-Wielder grabbed Iowin by the upper arm, his partner mirroring him on the other side, dragging him along between them.

I hope you know what you're doing, my Nia.

She swallowed hard _. So do I._

# Chapter 9

"What, exactly, is your deal with my cousin?"

Captain Jerrick blinked in surprise, nearly choking on a sip of red wine. His azure eyes left the swirl of dancers, focusing solely on his adopted ward. "What do you mean, deal?"

"It's quite simple, really," Alynia flicked open her fan, waving the painted canvas back and forth in a lazy-like manner. "Do you intend to wed my cousin, or is she nothing more to you than a beautiful war-time distraction?"

The boldness of her question caught him off guard, so much so that he took a moment to wipe his mouth with a cloth napkin, buying time to phrase his answer. Alynia didn't bother to hide her smile, giving him all the rope he needed to hang himself. Her own gaze drifted across the lively common room of Mayor Caprice's Inn, the colorful autumnal decorations of Indian corn and straw bales adding a comforting joy that no mass-marketed plastic decor ever could. The long tables were removed after the initial dinner, leaving space for after-dinner dancing and frivolity. Cups—honest to goodness glass cups—raised to lips, filled with the deliciousness of spiced wines and ciders. In the corner, three gentlemen had shed their outer coats and stood with waistcoats visible, playing softly on violins.

Despite the number of people in the room, and the lack of air conditioning, the room wasn't stuffy or hot. Weather patterns in 1789's Sleepy Hollow (yes, she'd finally conceded to the damn name) apparently followed the trends of modern-day upstate New York. So while it was a touch too cold to move about outside without coats, the open windows and doors of the Inn, combined with a healthy fire in the large central fireplace, created just the right temperature for a party.

It reminded her so much of her grandmother's home that she had to smile. The last time she'd been there was during the last family reunion, back when she and Iowin were just beginning to date.

Stars, the whole thing felt like a lifetime ago.

_Don't do that_ , Iowin whispered, and she had to force her eyes away from the corner where he sat. _We're going home. I promise._

I'm not so sure about that anymore. We're surrounded by enemies on all sides.

You have your family.

She fanned herself, using the thing to shield the direction of her glance. Linnet Caprice sat next to Lieutenant Kraus, chatting amicably over two glasses of amber liquid, the rose from the garden twirling in one hand, matching the rose on his lapel. Alynia hoped it was the spiced apple cider and not the moonshine whiskey in their glasses. It wasn't like there were regulations on the making of that stuff yet. Good ol' Jack Daniels wouldn't take the world by storm until the 1850's, and she doubted the founding of the ATF or the USDA was particularly high on President Washington's To-Do's. The last thing she needed was a tipsy-possibly-poisoned Linnet growing a spine and lobbing magic all over the party.

I'm not sure we can fully trust Linnet. I think she's the heart of this whole problem.

Iowin returned his attention to his book, idly turning a page. _How so?_

She admitted to casting a protection spell on Captain Anal Retentive over here.

Mentally, he shook his head. _You need to study more, beloved. A protection spell wouldn't have the juice to—_

From her mother's inherited spell book, Iowin.

He considered that a moment. _The curse on your family happened over two thousand years ago. I don't think that's the problem. She'd need a lot more juice than an old spell to grant immortality to someone._

Her hand rose to her amulet, fingertips brushing it gently. _I don't know. I held the book for about a minute and I can feel its echo through my own power. It... amplified the amulet I wear somehow. I felt it like a second heartbeat on my skin._

You think the book is an artifact all by itself?

Possibly. Like I said, you really need to see it.

Iowin slouched a bit on the wooden bench, adopting a posture that stated for all the world that he'd rather be elsewhere. Perhaps someplace quiet where he could read in peace. _We'll figure it out. After this party, we'll find a way to meet and formulate a plan._

Deal. Just don't eat or drink anything for the rest of the night, okay?

_Why?_ His eyes narrowed behind the book. She could feel it. _Drugs?_

_Drugs,_ she confirmed. _And magic. If they want you drugged in this place, you're going to get super thirsty and hungry without realizing it. They got me with it and kept me under for a day._

Sparks of rage danced along her skin, an echo from the wrath burning inside his heart. It always had to be drugs, and always mingled with some sort of dark magic. Maybe they'd missed their calling in the mortal world. Maybe they were meant to be DEA instead of homicide. _Thank you for the warning. I'll take precautions._

Be careful, my love. The people in this village all have their own agendas, and I don't think any of them are on the same level with each other. I'm... I think I'm truly afraid.

_You're not,_ he replied firmly.

How do you know?

Because I'm not hip-deep in bodies, Nia. You don't get scared. You get pissed. And when that happens...

She was glad for the fan Linnet had given her before dinner. It hid the smirk quite nicely. _Bodies meet floor, I get it. If we get stuck here, that's going to happen a lot._

Iowin glanced up from the book he pretended to read, eyes drifting across the sea of dancers with the casual boredom of a man at a party who didn't know anyone. His gaze lingered on hers long enough for her to feel his love before moving on.

_We're going home._ He thought firmly. _Bet on it. Know it in your heart. I promised you forever, Alynia Caprice Tintreach. Either here in the past or home in the future, forever is forever. I love you._

I love you, Iowin Tintreach. Forever and ever and ever after that.

Dammit, those crystal tears were back in her eyes. Since when did she become such a crybaby? It must be all that pretending-to-be-girlie-crap.

"Don't do that," Captain Jerrick echoed, grasping her chin gently between thumb and forefinger and lifting her face to his. "You were smiling so lovely a moment ago. Do not think of the things that make you cry. That life is behind you now."

"You misinterpret what makes me happy and what makes me sad, Captain," she pulled her chin away. "This place is my sorrow, and my so-called previous life is my joy."

"Only for now. Your heart will heal along with your constitution."

"Spoken like a man that has never been in love," she quipped. "Well, I suppose that answers my question. Good evening, Captain Jerk."

She spun on her heel to go. His hand touched her elbow, two fingers applying gentle pressure. She paused, knowing if she didn't the rest of the fingers would follow. Plastering a fake smile on her lips, one she knew he'd see right through, she spun back around. "Yes, Captain?"

He frowned, concern and confusion warring with his features. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you fight me so much, Aloisia?"

"What happened to the Fraulein prefix, Captain?"

"You are my ward, formally presented and introduced to the rest of this village's society. Familiarity between us is expected. You no longer need to address me as Captain."

"Okay, then," she replied with her best and most lovely smile. "Screw you, Jerrick von Knyphausen. How's that for familiarity?"

Yup, she was right. The rest of the hand followed, and the pressure was every bit as painful as she expected. Her smile froze on her lips, glaring at him.

"You're hurting me, Jerk."

"I expect you to behave yourself properly in public, Aloisia."

"And I always expect you to be truthful with me. Looks like we're both disappointed tonight."

She tugged at her arm, his fingers locking around the joint and pulling her closer. Not enough to cause a scene, but enough to discourage anyone from starring in their direction too long or being foolish enough to interrupt.

"Answer me, my ward," True exasperation peppered each word. "Why are you unhappy? Why are you provoking me tonight?"

"Linnet."

He blinked again. "What of her?"

Alynia leaned in closer, felt his fingers release her, his hand resting on her shoulder in a fatherly way. "She loves you, you giant idiot," she whispered hotly. "This isn't some foolish girlhood crush on the dashing Captain. This is real to her. She's expecting a ring and a promise of 'till death do you part' if you get my meaning. If you're not all in with her, you need to let her go. And while you're at it, you need to let me go, too."

"Nein, impossible. I have named you my ward. That cannot be undone."

"Just what is your infatuation with me, anyway? You don't know the first thing about me, and all of a sudden you're all about the protecting and honoring and all that jazz."

