by Tess MacKall
“Lavani and the blue-eye’s child are dead! That is what I wanted. That is what they gave me.”
White Owl shook his head, no longer caring that the man before him did not love him. He would banish him from his sight and instead remember the little boy who once loved him. “The child of the blue-eye lives, Manohar. And he will one day find his mate and break this curse. It is then the dark spirits will come for you and you will pay for what you asked them to do.”
“You lie! The child is dead!”
“No. The child breathes and is now hidden from you.” White Owl pushed up from the ground, his tired body more weary than ever. He accepted his fate and would wait out the curse alone. He walked away from the circle.
“Where are you going? Come back here!” Manohar screamed.
White Owl turned to face his grandson for the last time. “Go. I will not see you again. It is finished. You must live with what you have done and one day die with it as well. And I will watch, thankful for the day it comes.” White Owl shuffled away into the darkness with Manohar’s angry voice at his back only a distant sound to him now.
Love would find its way and then he could rest.
Chapter One
Present Day
The call of the night bird broke the dusk, announcing evening’s slow rise. Whip-poor-will…whip-poor-will. A black sky loomed, its mask of darkness shattered only by the soft, intermittent glow of silver slashes in the distance. Cold buffeted the sun-warmed woodland, sending a querulous tremble through the trees and the animals to a safe haven. Only one dared prowl the forest floor.
The black cougar, its man-spirit ever-vigilant.
A creature of whimsy, legendary and widely considered to be a myth, the sleek black cougar charged into the dense night. Leaves rustled beneath the merciless pounding, powerful forequarters sprinting, climbing, claws clutching. Banshee winds screamed down the mountain and tipped the treetops. The heavens emptied in a thunderous chorus and unleashed a hard rain to pelt the hidden land.
And still the cougar ran.
Running, stalking, the smell of her heavy on the air.
The predator slowed and gracefully stretched from rock to rock, coursing the jagged ravine, its sharp, taloned paws digging at the saturated moss and earth as it halted and its nostrils flared, scenting the air. Paws pummeling the ground once more and fluid lunges took it closer until the big cat came to rest on a stony perch.
Ears erect, the ebon feline crouched, flicked its tail and watched her. She huddled near a hissing fire, the torrent threatening to douse its flames. Smoke encircled the small clearing. The tang of fear clung to her. Deep within the cat, its man-spirit stirred and hunger swelled—the hunger of a man in need of a mate.
A feral scream erupted from the animal as a keen awareness burst within its body, flooded its veins and suffused its heart and lungs. An insistent throb pierced bone and sinew, thrusting, crushing. The spirit essence rose, separating from its animal, and hovered. Whining as it always did with the separation, the mystical cougar pawed the air and leapt, its silhouette becoming silvery threads of light that showered the trees and ascended to collide with the wind and rain. Vaporous and shining, a milky spiral lit the darkness for a few fleeting seconds then fractured into scores of luminous points to rejoin with the man-spirit and fell to the earth in a heap.
Sam Starr arched his back and gasped for air. Rain stung his naked skin. He lurched forward then sat while he grew accustomed to his human form. Ages had passed since his first transformation and it never got any easier. Emotions, senses, need, all changed, but somehow lingered from each of them. But this time, something was different. The cougar essence had given reign to its man-spirit, allowing him to shift earlier than usual—because of the woman camped out at the base of the bluff.
Sam had gotten word from the boys at the sporting goods store when he’d stopped in for supplies a few days before that she was looking to hire him as a guide. He’d spotted her campsite two days ago from a distance but hadn’t approached, figuring she’d give up and go back to the city where she belonged. Only she hadn’t, and apparently had decided to move deeper into the forest. A bad move on her part. She’d chosen to make camp at the bottom of an unstable area. With the rains they’d had in the last couple of weeks and tonight’s downpour, she wasn’t safe. It wouldn’t take much more to bring the entire slope down on her.
“Damn it. Why me?” he muttered as he pushed off the muddy ground.
