“All right,” he agreed. Such easy acceptance—how he did it, she couldn’t imagine.
Leaning into him, Mariska placed her hand over his heart. “I belong here, with you…but sometimes I don’t feel like I belong here on this ranch.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Has Scarlett…?”
Laughter bubbled up through her and Mariska shook her head. His sister had been less than enthusiastic when she’d arrived. Stubborn and possessive, the woman thought she had the right to challenge Mariska where Cody was concerned, but they’d long since worked out their differences. “No, Scarlett is too concerned with her babies to worry about me.” Her heart pinched. “Truthfully, she does mean well. You and your brothers spoiled her terribly, but she’s a good person and while we may not be the best of friends…we are hardly enemies.”
“Good.” Cody nodded once. He’d been unaware of the immediate friction she’d experienced, but when he had figured it out—he’d dumped Scarlett into a pond and yelled at her for a solid five minutes. It would have worried Mariska more except the firestarter bellowed in response and the marshal, her husband, sat not two feet away from Mariska, calm as the day was long. The siblings yelled out their grievances and then it was over.
Crazy family dynamics—that was something Mariska could understand.
“It’s not any one person,” she told him. “It’s the life…” But that wasn’t it either. She sighed and shook her head. “I really do not seem to have the words for what bothers me.”
“You’re hunting it.” He stroked his thumb along the curve of her jaw. “You will scent it soon enough and I have every faith that you will find it and then let me kill it so it doesn’t bother you anymore.”
The matter-of-fact pronouncement did as much to ease the disquiet in her as his caress did. “What if I want to kill it?” she challenged.
Her mate made a show of considering her question. “Very well.” The response was so grudging, she couldn’t stop her giggles and Cody’s firm mouth curved upward in a smile so possessive it never failed to turn her inside out. “Good, now you’re thinking of what makes you happy instead of what makes you sad.”
Which, she realized with a jolt of pure love, had been his intention. “I love you.”
“I know.” He nuzzled her affectionately and she wrapped herself in his embrace. Cody made this battle worth it because he would not only let her fight, he’d stay by her side and wait for her to win.
Jason, Dorado
Pouring the rotgut into the glass, Jason stared at the deep red color. It reminded him of the heavy clay where they grew the wheat. The local brew couldn’t have been transported far—this deep into the west, the only time they brought in expensive Eastern liquors was if someone like his father provided the funds for transport. A batwing creaked and he pointed his gun at the door without looking up.
“Leave.” So far, it was all he’d needed to do to dissuade anyone from interfering with his desire to be drunk. He didn’t need the weapon and hadn’t bothered to load it. No one else needed to know it and he didn’t care.
“No.” Sam stood in the open doorway, his expression stern—or at least the man wearing Sam’s face did. “Put the weapon away. You’re scaring the hell out of people.”
“I must be, if they sent out to the ranch to get you.” And no one had. His older brother had left with the women when Jason asked him for time earlier. He certainly hadn’t been in town when Jason stared after the wagon carrying Olivia away or when he’d made one solid scan of the area before heading into the saloon.
“Someone needed to get you under control.”
Jason lowered the gun, but kept his attention on his ‘brother’ as he crossed the empty saloon and took a seat next to him. “No one is hurt. I’m drinking. It’s not illegal.”
Picking up the bottle, ‘Sam’ sniffed it with a grimace. “You couldn’t choose something that doesn’t smell like an explosive material?”
“I wanted something strong.” Jason’s attention never wavered. “Why are you here?” He’d waited weeks for this conversation, and the bastard had to choose this afternoon to have it.
So be it.
Shrugging, he poured a drink and offered to top off Jason’s glass. Jason nodded once. The rotgut set his belly on fire and burned through him until sweat soaked his shirt—and then the ice encroached and the alcohol faded. Nothing diminished his gift, no matter how hard he tried.
Nothing except her.
The doppelganger tossed back a full measure of the drink and his mouth tightened. Jason continued to sip, and waited.
