“The opposite, so far. Someone was saved. The men had kidnapped a woman from the University of Tennessee who was camping with her college research team. They told her how she would die and how long it would take. They’d raped her once and were going for round two when a silver creature appeared. The woman said the creature tore into the men, looked at her tied up like a sacrificial lamb, then left. With the kidnappers incapacitated, she was able to wriggle to a knife, free herself, and find help from a passing ranger this morning. They found the men, who will be facing charges if they live. Both are under guard in the hospital. You could have damn well told me about it.”
“I don’t remember anything at all. The woman just happened to be lucky.”
“Is that all?” Erin demanded, setting her hand on Jared’s arm. She couldn’t decide who she was angrier with, Jared for maligning himself or herself for hesitating to touch him.
He turned to face her, pulling away from her touch, his blue eyes burning with self-disgust. No, it was worse than that; self-abhorrence. “A mindless beast roving the forest, craving blood, doesn’t care about anything but satisfying its own bloodlust,” he said, teeth clenched. He zeroed in on the sheriff. “It won’t happen again.”
Jared’s words curled fingers of dread around Erin’s spine. His eyes were those of a man condemned.
“You’re wrong,” she said, tears gathering in her eyes.
“I don’t know about that,” Sam said, shaking his head. “You want somebody to die to prove it?”
“No, but you two do.” She ran from the room with her heart crying. No matter what she had to do, it wasn’t going to happen that way. She loved him.
Jared stepped outside the cabin and scanned the horizon as he waited for the sheriff to shut the door.
He’d asked to speak privately to him, away from any chance of Erin hearing. But considering the depths of her cries, Jared didn’t think she would be hearing much at the moment.
All remnants of the battle had cleared from the night’s sky, but a swath of destruction from what mortals called a tornado cut along the edge of the forest. The weeping trunks of topless trees dotted the woods like twisted ghosts.
He felt like howling at the pain throbbing inside him. He wanted to run wildly into the woods again, into the frenzied fold of the Fallen who’d found him earlier. He wanted to end the pain, to stop fighting the spread of the Tsara’s poison inside him.
More than anything else, he wanted Erin, and he wanted to take the pain in her heart away. But he couldn’t. No matter how much he wanted to. And he couldn’t go to her again, no matter how much his body hungered for her. He dug his teeth into his lip, determined to stave off his want.
The wolf in him would be back, and he dreaded that.
“What?” the sheriff asked tersely.
“She’s going to need protection. And I’m no longer able to do it. I want your vow that you’ll do everything you can to protect her, even if it means going against the law you serve.”
“You don’t ask for much, do you?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“You’re sure?”
“You saw what I became tonight. It’ll happen again, and the wolf has one desire.”
“What’s that?”
“It wants Erin’s blood. It needs her blood. I don’t know if the wolf meant to save Erin from the tree tonight, or if it was so crazed for her blood it didn’t see anything else. You couldn’t have stopped me from harming her either. You were right there and couldn’t do a thing. I may not have killed yet. But I am a killer. I must kill the wolf,” Jared said, tired of fighting the truth, of fighting the pain inside, of fighting the Tsara’s poison, and fighting his desire for Erin.
“Jesus. I promise,” the sheriff said. “And you aren’t getting a greenhorn off the turnip truck. I spent a number of years on a special force.”
“Good. Listen to the council of Emerald. She knows many things you’ve never seen. And keep Dr. Batista close. She has her ghosts, but she’ll be a steady hand of reason,” Jared said, turning away.
“When?” the sheriff whispered. “How? This just doesn’t seem right.”
“At sunrise. What’s not right is for evil to walk as freely as it does.” Jared went to the deck, looking out at the night, feeling the call of the fading moon. His body shook with the effort to control the roiling needs inside of him. The sheriff left without another word.
Jared had to go to Erin. He couldn’t just walk away now. He wasn’t strong enough. He opened the front door, and she blasted him with her pain.
