“Hey . . . ”
She jumped, unaware that Duke had pushed away from the car and come up behind her. His hands landed on her shoulders and he dipped his head, brushing his lips against her cheek. “Easy, princess.”
Grimacing, Ana said, “Sorry.”
“What’s wrong?”
She nodded toward the mountains. “There’s something there. I felt it the first time I was here. That’s what called me. That’s what’s still calling me.”
Duke fell silent, gazing off into the mountains, his gray eyes unreadable. “I don’t really feel anything . . . but I’m not psychic.”
Ana shivered. His arms went around her waist and she covered them with her own. His fingers twined with hers and for some reason, that simple gesture had a knot of emotion settling in her throat.
“I’m kind of wishing I really wasn’t psychic, either.” She made a face and muttered, “Of course, that’s not unusual for me.”
He nuzzled her neck. “Don’t wish you were different than what you are, Ana.”
“If it wasn’t for me, Cat probably never would have gotten to you. She never would have found me or Brad. Your life would have been easier if I had just been completely and utterly normal,” she said, sighing. “Your life. Mine. Brad’s.”
“If you were completely and utterly normal, my life would have been lacking something very important. If Cat was the price I had to pay for that, so be it.” He rested his chin atop of her head, unaware of the look skittering across her face. “Besides, what in the hell is completely and utterly normal?”
In a lighthearted tone she didn’t really feel, Ana said, “Normal—that means no psychic skill, no getting furry, no hiding away while the sun is up.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“The fun would be in being normal,” she said, melancholy. “In not hiding.” She was so damned tired of hiding. So tired of keeping to herself just because it was easier to not be around others. It ended up leaving her life rather empty and very alone.
She disengaged herself from his arms and grabbed her tote from the floorboard. “Come on. The people who own the house told me they’d probably be gone when we got here but they were leaving my room unlocked.”
“Now that sounds safe,” Duke drawled, shaking his head.
“Welcome to small-town Alaska.” She shot him an amused glance over her shoulder and slung the tote over her arm.
The owners were out, the private entrance to their room was unlocked and there was the scent of something sinfully sweet in the air. On the table was a big platter of chocolate chip cookies, as well as some maps, some tourist books and a handwritten note. Ana recognized the handwriting from her previous stay and just skimmed over the note before grabbing a cookie. Duke was already on his second.
She demolished half of it before she made the mistake of looking out the big picture window. Her appetite promptly vanished. Halfheartedly, she nibbled at the rest of the cookie as she stared out at the mountains. Duke came up to stand behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders. Ana relaxed back against him and smiled when he rubbed his cheek against hers. “Something in those mountains really has you spooked, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Although she wasn’t entirely sure spooked was the right word. She wasn’t exactly afraid—it was more like resigned dread.
“Any idea what?”
She took a deep breath. “I think he’s hiding them out there.”
I DON’T like this. Duke hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and stared into the trees. It was early, not even seven, although the sun was already high in the sky. It didn’t penetrate very far down into the canopy, though. The air was dark, ripe with the scents of forest, game, life—and death.
He could smell it. It lay on the back of his tongue, foul and bitter.
New death.
Old death.
Blood.
Something ominous weighed down on him. Everything about this place said, Go away. The message came through pretty loud and clear. As pretty as the area was, they hadn’t seen a single tourist, not even a couple of bikers on the drive out here. Even mortals with absolutely lousy instincts would probably feel the need to get very, very far away from here.
But aside from the death he could scent, he wasn’t picking up a whole hell of a lot. The internal voice that had guided him as a Hunter was utterly silent, and if it wasn’t for the physical signs that he couldn’t ignore—the stink of death—Duke doubted he’d hang around long enough to do any exploring. He wanted to get out of there that bad.
It felt wrong.
It felt false.
It bore a weird similarity to something that had happened to him years earlier, back when he first met Ana. The area where he’d been on patrol with Kendall, the vampire that had trained him, had been a void—a lot like this.
It had been there that he met Ana, and once he laid eyes on her, the desire to get the hell out of dodge was replaced with a different one—her. Ana, picking him up in that bar—they’d left together and he’d been too focused on his dick, too focused on getting inside that hot little body and having another taste of that mouth.
Ana had screwed his head to hell and back, to the point that having her damn near obliterated all other impulses. Still, when he’d been with her, he hadn’t felt this oppressive weight in the air—just a weird emptiness. Then Cat had shown up and his instincts kicked back up—that insistent whisper that spoke of trouble, evil, ugliness and malice.
The warning had come too late—Ana had served the exact purpose that Cat hoped, blocking out the presence of paranormal activity. It left Duke vulnerable and unprepared and could have left him dead.
The skin along his spine crawled and to his disgust, he realized his hands were wet, clammy from a cold sweat. A series of memories, one fucking horrifying image after another rolled through his brain. Chained with silver, starved, beaten. A knife cutting into his flesh while the woman laughed. She’d watched him as she licked the blood from his body. Watched him with lust in her eyes—lust for his body, lust for his blood.
