He gestured at the food spread on the blanket. “I thought you were hungry?”
“I was.”
“Sit,” Santiago said. “Eat.”
“I’m not sure I can now.”
“Do not make it more than it was,” he said with a laugh. “She has no doubt lost more blood cutting her finger than what I took.”
He was probably right, but it was still disconcerting to see him actually feed off of someone. When her stomach growled again, she sat down. Since he had “eaten” in front of her, she didn’t feel the least bit self-conscious eating in front of him.
Sitting cross-legged on the blanket, she picked up a piece of meat, her expression dubious as she took a bite. Hungry as she was, she couldn’t help wondering what kind of meat she was eating. In the old days, when food was scarce, the Indians had eaten their horses and their dogs. But food wasn’t scarce these days. The Black Hills were thick with game. She had never eaten venison or buffalo, but either one was preferable to eating a dog or a horse. She took another bite, hoping it was buffalo or venison. Whatever it was, it was delicious.
Knowing that his presence made her nervous, Santiago went to the door and peered out into the darkness. They would leave as soon as possible after the feast.
He tried to concentrate on something other than the woman behind him, but it was impossible. In a remarkably short time, Regan Delaney had become the most important thing in his life. Now, all he had to do was decide what to do about her.
After what seemed like hours but was probably no more than forty minutes, a young boy summoned them to the feast.
Regan didn’t know what she had expected, but she was somewhat taken aback to find what must have been the whole village gathered outside. Men, women, and children sat in a large circle. Several large fires provided warmth and light.
The chief of the village rose to meet them, inviting them to sit at his side. As the honored guest, Santiago would ordinarily have been served first, but since it was known that he shunned food, Regan was served first. The chief and camp leaders were served next, and then the rest of the tribe.
All Regan’s qualms about what might be served were swept away when she was handed a large plate heaped with what she hoped was a steak, potatoes, and corn on the cob.
“They prepared your meal especially for you,” Santiago told her. “Everyone else is eating buffalo tongue and hump. And dog. Among the Lakota, it is highly prized.”
Regan glanced at her plate in horror. “This is dog meat?”
“Only that one small piece,” he said, pointing at a tiny morsel. “Courtesy demands that each one present have a piece.”
“But…I can’t eat a dog.”
“It will be seen as an insult if you refuse.”
Regan swallowed hard, suddenly aware that all eyes were watching her. Taking a deep breath, she swallowed the tiny piece of meat and quickly washed it down with a drink of coffee.
“How was it?” Santiago asked.
“I don’t know. I ate it so quickly, I couldn’t taste it.”
He laughed softly. “Well done.”
Now that she’d eaten the dog meat, she was glad to see that she was no longer the center of attention.
After a while, the low beat of a drum could be heard above the hum of conversation. Without intending to eavesdrop, she overheard snatches of conversation. One woman was lamenting the fact that her little boy still sucked his thumb. One of the men was griping about the price of fuel. Another was wishing he didn’t have to go back to work the following week.
Regan couldn’t help smiling. They might dress and live like their ancestors, but it seemed they had the same problems and concerns as everybody else.
When the feast was over, an enormous drum was brought into the center of the circle. Four men sat around it. As they began to beat the drum, a number of men got up to dance. When they were through, the women danced.
Regan was about to ask Santiago why the men and women didn’t dance together when they formed two lines facing each other.
“Come on,” Santiago said, taking her by the hand.
She started to protest, then thought better of it. The steps looked simple enough, and she might never get another chance to dance with the Lakota.
She couldn’t take her eyes off Santiago. He moved like a cat, his feet hardly touching the ground, his every movement supple and sensual. The heat of his eyes speared through her when his gaze met hers.
When the dance was over, they returned to their seats.
“We should go,” Santiago said.
Regan nodded, though she was reluctant to leave. There was something hypnotic about watching the flames, listening to the beat of the drum, feeling the evening breeze feather through her hair. As she had once before, she seemed to hear the spirits of those long dead whispering to her.
Santiago was about to get up when an old man stepped into the circle. As soon as he sat down, a group of children surrounded him.
“What’s going on?” Regan asked.
“He is going to tell them a story.”
“Can we stay until it’s over?”
Santiago nodded. “If you wish.”
“What is he saying?” Regan asked, unable to understand the storyteller’s language.
“It is a story about Old Man Coyote and his brother. It seems that one day, Old Man Coyote and his brother, who were bored and hungry, went out walking together. After a time, they came upon a chipmunk and a frog who were sunning themselves on the banks of a river. ‘Ah,’ Old Man Coyote said to his brother, ‘here is our dinner.’ But before they ate them, Old Man Coyote decided to see if the chipmunk or the frog could entertain them.”
“Dinner and a floor show,” Regan remarked dryly.
“Indeed.” Santiago said, smiling. “‘Can you sing or do a trick?’ Old Man Coyote asked the chipmunk. ‘If you can sing or make us laugh, we might not eat you.’ The chipmunk didn’t believe Old Man Coyote because everyone knew Coyote was a trickster. But the chipmunk was a smart fellow. ‘I can’t sing, but I can spin in circles,’ the little chipmunk said. So Old Man Coyote said, ‘show me,’ and the chipmunk began to spin around and around. He spun around Old Man Coyote and his brother until they were both dizzy, and then the chipmunk ran up the trunk of a nearby tree and hid in the branches.