The idea of dealing with a citified woman didn’t appeal to him at all, much less one who seemed intent on finding him when he didn’t want to be found. Pushy. That’s what she was. Just plain damn pushy. Well, she’d find out he could push right back. He lifted the branch in front of him to pass through and scraped his hip on the tree’s trunk.
Remembering his nakedness, he chuckled. Well, she wanted to see me.
As he picked his way through the soaked terrain, he looked back at the hillside. Water ran like a river straight down its center. Sam had been made aware of the impending natural disaster through his cougar self, but the fact that the woman was in danger was something his cougar didn’t know until Sam had transferred the information to the cougar. Miraculously, the cat had yielded to its man-spirit’s dominance.
And that had never happened before.
Yes, they often shared information, but one had never allowed the other to interfere with their time in earthly form, only sensing each other in their minds and certainly never shifting sooner in preference to the other’s needs. Sam thought about that. He had needed to shift. Needed it to get the woman out of harm’s way. Had he asked his cougar to yield? All he remembered was the shift. And right now he didn’t have time to dwell on it. Regardless of how much he despised some prissy woman invading his territory, he couldn’t let her be swept away in a mudslide.
Blinking his eyes against the sheet of rain, he made his way to the campsite. The smell of smoke was strong, almost acrid. Lightning repeatedly clapped and strobed, invading the pitch black, showing him the way. As he drew near, the woman stood and let the blanket she was using for shelter against the rain fall at her feet. Her eyes wide, mouth shaped in a huge O, a soft wail of fright came from her throat.
Sam tamped down the urge to laugh. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. Stopping opposite her, next to the dying campfire, he planted his feet firmly apart, toes digging into the muddy mix of earth, leaves and twigs. He waited to speak, struck by the need to assess her more closely. Her spirit was strong and his cock twitched.
He concentrated, focusing just above her great big eyes. A deep crimson aura emanated from her body. Strong woman. Angry. But the depth of that red was mottled with shades of gray and even black. She was broken. Something dark dwelled within her and distrust burgeoned inside Sam.
“Heard you were looking for me,” he said.
Her lashes batted as if she were surprised he’d spoken. She closed her mouth, swallowed hard and in a trembling voice asked, “Are-are you Sam Starr?”
“I am.”
“But you’re naked.” Her gaze drifted up and down his body.
Sam shifted, her scrutiny doing something to him he hadn’t anticipated. He gritted his teeth, willing his cock to behave. Hell, she looked like a drowned rat more than a woman, not at all pretty as far as he could tell, yet his body responded. That’s what he got for letting his monthly visit to see the Monroe sisters slide this time. He’d been too restless, and that should have been reason enough to go, but he hadn’t been willing to leave his mountains. Something—or someone—had stopped him. And maybe that someone was standing right in front of him.
But why?
“My mountains. I dress or not dress the way I like.”
She looked away. Rain soaked her clothes and dripped from long hair that lay plastered to her head. Her thin cotton shirt clung to her, displaying full, rounded breasts. Just the way he liked them. A lot more than a handful. Damn it. Why the hell did he have to be naked? He felt his cock rising.
Shit.
“I’ve been looking for you for two days,” she said.
“Well, looks like you found me. But we have more important things to deal with right now.” Sam glanced up at the hillside. “You’re camped at the bottom of what is about to be a nice little mudslide.”
“Mudslide!”
A fireball streaked from the sky and landed in a treetop about twenty feet away, the resounding thunder so loud, she jumped from where she stood straight into his arms. A horrendous cracking noise followed. Sam’s cock pressed into her stomach as his arms instinctively wrapped around her and he half dragged, half carried her from the path of the falling tree. In the rush to safety, he slipped and they both landed in the slushy muck. The tree crashed to the ground not a foot away.
Beneath him she squirmed, clawing at his chest. “Get off me!”
He rolled from her and scrambled to get up. “No problem, lady. Let’s just get the hell out of here before that hill comes down on top of us.”
He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. She pulled away, stumbling toward her small tent, which had collapsed from the weight of the rain. Sam cussed to the high heavens. He was in the middle of one of the worst storms he’d ever seen on the mountain and stuck with some crazy city woman intent on getting herself killed.