Cat had been one crazy-assed bitch. But she was dead now. Dead. She couldn’t hurt anybody again, and he’d sooner slit his wrists with one of those silver blades than let himself be that helpless again. Forcing thoughts of psycho bitch out of his head, he focused on the forest again and tried to pinpoint where it was coming from.
Tried to figure out what it was.
“Duke?”
He swiped his hands down his jeans as Ana came to stand beside him. “You feel it?”
“Feel what?”
He shook his head. “I can’t quite describe it. It’s like there’s some invisible shield around this place, something that doesn’t want us in there.”
Ana shrugged. “No. I don’t feel it. I can feel them, though. Souls, or something. I sensed them the first time I was here, but there’s nothing I can follow.”
He could. He could follow the blood. But he wasn’t ready to do it yet. “What else do you feel?”
“Nothing.” Ana shook her head. “Just them. Like they’re calling me. It’s too chaotic for me, like a bunch of voices all screaming at once. None of it makes sense. But that’s all. Why . . . what do you feel?”
“Just the urge to get the hell away from here,” he said. He almost didn’t say it. Didn’t really want to. But he knew he had to. Get it out, get it done, before they went there and got caught up in whatever mess waited for them. “Only time I’ve ever felt anything even remotely like this was back in Cincinnati. Right before I met you.”
She glanced into the trees and then back at him. She swallowed and shook her head. Something flickered in her eyes—hurt.
“Duke, I’m not doing—”
“I know it’s not you,” he interrupted. “It’s not the same, not exactly. Back in Cincinnati, you just cast a pall on everything, hid anything that might have set my instincts off. Whatever this is, it’s more than that. There’s a pall, I can smell death, but I don’t fe
el it. And this isn’t just some passive blocking. It’s more like something’s actively screaming at me, telling me to leave. You didn’t ever do that. You were like a vacuum—this is one massive, motherfucking black hole.”
She blanched. “Shit. You . . . Duke, you think there’s somebody around here, like me?”
“I don’t know.” He didn’t know. He really didn’t want to know. But he was going to have to find out. He rolled his head back and forth, loosening up muscles that had long since gone tight and tense. “Come on. Let’s get this done.”
Done. As in quick. Real quick, because he wanted out of there. Wanted away.
“YEAH, well, you don’t always get what you want,” he muttered a few days later, remembering his very definite desires to get away from the small town of Palmer. An hour north of Anchorage, the small town didn’t seem to have any answers for them.
A damned waste of time. After four, fruitless, empty days, he’d decided it had been a damned waste of time coming here. Four days—four fucking days.
Spent tromping out in the forest, following overgrown trails, basically just chasing his own damn tail, it seemed like. His senses weren’t working. He could smell the blood, could smell the death.
It burned inside him, that death. Blood spilled, calling out to him a way that left no doubt about why he might be here. If he could just track the source, he could find something. He hoped.
But searching for the source had proved to be another lesson in futility, as far as he was concerned. He couldn’t find it. It was like he’d gone scent-blind and couldn’t smell anything more than the blood. The stink of that surrounded him. It felt like it permeated his entire damn body.
As he followed Ana up the stairs that led to the private entrance of their room, he wondered what in the hell was wrong with him. Wrong with his head, wrong with his nose.
“I need a shower,” he said curtly, brushing past her and stalking into the bathroom. She was quiet but that was nothing new. Over the past four days, she’d retreated more and more inside herself and that wasn’t helping his frame of mind any, but he didn’t know what to do about it.
He was on edge just being here and while whatever it was that affected him didn’t seem to bother her, she was a mess of tension, too. He didn’t want to say anything that would make it worse, so basically, neither of them were saying anything beyond what was necessary. Son of a bitch, he couldn’t take much more of this.
Stripping out of his clothes, he climbed into the shower and turned up the water as hot as it would go. He scrubbed every inch of his body, washed his hair twice, and still smelled the blood.
Maybe we should just leave. This is a waste of time—
“No.” Appalled, he jerked his thoughts back in line and mentally kicked himself. Not a waste of time. So what if they weren’t finding what they needed? This was how things were found, through process of elimination, weeding down to the possible problem by getting rid of the more improbable ones.
Furious with himself for even thinking about getting rid of it, he turned the water off and climbed out, drying himself off. He went to reach for his clothes, but he’d forgotten to get clean ones and there was no way he was putting on the dirty ones. Hell, if he had the clothes to spare, he’d burn them. Might do it anyway. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford to buy more.
Blowing out a disgusted breath, he looped the towel around his waist and slipped out of the bathroom. He came up short, though, as he caught sight of Ana standing in front of the gas fireplace and staring at the dancing flames. They flickered across her face and glinted off her pale, gold hair.
She looked so beautiful, he thought. Beautiful and sad. That sadness he glimpsed in her eyes hit him in the gut, low and hard. “Ana.”
She glanced up at him, gave him a faint smile and then resumed her study of the fire. “Are you done in there? I think I’d like to take a bath.”