"What is... jazz?"

Christ, she really needed to ease up on the pop culture references around this place. "It's a place in France, okay. Anyway, that's not the point. What's your deal with me? I'm an adult. I'm married. I don't need to be anyone's ward."

"You are a mystery."

"And that's all that's needed to take away someone's freedom, being a mystery?"

"Nein, fighting like a man on a battlefield is one. A second is your speech, your mannerism. Thirdly," he dropped his voice to a whisper, his lips brushing her ear. "Thirdly is your magical talisman. You are a witch, Aloisia, or a Valkyrie who has chosen my men for some unknown reason. I know it, for I should have died several times in the days before your arrival. The night you arrived, I prayed to all the gods for deliverance or understanding of this unliving state. You appeared, and your talisman is a weapon of extraordinary strength."

Oh, bloody hell in a handbasket, this so wasn't good. The talisman in question had to be her gun. He had her fucking gun. And to him, yes, it would be magic just for its design. Hell, just for the fact it was clip-fed and didn't require the powder to be kept dry to use it more than once. Not to mention that it really was magic—in her or Iowin's hands at least. She opened her mouth to defend herself, and he lifted a hand, shaking his head.

"I have performed all the known cures to remove your power from me and save your soul. Exorcism by the priests while you slept, garlic and herbs in your food. Wild roses against your skin or your hair to prevent your power. The lining of the gown you now wear bears a cross of thread-of-gold smeared with holy water and hand-stitched by a priest. I took your name away from you, your supposed source of power. Your will continues to govern me, continues to hide Sleepy Hollow from the rest of the world. I want to know why. Why me, and why this village?"

Shit, Iowin, are you listening to all this?

All of it. Don't panic.

Jerrick gave her a little shake, enough to rattle her teeth but not enough to snap her head around, his face quickly shifting into lines of desperation. "What do you want me to say?" she whispered harshly. "You've already passed judgment on me, Jerrick. Anything I say won't do a bit of good. And you never answered my question about Linnet."

Easier said than done! He's not the enemy here, she thought rapidly. A double-doucheface cockhead with a penchant for colonial-era roofying supposed witches, yes, but he's a victim as much as we are. Linnet did this.

And she's using you to pay the price.

I think you give her too much credit. I think this spell was an accident and my presence is a coincidence, a happy accident.

I wouldn't call this happy, beloved, and I thought we didn't believe in coincidences.

That was before we knew the Headless Horseman was alive and well and dating my ancestor!

"Nein, I need answers, Aloisia."

"So do I. Tell me what you have planned for Linnet and me—"

"I love her," he all but growled into her ear, any shred of civility vanishing from his face. "You cut me deeply by claiming I have no knowledge of love? Nein! I know love, Aloisia. I love deeply and I love Linnet. But I cannot be the man she needs, the man who will give her children, if I am unliving, if I am undying. I cannot wed her with this curse upon me and the village. Tell me what is going on before others die."

It all suddenly clicked. His interest in ruling this village, and his interest in her. Captain Jerrick von Knyphausen, brother of Landgrave Frederick II of Hesse-Kassel and next in line for the title, was terrified. He'd become immortal. He'd stumbled into the unexplainable, undefinable, in the mundane world and was too honorable or stubborn or both to walk away from it. Add love into the equation, and he was well and truly trapped. He was at his wit's end for answers and smart enough to understand the hell that awaited himself, his men, and the good people of Sleepy Hollow if he didn't find a way out.

Her time playing damsel in distress was over.

The fan clattered to the floor, her fingers grabbing the pressure point in his wrist and applying some physics of her own. He let go with a swallowed grunt, staring at her with wide eyes.

"What do you mean, others?" she demanded, jabbing a finger into his chest. "Who's died? What's been happening here? Jerrick, I can help. I am—was, I mean--a cop, not that the term is recognized around here. What it truly means is that I investigate the bad things, protect the innocent, and attempt to right the wrongs. Believe it or not, we're on the same side here. And for the record, I didn't do anything to you. Aside from breaking your nose and your ribs, that is, but you deserved that and you know it. Let. Me. Help. You."

She'd all but backed him into the wall, every word of her last sentence punctuated with another finger-jab into his chest. Thank all the stars ever they were partially screened by a giant bale of hay. Who ever thought they'd be thankful for that?

"Valkyrie," he whispered in the wake of her silence, blue eyes wide and burning. "You are truly a Valkyrie come here to save us."

She expected a lot of things to happen after a statement like that. Flailing and screaming, potentially like a little girl, was primary on the list. Calls for burning her at a stake as a witch was next on the list (possibly with the massive materialization of pitchforks and rope, like that crap was left lying in reserve somewhere in a 'break glass in case of witch' wall kit or something).

What she didn't expect was the reverent bow, followed by the great brick wall of a man crashing down to one knee and pressing her knuckles to his forehead. "Save us, honored maiden of Odin. I am yours in this life and the next. Please, save us."

A single drop of moisture ran down her fingertips, his head lifting to reveal sorrowful baby-blues. The first honest and one hundred percent complete truth he'd given her since they'd tried to kill each other days ago.

"Save us or deliver us unto Odin. Both will end the horror."

Son of a bitch.

Alynia!

I'm fine. I think. God, Iowin, what the hell is going on?

I need that book.

Go get Linnet and ask her for it. Ask her to show you the spell she used to do all this. Then figure out which building has the footprint we used to get here in the first place.

What about you?

I'm going to play Norse demi-god tonight.

"Help me to help you, Jerrick," she whispered, drawing him up to his feet. "Together, we'll get through this."

"Ja. At your command."

"Take me to where these 'others' are located, the ones that have already died. I need to see them."

For once she was actually glad he was a trained soldier. Those heels clicked together in a proper German salute, and he turned without preamble towards the rest of the gathering.

"Wait!" she rushed over to him, plucking the kerchief from—sigh!—her bodice, and dabbing it against his cheeks. "You are a proud warrior, Captain Jerrick. No more tears. This ends tonight."

Pride washed across his visage, and it had nothing to do with the mask he'd worn before. Pride and relief and joy. It was touching, almost made him seem like not so much of a dickhead—-until he brought that kerchief to his nose and inhaled deeply. Like the scent of her body was the rarest of perfumes. "Ja, Valkyrie."

She groaned, and hairstyle be damned, shoved her fingers through her hair. Pins clattered to the floor. Neither of them cared.

"It's Alynia, Jerrick. Not Valkyrie. Not Aloisia. My name is Alynia Caprice Tintreach. Say it with me now."

"Ah-Hlein-eh-Ah."

Bless his heart, he honestly tried.

"Fuck it," she rolled her eyes. "Aloisia. Just call me Aloisia. It's easier for all of us."

"Ja. Fuck it Aloisia. Understood."

Her mouth fell open as he executed a military turn, tucking her kerchief into his breast pocket like a precious gold coin. She thought about calling after him, if only to correct him in the use of the phrase 'fuck it.' It wasn't her title!

Iowin's guffaws of laughter floated across the bond. Well, wasn't she just amusing the hell out of everyone tonight.

# Chapter 10

They rode out into the night, six riders in black, like shadows smeared across the starlit landscape. It hadn't taken Jerrick long to round up the core group of his men. In fact, since learning they couldn't die on the battlefield, many of them had taken to always staying armed. Always ready for whatever challenge faced their unit next, ready to stand in the way of harm for their cause. Alynia changed her mind about them. They weren't mercenaries at all. They were simply men—heavily armed and heavily trained warrior men—who happened to believe that the monarchy was the best system of government.

Democrat or Republican. Monarchist or Patriot. It was all political differences.

Save for the fact that their debates were answered with powder and steel rather than facts and well-prepared arguments.

