The Beholder

by Connie Hall

  The trail drew her attention and she double-timed it to keep up with him as he shoved aside thick brambles, sidestepped oak trees and hollies. Snow capped the dense trees and brambles and hardwood seedlings. In places it was a maze of solid white.

  A strange emptiness pervaded the forest. As thick as the trees were here, there should have been animals and birds, but she hadn’t seen one creature, heard anything other than the crunching tread of their footsteps in the snow. She felt like an explorer in one of those sci-fi B movies, moving through the tundra wasteland of a deserted planet. Any moment now an alien might pop out. Maybe it already had, and it was leading them into a trap.

  “Veer left,” Nina said while she shoved on his burly arm. She felt the shivers getting stronger, and she whispered, “Try to be quiet. We’re close.”

  “You’re the one making the noise.” He frowned at her feet as if he were insulted.

  He was right, Nina realized. His steps were hardly audible, the stealth of a hunter in his every movement. She sounded like a herd of stampeding cows. Well, he was forcing her to jog to keep up with him.

  “Show off,” she whispered back.

  An amused and overconfident grin toyed with his lips. He resembled an evil forest god who had a reputation for taking advantage of innocent young damsels. And his libido waltzed into her thoughts, loud, clear and strong.

  It was making her hyperventilate, and she pulled her hand free of his and pointed him ahead. “Go on. I’ll bring up the rear.”

  “Don’t get any ideas of taking off,” he warned, his breath hot on her ear.

  A tingle soared down her neck as she said, “Stop threatening me, and be careful.”

  His smile almost stretched the length of his mouth, but it vanished before it had a chance. He crept ahead, a blurry moving shadow among the trees. She followed much more slowly, groping and picking her way through the dark ice.

  When he’d gone a hundred feet, he dropped the backpacks. They made no sound as he stood behind a tree. He’d spotted something. He waved her forward.

  As quietly as she could, she crept up and joined him. They stood on the fringes of an outcropping of rocks that jutted out from the mountain, a sheer drop below.

  On one of the rocks, a female coyote stood with two pups. Near them, a steel trap held the paw of her mate, a large male. The female and pups whimpered, while the male licked and chewed at his ensnared front paw. He’d been at this a long time, and his flesh was bitten, torn and bloody. The male’s anguish was what she was feeling, along with the fear and helplessness of the female and her pups. She was glad the gleaner hadn’t killed again and that she could actually do something to help.

  “Please stay here,” she whispered. “You’ll scare them.”

  He nodded, but he didn’t look happy about it. “I’ll find who set that trap on my land, and they’ll be sorry they’re alive.”

  By the menacing promise in his voice, Nina had no doubt he’d carry through with the threat.

  “Here.” Kane thrust a flashlight in her hand.

  “Thanks,” she whispered and edged forward slowly, not wanting to frighten them. The female leaped protectively in front of her pups.

  It’s all right. I’m here to help, she communicated telepathically to them. They could all hear and understand her, and it assuaged their fear. She could feel they were beginning to trust her.

  Can you? the female asked, doubt in her eyes. My mate’s hurt. In pain. Nothing I can do.

  Let’s see. Nina stepped onto the rocks and carefully approached the male. Don’t be afraid. I’m here to free you.

  She shined the light on him and saw he was trembling, his lips snarled over his gums from pain, fangs showing. Nina decided to try and see if her powers worked on the coyote, so she set down the flashlight and gently touched his head with both her hands.

  Instantly, he reacted to her touch, relaxing, her magical connection to him breaking down his fear barriers. You will not feel this. Sleep.

  The coyote’s eyes closed, and his head flopped down on the rocks. Instantly, the pain Nina was sensing silenced and she felt a blessed wash of quiet in its place. Then it occurred to her: she still had her powers. They just didn’t work on Kane. Why not? Would they work on the gleaner? That was the big question.

  Nina fumbled with a lever, and the steel jaws popped open. This wasn’t the first trap she’d come across, and it wouldn’t be the last. The hinges rasped like rusty spikes being pulled from wood. She gently extracted the mangled paw from the steel teeth. Luckily it was a small trap and had only caught the paw below the joint. The wound looked better than at first sight. The male hadn’t chewed much of the flesh off. Most of the tendons and muscle were still intact.

