by Vonna Harper
“He cut you off.”
“He made it clear that his mind’s made up.”
It really was that simple, wasn’t it? A man who knew nothing about this land and had never heard its heart beating had the final say on its future. True, Jacobs had to report to the other members of the Northwest Fisheries Council, but they’d be swayed by his advice. His conclusions and recommendations would become theirs.
And nothing Hawk Spirit commanded Mato Hawk to do would change that.
Clenching her fingers, Smokey stared at the sign identifying the small motel Mato had kidnapped her from a few hours ago. He had to return to his world; she had to drive back into hers.
And when she took her next shower, his scent and semen would flow away from her.
24
It wasn’t raining, so at least she didn’t have to listen to a storm’s song when she got out of her car and walked up the steps of the schoolhouse where she’d first seen Mato Hawk. She’d been gone for four nights and days, barely sleeping, crying when she couldn’t stop the tears, putting off her editor, and silencing the inner investigative reporter’s insistence that she write the story of her career.
Expecting animated voices, she was taken aback by the silence that reached out to envelope her as she stepped inside. She’d been on her way back to Storm Bay today before she’d tried to get in touch with Mato, but he hadn’t answered his phone, and she hadn’t left a message. Taking the coward’s way out, she’d called the place where she’d seen Mato’s hawk photography and talked to Halona, who’d told her that a number of local residents would be at the school for an urgent meeting.
Mato would be there.
Under her raincoat, her skin came alive, and although she should have been thinking about what she was going to do with what she had in her briefcase, she remembered Mato’s smell and the sound of his voice and the way his cock had filled her. Her crotch burning, she stopped and filled her lungs. Then, fighting the urge to press her hand between her legs, she headed toward the auditorium.
The closed door stood as proof that whatever was being said in there wasn’t for outsiders to hear. Why had she allowed instinct and need to bring her here? She should have waited until she was certain she’d have Mato to herself before letting him read the article that would appear in tomorrow’s newspaper.
But he wasn’t the only one who needed to know, and what if Hawk Spirit prevented Mato from hearing her out—or worse?
Damn last night’s dream and the identical one she’d had night before. The scenes hadn’t faded as she’d woken up. Instead they’d become more and more vivid until she’d smelled her own blood and heard her own screams as the predator Mato tore her apart. His talons had done most of the damage, ripping her skin open and laying bare her internal organs, clawing relentlessly until her heart stopped beating.
After waiting out a now familiar tremor, she turned the knob with clammy fingers and tugged on the door, which squeaked loudly as she pulled it toward her. Then she was standing in the opening she’d made, and some twenty pairs of eyes stared at her.
Those seated around a large rectangular table were all men, ranging from teenagers to a white-haired gentleman in a wheelchair, but even as she worked on learning all she could about those she’d have to face, she easily spotted Mato. True to his position as spokesman, he was standing, his hands resting on the table and leaning forward. From this distance she couldn’t read his expression, but, then, maybe he’d keep his secrets even if she were in his arms.
Not in his arms. Not now, and maybe never again.
One of the older men got to his feet, pushed back his chair, and started toward her. As he did, she recognized him as Mato’s uncle. “You don’t belong here,” he said by way of greeting.
“Hear me out first, please.”
Mato was watching, his body still.
“Why? So you can try to convince us to let you exploit us?”
“No. I’m sorry you feel that way, but that’s far from my intention. Look, if I wanted to make things easy on myself, I’d still be in Portland.”
Frowning, Mato’s uncle indicated her briefcase. “What have you brought?”
How she’d love to tell Mato how much she admired his uncle. Despite his unassuming appearance, he was direct. At the same time there was something vulnerable about him, as if he were carrying secrets he prayed he could carry to his grave. What secrets? she pondered. Then, though she didn’t dare allow herself to be distracted from why she’d returned to Storm Bay or from the hostility directed at her, she settled her gaze on the older man’s eyes.
Like Mato, he wasn’t fully human, as witnessed by an instinctive wariness. Like Mato, essential elements of his spirit lived inside him. And, she realized as she continued to study him, that spirit demanded a great deal of its host. Maybe even killing.
Time seemed to stop, and her awareness tunneled down until only she and Mato’s uncle existed. She was no longer standing inside a building but on a gravel path leading from a parking lot to a small, tree-surrounded public restroom. It was night; the only illumination came from muted lights spaced along the path. In the distance the ocean churned endlessly, and up close the wind wrestled with the trees. A man ill-clothed for the wilderness was on the trail, his shiny black shoes squeaking, suit jacket pulled up around his neck, tie constricting his loose flesh.
Suddenly the man’s head came up, and he stared wide-eyed into the underbrush. Seconds later he jumped back, screaming. Something dark and fierce charged the man and knocked him to the ground, lowered the doglike head. Another scream.
No, not a dog.
Maybe more shaken than she’d been in her entire life, Smokey clamped a hand over her mouth. Too late she realized how much she’d given away with her gesture. Mato’s uncle was still staring at her, thankfully not coming closer, looking even more vulnerable than he had before, and yet proud.
