Maybe telling her more of the spirit world would only further her withdrawal? Did he have a right to reveal to her a world she could do no more about than have nightmares over? Maybe not. Yet how could he reach her?
Stepping behind her, he set his hands on her shoulders and eased her against him. “Can you not see that I will do all within my power to protect you, Erin?”
Erin closed her eyes as Jared’s heat and the hard contours of his body pressed against her back. She mentally pushed against the sensations stealing through her. He was in her mind, and she could feel his sensual caress deep within her.
He’s delusional, a part of her shouted.
A deeper part of her shouted back, He’s laid his life on the line for you. And he is different in ways you can’t explain. He healed you.
“Can’t you see that?” he asked, more urgent that before.
“Yes,” she whispered. “But—”
“No. There is only this connection between us. You know you can trust me. It is most important.”
He sounded like nothing else mattered, but it did.
She turned to him. “Who are you?”
He stared deeply at her, his gaze growing more and more desolate. “I don’t know who I am anymore, Erin. I know what I am. I am damned, poisoned within my soul. Fallen.”
That he’d reverted back to delusion brought stinging tears to her eyes. She set her hand on his shoulder, feeling the vibrancy of him as she tried earnestly to get him to understand. “Jared, we are all fallen in some ways. No one is perfect. But that doesn’t answer my question, Jared. You expect me to believe and trust a man whom I know nothing about. I can’t.”
He sighed heavily as if the weight of the universe had fallen on his shoulders. “I was a Blood Hunter, an elite band of the Shadowmen warriors who serve in Logos’s Guardian Forces. You saw a skirmish between the Guardian Forces and Heldon’s Fallen Army during the storm.”
Jared was even more delusional than she thought. More tears burned her eyes. She’d never felt as compelled to help anyone as much as she wanted to help him. “What does all that mean, Jared? What exactly does a Blood Hunter do?”
“There are creatures from the damned that feed upon Chosen blood. A Blood Hunter does whatever he can to stop that from happening.”
Erin’s heart squeezed painfully. After all that she’d thought she’d seen and had experienced, part of her wanted to believe in what he said. But another part of her couldn’t accept that this was real. She felt as if she was being sucked into his delusions. It was time she took charge of the situation and force some reality into this growing insanity.
She forced a smile. “Speaking of eating, I have some power bars, and I’m starving. Aren’t you hungry?”
He inhaled deeply and looked at her, appearing suddenly ravenous. “Can’t you see how important this is?” he asked. “Don’t you want to know what feeds on Chosen blood, Erin?”
Jared’s tone and the intensity of want in his eyes sent a shiver running through Erin. She didn’t suppose the nameless things he spoke of fed on oats and honey. But responding to his question would only feed his delusions.
He was such a strong, dynamic man that his crippling delusions made her hurt deeply for him. Maybe if she played along a little, he’d realize he didn’t need his delusions.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry. I do see that it is important. Why don’t you tell me what I need to know while we eat?”
He drew his finger down her cheek until its tip nestled on the pulse point of her neck. “No forgiveness needed. But you do have to understand there is more to the world than you know. Just as there is more to life than this small cave, there are greater realms outside the mortal world.” His clear blue gaze searched hers with such reason that for the first time a tiny question burrowed into her mind.
What if this was all real?
She drew a deep breath and forced a note of bravado into her voice. “All right. Then in the greater realms you speak of, what things threaten me?”
After a moment of searching, her eyes, he gazed into the growing darkness outside the cave. “There are creatures and beings who no longer own their souls. Heldon does. Chaotic evil is seeded deep within them. The higher ranks of his minions cross the spirit barrier that protects the mortal world from most of the damned but not all. Demons, werebeasts, and the vampires of the Vladarian Order cross the spirit barrier. It is the vampires who specifically hunt for Chosen blood within the mortal realm. As a descendent of King Solomon, your blood comes with Logos’s blessing, thus making the Vladarians who feed on it more powerful than other blood craving creatures.”