“Even drunk, I can’t fool you.” The other man sighed and placed his hands flat on the top of the bar.
“I’m not drunk.” His words didn’t slur as if to prove his point. The connection strengthened the longer he held his gaze and soon the layers of the other man’s mind peeled back. “You have sixty seconds to explain what you want—because otherwise why walk in here and try to fool me?” It had been a mistake to copy Sam. Had the doppelganger chosen anyone other than one of Jason’s brothers, he might have bought himself more than a few seconds. Sam’s thoughts were crystal, damn near pristine in their orderliness.
At least it answered one question for Jason—copying a person didn’t make them emulate a thought pattern. It was good information. He drained his glass while the doppelganger sat silently.
“You have forty seconds.” Jason set the gun on the bar. He didn’t need it to kill him. He had his thoughts now. He could dig down inside of him and empty him out. Then shut down the rest of him until he slowly suffocated to death—or simply stop the mental impulse ordering his heart to beat. The number of functions in the body that the mind controlled was utterly fascinating.
“I want out,” the man admitted finally.
“Lose my brother’s face.” It wasn’t a request. The air turned shimmery, like a misty rain falling, and Sam’s face began to distort. Twisting in his seat, Jason made no pretense of not watching the muscles tighten, shift, and flex as Sam became Ryan. The process took a long time and required even minute changes to the height of his ears, the length of his hair. It didn’t have the same bone cracking force of Cody’s shift, but it was damned unsettling to watch.
“Better?” Ryan’s voice bumped up and then down in a hoarse wrenching—like that of a boy becoming a man.
“No comment.” He studied his adversary’s face, if it was indeed his real one. Ryan’s surface thoughts all but blared his exhaustion. “You have trouble with swift changes and it’s getting harder to be you again.” He might almost feel pity for him had the man not been a witness and, at times, active participant in Jason’s torture.
The doppelganger blanched. “You really can read thoughts. I thought Miller made it up.”
Jason could do so much more than that, which Ryan would learn shortly. “Why are you here?”
“Like I said, I want out.”
“Then leave. You’ve had months to do it and you haven’t.” On this point alone, Jason remained curious. What is Ryan’s plan?
“You don’t understand…” It wasn’t the right answer. Jason focused and burrowed down a layer into the other’s mind while he applied pressure to the portion of his mind that controlled his muscles, freezing him in place. Ryan stiffened. “I’m trying to ex—” Uninterested in the complaint, Jason told his mind to cut off his oxygen. Seconds past as Ryan strangled, his eyes wide and wild. His mind began to spin and his thoughts scattered. MacPherson will kill me…I have to bring you back—or Delilah—or something—something to prove my good faith—
Allowing him to breathe, Jason maintained the rigidity of Ryan’s muscles. Harsh gasps for air filled the silence.
“Why do you have to bring something back?”
“He’s gearing up for a war and he has to have the most powerful on his side. It’s why we came here in the first place.” Ryan didn’t bother to couch his answers this time. “Our original mission was to acquire the firestarter and the wol
f shifter—and to kill the dreamwalker.”
Scarlett. Cody. Buck. “That’s not what Miller wanted.”
“Miller was insane.”
Jason had no argument with that assessment.
“He wanted his wife back. He hated her, but he wanted her, too. When we found Delilah had come here, we knew returning her would curry favor with MacPherson. But that wasn’t our mission.” Ryan swallowed hard. “Can I have a drink?”
“No. Why stay after Miller tried to kill everyone?” Had killed—so many. Had nearly killed Olivia. Jason found the autonomic controls in Ryan’s head, it wouldn’t take much to stop his heart. He probed the information. The doppelganger’s thoughts were wild with a dozen different ideas to placate him.
Fortunately, he went back to the truth each time.
“If I go back, MacPherson will kill me.” True enough.
Jason had no pity for him. “Staying here is a death sentence as well.”
“Not if I have something of value.” Another hard swallow, and his thoughts calmed with every deep breath he managed to gulp.
