The water wasn’t running as they approached the bathroom. Taryn didn’t knock. He just opened the door.
A huge mountain lion lay sprawled on the ground licking himself. A scream lodged in her throat and blocked the air. Lightheadedness claimed her, and her legs gave way.
Chapter Four
When Lara came to, she was sitting on the living room sofa with Taryn next to her. Kellum stood in front. He handed her a glass of water and she greedily drank it down. Her brain was going a million miles an hour. Stay calm. She hadn’t really seen a mountain lion in Kellum’s bathroom.
“Please, tell me what’s going on. Tell me I didn’t see what I thought I saw.”
“I’m afraid you did.”
She glanced between the two men. “Where is the lion now?”
Kellum blew out a breath. “I’m right here. We are what you call shape-shifters.”
That’s what Taryn had told her. Amy’s stories about shifters came to mind. There was no way she was going to believe they could shift. “Show me. Change into a lion right now.” Only by witnessing it firsthand would she be convinced.
Kellum shook his head. “Every time we do, it takes energy. We’re both wounded and need all of our cells to heal us.”
When she studied his body, many of the wounds had closed up. “It’s a miracle.”
Taryn let out a breath. “So you believe us?”
“No. I mean I can’t get over how fast your wounds are healing.”
Kellum’s shoulders tensed. “I shifted into my animal form because when I lick my wounds, I help sterilize them. I heal faster that way and would have stayed in that form had you not freaked.” His jaw tightened, and then he nodded to his brother. “I’m going outside to rest.”
She lifted her head. “As a man or as a lion?” She probably should have let it be, but her heart was pounding and a strange taste had entered her mouth. Her whole world was giving her wrong signals.
“As a man. As I said, it takes energy to change.”
She watched his tall form leave. His strong stride implied the wounds hadn’t gravely affected him. When he opened the front door there was nothing but air. Yikes. She’d expected at least a hallway. Perhaps he was going down the fire escape. It made sense now. They had some sort of emergency electronic ladder that led up to their home. The real front door was someplace else.
As she’d remembered, a few seconds later, a pole appeared. He grabbed hold and descended from view.
She inhaled and faced Taryn. “Suppose I say I believe that you two were the mountain lions who attacked the wolves and saved my life.” They had been injured. That much she couldn’t deny. “How do you shift?”
He studied her for a moment, probably debating how much of the lie he wanted to perpetuate. “You press in the clutch, and then move the gear shift into first.”
It took a second for his answer to register. “Funny.” He was playing with her, but she needed some answers. “Seriously, how do you turn from being in human form into being a lion?” She couldn’t get any more explicit than that. Certain he couldn’t explain it, she leaned back to watch him squirm.
“Carefully.”
Her fists clenched. “Stop teasing me.” He was like a magician who refused to reveal his parlor tricks.
He latched onto her gaze, and for a second, she swore he could see through her. “Fine. I use psychic energy.”
She’d never heard of that before. “How exactly does that work?” There was no way she was going to let this go.
He smiled. “What’s that saying you have? Curiosity kills the cat?”
Her shoulders relaxed. “I think you have that backward. You’re the cat, not me.”
“So you admit that I’m part lion?”
Whoops. She hadn’t meant to say that. “Maybe.” That was all she was willing to admit. She wanted to believe him, as she’d seen the lion in his house. She stood. “I’m going to check Kellum’s bathroom.”
“You want to make sure we don’t have a pet lion and are pulling your leg.”
“Can you read minds?”
“Yes.”
Oh, shit. Her heart dropped to her stomach. “Really?”
“It’s how Kellum and I communicate when we are in our animal form, though we often use telepathy when it’s just the two of us as men.”
That she did believe. “So I don’t have to talk to you? I can think something and you’ll know what I want?”
A smile slid up his face. “I don’t have to have telepathic abilities to know what you want.”
Two could play at this game. “What do I want?” She tried to make her mind go blank so he couldn’t invade her thoughts.
“You want to leave here and go back to your safe little life, but you’re staying because your curiosity has gotten the better of you.”
Her mind raced trying to decide if there was a shred of truth in the second half of what he said. “It wouldn’t take a mind reader to know that I want to go since I’ve mentioned it several times.” As for staying, there was a moral obligation to make sure they were all right.
“True, nor does it take a mind reader to know you find me and my brother attractive.”
Her mouth opened. “That’s rather egotistical of you.”
He cocked a brow. “It’s true, isn’t it?”
He seemed to love challenging her. Since he probably was an expert on reading tells, she told him the truth. “Yes.”
That was an understatement. Not only were their faces dangerously seductive, but their honed bodies and sleek lines turned her on. However, if they really were lions, as they claimed to be, she needed to block out what they looked like and think about her escape. If they could shift, no telling what other talents they possessed.
This time his smile became full-blown. “I, too, find you attractive. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
She didn’t need to hear that, but from the way his lids closed a bit, he seemed sincere. Her stupid ego shot up. Damn him.
Taryn stood. “I think I’ve overloaded your brain for the day. How about some food?”
She was hungry but worried what he’d eat. “If you plan on serving me a dead carcass I’ll have to politely decline.”