Sam’s chest tightened, warning him of danger. His bare feet splattered mud and water as he rushed to catch up to her. He’d carry her out if he had to, but they had to go now! Damn it. Just as he reached her, she turned and shoved a large canvas duffel bag into his chest.
“Take this!” she screamed over the howling wind and horrendous thunder.
“Hell, no!” He threw the bag on the ground. “We’ve got at least two miles to walk in this storm.”
“Those are my clothes, for God’s sake. I can’t leave them!” She bent over, grabbed the bag from the ground and slammed it into his chest again. “The bag goes or I stay.”
Yeah, definitely a crazy woman. “Then stay. I’ll drop by in the morning and say a few words over the burial ground.” Sam started to walk away.
“Wait! You’d just leave me like that?”
“Well, if God didn’t give you sense enough to come in out of the rain, there’s not a lot I can do about it.” He took a few steps more.
“All right. How about you at least carry it to higher ground so I can come back for it tomorrow. The rest I’ll handle myself.”
Unbelievable. She planned on him being her pack mule. “The rest?”
“My camera equipment. I need it. I can handle that, but not the big bag too. Please, it’s not that heavy. The camera equipment weighs a heck of a lot more.”
Right now he’d be willing to crawl all the way back to his cabin just to get the hell out of there. He quickly strode to the bag and hoisted it over his head, wincing as the strap scraped his skin. She nodded and gathered three more bags, hanging one around her neck and placing the other two medium-sized totes on each shoulder. They headed across the clearing and through the dense trees, skirting the hillside. From behind them a low rumbling sound erupted.
Sam glanced back to see uprooted trees sliding toward them. “Run!”
With no time to waste, he weaved in and out of the thick stand of trees, taking them deeper into the woods. Their only chance was to get far enough into the forest to use the stout tree trunks as protection. Hopefully the forest debris and wall of trees would slow down the mud and give them some lead time. He heard her cry out and stopped.
Glancing behind him, Sam saw that she had fallen. He ran to her as the roaring flood of mud and everything it had swept up in its path raced toward them. One of the bags had slipped from her shoulder and landed on the ground.
She looked up at him as he neared and said, “I twisted my ankle.”
Lightning spat all around them, revealing a solid wall of mud only seconds away. He’d have to carry her out. With one hand at her waist, he tried levering her across his shoulder, but the other two bags got in the way. Without a word, he ripped away the one now dangling from her upper arm as she whipped the smaller one from around her neck and held onto it. He tossed her across his shoulder and took off at breakneck speed.
Time and space spread out before him as his cougar force seized control and guided his steps. Swift and surefooted, Sam maneuvered the darkest woodland where even the illumination of lightning failed to penetrate the thickness of the treetops. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, fueling the wild dash. Hanging from his shoulder, the woman wrapped her arms around his lower chest and held steady. Rumbling, crashing, the slide continued to roll toward them. If he could get across the ravine, they would be safe.
A keen whine slurred from his throat as his leg muscles cramped then stretched. Closer to the ravine, his strides lengthened and in preparation for the jump, his toes dug into the ground. Seconds ticked along with his heartbeat. One…two…three…he leapt, the sound of air rushing past him tunneling through his ears. The break in the forest gave way to the lightning once more. Beneath them, the jaws of the thirty-foot deep chasm gaped wide. The woman screamed, her fingers scratching at his skin.
Less than a moment later, his feet landed firmly on the other side and he fell to the ground. She spilled from his grip and tumbled to his side. His lungs burned as if they were going to burst and his heart beat so fast he thought surely he would die. Struggling for air, he looked toward the ravine. The wall of mud poured into the opening.
The woman next to him cupped his upper arm and rested against him. Several minutes passed and they continued to sit in the rain and watch the mud fill in the ravine. Finally finding the strength to stand, Sam pushed up from the soaked ground.
She looked up at him, shaking her head. “What the hell just happened?”
Sam swiped a thick strand of long hair from his face and answered, “We lived to see another sunrise.”
