Paranormal Heartbreakers Boxed Set

by Jeanne Rose

Fire . . .

  She stood there, eyes blinking, chest heaving, and waited for her pulse to steady.

  Then, finally, struggling with apprehension, Mara raised her eyes. They widened as her gaze met the pueblo ruin built high into the rock – the very same cliff dwelling that had been haunting Luke’s newest paintings.

  And a feeling so strong she could not deny it swept over her, pulling her up the rocky slope toward a side entrance to the pueblo ruins. This was it. She was certain, just as Isabel had said she would be. She could feel the pulse of the very earth beat below her feet.

  At last, she’d found her dreaming place.

  RUBBING AT HIS GRITTY, sleep-robbed eyes, Luke relieved his mother and sat watching his grandmother in her narrow bed, wondering if Mara had had any success in her quest. She’d been gone all day.

  Her absence stretched into forever.

  “I sense you are grieving, Stormdancer.”

  “Grandmother, you’re awake.” Luke breathed a sigh of relief as she sat up in bed. “And safe.” For another day, at least.

  She reached out and found his hand as easily as if she could see. “What is troubling you?”

  “Everything. Mara.”

  His grandmother nodded. “She has not yet succeeded. At least my dreams were free of her presence.”

  And of any other presence, Luke assumed.

  “Mara’s probably as frustrated as I am. I’m sorry to let you down.”

  “You are still fighting yourself, Stormdancer. Open your mind, free it of what you know and seek what you do not.”

  Luke had felt he could do that with his paintings, that for him, his art was a substitute for a real dreaming place. He’d painted like a madman until he could no longer lift a brush. The horrific images he’d created in a near-hypnotic state had fired him into a frenzy, and yet he hadn’t quite been able to leave the solid, earthly world behind. He’d gotten so far . . . and then had allowed something to pull him back.

  Something called fear.

  “I’m afraid our fate might rest on the shoulders of a white woman, Grandmother.”

  “Mara cannot do this alone. Only when the male and female are joined and work together can we reach our highest powers.” She referred to the Kisi belief that both sexes needed to be involved for the highest sort of magic. “You must find a way to help her.

  “And if I don’t?”

  His grandmother’s silence spooked Luke. Her focus turned inward, away from him. But she didn’t have to say the words.

  Luke stood. “Should I send Mother in?”

  “No. I will rise and eat now and stay on guard throughout the night. You are going to Mara?”

  Luke hadn’t put the urge to words, but he admitted, “I must find her.” Noting the way his grandmother’s lips tightened, he promised, “I won’t disturb her from her mission. I only want to see that she’s safe.”

  And he would have to force himself to stay awake, for, after what he’d created on canvas, who knew what kind of dream he might send her.

  “AIE-E-E!”

  Screams all around shuddered through her as she ran from the carnage. Spaniards had invaded the pueblo to surprise and overcome the men who had been unprepared for battle and the elders who hadn’t had time to cast powerful protective spells. The scent of death and burning wood hung heavy on the early morning desert air. But how had the Spanish soldiers gotten inside without alerting the guards? They must have come through the secret entrance . . . yet, how had they found it?

  Slipping and sliding down a slope toward the canyon floor, carrying her oldest sister’s baby and holding the hand of her five year old nephew, she chanced a glance around and spotted him – her Comanche lover. Emerging from the flames, his face and body blackened with soot, a terrible burn scarring one arm, he flew after her, shouting her name, but two soldiers quickly restrained him. He struggled to no avail.

  “No-o-o!” she cried, both a protest at his capture and at knowing why the walkways of the pueblo ran red.

  Her lover had come for her, just as he’d threatened to do, and he must have been followed – that’s how the Spaniards had gotten by the guards. She’d refused to give him up and so was responsible for the spilled blood of her people.

  Her heart withered in her breast.

  Her fault . . . all her fault.