“This made Coyote’s brother angry. ‘Let us build a fire and throw the frog into it so he doesn’t run away,’ he said. So Old Man Coyote gathered some wood for a fire.
“Now the frog was also a clever young fellow and before Old Man Coyote or his brother could throw him into the flames, the frog hopped toward the fire as if that was where he wanted to go. Confused by the frog’s odd behavior, Old Man Coyote and his brother stared at each other. Then Old Man Coyote said, ‘Maybe this one belongs to the fire clan. If so, he will hide in the fire and it will not hurt him.’
“‘Let us put him in the river then,’ said Old Man Coyote’s brother. ‘We will drown him and then we will cook him and eat him.’
“So Old Man Coyote dropped the frog into the river and the frog swam away, leaving Old Man Coyote and his brother still hungry but much wiser.”
When the story was over, Santiago thanked the chief for his hospitality.
Twenty minutes later, Santiago and Regan rode out of the village. The chief had gifted each of them with a horse. Regan’s was a lovely chestnut mare with one white stocking.
“I didn’t know the Indians lived like that,” Regan remarked when the village lay behind them.
“Some do,” Santiago replied, “though only a handful live in the old way all year long. Most return to their homes in the city when winter sets in.”
“They seemed very…fierce,” she said, thinking of the three who had found her. “At least at first.”
Santiago grunted softly. Many of the Lakota had gone back to living in the old way, some full time, some only during the summer. They hunted the deer and the buffalo. They performed the Sun Dance ceremony. They liv
ed in hide lodges. The women tanned hides and gathered wild fruits and vegetables, the old men told the ancient stories. Fathers and grandfathers taught their sons to follow the path of a warrior, to value generosity and bravery, to defend those who were helpless, and to provide for those who could not provide for themselves.
Thinking back to his own days among the Apache, Santiago had to admit that it was a good way to live.
The breeze shifted, carrying Regan’s scent to his nostrils. She smelled of perspiration and the meal she had just eaten. Fainter, but just as easily identified were the lingering scents of her shampoo and the soap she used to wash her clothes. The warm, heady fragrance of the woman herself called to him, as did the siren call of her life’s blood.
He slid a glance in her direction. His fangs pricked his tongue as his gaze caressed her neck. While it was true that he didn’t have to feed every night, that didn’t mean he was immune to the scent of prey, especially when it was wrapped up in a package as tempting and beguiling as that of the woman riding beside him.
“Joaquin, is something wrong?”
He dragged his gaze from her throat. “No, my lovely one.”
She didn’t miss the taut line of his shoulders, the glow in his eyes. She wondered just how much control he really had over his passions. All of them.
After a few hours, she was no longer worrying about Santiago’s passions. She had never been on a horse before and while she rather enjoyed the sensation of riding, she ached in places she’d never known she had.
They made a brief stop at their old campsite to gather her handbag and their sleeping bags and supplies, and then they were riding through the darkness again, climbing steadily upward.
Regan looked up sharply when the melancholy howl of a wolf rose on a vagrant breeze. A chill went down her spine as the cry was picked up by another wolf and then another. Gazing into the darkness, she had an almost overwhelming urge to peel off her clothes and run wild through the night, to lift her face to the heavens and howl along with the wolves.
Her aches forgotten, she glanced up at the sky. A shiver coursed through her body when she saw the moon. It rode high in the night sky, a bright white sphere that was almost full.
Santiago glanced from Regan to the moon and back again. He could feel the tension radiating off her, sense her uneasiness, her fear. He didn’t have to be a wise man to know what was troubling her. The moon was almost full. But there was nothing to worry about. They had almost reached their destination.
The cave was located near the crest of a mountain top. A gray horse grazed near the entrance. It looked up, ears twitching at their approach.
Santiago paused, his senses testing the wind and the surrounding area. The smell of violent death hung heavy in the air.
Dismounting, he handed his horse’s reins to Regan. “Wait here.”
“What’s wrong?”
He shook his head. “Wait here,” he repeated, and stepped into the cave. He felt a shimmer of preternatural power as he crossed over the threshold of the cavern.
The inside was as black as night but he was able to see clearly, even in the dark. A number of boxes and sacks lined the walls. The floor of the cave was covered with buffalo robes. A fire pit filled with cold ashes occupied the center. A raised altar made in the old way was located behind the pit. A bow, a quiver of arrows, and a rifle rested on a narrow shelf that was cut into the cave wall. A brown leather recliner, looking ridiculously out of place, was the only piece of furniture in evidence.
Santiago moved deeper into the cave. Here, he found a rough-hewn wooden table, a bowl made of birch bark, an eagle feather, a pipe, and several clay jars filled with herbs.
The scent of blood and death was stronger here. There were signs of a scuffle in the dirt, the marks of a body dragging itself deeper into the cave, and the tracks of a wolf following.
