CAME AT HER without warning. One minute Kiera Morissey had been cursing Draycott Abbey and its arrogant owner, determined to make her visit short so she could be gone forever.
Now she was struggling for her life against violent men in black masks. Her mother’s deathbed request had led her straight into a nightmare.
A rag blocked her mouth, making her gag. Rough hands gripped her wrists, twisting until she moaned. She was supposed to be fighting memories, not violent assailants. Who were these people? What did they want with her?
Security guards? Kiera would have expected the Draycott family to post a team of bad-tempered Neanderthals to guard their precious privacy. But would they condone this kind of violence?
The wind snapped through the trees. Birds exploded over her head as she fought harder. Plastic bonds locked her wrists sharply. She couldn’t see, striking out at her attackers by feel alone. She knew there were two of them, and so far they had said only a few words, all of them in a language that sounded Slavic.
This was a private unit of hired foreign thugs, meant to protect the aristocratic owner of the abbey and his family? Hard to believe, even for the arrogant Draycotts.
She didn’t frighten easily, though she hadn’t been prepared for an attack on a quiet country road in the English countryside.
Now she was focused, ready to fight back. Her father had taught her self-defense as soon as she was big enough to hold a Muy Thai stick and play at kickboxing moves. Yet in her emotion at her first glimpse of Draycott Abbey, she had violated the crucial rule: Always stay prepared.
Now her attackers were going to get a little surprise.
Kiera made the move exactly as her father had taught her. She went completely limp, toppling sideways. Before her beefy captor could adjust to her sudden falling weight in his arms, she snapped forward and kicked him solidly in the groin.
His wheeze of stunned shock told her he had expected fear and blind compliance. No way, dog breath.
The second his hands loosened, she dropped to her knees, rolled and then shot toward the woods. She was in good shape. She also had a five-yard lead on the second attacker. She grabbed the top of the abbey’s stone fence, pulled herself up and threw one leg over.
But her pursuer lunged and managed to grab her ankle just before it cleared the fence. He jerked her backward, her face scraping against the stones. Blood gushed over her lip, but when he tried to shove her down beneath him, she clawed at his eyes, sending him reeling.
Unfortunately Attacker Two had sewer breath. He was also the size of a Mack truck. With a jerk of his callused hands, he drove her flat onto the ground. Then he stood over her, one heel pressed at her throat.
Bad sign, Kiera thought.
Any second she would have a crushed windpipe.
“What do you want?” She hated that her voice was high and spiky. The heel pressed to her throat started to grind down. “Okay, are you some kind of private police? Security guards from Draycott Abbey?” She spoke wildly, saying anything that came to mind.
His foot froze. A good sign.
“I mean, if you’re hired by Viscount Draycott, I can explain.”
His breath caught.
Kiera still couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but she heard his clothes rustle and then the click of a cell phone opening. He muttered something in a language that definitely sounded Slavic, then waited for an answer. Hoping for a distraction, she went perfectly still on the ground, but the pressure on her throat never loosened, nor did his gaze leave her face. Clearly this gorilla had military or professional security training, and now his focus was almost palpable.
Simple tricks weren’t going to work with this one.
In the distance she heard the low growl of a motor. Picking up speed. Coming closer.
Straight in her direction.
Attacker One grunted, slowly recovering, one hand to his eyes. Kiera’s mind raced through escape scenarios. Her father had taught her dozens. No way was she going to be a statistic on the evening news.
When the gorilla closed his cell phone, Kiera focused. He reached down, jerking her to her feet.
She twisted and dug two fingers into his neck, precisely at the vulnerable notch of his collarbone. Muscle flexed and then cartilage tore nicely. While he was still hunched over in shock, she sank her teeth into his palm, deep enough to feel skin part. Bone ground beneath her teeth.
She spit out blood but the man’s grip held firm. His growl of fury didn’t quite cover the sound of the car motor nearby.
Panic squeezed hard. Damn, damn, damn. How many more men were inside the car?
Then Kiera heard leaves rustle.
Something was moving toward her from the far side of the fence. There was no mistaking the snap of twigs, the harsh breathing, the sounds made by a very large animal.
There was something strange about that rough breathing. Or maybe it was hypoxia starting to kick in. She aimed two more satisfying collarbone jabs as her attacker’s fingers locked around her throat.
Dizziness tore at her vision.
Oxygen almost gone.
A dark shape exploded over the stone fence. Kiera heard the slap of a body and then the sound of bushes shaking. She could see almost nothing as she fought her furious captor. Then abruptly she was free, her attacker sinking to one knee.
Car lights cut across the road, closing in fast as Kiera shot across the pavement to the far slope, where the ground fell away abruptly at the edge of a creek. Diving over the bank, she tucked sharply and landed in a sprawl at the bottom.
The sounds were muffled here. Up on the bank she heard the squeal of brakes and harsh voices, followed by a scream of pure terror.
Something growled. The sound made Kiera’s hair stand on end. She had seen predators in zoos throughout Europe, but she had never heard that kind of growl, a sound that held cunning and intelligence.
Whatever the animal was, she wasn’t staying around for introductions. She stumbled along the muddy edge of the stream, keeping her body low so she would be invisible to any attacker looking down from the road. Following the stream would bring her to a second road. Her rental car was parked only a few hundred yards away from that point.
Safe.
Her hands shook. She forced herself to stay calm. She was alive, no one’s captive.
Then a bullet hit the bushes only inches away from her hand. Kiera plunged straight into the mud and stayed down, breathing hard.
Reining in her urge to flee blindly.
But that was what they’d expect. Rule Two: Never do the expected.
Behind her the wind carried a man’s guttural shout of pain and a rapid burst of gunfire from the road.
She heard another growl, this one the short,