“Damn it.” Erin glared at Jared, her heart thundering with fear. He looked so far away from her she knew she couldn’t reach him, and that was killing her inside. “You have to listen to me. You’re not what you think you are.”
He shook his head, eyes bleak with unshed tears. “Forget it, Erin. You’re wrong. You’re not in my mind. You don’t know how far gone I am. I’m telling you what happened last night was just a lucky, random unfolding of events. I likely left the woman untouched because I wanted your blood more than anything else. The little girl at the fair could sense more than you—she wasn’t blinded by her own emotions or pain. She knew in a single look that evil is within me. What is it going to take for you to believe that?”
“Why?” She swatted angrily at tears she didn’t want to shed. “You can’t judge yourself on a child’s reaction. You might have just resembled a man she knew was bad. Why can’t you at least consider there might be a chance that you’re not as damned as you think? What if the wolf in you instinctively knew those men in the forest were evil, and you hunted them down? What if the wolf knew that woman needed help?”
“Then he wouldn’t have left her trussed up for another predator, to go after the blood he really wanted. Yours.”
“I refuse to believe it!”
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “You have to believe, you fool. I am your worst nightmare.” Tears fell from his eyes, tears of pain, of shame.
“No, no.” Shaking her head, she jerked back, not wanting to see what he was trying to force her to see. It wasn’t true. She couldn’t be that blind. Her vision blurred with pain and tears. She couldn’t love a monster. He couldn’t be one.
“Erin, I am so sorry,” he said, his voice raw and ragged with a dark despair that scraped her heart. “I should have walked away from you the moment I woke on Earth.” He bowed his head, and she reached out, sliding her fingers into the black velvet softness of his hair. His gaze was so full of regret and pain, so stark with agony, that she finally realized where she’d seen it before.
“It was you fighting the black creature on my car,” she whispered. “You were the silver wolf who spoke to me, who fought that horrible evil that was after me.
He sighed. “As a Blood Hunter, I fought against a Tsara. Yes.”
“It bit you.” She closed her eyes, realizing the full implication of everything that had happened in those few seconds of time.
“Yes,” he whispered as if he could barely breathe.
Erin opened her eyes, pinning him with her own pain. “It infected you. That’s why you’re here now, isn’t it? Protecting me is how you were condemned. You sacrificed all that you were for me.” Her voice broke on the sharp edge of her pain. “And now you’re ready to sacrifice what little you have left.”
He sucked in air. “All I did was my duty. That is who I am. I am a protector. I must do what I have to do to preserve that.” Anguish filled his voice.
“Duty?” she asked softly. “Duty saved me from lightning? Duty kissed me senseless?” She shook her head. “I think there is more than duty at play, Jared.”
“You are wrong, Erin.”
Cupping her face in both hands, he looked deeply into her eyes, as he bent down and kissed her. Then he touched the amulet nestled between her breasts, sending a sharp pain right through her heart. “Don’t forget. The Sacred Stones will protect you. They are their strongest at dawn.”
Releasing her, he moved to the door, and she nearly fell to her knees from the agony tearing her apart inside.
“Jared?” she cried. “Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer. He just kept on walking and opened the door. She ran toward him, reaching for him. “You can’t do this! You can’t just turn into a wolf and walk away from me, damn it. You can’t leave me!”
She stumbled, clutching onto the door he left hanging open.
By the time she reached the porch, he was already-running into the woods, the breeze blowing his dark hair back from his face, the moonlight shining upon the silver streak, the power and strength of him, so fluid and free. She ached to hold him, ached to touch him, even if it was only for a moment longer.
“Jared,” she cried. “I love you!”
He stopped and looked back at her for a moment, but didn’t answer before he turned and ran, moving faster than she could ever hope to catch as he disappeared into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty
Cinatas felt strange. Different than ever before. Agony burned from every cell in his body. He felt weightless, as if floating.
A familiar laugh grated his sensitive ears. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but darkness. No light. No dawn. No glory. Only black. Tiny shivers of dread clawed their way through him.