And she understood.
“Say it,” Mato ordered from his place across the room. “What just happened?”
“I saw—something.”
“What was it, Smokey?”
With his voice like velvet and sandpaper scraping at her nerve endings, she tore her attention off the older man and faced her former lover, her captor, her everything, her nothing. “What I needed to,” she admitted because she couldn’t lie, not just to Mato, but to the others. “About a violent death.”
How is that possible? Mato’s stance said, and if he voiced his question, she’d have to tell him she didn’t understand what had just passed between her and his uncle. Just the same, she questioned nothing about the vision.
Everyone except for the man in the wheelchair was standing now, not closing in on her like a pack of wolves but telling her they wouldn’t let her leave the room. Any other time, she would have been terrified, but she’d entered the surreal. The spirits were responsible for her new world, but so, too, were the humans—Mato most of all.
“What are you going to do with your knowledge?” Mato asked. “Write about it?”
Was that sarcasm or a question? Either way, she couldn’t ignore what he’d thrown at her. “No one would believe me if I did, but even if that wasn’t a concern, the answer is no. I won’t go there.”
His expression said he didn’t expect that response, giving rise to painful thoughts about how little he trusted her. But, then, could she blame him? After all, how many times had outsiders betrayed those who made this land their home?
“Maybe I’m being tested,” she offered. “Your uncle’s spirit revealing something to see if I’m worth of its trust.”
A sharp shake of his head said Mato didn’t believe that, but then he frowned, and she wondered if he couldn’t explain what she’d been privy to any more than she had. Despite wondering if he wanted them to be alone as much as she could, she forced her mind off him.
Aware that—like the man in her vision—she might not survive the night, she approached the table. She could have chosen any spot but somehow wound up
standing near Mato. Not breathing, she placed her briefcase on the table and unlocked it. The lid popped up, revealing not just what had brought her to Storm Bay in the first place but also what had consumed her since her return to Portland. Before she could start to sort through the papers, Mato did it for her. Holding up a copy of an old newspaper clipping, he scanned its contents.
“Prospector found with his skull crushed,” he read.
The others had been stirring, clothes and shoes and even old bones and muscles making sounds, but now the room went quiet again. Dividing his attention between her and the article, he continued. The clipping dated back to the early 1900s and had been in a now defunct newspaper in a town several hundred miles northeast of Storm Bay. According to the article, a trio of gold miners trying their luck at one of this area’s streams had discovered the body of another miner. The dead man’s skull had been shattered, and wild animals had torn most of the flesh from his bones. Although no one recalled the man’s name, and he’d had no identification on him, those who’d found him remembered that he’d boasted about his determination to utilize hydraulic methods to force the ground to give up its wealth.
Hydraulic mining, Smokey knew, called for hitting hillsides with powerful jets of water capable of uprooting boulders, stripping layers of dirt, and exposing extensive root systems. Back then few people had objected to that earth-destructive method, but eventually it had been outlawed because nothing grew on those wounded hillsides and rain too often caused mud slides.
She didn’t need to look at Mato to know they shared the same thought. The spirits had exacted their own brand of justice.
“It keeps piling up, doesn’t it?” Anger and something else weighed Mato’s words. “You’re going to have to write a goddamn book.”
“Maybe I will,” she shot at him because otherwise she’d drop to her knees, wrap her arms around his legs, and press her cheek against the bulge she didn’t dare look at. Then, deeply sorry she’d said what she had, she yanked the paper out of his hand. “That’s not what my being here is about, all right? It isn’t!”
“Then what is?”
The room was shifting again, shadow and fog dimming her sight. She thought maybe the vision at the rest stop might return, and she looked for Mato’s uncle, but the others had closed in around her, and she couldn’t see him.
Mato then. Mato was responsible.
Sensing this might be the most important moment in her life, she laced her fingers through his and stared into his eyes. She felt surrounded by him with invisible and yet powerful ropes wrapped around her. They were back in his bedroom, and she was stretched out on his bed, helpless. Bound. Whimpering under her breath, she fought the wild energy tearing through her body and soaking her panties. Her nipples ached, and her hips were heavy. The insides of her thighs burned, as did the back of her throat.
More fog, night clouds pressing around her.
Still holding on to Mato, she found the courage to step into the clouds.
Now she was in a place without form but that weighed with the smell of evergreens and earth, birds softly singing and the wind gentle while warning of strength and fury. Her clothes were gone, the bottoms of her feet shredded. Feeling sweat on every inch of her body and her lungs sharp with pain, she surmised that she’d been running.
From what or from who?
To where?
Gathering courage from cupping her hot breasts, she scanned her surroundings, but whatever living things were watching her kept their secrets. Hawk, she thought. Hawk. But whether she meant the small bird or the otherworldly being she couldn’t say.
It was going to be night soon, night and cold and dark and being alone with her thoughts and needs and the fear that had caused her to run. Even when she stared at her hands and breasts and tried to make them her everything, she knew she didn’t belong here. Wasn’t wanted here.
