Ghost Stalker

by Jenna Kernan

  Nick slipped his hand free as she sat beside him. “Jessie, lots of women find me attractive because they can’t see what I really am. If they could, they would run away screaming.”

  Jessie stilled, knowing this was not entirely true. Humans would be terrified and her people, likely repulsed, but what about his own kind? What about a lithe, beautiful raven.

  “What about other Inanoka?”

  He hesitated a moment too long and she felt the tearing in her heart.

  “My kind do not forgive failure and I am the son of the most notorious Skinwalker who ever lived. It makes me an outcast among them.”

  “What about Tuff?”

  “A holy man, above such emotions.”

  “You have no true friends?”

  Another long pause. “Few. And now I have you and this connection between us that I do not understand. But it gave me hope that you would be different.”

  She stalked to the dresser and then back as their roles reversed as she hunted him. “I am different. Because I am the first woman to ever see what is in your heart and it makes me want you more.”

  He drew back. “It’s a mistake.”

  She had no way to win this argument. She wondered if knowing what was in her thoughts would convince him. Jessie stood and untied her robe, allowing it to fall open, revealing herself to him. His gaze turned hungry as she came to him, taking his head between her hands and pressing his cheek to the naked swell of her breasts. She held him there, with his skin pressed to her own. Could he feel her heartbeat?

  Could he feel her change of heart? Did he know that she was not like his mother and that she would never, ever stop loving him?

  He drew back, gripping her hands as he gazed up at her.

  “With you it is more than the wanting.”

  She smiled. “Much more.”

  He closed his eyes and inhaled, his face taking on a pained expression. “I can’t resist you.”

  “Maka be blessed.”

  His hands slipped from hers and he seized her hips, dragging her forward so that his teeth could scrape the sensitive skin of her breast.

  He reached to her shoulders and pushed the silky fabric away, allowing it to fall at her feet.

  Nick stood before her, and when she lifted her arms to embrace him, she discovered he was already naked.

  “That’s hard to get used to,” she whispered and stepped into his arms. “But I like it.”

  He dragged her up against him and then carried them back onto the middle of her king-size bed.

  “This is a lot of territory for someone that so often sleeps alone.”

  She always slept alone and with good reason. Pride made a denial spring to her lips, but then he laughed again and she saw the futility of lies. He saw the truth in her.

  “I’m not alone anymore,” she whispered.

  For the first time in her life, she did not have to hide what she was or what she wanted. He knew everything.

  “Better still, I know how to give it to you.” His smile made promises he intended to keep.

  They grinned at each other.

  “That sounds…intriguing.” She leaned forward and licked the shell of his ear and plucked his earlobe into her mouth. She sucked it and his thrill of excitement pulsed through her. The reaction so startled her, she drew back to stare down at him in wonder. “This is amazing.”

  He frowned. “It was…”

  She sat up so that she knelt over him, with one knee pressed to each side of his lean hips. “So impatient.”

  He thrust his hips, bucking hard enough to lift her completely off the bed. When she came back down, his erection was nestled between his belly and her thighs. She gasped in surprise and he laughed.

  He was so powerful. He could do whatever he wanted to her and she would let him. But right now she wanted to command him, hold him, make him do her bidding. Even if it were all an illusion. She wanted him under her control.

  He grinned and lifted his arms. But instead of taking her as he wanted, he pressed his wrists together as if they were bound and placed them above his head.

  “Go ahead,” he coaxed. “Control me.”

  She slipped her hands over his wrists and pinned them down. He made a show of testing his bonds, flexing his muscles so she could see the power she sought to contain. His grin was wicked and it did things to her insides.

  Jessie’s hand glided along his erection, and for the first time, he lost control. He sucked in a breath through his teeth and arched back to increase the contact between them. She felt his urge to grasp her hips and thrust deep inside her.

  “So impatient,” she murmured, using his words against him.

  He growled but relaxed his arms, pressing them back to the mattress. She continued her game, gliding her slick cleft along the full length of him and watching the blood vessels in his neck and forehead pulse. He was losing the battle of restraint, and she knew she could not push him much further.

  She leaned forward to kiss him but decided to bite his lower lip instead and then held the soft, ripe tissue between her lips.

  He bucked against her, increasing the delicious friction and making her suck in a breath. The gasp inadvertently freed him from her bite. He lifted his head and took her mouth in a deep kiss. One hand slipped from hers, and he clasped her head, bringing her closer and controlling the kiss. She pulled back, sliding away to sit on his thighs.

  His erection sprang up between them like a catapult and he looked confused for an instant, then narrowed his eyes and returned his wrist to her possession.

  “You’ll be sorry,” he said. The threat only excited her as she thought of what he might do in retaliation.

  “I hope so,” she whispered and leaned forward to capture his lips again.

  He moved so quickly that she did not have time to react. One moment she was brushing the tips of her breasts across the bare skin of his chest and the next he had captured her breast in his mouth. She arched back at the flood of pleasure cascading through her. Jessie clutched at his head, pressing him tight, forgetting to imprison his wrists.