It was a point they'd discuss another night, she decided. Especially after they'd released Iowin to his own devices and rounded up enough black clothing to outfit Alynia as one of their own. Black breeches, black boots to the knee, black shirt and jacket. The jacket in particular was big in the shoulders and long on the arms, the cuffs reaching all the way to the first joints of her fingers. But they didn't bat an eye as she rolled those up to mid-wrist and pulled her hair back into its beloved single braid. No more curls and pins and jewels. No more creams rubbed into her skin to create that look of delicate flawlessness.

No more ass pillows, dress plumpers, petticoats, or stays.

Just Alynia Caprice Tintreach, ex-cop and now time-traveling-adopted-Hessian-mercenary-pseudo-Valkyrie, armed with a long knife and her beloved, precious, Glock. They'd handed her a black-bladed dagger to wear at her waist. Talk about getting medieval.

She'd stared at herself long and hard in the mirror before they headed out. Dear stars above, in all that unrelieved black, she looked ready to play stunt double for any evil queen in any fantasy movie. Yeah, Carmina was never ever going to let her live this down.

Her new Band of Brothers did more than bat an eye when the gun touched her palm, though. That's where the near girl-like shrieking occurred. Magic flowed through her into the enchanted steel, mud and muck and whatever else they'd tried to use to understand her weapon flaked away from its exterior. Grooves and marks from chisels and files repaired themselves, what she hoped was gunpowder pumping itself out of the barrel in a spray of gray neutralized dust. The gun was whole, shiny and clean, and never felt better in her hand.

Proof that magic was real. Proof that she was more than human. Proof that Caprice women preferred to do no harm, but had no trouble putting foot to ass to protect their own. And what do you know, the village of Sleepy Hollow had just been adopted by her. There was a new sheriff in town, and she was beyond pissed off.

Lock and load, bitches. It was time to clean house.

Alynia clung to Jerricks's back, arms wrapped around his waist and head buried against his shoulder. It'd dimmed the hope she offered them when she mentioned she'd never ridden a horse in her entire life. They didn't use horses where she came from, was the only explanation she could give. The fact that she was damn near terrified of them didn't help with the situation, either. But it was hard not to yelp like a little girl when Jerrick applied boot heels and reins to his beloved warhorse. Dagger, was its name. And Dagger soared down the moon-soaked path, the rest of the band quickly at their heels.

"How far until we reach them?" she screamed into the wind.

"Not far," Jerrick called back. "And you do not have to scream. I can hear you fine."

"Sorry," she said at a somewhat less screeching volume. "I told you, we don't use horses where we come from. This is all new to me."

He chuckled. She felt it deep in his chest, where her arms replayed his vice-like hold from their first meeting. "I thought all Valkyries were master riders."

"I thought all Hessian warlords killed for sport."

A snort of laughter from somewhere to her left had her opening her eyes. Jonas road at their side, his grin wide, his teeth flashing white in the moonlight. "Not all," he winked. "If you come home to Hesse-Kassel with us, I will introduce you to a few who need honor retaught to them."

The rest laughed at that, Jerrick joining his men. Alynia smiled in spite of herself. They reminded her so much of her family, both work and blood. "Why so far away from the village?"

The smile vanished from Jonas' face in a blink. "They are the ones that died for us, lady Aloisia."

Her eyes narrowed. "What do you mean by that?"

"We keep them far from the village for the safety of all," Jerrick explained. "It was our hope that the problem lay in a few dead, not in the entire citizenry of the village."

"I still don't get it. How did they die for you? What was the problem?"

Storm gray eyes met the steel-gray of her own. "'The' problem, my lady. It is witchcraft."

"All will be explained when we reach the cemetery," Jerrick decreed.

No one felt like joking after that, and not even the exertion of flying across the hard-packed dirt road by moonlight could rouse their spirits.

The bodies lay spread out before her, a gruesome story that needed no explanation. Twelve in total, their various limbs straightened to some semblance of a restful pose. The Hessians had done well by them in that regard at least, Alynia mused. Everyone kept in the stone sarcophagus of the abandoned mausoleum several miles away from the village proper. Each had their names chiseled above that of the former occupant, and below that the name of the Hessian who'd unwillingly swapped fate with the victim.

Alynia knelt down by the first, wishing for latex gloves instead of the black leather that encircled her fingers. What was left of the man's chest could have fit neatly in a small evidence bag, the late stage decomp telling the story of his death better than the missing remains. Unless she missed her guess, a large projectile slammed into the poor guy, exploding and obliterating ninety percent of his chest and abdomen.

"Cannonball," Jonas explained softly. "A cannonball from a rebel regiment broke free of the tree line, my lady. The shot was an impossible one, and we did not expect it to reach us."

"We did not anticipate the rebels' intensity in battle," a rider named Conrad picked up the tale. "Their zeal is commendable, but also borderline insane. They overloaded the cannon with powder to make that shot possible. It destroyed the cannon, its crew, and would have ended Jonas' life."

"It should have ended my life," Jonas insisted, fury tightening his features. "It did not. I survived."

"And when you returned to Sleepy Hollow, you found him," she gestured to the body.

"Ja. Herr Morgan was a cobbler, my lady, elderly and respected by the community. Next in line to become Mayor. He was found in his shop the day after the battle, his body just like this."

Alynia nodded, shoving her emotions into a corner of her heart and picking up her old chant: Do the job. Get the confession. Make the arrest. Go home. No room for emotions in any of that. She moved on to the next body, closing her eyes a long moment before forcing her mind to reconcile what was in front of her. Torso of a large male, head and limbs detached and resting in close approximation of their original position on the body.

"Herr Thomas Doulcet, a farmer on the west end of the village," Conrad continued. "This one was mine. I was captured by a grouping of rebels and found guilty in the eyes of their commander. They did not offer prisoner of war status to me," his face clouded over with rage. "My execution was performed immediately, my limbs tied to the saddles of horses and—"

She raised a hand, shaking her head back and forth. She didn't need to hear the story. She saw it in the remains, could only imagine the hell Mr. Doulcet endured as his body was pulled apart slowly. Slowly, she understood, as Conrad's limbs were attached. Those horses must have pulled and pulled over and over again, yanking Conrad's arms and legs from their sockets, but unable to complete true dismemberment. All the while, Mr. Thomas died slowly.

Horribly.

They all died horribly. Twelve deaths by magic. Willing or unwilling, Linnet had murdered twelve people in the name of love.

The first Caprice serial killer. The thought made her want to vomit more than the scene before her.

_It's bad_ , Iowin whispered through the bond, the words not in the least bit a question.

_It's bad_ , she confirmed, kneeling down next to the next body in line. _Twelve dead that we know about, some quick and relatively painless. Others twisted enough to be prohibited by the bloody Geneva Convention. Stars, Iowin, what do we do with this one?_

_Good question._ His emotions grim. _If this was a one-time spell, I... I don't know. In our time, I'd have her under the auspice of one of your family until she learned how to better control her powers. In this time and place, I don't think there's anyone around to help her. There's a reason magic runs in families, my Nia, and you're staring right at it. Without each other to rely upon, to teach right and wrong, we end up with... with..._

_With accidental witch serial killers_ , she rubbed at her nose with the back of one gloved hand, careful to keep her fingers away from her face. _What I wouldn't give for Beads of Binding right now._

If we had them, we couldn't make use of them. The spell in this book is intense, complex. I haven't seen magic like this in decades.

_The news around here just gets better and better,_ she sighed aloud, staring up at the roof of the old mausoleum. _How long to decipher it?_

_I'll need Linnet's help to do that_.

She froze. _Isn't she with you?_

She went back to her father's house at his request. Apparently Mayor Caprice has had enough of his only daughter running off with newly arrived strange men in this village. She's allowed to return when you or Captain Jerrick returns to escort her.