“Shashur?” The name left a shuddering, bitter taste on his tongue.
“Yes,” Shashur said, sounding amused.
Cinatas tried to move, tried to break free of the binds that held him within the piercing cold. “Where am I?” he asked, compelled to ask that which he didn’t want to know.
Suddenly agony ripped through his eye, as if some unseen needle had stabbed into his flesh and pierced the viscous fluid to penetrate all the way to his brain. He screamed, and his body shuddered from the torturous pain. Then the pain was gone, as if nothing had happened.
“You’re on a long, fiery cold journey,” Shashur said with a soft, grating chuckle.
Another needle-like pain tore through his other eye, even stronger and reaching deeper and wider, as if barbs of steel twisted inside of his head.
“I am so going to enjoy you,” Shashur said, then laughed at Cinatas’s scream.
Erin forced herself to move, to not give in to the pain that seared her heart. She had to catch Jared. She couldn’t let him go, not as long as she had breath within her.
She had to stop him. He wasn’t the mindless blood-lusting beast he claimed to be. She ran for her shoes and shoved them on. Her left heel caught on the back of the shoe. As she bent down to jerk the leather free, Jared’s amulet smacked her in the face.
She clutched the amulet in her fist, feeling the metal warm her palm. More tears filled her eyes, and her heart thumped painfully as she recalled Jared’s words.
“… fire and water, positive and negative, male and female, heaven and earth, harmony between opposites—and within the eternal circle at the Sacred Stones no evil can survive. I know, because in just the few minutes I stood within the circle, I felt its killing force.”
Jared had to be there. She had promised him she’d go there if she ever felt threatened, and the thought of anything happening to him threatened her more than anything else. She ran through the cabin and out the door, praying she wouldn’t be too late.
By going through the forest, Jared would reach the Sacred Stones on Spirit Wind Mountain long before she could. The graying edges of dawn had chased away the deepest shadows of the night, sending a stab of fear through Erin.
Don’t forget the Sacred Stones. They are their strongest at dawn.
A spirit wind as powerful as Logos’s right hand moved over the mountain, whipping through the trees and twisting through the misty haze of spirits hovering in the twilight between heaven and earth. Dawn broke across the bleak horizon, its light slicing through the shadow, ferreting out the darkness, seeking to wipe it from the face of the mortal world.
“You must stop him, Aragon, before it’s too late! He may still have time left for redemption,” Sven said, pain lacing every word.
Aragon turned from the outcropping of rocks where he watched Jared running up the mountain to the Sacred Stones. “No,” Aragon said harshly. “He is doing what must be done. He cannot become what Pathos is. Jared should be allowed to die a warrior’s death.”
“What if you’re wrong, Aragon?” Navarre asked. “What if your anger toward Pathos, the betrayal you’ve always felt, and your belief that he disgraced all Blood Hunters has weakened your judgment? What if Sven is right?”
“Navarre speaks true,” York said. “Your anger against Pathos has burned for an entire millennium. Why? Your compassion should be greater that one once so mighty has fallen so tragically.”
Aragon turned his back, refusing to let his mind travel back to what was too painful to accept. He shook his head, determined. “Jared cannot become what Pathos is.”
“We all agree upon that,” said Sven. “But the time to assure Jared’s death is not now. Navarre and York agree. You must act with us, for the Blood Hunters are nothing if they cannot fight together.”
“A warrior must lead, even though none may follow, or he ceases to be one,” Aragon said harshly.
“And a leader who cannot see the wisdom of the council of those whom he trusts and fights beside might be leading all the wrong way. Stop Jared from doing this.”
Was he wrong? Aragon reached deep inside himself, yet could not see any light or truth. Then he heard Jared’s scream echoing in the blinding light of the dawn. It was the scream of a warrior dying, not of one damned beyond hope. In that cry, Aragon saw his error.
Sven fell to his knees, groaning, as did York and Navarre.
Aragon planted his sword into the mortal ground before Sven, causing the earth to violently shake. “You must lead now. I am unworthy.”