  He moved from one aching breast to the next, loving her and laving her hot flesh with his tongue. She pulsed with desire and wetness, wanting to feel him driving deep.

  “Now, please now,” she urged.

  He pinned her with hungry eyes. “If you want me, then take me.”

  She had never wanted anything more. Jessie rose up before him, gripping his shaft with both hands as she took possession of him. In the low light, his eyes took on a strange green cast, like the glint of an animal’s in the headlights. She held him at the ready as she rose above him. He watched her progress and she felt the restraint he exercised as she began her descent. He wanted to move, to possess, to join, yet he held himself motionless as she glided all the way down until her bottom pressed to his lean hips.

  She smiled down in triumph. “You’re mine now.”

  “Always,” he whispered.

  She began a slow, tortuous rocking as Nick folded his hands behind his head and let her use his body to slake her desire. The friction was delicious but she ached to feel his hands upon her. His eyes met hers and the knowing shone in his confident expression.

  He unlocked his hands and reached for her, his fingers working magic as she rocked back and forth. She panted and gasped as her body responded to his touch. She trembled, afraid her legs would not hold her, carry her to the finish she desired. Still his fingers danced over her swollen flesh as he rose to suckle at her swaying breasts. The touch of his mouth was the catalyst that ignited her rising passion. She cried his name and arched, locking her hips tight to his as her release pulsed all around him.

  He waited, still, erect, moving just enough to extend her pleasure to the last wave of fulfillment.

  She opened her eyes to stare in wonder at her lover.

  “That was—”

  She never had a chance to finish her thought for he flipped her over with such speed that she was dizzy. Throughout,
he remained locked deep inside her, but now he arched, pressing her down to the comforter with the lean, muscular power of his loins.

  “And now, Dream Child, you are mine.”

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  He captured her hands and forced them over her head. She was weak from her release and offered no resistance as he clasped her wrists in one hand, using the other to arouse her, stroking her belly and breasts, making her writhe with renewed passion. And all the while he pinned her with his hips and with his hand.

  The muscles of his cheeks bulged. She marveled at the tension that he held as he awakened her need until she was bucking beneath him and pleading for him to take her again.

  Only then did his control snap. She felt it break and with it came the rush of madness that overcame all rational thought.

  She bucked; he plunged. She ungulated; he possessed. He was a rising firestorm of passion. And instead of holding back, protecting herself, she spread her legs wider, allowing him to touch her as no one ever had.

  He seemed to recognize it, for there was a flicker of understanding and his eyes snapped to meet hers. It was then she felt his release begin. She registered it with a gasp as she experienced his passion and, in doing, was rocked by her own.

  The combination of emotions shook her and she lost all sense of where they were. She knew only that she was his and he was hers. They had found each other and she would never, ever be the same again.

  Her body went slack and he drew her close, cradling her in his arms as he stroked her from neck to hip. His hand made a slow, meandering journey that soothed her jangled nerves. And Jessie allowed herself the pleasure of sleeping in his arms.

  Jessie gently basked in the starlight of an unfamiliar meadow and wondered whose dream she visited. She had not intentionally jumped. Something was different here. She was not the observer, but it clearly was not her dream.

  Then came a scent. Something new, yet familiar. Elk. Yes, that was it. She breathed deep and then lowered herself to all fours, crouching to listen for her quarry.

  Mist clung to the ground, making the elk seem to float above the earth. The fresh, clean fragrance of grass and earth enveloped her.

  She lifted her head to find her prey. The dawn was still hours away, yet she could see everything with such clarity.

  The doe beside its mother was young and tender.

  Her mouth watered. It had been a long time since the last kill. Behind her, the pack circled silently in the tall grass, shielded by the mist, careful to stay downwind of their prey. They would wait for her to make the first move. She was the alpha and they did as she commanded.

  She rushed forward in an explosion of force, streaking with a speed that thrilled her, her muscles powerful and fast as her paws ate up the ground between them.

  The elk had seen her now, even half covered as she was by the mist. The mother bolted away, charging into the circle of the others, realizing too late she was trapped. The elk lowered her antlers, preparing to defend her young.

  Her pack closed in, growling as the elk pawed the ground. One of the others snapped at the newborn. The mother turned to defend her calf, leaving her haunches exposed to Jessie.

  She leaped, biting deep and feeling the hamstrings shred beneath her fangs. Screaming filled the clearing as the others closed in to rip and tear as the elk fell. The young one escaped.

  Jessie turned to give chase. Instead she looked at her hands, a trick she often used to control her dream. She saw them coated with the blood of the mother.

  “No,” she whispered.

  Her scream tore her from the dream. She was in her bedroom again. Beside her, Nick leaped from the bed, crouching in a posture, ready to attack. She screamed again, recoiling to escape him. He did not leap at her, but stayed between her and the door, searching vainly for some sign of threat and then turning back to her in bewilderment.

