GhostWalkers 2 - Mind Game

by Christine Feehan

  Nicolas caught Dahlia’s arm and forcibly turned her around to look out over the river, shifting his body from her left side to her right. Stay calm, Dahlia. The man we’re looking for is on your right side, just a few feet from us.

  What do you mean? He’d set her heart pounding again. She was getting tired of pounding hearts. She was really getting tired of being in the vicinity of so many people. Even with Nicolas touching her, she was on the receiving end of strong energy.

  The man in the blue shirt must have been hired to watch the building, probably for a woman somewhere in the crowd. He’s reporting to the man in the dark shirt.

  Dahlia didn’t turn her head, but continued to stare out over the water. Small whitecaps foamed on the river. A barge slid past them. Her stomach lurched and her fingers dug into Nicolas’s arm. “He’s going to kill him.” She said the words so softly it was impossible to hear, yet she knew immediately that Nicolas was aware of it as well.

  Dahlia was already on overload from the earlier violence.

  Another wave of it might bring on a seizure. Nicolas forced a laugh and swept her up in his arms. Two tourists having fun on their vacation. She settled her arms around his neck and buried her face against his throat as he swung her around and carried her to the other side of the ferry. “You are not going to get sick, Dahlia.” He made it a command.

  There was a small silence, and he felt her lashes flutter against his skin. “I’m not? Why is that?”

  In spite of the gathering force already battering at her defenses, there was the smallest note of amusement in her voice. He could feel the way her skin heated as if she were burning from the inside out. A fierce need to protect her welled up in him. It was so strong it shook him. “Hang in there, Dahlia, we’ll get you through this. And you’re not going to get sick because I told you not to.”

  He felt the brush of her lips against his throat. His insides did some sort of curious melting thing that annoyed the hell out of him. Why was it she turned him inside out? He lived his life able to walk away from anything or anyone, yet he knew his life was tangled up with hers and he’d never be able to extract himself. At the touch of her mouth on his bare skin, his groin tightened. It would have been so much easier if it was just the explosive chemistry between them, but he knew it was far more. He wanted to carry her off, just keep going. He could take her into his beloved mountains and no one would ever find them. Not even the other GhostWalkers. He could keep her safe there and away from the things that were so hard on her body and mind.

  Dahlia leaned into him, pulled his head down to press her mouth against his ear. “Your energy level is coming up, and it isn’t sexual. You’re allowing yourself to be upset over me. This is who and what I am, Nicolas. If you’re going to spend any time at all with me, you have to accept it.” She pulled back to look up at him, her dark eyes very serious. “I want you to really know what it’s like being with me. I’m never going to be the type of woman you go out to dinner with or sit in a theatre with. I don’t have that kind of control. Think about what life would really be like with me, not some fantasy that is so far from reality it would never last more than a day or two.”

  “My fantasy is to have you to myself, not in a restaurant or a movie theatre. I’d like you to myself. I’m not someone who needs a lot of people around me, Dahlia.”

  She felt the burst of violence blossoming over her, through her. She took a tighter grip on Nicolas, pressing herself into him, the only sanctuary left to her against the aftermath of a killing. The breath left her lungs in a rush. She closed her eyes, knowing the body was in the water and no one had seen it go in. The man in the blue shirt had been stabbed and shoved overboard, but he wasn’t dead as the water slipped over his head and took him below where no one could see his last struggles for life. But she could feel it. And she could feel his last energy rising up to scream for acknowledgment and justice.

  Her throat swelled, closed, so that she was gasping for air. The violent energy slammed into her body hard, driving her to her knees in spite of Nicolas’s grip on her. She couldn’t see, couldn’t think, the pressure building in her head, in her brain.

  Nicolas pulled her to his chest, and she was helpless to stop him. Helpless to warn him that she had to get rid of the energy or the seizures would start, Dahlia stared at the water in desperation. Too many emotions churned in her stomach, adding to the terrible washing of energy over her.