Sven looked up, horror on his face. “I cannot lead.”
“You must.”
Another cry ripped through the air, and Aragon turned. “Jared!” He turned his back upon his Blood Hunter brethren and ran to the Sacred Stones. Reaching the stone pillars, he found Jared suspended in the air within the center of them, his mortal body convulsing with pain as if every fiber of his being was suffering an unimaginable torture.
“Jared. No! I was wrong.” But Aragon’s cry didn’t reach Jared. Aragon tried to fling himself against Jared, to force him from the ancient stones, but the spirit wind holding Jared within its power was too great. Aragon fell to his knees, his own guilt and Jared’s agony ripping through him. He’d made a horrible mistake in believing nothing good remained in Jared. He wasn’t fit to lead the Blood Hunters, or to be a true warrior. He tore Logos’s amulet from about his throat and flung it into the air, praying that his spirit would die with Jared’s.
Turning down the driveway toward Emerald’s cottage, Erin met Emerald flying around a bend in her red Mini. She came to a screeching halt. “Get in,” she yelled.
“I’ve got to get to Jared,” Erin said, piling into the passenger side. Dr. Batista was in the back seat, wearing sweats. Her hair hung in wild, long waves, making her looking like a gypsy.
“I know. The fool,” Emerald said, whipping the car around and gunning it down the hill.
Erin frowned. “Did the Druids tell you what Jared was going to do?”
“No. Sam just happened to mention it five minutes ago. The idiot tells me it’s not my bloody business that Jared’s bent on departing this world. All that ‘a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do’ is feckcd-up blarney. Where to?”
“The Sacred Stones, I think.”
Dr. Batista groaned. “I was afraid of that.”
Emerald squealed onto the main road, burning rubber. “I’ve been goin’ to the bleedin’ stones at dawn for nine months now. You’d think I’d get a break now that you two were here.”
“Where’s Megan?” Erin asked.
“Still at Bethy’s. They were so close to defeating the Dark Lord last night that I didn’t have the he
art to make her come home for a reading.”
Clutching the dash, Erin watched the Mini eat up the mountain road. She had to think about something else besides Jared, or she’d go mad with the worry. “What exactly is a reading?”
“Meditating until your mind, body, and spirit are so quiet that you can hear your own heart beating like angel wings. If you’re listening, your instincts tell you the dangers darkening your day. Most folks never hear the whispers in their lives. They are too busy blathering nonsense—like Sam.”
Just as if Erin had listened to her instincts Friday morning, she wouldn’t have been running for her life. Before now, Erin hadn’t quite been able to reconcile Emerald with the whole psychologist persona, not like how Dr. Batista fit so well with hers. But she could see it now. There was a solidness to Emerald that nothing seemed to shake.
“Is that what you teach your patients to do?” she asked Emerald.
Emerald glanced over in surprise, and nearly ran off the road. Speeding as fast as they were, they would have flipped if Emerald had jerked the car. Instead she gritted her teeth and eased the car back onto the asphalt. Dirt and gravel left a trail of smoke behind them. The shadows of the night were fleeing from the rising dawn faster than the Mini could move.
“Yes,” Emerald said. “That’s what I teach couples to do with each other. To listen to their hearts and not the noise of the world.” Suddenly the blare of the siren cut through Erin’s surprise. Lights flashing, the sheriff was hot on their heels.
“The idiot!” Emerald pressed harder on the gas and shot like a bullet along the winding road. Erin gripped her armrest and the dash, getting a very good idea why Jared hated the feel of being closed in a vehicle.
Emerald fishtailed and spun in the gravel as she turned onto Spirit Wind Mountain, then churned up the road. The wind moaned, and the mists swirled so thickly that Erin felt they were trying to keep the car from moving forward.
Now that they were out from the shadow of a neighboring mountain, she could see the sun had already risen. The higher they climbed up the mountain, the harder the wind blew, and she realized that the moaning cries weren’t from its whipping swirls, but from a creature howling with pain.
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