“Then I promise to watch very carefully for them. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to clean up and eat. I feel like I’ve been knocked down, dragged around in the mud, and left to starve.” Ignoring his shocked expression, Erin went to the dripping stalactite and rubbed her hands beneath its refreshing flow. Maybe it was the first time anyone had just accepted what he said, rather than arguing with him. She had had to bite her tongue. King Solomon’s descendants, as spoken of in the Bible? Thousands of years later and he wanted her to believe that? And vampires and werebeasts? Really? She had no doubts that demons walked the earth. Cinatas was one of them.
Then again, there had been something on the hood of her car last night.
After drinking some water from the fresh flow, she turned to Jared. He stood a few feet away, his scowl reminiscent of the storm’s ferocity. She motioned to him. “Come join me. While we eat, you can tell me where you’re from.”
“From?”
“Yeah, like where you were born. And what your life was like growing up there.”
“I was created in Eden.”
“Where?”
“It is in the East.”
“East of what?”
“Far east of here, in another land. Where are you from?” he asked.
Surely he didn’t mean the Eden, as in the Garden of Eden. “Nowhere,” she said. “Nowhere, Tennessee. It’s about two hours south of here.” That was where her parents still resided, but luckily, for the first time in their lives, they were somewhere besides Nowhere—a two-week cruise in the Mediterranean. She didn’t have to worry about contacting them or about Cinatas being able to harm them. Yet. But two weeks wasn’t a lot of time to bring down Cinatas and the Sno-Med Corporation.
Jared stoically took her answer in stride and this time she was the one who gawked at him. He didn’t laugh, and he didn’t look at her as if she’d handed him a bunch of bull. Unless a person was from way back in her hometown hills, nobody she’d ever met had heard of Nowhere. She had a feeling she could have said heaven or hell, and he would have just nodded as if they weren’t strange places to have been born.
He’d yet to move closer to her, so she motioned to him again. “Come on.”
The heat from his body reached her before he did, sort of like the lightning strike before the thunder blasts. She wished she had a thermometer, medicine, or even the first aid kit from her car so she could change his bandage again. Rain had soaked the gauze she’d applied earlier, but it was better to leave the wound alone than to expose it to more germs. Infections were a serious complication with burns. She pressed her palm to his cheek. “You still have a fever. You need to eat and rest. Let’s clean you up.”
Taking his hands, she guided them to the small pool of water, rubbing them with hers, feeling again the size and strength of him. She was by no means a petite woman, but he made her feel so. He had capable hands, gentle yet commanding hands . . . hot hands. Hands that made her tingle, hands that made her want to feel all that she’d imagined when he’d touched her and taken away the pain of her headache.
Dirt smeared his cheek, and she dipped her fingers in the cool water then bathed away the smudge. Her gaze slid to the full sensual curve of his lips, thinking his mouth was very much in character with his hands, capable, gentle, yet commanding and hot.
Recalling her earlier musi
ng, she decided Eros and not Satan had made him. While Satan could tempt, only the god of love, lust, and the erotic could sculpt a mouth as beautiful as Jared’s. She was close enough to see his pupils dilate and hear his quick indrawn breath just before he slid an arm around her back and pulled her flush against him. His heat instantly seeped into her, making her breasts swell and ache from the rush of hot desire. Her gaze shot to his. The fire of desire burning in his eyes disarmed her as much as the sudden passion of his embrace.
His lips claimed hers before she could think or react.
She leaned into him, pressing herself into his heat as the persuasive power of his mouth and the hard feel of his arousal against her demanded more from her. He made her want to strip naked and revel in the sultry sensuality of his hot…feverish, Erin, feverish body, her mind sharply pointed out to her.
Delusional and feverish. You’re the nurse. You’re the responsible one.
Moaning at her total lapse of reason, she pulled back from him and dug a pulverized power bar from her pocket.
“Here, eat. Do you want oats and nuts or nuts and oats?” She held the wimpy bar up between their mouths, making a lousy barrier. Jared frowned, narrowing his eyes in such a way that she was sure the power bar was seconds away from becoming a powder bar.