  “Look at me, Dahlia.”

  “No!” She hissed the word at him, clenching her teeth, fighting off the need to claw and scream. Her body was on fire, burning from the inside out.

  Nicolas’s fingers bit into her arms. He gave her a small shake. “Share it with me. He’s a pro, Dahlia. He killed with everyone around and no one saw it,” Nicolas said grimly. “If fireballs start hitting the deck or you start vomiting, he’s going to notice.”

  She swore, doubling over with the pain. Sweat broke out. She detested Nicolas in that moment. Seeing her so vulnerable, always at her worst. Damn the man for insisting on coming with her, and damn him for witnessing her breakdown. If she seized in front of him she would never be able to look at him again. Desperately she tilted her head, not an easy thing to do when every movement sent knives stabbing through her skull. Her eyes met his.

  Nicolas bent his dark head until his mouth was inches from hers. “Share with me, Dahlia. Let it out.”

  He terrified her with his courage. He had no idea what could happen and neither did she. She opened her mouth to protest, to warn him, but it was too late. His lips met hers. An arc of electricity sizzled between them, zapped through her body to his. Heat poured through her to him. She gasped, her fingers digging into his chest. The temperature soared between them. Dahlia made a small sound of protest, of fear, but his hand skimmed over her breast and circled her throat. She heard him groan, the sound husky and very male. The energy immediately became charged with sexual tension, heightening her every awareness, her every sense.

  Nicolas pressed his body against hers, his arms, steel bands. His hands lifted her, pressed his raging erection tightly against her feminine mound. “Wrap your legs around my waist, damn it,” he ordered desperately. He wanted to tear the thin cotton pants from her body and the jeans from his. He needed them to be skin to skin. He wanted the satisfaction of driving into her hard and deep, pounding flesh against flesh…

  “Stop!” Dahlia pressed her hand to his mouth. “Nicolas, stop.”

  He heard the sob in her voice. It shook him enough to push past the red haze of sexual need. Nicolas fought down the terrible hunger tearing at his gut, pounding in his head, and roaring through his body. The force of the energy shook him as it enveloped him with the same greed it used on Dahlia. Slowly he allowed her legs to drop to the ferry. He took a deep calming breath, rested his forehead against hers, and breathed with her. His body was as hard as a rock, so painful, he was certain his skin might split open. And the heat was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. The most frightening thing of all was the desire to throw her to the deck and tear the clothes from her body. For a single heartbeat, everything in him, mind, body, and soul, urged him to do just that. He shook with the need to possess her.

  “It’s the energy,” she whispered. Dahlia was fully aware of the danger she was in. She could read Nicolas’s eyes, blazing with heat and hunger. He was half-mad with it.

  “I know that,” he snapped. Immediately he regretted his reaction. The idea was to ease the energy level for her, not make it worse. She didn’t react to sexual energy in the same way as she did to violence, but he hadn’t counted on the two energies mixing until he had to fight himself just to maintain control. “Are you feeling any better?”

  Dahlia nodded. “Yes, I’m not so sick. I’m sorry, Nicolas.” She wanted to get away from him. Away from herself. It was one of the worst moments she had ever endured. Nicolas Trevane was a man of honor, yet she had shown him a monstrous part of himself no man should ever have to face.

  N
icolas allowed the energy to slowly disperse, as its natural form required. He breathed it away, willed it away, accepted the wash of heat and let it go. Cautiously he looked around. They were in a secluded corner, but anyone close couldn’t have failed to feel the heightened sexual energy flowing around them. “Dahlia, maybe this isn’t such a good idea. He isn’t going to be easy to follow.” He had no idea what to say to her, how to apologize. He shoved at his hair with an unsteady hand.

  “You mean with me along.”

  “He knows the territory and we don’t.”