Wait, where are you?

His smile translated across the bond, along with the faint scents of night-blooming flowers. _I'm back at the footprint. It wasn't a house like we originally thought. It's the gardens. We should get remarried in the gardens behind your grandmother's house. You in that pale green dress, and me in breeches and waistcoat_.

She suppressed a smile. A goal to look forward to for sure, provided they made it out of this mess alive. _I'd rather not wedding plan while standing over the dead._

You're standing for the dead, not over them. And I'll have to wait for eternity before you stop doing that. Go be the cop, beloved. I'll be the warlock.

Be careful, Iowin. I don't like you being in that garden alone. Remember what I said about everyone in that village having their own agenda.

I will. Love you.

Love you, too.

The link faded, and she rose to her feet. He was right about one thing, and it had nothing to do with wedding plans. She always stood for the dead, and always would.

"This is why you decapitated the men on the battlefield, wasn't it?" she asked Jerrick. "Mercy killing on the off chance they'd end up the victims of your survival."

Jerrick frowned, his face a mask of shame, and nodded. "It was a better end than what happened to these men. This one was mine," he stepped up next to the last body in the line, his handsome face drawn down in sadness. "The first to die in my place. His name was Abraham Von Trapp, called Bram Bones by the rest of the village. He was an apprentice physician, and the first to die in our stead."

Alynia walked over to him, stared down at the body, and froze. "Did you say 'Abraham' and 'Bones?'"

"Ja," he nodded, eyes instantly alert. "You have discovered a clue, my lady?"

"Ja—I mean, yes. Tell me, was Bones Von Trapp in love with Linnet Caprice?"

"Ja," he answered slowly. "Why?"

"Let me guess, Mayor Caprice didn't like the idea of his only daughter marrying a sawbones, did he?"

"Ja," Jerrick said again, the rest of his men falling utterly silent, riveted to her words. "How did you know?"

Alynia knelt down, fingers probing the wound at Von Trapp's throat. As she predicted, the head rolled away from the rest of the body. "Cannonball to the head," she murmured, staring up at him. "It should have killed you. Dammit, I was wrong."

"Wrong, how?"

"I thought the cannonball firing over our heads that night we met was supposed to be the one that killed you, Jerrick. It wasn't."

"I do not understand, lady Aloisia. What have you discovered?"

"You were supposed to be the Headless Horseman, the ghost that haunts this place in my time."

His men crossed themselves, steel ringing aloud as swords slid free and pistols loosened in their holsters. Ready to defend their Captain, their brother, and their friend with their very lives. Jerrick closed his eyes, lifting the cross from beneath his shirt and pressing it to his lips. "If such is my fate."

She slapped the cross from his hands, glaring. "For the love of all that's good, Jerrick, if you're going to marry a Caprice, you need to dig deep for a bigger set of balls. We don't lay down like doormats or accept 'fate' without just cause. We aren't romanticized heroes throwing our lives away, either. We're going to work together and we ARE going to stop this from happening. So let's ride."

She spun away on her heel.

Iowin! I know who the killer is, and it's not Linnet. I know why you couldn't find Bram Bones. There was truth to the legend. Stars, it was right here in front of us way back—I mean forward—in 2016. She's innocent!

There was no reply, not a whisper of love across their bond.

There was... nothing.

Iowin?

IOWIN!

"Jerrick, I know who's responsible for your situation and I know why," she cried, running for the mausoleum doors. "Hurry, or we'll never save them all in time!"

# Chapter 11

Silence greeted the company as they rode through the west gate of the city, unnatural quiet as familiar to Alynia now as a shiver dancing up her spine. She did her best to suppress it, failing miserably. Foreboding choked the once-lively streets, dread walking arm-in-arm with death around every shadowy corner. There was no life in the village, at least not in the traditional sense. Everything was frozen in time, smashed to stillness beneath a magical plate of glass, like flowers pressed between the pages of books.

Alynia slid down from the back of Dagger, temporarily forgetting her fear of the great beast of a horse and patting it comfortingly on its hindquarters. Dagger shook his mane in appreciation, whickering softly. She couldn't blame the horse for it. She certainly wanted someone to comfort her right in that moment. The rest of the warriors appeared to have similar desires, silently dismounting and placing hand to mane or neck of the war steeds. All eyes coolly surveyed the streets of their once home, viewing shops and empty carts as possible threats rather than happy places of commerce.

"What devilry is this?" Conrad whispered, his voice barely carrying past their group. "Where are the sounds and the street lamps?"

"Where are the tower guards?" asked another.

"The clouds," Jonas pointed at the sky. "They do not move. They were racing through our travels to the graves and back. Why are they not moving now?"

"Look," the fifth member of their party gestured to the treetops barely visible above the wall. "Why are they not standing straight? They blend like they are caught in a strong wind, but there is no wind. Branches do not grow in tilted directions."

"It's magic," Alynia growled, drawing her glock and popping off the safety. "Stunners," she whispered, the _click-clack_ as the weapon shifted ammo, a welcoming song to her ears. "I've felt this type of spell before. It happened the night before Iowin and I came here."

"He is like you, then," Jerrick drew his sword, the ring of steel echoing as his men followed suit. "A guardian of the dead."

"In a roundabout way, yes," she nodded. "He's supposed to be working on the spell to undo your curse and send us back home."

"He has my best wishes for the first," Jonas smirked, and then shrugged a shoulder at her glare. "I like you. Our Captain likes you. I am not the only one that wants you to stay with us."

Another round of murmured approvals, with their dear Captain wisely not making a sound either way. Alynia gripped her weapon in both hands, bringing the familiar weight up and parallel with her left ear.

"Which way?" Jerrick asked instead.

"The garden behind the Inn. That has to be ground zero for the spell. At least that's where we found what was left of it in our time."

He nodded once, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Wait. We have been honest with you, Lady Aloisia. We have made you part of our company. Be honest with us. Tell us what you have discovered."

The others turned in unison, earnest faces peering at her from all directions. She took a deep breath. Dammit, she didn't want to do this to them, but they had a right to know.

"If I'm right about this, and I usually am, you all have been used as a living anchor for the spell that cloaks this village. Where I'm from, the Headless Horseman doesn't exist. It's a myth, a story created by a traveling author to scare people for fun. Now I know that you all did exist, and that someone used magic to make this village invisible to the rest of the world. Think about it. Why hasn't the war touched these lands yet? There should be British troops all over the place, scouring the village for supplies and all but stealing the crops right out of the ground. The war isn't going well for them, or for you."

They nodded, one by one.

"Someone is keeping this village a secret, and if their intentions were pure in the beginning, they've gone dark. Each time you ride off to battle and are hurt, that hurt transfers to someone in this village. Someone chosen not at random by this spell, but by the caster's will. They're using each of you to power the spell by destroying their enemies through you. Sending you to certain death every day provides more bodies, more souls, to shroud this city from unwanted eyes."

"But merchants and tradesmen come to Sleepy Hollow all the time," Jonas countered. "If the village is invisible..."

"Nein," Conrad interjected. "Lady Aloisia said 'unwanted eyes,' not all eyes."

Jerrick hissed in German, and judging by the tone of it, he should be asking them to pardon his French... err, German. Yeah, looked like he understood exactly what she was driving at.

"Who knows the traveling schedules of the merchants and tradesmen better that we do?" he asked his men.

One by one, their faces darkened and their swords glinted in the frozen moonlight. Oh, they understood, alright. Who had the most to lose if the city fell? Who would murder the undesirable suitor of his only daughter? And who inside the city and possibly beyond for miles, aside from Iowin Tintreach, had the innate power to pull off a spell like this?

"Mayor Henry Caprice," she snarled, chambering a round and bringing her gun back into ready position. "Let's go stop us a madman."