  Silent tears streamed down her face as the fire roared behind her. She had to save her sister’s children. She started running, pulling along her small nephew when he began to wail. The baby in her arms whimpered. She shut out all sounds, especially those behind her, the pueblo falling in on itself and the death cries of those unlucky enough to still be inside. The Spanish soldiers would kill everyone except the younger women and the children big enough to work as slaves. If they caught her, the baby in her arms would die.

  She wished she could die.

  Somehow, she got safely to the canyon floor. Chancing one last look back at her lover, she saw a Spanish sword drive into the Comanche’s heart. With an agonized shout, he fell to his knees . . . as did she. She clutched the baby to her breast so hard the little girl began crying.

  As her lover died before her eyes, her mouth opened in a silent scream that went on and on, horror without end . . .

  Sitting Indian-style amongst the ruins of the pueblo, Mara cradled her grief to her breast. This was no dream, but a memory of another life – she had seen other, older ones, including that of an Anazasi. But in this life, circa 1691, she had inadvertently betrayed her people, the Kisi. Tears seeped from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

  Isabel had told her to learn why the place was so special to her, but Mara hadn’t been prepared for the wellspring of pain the answers would bring.

  She remembered being taken prisoner along with her nephew. Remembered being shackled with irons and chains, while the baby was abandoned, left alone to die under the desert sun. Remembered being introduced to the Spanish captain, Francisco Castillo, the pig whose sword had pierced her lover’s heart – Luke’s heart, she knew – and who was responsible for the death of her people.

  No, she had been responsible, Mara reminded herself, as she floated once more.

  The little girl’s terrified wails haunted her as did her lover’s death cry even as she was reunited with what was left of the Kisi people. Her shame was so great, she couldn’t speak to them again. She couldn’t bear to feel their accusing eyes on her.

  Silent for days, she plotted escape. She had nowhere to go, no plan but to die alone.

  And then, when the guards became lax in their duties while they ate in front of her starving people, she took her chance. Still shackled, weak from hunger and thirst, she slithered silently between jagged rocks until she found a clear area along the mesa. Seeing her opening, she ran until she could run no more.

  Head bowed under the beating sun, she stumbled along, barely able to move her heavy legs, even when she heard the pounding sound behind her.

  Thud, thud, thud. Thud, thud, thud.

  Something terrible was sweeping down upon her.

  Fear put renewed speed to her legs.

  The earth shook beneath her feet. Her pursuer was relentless, drawing loud, fiery breaths. A shadow loomed over her, cutting off the sun.

  She was going to die.

  She deserved to die, she thought, falling under the flashing hooves. Hot pain sluiced through her as the horse crushed her legs and hips, then her chest.

  Captain Francisco Castillo reining in his horse and grinning down at her was the last thing she saw before she died.

  Weeping, Mara shook with guilt. She’d never meant to hurt anyone. She’d only meant to seek a bit of happiness with the man she loved. In that tragic life, she and Luke had been responsible for the Kisi being known as the cursed ones.

  Suddenly other images swept the back of her closed eyelids. Other, newer lives, all as a white woman, in which love remained but a fleeting dream, her punishment for the lives lost in the Pueblo massacre. Now she realized she’d never
had a truly satisfactory relationship, even in this lifetime. She was nearly thirty and had rarely considered marriage.

  Through three centuries, she and Luke had renewed their roles as tragic lovers over and over again. But why?

  Why were they still being punished?

  It came to her that their present life finally gave them the chance to right the wrong for which she and Luke were responsible, a chance to save what was left of the Kisi people and remove the curse.

  For her to do so, she had to be stronger than she’d ever been, Mara knew. She couldn’t have doubts.

  First she had to forgive herself.

  Forgiveness did not come easy after what she’d witnessed. To be responsible for so many deaths was a horrible burden to bear. But she had only been human, was human. She concentrated. Prayed. Made a silent promise that this time she would not let her people die. For, though she had not been born a Kisi, Mara knew they were her people.

  Time passed in a vacuum, but eventually she became aware of the invisible weight being lifted from her shoulders. Gradually, she breathed easier.

  “I do forgive myself,” she whispered to the night.