  “I know most everywhere around here. I don’t sleep much at night so I wander around. It’s safer than in the daytime. I can avoid the heavily populated areas but still feel as if I’m part of the human race.” Why was she telling him these things? Dahlia couldn’t believe she was telling him every little detail of her life. She sounded pathetic, even to her own ears. Worse, each time she revealed a piece of information, she felt his inner struggle not to react to it. “I can guide us sufficiently and maybe even take a reasonable guess at his destination.”

  “I’m tall and you’re short. He’ll have noticed everyone on this ferry. I’ve tried using a ‘push’ on him to look the other way, but he isn’t susceptible. He wouldn’t have missed our fireworks just now. We can’t be seen following him.”

  “I’m very good at not being seen.” Dahlia wanted to drift into unconsciousness, to slip away from the battering she had taken from the violent swirl of energy. It was a normal reaction, much like after having a seizure. Her body and brain needed to shut down for a while. She blinked rapidly to keep from closing her eyes and fought to stay on her feet. Her insides hurt from the punch she’d taken. Her internal organs felt swollen and bruised, and her mind felt battered by the continual assault of energy coming from being in close proximity with so many people along with the violence of murder.

  “It may be the best thing if I dropped you at a hotel,” he persisted.

  She hung onto her temper by a thread. This was her problem, not his. “You can go to a hotel,” she counteroffered. She felt humiliated and frustrated, and more than anything she wanted to be alone, but she wasn’t going to have him take over her job. And there was that secret fear of him now. Fear of his enormous strength and what he could do to her if he lost control. She hated herself for that.

  Nicolas sensed her rising temper. The aftermath of the energy was preying on both of them. “I need to call Lily and see if she has any information for us,” he said mildly. “The cell phone doesn’t like this area much, but a little ways out and I might be able to get her.”

  Dahlia gripped his shirt with both fists. As long as she maintained the physical contact with him, the energy didn’t overwhelm her completely. It was another source of irritation to her. She didn’t want to have to hang on to him like a clinging vine. “Cell phones have a way of disliking the bayou and the river. It must be a water thing.”

  “But what about when you weren’t in the bayou? Surely Calhoun gave you a cell phone to keep in touch when you were in town.”

  “I melted two of them. He decided it wasn’t worth it.”

  He looked down at her to see if she was teasing him. Her gaze was all too serious. “You melted them?”

  She nodded. “I melt things. Accidentally.”

  Nicolas wasn’t touching that. Considering all the melting going on inside of him any time he was close to her he could believe she’d melted a couple of phones. After all, they were much smaller than he was. His breath chuffed out and he took her hand, deciding to try to defuse the situation. “Try not to melt any body parts.”

  They lagged behind the crowd as people began to disembark. Nicolas kept his eye on his quarry. “Look how he moves, Dahlia. He’s probably ex-military, most likely a mercenary. I’ll bet he’s good in a fight. Watch his eyes. Nothing gets by him, he sees everything. He just murdered a man, yet he’s not even in a hurry.”

  Nicolas didn’t want to draw attention by lingering too long away from the group, yet it was important to keep Dahlia protected from prolonged exposure to so many people. He timed their exit by watching the man in the dark shirt step to one side and light a cigarette. Clearly he was waiting for the crowd to get in front of him. Nicolas kept Dahlia to the far side, shielding her with his body as they sauntered past.

  His energy is very malevolent.

  Don’t get sick or I’ll start asking you if the baby is all right in front of him.

  Dahlia nearly choked. She kept her head down and one hand pressed tightly against her stomach where she’d taken the punch. Every step hurt. Longingly she glanced at the water. She would love to be back on her little island, surrounded by her books.

  Nicolas tightened his fingers around Dahlia and pulled her closer to the shelter of his body. He walked past their quarry without even glancing at him, leaning down to murmur some nonsense into Dahlia’s ear to make it appear they were completely absorbed in one another as well as to further shield her body from sight.

  And he wished they were really completely absorbed in one another. He’d never had anything or anyone shake his calm, rational world the way Dahlia did. He’d built his entire life on the principals his grandfathers had taught him. He thought he was prepared for everything. He had been prepared for everything—until Dahlia. He could barely keep his mind on saving their lives or tracking his quarry. As they walked in the general direction of the popular restaurant located on the bluff overlooking the river, he struggled to make sense of the havoc Dahlia wrought on him.