Taryn burst out laughing then grabbed his stomach. “That hurt.”
She raced toward him. “You need to rest. If you tell me what to do, I can cook.”
“I appreciate the offer, but before any cooking can be done, we have to pick the food.”
No way. She’d spent her childhood in the field harvesting vegetables. “Can’t we just go to the supermarket? It would be so much easier.” Don’t whine. It’s unattractive.
“We reserve the markets for when the weather is bad. Come on. I’d like to give you a small tour of what Anterra has to offer.”
Since he wasn’t giving her much choice, she might as well do as he suggested. The meal would give her more energy to get out of here. “Okay, but can I check out Kellum’s bathroom first?”
“Go right ahead.”
When it didn’t appear like he was going to follow, she hightailed down the hall. When she peeked inside his bathroom, there was no cat. “Hmm.”
On the way back she looked in each room but found no lion. She still wasn’t convinced.
She came back to the living room.
“Satisfied?”
“Maybe.” He winked and motioned her to the fire escape entrance. “Can’t we go out through the front door?”
“This is the only way out.”
Horrifying! She couldn’t imagine going in and out of a place via the fire escape. He passed a hand over something invisible on the wall. What must have been a pocket door slid open and she was greeted with nothing but air.
“Holy shit.” She jumped back and Taryn’s hands clasped her waist. She didn’t realize there wasn’t even a step.
“I should have warned you. Let me go first.”
He stepped around her and did his waving hand thingy again. The
pole that had appeared for Kellum slid into view. It pierced a small, three-foot by three-foot metal platform. While she was only afraid of heights when there was nothing to hang on to, there was no way she was going to step on that.
As if this was as natural as climbing stairs, Taryn grabbed the pole with one hand and stepped onto the platform.
“I’m not riding on that. We’re hundreds of feet above the ground.”
He blinked a few times. “I think jumping would be rather deadly.”
The man never seemed to take her comments seriously. “There are no walls or a guardrail. It’s dangerous.”
“We see no need for elevators like you have.”
She had two choices. Either get on the death trap and hope for the best or stay in the house for the rest of her life.
Taryn held out his hand. “I’ll hold you real tight.” The slight smile implied he’d enjoy the intimate contact.
Inhaling, she placed one hand on the pole and with the other, she held on to Taryn. His strong grip guided her onto the too-small platform.
“I got you. You won’t fall. I promise.”
He sounded very confident. Too bad her heart wouldn’t stop thumping in her chest. Once both feet landed on the plate, she closed her eyes. No, that was worse. She opened her eyes and stared straight ahead, not wanting to look down as they descended. Unfortunately, she didn’t take note of how he’d operated the lift in case she needed to leave for some reason on her own. Taryn moved behind her and surrounded her with his arms. He placed both of his hands on the pole.
“Hold on tight,” he said.
Being cocooned between the pole and Taryn’s hard chest helped calm her racing pulse. The smooth ride landed them on the ground in seconds. She was never so happy to get off that moving violation. When she faced him, she noticed nothing was underneath the house. There was no condo or condo office. In fact, there was nothing around but trees. There was no way their house was the only thing here.
“Where is everyone?” Please God don’t let Taryn and Kellum be the only two creatures on this Anterra place.
“Most of the Anterrans live underground.”
Images of prison camps and pale creatures surfaced. “Can they leave if they want to?”
He chuckled. “Any time. They often spend their days above ground, tending to the gardens or enjoying the mountains. I’ll take you down there sometime. It’s quite pleasant.”
While she’d been to underground malls where she couldn’t even sense she was below the surface, Anterra didn’t look sophisticated enough for anything that nice.
Taryn placed a firm hand on her back. “The garden is this way.” He nodded behind the house. At least there was only one sun. If there had been two, she would have asked to be hospitalized and given some antipsychotic drug.
The day was warm, but given the fact she had on a strapless dress and no underwear, she appreciated the balmy temperature. The trees seemed larger than any she’d seen before and she’d seen some pretty tall trees. Patches of wildflowers dotted the forest ground. Birds and squirrels scurried about. To test how far he was willing to take his theory, she questioned him further. “Can your birds shift? Or your squirrels?” The Native Americans believed hawks could.
“Not in Anterra.”
The place was still too primitive for her. She wondered why she hadn’t seen this place on the map when she did a Google search of Spirit. While she loved hiking and even digging in the dirt to possibly uncover artifacts, living here wasn’t for her. Give her a city any day.
It wasn’t long before they came to a break in the trees. A large plot of land sat before them with the most beautiful vegetables. Bees and some other flying creatures buzzed around the fruit.
“Wow. Who takes care of this?” The plants were in perfect rows. All weeds had been pulled, and the dead lower leaves had been removed. Since it was close to the men’s tree house, maybe they did the farming.
“This is a communal garden. We have many of them in Anterra. There are women who choose to farm. Henla, my sister, whose dress you are wearing, is one of them.”
“Do you have parents?” He had claimed to be a shifter. Perhaps his parents roamed the earth as lions.
