by L. A. Banks
“You finally allowed me to become your mate,” he said in a thick, garbled whisper. “You willed your spirit to dance with mine.”
“I love you,” she said. “I told you that before.”
He shook his head and let out a long, satisfied breath. “That was intellect talking . . . your mind. Maybe some of your heart . . . your body. But there was always a part that you disallowed me to share . . . and I so wanted to earn that right.”
“Oh, my God, Hunter . . . I just didn’t understand. I’ve never let anyone get that close—I didn’t know how to begin to open that door . . . but with you, I wanted to with all my heart.”
He leaned up so that he could look at her. His disheveled hair covered his face in a dark curtain, but the blue-white moon allowed her to see the tears that were shimmering in his intense amber eyes.
“We are empaths to each other,” he said in a quiet rumble. “When connected. Family is . . . but when two not of the same blood are joined like this . . . connected by the same heart, I can hear your mind whisper to me.”
She traced his cheek with the pad of her thumb and when she found his eyebrows and the bridge of his nose, the tears spilled over his black velvety lashes. Their lovemaking had put a rough layer of five o’clock shadow on his jawline, and she couldn’t stop touching his face, reading it with her fingers as her eyes studied his.
“Sasha . . . if you want me to marry you in the human tradition, I will. I don’t fully claim to know their customs, but I will honor any that are important to you . . . because I love you with the whole of my spirit.”
“And I love you with the whole of mine,” she murmured, tracing his lush mouth with her fingertip before gently kissing him. “I want your spirit to always touch mine, and I want to never hurt you by closing you out of it. Teach me everything you want me to know tonight.”
CHAPTER 9
It had come in the window to stab into the bathroom wall of the cabin beside her. Sir Rodney had delivered; his Fae glamour would create a body-double image for the cameras in her apartment. But it would only hold until dawn. Sasha crept to the darkened doorway between the cabin’s bathroom and the bedroom, watching Hunter’s deep, restful breaths as he slept. She had to go. She needed to go to the scene of the crime and not have him possibly spotted by humans who would try to hunt him.
Gathering her clothes, she slipped them on, found a shadow to slip into, and was gone.
Silver Hawk took a deep breath, and the sudden motion gave Bear Shadow a start. The elderly shaman had been in trance for hours, sitting before the fire as though his body were just a vacant shell while his spirit ventured to places Hunter’s lieutenant could never fathom. But the sound and movement, along with the instant crackle of the fire between them, made Bear know the clan’s advisor had returned from the unknown realms.
Slowly Silver Hawk’s grip tightened on his rattles, and he began the somber chant of the warrior spirit’s return. The fire dipped and swayed as though dancing. Bear Shadow sat motionless on guard, his huge, hulking frame at the ready and his senses keened for any eventuality. Then just as suddenly as the old man had begun, he stopped and opened his eyes to stare at Bear Shadow through the fire.
“The evil of many has become one,” Silver Hawk said, his wolf eyes gleaming. “Carry this message to my grandson on the next moon.”
It was all so very interesting to him as he sat in the hotel bar and stared out the window. Patrons could not be on the streets, but as long as they were inside the restaurant or bar of their hotel establishment, so far, the government wasn’t telling people when they had to go to bed. The beleaguered establishments were all too happy to extend service hours all night long to make up for the patronage they were losing to the strict curfew. An unexpected side effect was that it created a strangely festive atmosphere among the ghost hunters, journalists, and embedded media types.
Russell Conway sipped his beer slowly as he watched a military Humvee go by. Maybe this time they would believe. Maybe this time they’d know that people like him weren’t crazy.
“The authorities confirmed that the bodies had been moved. The kill site of both victims was out here in the bayou, judging from the dirt and marsh residue on what was left. So while the local authorities are looking for any homes or establishments out here that have missing loved ones or employees, our mission is to see if we can get some traction in deep. When these beasts snatched their victims, they had to feed somewhere. If there’s been no reports of busted-up houses or bayou bars being rampaged, then there’s gotta be an abandoned car on the road, something we can look to as our tracking lead. I say we return to the scene of the original crime—this burned-down Bayou House that took out several state troopers and was in Trudeau’s report as infested with Werewolves.”
Colonel Madison glanced around his small squad, gaining nods of silent agreement before continuing. He looked out into the darkness at the burned-out hull of the building that was once an active brothel and back-water still, and then spit on the ground. The full moon cast an eerie shimmer over the broken trees and blackened structure; the parking lot was deserted save for several abandoned cars.
“Rest assured, these wolves are fucking with us. They could have left the remains out here in the swamp, where they probably ate them. Bringing them back into town to throw them in an alley is a dare, a challenge, like they were sending us a warning. So I say we send them a few warning shots to let ’em know we are not to be jacked with!”
A rowdy hoo-rah echoed through the small glen as the squad lowered their night-vision goggles and raised their weapons. Using the Humvees as cover, Colonel Madison accepted a shoulder cannon from Juarez with a hard smile.
“Let’s see what we can smoke out, gentlemen.”