  In a fit of rage, she wrenched the trap free from the pin holding it into the stone. Then she flung it off the rocks. It sailed out into the night and down the mountain. It took a while before she heard it hit the ground below.

  “I need something to wrap his paw,” Nina called out to Kane.

  He came forward, and the female coyote must have sensed he was a seniph because she backed up several steps, fangs showing, and forced the pups behind her.

  It’s okay. He won’t hurt you.

  She didn’t look convinced and growled.

  Kane kept his distance so he wouldn’t frighten her even more. He set one of the backpacks down and pulled out a roll of gauze and antibiotic cream.

  “What else you got in there?” Nina asked.

  “Whatever you need,” he said, shooting her a sidelong glance. His wicked forest-god leer appeared as he produced a pair of scissors.

  Careful not to look into his eyes, she crawled over and grabbed the supplies. She turned her attention back on the male. She slathered antibiotic cream over the wounded paw, then wrapped it.

  She turned to the female. He’ll wake up soon. You should not stay here. The poacher who set this trap will come back.

  We’ll leave.

  Is there a place to warm up around here?

  A cave with a hot spring about three yards toward the rising sun.

  Thank you.

  Nina and Kane left them, listening to the pups nipping and playing with each other as the female licked the male’s face.

  When they had gathered up their supplies, Kane said, “That was pretty amazing, watching you do that. You showed no fear, though the male looked ready to tear you to pieces.”

  “Kinda like how you look sometimes,” she teased.

  “You wouldn’t get a warning from me. I just bite.” His voice had that sensual edge that sent hot waves into her belly.

  She found herself reliving that all-too-short passionate moment they’d shared. Then she scolded herself for it. She couldn’t stand another rejection like that again, even if the melding had awakened desire she didn’t know she was capable of.

  The hard edge left his voice as he said, “You really do have a gift.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “Take it however you like.”

  “A compliment, then.”

  Nina saw him rubbing his wounded shoulder and said, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re bleeding again, aren’t you?” She couldn’t keep the exasperation out of her voice. Was recognizing physical limitations only a problem with alpha shifters, or were all men stubborn like him?

  “Not much.”

  “Why didn’t you say something? I know of a cave we can go to.” She had hoped to talk him into going to the cave to thaw out her toes, but now there was a twofold reason for going.

  “How did you find it?” he asked casually.

  “The coyote told me.”

  “And you believe a coyote?” His lips curled cynically.

  “Actually, animals do not have the guile to lie, unlike shifters and humans.” She saw his golden brows snap together in a scowl, and she enjoyed getting that little dig in. “The cave’s just east of here.”

  He slid his large warm hand into h
er gloved one as naturally as if they held hands all the time. The ease with which he did it surprised her. Maybe she’d been too hasty in judging him. Maybe he could open up, a little. Then she felt him responding to her touch, that insatiable desire flowing through him and into her.

  He tried to repress it, but it was a marching band parading through her mind. When she couldn’t take it any longer without responding, she pretended to trip and broke the contact.

  “Oops.” She grabbed a tree trunk.

  “Are you okay?” He reached for her.

  “Yep, just dandy.” She leaped back from the pure fire in his hands. If she touched him again, she’d be all over him.

  He took her measure with his keen eyes. “Can’t take the heat, huh?” A wicked look of triumph gleamed in his vivid green eyes.

  “What?”

  “You’re reading me.”

  “Am not.”

  “Uh-huh.” A calculating light blazed in his eyes.

  It seemed like the more she drew back from him, the more he seemed drawn to her. Maybe it was the feline part of him that enjoyed the hunt. What would happen if she allowed him to catch her? Her last thought sent a shiver through her. She felt him eyeing her as she ignored him and plodded through the snow.

  Chapter 10

  Nina followed Kane along a narrow rocky path that went straight up. She panted heavily and lagged behind, unable to keep up with him.