He laughed. “I came into this world just like you did. I have a mother and a father.”
“Are they still alive?”
“Very.”
How long did he plan on continuing this ruse? “Does your dad shift, too?”
“He can, but he chooses not to.”
She’d trip him up sooner or later. “Why hasn’t Anterra been written up in the news? Surely, the concept of lion shifters is newsworthy.”
He faced her. “This may be hard to comprehend, but you aren’t on earth anymore.”
The image of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz surfaced. “No, I’m not in Kansas, am I?” A nervous laugh escaped. “Okay, cut the crap. Please? This isn’t funny anymore.” Her skin prickled, and her stomach turned queasy.
He clasped onto her shoulders. “I really wish you hadn’t stepped through to our side, but you did. Try to make the most of it.”
She jerked away. “Stop it.”
“Lara, here’s the truth. By some chance happening, you entered into an alternate reality. I know you can’t comprehend that fact, but this is a totally different world than where you came from. I wish that weren’t the case, but it is.”
His eyes didn’t shift. He believed he was telling the truth. She wished like hell that she could point to one fact that disproved what he said, but she couldn’t. She cast her gaze downward, searching for evidence that what he’d said was a lie. She’d seen the wolves. That much she was sure of. The men had been brutally mauled, yet their wounds had healed faster than seemed humanly possible.
Then there was the lion in the bathroom. All facts pointed to the concept that what Taryn had claimed was true, but her mind couldn’t just say it was so.
Taryn let go of her and headed over to a plastic container, lifted the lid, and removed two cloth sacks. “These are for carrying the vegetables.” He returned and handed her one and kept the other for himself.
So overwhelmed with the confession, she tried to pretend this event could be reversed. So as not to go crazy, she went about picking the ripened food, and Taryn did the same. He probably realized that he’d basically blown her mind. Perhaps if she pretended what he said was true then one of the men would slip up and tell her it was all a joke perpetrated by Krista or maybe even Amy. Perhaps her girlfriends wanted her last days in Colorado to be memorable ones. Shit. She didn’t know what was true anymore.
To stop the tears that were about to flow, she pretended this was a hoax that would end soon. Maybe the girls had paid these two actors to show her a good time. Yeah, that was it. They were actors.
That was a stupid guess. Actors wouldn’t face wolves and get their flesh nearly torn off their bodies no matter how much they were paid.
“Lara?”
She looked up, and Taryn pointed to the tomatoes. “You want any?”
Staring into space wouldn’t help her understand things. Putting what was happening out of her mind, she focused on the task at hand. Regardless of whose reality she was in, they had to eat. She had no idea how much food this lion-shifter ate. If she accepted his comments as the truth, he might need more energy than the typical man. Someone with so many muscles would also need a lot of fuel. When her bag was full with all sorts of vegetables, she cut across the plot.
She waved her bag. “I think I have enough to feed five people.”
“Me, too. Let’s go test your cooking skills.”
Uh-oh. That’s right. She had volunteered to cook. He’d be sorry. Since her mom loved being in the kitchen, Lara had taken up other hobbies. “I’m not sure I’m particularly good with cooking vegetables.”
“Then I’ll have to show you a trick or two.”
Maybe he could shift the veggies into a steak. That would be a feat worth watching. When they returned to the house, K
ellum was inside.
He cocked a brow but said nothing. Or should she say, he didn’t open his mouth. She bet he was telepathically saying something quite intriguing to Taryn that she wasn’t privy to.
Taryn placed his bag and hers on the counter. “How about if you wash and then chop the vegetables, and I’ll take care of the cooking?”
“That sounds good.”
He opened a standard drawer and removed a knife for her then pulled out a cutting board. She almost felt at home.
As soon as she prepared the vegetables, he took them and dumped them in a big wok. He went to the refrigerator and took out a chicken breast.
“You have meat.”
“We have chickens and cows just like you do.”
She wished he wouldn’t always compare his world to hers. It only confirmed what he said was true.
Kellum pulled plates out of the cabinet and set the table. He located a bottle of wine from a rack and held it up. “You want a glass, Lara?”
Instead of saying her name with a growl, it rolled off his tongue as if it were no longer offensive. “Thank you.”
“You going to cut those tomatoes?”
She’d been staring. She couldn’t help but admire every sensual inch of the men, despite the wounds. “Absolutely.”
Taryn added spices to the wok, and the meal soon smelled divine. “If you cut up the lettuce and cucumbers, maybe you can make the salad. You do know how to mix one?”
He did seem to like to tease her. “Yes. Salads are my specialty. If you have some olive oil, vinegar, and mustard, I can whip up a great dressing.”
Kellum came over and found the ingredients for her. Instead of the oil and vinegar being in bottles with fancy labels, the labels had hand printing on them. “Is all your food handmade?”
“We try.”
Kellum opened a box on the counter and removed a loaf of half-eaten bread. “My mom made this yesterday. It should still be good.”
This all-organic meal was going to be the healthiest she’d eaten since leaving home. “Great.”
* * * *
Kellum carried the salad bowl over to the table. She needs to go and soon.
Melody Snow Monroe Page 5