  Jessie curled against the headboard, her heart pounding in her chest.

  Nick placed one knee on the bed. “Jessie, what’s wrong?”

  He reached for her and she extended her hand, holding him off.

  “No! Not yet. Give me a moment to understand what is happening.”

  He hovered there before her, a dark shadow, as she tried to rein the terror back in. Had it been her dream or his?

  This was why she slept alone. Touching another person while she slept often caused her to slip into their dreams. The journeying disrupted her sleep and she woke exhausted.

  But that had not happened here. She was not visiting. She had experienced this.

  “Nick, were you dreaming?” she whispered, finding herself still breathless from panic.

  “Yes.” His voice was cautious.

  He sat beside her, careful not to touch her. She released her death grip on the bedpost and crept closer.

  “What did you dream?” she asked.

  “I was hunting.”

  “Elk?”

  His eyes glowed green and feral in the near darkness. “You were there?”

  “No. Yes. Oh, I don’t understand this.”

  He stroked her cheek. “Tell me.”

  “I wasn’t visiting your dream. I was you, chasing the elk, tearing its tendons.” She clamped her hand across her mouth to stifle her cry of horror.

  He said nothing. Jessie needed to see him. She flipped on the light and found him sitting with his head hanging low and his forehead cradled in his hands.

  “I’ve always been able to keep others from seeing this beast I become. But not you.” He stared up at her with a look of such utter misery. “I’m sorry I can’t shield you from what I am.”

  Chapter 20

  “I am a hunter, Jessie. It is a part of me.”

  She opened her arms to him and he accepted her embrace.

  He drew her in, molding his body to hers.

  She nestled against his warm, solid form and felt the tension slowly dissolve.

  “Should I sleep in the other room?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I just have to figure out what to do. This never happened before.”

  Jessie crawled beneath the covers and waited. Nick lay on top of the blankets beside her but she noticed he was careful not to touch her.

  He brushed her hair from her face with the gentlest of touches. Then he flicked off the light and moved to the far side of the mattress.

  She lay awake for some time, trying to think of how to keep from slipping into his dreams. She didn’t want to wake him like that again. He had been sound asleep and dreaming, only to be roused to what he assumed was another attack on her, to find her cringing from him.

  Did he really hunt like that? She stifled the urge to shiver. There was so much about him she did not know.

  Jessie dozed at last and awoke at her usual time, just after sunrise. She opened her eyes to find him already awake.

  “How long have you been up?”

  “About three seconds.”

  Yet he looked completely alert. She smiled, feeling rumpled and tired. “How do you—”

  “Light sleeper.” He grinned. “Any more dreams?”

  Her night raid boiled to the surface and she dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry about that.”

  He stroked her bare shoulder. “Don’t be. We are still strangers in many ways.”

  “No, don’t say that.”

  His sad smile echoed the doubt that haunted her. Was he reluctant to believe her, even when he felt the truth?

  She captured his face between her hands, surprised that he did not have the stubble of beard she was accustomed to feeling on a man’s face in the morning.

  “I love you.”

  He grimaced and she felt his rising horror. His thoughts jarred her. Love did not last. Love was dangerous. Her love for him would die or be killed by the hatred of her people. They were doomed to repeat his parents’ tragic love story.

  “I’m not like her.”

  His eyes were sad but he didn’t deny his thoughts. “No, you’re not. She wa
s human and had no preconceived notion of how vicious a Skinwalker can be. You, on the other hand, already know.”

  “Lots of people hunt,” she said.

  “Not with their bare hands and teeth.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He swung his feet to the floor and stepped from the bed, fully dressed in faded jeans and a tight white T-shirt.

  “Jessie, my father tried to destroy your people. He was a killer and I’m his son. How we gonna get past that?”

  Jessie spotted her robe on the floor and retrieved it, slipping into the cold, silky shell. “You’re not him.”

  He faced her from across the king-size mattress. “But I’m like him, more than you realize. He saw the buffalo driven to near extinction by man’s reckless killing. Your charges have lost the balance that existed for generations. His duty was to protect the animals by fighting their enemies. My duty is the same.”

  “But he attacked Spirit Children.”

  “He attacked men. Your people stepped between him and his prey and the war began.”

  “He was wrong.”

  “Was he? He sought to reestablish the balance by controlling a race that was devouring the earth like termites in fresh wood.”

  They stood only five feet apart, but suddenly a chasm between them yawned to eternity.

  She could not suppress the horror his words stirred. “You think what he did was right?”

  “Not right, but perhaps necessary.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “How can you protect a species that is destroying the planet?”

  “They’re not a species. They’re men.”

  “Already we stand on opposite sides.”

  “No, protecting animals and protecting mankind do not need to be mutually exclusive.”

  He stared back at her, his eyes sad and weary.

  “What about your friend—the Healer? He married one of my race. They love each other and have fought together.”

  “Whether Sebastian and Michaela’s love will last is an open question. I wish them well but am a skeptic at heart.”