“Eat,” she said again, managing to shove the bar into his hand and slide from his embrace. “We’re both so hungry that neither of us are in our right minds.” In fact, she had to have lost hers completely, left it somewhere on this Oz-like odyssey that her life had become. “I have a feeling we’re both going to need every bit of strength we have.”
Chapter Eight
Jared and the Chosen were in danger. Aragon felt it deep within him—danger not only from those mortals who were searching the woods for them, but from the craven creatures that walked the night, those that hid within its dark blanket and fed on the weak and unsuspecting. They hovered in the twilight, between heaven and hell, and sought to gain Heldon’s favor by doing evil.
Jared’s soul wavered precariously between the good in his spirit and the Tsara’s poison that grew stronger every passing moment. Aragon feared that the presence of any evil near Jared could tip that balance and send him careening directly to the damned.
Aragon turned from where he watched the cave entrance to find that York, Navarre, and Sven had joined him on the mortal ground, each donning their Blood Hunters cloak and melding into the wildness of the forest. Upon all fours, they mirrored the mortal world’s creatures that howled to the moon and stalked the forests floor for small prey.
“Has he not found this love that will save him yet?” York demanded, pawing the wet ground. “How long does such a thing take?”
“Jared was the fiercest warrior among us. He should have felled this foe in a day,” Sven added, hunching low as he paced.
“Mortals are slow even when it comes to miracles. As difficult as it is, we have to remember that Jared is now mortal,” Navarre said, seeking to soothe frustrations. “We also have to remember that Pathos, who was also a fierce warrior, failed to find this salvation.”
“Jared won’t fail,” Sven muttered, though his words lacked conviction.
From what Aragon could sense of Jared’s spirit, he might very well fail. There was a growing dark hunger for Chosen blood inside Jared, and Aragon had no idea how to help. Aragon growled in frustration, his obsidian coat bristling. “We would do well, brethren, to focus on how we can help Jared rather than talking. Night has fallen, and the moon’s rising will only feed Jared’s hunger. I also sense other forces in the forest besides the mortals I’ve been foiling today. There are more than just men hunting for Jared and the Chosen.”
“We are united and determined,” said York, his Blood Hunter’s eyes luminous in the dark. “We will not fail Jared. Heldon’s army has been sent fleeing. The Shadowmen have secured a frontline across the entire Appalachian region for the Guardian Forces.”
Aragon gritted his ranged jaws. “That can change in a moment, for there are reports of a massive gathering of forces in the Caribbean. Tonight, Jared and the Chosen’s real danger will come from those who have already crossed the spirit barrier to mortal ground. Those from the Vladarian Order are near.”
“Pathos?” Navarre asked from where he hunkered upon a nearby rock.
“No, not yet,” Aragon replied grimly, moving to pace closer to the cave. He hoped that someday Pathos would make a mistake crossing the spirit barrier and put himself within a Blood Hunter’s path. When that day came, Aragon planned to be that Blood Hunter. Though his duty was only to protect the Chosen, to get Pathos, Aragon would chance Logos’s righteous wrath. Pathos’s powerful evil was a blemish upon all Blood Hunters, and one Aragon would wipe clean. As the leader of the Blood Hunters, he felt it was his duty. He owed it to his fellow brethren.
“What can we do?” Sven demanded.
“I don’t know,” Aragon snarled, then howled in frustration. Though Sven had made the initial choice to let Jared live, because he was the leader of the Blood Hunters Aragon had full responsibility for Jared’s soul. He couldn’t fail.
But Aragon’s abilities were hampered in many ways. Spirits had limitations in the mortal realm. He stared into the cave from the darkness of the night, watching Jared and the Chosen. All was not well within. “We have to find a way to call upon the goodness inside him during the dark hours of the night.”