Aching and lonely, she lifted her head and sniffed the air. Another scent was coming, cutting through the others so it could circle her and paint her skin. More fog now—and heavy clouds. Pressing against her and trying to drive her to the ground.
No!
The fog and clouds were cold and wet, without life, but what briefly brushed her in the wake of her silent cry carried heat. Although she tried to pull the heat into her lungs, it floated just beyond her reach, teasing and maybe promising.
That’s what she needed: a promise. And Mato—his touch, his body, his hands strong on her and turning her weak. Even though that weakness might be her undoing, she remembered what they’d been and done to each other, and as she did, the cold, damp air began to heat.
By mentally attacking the fog and clouds, she managed to push them away, but though she could now see more of her surroundings, she mourned the loss of the building warmth. She was also having trouble breathing.
Shapes began forming around her. Fascinated and fearful, she ordered herself to be patient. As she waited, she concentrated on filling and emptying her lungs. Shouldn’t Mato be here with her? After all, he’d been an integral part of her world and life since she’d met him—and maybe before. But she was alone except for the shapes.
Clarity came slowly, a growing certainty that dropped her arms to her sides and made holding her head up difficult. She was standing in a small clearing surrounded by massive old trees, but that wasn’t what held her attention, because what had been misty movement had solidified into something that had her heart trying to fight its way out of her chest.
A wolf. And a massive bear. And there, a cougar. Perched on a branch, an eagle. And closest to her, a hawk the size of a man.
They were taking up the space, pushing against her without moving, stealing the air, demanding she accept them for what they were.
Spirits.
“Mato!” she screamed. Her voice, laden with fear and awe, startled her. “Mato!”
The great hawk spread its wings and opened its beak. Talons made for ripping and killing reached for her. And its eyes—a mix of man and predator.
Something squeezed her hand. Afraid that one of the creatures had reached her, she tried to jerk free only to feel her fingers being pressed together. She wasn’t going to panic, she wasn’t! And she was going to face who or whatever had hold of her.
“Smokey, what’s happening?”
Mato’s voice settled over her, and as it did, the fog and clouds floated away. So, too, did the creatures, all except for the hawk, which continued to regard her with eyes that belonged to both a human and a bird of prey. If she’d been able to make the move, she could have easily touched it.
“Smokey, talk to me!”
Jerked free of the mesmerizing image by Mato’s sharp tone, she pulled herself out of whatever had taken over her existence. Mato was holding her hand, or maybe the truth was that she was clinging to him. She was back in her slacks and turtleneck, thank goodness, surrounded by men instead of animals and birds.
So shaken she had to press her hip against the table to keep her balance, she breathed her way back into the here and now. She wanted to smile, to laugh, to say and do something stupid so the others wouldn’t guess what she’d been through, but maybe they knew.
“I’m not going to talk about it,” she told Mato because only he mattered. “A little—too much…I’ve been through a great deal lately. That’s it. Everything that’s been happening has—”
“I thought you weren’t going to say anything,” he said and released her hand.
Being free of him, if that’s what she could call it, made things both easier and harder. She’d come here to accomplish a vital piece of business. Once she had, she’d go back home, away from this mystical place with its dangers and the man who’d—what, turned her inside out and upside down?
Not trying to come up with an explanation for him, she forced her attention back on her briefcase. Mato had dropped the article about the miner on top of the contents, but because what she wanted was in a side pocket, she easily retrieved it. She’d finished composing the a
rticle on her laptop a little after noon today. After e-mailing it as an attachment to her editor, she’d packed an overnight bag, grabbed her briefcase, and headed out of town. Her editor had called just as she’d reached the city limits to tell her that her piece wasn’t at all what he’d expected.
“But it’ll work, won’t it?” she’d asked.
“Hell, yes.”
Shaking off the memory, she held up the two pages she believed would change a great deal. After scanning the room to make sure she’d connected with everyone, she swallowed. “I’m obsessive-compulsive,” she started. “That’s part of why I’ve succeeded in my career. I go after the stories behind the stories, ones other reporters don’t think to explore.”
Realizing she was talking about herself when that didn’t matter, she looked over at Mato. Did he have any idea how incredibly sexy he was, sexy and dangerous, at least to her? Maybe that was his appeal—the dark and rugged man who played by his own rules and never backed down, who championed his causes no matter what the personal consequences. Only, did he defend this land because he believed in the task or because Hawk Spirit worked through him?
Maybe, if he were inside her and he couldn’t see anything except her, smell anything except her, he’d break free of his spirit.
But if he did, what would be left of him, and would she want what remained?
Dizzy from the question and his closeness, she forced herself to concentrate. “While I was here before, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper I work for published an editorial promising readers that I was preparing something spectacular. He did so because I’d told him I was researching those mysterious deaths; that’s what brought me here in the first place.”
She could have detailed the trail of violence and primitive justice she’d been compiling, but not only didn’t everyone here already know more about that trail than she ever could, that wasn’t what she’d written after all.
“I had my reputation to uphold,” she continued, “but even before I left Storm Bay the other day I knew I couldn’t expose the truth about this place.”