“Have at it.” As she passed by him, he reached for something to say, something that might ease the misery inside her. He couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. He knew what he wanted to do—pull her up against him, hold her, stroke her—it didn’t even have to be anything sexual, though he knew it would probably come to that.
He just wanted to touch her. Needed it. She was too deep inside him, stuck inside him. The kind of stuck that just didn’t get un-stuck.
The sound of running water started in the bathroom. He had half a mind to go stand in the doorway, watch as she stripped out of her clothes, while she climbed into a steaming tub of water. But he knew how she’d react. It would make her damn uncomfortable and that wasn’t going to help any.
TWENTY minutes of soaking in a hot tub of water didn’t do a damn thing to help. Her back and neck were still a mess of knots and tension. Thirty minutes on a massage table probably wouldn’t do jack to help her stress level right now.
Ana stared up at the ceiling, her head resting on a folded-up towel, and tried to keep her mind blank. Tried not to think about anything, not to let herself feel anything. She might as well try to walk on water. The dread, the apprehension knotted inside her, leaving her with tense muscles and a horrendous headache.
She was frustrated and she felt utterly and completely useless. She wasn’t helping Duke at all. He’d seemed so sure she could do something to help, and she’d wanted to believe that. But it wasn’t happening.
They hiked through the woods, searching for a needle in a haystack, and each day that passed had him more and more tense. She could feel it, coming off of him in waves, feel it as his frustration started to turn into anger. Too much of it was self-directed and she hated that he was beating himself up over this.
Hated that she couldn’t do more to help.
You can’t hide in here forever.
No. She couldn’t. The water was getting too cool, she was way too tired and she wasn’t about to let him stay out there and keep beating himself up over this. That decision made, she made quick work of washing her hair and her body.
Dripping wet, she stood up in the tub and wrapped her hair in one of the towels. She was reaching for a second towel to dry off when he opened the door.
Their eyes met. Duke didn’t say anything. He took the towel from her and held out a hand. She climbed from the tub and stood in front of him, shivering and silent as he dried her off.
Ana hadn’t ever realized the simple process of drying off could be made erotic. Although she was fast learning that Duke could make almost anything erotic, even things as simple as eating or walking. She caught her lip between her teeth as he stroked the soft, thick cotton over her nipples, down over her belly. He knelt in front of her to dry her legs off, taking a lot more time doing it than she ever did.
She was all but quaking with need by the time he finished. All but ready to pounce on him. Her breath caught in her throat as he stood up. He pulled her against him and she tipped her head back . . . only to have him curve a hand around the back of her neck and cradle her against him. His free hand glided up and down her back, long, soothing strokes. When he rubbed his lips against her temple, her heart melted inside her chest. A soft, shaky sigh escaped her lips and she turned her face into his neck, breathing in his scent.
She’d gotten too used to him being there, she realized. Too used to having him close, too used to having his warmth and strength within reach, close enough to touch. Her throat went tight as an unwelcome thought danced through her mind. How much longer? How much longer was he going to be right here, close enough for her to touch, close enough that his warmth chased all the darkness and ice from within her heart?
Her hands clenched and opened, unconsciously kneading the firm flesh of his back as she held him close. However long it was, a few days, a few months, even a few years weren’t going to be enough. Not with Duke. Not with a man she’d loved almost from the first. His strength, the kindness he kept hidden so deep inside, the passion he brought to everything he did.
Memories—she needed to hoard them, to stockpile them up
so she had enough to get by one once he left. Warm memories—they weren’t going to do much to dispel the chill of loneliness, but it was better than nothing, she figured.
He rubbed his cheek against hers and said softly, “You’re thinking awful heavy thoughts.”
Tipping her head back, she smiled at him and said, “How do you know how heavy they are? Did you go and get psychic?”
“Don’t need to be psychic to feel that,” he said, tracing the line of her mouth with his finger. “What are you thinking about?”
“You,” she said honestly. Then she surprised herself, and him. Reaching between them, she molded her fingers to his length, feeling him through the thick weave of the towel. “Let’s go to bed. I want you.”
Want . . . did that even describe what she felt? Want—it seemed so fleeting. An urge easily satisfied, a temporary desire that came and went. She didn’t want—she craved. She needed. She longed. And for now, she could have.
As he lifted her up, the towel fell to the floor. She wrapped her legs around his waist, shivering as her position had him nestled in just the right spot. Each step he took toward the bed had him brushing against her. A deep, empty ache throbbed inside her and she arched her back, working herself against him, trying to deepen the contact.
Duke growled under his breath as he took her to the bed, crushing her into the mattress as his mouth swooped down on hers. She met him, heat for heat, hunger for hunger. He tore her towel away and she reached for him. But he didn’t come—he sprawled between her thighs and urged them open. He pressed his mouth to her, licking, nuzzling and teasing the sensitive flesh and the empty ache inside her womb grew.
“Duke, please,” she whimpered, fisting her hands in his hair and tugging.
His groan rumbled through him and he tore his mouth away from her, staring up at her with eyes that swirled and danced with heat.
“Please . . . ” She’d beg if she had to. She needed to feel him inside her, needed to feel his weight and his strength—him.
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