The rain outside the cave’s entrance had stopped long ago and night had fallen, but Jared couldn’t seem to rest as Erin did. She’d fallen asleep and her head now rested against his right shoulder. Though his eyes were weary and kept drifting closed, odd feelings in his body continued to wake him. Sudden sharp, tight pains would shoot through the muscles in his arms and legs. And a deep urge would grip him, like a ravenous hunger. His mouth would water and his teeth would ache. He had moments when he could smell more acutely than before and see in the dark as if it were daylight. And then it would all go away.
He sat between Erin and the entrance to the cave, almost expecting that something would attack them. It had been a quiet night so far, though he sensed there were creatures nearby, just waiting to do harm. Or was it something predatory inside himself he felt? The woman sleeping at his side was so blissfully ignorant of his hunger for her blood.
He inhaled through his gritted teeth, still smelling her sweet blood. Sliding his arm behind her, he pulled her against him, desperate to dampen his want of her blood by giving in to his wrenching desire to touch her. It was the lesser evil.
Even though intimacy weakened him as a warrior, it was better than letting the Tsara’s poison spur his bloodlust.
He focused his mind on hers, and as he’d done earlier that day, he went in search for what lay hidden deep inside her. For just a brief moment, he wanted to feel a whispering of the passion that he knew lurked in her spirit.
“Erin?” Jared’s voice eased over her senses like a lover’s caress. “Can you feel me? Can you feel my need for you?” He entered her dream, coming up behind her and pressing himself against her. Threading his fingers through the silk of her hair, he slid the thick tresses aside and pressed his lips against the nape of her neck. “Abandon your defenses. Come with me and explore what dreams may come for us both,” he whispered, then brushed her skin lightly with the tip of his tongue.
Groaning, she leaned into him. He bared her back, kissed and caressed it, then stripped her dress down her shoulders and over her hips, leaving her in just her lace underwear. His hands cupped the fullness of her breasts, molding them to his palms, then rolling her nipples to hard points.
He pulled her flush against the heat of his body, kissing his way to her ear, softly luring her to him. “Trust me, Erin. Touch me. Let your mind go and feel the power of my desire.”
Reaching up, she covered his hands with hers and let her head fall back against his shoulder. “Kiss me,” she said softly, urging his lips to hers. She eased his hands down her stomach and beneath the lace of h
er underwear, where she pressed his fingertips to the wet heat of her need. “Love me,” she whispered.
Swinging her into his arms, Jared carried her to a golden cloud and laid her softly upon its airy warmth. The sun caressed them in warm waves, a sensual, heady drug that made her body melt beneath the demands of his. He kissed her lips, absorbing the very essence of her passion with the stroke of his tongue before moving lower to claim her breasts. He teased her, laving and nibbling until she cried out for him to fill her. He moved until he knelt between her legs, spreading them wide with his knees as he grasped her hips and thrust hard into the very wet heart of her desire.
A wolf howled, seemingly from just outside the cave, rousing Jared from his dream. The haunting howl was followed by three other long howls, each of them calling to something primal within him. They also made him yearn for what he would never be again, a Blood Hunter.
He could see Aragon so clearly in his mind as he recalled the very first time they’d met. They’d just been accepted from the ranks of the Shadowmen into the elite Blood Hunter brotherhood and assigned to the same watch. It was a millennium ago. Pathos, the legendary warrior they’d all admired and emulated for so long, had been bitten by a Tsara. After a few short days in the mortal world, he’d began hunting the Chosen with a ferocity never before seen.
All Blood Hunters had taken his quick turn to the Fallen as a personal betrayal. If a spirit had been so good and brave and noble, then how could he become evil so quickly? Why had Pathos not fought harder in the mortal realm and found his salvation through mortal love? It seemed to be an ill reflection upon the goodness of all Blood Hunters.
Aragon had been angrier than the others, for he’d been one of Pathos’s greatest admirers. This anger had left Aragon distracted as he and Jared patrolled Stonehenge, an area where the spirit barrier was weak. There, Aragon swore he’d caught Pathos’s scent lingering in the mists near the mortal ground. Aragon had gone flying blindly amid the stones, determined to find and eliminate Pathos.
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