Darkness covered the garden behind the Caprice Inn, shadows concealing their approach. Nothing moved in the alleys between the building and the garden save for their group, footfalls carefully placed to use that silence to their advantage. It wasn't until the outer wall came into view that movement and light returned. Torches blazed at random intervals, jammed into flowerbeds or in crevices in the statues, the flames blue-white, twisting the shadows they cast in unnatural forms. Like the shadows, themselves, were scrambling with all their might to escape the evil being worked in that place of lush life.

And there, next to the lavender roses--

IOWIN!

It took everything, every single ounce of her control, not to betray her position and scream out his name. To not run towards the love of her life and hurl all her magic at him. Not to harm, but to save.

Iowin stood to one side of the garden like a statue, himself, hand outstretched towards... what? Her fear, her terror for him, blinded her to the signal that should have been so clear. His palm was up though, his middle finger crossed behind his index, the rest curled into his palm. Like crossing of the fingers for good luck? She frowned, holding her own hand up to signal the rest to pause. No, that couldn't be it. Why would Iowin signal her for good luck? And how would he have known she was approaching from that direction? She didn't know which way they'd approach until arriving in the quarter, herself.

Dammit, there was no time to puzzle it out. Her beloved husband was caught in the trap, frozen in time, and she didn't have the Jag in which to race from it, either. _Talk to me, Iowin_ , she prayed. _What are you trying to tell me?_

Silence answered her, the most soul crushing silence of her entire life.

"Aloisia," Jerrick whispered, his voice barely more than a breath. "We are in position."

"Go," she breathed back. "Carefully. We don't know what that son of a bitch has planned for us. And we don't know where Linnet is, either."

"You believe she is helping him?" he asked, voice thick with swallowed emotion, the warrior within fighting against the man who wanted nothing more than to save his love.

It was a sentiment she could utterly agree with.

"It's a possibility," she conceded. "If she is, I don't think she knows she's doing it," she rested a hand on his shoulder. "She loves you, Jerrick. She'd never do this to hurt you. Remember that."

He swallowed and nodded once. "Viel Glück," he whispered, and faded into the darkness.

She hoped that was what it sounded like. _Good luck to you, too, Jerrick_.

Alynia took a deep breath, pressing forward. More of the garden emerged out of the gloom, flowers frozen in strange angles, like the breeze had come at all directions at once before vanishing altogether. Pressure increased as she approached, that horrific thickening of the air like just before an electrical storm. Her nerves tingled with it, her breath coming faster.

Linnet Caprice lay in the center of a wide circle of twigs and dead grass, her eyes open, transfixed on nothing. Clasped between her hands was the spellbook. But her chest moved up and down with the rhythm of life, that ruby around her neck flashing in the torchlight with each breath she pushed past her teeth. Some of the pressure in Alynia's chest eased. Her cousin was alive. Whatever spell froze this place in time wasn't situated on her, and she wasn't helping with it, either.

As if she were its focus, the thing that ground it to the earth and powered it all at the same time.

Shadows moved from her left and right, tiny glimpses of movement as the Hessians surrounded the garden on all sides. They were out for blood tonight, blood to avenge all those dead in order to fuel the dark magic. Blood to avenge what had been done to them. She had no desire to stop them, and for a tiny moment she understood what had driven Iowin to fall into Sean Shadowblack's trap all those years ago, why he clung to bits of it now. There was only so much pain and horror a person could take before they wanted to shell out a little payback.

Maybe the mercenary life wasn't all that bad. Maybe, just maybe, she'd let him dig that stupid cell phone out of the trunk for the rest of their honeymoon.

She was a Hessian, now, after all. Call a spade a spade or however the saying went.

Alynia took her position by the wall, sliding silently against it and around the corner before slipping into the cover of a large hedge. Iowin stood before her, the posture of his hand bothering her for some reason. Looking at it up close, she could only think of the sign language symbol for the letter "R." But why would that letter mean anything to her? How could it help—

R. The letter R.

As he stood before a bush damn near overflowing with...

With roses.

Her mind flashed back to earlier in the evening, watching Iowin stoop to pick up the rose that'd fallen from her hair. Jonas had stopped him, swooping down to pluck up the bloom as if it were worth more than diamonds. Part of her had to wonder if he was the mysterious member of Jerrick's crew that had offered to 'compensate for those mistakes' of her past by proposing marriage.

At the time, her only plan had been to seduce him into her confidence, to possibly use him to get leverage on how to get her and Iowin out from under Jerrick's ever-watchful eye. He'd had the flower with him the rest of the night, displayed proudly on his jacket lapel.

She needed that damned flower.

Carefully she crept along the wall, moving towards the end of the gardens near to where Jonas was supposed to launch his attack.

"I've been waiting for you, Lady Aloisia Caprice," Henry chortled, his voice coming from everywhere at once. "At last we can get on with the final protection of Sleepy Hollow."

# Chapter 12

Everything happened all at once. And by everything, she meant the equivalent of a freaking atom bomb going off at her feet. Hessians exploded from every direction, daggers whipping through the air and musket balls firing at alarming speeds. Apparently one of them knew where the Mayor was hiding, and the rest followed the direction of that first thrown weapon. Alynia wasn't any different, pointing her weapon in the general direction, but holding her fire.

"Jonas," she screamed. "I need the rose! I need it now!"

No one answered her, and she didn't expect him to. She'd made him the most valuable target on the field aside from herself. He wasn't going to give away his position unless he absolutely had to.

Weapons bounced soundlessly off the circle containing Linnet, Henry Caprice materializing at long last within its safety. "Fuck," Alynia murmured with feeling. "Hold your fire. It's not going to do you any good."

"Listen to the lady, my Hessian friends," Mayor Douchetard advised, his hands clasped behind his back. "You cannot reach me within the circle. Very soon, you will not be able to reach me at all."

"Let the girl go," Jerrick stepped out of the shadows, crossing into Henry's direct line of sight. "She has done nothing to deserve this."

Henry glanced down at his daughter, smiling faintly. It was like watching a skull smile. Or a jack o'lantern. Just creepy all freaking over. "Linny won't come to harm at all. In fact, I'm doing all of this for her. She's my child, my pride and joy. I'll not see her lose her home or her future to some hired mercenary. She's a good girl. She deserves better than you."

Alynia bit her lip, frustration and fear gnawing at her guts. Jerrick was providing cover, a distraction, so Jonas could make his way towards her. That much was painfully clear. The question was, would Jonas make it before Henry lost his temper. Those were odds she didn't want to put money on—ever.

"Ja, she does," Jerrick nodded, pressing his hands to the invisible wall separating him from his heart's desire. "I strive every moment to be worthy of her love."

"You're not worthy to lick her shoes, Hessian," Double Douchtard snarled, flinging out a hand. "You'll die time and again for her, your soul feeding the power that keeps her here forever. Young forever, alive forever. Safe. FOREVER! Her love for you will bind this spell."

Jerrick screamed, hands clawing at his throat. A gash of white light, barely more than a millimeter flashed between his fingers. A thin line slowly growing across his throat.

"NO!" Alynia screeched, leaping from the shadows and firing at the barrier. Her bullets bounced off the protection spell, uselessly evaporating into the night. "Dammit, stop it. You don't know what you're doing. This is black magic, Henry. Curses never work for the betterment of anything. That's why they're _curses_ , you fucking idiot. You're binding your daughter deeper into the hell you hope to pull her out of. Think about this!"

If he heard a word she said, he ignored it. Henry knelt before his daughter, brushing strands of copper curls from her face. Again, he had that serene look of all fathers, pride and love and devotion transforming his ugly mug into the gentle serenity of love.

Either that, or the serenity of the truly mad.