“You have nothing.”
“I know where MacPherson is,” Ryan offered.
“Not interested.” Jason already knew where the son of a bitch was.
“I know he didn’t want us to go after the ones on the western mountain. We were to stay away from them. He wanted the other two so he could turn them—and he wanted the dreamwalker dead, to send a message.”
“To whom?” It didn’t matter that he already knew, Jason wanted confirmation.
I don’t know. It’s his war, he’s ready to start it, but he needs to amass more power—to deal with Quinn. “He hates them, but I think he’s afraid of them, too. He’s known about the others for a long time and when he received word they’d left the mountain, he started planning how to capture them. Then he lost the siren and his plans changed.”
That fit with what Jason had learned about MacPherson’s greater ‘plan,’ though the man had been careful to never think about it when Jason was around. Not that Jason ever ventured past the inky black of the man’s surface thoughts. He also didn’t tell people what he was doing. “How do you know this?”
“Because sometimes when he drinks, he talked about it. It wasn’t often, but he did. Whatever is on that mountain scares him almost as much as Quinn does.”
Good. Quinn didn’t work for MacPherson. Jason had believed that, but confirmation was good. “Who told him?”
What? Ryan’s mind began to scramble, being held immobile shredded his ability to think. Jason didn’t care. “Told him what?”
“Told him they were off the mountain.” He considered cutting off his oxygen again, but choking him might cut off his thoughts.
“I don’t know.”
Not liking the answer, Jason dug and Ryan let out a scream. It wasn’t pleasant for Jason either, but he ignored it. Finding no deception in his thoughts, he eased up on the pressure. “You don’t have much to offer.” The information source might have been a bargaining chip.
“He has my daughter,” Ryan broke. “If I don’t bring him anything, he’ll kill her and that’s the kindest thing he’ll do.”
Except that wasn’t what worried Ryan. The moment his daughter came into his thoughts, so did his true fears—the speculation that MacPherson already forced her to use her gift in his service. Another doppelganger, she was stronger than her father, even at a tender young age—copying anyone and anything. Gifts were no problem for her and she’d copied Delilah already.
“How long?” Jason demanded.
“Four years. She’s a baby—not even seven—and he took her from me when she was three. The moment he realized she could do what I can.” No, the moment MacPherson realized Ryan wouldn’t do everything demanded of him. When the doppelganger displayed a conscience. The man was at a loss. If he went back, MacPherson would kill him. If he stayed, MacPherson still had his child. He wanted out.
“Why come to me now?” He’d had months to confess this, to seek asylum or help. Why now?
“Because I saw that woman arrive today. I saw your reaction. You may be an ice cold bastard, but now I know you have something to los—” His words choked on a gurgle and Ryan fell backwards off the stool as blood poured from his nostrils.
“Don’t kill him.” Micah stood in the doorway, Jimmy and Cody crowding the space behind him.
A hair’s breadth away from ending the doppelganger, Jason spared a look at his brother. Ryan had attacked Jason’s family. Participated in the mass slaughter of Dorado. Nearly killed Sam. “He threatened Olivia.” The man didn’t deserve to live.
“Don’t kill him yet.”
The concession on his brother’s part allowed Jason to pull back. He didn’t rip the rest of the information from the man’s mind and he left him intact.
“He’s ice cold.” Jimmy squatted next to the doppelganger.
“He’ll live,” was Cody’s only comment. The wolf bypassed the fallen man and took a position up next to Jason. “Your drink is frozen.”
The rotgut had turned to ice in the bottle. Frost encroached on the bar top. Ruthlessly suppressing the secondary gift, Jason chilled his thoughts further. The man had suggested using Olivia as a lever.
“Take him and do whatever you want with him.” He made it five steps before Micah caught his arm, but his brother jerked when the chill bit at his fingers. Jason didn’t even have to read him to see the pain and the shock on his brother’s face.
“Don’t shut us out. We’re on your side.”