The rocket-propelled grenade hit the already decimated structure dead-on. An instant orange glow flashed with the boom that rocked the ground. Madison’s men slapped five hunkered down behind the vehicles while the colonel peered up to check his handiwork.
“If that doesn’t smoke ’em out, then . . .”
A low growl in the tree line made Madison hold up his fist. Using two fingers, he silently motioned for Juarez and Johnson to head in one direction while he, McPherson, and Pho got around to the other possible attack position. Like synchronized swimmers, his men quickly fanned out, taking cover in a way that they could open fire without hitting their own men.
But as Juarez was making a run across the lot to take a deeper position in, something moving in a black blur cut him off. A machine-gun burst lit the night just as his scream reverberated off the trees.
“Juarez!” Madison rushed in, yelling to his men to get them repositioned. “Go, go, go!”
Sasha came out of the shadows and into the midst of the firefight. She hit the ground to avoid getting shot. But the moment she got her bearings, she knew the men around her were doomed.
“Hold your fire and get out of here!” she shouted. “Fall back! Fall back!”
But instead of hearing the order repeated, suddenly shells were coming at her following the sound of her voice.
“I’m a friendly!” she shouted, dodging in and out of the shadows to avoid sudden death.
Machine-gun fire covered the colonel as he went to check the status of his downed man. But he briefly turned away in horror at the sight. Juarez’s entire face had been ripped off. His goggles were gone, his helmet crushed. His body lay on the ground twitching, each limb jerking in a gruesome death struggle. Blood gurgled up from his throat, and the sounds of a man drowning in his own blood made the colonel lower his weapon and fire a single shot into Juarez’s skull. Sasha whirled out of a shadow, startling him. His instant reaction was to train his weapon on her, but she side-slapped it away.
“Fall back, Colonel! Get your men out of here! I don’t know what the hell this entity is, but it’s not a wolf.”
“You’ve violated a direct order, Captain!” he shouted back, training the weapon on her again. “You are hereby—”
Colonel Madison heard it, but couldn’t see it. His men were yelling, bursts of ammunition rent the air, then the yelling became screaming. He could hear Captain Trudeau yelling for them to fall back, but he knew in his soul it was too late. She’d been right, God help him . . . God help them all!
A grenade went off and he couldn’t get in close enough to help his men. Captain Trudeau was on the wrong side of the line of fire, and his men were as afraid of her as they were of what was butchering them. They were firing blindly. One of the Humvees was ablaze. Then all was silent.
She came to him dirty-faced, panting, fury in her wolf-gray eyes. “It was too fast and your men wouldn’t let me near them to help them.” She walked in a tight circle. “Damn! This didn’t have to happen like this. Get in the vehicle, sir, and go back to base!”
“You defied a direct order!” he shouted, his nerves shattered.
“Yeah, I know. But you’re alive because I did—so let’s just say you owe me.” Sasha walked away from him toward the shadow of a large tree.
“Come back here! That is an order, Captain.”
She didn’t turn around, but kept walking and held up her middle finger when he hoisted up his weapon and cocked the hammer.
“Save your ammo, Colonel. You’re gonna need it.”
Then she was gone.
Hours passed and he held his position until dawn broke . . . suddenly realizing that he’d been spared, had been left alive for one purpose—to take back the warning to the others who might come. Sasha Trudeau was going down!
Hunter awakened to Sasha’s smile. She was leaning on her elbow gazing down at him, her big gray eyes filled with an expression so tender that he held his breath for a moment, thinking he was dreaming. He’d never seen Sasha so free, so unencumbered by duty, and his hand floated up on its own accord to stroke her soft cheek, all while he wished they could simply leave the troubled world behind. But in the cold light of day, he knew that wasn’t an option.
“I know,” she murmured.
Just her saying that, reading him so completely, woke up the rest of his body.
“Mine . . . for now, anyway,” he murmured, pulling her on top of him, and then brushed her mouth with a kiss. He could still taste her essence on his tongue and smell their lovemaking in his sheets. That aromatic reminder and her beautiful sunlit smile was all it took to get him going again.
“Yours,” she said, giving him a gentle kiss as her body slowly devoured his with a groan.
He knew she had to go back to her apartment and make herself seen around town in order to keep the peace, just as he had to go back to New Orleans to begin a full-fledged investigation. But to his way of thinking, half an hour more or less to say good morning and then say good-bye wasn’t going to change the course of history.
They came to a stop at the border between a bright swath of sunlight and the looming shadows cast from a stand of summer-red maple trees. Despite the fantastic night they’d shared and the glorious morning, now, as he stood before Sasha, looking at how the sun caught in her dark hair, his spirit was more disquieted than it had ever felt in his life. He touched her hair, saying nothing, and watching how individual strands of red and golden brown made up the silky thicket that played through his fingers. He smiled sadly as her wistful expression turned into a pout, and he kissed her again for good measure.
“I hate this,” he said.
“Me, too.” She released a little sigh and then leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and breathed in deeply. “Why can’t everything just be like this? Smell the forest . . . it’s gorgeous.”