In the firelight, crystalline tears made trails down Linnet's pale cheeks, and Alynia swore she heard a muffled scream. She was fighting. Linnet Caprice was fighting her father's spell with all her might, desperately trying to reach her true love. Henry's fingers trespassed across the lavender bloom of the rose tucked delicately behind her ear, either too blind to understand the significance, or too lost in his own madness.

She was willing to bet on the latter.

"Her mother loved this garden," the madman crooned. "I built it for her. I built this whole village for her. The Revolution took my Samantha from me, killed by a ricocheted shot when she ventured too close to the fighting. All she wanted to do was heal, and her magic was so good at healing. I'll not lose Linnet, too. You don't understand."

"I understand plenty," Alynia kept her gun level with his left eye, slowly crossing the distance to where Jerrick writhed on the ground. "You're not the only one that lost loved ones to war."

He scoffed, rising to his feet and walking right up to the line of that circle of power. "What do you know of it, woman?"

"You think a man is the only one that can know true loss," she knelt down beside Jerrick, fingertips reaching out to the glowing gash spreading slowly along his throat.

"I wouldn't do that, were I you," Henry smiled, the emotion sharp.

Pain lit up her nervous system as her fingers touched the wound, a scream of utter torment ripping free of her lips. Jesus God, he wasn't just killing Jerrick, he was slicing his soul clean from his body. Severing his connection to the corporeal world inch by freaking inch, but allowing him to keep his conscious thought, the bits of him that made him a real person.

He was creating the Headless Horseman.

It was the same spell the Horseman had flung at her back in her time, the very same blue-white goo Iowin used in the tracking spell to bring them to this time and place.

The Horseman hadn't been trying to kill her. He'd been begging her to stop what was about to happen.

She was on her feet in a heartbeat, slamming her fist into the protection spell as hard as she could. "WHY?" she screamed. "Why the fuck are you doing this? Let him go. It doesn't have to be this way. You've killed enough people to fuel your spell. Twelve are dead. What more do you need?"

"I'm going to kill you, too. But what I have in mind is much less painful and much more helpful." the bastard rubbed his hands together. "I told you I had plans for you. I knew I could use you the moment I sampled your power. I need someone in the center of this circle, fueling the spell that hides this village."

"Me?"

"Yes, but don't feel bad about it. I've already given you company. Your husband, Iowin is his name? Yes, I think that's what my sweet Linnet told me. He'll stand as a statue here in the perfect garden for all time. He'll be the anchor, the focal point for all the energies the Hessians—my Hessians—generate on the battlefield. Once I have their Captain under my control, the rest will follow.

"You see, I do believe in love forever," he continued. "You'll just spend your forever here in service to me and to the village of Sleepy Hollow," he held out his hand. "Come join me, Alynia Caprice. Come take her place. I promise to create for you a perfect dream. You'll sleep forever in your paradise, and I'll live forever in mine. I fail to see how this is a bad deal."

Pressure condensed around her limbs, the air itself locking her in place as it must have done to Iowin. Only this time it was pushing her forward, closer and closer to Henry's outstretched fingers. If she crossed that circle, if he linked her power to that spell, they were all done for.

"Nein!" Conrad burst out of the trees in a rush, slamming Alynia to the ground.

More muskets fired. More daggers flew through the air, all bouncing harmlessly against the protection spell. Beside her on the ground, Jerrick writhed and kicked, tore at his throat in soundless wails of agony. The gash grew to the halfway point, his skin losing its healthy glow, pale corpse flesh growing its wake.

An explosion of rose petals shoved itself into her face, severing her view. The moment the flower touched her skin, the pressure vanished. She gasped, grabbing the thing with both hands. Iowin was right. The rose was a link to the garden, a part of it before the magic froze the ground in time. If she could push enough power through it, there was a chance she could blast the spell in two. Like slipping dynamite into the crack of a boulder.

It was worth everything to try.

"Do it," Conrad begged. "Save us!"

He leapt off of her and threw himself at the barrier, dual swords sparking as they collided with the magic. Jonas joined his brother, the others following, screaming battle cries in their native language. More sparks flew, obscuring the contents of the circle from view, the fury of their attacks like nothing she'd ever seen. And nothing she allowed herself to watch. She scrambled to her feet, running with that fragile rose towards the frozen statue of her husband. Iowin's other hand was clasped at his middle, fingers curled into a fist.

Or was that curled to clutch a particular flower's stem?

"I love you, you magnificent bastard," she whispered, planting a kiss on his lips, and shoving the rose and her power into his hand.

Like uncorking a bottle of champagne, there was a muffled popping sound followed by a sonic boom that knocked everyone to the ground. Wind rushed in to fill the vacuum, sound screaming back into existence. Torches extinguished, the natural light of the moon and stars returning tortured shadows to their proper form. The garden, itself, shuddered and sighed with relief.

She heard the most wonderful sound in all of existence.

"I love you, too," Iowin whispered, planting a kiss on her lips, and offering her a hand up. "Let's go get this bastard."

"Fucking A."

Henry glowered at them as they joined the fray, red fire wreathing both of Iowin's hands, dancing in flames across his eyes. Her Hessian allies made room, renewing the fury of their blows. It was enough that Henry stepped backwards, his feet tangling in the train of his daughter's gown. He fell hard on his ass. "It doesn't matter. He still dies."

"Father?" Linnet whispered, pushing herself to a sitting position. White ash fell against the side of her face, the remnants of the rose her beloved had given her. She brushed at it in confusion, blinking bleary eyes into focus like someone waking from a long sleep. "Father, what's going on? Why am I in the garde—Oh, no. NO! JERRICK!"

She threw herself towards her beloved.

"NO! Linnet, don't break the circle!"

She ignored him, pushed free of his grasping hands, and ran towards the only thing in the world that mattered. Her true love.

Her foot crossed the circle, and for the second time that night a sonic boom filled the air. Only this time a group of pissed-off warriors were ready for it; not a single one of them lost their footing. To his credit, Henry threw every spell in his limited repertoire at them, each one swallowed by bolts of flame from Iowin's hands, or pushed away by that same crimson fire. Without his daughter as a focus, though, he was just another Caprice Warlock suffering under the family curse of limiting his innate power to near uselessness. He wasn't a match for a full warlock like Iowin. He scrambled and whimpered, throwing his hands out to shield himself.

Until he was surrounded by black-clad agents of Death itself.

Alynia lined up the shot with his left eye once more. "Undo what you've done to Jerrick right the fuck now, or you can kiss whatever's left of your scrawny little ass goodbye."

"It's too late for him," Henry gasped, eyes filled with the certainty of his own demise. "I can't call it back. I don't know how."

"Jerrick," Linnet sobbed, holding him to her chest. "Please, God, someone help us!"

# Chapter 13

Iowin flipped through the ancient spell book with alacrity, searching through runes and spells as quickly as he could decipher them. Alynia grabbed as much wood as she could find, Conrad and Jonas snapping branches and ripping out plants by the roots. Just anything and everything they could lay hands on to rebuild that circle. Henry Caprice knelt miserably between the other two Hessian soldiers, his hands bound behind his back and to his ankles. A gag made of strips of his own coat shoved between his teeth.

Alynia dared to glance into the center of the circle. Linnet held her beloved's head in her lap, her arms wrapped around him. Bent nearly double over him as she sobbed in her misery.

"It was just a protection spell," she wailed. "Oh, Jerrick, I didn't know he used me to curse you. Please, my beloved, please believe me. Oh, god. Oh, god, oh, god, please. Please don't leave me."

Alynia didn't bother to stop the tears, her eyes reaching towards Iowin's. His met hers and then looked away. He didn't need to say he was out of options, that nothing in that book told him how to stop the curse. Jerrick would die. There was nothing they could do to stop it, and he'd rise as a ghost forever and ever.