  Dahlia was a firestorm to his ice. Where he was cool and calm, she was fiery and seemed out of control, battered by the very energy of every living thing. Where did she fit into the universe? How did someone like Dahlia survive in a place so hostile to her nature? And why was it so damned necessary to him that she survive in a place with him?

  He could accept the physical attraction, even though the intensity might be disastrous. He could even accept his deep need to protect her. He was always the one that looked out for his men, and he took the role seriously. That was part of his character and he was well aware of it. But to find himself obsessed—and that was a good word for it— was uncomfortable. He was trying to keep them both alive, and all he could think about was Dahlia. The sound of her voice. The way her smile flashed at him unexpectedly. It was unnerving how much he thought about her.

  “Don’t think about it too much, Nicolas,” Dahlia advised in a low voice.

  “About what?” He kept his voice even with an effort. She said she wasn’t telepathic on her own and didn’t read minds. He didn’t want her reading his confusion. Until he knew the answers, he wasn’t willing to share the questions.

  “Whatever it is you’re thinking about. It isn’t worth getting more upset over.”

  “People have upsetting thoughts, Dahlia.”

  “I know. Believe it or not, I’m a person, and I actually do think about things. I even have regular emotions. I once saw a man kick a dog, and I got so upset three houses behind him caught fire. I was nine years old.” She glanced up at him, checking to see how he took it. Telling him something important. Something they both had to know. “Can you imagine if I ever got into an argument with my husband? He’s silly enough to disagree with me over the amount of milk that goes into tea or some other inconsequential thing. Poof. He goes up in smoke.”

  When he looked down at her, she was already looking beyond him to the river. “What happens when you feel pain?”

  “From the overload?”

  “No, just regular pain. You stub your toe. You get a cold. You get punched by some man in the street because I’m too slow on the trigger.” There was a hiss of anger in his voice. It came out of nowhere, that slow smoldering burn that seared his belly and flared with a dark heat that threatened to consume him. His palm slipped over her stomach and lay there gently. The touch was meant to be impersonal, to soothe her. To take away the pain. It turned into something altogether different. Not sexual, but intimate. And
her skin burned through the thick material of the dark sweatshirt. Or maybe it was his skin. He shouldn’t have been able to feel her, yet he did.

  She closed her eyes against the emotions swamping her. Or maybe it was energy, she honestly couldn’t tell anymore. She wanted to run away from him. Away from everyone. Her head pounded and her skin itched and felt too tight for her body.

  “Don’t try to run out on me, Dahlia,” Nicolas cautioned, reading her easily. His voice roughened, sounded edgy. “You’re so busy trying to keep an emotional distance you’re forgetting what we’re doing here.” He pulled her from in front of the window where her face could be reflected and drew her around the side of the building, pushing her back into the heavy shrubbery.

  Her black eyes blazed at him. “Of the two of us, you’re far more afraid of emotional commitment than I am. I may have limits, but at least I put myself out there. You’re so busy taking care that nothing disturbs your perfect tranquility that you’ve forgotten to live your life.”

  The air fairly crackled with electricity. Nicolas could feel the rising energy beginning to surround them. It fueled the raw emotion building inside of him. He also glimpsed their quarry walking along the street toward a small blue Ford that was parked a block up from them. The man seemed to be in no particular hurry, almost sauntering as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  He glanced around, saw a taxi parked close to a restaurant. Certain the cab was waiting for customers, Nicolas had a twenty-dollar bill in his hand when he signaled. He kept a firm grip on the nape of Dahlia’s neck, keeping them connected. He told himself it was because he needed to stay close to her to keep the energy at bay, but the truth refused to stay in the back of his mind. He was the one that needed the connection. They were at odds, and he needed the reassurance of physical contact.