  And the night breathed back, “This is good, Palo-Wuti.”

  Palo-Wuti – somehow she knew that meant Snakewoman and was her sacred name.

  “Palo-Wuti.” Repeating the name gave her a connection to the earth she’d never before felt. Connection and power. “Palo-Wuti.”

  Letting her mind drift once more, she found herself free of her corporal body and floated above the pueblo, looking down on her semi-conscious self. She heard sounds from miles around, sensed the creatures who inhabited the desert, and saw the exhausted man who slept behind a boulder below the cliff.

  Luke had followed to protect her.

  Luke, the man she loved, the man she had loved for more than three hundred years.

  New tears streamed from her eyes when she opened them.

  Stiff from sitting for so many hours, Mara rose slowly, testing her limbs as she straightened. She had to be with Luke right now. In the distance, the sky was lightening and the stars overhead were receding to await a new night. Dawn was almost upon them.

  Climbing down from the pueblo, she came upon her lover’s resting place. Rather than waking him, she sat on the earth nearby and watched him sleep, hoping that for the moment he was having only good dreams.

  Mara now knew why nightmares about fire had invaded Luke’s sleep all his life. Fire was a symbol of the pueblo burning and especially all those lives lost because of his anger, his need to defy her and come after her, thereby giving unknowing entrance to the Spaniards who followed him. She wondered how long it would take Luke to face and come to terms with the truth of his guilt.

  Suddenly he stirred and made a sound deep in his throat. Her pulse picked up as she watched him wake. His eyes flew open and, startled, he sat straight up.

  “Mara? What . . . is everything all right?”

  Overflowing with excitement, she nodded. “I did it, Luke. I found my dreaming place.”

  “Grandmother will be relieved.”

  Rather than being openly happy for her, he seemed tense, and Mara knew he’d been unsuccessful in finding his own vision. She hesitated telling him the details of hers. In her heart, she felt that he must discover the past for himself. That might be the only way he could deal with the horror, the only way he could forgive and believe in himself.

  She stared at him through the eyes of a love older than she had ever thought possible. Thick hanks of black hair had worked free from the leather thong in back. She reached out a hand to touch the strands, then ripped the thong free. His hair fell around his face, and for a second, Mara saw her fierce Comanche warrior.

  He grabbed her wrist, brought her palm first to his lips where he kissed it, then to his cheek where he cradled it as if it were precious.

  “I’m glad you’re safe,” he said softly.

  Her heart thundered. “Thank you for protecting me.”

  “I fell asleep.”

  She slid her hand back over his mouth to stop him from blaming himself, something he did far too often. He kissed her tender flesh again, then removed the hand so he could draw her close. In a flash, Mara felt Luke’s heart beat against her breasts . . . the heartbeat of a wild and passionate and jealous Comanche reborn as a shuttered and angry Kisi.

  Then she savored his kiss – rough, hungry, consuming.

  He cupped her breast, thumb circling her nipple, arousing her unbearably so that she moaned into his mouth. Burning with desire, she melted inside. She wanted him. Needed him. She always had. When his hand slid further between them to undo the buttons of her shirt, she undid his with equal fervor.

  In minutes, they lay naked upon the discarded clothing beneath a sky that had lightened to azure. She smoothed her hands over his bare, broad chest . . . or was it that of her Comanche lover?

  He was both.

  “You fill my thoughts,” Luke growled as he lay lightly upon her, taking both her wrists prisoner and lifting them above her head.

  “And you mine.”

  She parted her legs and bent her knees, breath catching in her throat as she felt him probe her. As if destined, he found her heart without ever releasing her hands. She tilted her hips, easing his entry. She needed no readying for this moment. She’d been waiting for him for centuries.

  Her heart beat an ancient rhythm, her soul recognizing his. She only hoped he could do the same and soon, for she longed to share the past with him openly.

  But for now, as Luke drove into her, Mara welcomed the new day dawning . . . and a renewed hope for their future.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MARA’S HOPE DIMMED a bit when they arrived at the pueblo and found Isabel in her bed, damp with sweat and thrashing. Small hoarse cries occasionally escaped her.