Iowin knelt down next to Linnet, placing a hand gently on her shoulder. "Linnet, I... You need to take a breath and tell him it's okay. Tell him you love him, dearheart. He doesn't have much time left."

Jerrick lay in her arms, his skin cold and clammy. Breath barely moved in his chest, white light encircling his throat like a slave's collar, dark magic enslaving his soul. All activity ceased, the circle of power forgotten. And all came to bear witness to the passing of their Captain, their friend.

Their brother.

Linnet swung her head back and forth in denial. "No, no, there's got to be another way. I love him, Iowin. Can't you see that? I love him. Love conquers all. It has to, or else what is the point of living? What is the point of forever if there is no love!" Her arms tightened around him. "Let me die with him. Let me die, too. I'll bear the curse for him. I live with the Caprice curse every day of my life. What's one more if it means I get to be with him forever. Curse me, too! Do it! DO IT!"

"Linnet," Alynia tried, kneeling on her other side and wrapping her arms around her cousin's shoulders. "He wouldn't want that for you. He'd want you to live. He'd want you to have a good life, not follow him into undeath. He loves you, cousin. He always will. But you need to tell him how you feel before it's too late."

"No, I can't," she swung her head back and forth, eyes shifting wildly between her and Iowin. "I can't let him go. Would you? Would you let Iowin go?" Her fingers latched onto Jerrick's shoulders, white and trembling with the effort. "If it came down to being without each other forever, could you do it?"

Alynia's eyes met Iowin's, and she knew her answer. She'd follow him into the pits of hell with a grin on her face if needs be. Shoot the devil between the eyes and laugh as she burned in the fires of damnation for all time. It'd be a freaking party compared to the pain of his loss. The same answer shone in his eyes, and he yanked that thrice-damned book open with a vengeance.

Speaking of vengeance...

Alynia whirled, storming towards Henry.

"Rounds," she growled, feeling actual .9mm steel jacketed lead filling the clip of the Glock. "Move."

Both warriors let go of their charge, taking three steps away to either side. Alynia swept the gun in a two-handed grip, aimed at the first bony kneecap and pulled down on the goddamn trigger. The shot rang through the night, turning all heads in her direction. Henry screamed behind the gag, that was, until she yanked it free.

"God, oh, god," Henry shrieked. "The pain! Oh, god!"

She pointed the gun at his other kneecap, grabbing handfuls of that thin hair and yanking his face up to hers. "That was a love-tap compared to what I'm going to do to you if you don't make with satisfactory answers," she hissed.

"I swear on my Samantha's grave, I don't know how to reverse the spell!"

"Not looking for that, now, asshole. I'm sure you would've answered before I pumped hot lead into your bony body. What I want to know is how you did it. How did a coward like you find the juice to curse someone for eternity? That's beyond your level, beyond what you could trick Linnet into helping you with. How. Did. You. Do. It?"

He closed his teeth around his tongue, a hint of defiance sparking in those eyes. Alynia shook her head, amazed. Even now, facing the most painful death she could imagine, his hate for the Hessian Captain absolute. The thought that his only daughter loved that man was anathema to him.

It was like a bad dream. Maybe he needed another wakeup call.

She squeezed down on the trigger, blowing a hole in his other knee.

"If you think I'm running out of places to shoot you, try again. You see, I've just tapped into the mercenary side of my personality. I've got all goddamn night to show you what I've learned. Start talking!"

"I used the Caprice curse," he gibbered. "I found a spell in that book that let me ride the curse as a power base!"

"You used a curse to power a curse?" Iowin gaped. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Already covered that, dear," Alynia supplied. "I really don't care about his mental state right now so long as he continues to answer. And you're going to answer us, aren't you, Henry?" She ran the hot muzzle of the gun across his cheek, taking his squeal as consent. Her eyes returned to her husband. "What did that buy us?"

Iowin closed the book, lips compressed in a thin line. "Nothing. You said it yourself. You can't use a curse to do anything positive. You can't transform it, or share it. The only known remedy for this kind of thing is for someone to take his pla—"

They both whirled in unison, knowing they were going to be too late. Linnet's chocolate eyes blazed with her power and she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. They ran. They screamed. They prayed. And they were never going to reach Linnet in time to stop her from touching that blue-white gash in Jerrick's throat. The ruby at her throat flashed as she bent forward, intending to kiss her beloved one last time, and the Caprice Family crest within it touched that cursed light.

And swallowed it whole.

Alynia screamed, stumbling to her knees and digging for the amulet around her throat. White-hot flame burned through the black linen of her shirt, a perfect hole searing through the fabric. Iowin stopped, yanking the chain free and hurling it away. Across the way, Linnet screamed as well, reaching for her own pendant and yanking it from her throat. The pendant soared through the air, colliding with the ruby, and the world was washed in scarlet light. Howling winds swept through the garden, like a beast hungering for more, starving for a meal of power.

A curse slamming into a curse, spinning an infinite loop of dark power, a vortex sucking plant and animal and air into oblivion.

Alynia struggled to her feet, wind buffeting her from every direction at once. "We have to stop it. It'll tear this whole village apart!"

"NO!" Iowin screamed, shielding his eyes from the wind. "Don't touch it. We don't know what will happen. It could kill you! I won't lose you!"

"We'll die anyway if we don't stop it!"

"I hate when you're right!" He struggled to his feet. "We do it together, then!"

"Forever!"

Fingers twined together, they stared into one another's eyes one last time, and dove towards the spinning charms—

A black-clad figure slammed into them, sending all three careening into the far side. "Nein," Conrad hollered. "Not you. Not you."

Alynia shoved herself free, pushing to hands and knees in time to witness Jonas's hand close over the two family crests. Time froze again, long enough for her to pick out a warm smile on his lips. "A willing sacrifice," he whispered. "To save all I love."

He disappeared in a flash of blue-white light, taking the wind and the howling madness with him.

The amulet and the ruby clattered to the dirt, searing dark grooves where they lay sizzling.

"What," Alynia gasped, hand hovering over the fresh brand over her heart. The Caprice crest picked out against her flesh in crystal clear detail. "What the hell was that?"

Across the way, Jerrick groaned, pushing himself up on his elbows. Linnet, hand pressed to the brand over her own heart, gasped and sobbed anew, throwing an arm around her beloved.

Iowin pulled his wife in close, pressing a kiss to her hair. "I'd say that was true love, and a bit of Caprice stubbornness, telling at least one of the curses to fuck right off."

# Chapter 14

Alynia stood next to her husband as the last shovel-full of earth was patted down in place. Thirteen freshly filled graves lined the little cemetery by the winding river just outside of the village of Sleepy Hollow, New York. She wore a gown of all black this time, roses clasped in her hands. Beside her, Herr von Knyphausen and his new bride, the lady Linnet Caprice von Knyphausen, mirrored their pose. They'd come together to mourn, lingering at the gravesites long after the rest of the village had returned to their daily lives.

Twelve graves bore temporary wooden crosses until appropriate headstones could be cut. The thirteenth, however, needed no decoration of stone. Alynia and Linnet stepped forward as one, hands linked together, and raised their right hands. Soft power flowed through them, the trickle amplified by the amulet each woman wore. Glossed lips whispered words of the spell in practiced unison, their husbands placing the roses upon the soft earth. At their urging, new roots grew from the blossoms, digging deep into the earth. Bushes sprouted over the grave, a mound of perfectly blooming roses to mark the passing of the man that had saved them all.

Herr Jonas Kraus. Man of honor. Warrior of the heart. Brother.

His body was never recovered, and Alynia suspected they never would. Curses were funny that way, but a curse someone willingly accepted to save the life of another? That was new ground, even for Iowin. The question remained, was it really a curse if it was taken with pure intentions, if it was suffered for the betterment of others? No one could give them any answers, at least not in the past. The grave they honored sat empty save for the meager possessions he'd brought with him from Germany. He'd had no family, no wife waiting for him, no children.