“You’re gorgeous,” he said, placing a palm over her amulet. When she opened her eyes he breathed her in, allowing the scent of her freshly washed hair to roll over his palate.
“I have to go . . .”
She cradled his cheek with her palm for a moment, and he turned his mouth into the creamy surface of it.
“They aren’t so bad,” she said with a smile. “Just a few bad apples along the way, but ninety-nine percent of the people I served with were decent and honorable.”
He captured her hand and held it over his amulet. “When we met, I tried to tell you that about the Wolf Clans, yes?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding and closing the small space between them.
“You didn’t believe me at first—rightfully so, because a few dangerous rogues changed the landscape . . . no one was safe while they were around, and we fought together, Sasha—you and I—to eradicate them before they could do damage. Tell me what’s different about self-policing our Wolf Clans and self-policing your human military when it’s gone rogue?”
“You’re right,” she said carefully, “but it’s a cultural problem.”
He cocked his head to the side, waiting on a plausible explanation.
“General Donald Wilkerson was a crazy bastard who set up the Sirius Project under Operation Dog Star . . . and now Colonel Madison seems equally a cowboy. But,” Sasha said with a hard sigh as she fingered Hunter’s amulet, “the human process of routing out bad guys is as complicated when you reach the higher branches of the military and government as some of the Vamp politics. Things get messy, political, and are extremely time consuming. Besides . . . uhm . . . when I get back, I’ll probably really be in trouble.”
“That is not the way of the wolf,” he said, sending his gaze toward the tree line.
“No, it’s not,” she said calmly. “If everything got dealt with honorably and straightforwardly, we could put a lid on all the nukes and everybody could just go home.”
“Perhaps that is why the humans fear us more than the Vampires,” he said in a sullen tone. “They are both duplicitous creatures capable of extreme violence and sociopathic behavior, easily justified by whatever unconscionable reason they can come up with.”
“Hey!” she said with a wide smile. “I’m half human on my mother’s side.”
“Forgive me,” he said, growing more morose by the minute. “I meant no slander against your mother or your mother’s people, you know that. Some humans are capable of great acts of kindness and are evolved. But they typically don’t get to positions of power in your culture . . . or if they manage to get through the maze of the walking spiritually dead, they are surrounded by those who seek to destroy them—thus making them ineffective.”
A gentle kiss stopped his rant. He looked down at Sasha to see her eyes filled with mischief.
“I thought I’d woken you up on the right side of bed this morning? Damn . . . I really must be losing my touch.”
Her wry comment made a half smile tug at his cheek. “You’re not losing your touch . . . I’m just . . . I just don’t feel good about this, Sasha.”
“I know,” she said, dropping her shoulders with defeat as her smile faded. “But if I seem like I’ve disappeared, that will cause issues. I want to keep my record clean . . . This is all new for the human world. Think of it this way,” she added, beginning to gesture with her hands. “What must it have been like when the first demon-infected wolf showed up on the scene? I can only imagine that the Shadows and the Weres freaked out.”
Hunter nodded, conceding to her point. “In a word, yes.”
“Okay, then . . . and there must have been all sorts of martial law, the wrong leaders pointing fingers, pure chaos until the clans could figure out how that all worked.”
“And that’s my point, Sasha. During that chaotic era, a lot of mistakes were made. Clan elders were jumpy, quick to go to war, and quick to cull the ranks through exterminations. I see that same unsettled energy among your leadership. A man like General Westford, who is honorable, may not be able to protect you if things go badly.”
“Point well taken,” she said, staring at him.
It made him feel better
that she’d heard him—finally heard what he was saying in context. This wasn’t an idle rant about her human military pack that she loved; this was about the fact that frightened men who didn’t understand the nuances of supernatural life might in-advertently go after one of their own.
“You call me when you get back to your apartment,” he said, tapping the cell phone on his belt. “I’m serious, Sasha. You and I need to stay in constant communication.”
“Okay, okay,” she said, sounding like a scolded teenager.
He had to laugh. “I’m serious.”
“All right. I get it.”
He eyed her and she stuck out her tongue at him.
“But here’s the problem—we have to talk in code.” She shrugged and began walking toward the shadows. “They have my apartment monitored—I can tell, and they did it before. Doc never talks straight on an open line, because with the big eye in the sky, they can intercept cell phone transmissions and—”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” he said, holding up his hands and cutting her off.
“I’m not supposed to be involved in any investigations . . . directly . . . per se,” she said with a sheepish grin. “I may have done something to, uhm . . . set them off—but I covered my tracks, so I won’t be directly in the line of fire, I think. It’s Madison’s word against mine and the cameras don’t lie so—”
Hunter frowned. “Baby, what are you talking about?”
“Nothing, really, I just want you to understand that and I don’t want you to be worried about the political stuff going down with the military. All right?”
I won’t be as long as you’re not caged,” he said carefully. “They should have no reason to take away any more of your freedom, especially if your contact will be feeding you valuable intel about the happenings that the asshole with a coupla bars on his chest wouldn’t be able to get in a million years.”