Santiago followed the trail. The ceiling grew lower, the passageway narrower as it gradually curved to the left to form a small chamber that ended a few feet further on.
It was here that he found the bodies. The shaman lay on the floor inside a circle that appeared to be made of pure silver. A knife, the blade of which was also made of silver, protruded from the heart of the second body. Santiago knew, from the smell that lingered on the second corpse, that he had been a werewolf.
Muttering an oath, Santiago knelt beside the old shaman. There were numerous bite marks on his face, neck, chest, arms, and hands. As near as he could tell from the evidence at hand, the old man had been attacked by the werewolf, then had dragged himself into the back of the cave and crawled inside his sacred circle for protection.
Santiago examined the bite marks on the medicine man’s body, but it wasn’t the bites that had killed him. In and of themselves, none of them would have been fatal. Instead, the old man had slowly bled to death, either too frightened or too weak to leave the circle and tend his own wounds.
Rocking back on his heels, Santiago stared at the old Indian. Why would anyone want to kill the reclusive medicine man? And how was he going to tell Regan that the old man was dead, and that the cure, if indeed one had existed, had died with him?
Regan shifted in the saddle. Where was Santiago? What was taking him so long? Had he found the old shaman?
She glanced from side to side, her nerves strung tight. Were those eyes glowing there, just beyond the trees, or was her imagination playing tricks on her?
She felt warm all over, constricted, as if her skin was shrinking. She looked down at her hands, imagining them turning into paws, her nails into claws.
She practically jumped out of the saddle when a wolf howled somewhere in the distance.
The moon would be full tomorrow night. She could feel herself changing already. Her body felt different, alien, and she was plagued by a restlessness she had never known before.
She knew in the deepest part of her being that if the shaman couldn’t help her, she was doomed to become what she feared most.
She wrapped her arms around her waist as the first wolf’s mournful howl was picked up by another, and then another. Her horse tossed its head, its ears twitching nervously as it pulled on the reins. Santiago’s horse pawed the ground, its eyes showing white. Regan didn’t know much about horses but she knew exactly what the animals were feeling.
She had almost decided to dismount and go into the cave in search of Santiago when he stepped outside.
“Did you find him?” she asked anxiously. “Can he help me?”
Santiago didn’t say anything. Instead, he lifted her from the back of her horse and drew her into his arms.
Regan stared up at him, her gaze searching his, and then, with a sigh of resignation, she rested her cheek against his chest and closed her eyes.
There was no need for questions. His silence said it all.
There was no cure.
Chapter 15
With her cheek resting against Santiago’s chest, Regan listened quietly as he told her what he had found inside the cave. She didn’t know how long they stood like that. It could have been minutes, it could have been days. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think of anything to say. The word “werewolf” played over and over again in her mind. She was going to be a werewolf. Tomorrow night, when the moon rose in the sky, she would transform into a beast. Her hands and feet would turn into paws, her body would be covered with fur, and she would be compelled to run though the night in search of prey…
She shook the thought aside. Lifting her head, she looked up at Santiago. “Remember what I asked you before?” She took a deep breath. “I want you to do it now, before it’s too late.”
“Regan…”
“Please, Joaquin. I can’t live like this, knowing that I’ll become a monster when the moon is full. Please, if you care for me at all.”
He cupped her face in his hands. “Let me bring you across.”
“No! I don’t want to be a vampire, either. Just do it now…but, please, don’t hurt me.”
A muscl
e throbbed in his jaw. “Regan, do not ask this of me.”
“Why not? You’ve killed before.”
His arms tightened around her. “Dammit, Regan, I cannot take your life. Let me bring you across. You will not have to hunt. I will feed you. We can have a good life together.”
“Life?” She twisted out of his arms. “What kind of life is that? You’ll keep me like a pet, you’ll feed me! And it’s not just the blood thing, it’s all of it. I don’t want to live only at night. I don’t want to give up all the things I enjoy. I want to get married and have children, and…”
“I love you, Regan Delaney. I will cherish you and look after you for as long as I live. You will want for nothing, I swear it on all that I hold dear.”
As it had before, his declaration of love left her speechless. He loved her. Joaquin Santiago, the most feared vampire in the city, loved her.
“Joaquin…I don’t know what to say.” She wanted to tell him that she loved him, too, but, once spoken, the words could not be taken back, and loving a vampire was a complication she didn’t need in her life just now.
“There is no need for you to say anything. I tell you only so you will know why I cannot take your life.”
Regan shook her head. “If you really loved me, you’d do as I ask.”
“I will do anything but that.”
“Please…”
He cut her words off with a slash of his hand. “We will spend the night here.”
She glanced at the cave. “Here?” She shivered with revulsion. Two people had died inside the cave. She told herself there was nothing to fear. The dead couldn’t hurt you. Unless they were vampires, she thought morbidly.
“It is the only shelter for miles.”
“I don’t mind sleeping outside. We did it last night.”
“It is going to rain.”
“It is?” She glanced up at the sky. “There aren’t any clouds.”
“There will be.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“I can smell the rain.”
Regan sighed heavily. She wasn’t crazy about sleeping out in the rain, but she was less thrilled with the idea of sleeping in a cave with two dead men.
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