Lucia Chavez swallowed her fear and eyed the sky above. The storm had abated and the heavy clouds with their dark gray bellies had shifted away while they’d sat in silence, leaving a pitch sky littered with bright stars and a round silver moon. She turned her attention to the man standing over her. He was Cherokee, his features beautiful. She took in his hair-free chest, admiring the way his stomach muscles stood out, highlighted by the rain wetting his body and the moonlight glancing off his skin. His waist tapered to slim hips set on either side of a thatch of black hair surrounding a long, thick cock. Her eyes widened at the sight of it and a blush crept into her cheeks. Despite their situation and the tremors of fear still humming through her body, a spike of desire flared in her pussy. She struggled to suppress its spread, forcing herself to concentrate on why she’d needed to meet him.
Being at this middle-of-nowhere place wasn’t her idea of fun, especially when the guide she sought had proved elusive, but he was here now in all his glory. He had information she wanted but as she looked at his frown, she wondered if he’d give it.
Her gaze strayed to his midsection again. What the hell is wrong with me? Anyone else in this situation would be intent on getting up off the ground to somewhere dry. She shifted her attention to his face and lost herself in the penetrative gaze he bestowed on her from slightly slanted eyes so dark and deep they warmed her. Entranced, she licked her lips, imagining how he would feel against her.
“Finished your inspection?” he asked, eyebrow quirked, one corner of his mouth lifting.
Her blush heated further and she struggled to stand, plopping back down on her ass. Grinding her teeth in humiliation, she ignored his outstretched hand and tried again, this time getting to her feet with no trouble. She stared at him once more, unwilling to hide her appraisal. She wanted him to know she found him attractive. Hell, he surely knew what she’d been thinking just now anyway.
Long black hair, plastered to his head and arms, reached right down to his waist and absurdly, she wondered how long it had taken him to grow it. She didn’t usually go for long-haired men, but this guy…
&n
bsp; Lucia shook her head, her heart beating too fast for altogether different reasons now. The fear had sloughed away, curiosity and the urge to touch him taking its place. She stepped closer to him, wanting… Wanting what?
“You coming with me or not?” His tone held a hint of irritation and he stood before her as though clothed, not at all embarrassed.
Who the hell roams the mountainside naked anyway? Is he some kind of freak?
Freak or not, she wanted to get to know him, had to find out what he knew, but not out here, with rain splattering down on them.
“Where are we going?” She clutched her camera bag, the strap sodden and mud-caked.
“To my cabin.” He swiveled and walked away, his leg muscles stretching and bunching with each step.
Lucia glanced behind her at the chasm. How the hell had he jumped across it? She frowned. No way was that possible. Yet it was. He’d leapt over and her heart had fluttered wildly as she’d looked down into the blackness, convinced they would fall and hit the bottom. She turned to follow and gasped as she saw him up ahead, striding with purpose as though he walked barefoot all the time. Maybe he did, but if she didn’t hurry she’d lose him in the forest. Shoving thoughts of the leap from her mind, she took after him, the mossy, uneven ground aggravating her ankle.
The guys at the sporting goods store had assured her she could trust Sam, but did they know him well enough? Was it really safe for her to go to his cabin? With a sigh of determination, she trudged on, upping her speed so she walked a few paces behind him. He didn’t look back or acknowledge her presence. Her duffel bumped against his back and the strap of her camera bag chafed her shoulders. She cursed this shithole of a place and herself for ever coming here.
But I had to. I’ve got to do what Father set out to do.
He weaved between tree trunks and she struggled to see. A scampering of animal feet as she walked gave her a start. She trailed him, focusing her thoughts on the mudslide that had nearly ended her life. If he hadn’t appeared, if he hadn’t insisted she run… She shuddered at the thought of meeting the same fate as her father. Had she camped the same place he’d died? The locals had informed her of his death—he had left a contact address at the small post office should something happen to him. Based on her father’s letters, Lucia had followed the trail that led to where she’d pitched her tent. The scenery he’d described seemed the same, but then again this area looked much like every other around here—forests, mountains and streams.