  “She’s been like this since she fell asleep at dawn,” Onida said, wringing a wet cloth and placing it on Isabel’s forehead. “I think she’s sick from fighting the evil.”

  Guilt crept through Mara as she remembered what she and Luke had been doing at dawn. Then again, the walk, rather than their lovemaking had kept them from home until mid-afternoon.

  Luke gently took a frail hand in his. “Grandmother, can you hear me?”

  “Stormdancer?” The sightless eyes opened. In a broken voice, Isabel said, “The Kisi are doomed. I have no strength left with which to fight.”

  “Then we will fight for you,” Mara promised.

  Luke gave her a startled look and shook his head.

  But Mara ignored him and continued, “You leave it to Luke and me, Isabel. We’ll take care of everything. I found my dreaming place.”

  “Then you found your visions?”

  “Yes,” Mara said as Luke’s expression went from angry to furious. “Now you can truly rest. Sleep at peace, knowing that we’ll work together to stop the evil from spreading.”

  “Good.” Isabel’s paper-thin lids fluttered over her eyes. “Good.” She was instantly asleep, her body relaxed, her breathing deep.

  “Thank goodness,” Onida said. “I feared for her life.”

  “We all did.” Mara glared at Luke.

  “I need to see you outside,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Perhaps your mother needs someone to take over for her a bit more.”

  “No, I’m fine.” Onida’s round face was wreathed in a relieved smile. “I’m glad your search in the desert turned out well, Mara.” She turned to her son, “And your painting,

  Luke.”

  He patted his mother’s arm but didn’t respond. To Mara, he said, “Outside,” in a steely tone.

  This time she didn’t argue, but followed him as he stormed out of the house. He was treating her as he had when they were still strangers. And making her equally angry. He didn’t stop until he reached the small courtyard where she’d watched him paint the first time she’d come to the pueblo.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” />
  “Isabel needed to rest easy,” she said, cutting him off.

  “With a lie?”

  “A half-truth.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Why argue with me, Luke? Why not put some of this anger toward turning the half-truth into the whole truth?” she challenged him coldly. “You promised you would try.”

  “I have tried.”

  “Not hard enough.” If she was being unfair, she didn’t care. Too much was at stake for her to care. Lives. Them.

  “Who are you to say what is enough or not?” he demanded. “Maybe Grandmother was wrong and I’m not the one. Maybe there’s nothing for me to learn.”

  Mara was tempted to tell him how wrong he was, but, no, he had to face the past himself. “You don’t believe that, Luke. Are you really so afraid of the truth? So much so that you would abandon your own Grandmother, your own people?” Her?

  His complexion darkened and his expression turned to stone. Mara waited for the explosion, but it didn’t come. Instead, he spun on his heel and stalked away.

  “Luke?”

  He ignored her.

  “Luke, wait, please.”

  And kept going . . .

  “Luke.”

  . . . right through the gate.

  “Damn!”

  She felt like going after him, haranguing him until he agreed to put forth another, greater effort . . . but what good would that do? Despondent, she thought to relieve Onida until she remembered the woman saying something about Luke’s painting, as if she’d expected him to find his answers there.

  For the past several days, he’d been working on scenes of the cliff dwelling . . .

  Curiosity led her to his studio even knowing Luke would probably be doubly angry about her entering it without his permission.

  Shock pinned her to the spot the moment her gaze hit the three paintings lined up to dry against one wall. Even from where she stood, the powerful images grabbed her.

  Fire.

  He’d done it. He’d taken her advice.

  Luke had finally painted his nightmares.

  Slowly, Mara inched closer to the first painting. Realizing the image was familiar, a sight that she’d seen in her vision, she gasped. For there on the canvas, the pueblo burned. Some tiny figures seemed to be trapped within the flames, while others fled in every direction. In the foreground was the silhouette of a woman holding one child’s hand and pressing a baby to her breast.