He had his brotherhood of warriors, and now he had his Caprice family, and his Tintreach family, and his von Knyphausen family, to remember him by. In that way, he was immortal beyond words.

In that way, he'd expressed the truest, purest form of love.

Alynia chose to remember him as he had been on that desperate ride towards the old mausoleum. Curling hair flying in the wind, his smile bright, storm-colored eyes flashing with the sheer joy of the hunt. If ever there was a male version of a Valkyrie, she was certain Jonas Kraus rode with them.

Those roses would bloom as long as there was a soul alive that remembered and loved him.

They stayed in 1789 two more weeks, helping Linnet arrange her father's holdings into some semblance of order. The spell that shielded Sleepy Hollow from the world was gone, and news that the war was over reached them with the dawning of the new day. The crown had capitulated. America was born, bright and free, and the first thing President Washington had done was offer amnesty to mercenary groups like the Hessians—-if they agreed to become citizens and spend time training the newly established American Army. The brotherhood all agreed without hesitation.

Mayor Henry Caprice vanished the night of the 'strange rainless thunderstorm' that had blown out all the lanterns and lights within the whole village. Alynia and Linnet and Iowin honestly had no idea what had happened to the old man. They'd left him in the tender care of newly promoted Captain Conrad Muller and the Hessian brotherhood. The story went that he'd run away from his responsibilities and his debts to the von Knyphausen family. When she was alone, Conrad gently urged her to stay away from the old mausoleum outside of the village. It was a dangerous place, he'd heard tell.

One never knew what one would find in old places, and it was never very pleasant.

As the days wore on and a new Mayor was elected, people spoke of ghosts roaming the territory. Their favorite was of the bony old man running as fast as he could towards the river west of village, a headless rider in black fast on his heels. The story went that as soon as they crossed the riverbank, they vanished into thin air. Some speculated in hushed whispers around fireplaces that the rider in black was one of the very Hessians that lived in their village, and the bony old man the one that had wronged him. Had sent him to battle and he'd lost his head to a cannonball blast.

As a last act before leaving for Europe, a private party was hosted at the Caprice Inn celebrating the marriage of Jerrick to Linnet, further cementing the Hessian's ties to the new world. Alynia wore the green dress again, and Iowin his waistcoat and breeches. And nothing existed in the world but the music of the violins and the love that had saved them not once, but twice now.

"Ready?"

Alynia sighed contentedly, stepping into the circle in the center of the garden, and taking her husband's hand. Around them stood the remaining brotherhood, with Linnet standing in their center. She'd be protected for the rest of her life, and Alynia truly wished her well.

"You could always stay," Linnet tried one last time, no real earnestness in her voice, knowing their minds were made up. "There's so much work to be done in Tarrytown. We could use your talents."

"No, but thank you," Alynia smiled. "Our place is in the future. You could always come with us."

Linnet let her eyes travel across Alynia's stained T-shirt and ripped jeans, her steel-toed combat boots and rapidly shook her head. "No, thank you, though," she grinned. "I don't think your modern America would agree with my constitution."

"Then this is goodbye, dear cousin."

"So it is," Linnet's bottom lip quivered. "Think of us often and fondly."

"Oh stars, don't cry," Alynia sniffled. "Dammit, I'm going to cry again, too. And I hate crying."

Above their heads, their husbands rolled eyes or sighed beneath their breaths.

"Take care of my ward," Jerrick clasped hands with Iowin. "She is precious to me, though I know she can more than handle herself."

"I will, you have my word," Iowin swore solemnly. "She's the love of my life, Jerrick. I think you can understand that."

"Ja, that I do. Take care of yourself, too, Iowin Tintreach. May Odin light your path to greater glory."

"I'll settle for him lighting my path home, thank you."

Jerrick grinned. Iowin grinned. Linnet put up a brave face, tears shining on her rosy cheeks as she handed each of them a bundle of cloth.

And then Alynia slipped an arm around her husband, said the words, and time wound forward in a blur of images. And quite possibly her own tears.

It was only five minutes past noon when they climbed into the 1985 Plymouth Voyager, the folded bundles of cloth Linnet had given them tucked securely under their arms. His contained the spell book and his fancy clothes from the party. Hers contained the pale green dress, and a carefully wrapped black-bladed dagger. Her badge of honor as a Hessian warrior.

The coffee she'd purchased a lifetime ago and yet just that morning was still warm in its non-biodegradable styrofoam cup. The leftover cheese on his breakfast burrito wrapper still pliable. They sat in the worn cloth seats for a long while without saying a word. Both too emotionally drained to say anything, the bond muted but companionably silent.

"I'm really going to miss them," Alynia said quietly, brushing at her eyes.

Iowin reached over, rubbing the back of her neck. "Me, too," he said just as quietly.

Another long moment. Another tear-filled stare.

"Fuck it," she sighed, scrubbing angrily at her eyes. "Music?"

His groan of agreement was nearly palpable. "Music," he nodded.

She fished around in the cup holders and, yup, there was the iPod. She jammed the cassette adapter into the radio and hit play. DMX blasted through the speakers, the bass line shaking the old windows in their frames. He took her hand in his, kissing her palm before putting the old van in gear.

They drove down the highway, each lost in their own thoughts until Mom Stop 27 came into view.

Iowin hit pause on the playlist. "You know, something's been bothering me since this whole thing began."

"Only one thing bothered you?"

"Ha. Ha. I'm serious. It's a name from the past."

"Which name?"

"Well, yours actually. Alynia isn't that common. In fact, aside from you, I don't think I've ever known anyone with that name."

She shrugged a shoulder, fingertips floating over the brand just above her heart. "I don't know what to tell you. I was named after my—-Oh, son of a _bitch_."

"What?"

Alynia pursed her lips, muttering to herself. "You have to promise me you won't laugh."

"That's not fair. I don't know what you're going to say."

She took a deep breath and sighed. "I was named after my great, great Aunt Alynia. The one who had a twin brother named Jonas. Guess who they were named after?"

He thought about that a moment, and started to grin. That grin turned into a guffaw that turned into to great belly-shaking laughter. "You're telling me that you're named after yourself? That Linnet and Jerrick had twins and named them after you and Jonas Kraus? You know what else that means, then, right?"

Her eyes narrowed. "That I get to punch you for laughing at me when I asked you not to do that?"

"That you were meant to go back in time. That's why the time stop only affected us on the road, and why the Horseman missed you with his spell, hitting our car instead. You had to go back in time to be named after yourself. And," he held up a finger, grinning widely. "You and your family are descendants of the real, originally meant-to-be Headless Horseman."

Her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed again. And she joined him in laughing until tears ran down her face. All around them along the road, lavender amnesia roses spontaneously blossomed into existence. And a certain blue-white shimmer kept pace with them through the trees, his smile wide and wild, his head fully intact when he wanted it to be. Beside him rode five other rather familiar spirits, united in a brotherhood, watching over the last living Hessian of their company.

One streak in particular watching over his great granddaughter.

Because sometimes a curse wasn't a curse, and legends lived forever as long as there were those left to remember.

Up Next:

Miriam Caprice gets her story in:

# DIRT & DESIRE

Available November 2016

About the Author

Selena Page is the author of the Caprice Chronicles, a paranormal romance series centered around a family of cursed witches and warlocks. Her heroes are hot, her heroines are sassy, and the spellbinding chemistry that results will blow your mind.

A foodie, knitter, and lover of daring bodice rippers, Selena writes from her beachfront home in Galveston, TX, and spends her spare time relaxing in the sand and playing in the waves with her viking husband and her three corgis by her side.

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