  Kane turned and shot her an impatient look. “If you take my hand, we can go faster.”

  “I’ll make it.” She was determined to keep her distance.

  Annoyance forced his brows together as he paused long enough to pull up a limb protruding from the snow. He broke off a good-size straight piece of wood, then handed it to her. “Here, use this.”

  “Thanks.” It fit her hand perfectly and would make a fair walking stick.

  He turned and continued up the slope, both packs swaying on his shoulder. Even though he was wounded, he climbed like a goat through the snow.

  She watched the confident sway of his wide back, the way his golden hair twined around his shoulders. She couldn’t help but look at his tight butt and corded thigh muscles pumping as he climbed. Good golly, he had a nice body. She felt his hardness between her thighs again, his hands on her breasts, his tongue in her mouth. Her breasts tightened, and an unbidden ache settled in her lower belly. She just refused to let go of their woodland encounter. Look at something else. She did, his butt, dead center in her line of sight.

  “Do you think we’re close?” Nina huffed, more from her own desire than being out of breath. “Yes.”

  “You sound really certain.”

  “I’ve been here before.”

  “Nice of you to tell me.”

  “Didn’t think it mattered since you had the coyote giving you directions.” He shot her a sidelong glance with an added flash of his white teeth. Mother Nature sure knew what she had been doing when she created alpha seniphs. A male shouldn’t be that wicked and tempting.

  Thankfully, he turned around, went a few steps, then dropped out of sight.

  She hurried to catch up and found the cave’s entrance, overgrown with snowcapped honeysuckle and blackberry bushes. A small path used by animals to frequent the cave veered off to the left. She took that path.

  Warmth hit her as soon as she entered, and she breathed it in. Her frozen cheeks and lips began to thaw. Pitch blackness surrounded her, and she turned on the flashlight. The cave looked about thirty feet wide, but its height was half that. The rounded-smooth craters of the ceiling dropped drastically, then met a wall of rock with deep fissures. Farther in, the flashlight could not penetrate the darkness. Nina couldn’t see Kane. A moment of panic seized her as she thought of his wounds.

  “Kane,” she called, worried.

  “Here.” His rumbling voice echoed from the cave’s shadowy recesses.

  She followed his voice to where the cave walls narrowed and spotted him squatting by the backpacks; the ceiling had dropped so low, he couldn’t do much else. The light hit the commanding bone structure of his face, the square, even brow, the perfectly shaped noble nose. For a moment his skin glowed luminescent gold, and the sight of him caused the breath to catch in her throat.

  “You’re blinding me.” He squinted at her, then rummaged through a backpack.

  “Sorry,” she said, not realizing she’d been staring at him and pointing the flashlight right in his face.

  She forced her gaze from him and shined the light on spirals of steam drifting up from a hot spring. The pool was about ten feet wide, clear, rocks shimmering in the bottom. It looked shallow, but the depth of clear water could be deceiving.

  She heard a pop, and saw that Kane had opened a bottle of wine. He dropped the opener back in the backpack and held it out to her. “Want a sip?”

  “No thanks.

  “You have a first-aid kit in your backpack. We really should check out your shoulder.”

  “We’ll leave it for now.” He turned up the bottle and took a long pull on it, watching her intently now.

  Heat filled her traitorous body as she said, “So, you knew about this cave?”

  “Yeah. Came here as a boy with Ethan.” He pointed the tip of the bottle toward several crayon drawings on the wall. One was of a stick figure with a cape on it. The other was a better rendering, and she could make out a human form, wearing Batman’s costume.

  He motioned to the stick figure. “Ethan drew that. Must have been about six at the time.” Sadness softened the hard gleam in his eyes.

  “You colored the other one?” Nina crouched low and touched the sketch with her fingers. She imagined two happy brothers playing here, unaware that one of them would become a monster.

  “Ethan used to call this the Bat Cave. I was Batman, he was Robin.” A parody of a smile slid past his lips. “The spring was our Bat Pool. We killed many a villain down at the bottom.”