Jason didn’t have a side. “We caught him, that’s all that’s important. Lock him up. I’ll give you his details shortly.” He needed to calm down.
Not waiting for a response, he left. The wolf followed, but he didn’t care. As long as he kept his distance, Jason wouldn’t accidentally kill him.
Chapter 5
Olivia, Flying K
“Are you sure there isn’t something I can get you?” Scarlett’s voice washed over her and Olivia almost felt guilty for wishing the woman would merely leave her alone.
“Truthfully, I’m fine. Thank you.” They’d installed her in a set of rooms. From the scent of them, she had to think they were Jason’s. The cluttered space had been organized, and she wanted a chance to explore without witnesses. Fumbling was difficult enough, she didn’t need strangers witnessing her struggle. “Though I would very much like to speak to Mr. Kane when he returns.”
Jed Kane hadn’t been in residence when she’d arrived, but a few of the women from town had been. Well two of them, anyway. Scarlett, Sam’s wife, and a younger girl who’d been introduced only as Sage. Miss Annabeth had prepared her a bowl of stew with two thick slices of fresh baked bread and she’d washed it all down with some chamomile tea. She appreciated their attempts to be soothing, but she needed answers and no one appeared to be giving them.
“Sam knows,” Scarlett assured her, and instead of leaving she came closer. “May I ask you an intrusive question?”
More curious than offended, Olivia resisted the urge to simply consent. “None of you will answer my questions, but you want to ask me one?”
Silence. It had come out rather churlish and she considered apologizing. Using her walking stick, she located the edge of the bed and then made her way to the chair. None of the others seemed very good at giving her instructions, but that was okay. She’d learned a lot at school, including the expectation of fending for herself. Mapping the room wouldn’t take her long, however she preferred to not have her performance witnessed—not when the chances were high she’d smack into stuff.
“I suppose that’s not terrifically fair.” The echo of concession in Scarlett’s words helped Olivia suppress her resentment. Fabric rustled and just as Olivia found a chair to sit in, Scarlett sat as well. “I can’t promise to answer everything. However, I can try to answer some questions.”
Not wanting to get the other woman in trouble, Olivia said, “Are you certain? Everyone has been so adamant a
bout waiting for Jason.”
“True, I think you should. He must have his reasons for not explaining everything and for sending you immediately to the ranch. One being that it is safer here.” Absolute confidence echoed under the sentence, and something more. “I’m afraid most of us don’t know Jason as well as we’d like and so we have our questions, too.”
She wouldn’t answer questions about him, nor reveal any confidences, even if she possessed such knowledge. “What fever swept the town?”
Another wave of silence met that question, and it lasted so long, anger curdled her stomach when Olivia thought Scarlett might renege on her offer to answer questions. “I have a right to know what killed my parents. How they died.”
“I know. I’m sorry I hesitated. It’s—they call it spirit fever.” It wasn’t reluctance, but a sadness that caught in Scarlett’s voice. “It’s very contagious and it leaves few, if any, survivors.”
“I’ve heard of such fevers, but none by that name.” The eastern cities weren’t immune to illness, but they were far swifter to close down an area and try to blockade a disease. She’d heard strained rumors of one such quarantine while in Boston. As much as she didn’t want to know, she also had to know the answer to her next question. “Do the infected suffer terribly before they die?”
A feminine hand closed over hers and Olivia realized she’d been digging her nails into her palms. “At the beginning, there is discomfort. Most fall into a deep, deep sleep and Noah says they drift away.”
The name Noah meant nothing to her. Olivia squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe her parents hadn’t suffered. If only she’d been there… “Are you certain?”
“Certain?” Scarlett deflected the question with one of her own. “About what?”
“That my parents—that they died? Maybe they were on a trip…my father sometimes went to San Antonio to purchase new stock for the store. Once—once he went all the way to Fort Worth. Maybe he did this time. Maybe Ma went with him.” Was it too much to hope for?
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