  “You must miss him,” she said. She felt her heart go out to Kane. It couldn’t have been easy for him, watching a brother he cared about slip away from him. For a brief moment she saw through the emotional wall that he’d erected, and she glimpsed a faraway sadness in his expression that wasn’t guarded. She wanted to reach out to him and take his sadness away.

  “After he left, I did. I wished I could have traded places with him.”

  “His sickness wasn’t your fault.”

  “I know, but I felt helpless. All I did was run the winery and secretly mail a care package to him every now and then.”

  “You had to keep it hidden from the pride?”

  “Yes, or there would have been hell to pay.”

  “Then you did everything you could.”

  “Not enough.” He ran a finger absently around the top of the wine bottle.

  It broke Nina’s heart to see the utter bleakness in his expression.

  “Do you really think you can save him?”

  “I have to try.” The cold aloofness settled back in as quickly as it had come.

  It was miserable knowing Kane would be hurt by Ethan’s death, but he would have to be destroyed. Thoughts of the pain his brother’s death would cause Kane ate at her.

  “I hoped he’d think of this place and make camp here, but no such luck.” He shrugged his burly shoulders, then took a long draw on the Zinfandel, as if it might dull his disappointment.

  Kane could have informed her that there was a chance they might find Ethan here. His lapse just drove home the fact he would sacrifice her or anyone that stood between him and his brother.

  Sorrow settled in the pit of her belly. It shouldn’t bother her, but it did. What did you expect? He’s your kidnapper. And the man who’d made her feel real passion, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

  She watched Kane’s large Adam’s apple working in his throat; then he set the wine down and shed his jacket. It was hard to miss the inch-long dark spot of blood on his shirt, stark against the blue flannel. His shoulder wound had bled, but not as
much as she had imagined.

  He turned and eyed her, those spellbinding green eyes shining like emeralds in the light. His tawny beard had thickened along his strong jaw and sensual mouth. With his lumberjack flannel shirt and worn jeans, he looked like a rugged, virile gold miner. He gazed at her like she was the gold vein he wanted to mine. He was so handsome and irresistible her heart skipped in her chest.

  “What’s the matter?” The wary glint in his eyes softened for a second.

  “Nothing. Where’re the bandages? It’s time to redress your wounds.”

  “Don’t need them.”

  “Why?”

  In seconds he unbuttoned his shirt and had it and the bandages off.

  His body drew her attention, and she got an eyeful of his broad shoulders and muscle-bound chest and the golden hair spattering it. It tapered to a thin line and trailed along the ripples of his abdomen, then disappeared below the waist of his jeans. He faced her, hiding the scars on his back from her view, but he kept his eyes on the pool. Blood had soaked the bandage on his shoulder. The spot wasn’t wide and looked as if it had stopped bleeding on its own. But the dressings needed changing. She said, “Please, let me get the gauze.”

  “Don’t. The spring water will do the trick.” He made quick work of the laces on his hiking boots, then his shoes hit the ground with heavy thuds. He tore off his socks, exposing perfectly formed feet, thick, strong ankles and long toes. His agile fingers went for the button on his jeans.

  Nina realized what he was about to do. She dragged her eyes away and turned around in a hurry. “This is a bad idea,” she said.

  “It’s just a dip. You can join me.” His voice was deep and husky and layered with all sorts of erotic promise.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You afraid of me?”

  “No.” She was afraid of herself.

  “Good, ’cause I won’t seduce you again.”

  “Keep it that way.” The sexual part of her he had awakened hoped he didn’t mean that; still, his rebuff stung.

  Something about hearing his jeans hitting the ground in a sensual whisper made her breath quicken. Her fists tightened at her sides as she conjured up an image of what he would look like totally naked, his body dripping with water. She licked her lips and recalled his hard shaft thrusting against the soft flesh between her thighs. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed as a wave of heat slid down her belly and into her groin. But then she recalled what happened after he’d spent his lust. How she’d tried to reach him emotionally and he’d almost bitten her hand and pulled away. No, she didn’t need another rejection. Or a man, for that matter. She was happy—well, until Kane Van Cleave had taken her prisoner and made her feel real passion.